Again, something indefinable depleted inside Cleo. Only this time it was a much larger amount, and she had the distinct impression that even if she had another skill that reserved fifty percent of her mana she wouldn’t be able to activate it at the same time.

  With Energy Shield and Regeneration active, I’m reserving sixty percent of my mana. I wish I could see my mana pool and what’s happening, but I’m sure that will come with time and training.

  And then she could also figure out how the plus ten percent mana reservation efficiency from her Legend card worked. She didn’t think it would be a straight ten percent reduction in mana reservation, because then it would be easy to stack efficiency in order to activate a boat load of auras. There had to be a diminishing returns mechanism, or it would be open to exploitation. Once she had some firm mana numbers she could do some calculations.

  “What was that?” asked Rosalia.

  “I felt it too,” said Kalak.

  Cleo coughed and tried not to look embarrassed. “That’s an energy shield aura. These are my only two auras by the way, so there aren’t any more to show you, even if I had the mana reservation to use them.”

  Rosalia snorted. “I haven’t heard the term mana reservation in a long time. Not since the Institution.”

  “The Institution?” said Cleo excitedly. “That’s where I have to go. The Misk’Imas Institution.”

  “Misk’Imas is one of many, and not the one I attended. But it does have the best reputation.”

  “Well, young-un,” Kalak said, “don’t get your hopes up unless you’re rich or have a powerful card, or preferably both. But enough of that, times-a-wasting.” He rubbed a hand along an arm, then tapped his leg firmly. “There’s something,” he muttered.

  “An energy shield,” said Rosalia, “just as Cleo said. How long does it last?”

  “Er… it’s another persistent aura. It lasts as long as I want.” For the time being, she kept Retribution to herself. If they needed it, it was there. If they didn’t, it was one less of her skills known.

  Rosalia shook her head and sighed. “No, it won’t. Shields don’t work that way. While it's damaged, it'll deplete, but your mana regeneration will constantly top it up. I’m stretching my terrible memory from my brief time at the Institution I went to before I… anyhow, that’s how it works. Think of it like filling a jug with water—”

  “Or beer,” said Kalak.

  “Or whatever liquid,” continued Rosalia, unperturbed. “And someone’s scooping the liquid out—that’s the damage—while you’re slowly, constantly, pouring more back in—and that’s your mana regeneration. When the jug runs dry, then your shield collapses.”

  Ah, thought Cleo. That makes sense. And if a massive amount of damage hits the shield it would instantly collapse. However, a larger amount of mana results in a bigger initial energy shield, and more mana regeneration replenishes the shield faster when it’s damaged.

  So, with her five-hundred percent mana multiplier from the Legend card, that would mean her energy shield was larger than usual. Plus one-hundred percent was double her mana, so plus five-hundred percent should be six times.

  So maybe C– tier compared to a normal energy shield, not F– tier. Cleo massaged the back of her neck which was aching. Whatever the tier, it would either help enough to get them over the line and back to safety, or it wouldn’t. Figuring things out could happen when she was safe, but not now.

  She turned back just in time to see Rosalia land a forceful punch on Kalak’s chest. He grunted and moved back half a step, and Cleo felt something—not quite like the reservation mana drain—shift, then a second later return to normal.

  It’s the energy shield. I can feel it!

  “You managed to push me, slightly,” said Kalak, “but it didn’t hurt at all.”

  “I saw something, too,” said Rosalia. “There was a faint, bluish glow where I hit you. Cleo, is the energy shield still up? Was the damage enough to deplete it?”

  “No,” Cleo said, shaking her head. “I mean, it’s still there; it held up under the damage.”

  “Huh,” said Rosalia. “This isn’t like the usual Aura Mage shielding skill. When we get back—” Kalak gave her a look— “when,” repeated Rosalia, “I’d like to study it, if I may.”

  “I was told my card was an older type,” Cleo said, not wanting to give a firm answer. “That could be the difference.”

  “Maybe,” said Rosalia. “Anyhow, now’s not the time. But I’d like you to try something, since this skill of yours is acting oddly. Can you extend the shield so it’s not just a thin film protecting us? Expand the shield so it covers an area?”

  “I don’t know,” Cleo said. “I’ll try.”

  “The reason I’m asking is that it seems to protect against damage but not so much against momentum. If it was, say, a hemisphere surrounding us, it would give us more options.”

  Cleo nodded vigorously. “I understand. I’ll give it a shot.”

  “A shot?” Kalak said.

  I’d better watch the idioms, or it’ll be obvious to anyone I’m not from around here. Fitting in and not drawing attention to herself was another task on her to-do list. “To attempt something though you’re unsure of the results. I guess I’ll just spread my mana out, somehow.”

  “Not your mana, your energy shield,” Rosalia said.

  Cleo sent her awareness inward, to where she thought her mana reservoir was located. There was something there—a kind of pulsing void—a little in front of and, at the same time, behind her heart. She’d never noticed it before, but now she could feel this void churning within her, burning, craving. And somehow, she knew it had always been there.

