"G'damn it! Why do I keep blowing my skill check?"

 

 

 

 

It had been six weeks since Andrew and Miriam had left Fort Triplethorpe. They had checked the map of the country and headed in a straight line away from civilization. The guidebook that he had purchased indicated the area in question was a bit of a no-man's land and mostly ignored for having far too few resources to gather, no monsters worth bounties to hunt, and food was rather hard to come by. It was a combination of hills, scrubland, and thick forests, due to the dry weather making it an ideal location for wildfires. Long strips of open land separated unnaturally tall trees that created areas where little sunlight reached the ground. It was the sort of area that the guidebook stated wasn't worth an adventurer's time.

 

So it was exactly the place Andrew wanted to go.

 

His eternal rations had little flavor but kept him fed. He could conjure water easily enough. The spell Endure elements removed the need for a fire. As for sleeping, the humble Rope Trick spell rendered the need for any sort of campsite pointless. Just take a five-foot length of rope, toss one end up into the air, cast the spell, and an extradimensional space appears at the other end capable of holding up to eight people. Climb the rope and pull the rope up after you and unless someone is familiar with magic, most people will never notice the slight shimmering haze where the little pocket of space-time connects with reality.

 

However, upon casting it after attuning to the scroll he had, Andrew noticed something disturbing. The spell in question wasn't on the normal wizard list. The scroll he had was from the alternate wizard list for the oriental setting. Fortunately, he had thought ahead to buy a research library during character creation and learned that a fair number of spells he thought should be standard mage spells were shifted off to obscure class spell lists.

 

Someone had been using the Unveiled Arcanium alternate campaign rules checklist.

 

Andrew slammed the book he was reading closed, "Do I need more circumstance bonuses?"

 

Miriam rolled over and yawned, "Are you still trying to learn that obscure class of yours?"

 

Andrew sighed, "Yes. I'm still trying to research the class myself, thank you." He slipped the book into his backpack, "I should have made the check by now, yet I keep failing. I mean, I could be having a run of bad luck, but I somehow doubt it. I wonder if someone is applying the no rerolls without a change in circumstances rule."

 

Miriam sat up, "Hold it. I thought you knew all the rules."

 

Andrew glanced over at her, "I do. But the game master gets to choose which rules apply and which ones don't."

 

She squinted, "Wait. You said ALL the rule books were in play."

 

Andrew closed his eyes as he nodded, "Yes, but Unvieled Arcanium is a meta-rulebook that governs how the other rules are applied depending on what difficulty you want for the players. Everything might be in play, but not all classes are available everywhere." He turned to look out the small window of the rope trick at the real world, "Given what I noticed going over the scrolls and power crystals I purchased to start, I suspect the region-locked rules are in play."

 

Miriam fluttered over to land on Andrew's shoulder, "Explain?"

 

Andrew rolled a hand in the air, "When you have a campaign setting, you might want to have an entire world. Well, everything isn't available everywhere. You might want a culture based on Europe, then one on sea-going island dwellers, then another based on Japan. Well, it wouldn't make sense if they had EVERYTHING available EVERYWHERE. So, things get broken up thematically."

 

"{Minor Illusion}" He created an image of a Samurai and then a knight that looked to be from The Round Table, "Knight and Samurai seem the same, but the classes do have some fundamental differences. There is a reason to pick one over the other based on your build. To start, I could pick anything. However, now that I'm here, I can't just pick any class I want. I have to either reinvent the wheel or find someone to teach me."

 

Miriam nodded, "Ahhhh... and that's why you keep reading that same book over and over. I was starting to wonder."

 

Andrew dismissed the image, "Well, that and it gives me circumstance bonuses for crafting." He held up the rope, "It helped get the cost of this down to three thousand, which is important because finding enough quality crafting material has been a BITCH." He flipped the rope out of the extradimensional boundary and started climbing down, "It should have only taken three days to make it, but it took over a week."

 

Miriam fluttered out after him, "You sound like a broken record. Will you stop bitching about that? My god. You've already come up with a half dozen minor miracles."

 

Andrew snapped his fingers when he hit the ground, "Oh. Thanks for reminding me." He reached into his backpack and pulled out a silvery headband to offer to Miriam, "Here. Finished it last night."

 

She accepted it, eyed Andrew for a moment, "This won't give me a headache like last time?"

