Luna kind of wanted to do it, just to see if the archer could tank the second tier of water jet from all three swords. She wasn't sure of his durability, but she guessed that it couldn’t be that high as they were hunting level 1 rabbits.
Alternatively, she could let the humans take the swords back to where they lived, then see what she was working with. Maybe she would even get XP from any kills made with her summoned swords?
Luna followed the couple back to their home while hitching a ride inside one of the swords so as not to risk losing them. Not that she didn’t have constant knowledge of where the swords were at all times due to her connections.
Luna observed closely as the couple tucked into their small home that had just enough room for a small kitchen, living room, bedroom, and bathroom. Through careful use of her mind sword Luna picked up on the use of some kind of magic crystals that produced water for the couple to wash up with. Some kind of magical plumbing.
Luna observed, through vigorous slashing, the couple go about their night time routine. Nothing worth holding her attention until…
She observed the couple place their hands on a gumball machine looking item. Instead of a gumball though, after a few seconds a small coin was spit out of the output chute of the machine into a coin catching bucket that hung like those tree sap collectors.
The couple then split off, the archer going about other business, while the mage continued to use the peculiar machine. At some point, Luna noticed that the mage had fallen asleep with a hand on the machine. Before long, the bucket held a good little pile of coins.
“What the hell were they doing out hunting?” Luna thought. “They own an infinite money machine? Unless the coins were like Earth coins in that they weren’t always worth picking up off the ground in the supermarket parking lot.”
Either way, Luna was definitely interested. Especially if she could get a hold of enough coins to buy cool fantasy stuff to furnish the rich lifestyle that she deserved from working so hard to beat the bullshit of a level 1 nothing.
…
The next morning, the couple found themselves standing in front of a counter in the town item shop. The shelves held an assortment of weapons, magical gear, and a few dusty potions behind locked cases. Potions were usually too expensive to just be used when natural healing could do the trick. Sure, most people would rather burn a couple silver if the alternative was to die, but most just didn’t have the money around here.
“These are summoned swords,” the merchant said with a shake of his head after appraising yesterday’s loot. “If I didn’t know you, I’d have said you were trying to scam me, trying to get some coin for nothing.”
“No, sir,” Sidd reassured, wide-eyed. “Beme and I just found them on the trail out of town, just sitting there.”
“Better to just get rid of them,” Jebb the merchant said with another shake of his head as he passed the sword back to Sidd. “Best case, they’ll just be unsummoned peacefully. Worst case, the summoner still has control and is waiting for an opportunity to blow up the sword or swing it at an unsuspecting up and coming archer’s head.”
Luna couldn’t hear the conversation going on, but it looked like no sale. She would have to get a better quality sword, or maybe other magical equipment to sell if she wanted free money a few mana at a time.
“Well, thank you anyway.” Sidd said sadly as he gingerly accepted the sword seemingly more wary after the merchant’s words.
Beme filled the counter space with an assortment of slain small game creatures, most of which looked like they had been pierced by an arrow. “Still interested in animals?”
“Ah, now we’re talking,” the merchant said as he appraised each corpse individually. “Tell you what, I’ll give you an even 10 copper for the 8 corpses here.” The merchant then leaned in to the couple to whisper. “I know you two are having a tough time getting by. Don’t let the world beat you down, and know you always have a place to sell your goods.”
“Thank you, Mr. Jebb,” both said, grateful to the kind man.
“Hey, it ain’t charity,” the merchant said with a smile. “I make good money reselling the meat to the butcher, the skins to the tanner, the bones to the alchemist, cooks, fletcher, etcetera, etcetera. I’m making good money off of you guys!”
The couple chuckled at the merchant’s words. The supply chain was going strong. They and others killed things to gather materials to sell to Jebb. These materials were then sold to specialized merchants, who then made things that the original hunters would buy to eat or use in order to carry on hunting. Big happy circle. Of course the tax men had to show their heads to take their cut of the circle and it was almost the end of the month…
Happy with their gains, the couple pocketed the copper, tearing their hungry eyes away from the displayed meats further down the counter. They had been known on occasion to splurge on a good cut of meat or a treat to share, but they were cutting it a little close this month. They had the 90 total copper they owed, since they started the month with Beme at Level 4 and Sidd at Level 5. The fee was 10 copper per level based off your level at the start of the month. Previously it was based off your level at the end of the month, but that resulted in a lot of problems as level-ups were often unscheduled.
The couple had been intentionally hunting prey well below their levels to slow their leveling in order to keep their tax burden down. The system was marketed as a progressive tax, but in practice the truly rich never paid their share, as they either stayed low level, never putting in work to better themselves, or shot up in levels so fast to hit a level where their regen plus a high end condenser more than covered any taxes that would be owed. Taxes capped at Level 10, resulting in a max of 100 copper, or one silver, tax burden per person per month.
