Timewalk
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Chapter 162: Surprise Assassination
🕑 Added 2024-10-08 14:00:06 +0000 UTCGarret
The scent in the sewer was surprisingly fresh, and the damp crumbling brick was covered with a lush carpet of moss and mushrooms. As they traced the path indicated on their map, the monsters became progressively higher and higher in level, but they were all easily dispatched, usually with a single strike of Dak’resh’s Spear Rush.
Garret loped alongside in his Feral Puma form, not even bothering with stealth in such a low-level dungeon. As dungeons went, this one was a big yawn.
“Trap on the left,” Caspian called out, and Garret sidestepped to avoid it. He had to respect the dungeon for its effective placement of the traps, but against Caspian’s Trap Sense, it was mostly worthless.
“Excellent,” Dak’resh crowed, deliberately walking right through the trap, laughing as he ripped the roots from the ground with brute force when they tried to entangle him. “Barely tickles!”
Idiot. What the hells are we doing on a job newbies could waltz through?
But Garret bit his tongue – provoking a fight in the middle of a job would likely get Caspian pissed off, and the last time he had done it, he had had his share docked. Instead, he passed the time inventing new and progressively more sophisticated insults for the Kel’darran, while watching him systematically stomp through every single trap Caspian pointed out, leaping on some of them several times to get them to trigger.
“Final chamber,” Caspian announced.
Garret rounded the corner to the final sewer chamber listed on their map and stopped. Guarding the stairwell down into what the map called the ‘Forest Cavern’ and their goal, were four larger Kobolds, kitted in armor and holding weapons that seemed to be a cut above the rest.
“Raid boss,” Caspian announced. “Level ten, shouldn’t be much of a problem.”
“Bah, bloody waste of time,” Dak’resh declared, stomping his foot on the ground.
“Ooh!” Ixora cooed, her voice dripping with sensuality and playfulness. “I want the mage! Can I have him? Please, Caspy?”
Garret shivered, having personally experienced her ‘playfulness’.
“Ok. Ixora on the mage, everyone else, kill the healer first and then just destroy the rest.” Caspian vanished into the shadows, and Garret did the same, sneaking silently into the chamber.
Dak’resh did not hesitate. Hissing loudly, he blurred into motion, stabbing forward with his giant spear. There was a great crash and a cacophony of chirping alarm calls from the surprised Kobolds, and Dak’resh’s spear burst out from the healer’s back, spraying blood across its companions.
At least the lizard is good in a fight, Garret grudgingly admitted.
Black streamers of shadow magic sprung from Ixora’s garishly rhinestoned fingernails, and the Kobold mage was hers. Garret ignored her; she would play with the creature, toying with it before she mind-flayed it to death. He could already hear her cackling in the background.
He dropped out of stealth with an Ambush attack, drawing a spray of blood from the Kobold healer’s back. Even against such weak opponents, Garret never tired of the rush of combat, relishing the feel of his claws tearing the creature’s flesh and its screeches of pain. Firebolts began raining around the room striking the other Kobolds randomly as Ixora abused her plaything. He dodged backward as Dak’resh wound up for his whirling strike, barely avoiding the whistling spear tip as it tore gashes in every Kobold around him. Sheesh, he could give more warning. It was a good thing Garret had seen the bloody lizard fight many times and had recognized the skill before he got clipped.
Raid boss or not, the fight was over quickly. Kobolds were pathetically weak enemies, barely worth the stamina to put them down. Fortunately, they were too small and low-level for a loot dispute, and Caspian just handed each of them something to sell later while Ixora poked at her new Fire Mage with a dagger. Fuck, is she carving her initials on its arm? Garret looked away, preferring not to watch her drawing blood from the helpless monster.
The passage downward was a jagged hole in the ground, lit by a remarkable glowing staircase, but his natural paranoia proved unfounded when Caspian declared that it was safe and there were no traps. Still a pushover. His initial assessment proved to be quite accurate. He shifted back – two legs were better on stairs – and glanced out into the cavern sprawled below them.
It’s literally a forest, he thought in surprise. Many blackened dead trunks rose from the floor, immense pillars that seemed to be holding up the rock overhead. However, even though it was underground, there were living trees dotted amongst them, growing everywhere he looked. Everything was lit by countless green or golden lights, some of which darted about in erratic movement. In the distance, his sharp vision picked out a group of people gathered around a glowing stone.
