Izzy, Chapter 7: All Levels Are Equal, But… Actually, Some Levels Are Just Way Better (Patreon)

In the time-honored tradition of LitRPGs everywhere, here's an entire chapter dedicated to leveling up!

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[Unassigned Class levels: 1. Note: Class levels gained before unlocking additional Classes can only be assigned to your first Class.

Assign 1 level to Goblin Shaman?]

It was still dumb for the squiggles to even ask. “Yeah, yeah,” Izzy muttered. “Do it and let's get to the good stuff!”

She didn't know how, but she knew that there was something good waiting for her at level 5.

[Your Class Goblin Shaman has reached level 5!

New Direction available!

New Non-Class Skill slot available!

New Class Skill slot available for Class: Goblin Shaman!

New spell slot available for Skill: Plant Magic!]

Izzy cheered and kicked and squirmed and giggled with excitement. She knew it! She'd known that there was good stuff waiting for her, and she’d been right! And all she had to do was to survive, and rescue that rude little ball of bug feed. What had Caj been on about, “Levels aren’t something you just get?” Getting levels was easy!

She had no idea what a Direction was, so she ignored that for now, but the rest was all good stuff.

“Give me Skills!” she commanded the squiggles. “Give me spells, too! What do I get?”

[Unlocked Non-Class Skills:]

A bunch of lines appeared in front of Izzy, more than she could count — which admittedly wasn't too high. Her eyes bounced around them wildly, each line gaining meaning for as long as she looked at it. There were all kinds of Skills on there! She started fiddling with her necklace, the clicking and clacking helping her think.

She knew what some of them were. Like Sneaking and Tumbling, which were both interesting, or Numbers, which didn't interest her at all. Then there were middling ones that would probably be useful, but not much fun, like Cooking or the general Handicrafts. Others she wasn't sure what they were, like Runes. But one Skill stood out to her, something she remembered loving to do both with other goblins, and with the winds and birds and fellow aurai.

She looked at the Skill for details, and it was perfect.

[Dancing: An important part of many religious traditions and magical rituals, Dancing is also a common form of recreation in many, if not most sapient cultures. As a Skill, Dancing improves your ability to keep time and remember and perform complex steps and figures, and to improvise dances. The Skill also affects your general grace of movement, improving your agility, precision, and balance while moving.

Do you wish to select this Skill?]

“Yes!”

Izzy felt the Skill take hold. It was a very strange sensation. Muscles twitched and rippled, and for a moment the whole inside of her head was terribly itchy. Then everything went back to normal, and a new list of squiggles appeared. This list was a lot shorter, and she made sure to look at all of them.

[Unlocked Skills for Class: Goblin Shaman:

Circle Leader

Healer

Herbalist

Tradition of Nature

Tradition of the Shepherd

Tradition of the Spirits

Tradition of War

Fire Magic

Death Magic

Poison Magic

Wild Magic

Wind Magic]

Again, some of those interested her. Herbalist was all about which plants were tasty and useful. She wasn't sure what the Traditions did, but there was one called Tradition of the Spirits, and she was a spirit herself. Mostly, anyway. Wild Magic sounded like it might be fun. And Fire Magic? Who wouldn't love throwing fire around, making fire bigger, making it go where you wanted? Making things burn? She could see the spider curling up before her into a charred husk, or the… well, she wasn't sure what humans lived in. Tents, maybe? She could see their tents burning as she laughed and they all ran around in a panic.

But when she got to Wind Magic, nothing else mattered.

[Wind Magic: A staple among the mages of wide open places, Wind Magic trades versatility for doing a few things very well. Focused on breath and control, Wind Magic also offers spells for weather manipulation, and travel, most famously the flight spell. When used innately, the skill allows the caster to create and manipulate gusts of wind. Improved effectiveness and efficiency per level.

Do you wish to select this Skill?]

Izzy sat bolt upright as she took in the description. She felt a sudden, deep need, like she was missing a piece of herself and had a chance to get it back. “Wind! Wind Magic!” she exclaimed, a near frantic urgency in her voice, as though she might miss her chance if she wasn't fast enough. “Take it! Give it to me! Now!”