Wouldn’t want high level entities over burdened with taxes, after all. They could just drop in every few years to drop off a gold piece, then forget about taxes for the foreseeable future.
The couple used to keep high aspirations: reach Level 10, eat whatever they wanted, do whatever they wanted. But the leveling requirements just weren’t worth it to them right now.
In their more ambitious times they had taken down deer on a few occasions resulting in a great increase in meat, money, and XP. Though with the higher tax burden, affording to have the deer processed, risk of leveling again, and just overall decreasing XP returns, the couple focused on small game.
Deer hunting in itself was also a gamble. You could spend the entire day sitting in a spot and not harvest a single thing. This resulted in you being down a full day’s earnings, putting you closer to being in the red for end of month. Their preferred method was to just harvest any small game you came across. You were bound to get at least a handful of critters every day. The couple had a goal of 5 critters per day to get them at least 150 copper per month. This month, 90 copper would go to taxes, the remaining 60 copper for clothing, equipment, repairs, food, etc. It was not a lot to live on, but they made it work by doing most everything themselves, only buying things when they absolutely needed it. Their hand me down Level 1 concentrator also provided a steady stream of irons to cover cheap staples like flour and beans that could keep them going when most of their game meat had to go to their budget.
…
“Bank day?” Sidd asked Beme.
“Bank day,” Beme confirmed.
The couple quickly swung by their house and collected their now complete tax payment of 90 copper.
They could keep the money in the bank, but that would cost them fees if they had under 1,000 copper in their account, and they had never once had that much money between them. Instead, their money stayed hidden in the house for free until they had the full 90 copper for taxes this month. One couldn’t pay partial taxes, probably to cut down on paperwork… or to hope people spent the money as they earned it to land their asses in tax jail doing free labor.
Sidd secured the coconut sized pouch in the bottom of a traveling pack, then stuffed some extra clothing on top of it to make it not look like he was carrying the majority of their liquid assets on their person.
It was still early in the morning, but the bank was open twenty-four hours a day, allowing for business to be done at all hours, no predatory loan left unapproved.
The couple were on their toes, but it was unlikely that someone would try to just rob them in broad daylight in the middle of town.
“Excuse me, you wouldn’t be headed to the bank would you?” a large man holding a stone knife politely inquired.
Beme hit him with a quick Identify.
Stone Mage Lv. 7
“Shit.”
“You see, I have been quite busy leveling this month and completely forgot to save for taxes,” the man explained, flipping the knife as he stood in front of the pair on the sidewalk.
Seriously? Just out in the open like that? Not a care in the world as the town went about their early morning day?
“I know the feeling,” Sidd said with a nervous chuckle, Beme’s Identify showing him the mage’s level. “We are still way behind this month ourselves.”
“I don’t think you are,” the stone mage said with a knowing air. “I think you are off to turn in your taxes now, and I’d like to help lift your burden.”
The couple tensed further. This guy was for sure trying to rob them.
“No thank you,” Sidd said, unslinging his bow from across his back.
“I insist.” The robber charged toward Sidd as the knife grew into a sword.
…
Luna was having some trouble taking in the scene as she had to travel a bit to get into sword swinging range of all her surroundings. It was kind of fun to fly in circles around the couple, one mental sword point on the couple and another swinging around to hit walls and passersby alike. She found that the mental image of her swinging one sword in each hand was not too hard to accomplish while greatly increasing her ability to sense the outside world. The mood changed from whimsy to much more serious as a charging swordsman showed up in her perception with the look that he would be upon the couple within the moment.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
Luna dropped two sword summons in the moment that she summoned her rabbit vessel, netting 0 mana, leaving her at full mana to deploy a Tier 2 vine at the attacker.
Rabbit Lv. 1
Health: 1/1
Abilities: Bite — 1 piercing damage. Hop — jump 5 ft in any direction.
Magic — Vines 2: cast thorny grasping vines to restrain a single target vs target’s Strength. The target takes 1d2 damage each attempt to physically free itself. Cost: 20 mana.
Mana: 10/30
The robber seemed to be taken aback by the sudden appearance of vines wrapping around his legs that were definitely dealing some damage to his skin and flesh as bleeding scratches began to appear through his clothing.
This gave some time for the couple to respond. Beme fired off a few beams of light-energy from her wand, burning holes into the robber’s upper body, resulting in a handful of nasty bubbling wounds.
The attacker flung his sword at Beme in retaliation. In midair, the sword fragmented into three sharp shards rocketing at the light mage.
These shards looked like bad business to Luna, who made a snap decision.
Luna activated her jump skill and intercepted the rock shard that was headed straight for Beme’s face. The 1-health-pool rabbit was instantly killed as the other two shards hit the mage woman in the shoulder and hip, causing a great amount of damage.
