- Excerpt from The Last Will & Testament of God, holy text of the Church of Lost Angels
His eyes widened. “You think you can infuse Create Bread into your shots? Why?”
“Why not try it at least once? What could go wrong?”
He laughed and gestured for me to proceed. I was astonished when it worked. The spellform slipped into my gun like the others, though with two differences. First, I could actually feel the point of mana used up during the infusion. Second, I noticed that I had just used my Create Bread for the day. I knew the sensation well from experience – casting it again would fail, until midnight, when I could use it again for the next day.
“Well?” Mason asked.
In answer, I aimed at my trusty rock friend and pulled the trigger.
crump! click-click
The sound was noticeably quieter, I barely felt the recoil, and there was no drain on my mana. Astonished, I realized I could actually see the shot as it zipped out of my barrel and smacked into the rock, seeming to explode on contact. I looked at my gun with wide eyes and then I started laughing uncontrollably.
I… just… shot a bread gun! Magic is so fucking weird!
Even Mason chuckled at the result. “Now that was unexpected,” he admitted. “I’ll have to ask Hassan if he’s ever tried that with an arrow.”
I concentrated on Inspecting my gun. I’d been able to pull up just the mod’s effects earlier, now I wanted to know exactly what was going on with my weird infusion.
Infusion: Create Bread
Effect: Fires a single projectile made of created bread at 280fps
Penetration: None
Shots Remaining: 99/100
[Congratulations Gunner! Your Inspect Skill has just reached Level 1!]
I jumped at PAST’s sudden announcement.
“I just Leveled Inspect,” I told Mason, then explained what I’d learned.
“Penetration shows as none? That’s normally something you’d see on a training weapon.” His grin grew even wider and I shivered, even though I could tell he was happy.
Az, you need to always remember not to piss Mason off… I can’t even imagine what he would look like if he’s upset! His teeth look sharp!
“Shoot me with one of those,” he demanded.
This time I didn’t hesitate at all, firing right into his chest from only a few feet away. The projectile bread – maybe I should call it a projecto-bread, or a bread-tile? Definitely a bread-tile - exploded into crumbs against his barrier.
“Zero damage!” he exclaimed, then switched to the Comms.
I saw the two Healers, who’d been training together, look up and start walking towards us. I refilled my bandolier with the cheaper BB shells, then loaded all six into my gun. Mason pointed at Vale.
“Vale first,” he ordered.
Elin’s eyes widened as I aimed at Vale’s chest, but the stocky woman didn’t seem worried at all. Considering how thick her armor was, I doubted I could hurt her even with a regular shot.
crumpBoom! click-click
I twitched at the sound before realizing it was just my mod triggering. “Any damage?” I asked Vale.
“None,” she replied with a smile. “What was that? Why do I smell… burnt bread?”
I opened my mouth to explain but Mason cut me off.
“Now Elin,” he commanded, causing the red-haired girl to duck behind Vale with a curse. Vale laughed, then turned and grabbed Elin by the shoulder faster than she could react. Without any apparent effort, Vale hauled the taller but much thinner girl out from behind her.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “It’s not going to hurt, and even if it did I’d just heal ya.”
Elin glared at me but didn’t try to fight off the Tier 2 Healer. I pretended not to be excited at the idea of shooting her, instead pointing at Mason.
“It’s his idea, not mine.”
I fired into her chest. I saw a tiny flare of her barrier on impact before the bread-tile disintegrated.
“Well?” Mason asked impatiently.
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“One damage,” she admitted with a grimace.
“EXCELLENT!” Mason thundered, giving me a brief flashback to the Tutorial and PAST’s booming voice.
“This will help optimize our efforts! You can work on your shooting skills while your willing partners work on their reflexes and agility!”
By this point the others had come over to see what the commotion was about. Which, naturally, resulted in everyone getting a bread-tile to the chest! Neither Hassan nor Block took any damage, while my fellow recruits’ barriers were hit for one point each. Regretfully, I informed Mason that I was down to just twenty mana.
“Hmm, which ammunition have you been using so far?” he asked. When I told him it was the BB rounds, he asked me to try a couple rounds of the heavier 4BK. Once I’d loaded my gun, I Inspected it again.
Infusion: Create Bread
Effect: Fires a single projectile made of created bread at 380fps
Penetration: None
Shots Remaining: 69/75
“Interesting, it’s 100fps faster and the number of shots went down,” I told my audience.
“Hit me first!” Block actually sounded excited. The shot had just a bit more recoil and noise and was definitely moving faster.
“Haha, one damage! Perfect!” Block exclaimed. “Oh man, I am so jealous. You are gonna be able to have so much fun with that! Now, shoot Raylan!”
I looked at Mason for confirmation and he nodded. Raylan took the shot in the chest, groaned dramatically, then slumped to the ground clutching his ‘wound’. Laughing, I helped him up and looked at him expectantly.
