You are Summoned

I had 51 summoning points remaining. Out of the options that Meara found for me, the ones I was most interested in were the mana conservation and gear efficiency. I’d already bumped up against the gear score cap, and the situation was only going to get worse if I continued to perform well and gathered more rewards.

Mana conservation was key if I wanted to maximize my mana pool, especially back home. Despite that, more spells were probably not the best use of my points right now. It made no sense to buy more spells that I couldn’t equip due to the gear score cap. Both basic skills were also attractive, who didn’t want to learn how to fight unarmed, or learn some rogue skill that might come in handy on both worlds.

I could go with two tier one skills, or a tier one coupled with both basic skills. After thinking about it, mana conservation wasn’t going to be that big of a boost for me yet. Most of my power was going to be in summoning using the figurines, and they were already only one mana to activate.

My other spells were important, but not nearly as critical as getting a summoned creature out during a fight. Back home, some minor spell efficiency would be nice, but I’d still rather use my limited mana to summon a creature to help me. If I was out of figurines, buffing what I had would be nice, but that would mean I was probably already in a bad spot and nearly out of mana.

“Meara, I’ll take these,” I said, keeping the tier one gear efficiency upgrade along with the basic unarmed combat skills and basic rogue skills. I felt these would give me the best value. When I returned to Somhagen at tier one, rank five, I may have other priorities, but for now, these worked.

“All fine choices, please read them at your convenience, but if you would like, we do have some private areas for you to comfortably and privately examine your options,” Meara said as the summoning points were deducted from my balance. I now had a whopping six points remaining out of the 131 I had started with. It was fine, I’d have another five ranks to rebuild my balance before I returned to the city.

Not wanting to leave without learning my skills, I took Meara up on her offer, and she led me to several small alcoves at the back of the building. She left me to work, mentioning that I should feel free to ask her if I had any questions. I did ask her if she had any suggestions for six summoning points, and she said she would consider it while I worked. It was time to dig into my options, so I started with the unarmed combat skills scroll.

Basic Unarmed Combat. Knowledge of basic fighting techniques applicable to your species will now be imprinted on your mind. Your new skill will incorporate any existing combat knowledge you might possess. The basic tier of this skill is universal, but to progress further in the unarmed combat path, a specialization will be required.

There weren’t multiple options with this one. As I activated the skill, I could feel the knowledge load into my mind. It incorporated itself with the few lessons that I’d already received back home, and it made me miss my time in the dojo. I found that I had genuinely enjoyed learning martial arts, and I would love to find another school when my life wasn’t so crazy.

With the new baseline knowledge I had, I felt I could hold my own against anyone that didn’t have similar training. Back home, that meant I could take on most of the people I encountered. Maybe the agents had more training, but the average cultist I could deal with in a hand-to-hand situation. Sadly, the cultists seemed to travel in groups, which was terrifying and made going up against them with just my fists a poor option.

Basic Rogue Skills. Please select a skill from the following options.

Hide in shadows. This skill pulls from your mana pool to hide you from casual observation. You must break visual contact before activating for maximum results. This skill requires 1 mana every 5 seconds to remain active.

Lockpick/Disarm Device. This skill gives you the basic knowledge to defeat simple traps and locks. Higher complexity or magical locks are beyond the scope of this skill and would require specialized training.

Attack of Opportunity. With this skill you recognize openings in your opponent’s defense, giving you a higher chance to inflict critical damage on your foe when engaged in melee combat.

It wasn’t a bad trio of options. As far as the hide in shadows skill, being mana based made it less useful. If I tried to continuously channel mana into it back home, my mana pool would burn up in seconds. Attack of opportunity was also pretty situational. If I was locked in melee combat, I would have already done something wrong. My minions should bear the brunt of any direct combat.

Learning to pick locks and disarm traps sounded awesome, and that was my selection. Once I confirmed my selection, I began to understand how locks functioned, and how they could be defeated. I also learned how to spot simple traps and take measures to disarm or at least mitigate their effects.