  But how was she going to stretch her energy shield when she barely knew anything about magic? The system was supposed to make things easier for her, wasn’t it? Complex magic would require a deep understanding, but basic skills were meant to be straightforward to use.

  Don’t overcomplicated things, just do it, she admonished herself. So… she envisioned a hemisphere surrounding them, ten paces in diameter, and willed her energy shield to change.

  And it responded.

  A glowing blue energy shield sprang up around them. Both Rosalia and Kalak stepped back from the edge, closer to Cleo. Her mana drain felt the same, the reservation hadn’t altered as far as she could tell. She wondered just how big she could make the hemispherical shield.

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  “Well done!” Rosalia said. “Do you think you could do it again just as easily?”

  “Yes,” Cleo said. “My card does the work; I just have to direct it.” It was exactly the same feeling as her first energy shield, and she realized there were distinct advantages and disadvantages to both forms.

  “Huh. This is good. The only issue is how much damage it can absorb before it breaks. I guess we’ll find out. At least we won’t get knocked around with this version.”

  “Why not?" Kalak said.

  “Air pressure,” Rosalia replied. “To move the shield, a blow would have to be hard enough to counteract the air pressure acting on the hemisphere. And that’s way too much for basic attacks. It looks good!” She grinned at Cleo. “But I think we’ve used up enough time. We’ve a lot of walking to do, so we’d better get started. And we need to do something about those bare feet of yours.”

  “How far away is the pyramid? Assuming that’s where we’re going,” Cleo said. She changed the shield back to the less noticeable form, which looked to be a thin layer around each of her party members, but kept it active. There was no mental stress on her to keep the energy shield operating, as the mana reservation took care of the mechanics.

  Kalak gave a grim chuckle. “About fifty miles, give or take.” He noticed Cleo’s puzzled expression. “It’s an enormous pyramid. And we’re not going to get any sleep until we make it past the line.”

  Cleo didn’t ask, but assumed ‘the line’ was the boundary between this dusty, desolate land and the fertile area before the pyramid.

  “And by the way,” Kalak said, “it’s the city of Ankratur.”

  “The pyramid is?”

  “Yes. Only the lowest levels are occupied though. Few people want to live this close to the line, but where there’s adventurers and dungeons there are people who make coin providing what they need.”

  “Are you adventurers?” Cleo said. She could ask more about the city later, in a way that wasn’t too suspicious. The dungeons he’d mentioned were interesting too—she filed it away for future reference. Asking about them like she had no idea would also be problematic. She wished Saskia had given her a guidebook—Saskia’s Guidebook for Transmigrated Women. It would have come in handy.

  Kalak nodded. “As good as. We’re not officially in the guild though, we operate independently.”

  So, there’s an Adventurers Guild of some description. Another thing good to know. So, Rosalia and Kalak are ‘independent’, and on a mission out here or something, and running out of supplies and losing companions… Not exactly professional.

  In the end, Kalak scurried off over a nearby hill and returned shortly later with a handful of rags. They used the material to bind Cleo’s feet as best they could, and shoved her pajamas and some spare rags into a backpack, as the cloth would wear out constantly and need to be replaced.

  “Don’t ask where they came from,” muttered Kalak.

  Undead, assumed Cleo, cringing at the thought of wearing a corpse’s clothes. But if the rags kept her feet protected long enough for them to find safety, she wouldn’t complain. She noticed her pristine dress now wasn’t, already streaked with dust in places.

  “Listen up,” said Rosalia. “There are undead coming for us. We’ve spent too long in one place and they have our scent.”

  Kalak only nodded, and Cleo wondered how Rosalia knew. Probably a skill or ability of some kind, or maybe her class card.

  Rosalia’s gaze took in Cleo, from her head to her feet. “It’ll have to do. Any other cards you have?”

  “I have a curse, and a hole card.”

  “Hole?” said Kalak.

  “It makes holes in things. I think. I haven’t used it.”

  “It makes holes in things,” echoed Kalak. “Well, if things get bad, you can make a hole in the side of my head. I ain’t getting eaten alive.”

  “It only works on inanimate objects.” Did the undead here eat people? She should ask, but didn’t want to look too ignorant. Wait, were undead ‘inanimate’?

  Kalak threw his hands up in the air. “Well, that’s just fraking great. Maybe if we make it back alive, we can start a business making cheese graters.”

  “Kalak!” warned Rosalia. “And the curse, Cleo?”

  “It’s just a single-target curse,” she replied, using game jargon she knew, hoping they’d understand or could figure out what she meant. “It causes void damage over time and reduces action speed.” Again, she kept the Curse Strike secondary skill of her Despair skill to herself. She had it if she needed it. If not, her new companions would be none the wiser.

  Both Kalak and Rosalia stared at her.