“Two damage this time,” he confirmed.
“Very good!” Mason said in a satisfied tone. “Two damage will get their barriers down a lot faster, plus, it will actually sting if you get through. That will keep them properly motivated to train their dodging skills!”
All three of my fellow recruits paled at that pronouncement. He paused, and then gave me a stern look.
“This does NOT make your gun into a toy, however. I will not tolerate any joking around with it, nor will you use this infusion outside of a training session. You will Inspect the weapon every time you infuse it to make sure it worked properly. In addition, your first shot will go into the ground to show your teammates that it’s safe. Do you understand?”
“I understand.” I nodded soberly.
It would be like sparring with someone who was using a real sword but promising that it had some kind of invisible safety enchantment turned on… that would be scary.
“Very well. Hassan, take Az and help her get her bedroll set up. Zaire, unless you can figure out a way to cast a Bread Spike, you’ll be practicing with me until you’re out of mana. The rest of you, back to work!”
I followed Hassan back to the cave. As we approached, we passed by the remains of the last monster, the meat sizzling on a portable mana-stove. Thankfully, the gross legs were nowhere to be seen and the meat was just… meat. It actually smelled delicious – meat was a once a week luxury for me back in Sunland. Now I was having it twice in a day. Surprisingly, I found the other bedrolls set up just inside the cave.
As I started to unpack mine, I asked Hassan, “Why don’t we camp deeper in the cave so we’re harder to find? Also, what happens when there’s no cave, do we have tents?”
“Why are we camping in a cave?” he asked me in return.
“Because it’s safer, more protected? Monsters can only attack us from one side?”
“Nah,” he casually rejected my ideas. “Sure, it’s easier to keep watch when you’re in a cave, but you can easily be pinned inside. We’re here because of the conveniently Leveled group of monsters for you to fight. The only reason we’re safer here than anywhere else is simple – spiderwolves are even more territorial than normal wolves. The only reason they didn’t attack us before we even reached the cave is that they’re nocturnal.”
He showed me how to set up my bedroll, which was basically a large piece of waxed canvas and a sleeping bag. The tarp was folded in quarters, making it just larger than the sleeping bag. Hassan explained that if we were outside and there was a chance of rain, I should tuck my sleeping bag under the top layers of the waxed canvas to keep it as dry as possible. Not that we got a lot of rain near Sunland.
I asked again about tents, since Hassan hadn’t answered that part of my question. I’d never slept in one, but I’d seen them in town once or twice on the rare occasions that there were multiple caravans passing through Sunland at the same time and there wasn’t anywhere else for their guards to sleep.
“What, exactly, is a tent good for?” Hassan asked me, with a sneer.
“Uh, it protects you from rain and bugs, I guess?”
“Rain. Bugs. Do you think either of those is a priority in the wilds? What happens if a monster attacks while you’re sleeping soundly in your tent?”
“Well, someone is awake watching for monsters, right? So they should wake you up before a monster can get you.”
“Fine, so you and a couple of your teammates are asleep in your cosy little tent, when your sentry screams into the Squad Comms that you’re about to be attacked. What then?”
“I wake up, get out of my sleeping bag while summoning my armor and my weapon and -”
“And you can’t see anything because you’re inside a tent. And then you and your buddies are all trying to get out of the tent at the same time. Assuming, generously, that you don’t manage to collapse the stupid thing on top of yourselves in the confusion, you can still only get out one at a time.
“No, what should happen is that the sentry raises the alarm, and you all pop out of your separate bedrolls. You’re each able to look around and see exactly what’s going on. Once, our Mage sat up in her bedroll, looked at the monster, incinerated it with a Lightning Bolt, and went back to sleep without ever standing up! Try that with a tent.”
I definitely did not pout as he ruthlessly crushed my dreams of camping in a tent. But they look like fun!
I emerged from the cave to see the sun getting low in the sky, probably about an hour before dark. We gathered around the stove, which was basically a flat piece of metal about a foot and a half on each side, with a heating enchantment and a socket for a mana crystal. Block, who was apparently our cook, sliced the meat with a dagger and dropped a thick, still slightly bloody cut on each of our camping plates.
My stomach growled, and I did my best not to think of where the meat had come from as we started eating. Slicing a piece with my belt knife, I stabbed it with the fork from my camping kit and forced myself to take a bite.
OK, that’s actually pretty fucking delicious, I admitted to myself. We sat on the rocks, eating our kill – with a side of trail rations – and chatting.
You know Az, this wasn’t a bad first day as a Delver! I could have done without the fight with Hazel, but all I really care about is that she keeps the kids safe. I don’t need her for me any more. And the rest of it was actually pretty Wasted good!
Elin, Block, Vale, Hassan, Raylan, Zaire