Target Practice (Doors of the Dreamer, Chapter 5)
Smite!
Author’s note: For the month of July I am challenging myself to write and post one chapter a day every two days with minimal planning and outlining. You can read the first chapter of Doors of the Dreamer here.
Eventually, Lance explained how to use the inventory system. All of the functionality was available through the app, but Lance had discovered voice commands that made things considerably easier. “Store” would place the item currently in-hand into the inventory. “Retrieve” would pull it back out, but required using the specific name displayed in the app; “Retrieve health potion,” “Retrieve minor health potion,” and “Retrieve superior health potion” would each yield different items. Equipping gear required the same level of specificity. “Equip staff” would only work if one had a generic item called “staff,” which made fully gearing up a bit wordy—“Equip mystic’s weaver garb. Equip hood of the enchanter. Equip ring of spellpower. Equip elderwood staff.” and so on. Lance explained that he often equipped gear using his phone instead. Thankfully, there was an “unequip all” voice command.
Skills such as a cleric’s spells could also be activated with the press of a button or a voice command. The first time David called out “Smite!” and watched a bolt of light shoot down from the sky and split a tree in half, he found himself laughing. Lance seemed less impressed.
“Skill usage is limited by mana. However, unlike in the game, mana is not measured by an easy-to-read blue bar. Casting spells carelessly will fatigue you faster than anything else.”
David discovered this for himself a few minutes later after casting smite four more times and nearly collapsing. Lance gave him a mana potion.
“This will only reverse exhaustion from low mana,” he said. “If you’re running around burning energy, you will run out of mana quicker and need more potions. And I’m sure you know what happens in Doors of the Dreamer when you drink too many potions.”
Potion sickness. In the game, drinking a certain number of potions of any kind over a period of time would result in various stat debuffs on your character. Here, Lance explained, it was a quite literal sickness that engendered nausea and intense vomiting.
They traveled east, following the highway from a safe distance. There was no GPS in this world, but Lance seemed comfortable navigating the old-school way with maps and a compass. A few times David spotted a gaggle of fiends or some other monster wandering the highway, but never anything as intimidating as the dullahan, and their journey continued without interruption.
It took some time for David to adjust to the lack of proper day or night. Sleep always came late and left early. In the mornings, Lance had him running sprints and doing push-ups and sit-ups.
“I need your stamina and upper and lower body strength in prime condition,” he said.
“Stamina I understand,” David said, “but why does strength matter? I’m going to be in the back casting spells, not swinging a sword.”
“Actually, I’m considering switching you from staff to wand so you can use a sword in your off-hand. If a monster gets past me or sneaks up behind, your spells are not going to be as useful for defending yourself at close range. Regardless, it never hurts to be in peak physical health.”
It did hurt, though. The first three days in particular were grueling. David had never thought himself out of shape, but now he was being forced to reconsider. Lance’s only guidance was to do the exercises until failure, and then they would spend most of the day traveling on foot. Sleep would evade him in spite of his exhaustion, and he would wake up stiff and aching—only to do it all over again.
In the evenings, David would practice his spells, which he always looked forward to. After two days of this, he realized something.
“Hey Lance, possibly a dumb question, but how do we charge our phones?”
“Oh. I forgot to give you these.” He retrieved a portable power bank and a USB-C cable from his inventory.
“Thanks.” David blinked. “How do we charge these?”
“Right. Retrieve USB-C power adapter.” Lance handed it to him. “Electricity still works here, somehow. Running water too, though I don’t trust its cleanliness.”
“Interesting.”
“What’s really interesting is that those work but not things like GPS or internet. Three years and I still haven’t figured that out.”
David chuckled. “Maybe this whole place was designed specifically to drive you crazy trying to figure it out.”
Lance looked at him.
“That was a joke.”
By the sixth day, David was finally getting used to this. He still went to sleep and woke up sore, but they were traveling further and further every day. He felt a vitality welling up in him. That evening, Lance stopped and pointed to a group of three fiends on the highway.
“Let’s use those for target practice tonight.”
David smiled.
They circled around behind the monsters. When they were a certain distance away—maybe one hundred feet—Lance stopped.
“I’ll watch from here,” he said, gearing up with his phone. “Try to take them out on your own. I’ll step in if things get messy.”
Three fiends? Easy, David thought. He equipped his gear and started to sneak up to them. Then he wondered what the range on his spells was. Still a good ways away, he crouched down and concentrated.
“Smite.”
Light tore down from the heavens and vaporized the fiend at the middle of the group. Its two companions were stunned by the blast, but seemed unharmed. One of them shouted something incomprehensible and they charged at David, who was already preparing to cast his next spell. Smite was a powerful but comparatively mana-hungry skill. Casting it just that once after a full day of walking left him a little lightheaded. A cleric’s options for offensive spells were limited, but conversely, that made it easier to strategize.
“Divine lights.”
Three glowing white orbs appeared above David’s head. His opponents foolishly ran toward him in a straight line, yelling to each other in some foul tongue.
He aimed with his gaze. “Fire.”
Light pierced his target’s chest—the leftmost orb, though it moved with such speed that for an instant it had become a glowing beam. The fiend stumbled but did not fall.
This time he aimed for the head. “Fire.”
Light flashed, and a hole opened between the monster’s eyes. Two enemies down, one cast left.
The last fiend was moving quicker than David anticipated.
“Fire.”
The third orb missed its mark and grazed his target’s ear. David swore under his breath. At this rate, the fiend would reach him before he could cast another spell.
“Blessing of strength,” he called out.
Heat rose up through his core into his arms and chest. The fiend was smiling and laughing and waving its knife around haphazardly. David gripped his staff like a baseball bat and waited one, two, three heartbeats, then swung—
—and missed. The monster jumped back at the last moment. David’s mind was screaming at him to move, but the momentum of the swing left him off balance. The fiend shoved its knife forward with a maniacal cry.
“Blood rush.”
Lance was beside him. He wielded a massive two-handed sword that he thrust into the thing’s skull, killing it instantly. The knife fell to the ground.
“Not bad for a beginner,” Lance said as he yanked his blade from its new sheath. “Your spell use was good and your decision making was apt, even if you underestimated your opponent. Even fiends, dim-witted as they are, will react and adapt to you during combat.”
He looked over. “What are you smiling for?”
David wiped sweat from his brow. “That was fun.”
Lance rested his bloodied greatsword on his shoulder and pointed an armored finger at David.
“Are you listening to what I’m saying? In the dungeons we will face monsters much stronger and smarter than this, and in larger groups. And I won’t always be able to bail you out.”
David raised his hands apologetically, still smiling.