  “Void damage?” Rosalia said. “And reduces action speed?”

  “Yes?” Cleo said. From their reaction, the card was a decent one. Maybe she should have kept her mouth shut. Maybe she’d end up dead in a shallow grave and not from the undead. “Is that good?”

  “What tier is your curse?” Rosalia said.

  “F minus.”

  “Of course it is,” Kalak muttered. “Might be useful though. Void damage is the rarest damage type. And it’s also the hardest to get resistance for. Elemental damage is the easiest, along with physical damage. I dare say few people have decent void resistance.”

  Cleo brought the Despair card up in her mind’s eye again.

  Damage is resisted by target’s lowest resistance.

  Yeah, definitely not sharing that detail. Or the fact that her curse could stack, but there was probably a cooldown and the curse only lasted a limited time. She’d have to experiment. Maybe it was time for a change of subject.

  She turned to Rosalia. “How did you know the undead were heading for us?”

  “Class skill,” Rosalia said. “Not many of them close by though, but enough we’ll have to put a few down and get away from here.”

  There was a clattering of stone and a low moan from behind the hill where she’d first seen the duo, and then a few heads appeared, followed by desiccated bodies covered with dust-covered tattered robes and assorted clothes. Five of the creatures stumbled over the top of the hill and began descending towards them. Their skin was pale-ochre in patches, and hair matted and dust covered.

  Cleo’s first undead experience. Her heart raced, and her hands became sweaty.

  The dead things weren’t fast, but they weren’t lumberingly slow either.

  “Try to use your curse from here, Cleo,” Rosalia said. “We need to get a good idea of its range and effectiveness.” She looked relaxed at the sight of the approaching undead, which did little to reassure her.

  Cleo tried to target one of the undead and subvocalized her curse. Despair.

  Once more, she felt something drain from inside her chest, a resource she was now definitely sure was mana. This time, the slight discrepancy filled back up after a few moments.

  Mana regeneration. Cool!

  At first, nothing happened that she could see. Then she noticed that the undead she’d targeted had slowed and was falling behind the others, and a plum-colored mist emerged from it. The slowing must be the reduced action speed, and the purple mist has to be the void damage over time.

  Both Kalak and Rosalia stared intently at the creature. Cleo figured they might be using a skill, or using their experience to judge the effect of the curse. After a few seconds, the dead thing faltered as its skin blackened, then it fell into pieces and collapsed into a pile of bones and fragments of flesh, throwing up a cloud of dust.

  Kalak sniffed, then gave an approving nod. “Void damage really rips them apart. And she didn’t even point.”

  “I noticed,” Rosalia said. “Or have to speak the skill name, the same as her auras. It’s a nice aptitude to have.” Cleo thought there was a hint of jealousy in her voice. “Quiet and effective. How drained are you?”

  “A little. Not a lot,” Cleo said cautiously. One way to steal someone’s cards would be to exhaust them of mana and then kill them when they couldn’t fight back. Was she being too paranoid? They had done nothing to make her suspect them. Yet.

  “Could you take out the rest of them?”

  “I think so.”

  “Do it.”

  Cleo targeted each of the four remaining undead in turn, but her skill wouldn’t activate for a couple of seconds after each cast.

  Despair… Despair… Despair… Despair.

  And a two-ish second cooldown on the curse. Another good to know bit of information.

  As with the first curse, something inside her depleted multiple times, and the dead things slowed and misted. A few seconds later, one at a time, they collapsed into heaps of shriveled flesh and fractured bone. More magic! I really am a mage! And this ability looks super effective, at least on undead. I should have stacked two curses on one of them to see what happened.

  Kalak and Rosalia rushed to the undead and began rummaging through their tattered clothes. Cleo stayed where she was, but saw them pocketing small items and discarding others. Loot. She shrugged. I guess adventurers have to make a living, like everyone else. But looting undead is kind of icky. And if they were doing well for themselves, random loot from a few undead wouldn’t be a priority.

  The duo returned to Cleo, and, she noticed, didn’t offer her a share of the loot.

  “More undead will follow these,” Rosalia said, as Kalak produced a pewter flask from a pocket and poured a stream of deep amber liquid onto the ground, where it was sucked greedily into the sand.

  “For Scrubby,” he said, voice cracking. He took a sip from the flask and then passed it to Rosalia.

  She also took a sip. “To Scrubby. A cantankerous joker who was a better adventurer than father.”

  Kalak snorted. “True. I wish we could have salvaged his cards to pass on. Oh well, those are the risks.”

  They didn’t offer the flask to Cleo, and she wouldn’t have felt right anyway, drinking in memory of someone she never knew. The grim specter of death hung over Cleo, and she vowed again that she wouldn’t die, here in this unknown world. She wouldn’t fail her ‘tempering’ and join the luckless Scrubby, wherever he was.

  “We’ve hung around here long enough,” Rosalia said, clearing her throat. “Let’s get moving.”