Oddly enough, some idea of how to defeat basic electronic locks was also part of the program, though anything too complex was going to be beyond my skill level. I also could deal with simple magical traps by channeling my own mana to disrupt them. Happy with my choice, I moved on to the final selection, the gear efficiency upgrade. I was granted another three options to choose from.

Gear Efficiency. Please select a skill from the following options.

Armor efficiency expert. This ability stacks with any other armor reduction skills you may have gained. The armor efficiency expert skill will decrease the gear cost of any armor by 10. Please be advised that the gear cost for any armor set can never be reduced below 1.

Spell miser. The spell miser ability makes equipping all your spells more efficient, reducing their gear cost by 1. Please be advised that the gear cost for any spell can never be reduced below 1.

Consumable planner. The consumable planner ability makes equipping any limited use item more efficient. The gear cost for equipping any limited use item is reduced by 1. Please be advised that the gear cost for equipping any item can never be reduced below 1.

All three choices seemed fine. Of the three, armor efficiency expert gave me the largest upfront discount. Sadly, the fact that it didn’t scale as I rose in rank and tier made it less desirable. The gear cost savings was big for me now, but when I hit tier 3 or 4, it would probably be considered a negligible discount. Spells and consumable discounts would scale as I gained power and used more of them.

I had to consider my future plans. Spells would always be a part of my loadout, but I never saw myself as a pure mage. Most of my spells would be in support of my minions, so equipping my whole spell book wasn’t going to be necessary to get a decent bang for the buck.

Consumables were going to be a good part of my strategy going forward. One time use summoning figurines were relatively inexpensive, so I planned to have as many as I could get my hands on. In addition, it looked like my magic missile wand was also classified as a consumable since it had limited charges. With the wand and my notice of cessation, I would always have some consumable equipped other than just figurines.

Of the three choices I was offered, I was leaning toward Consumable Planner. If I ended up with a pocketful of one-time-use figurines, it would save me quite a few gear points. Even if I was down to the dregs on my single use figurines, I’d still get value for the wand, the notice, and any other limited use things I might run across.

You have acquired the ability Consumable Planner. Return to your armory to make any changes to your loadout.

Returning to the armory would have to wait until I was done here in Somhagen. Before I left the summoned market, I checked back in with Meara. She had come through and found another item that I was interested in. I was handed a small bronze ring that the system identified for me when I looked at it.

Ring of multi-summon (2). This ring allows you to duplicate a summoned creature by using one of the rings charges. When the final charge on this ring is expended, it becomes a simple bronze ring and cannot be recharged. The gear cost for this item is 2 before any class or ability discounts, and it requires 1 mana to activate. The price for this ring is 3 summoning points.

“That’s not bad, but with only two charges, and no way to refill it, it’s kind of limited,” I complained.

“While its use is limited, the cost for the item reflects its shortcomings,” Meara argued. She was right, if I used this to duplicate my best summoned creature, it would be much more efficient than buying a figurine. For only three summoning points, and a gear cost of one after my discount, it was a good buy.

“I’ll take it, thanks for all your help. Can I bother you with a couple more questions before I go?” I asked.

“Certainly. What can I help you with?” Meara replied.

“First, I’m looking for directions to the arena from here. Also, as I walked in, I was handed one of these. Any idea if this is legit, or is it some kind of scam?” I asked, showing her the flier that the Pakrinas guy had handed me.

“The arena is an easy answer, it’s three blocks from here, toward the western side of this tier of the city. Just look for the crowds and you’ll know you’re there. As for the contract broker, many summoned beings use them, and there are both good and bad ones operating here. I’m sorry, but I just don’t know which ones will offer you a fair deal. What I can do is recommend an information broker that might be able to help answer that for you. A man named Lavelle Varnoth has a small shop that is on your way to the arena, and he has an honest reputation,” Meara offered.

“I appreciate it, you’re the second one to recommend this Lavelle. Thanks again, I hope to see you when I hit rank five,” I said as I left. It was time to find out what this whole arena business was about, but first, I’d visit the information broker. If both Minerva and Meara recommended him, the odds were that I could get good and honest information from him. The real question was what that information might cost me.