Ch. 2 My First Rift

Explaining what happened to my wife took almost an hour. Once I had though she sighed softly "So you're not hurt?" I shook my head. I was scratching Bella between the ears, I didn't even realize I was doing it until my wife said something "So what are you going to do with that oversized raccoon?"

I looked down and I could swear I saw Bella grinning up at me and the feelings coming through were 'let's hunt something'. I chuckled for a moment then looked over at my wife, "Lynette honey, I want to be a Rift Breaker and Bella will be my Animal Companion. Just like in Dungeons and Dragons like when I used to play with my buddies."

I readied myself for her to yell, for her to get angry and so did Bella. Then she sighed and caught me completely unaware "Whatever you want to do honey, I'll support it. You just better make sure you're safe. I don't want the kids growing up without a father." her response floored me.

Sure she's told me this before, as long as I'm happy and safe she doesn't mind. But this time I'd literally be throwing myself into danger. Why did my wife have to be so infuriatingly calm about this. "My biggest question is how are we going to get around now?" she asked.

I smacked my forehead and pulled out the note I had written from the insurance company "Geico said to call this number and give them this reference number and they will send us a loaner car until the claim goes through. Then they'll send us the money to total the car." I said as I handed her the note.

She nodded and got on the phone. Meanwhile I finally decided to check out the blinking 'Notification' that had been bugging me while I explained everything to my wife. When I looked at it it pulled up a character sheet that wasn't mine.

Bella (Animal Companion, Dire Raccoon)

Level: 1

STR: 22

DEX: 20

CON: 20

INT: 6

WIS: 10

CHA: 8

HP: 420

MP: 160

SKILLS:

Dig LV 1: Allows the Dire Raccoon to dig at a speed of five feet per 6 seconds. For every 10 levels will allow the Dire Raccoon 5 more feet of dig speed per six seconds.

Multi-Attack LV 1: Allows the Dire Raccoon to attack with all 4 claws at once as it is considered an animal for all attacking purposes. Each claw does STR + DEX as damage + 3 damage per skill level.

Holy crap. She was a beast, both literally and figuratively. I mean her strength, dexterity amd constitution were almost double what mine were. This was going to be awesome. First thing I did was I had Bella assert dominance on her brothers. Then I put her brothers back in their box and asked my wife "Do you mind if we keep them?" She groaned and looked in the box and I could see her revulsion turn into amusement "Sure, but what would they eat?" I grinned "Literally anything".

The car arrived 2 hours later and when it did I kissed my wife "Alright honey. I'm off to the local IRBA office." I said as I turned towards the front door. She walked up and whispered in my ear "If you get home early enough, maybe I can help you increase your endurance." the thought that there was no END on my character sheet before I realized what she meant went through my head and I blushed.

She kissed me on the cheek and I walked out the door, Bella in tow. I opened the door and Bella jumped in, sitting on the passenger seat. I climbed in second and grabbed the keys out of the center console, then turned on the car.

It sounded better than mine did and it felt less choppy as I gave it gas. Using google maps and the GPS I found the local IRBA office. I pulled into the packed parking lot and it took almost 20 minutes to find a parking spot. As soon as I did though I got out of the car, Bella on my heels.

When I got to the door two guards were standing there and nodded to me as they scanned Bella. The one on the right spoke up "Interesting choice for Animal Companion. I woulda went with a pit bull myself." then I smiled "She kinda grew on me, besides her brothers are waiting at home for me to raise the skill and add them to the group." the man nodded and chuckled "How many Rifts so far?"

When he asked that I shrugged "None so far. I'm here to register." he looked at me oddly for a moment so I explained what happened last night and this morning. He laughed when I told him my wife's reaction. "Do you know how many married men we have registered here that go on maybe one raid a year?" I nodded "I could imagine. I thought my wife would argue til she got her point but no, she doesn't mind. I kind of felt deflated." he nodded back.

He opened the door for me and said "Welcome to the Rift Breakers." and I walked inside, thanking him. The building was even bigger on the inside than it was on the outside. There was a huge entryway, with three long desks in front of three connecting hallways. The first hallway was the Registration and Re-Assesement hallway. The second was the Guild Registration and Guild Offices hallway. The third was the Executives Only hallway.

Since I came to register I walked over to the Registration desk and waited in line. There was a much younger kid standing in front of me. He had long blonde hair that he kept in a ponytail, peach fuzz on his chin and under his nose as well as a small and very lean physique. When he turned around and saw Bella sniffing his leg his eyes widened "Kick ass bro, you got a Dire Raccoon. Man I want one so bad they look gnarly".

I chuckled for a moment "Yeah she is wicked gnarly bro." Thon I gave him a short explanation of how I killed the Goblin, which he laughed at and then everything else that transpired. "Well shit man, you've got me beat. My Mana stone only gave me the skill Healing Hands. I figure since I'm like below average in like strength and stuff that i'd just focus on magic. Maybe I'll adopt a pet like you did." I smiled and nodded "then you could focus on magic while they tank."