 

Andrew raised his hands in a gesture of submission, "I paid the extra cost and removed the curse." As she slipped it on, he continued, "It was a fairly harmless curse, I might add. It only lasted for a few seconds. If you kept it on all the time, it wouldn't matter."

 

"How's it work again?"

 

"Just pull it down over your eyes." He reached up to a similar headband on his head and pulled it down. He winced for a second while he got used to it, "And boom. An entire suite of detection spells." He started counting off on his fingers, "Aura Reading, All Alignments, specific animal or plant types, diseases, dragons blood, A specific enemy that you get to pick, fire, ghosts, magic, dimensional overlaps, poison, secret doors, hidden traps, teleportation traces, undead, and..." He had moved onto needing to reuse the first hand and was stuck, "Something.... else..." He started to click his tongue.

 

"Weapons?" Miriam offered as she pointed to his hands, "Because your hands and feet are glowing." She looked concerned, "That's new."

 

"Weaponry! Right! I forgot about that." He gestured to his neck, "And that's because of my new amulet of the pugilist. Technically, not a weapon, so I can make it without knowing how to craft magic weapons, even if it gives my unarmed attacks the properties of a magical weapon." He threw a few kicks into the air, "The great thing is, I can treat multiple parts of my body as separate weapons." He sighed, "I wish it simply treated my ENTIRE body as a weapon, but beggars can't be choosers."

 

"Why?" Miriam held up a hand, "No no. Let me guess. There's a rules loophole you could abuse."

 

Andrew nodded cheerfully, "Throwing. I could then THROW my whole body up to a thousand feet at things! Getting around the world would go so much faster if I could just throw myself down the road a thousand feet. Since I have multiple attacks, I could go a mile every six seconds." He pondered, "Just short of the sound barrier, I believe." He squinted and tapped his chin, "Wait, with haste I could break the sound barrier. I wonder how that would work."

 

"Sound Barrier?" Miriam's left eye twitched, "What the hell is a sound... Wait... how... could you... throw..." She rubbed her eyes, "Don't. Don't explain. I don't want to know." She looked up, "So-" She stopped speaking. Andrew was holding up one hand with the thumb and pinky extended.

 

Miriam landed on top of his head as she turned both of them invisible. She felt movement as Andrew yanked the rope down from the air and moved to find cover. She whispered in their shared tongue, "[What's going on?]"

 

"[My detect curse went off. It's got a range of a hundred feet and the curse is moving, so either someone cast the slowest curse spell ever or someone with a curse on them got within detection range.]" Andrew paused to cast two spells, "{Stealthy} ... {Mouse's Ego}" and then started to creep along, trying to close in on the source.

 

"[I don't detect anything.]" Miriam replied.

 

"[Too expensive for us both to have since you won't accept the cost reduction. I can only cram so much into the headbands at my level. Now shush.]" He stopped moving and strained to listen, "[Hear anything?]"

 

There was a long pause before she answered, "[Yes. Sounds bipedal. Walking is irregular. Breathing ragged. Might be wounded.]"

 

"[It's cursed, so wounded is a safe bet.]"

 

One of the advantages of having a secret language that only you and your familiar can speak is that you don't have to have any codified words. Any sound you make with intent is understood by the other. So, you can make the language sound like anything. Technically, you can speak a different language and your familiar will know what you 'meant'. Andrew decided that the default sound they should make would be cute animal-like mewling and soft clucking sounds. That way, they would just sound like they were being super kawaii to one another if they were overheard.

 

 

 

The intruder had excellent hearing.

 

 

 

A small humanoid, rather dirty and scratched up with disheveled long green hair, slowly crept out of the underbrush. The hair covered its bony, frowning face. Glittering aquamarine eyes, set lightly within their sockets, frantically darted to and fro in search of whatever was the source of the sound. To Andrew's eyes, a small tattoo resembling the curved talons of a bird glowed over the visitor's right eye, clearly making it the source of the detected curse.

 

Andrew stared intently, remaining still as he tried to determine the curse's purpose. He, alas, was continuing his streak of bad skill checks and couldn't determine its purpose. Instead, he contemplated his next action as the new arrival crept closer, ~Well... I suppose the curse is most likely a bad thing, and talking to this guy while he's cursed will most likely be pointless. But it does look to be cast by someone who was in the single digits...~

 

When the visitor got close enough, Andrew impulsively leaped forward to poke the tattoo with his finger.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"{REMOVE CURSE}"