There was the same sensation of her whole head tingling, like when your foot woke up after you sat on it for too long. And then it was gone.

All but paralyzed by anticipation, Izzy held out her hand. With a small effort of will, as familiar to her as breathing, she sent some of her gathered leaves dancing on a gust of whirling wind.

Nearby birds fled their roosts in panic as Izzy exploded from her nest, giggling and squealing and dancing like a mad marten among the leaves that hung in the air around her. Her dress and necklace swung wildly around her as she twirled and jumped and sent gusts of air every which way, making branches wave and leaves rustle as she whooped and cheered.

This was right. She was meant to be able to do this. It was a part of who she was, and now that she had it back, she realized that she’d spent the last day and night missing something as important to her as one of her hands or feet. She could remember doing just this in the fall, her and her sisters making great whorls of leaves and dancing and laughing among them.

What was an aura without wind?

Finally she wore herself out and crawled back into her nest, panting and sweaty. She lay down on her back, staring up into the darkness of the tree, and grinned. Now all she needed was that flying spell, and all would be right with the world again.

Once she’d gathered her scattered tribe and taken vengeance on the humans, of course. That felt very important, too.

The squiggles had waited politely, and now that she’d finished celebrating they returned.

[Unlocked spells for Plant Magic: 

Animate Plants

Bountiful Harvest

Bramble Growth

Return to Earth

Tree Sprout

Specialize: Create Vineling

Specialize: Healing Roots]

“Eh?” Izzy muttered. “What’s Specialize mean?”

[Specializing in a spell means that you forgo selecting a new spell in favor of enhancing a spell that you already have.]

“Whoa!” Izzy leapt back in surprise as the squiggles answered her. “You talk?”

There was no reply. Maybe it only answered her about things like what Specializing was?

That was a mystery for another day. For now, she needed to pick a spell. Or make one better, maybe. And then there was that Direction thing…

Since there were so few options, and none of them jumped out at her like Dance or Wind Magic had, she took a careful look at each one.

Animate Plants sounded fun, but she wasn't sure how good it would be. It let her control plants almost like they were a vineling, except that they couldn't go anywhere. Bountiful Harvest made the plants in an area immediately produce fruits or nuts or whatever their seedy bits were, but she didn't have any trouble finding enough food. Bramble Growth made a big bramble grow. That was about it, but she could see how that had been useful. It was a blackberry bramble that had let her escape from the humans, after all. Return to Earth made plants in an area wither and die, clearing the ground and turning them into nutritious dirt for new plants to grow in. And finally, Tree Sprout made a… tree sprout. You could choose the kind of tree, but how big the tree got depended on how much mana you could put into it. Izzy didn't have that much, she didn't think, and what was she going to with a bunch of extra trees in a forest, anyway?

The specialization were tricky. Specialize: Healing Roots, for example, said:

[Specialize: Healing Roots

Choose one:

Rapid Regrowth: Increases the rate of healing and mana efficiency of the spell, resulting in more healing in the same time at the same cost, or full healing in less time, at a lower cost.

Simultaneous Regrowth: Allows the spell to target multiple creatures at once. Number of maximum targets increases with level.

Partial Regrowth: Allows the caster to choose a fraction of their available mana to be used, rather than consuming all available mana if target cannot be fully healed.]

Specialize: Create Vineling had similar options: making the vineling stronger, making the spell cheaper to cast and maintain, or allowing the creation of multiple vinelings. It was still one per cast, but Izzy would be able to cast it as many times as she could afford.

It quickly came down to the brambles, or one of the specializations. That then became a choice between the brambles, Partial Regrowth for Healing Roots, or cheaper vinelings, so that she could keep one around more easily.

She hemmed and hawed about it, then took another look at Bramble Growth.

[Bramble Growth: a tall and dense bramble rapidly grows in the targeted area. The brambles are mature and will immediately bear fruit, regardless of the season, but their growth is affected by the available nutrients and moisture in the surrounding soil. The brambles are thorny, and will attempt to wrap around and climb anything in the affected area, animal, plant, or mineral. Increased largest affected area and mana efficiency per level.]

