I came to in the back of what looked like an ambulance. There were no wailing sirens, but I was lying down. There were bright lights overhead and a friendly-looking person looking down at me that I didn’t remember. I shut my eyes tightly before reopening them; no, this was not a dream. “Welcome back to the land of the living, Mr. Cassland. You gave us quite a scare a few hours ago when you collapsed outside of a building next to a few of your friends.”

  What was she talking about? I remember saying we needed to leave. I remember eating some trail mix. Then I checked on my level up. I selected yes on completing it, and then I didn’t remember anything else. “Did I pass out?”

  “Yes, you did. We got you hooked up to some IV fluids. You were dehydrated from all your exertions. You’re in a commandeered ambulance. We’ll let your friends know that you are awake again.” I finally got a good look at the woman, now that my vision wasn’t blurry. She was in her mid to late twenties, with black hair and dark eyes. She had this mild amusement playing across her lips. It must be funny to her that I passed out, though I have been known to be wrong on reading women from time to time.

  I tried playing back the events again: eat the trail mix, wanting to leave, complete the level up, then nothing. Fuck, I leveled up. “You said I passed out. What was the cause?”

  “Dehydration and empty stomach. We’ve been using an IV to push fluids into you. It is like you had a deficit of calories that your body needed. What magic hit you?”

  “2 level ups in the same day, with only breakfast and few tiny snacks.”

  “Interesting. We are going to have to do more checking on people when they level up. Something during the process is potentially causing this.”

  “Well, I’m going to close my eyes and check my level up.” I had already decided to do it, but it is polite to let the doctor know.

  Neal Cassland    Human

  Level: 3        11% to next level

  Affinities: Intelligence, Charisma, Knowledge, Law, Politics

  Current Class: Legislative Aide      Lvl 3/5

  Str 3; Agi 3; Con 4; Int 5; Wis 3; Cha 5; Health 9/33; Mana 4/11

  Abilites: (2/5) Identify; Mana Reinforcement 1 Class Ability: Assess

  Caster Level: 3       Ability Effect Level: 3

  Skills of Note: Pistols 2; Rifles 2; Running 4; Hunting 3; Fishing 2; History 3; Public Speaking 3; Law 4; Persuasion 4; Command 1; Mana-Recovery 1; Perception 1

  I picked up 6 health, perception at the first tier, caster and effect level, and my status now shows said levels. I still had no clue what caster level meant, though the wand details suggested that caster level mattered when overcoming magic resistance. My assess could potentially be resisted by magic resistance, and I guess Identify could by artifacts and intelligent items. Not sure when we are going to run into one of those. That reminded me that I needed to identify the ring, as I had promised Dennis I would. Though I couldn’t feel my backpack on my back. I opened my eyes to see myself, once again, looking up at the doctor. I started pushing my body into a sitting position and found the doctor moving half of the gurney into a more upright position. I finally found myself sitting upright and looked around. “Where’s my backpack?”

  She reached behind the gurney and pulled my backpack up and placed it gently in my lap. “This backpack? Your friends said you would need it once you woke up. Something about you having a job to do.” There was that smirk again.

  I fished the ring out of the backpack and went to work. Activating Identify was the same as last time, though the process lasted longer that previously. It was easily 2 or 3 minutes before I had finished. The runes that lit up on the ring twisted around the outside and inside of the ring, making whatever script it had within it indecipherable.

  Traveller’s Ring of Storage

  These rings were produced in large numbers nearly a thousand years ago by the Traveller’s Cult. It was a smuggler’s ring masquerading as religious pilgrims. Every member carried one of these rings. There used to be magic on these rings supported by a massive ritual that made them immune to Detect Magic, Identify, and most other divination spells. Once the Smuggler’s ring was exposed the anti-divination magic faded from the rings. To this day, several thousand such rings are in circulation for their storage capacity. Some of the rings still retain their anti-divination protections, however this is not one of them.

