After thinking it over for a bit, Ansel chose Spell Sniper. Range was king.
[Spell Sniper]: General Feat. You gain the following benefits:
「Ability Increase」: Your Charisma increases by 1, to a maximum of 20.
「Ignore Cover」: Your spells are more accurate and ignore half cover and three-quarters cover.
「Close-Quarters Casting」: Being within 5 feet of a hostile creature no longer imposes disadvantage on your spell attacks.
「Extended Range」: When you cast a spell with a range greater than 10 feet, its range increases by at least 60 feet. The actual increase scales with your primary casting ability.
The die suddenly flashed. Ansel shuddered, magical power surging through his body. The dragon scales on his skin gleamed with a stronger metallic sheen, and a wave of insight rose in his mind.
After a long moment, the magic inside him slowly calmed. He came back to himself, itching to try it out.
Having this feat was like switching on a long-range aimbot—if you could see them, you could hit them. Even in melee, your accuracy didn't drop. For any spellcaster, it was a huge power spike.
He reined in his excitement and opened his character sheet. He'd just leveled earlier and still hadn't checked it.
At sorcerer level 2, his HP was now 20—higher than Bratt, a level 2 fighter—and five times that of an average person.
His mana cap had risen to 11, far beyond other casters of the same level.
XP: 772/900. Only 128 more to reach level 3. At sorcerer 3 he'd get access to 2nd-level spells, and the thought alone made him a little excited.
The biggest boost came from two new class features: 「Font of Magic」 and 「Metamagic」.
「Font of Magic」: As a sorcerer, you draw power from the wellspring of magic within you. This transcendent energy can be shaped into various magical effects.
You have 2 sorcery points, and gain more as your class level increases.
Sorcery points and mana can be converted into each other, but turning sorcery points into regular mana incurs additional loss.
「Metamagic」: You have learned to twist your spells. When you cast a spell, you can spend sorcery points to enhance its effects.
…
For now, you can choose 2 of 10 available Metamagic options. As you delve deeper into your innate magic, you'll gain more.
These two features complemented each other, forming the sorcerer's unique signature: Metamagic.
There were ten Metamagic options in total: Careful Spell, Distant Spell, Empowered Spell, Extended Spell, Heightened Spell, Quickened Spell, Seeking Spell, Subtle Spell, Transmuted Spell, and Twinned Spell.
After skimming them, Ansel chose Quickened Spell and Twinned Spell.
Quickened Spell was exactly what it sounded like: casting a spell as an instant action, at the cost of 2 sorcery points each time.
Twinned Spell didn't mean casting two spells at once, but rather choosing an extra creature as a target for the spell you were casting, at the cost of 1 sorcery point each time.
Not every spell could be twinned, though. Multi-target spells like Magic Missile or AoEs like Fireball were ineligible.
Spells like Jump, Chromatic Orb, Command, Charm Person, and most single-target cantrips, however, worked just fine with Twinned Spell.
For now, his pool of sorcery points was too small to use Metamagic as a standard habit—it could only be an emergency trump card.
Satisfied, Ansel hugged his staff and slipped into meditation.
......
He had no idea how much time had passed when a deep boom sounded overhead. A rumble rolled along the ley lines and shook the districts one after another.
Even the surface of the Chionthar rippled.
Ansel jolted awake, rolled over, and sat up—right in time to meet Bratt's horrified gaze.
"Did it collapse again?" His heart hammered in his chest.
Bratt swallowed hard, shook his head, grabbed his sword and pack, and bolted for the door. "Move, move, move—"
Ansel snatched up his backpack and glanced around. No sign of the ranger; the food on the table was still there.
"Grab the food." He opened his pack and started stuffing in jerky and bread, but it wasn't that big and filled up fast.
Seeing that, Bratt flared his bundle open, swept his arm across the table, and dragged the rest of the food straight into it.
The moment they stepped outside, they saw everything was already in chaos—running footsteps, wails, curses, all jumbled together.
Ansel hurried downstairs, pulling out his pocket watch as he went. It was noon—twelve o'clock. They'd rested for two or three hours at most.
The main hall was a wreck. Aside from a few immobile injured and toddlers, everyone else was rushing out.
"Hurry up! Move! Leave here, head to Rivington…" Several young priests were shouting over the din.
Ansel was about to go ask what was happening when he ran straight into Finn, who was fighting his way upstream against the crowd.
"Move!" Finn had clearly come looking specifically for him. He grabbed Ansel's sleeve and dragged him toward the exit.
"What's going on?" Amid the noise, Ansel caught a few words here and there, but didn't dare jump to conclusions.
"The Crowdedside Ward, the Broadstreet Ward, and part of the Temple District all dropped into the Underdark," Finn said quickly.
Ansel's stomach clenched. The Broadstreet and Temple districts were in the Upper City—core territory of Baldur's Gate. Of course the people would be in despair if those had vanished.
But he also noticed how precise Finn's wording was and pressed him: "Dropped into the Underdark? Not collapsed? How do you know that clearly?"
"It told me." Finn stepped out of the church and pointed upward.
The sky had gone strangely dark at some point. A gray eagle circled over the city.
Ansel understood instantly. That had to be Finn's beast companion.
"The districts were yanked straight down, like a giant hand grabbed them. No crumbling, just… gone," Finn added.
"Someone did this," Ansel muttered, frowning, a bad feeling rising in his chest.
"Even so, why is everyone panicking this much?" Bratt looked puzzled.
"The creatures from below are on the move. If we don't run now, it'll be too late," Finn said. Seeing Ansel pause, he reached out again to pull him along.
Ansel couldn't help a wry smile. Finn was weird, but he could feel the ranger meant no harm.
"How many?" Ansel asked.
"Very, very many."
Ansel thought for a moment. "Don't panic. It'll still take them hours to climb up and circle around to us. Let's help the church move their wounded and supplies."
He didn't know how much fighting strength the Flaming Fist had left, but if they meant to hold the creatures back at the fortress, the Church of Last Hope's power couldn't be ignored.
"Okay." Bratt didn't hesitate.
Finn wavered for a moment, then nodded as well.
They rushed back into the hall and saw old priest Borg directing the clergy to evacuate. He wasn't being stubborn—under these circumstances, there was no point trying to hold the church as a last stand.
There was no time for pleasantries. The three of them helped drag out carts and wagons, loading as many wounded and supplies as they could manage before retreating toward Wyrm's Crossing together.
Along the way, Ansel helped Bratt strap on the half-plate. If they ended up fighting, an extra layer of metal might mean the difference between life and death.
The church was only three to four hundred meters from the bridge, but the road was packed and chaotic. It took the convoy more than ten minutes just to reach the bridgehead.
Wyrm's Crossing was six to seven hundred meters long. The bridge looked wide, but both sides were crammed with buildings, leaving only a few meters of open space for passage.
Its main support was Wyrmrock—a rocky island in the middle of the river—with a fortress looming atop it, imposing and magnificent.
As the convoy rolled onto the bridge, Finn suddenly pointed behind them. "Look!"
Ansel turned. Beneath the darkened sky, a mass of black shapes surged through the road they had just defended, pouring into Twinsong.
"Hundreds, at least. How are they here so fast?"
Then it hit him: these weren't new arrivals from below, but the ones that had already come up, now gathering into a single horde.
At the front of that seething tide of creatures, Rand and Zahir were doing everything they could to hold the line with two or three dozen people, fighting and falling back to buy the civilians time to flee.