I Swear I'm Not A Dark Lord!

Farewell

Kistur did not return that day, as Taylor hoped he would, but news of his class and the extraordinary circumstances surrounding it reached Taylor's house through the woman who delivered their groceries. She spilled the whole story, as related to her by her husband, whose brother had seen the four young people leave the church, overjoyed by their divine gifts.

"And that soldier boy, Maris' son, you know the one, he's always dashing around on that monster of a horse, he got Bastion. His friends got Scholar, Orchardist, and Farmer. They'll all be snapped up by the empire, just you wait, and we'll lose them all, never to be seen again."

For the first time ever, Taylor spoke to the delivery lady.

"Sorry to butt in, but did I just hear you say that Kistur got a class?"

She seemed put off by the sudden appearance of the infamous, masked son of d'Mourne. "That's the one! Kistur."

"Do you know where he is now? I'd like to congratulate him."

Cook explained, "They train together all the time."

"Not anymore, I'll wager. He's gone back to Midway. They'll give him special training now, appropriate for a champion of the empire."

"Champion is a different class," he told her, and left them alone in the kitchen.

"Don't mind the young master," he heard Cook say, "he's much kinder than he lets on."

Taylor made himself scarce before he heard any more gossip, especially about himself.

He spent all that day wrestling with magic devices. It was more obvious than ever that magic circles had been tacked onto Spellscript as an afterthought. He was sure whoever thought of it was pleased with their hack and received accolades for their work, but if one were going to modify a system to that extent, then it was easier to make a new, special-purpose system. That's what Taylor had done in his last world. If he re-created his inscription system in Aarden, he could take advantage of everything he'd learned over his many lifetimes. He could even improve his inscription system.

Kistur still hadn't come by the next morning, and Taylor left on his regular training trip, convinced his friend would deploy without saying goodbye. If the empire had its hooks into him already, there would be no chance of repeating the warnings about the pitfalls of classes. Kistur was on his own.

His efforts that week were lackluster. He mostly worked on emission speed — how fast he could gather and focus large quantities of magic. Soon, it started to bore him. To make things more interesting, he built a shooting range. It was only a toy, a way to try new ideas, but it had some merit.

The range measured four things: the lowest amount of mana detected, the highest amount, the time in between, and was the target hit. A magician with excellent mana control, like Taylor, could ramp up from zero to a very high number and let loose a spell, all in a fraction of a second.

As soon as he had it working, Taylor learned he wasn't nearly as good as he thought he was. He was always radiating more mana than he realized, and it took him longer than he knew to launch a Stunning Bolt. He was lousy and needed more practice. He spent the rest of his training time that week either relearning his emission control or fishing for the huge trout he believed was lurking in the river. He never caught the big fish, but he did improve his magic.

Kistur finally appeared a few days before the festival, this time on a new, bigger horse and wearing mithril armor. Instead of the usual practice weapon, he carried an improbably wide sword as tall as he was, engraved with Spellscript. With his wavy blonde hair and blue eyes, he looked every bit the hero he ever wanted to be.

"Bilius, you have to get a class. It's the most incredible thing ever!"

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"Hello to you, too."

Kistur dropped to the ground with the clanking thud of flesh and armor. "Let's fight."

"Not if you're going to use that." Taylor pointed at the sword he carried. "I don't want to get cut in half by accident. Or have my house destroyed. That thing's dangerous."

"That's the point," he grinned but set the praxis aside. "It's a shield and sword in one. Crazy, right? But it works great with my class." He limbered up his arms. "Attack me."

Taylor squared up with his staff and thrust it at his friend, who didn't bother to defend himself. The blow struck him in his armored chest, and its kinetic energy bounded back on Taylor, hurting his arm and pushing him back.

"That's interesting."

"Isn't it? My turn." Suddenly, Kistur was in his face, backhanding him across the jaw. Taylor hit the yard's paving stones and slid several feet, bleeding from the mouth.

"So are you going to get a class or what? Because this will get boring fast."

"Wait … "

Kistur kicked Taylor while he was down, right in the chest with an armored boot, and sent him tumbling head over heels until he hit the garden wall.

"If you don't get a class, you can't keep up with me."

This time, Taylor saw the punch coming and dodged it, rolling away to where he stashed his fishing gear for that afternoon's trip into the hills.

"I give in, Kistur! You win!"

"Say you'll get a class, and I'll stop."

"This isn't how we play our game!"

"It's a new game, Bilius. A serious one." He cracked his knuckles. "You're getting a class, or I'm done with you. But first, I get to enjoy being the strong one."

This wasn't a friendly sparring match anymore. Kistur was going to hurt him, and he was going to enjoy it.

So, Taylor grabbed a stone off the ground and hit Kistur in the knee with Rock Shot. Kistur's class ability sent most of the force away from him, deflecting the stone across the grounds, but enough got through for him to feel it.

"Ow, fuck! You little shit! How long have you been casting attack spells?"

"Like I'd tell you." Taylor's hand scrabbled at the edge of his garden wall for rocks, and came up with several pebbles. He shot them at Kistur's face at low power in rapid succession. They didn't do much damage, but they annoyed the heck out of him.

"That's not enough, idiot." Mana gathered around Kistur as he prepared some class ability. A regular fighter would have been scared by it, but to Taylor, it seemed so very, very slow.

One of the great advantages of knowing how to use magic instinctively was the ability to interfere with other people's spells. Taylor reached out, targeted Kistur's sloppy work, and tore it to shreds. When he realized his ability had misfired, Kistur's face was dumbfounded. Taylor savored that look as he shot the largest rock in his hand directly at the center of the mithril armor's chest. With the Bastion class's abilities in momentary disarray, the rock struck home hard, dented the armor, and knocked his target over.

"We're stopping now, Kistur. Before someone gets hurt."

"Someone's getting hurt, all right." Kistur got on his feet and stalked to where he left his horse and sword.

Afraid, Taylor considered using Dragon Shot, even if it killed his friend. But the Bastion class could deflect part of the damage, and he had people in the house, his staff, and the remodelers. Even half of a Dragon Shot was enough to pierce clear through the house and create mayhem on the way through.

Taylor grabbed his fishing pole, hauled the line elegantly through the air, let the line extend, and caught the armored boy, wrapping it around him several times. The line squeezed him tight, pinning his arms.

Kistur laughed at him. "You can't hurt me with this! It's stupid!"

Taylor hauled him up like he would a fish, only higher, much higher, and landed him hard on the training yard's paving stones. Bastion took a lot of the force, but Kistur had the wind knocked out of him.

Then Taylor reeled him in a little, hauled him into the air again, and smashed him down near the drive. Then again to the training yard, and then the drive. Confident his class would take most of the damage, Taylor flung Kistur eight or nine more times until he looked sick and dazed by the abuse.

But Taylor wasn't done quite yet. He got close to Kistur's bruised face. "Come back in friendship," he said, "or don't come back at all."

One last haul, the biggest yet, released Kistur to fly high over the garden wall, slowly spinning with arms and legs spread wide, until he thudded to earth somewhere in the nearby pastures.

Taylor took the dangerous sword and lashed it to the giant horse's saddle, then sent the animal away with a minor taming spell, with instructions to find his master. He blew a long-suffering sigh and trotted himself out the gate.