  Capacity for this particular ring is an extradimensional space of 10 meters cubed. The items in the extradimensional space add no additional weight to the wearer of the ring. Anything in the extradimensional space does not age and comes out in the same condition it entered. Living creatures cannot be placed in the ring, either in whole or in part.

  Holy Crap! This is fantastic. That is a ton of storage capacity. I wanted so desperately to put the ring on that I couldn’t resist. I slid the ring on and waited. Nothing happened. I closed my eyes and thought about inventory. After a few seconds a new menu appeared, well more of a list really.

  Tent

  30 meters of hemp rope

  20 pieces of instant firewood

  Large cooking platform

  4 warming plates

  35 various warm meals in bowls

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  1 large pot of meat stew

  4 bags of gems

  6 blankets

  2 bags of potatoes

  4 sides of raw meat

  Travel Spice Cabinet

  1 spellbook

  3 books

  3 cases of wine

  2 casks of ale

  6 barrels of fresh water

  2 bottles of other liquor

  And the list went on for a bit. It was a space 10 meters in height, width, and depth. That is a massive chunk of storage, and I had no easy way to sort all of this. I couldn’t empty the ring right here. I did not want the military to have this. But if every soldier was equipped with a lesser version of this, then they wouldn’t carry a hundred pounds of gear. I can see them confiscating this in hopes of recreating it in some fashion. However, we would never ever see the benefits ourselves. I also don’t trust the colonel to even do the research. This is someone’s personal storage, or for that of a group. I want someone to reverse engineer this, but I am not sure I can sacrifice it in the meantime.

  That use of Identify should put me at 1 mana, so I should have the extra mana I need in less than an hour and a half. I looked over to the doctor, “So how far from St. Louis are we?”

  “We should be most of the way there. We have reached the spot where Interstates 64 and 70 split. I hope that means we make it to Chesterfield Missouri in the next 30 minutes or so.” I understood why she used that landmark. The spot where I-64 and I-70 either split or combine, depending on perspective, is a solid landmark for people familiar with their interstate highway system.

  “It took 3 hours to go about 50 miles? Was there a lot of fighting? Did we run into any portals? Did my friends get dragged into each of the fights?”

  “Yes it took that long. I know there were lots of fights; no there weren’t portals that I am aware of, and not aware of your friends being required to participate. I’m going to let you know now that I won’t be able to answer all your questions. I have been in here with you for the most part and had limited access to communication.”

  Her last few sentences struck me hard. I needed to fully know what was going on. This whole situation was more than just not ideal; it was extremely problematic. I turned to her and nodded, “I understand you don’t have all the answers and it will probably be some time before we have them. I am willing to wait until we get to where are supposed to stop. Where is that by the way?”

  “Chesterfield mall is where we are placing our command center. Easy access to the interstate and a myriad of other roads. Massive parking lot and a building that had lots of open space. I’ll convert an entire department store to a field hospital. This is the small part of doomsday prep that is fun, converting something that would never be used as a hospital into one.” She was very animated about the idea of turning a shopping mall into a hospital. Oh well, we all have at least one strange fantasy.

  Something else was bugging me. This was something more immediate to me and the world around me. My mana bar had not dropped back down to 1 from 4. It was sitting at 2. The math wasn’t mathing. I closed my eyes and dug into different screens. I found the answer under caster level:

  Caster Level: 3

  At caster level 3 the costs for Tier 0 abilities cost 1, Tier 1 cost 2, and when the user gains other, higher tier abilities, those adjusted costs will be revealed as well. Advancing Caster level will continue to slowly lower casting cost.

  Caster level also directly impacts the ability to overcome magic resistance. The higher the caster level the greater the chance of overcoming said resistance, up to and including automatically overriding said resistance.

