Level 1 Fallen

I waited atop the rock where we had parked the bike, watching as Diane looked around for her prey. Since she was only using a torch, it was natural that she wasn't going to be killing a high level monster. However, there were both high and low targets in the surrounding sands, so there were plenty of options for her to choose from.

After a few moments, she leapt from the rock, entering stealth and weaving across the sand without leaving so much as a footprint. Her target was a small scorpion, only a few inches long, and she smashed the burning torch down on it as hard as she could, triggering her sneak attack bonus.

Doing so caused her stealth to naturally drop, and other monsters noticed her presence. Without hesitation, I launched my Martial Intent-X to rain spikes on the rest of the nearby monsters, while Diane jumped back towards the rock to complete her quest. "What else do you have to do to get the fire rune?" I asked, and Diane shook her head.

"Now that I have a skill with the fire attribute, I naturally have the rune unlocked." As she said that, she knelt down, tracing a strange pattern on the rock. A dim, blue light trailed behind her finger. When she was done, the pattern lit up with a small flame for a few seconds. "The strength of the rune will vary based on both my mastery of Rune Writer and the mana I burn to draw the rune."

"Good to know." I nodded. "While we're stopped, shall we make that Shadow Stealth skill?" I asked, and Diane's eyes widened, quickly nodding her head. Chuckling, I pulled out another enchantment book. "Try to downcast your skills to the first tier if you can. That will save us another book."

Diane nodded again, taking the book and setting it on the rock. However, she didn't immediately begin channeling. Instead, she began to draw numerous runes in a circle around the book, her eyes focused. "I made a scroll for this skill as part of my training." She said, pulling a rolled up scroll out of her inventory and placing it on top of the book.

"Speaking of which, you haven't told me what your Scroll Crafting skill is like yet." I pointed out, and Diane paused briefly.

"I'll tell you once I'm done with this." She promised, looking at the various runes. "With Stealth and Shadow as the cornerstones, let darkness guide my path."

The scroll lit up, shining brightly for a moment before it shattered, the light fading into the skill book. Eager to see the results, Diane picked it up and held it out for me. Naturally, I identified it, nodding my head. "Shadow Blend."

Diane nodded her head, gesturing for me to learn the skill first, that way I could teach it to her through a quest. Since this was a stealth skill, all I had her do was hide her presence from monsters for thirty seconds, something she could easily achieve. Unfortunately, despite this being a skill based on Sneak, it turned into a magic skill, meaning that I wouldn't be able to add it to my regular rotation.

Diane nodded her head once she had gained the skill, before looking at me and gesturing for us to return to our journey. Once back on the bike and driving above the ground, she began to explain her Scroll Crafting skill. "Honestly, Scroll Crafting turned out to be quite a bit different than I expected. It turned into a mini-game, if you understand what that is."

When I shook my head, she explained. "Basically, when I'm making a scroll, I describe the type of effect I want the scroll to have on the page with specially prepared ink. Conveniently, this ink can be made through Alchemy, so I am self-sufficient there. Anyways, once I've described the effect of the scroll, it triggers a magical puzzle."

"The difficulty of the puzzle changes based on how powerful the desired effect is, and whether or not I have any special 'qualifications' to create it. For instance, the difficulty for the Shadow Blend scroll was quite low. The scroll was the equivalent of a first-tier skill, I had the skills that it was made out of, and I used the appropriate runes when drawing the scroll with ink that had been crafted with Shadow essence."

Hearing that, I couldn't help but ask. "How did you get the Shadow essence?"

"I refined an animated shadow." She answered bluntly. "Anyways, because of all of that, the puzzle difficulty was really low. But, when I tried to create a high-power scroll, the puzzle was a multi-layered spell circle, and I had to carefully move the individual parts between the layers, and also find where the runes needed to be added. Since spell circles are nonexistent in my world, that puzzle would have been downright impossible without the system's guidance. Even then, I failed more than ten times before getting it right and passing that trial."

"So, theoretically, you could make any type of scroll that you could imagine?" I asked, to which Diane hesitated, eventually nodding her head.

"Hypothetically, it's possible. However, after a certain point, the puzzle difficulty becomes too severe. With my skill, I can somewhat reliably make scrolls equivalent to intermediate-tier skills if they are related to shadows or poison. Otherwise, I can only have reliable success with basic-tier skill scrolls. If I take too long solving the puzzle, the scroll simply burns up."

Hearing this, I was quite surprised. I had expected the scrolls to have a fair bit more use to them. And, admittedly, while it was nice to have the freedom to create whatever type of scroll she wanted, this seemed like a crafting skill that would only really be viable if trained to a very high level. Though, that said, I might have been looking at it wrong.

Her own Rune Writing skill was just intermediate-tier. It would be unreasonable to expect her to be able to create scrolls with effects surpassing that, just like I wouldn't expect a blacksmith to be able to easily craft above their skill level.

With that thought in mind, I nodded my head, continuing along the way to Falconlot. However, along the way, I noticed the sand in the surroundings begin to pick up, rising to form a rushing wall of sand. Gritting my teeth, I realized that this was Ilsan's infamous surprise sandstorm. "Diane, can the bike withstand this?" I asked. Though I could project a barrier around the bike, I wasn't sure if that would be able to help against such fine particles, since apparently completely sealing the exhaust was a bad thing.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"I don't know for sure." She hesitated, before shaking her head. "It's better not to risk it. Let's just stop here for tonight."

I let out a long, sullen sigh, driving the bike down towards the ground and dismounting, putting the bike back in my inventory. "Let's try not to wander. If we move too far away from this spot, we might be off-course when we continue in the morning."