Luna had to think fast as she was at only 10 mana with the loss of her rabbit. Her nothing body flew at the robber until she found his head, then ascended a few stories into the air. There she judged, using all her rabbit hunting experience, that this was her best move. She unsummoned the last sword in Sidd’s possession, then immediately re-summoned it along with a twin sword, both point-down, aimed at the robber.
At this point, Luna could just hope.
Beme had the best vantage of the situation as she was currently on the ground, holding her hip in pain. That rock mage could really deal some damage. If it weren’t for that rabbit…
Health: 20/50
If she wouldn’t have died outright, it would’ve been close with a head shot.
Beme took in the sight of Sidd firing arrows at the rock mage robber who was easily blocking them with a rock shield affixed to his left arm. With his right it looked like he was winding up for another volley of those piercing rocks. It wouldn’t be good.
Just as the mage was about to let the attack loose, familiar looking swords plummeted down from above. One sword missed completely, but the other slid by the back of the mage’s head, skewering his left glute. The sudden appearance of a sword in the ass caused the robber to flail his arms to address an unseen aerial attacker.
The mage yelled out in pain. The scream was quickly cut off by a powerfully fired arrow that pierced deep into the now exposed chest of the robber seemingly collapsing his lung. The robber clutched at his chest then dropped to the ground incapacitated.
You have defeated — Stone Mage Lv. 7.
You have leveled up. Light Mage Lv. 6.
…
Once the fight was completely over, a pair of town guards showed up.
“Failed robbery?” the first guard questioned gesturing at the massively wounded mage curled up on the ground.
The two confirmed.
“Well, let’s see what we’ve got here…” The guard rummaged through the thief’s belongings and produced 3 silver and a handful of copper. “One silver for a minor health potion for the lady and the rest goes to the town.”
That was about all the recompense they would get. What spoils there were from these kinds of interactions largely went to the town, as to discourage interpersonal violence for profit. The injured party only got as much as they needed to heal an injury, then the rest was added to the town’s budget.
“Thank you, sir,” Beme said as she limped over to the guard to take the coin. She hadn’t taken the spikes out yet, as they no doubt were plugging blood vessels. She was still taking bits of bleed damage nonetheless…
Health: 18/60
There was no way that she would be wasting a whole silver on medical care, though. The robber did not protest as he was dragged away by the supernaturally strong guards and the couple went about their previously planned errand.
The couple quickly deposited their taxes in the bank, thankfully not having any more negative encounters before they returned home to recover.
Beme’s regen rate had gone up to 1.2/s on her level up to Lv. 6. 0.2 per level as a mage.
It had taken about twenty minutes to drop off their taxes then return home. Beme was hurting now at 15/60 HP, but she was also now full on mana. 120/120.
Now out of the eyes of the general public, Beme got to work healing herself. She spent her whole mana pool to bring herself up to 27/60 HP.
Minor Heal — heal 1 HP. Cost: 10 mana. May be up cast, scaling in power and cost 1:1.
She repeated this, going down and up in mana as she continued to bleed a little then heal herself until she was able to safely remove the stone spikes, then heal the remaining damage.
Finally, full on health, Beme couldn’t help but smile.
“You all fixed up now?” Sidd asked from her side. He had been feeding the mana condenser nervously just in case she were to have needed a boost in there at some point. It was a nice gesture, but he had only managed to produce a few iron coins that would have been close to negligible for keeping Beme alive in a true emergency. That old condenser was just not efficient, especially for Sidd’s awful mana regeneration speed as an archer.
“Good as new,” Beme confirmed. “If it weren’t for that rabbit though…”
“I don’t even want to think about it,” Sidd agreed. “Thank—”
Just then a familiar-looking rabbit popped into existence.
…
Once the couple had returned home and were safely tucked in for a recovery session, Luna had been fixated on that coin spitting gumball machine. It was much slower with just the archer working on it as the mage tended to her wounds, but it still spit out a small coin every once in a while.
She couldn’t stand it any more. She wanted to play with it, and there was only one way to do it…
Luna rabbit immediately held her paws up in the air to show that she wasn’t a threat to the couple, then hopped over to the coin machine to put a paw on it.
The couple were surprised but didn’t move to attack.
Mana Condenser Lv. 1
Deposit 100 mana to produce 1 iron mana coin.
1 iron mana coin contains 10 mana.
19/100 mana.
“It retains mana between users” Luna thought, noting the archers nervous use of the device while the light mage healed.
Luna looked past her rabbit sheet to her summoner sheet, taking in the changes since her latest level up. Her regen was starting to get up there.
Luna Caine
Summoner Lv. 4
Health: n/a
Mana: 20/40
Mana Regen: 0.4/s
Summon Points: 1/3
It would take her 250 seconds to make a single iron coin at her current regeneration rate.