He nodded at that and heard "Next". Since he was next in line he turned around and said to me before walking off "Hope we run into each other again bro". I replied "Definitely man, I'm Odellin by the way." He responded with the name Chuck.

When it was finally my turn, this line definitely moved too slow, I walked up to the counter. "Place your dominant hand on the device" an elderly lady almost croaked at me. I say almost because her voice sounded like it was going to break at any time.

When I placed my hand on the round stone set into an intricately carved piece of bronze a holographic display popped up. It had mine and Bella's character sheets right there. She instantly started clacking away at the keyboard. Her fingers moved quickly for a woman whose hair had turned grey years ago.

When she was done typing down all the relevant info she looked up at me and pushed a tablet up to me "Type in your phone number and location where you would like to hunt". I looked at the tablet for a moment and asked "Do I have to choose where I live or can I choose somewhere else?" she shrugged "Doesn't matter where you choose as long as you can get there within an hour."

I went ahead and chose Columbus as my main hunting ground and put my phone number in the system. "Very well. We will give you a call as soon as a rift opens that is within your abilities." She said and handed me a laminated badge on a small chain necklace. "Don't lose this necklace or badge. Replacements are 30 dollars a piece." I nodded and walked away. I was tempted to go to the guild offices, but decided not to. After all I was a noob and nobody invited noobs to their guild.

As I was looking around for a Taco Bell my phone started buzzing. It was an unknown number, but I picked it up anyways. "This is Thomas Cromwell from the IRBA calling. Am I speaking to an Odellin Hoondai?" I chuckled for a second "Yes this is him". "Oh good, we have a new Rift opening within the next hour at the corner of corner of ### and @@@". I nodded and put the address in my GPS and said "I'll be there in ten minutes." Hanging up I looked at Bella for a moment "Well girl, it's our first Rift."

Fifteen minutes later, mostly because of traffic , I finally arrived at the spot. The Rift itself was pretty big, about ten feet tall and fifteen feet wide. When I got there I pulled my badge out from under my shirt and walked up to a group of 7 guys and girls standing around.

One of them noticed me, then looked down at Bella and grinned "Now that's a big Raccoon. I'm Tyrone." he held out his hand for me to shake. I grabbed his hand and shook it. Tyrone was at least half a foot taller than me at my 5'10" height. His skin was more brown than black and he had a shaved head with a close cropped beard.

He shook my hand while looking at my badge "Level 1 huh? Alright. So Im the leader of today's raid. I see from the info on your badge you have the spell Force Missile right?" I nodded and he smiled "Alright so I'll have you in the back and you hit anything you can see before it gets to us. What damage does it do right now?"

I instantly pulled up my character sheet.

Name: Odellin Hundai

Level: 1

Str: 12

Dex: 9

Con: 11

Int: 10

Wis: 12

Cha: 12

HP: 230

MP: 220

STA: 110

SKILLS:

One-handed - 1

Two-handed - 1

Survival - 3

Evocation - 6

SPELLS:

Force Missile

When I saw my evocation skill at 6 my eyes widened for a second. Then I remembered Bella's mom and grinned. "16 damage per missile for the moment." Tyrone nodded. "So Goblins don't have a lot of health, the average having about 250 to 300 health." I looked at my own health "But I only have 230 myself." Tyrone nodded and chuckled "You're still only level 1, Don't worry your raccoon and I will keep you safe."

I chuckled as I was brought to the rest of the group. Tyrone was the tank of the group having the highest strength and constitution. The only other one that really caught my attention was our marksman. He had a 9mm Glock 17 with a silencer attached to it. When I asked him about his gun he responded "My first skill was a skill called Multishot and I realized it could be used with my Glock. So I bought a silencer so we don't all go deaf and use this now."

"Don't bullets get expensive?" he grinned "I don't use bullets anymore. I have a skill called Spirit arrow and it translates into bullets. Basically I can spend 1 Mana per shot and my bullets are made of Mana. It still sounds like a gunshot so I keep the silencer." I nodded, impressed at his skills. "What about you?"

"Bella here is my Animal Companion and I have a spell called Force Missile. It's only level 6 right now so it doesn't do a lot of damage yet." he nodded "Wait til your Evocation hits level 16, your damage should be double." I looked at him with a confused expression and he explained. "With Evocation spells, every new rank allows for increasing the damage. So it goes like this with all skills. Level 1-15 is Apprentice rank, 16-30 is Artisan rank, 31-60 is Journeyman, 61-90 is Adept and 91-100 is Master. right now you do 1x damage. at Artisan it'll be 2x damage. At Journeyman 3x damage. Adept is 4x damage and Master is 5x damage."

I assume my eyes were lighting up because he grinned and said, "Don't get too excited, once you hit Journeyman its hard to level up your skills. It takes a lot more effort and kills." I nodded to myself and he held out his hand. "William Hudnall." I took his hand and shook it "Odellin Hundai." I finally looked at him properly and noticed he too was shaved bald, but his beard was almost as long as mine, which was 4 inches long. He was about 6'2" tall and broad shouldered.