Magic Made Simple

Chapter 9: A Slightly Unhinged Crafter

The camp was quite active the next morning. It had been 3 days now since the tutorial began, and the general feeling of panic over our entire situation was starting to calm down a bit. It was amazing how fast people could get used to something like this.

According to Ben, we have almost a thousand people here at the camp now, and we knew of a few other camps that had even more people. Groups this large could rarely live in harmony, and sure enough there had been more than one fight that had broken out by this point.

I had been woken up when two particularly rowdy men were shouting at one another over who would get the last available bed roll. I can't say exactly how long it was since I'd gone to sleep, but I felt fully rested. I could just give mine up and end this fight pretty quickly.

As I was folding up the bedroll, the first punch was thrown. Both men were classed as fighters as shown by the swords at their waists. They seemed to be about the same level too, as they seemed pretty evenly matched when it came to strength. Punch after punch came in from each other, and I was beginning to think I should probably intervene.

As one of the men was about to pull out said sword and escalate the conflict, I was quickly at his side with my hand on his shoulder. Both men seemed to have a look of shock at the speed I'd moved at.

"No need to go that far." I say, holding out my bedroll. "Just take it and go."

There was a brief moment where I thought he would fight back against this, but he seemed to calm down enough to see reason after a few seconds. He snatched it from my hands and walked off. The other fighter shot me a dirty look, but also walked off after taking the last free bedroll.

I should probably go find Ben. This could have been really bad if I hadn't gotten involved, and I had a feeling this was far from the last time someone would be drawing a weapon in camp.

"I just don't know how we can keep this from happening." He'd said after I'd brought it up. "The people starting these fights are a higher level than our guards since they've actually gone up to the second floor and done some fighting."

"I think the solution is pretty obvious." I say. "You just need the general population to be a higher level."

Ben's face turns to one of confusion. "How would that help? Wouldn't that just worsen the problem?"

"Well the people causing the problems are already a higher level than most, so if you encourage people to raise their own level they would be able to defend themselves better, or at least be intimidating enough to deter others from attacking."

"So what you want us to do is tell people to go out and risk their lives fighting so that they can be safer? That doesn't seem like the best idea."

"Tell me, who is the highest leveled healer we have in camp?" I ask.

"Jeremy. He's level seven now."

"Has he gone up to the second floor at all?"

"Well, no. But he was focusing on healing, just like his class says to."

"I think you are missing the point. Leveling up does not require fighting at all. My last level before my evolution had been gained from improving my skills. Others can likely do the same. Hell, nothing really says that our level is directly tied to our class. I'd be willing to bet that the people making those bed rolls have leveled up at least once just from doing that. Imagine if people start making armor or weapons. They'd be gaining levels without having to ever draw blood, and I'd wager that they would probably get a non combat focused class upon evolving."

"I..." Ben trails off. "I am going to need to do some asking around." He says. "I'll get back to you on this."

He walks away shortly after, leaving me alone in the crowd. It's right at that moment that I realize I forgot to ask if anybody was actually trying their hand at crafting. I would have liked to have some better armor than just this crappy robe.