Diane nodded her head, pulling her hood down over her face to offer at least a little more protection, while I created a thin barrier around myself. The sandstorm raged around us, preventing us from setting up a proper camp. The most that I could do was create an angled barrier to protect us from being constantly blasted. "You try to rest first." I told her, since we didn't know how long the sandstorm would last. "I've got to stay awake to maintain the shield… and shift it if we start to get buried."

Diane's brow twitched when she heard that, looking at the storm raging just outside the barrier. Unfortunately, there were no caves nearby, no structures where we could find shelter. We were dozens of kilometers from anything, so the best that she could do was nod, pulling out her sleeping bag and unrolling it on the sand.

As she laid down, I saw the brand on her forehead dim, and her Chosen glanced at me for a moment before closing her eyes. "Wake me up if the storm passes, and I'll take watch." She promised, but I didn't respond.

It was surprisingly difficult to create a barrier against this sandstorm. I had to deal with constant assaults from all sides, shifting its shape every few minutes to ensure that it wasn't covered. Not to mention the sheer noise of it. I wonder if I could combine Ghost-X with Martial Intent-X to create a stealth field? I thought to myself in annoyance, if for no other reason than to block out all the sound.

At the same time, I had to watch out for any monsters lurking in the sand. To be safe, I extended the barrier beneath us to give us a solid floor, just to make sure that there weren't going to be any scorpions or anything trying to crawl into Diane's sleeping bag.

If she actually manages to get any rest in this situation, I will be amazed. I thought to myself, my eyes looking up at the sandstorm. With the cloud of sand obscuring vision, it was hard to see anything normally. However, I thought I saw a shadow in the distance.

Wanting to make sure that there wasn't a monster approaching, I activated Detective Analysis to get a better look. When I did, I was so startled that I almost dropped the barrier protecting us from the storm.

The faint shadow that I had seen turned out to be just the tip of its claw. With Detective Analysis, I saw a massive shadow that stretched high into the sky. This sandstorm was no natural occurrence. It surrounded the monster's body like protective armor, turning it into a walking weather pattern.

Briefly panicking, I adjusted the barrier around us, allowing it to be quickly submerged beneath a full layer of sand. If that thing spotted us, it would be an express trip back to the Broken Sands. I had absolutely no desire to face something so high level that I couldn't even analyse it properly.

After a few minutes, Diane's chosen cracked an eye open, noticing that the interior of the barrier had turned dark, all traces of outside light blocked by the growing layer of sand. "Drake?" She asked in concern, but I quickly whispered for her to be quiet, sending her a message through private chat instead.

There is a massive monster outside called a Desert Emperor. I'm guessing that it is a world boss. This whole sandstorm is just because it's passing nearby. I adjusted the barrier to hide us from him.

Diane's eyes widened slightly when she heard that, and she nodded her head. Good call. But, do we have enough air in this little space?

I bit my lip at that, looking back in the direction where I had seen the monster. To keep us as safe as possible, I projected a tube shape through the barrier on the opposite side from where I saw it, letting it pierce through the layer of sand. This caused the sounds of the storm outside to echo in our sealed chamber once again, but at least we weren't going to suffocate. And, on the bright side, the sand was somewhat insulating this space, preventing it from cooling down too much at night.

Hopefully, it leaves the area, or goes back to sleep soon. I thought to myself, remembering how the sandstorm started. If it was truly just something that traveled with the boss monster, we would have seen it coming. However, instead, it was something that just appeared in front of us. From what I could assume, the Desert Emperor had been slumbering along our path, probably beneath the sand itself, and just woke up as we were driving nearby.

Yet, despite my hopes, the sandstorm continued to rage. I even had to continue extending our breathing tube just because more and more sand kept piling up on top of our makeshift shelter. I lost track of time, making sure that we would continue having enough air to breathe, and occasionally using my Detective Analysis to get a look at the situation beyond the newly erected sand dune that we had become.

Eventually, I finally realized what time it was when Diane's player brand lit up again. At that point, I knew that I had been up all night, but the sandstorm had still not completely dissipated. Granted, the intensity had dropped severely, so I didn't think that the Desert Emperor was still in the area.

"She told me what happened." Diane said as she stood up, collecting her bedroll. "What's the situation like outside?"

With a tired nod, I explained. "I think he's gone, and we're just dealing with the aftermath now. If it continues to die down like this, we might be able to leave in just a few minutes, or at most half an hour."

Diane hesitated, but nodded her head in acceptance. "Alright. Once we can, let's get out of here and drive to Falconlot. You can grab an inn room for the day to rest. I should be able to handle the local dungeons with Wyr."

"Are you sure?" I asked, though my voice was somewhat strained due to what seemed like thousands of pounds of sand pressing down on my barrier.

"Yeah. The Falconlot dungeons aren't too high level." She assured me. "And they're more specialized. I don't think Wyr could carry both of us, so I can try to take it on my own. If it really doesn't work, I'll come back and get you."

I gave a small nod of my head. I knew that she was just trying to get me to agree. How low level could the dungeons around here possibly be? I wouldn't be surprised if they were all higher level than Diane herself. However, if she was this confident, I wanted to let her try. If she succeeded, this would be a good chance for her to level up, something that she hasn't been able to do much since we began our travels together. In the worst case, if she failed, I would just help her later.

Once the sandstorm died down, I focused and made the barrier around us expand, pushing all of the sand off of us. Then, pulling the bike back out, we hopped on and continued our drive. It was only then that I realized that today was Thursday, meaning that Diane was later than usual logging on, and we had been stuck in that storm until nearly noon…