That did it. This would let her create her own little safe space in the forest. It could help her stop that big mana eating spider from moving, so that she could kill it. And it would provide her with all the berries she could eat, which was more of an extra, but a very nice one!

“I want Bramble Growth,” she told the squiggles, and she felt the spell burrow into her head, just like the skills had.

It was pretty exciting, and she was curious about trying it out, but it could wait until morning. Bramble Growth was no Wind Magic, after all.

That left only this Direction thing, which she had no memory of at all. She couldn’t remember ever hearing the word at all. But when she’d asked about specializing the squiggles had answered her, so why not now? “What is a Direction?” she asked.

[Directions are permanent modifications to a person’s future development options. Once selected, a Direction influences the development of most characteristics, as well as which Classes, Evolutions, and Non-Class Skills are available, and which Quests will be offered. A Direction can be chosen every four major total levels.]

“Uh… okay.” Here was something else she’d never heard about “What’s a major level?”

[Major levels are levels one, two, three, five, eight, thirteen, twenty-one, thirty-four, and so on.]

And so on? What the hell did it mean, “and so on?” Thirty-four was a very large number, and very far off, but what was the next major level after that? Was it supposed to be obvious, somehow?

Maybe this was what the Numbers Skill was for? It seemed like a huge waste, though.

“Okay,” she said, annoyed with the squiggles’ unhelpfulness. “What Directions are there?”

[Unlocked Directions:

Goblin

Priest

Mage

Survivalist]

Well, she was a goblin, so that was the obvious choice. But Mage sounded like magic, and Survivalist had survive in the name, and she liked both of those. It would be hard to choose. And since that only left Priest, she might as well take a closer look at that one, too, just in case it was more interesting than it sounded.

[Goblin: You’re a goblin. You’re sneaky, hard to kill, can eat almost anything, and don’t give a fig about anyone or anything outside of your tribe. This Direction provides you with a direct benefit to your constitution and will help you become stealthier and hardier, while making more advanced Goblin classes available. Note: as a goblin, this Direction is]

The squiggles cut off there. Weird.

[Priest: Priests tend to the religious needs of their congregation, acting as intermediaries between the gods and their worshippers. This Direction provides direct benefits in many social and scholarly pursuits, as well as making more priest and priest-hybrid Classes available.

Mage: Wizards, sorcerers, enchantresses, witches and warlocks and spellcasters of other kinds; through the correct and sometimes creative use of magic, they shape and change the world, for better or for worse. This Direction provides a direct benefit to your mana pool and regeneration, as well as helping you in many scholarly pursuits and making more advanced and exciting mage and mage-hybrid Classes available.

Survivalist: You’re the cockroach equivalent of whatever your species is. You can, or can at least make a convincing attempt to, survive in almost any conditions and in any environment. This Direction provides a direct benefit in making you more resilient to damage, disease, poison, thirst and hunger, as well as the effects of extreme temperatures and weather. It also unlocks skills and Classes related to wilderness survival.]

Mage immediately stood out. More mana meant more magic. It was as easy as that. But she needed to be careful. It would be many levels before she got another Direction, if it was even possible to get that high, and she could just pick whatever looked shiniest without giving it some thought. She’d have to sleep on it, she decided. Maybe even talk about it with the naiads, or with Caj’s Gram, who was presumably old and wise.

Besides — and she was proud that she remembered this before picking — the squiggles had told her that she could get new directions from Quests and achievements. Maybe she should save it until she’d killed the spider and finished her Mother Oak Quest?

Yeah, she should definitely sleep on it. With that thought, Izzy spent all of her mana to create a bramble in front of the crack in her tree. In the space of a few seconds tall, thorny vines grew from the soil, blocking the entrance completely.

For the first time since she woke up, Izzy felt safe and comfortable. She snuggled into her nest of leaves, hugged her knees to her chest, and went to sleep.