  Caster level makes costs go down! Holy crap. That’s the missing piece of the mana puzzle. It explains why our mana pools don’t need to increase exponentially. Costs will go down. I wonder if they go down to 0. Spells for no cost. Spamming spells all day long. These are dreams and fantasies of budding wizards. I went digging in my backpack for my walkie talkie. I pulled it into my grip and slapped my thumb down hard on the protrusion that allowed me to speak. “Nora and Billy! I figured it out!”

  “Neal, You’re awake!” Nora’s voice came back across the walkie talkie. A tear fell down my face; damn it was good to hear her voice.

  “Yes, I am. I figured it out!” I was just far too excited and single minded.

  “Figured what out?” I could hear her, but also lots of voices in the background.

  “Caster level. Where are you Nora?”

  “I’m in the command vehicle. Frank and Billy are in military medical carriers, Joe, Dennis, and the twins are with them. They have soldiers driving our SUVs. All that is out of the way, and yes I answered before you asked. What did you figure out about caster level?” She was getting a little agitated now.

  “Caster level makes ability cost go down. I saw the first shift at caster level 3. Tier 1 went down to 2 mana!”

  “Fuck. I was right. I was hoping that was the case.”

  “What the hell, Nora! Do you mean, that you thought this was the case the whole time?”

  “Yes Neal, I did think this was one of a few possibilities. I didn’t exactly expect to see the mana costs drop just yet, but I did have a feeling that they would drop. The others had to do with more abilities that reinforced mana, skills to improve mana recovery, and skills that also potentially lowered cost. Those other possibilities aren’t gone either. We know for a fact that there are passive abilities that increase your mana pool. You have one, after all.” There was even more chatter in the background on her side. The Colonel was very animated. I hated that she was right, but she was. there was no easy way around her being correct.

  “We need people with higher tier abilities so we can see how far reaching the advancement to caster level 3 really is.”

  “The Colonel wants to know that just as badly as we do. He is very curious where we are able to go with this. He sees the benefit of ability costs going down.”

  Dennis’s voice cut us off, “Neal, did you identify my ring yet? It has been plenty of time, and you just said your abilities cost less.”

  I sighed out loud. I didn’t have the button pressed down, so they didn’t hear it, only my doctor. I pressed the button again, “Yes Dennis, I did identify the ring. It should stay with the group, but the magical dagger will go to you as soon as I identify it.”

  “Why? What does it do? Why are you just deciding for everyone?”

  “It isn’t a cool powerful ring that makes you invisible or anything. It is a ring of storage. There are a lot of things inside of it. I hope you understand that it is more definitely something geared towards group benefit. That lupin had weeks of food, water, and travel supplies. He stored a tent in there. And no, I have not checked to see if it is a magical tent.”

  “I still want that ring. I found it.”

  There was a bunch of talking and shouting in the background on Dennis’s end, followed by Billy’s voice, “Dennis, you didn’t find it. You simply looted it before those that were already there had a chance to get to it. You weren’t even involved with the fight. You have as much claim to it as I do, so sit your ass back down and shut your pie hole.” We all heard Dennis shout ‘asshole’ in the background. They were unfortunately in the same transport vehicle. Hopefully it didn’t come to blows.

  “I’m turning this off. I’m going to work on identifying the dagger so that Dennis has that.” I turned the damn radio off and got back to identifying. This time the ability didn’t take nearly as long.

  Ritual Magic Dagger of Sacrifice

  This dagger is issued to all ranked servants of the Demon General Tzan’Tzan. They are used to sacrifice creatures to power various magical weapons and items of war. This magical dagger does increased damage to any target that is restrained or incapacitated.

  This felt fairly straight forward. Nothing has been as simple as dagger +1 though. I guess the system doesn’t like to speak to us in such nitty gritty gaming terms. On the upside I just got the name of one of the Demon Generals involved in earth’s invasion. Assuming that the lupin didn’t get it from someone’s dead body. Oh, this is probably going to cause more questions than answers. When I get enough mana back I will identify the dagger from the second dead spellcaster. But that is a problem for later.