As she was doing math in her head while touching the ball, Luna got an idea…
She summoned a second rabbit and gave it the mental command to also touch the condenser. It did so, but it didn’t look like her output doubled, as the construct was made up of her mana and didn’t have a regen of its own.
“Damn, no infinite mana rabbit glitch,” Luna thought sadly. However…
Luna allowed the rabbit to be sucked into the condenser, as the machine had seemed almost hungry for it the moment it had touched the globe. A faint pulse rippled through the device, and the progress marker ticked upward by 20.
“You can feed it rabbits…” Bun Luna thought. “Completely useless, but fun to watch.”
“Hey, uhhh,” Beme said, addressing the now lone rabbit in their living room. “Thanks for the help earlier.”
Bunny Luna peeled herself away from the device and turned to the mage.
“No problem,” Luna tried to say, but it just came out as bunny squeaks. Damn rabbit vocal cords. She would have to kill a parrot or something.
Luna felt a tingle as the mage seemed to cast something.
“So you’re the summoner that made those swords?” Beme exclaimed, as she had apparently magically scanned Luna for her info.
Luna again squeaked but tried to make it an affirming squeak.
“That’s awesome,” Sidd said. “Can you make other weapons?”
Luna shrugged and hopped over to the man.
“How about a bow? Or arrows?”
That was a fantastic question that Luna wanted to answer. Luna unsummoned her rabbit and got to work.
As a summoner in her Nothing body, she began to build a mental image of a bow. She wanted it to match her current level of power, so she poured her all into it…
Okay, it didn’t look like much but… after a few minutes of regeneration and a few extra minutes to realize her vision, it was complete.
Basic Hunter’s Bow Lv. 4
Health: n/a
Damage: 4d4 Piercing
Magics: Seeking Arrows Tier 3 — infuse mana into the bow to fire seeking arrows that can change direction three separate times. Cost: 3 mana per shot.
She of course dumped all of her summon points into magics. It was always too neat not to. Who wanted extra flat damage or sharpness or whatever when you could have cool stuff?
Luna had no way of knowing what the words were that the couple were saying to each other in her incorporeal form, but the surprised reactions looked good.
Luna dropped the bow and returned to rabbit form.
“Was that bow your whole mana pool?” Beme asked Bun Luna.
Luna nodded, then produced a second rabbit.
Luna then dropped the second rabbit and produced two swords. She then unsummoned everything to produce the bow, then quickly returned to her single rabbit form.
“Hmmmmmm, that makes this harder then,” Beme said.
Sidd looked deep in thought. “That magic enchant is insane,” he finally said with a sparkle in his eyes. “I’m currently using a Level 2 bow with mundane arrows and it does a decent job, but something like that would be crazy.”
“Would it be possible for you to make a Level 2 or even a Level 1 bow and put enchantments on it so that you can still have another summon to pilot?” Sidd questioned.
The pair seemed to understand the problem that she had as a Nothing, in that she couldn’t interact much with the world.
Luna again got to work, unsummoning her rabbit to really focus on this project…
“Wait, why am I making a weapon for these people?” she wondered. “Just out of the kindness of my heart?” Well, to answer that, she was bored. She wanted to take in the world, and she couldn’t safely do that just yet as any of her little animal summons. She would stick with this little party and get stronger so that she may do whatever she wanted… also get filthy richhhh!!!!
Basic Hunter’s Bow Lv. 1
Damage: 1d4 Piercing
Magics:
Coin Operated Tier 1 — insert mana coins to create a summoned arrow that does up to 1d10 damage. Cost: 1 iron per +1d1, max at 1d10.
Seeking Arrows Tier 1 — infuse mana into the bow to fire seeking arrows that can completely change direction 1 time. Cost: 1 mana per shot.
Hidden Potential** — the bowstring doubles potential energy at the apex of the draw, doubling base damage of all arrows fired. Cost: passive.
**Rare skill.
Okay, Luna went cheap with it mana-wise… but look at that magic! She would really like to flesh out that coin operated magic as well as what was going on with that rare tag later, but for now…
“Holy shit…” Sidd was immediately drawn to tears as he inspected the bow in his hands. “This is insane…”
Bunny Luna sat proudly in front of her creation that only cost her 10 mana to summon. Sure, she was down a bit of mana after summoning the bow and her bunny, but if she sat in bunny form for a bit she would be at full and be able to cast her spells… spell. She would have to fix that soon. She did have a summoner point to use on her rabbit.
“Are you sure about this?” Sidd asked as he tightly gripped the bow. “Rare skills attached to items are very… rare for a lack of a better term”
Luna gave a no thumbs thumbs up and nodded.
“We have the rest of the day free,” Beme said with a smile.
“You are so right, love of mine.”