“I see the shrine,” Garret said – and nestled between them and their mark was a large lake glowing with soft blue magic.
In spite of himself, he stopped and stared, until Dak’resh poked him with his spear.
“Piss off,” he snapped, annoyed that he had been caught distracted, and finished the descent.
“Let’s get this over with,” Caspian said. “Don’t give them a chance to prepare.”
“Kill everything,” Ixora cooed.
Dak’resh just grunted and broke into a sprint.
Garret dropped into stealth and stretched his body into a fast-loping run, using a small trickle of his stamina to keep up with the others. He ignored Dak’resh and the whirling spear that took care of the Timber Wolves as they ran, or the firebolts and mind flays from Ixora to take out the bats diving from above, and instead, he identified the curious lake as they passed.
Mana-Purified Water
Holy shit!
Garret boggled at the sight, barely able to contain his surprise. A whole fucking lake of the stuff! He was suddenly eager to be done with this job and fill up everything he had at the lake on the way out. There was more than enough to set him up for life – vastly more than this job would pay.
“Hey boys,” Ixora’s sultry voice interrupted his visions of retirement and a wealthy life. “We’re here.”
Dak’resh charged the group surrounding the shrine, and Garret pursued in stealth, his first target already picked out.
Nathaniel Sunstrider
Nathaniel appeared in a crumbling brick tunnel, his feet hovering several inches above the water in a slow-flowing channel. Thick green moss covered the damp ground, only allowing the ancient brick to peek through in occasional scuff marks and scars that appeared to be the slowly fading signs of battle.
A green-scaled Kobold chirped loudly, drawing a bone sword – and a pair of friends from around the corner.
None of them were strong enough to even touch him, but he still summoned his book of prepared spells and paged through it, selecting Greater Shroud. With an infusion of his arcane-affinity mana, he activated the inscribed runes, and the page disintegrated into tiny purple sparks. He grimaced at the cost and the time it would take to remake that spell, but it was the best concealment spell that he had ever encountered in all his centuries of study. His body shimmered, becoming translucent even to his own eyes and he knew that nothing would be able to detect him.
Three Kobolds abruptly stopped, yipping in confusion and searching the tunnel.
A squeal of iron across stone drew Nathaniel’s attention to a side passage filled with broken furniture, offcuts, and rotting trash. Swarming down a rusted iron ladder were four people with grim looks on their faces.
Adventurers? He studied them for a moment. This was a dungeon, and a delve would be expected, but something seemed off. For one thing, they were all above level fifty and there were only four in the group, not to mention the apparent composition of their classes. Mercenaries, he concluded. He guessed the Druid shifting into a Feral Puma form might be able to fill the role of a healer, but this was far from the typical strategy for the Adventurers Guild.
The moment the group encountered the Kobolds, the Kel’darran spearman charged, impaling the first, and cutting down the other two in a flash.
Nathaniel sighed, sending his senses ranging outward – and, downward. There. He teleported again; this time, he appeared floating in the middle of a vast underground cavern. Trees sprouted among giant blackened pillars, but the first thing he noticed was a sea of thousands of arcane-affinity mushrooms, casting a golden radiant glow that pushed back the darkness.
So, Lyeneru was right.
The domain was spectacular – denser down here than it had been in the sewer – an unbelievably subtle and complex structure of powerful nature mana, woven together with the golden strands of the unfamiliar arcane mana to form a tapestry that pulsed with vibrancy and energy. It sparkled. Somewhere in the distance, a towering pillar of nature mana beckoned to him through the intervening rock beyond the cavern. But it was to the opposite side that his eyes were drawn.
There, nestled in a small grove of trees and mushrooms stood a Great Shrine. All about, Nathaniel sensed the remnants of an incomprehensibly powerful arcane spell that must have been detonated there. Mana traces and glowing golden shards blazed with dying energy embedded into the rock and dirt, mostly covered now by the moss and mushrooms that grew vibrant, feeding off the mana. When he glanced up, he could clearly see that same mana residue blasted into the rocky cavern roof hundreds of feet above.
What kind of spell could do that?
Several figures sat beside the shrine, watching while three others battled a dungeon boss, but Nathaniel’s eyes were drawn, not to the two most powerful auras, but to the smallest figure, perched on a disk of the very same golden magic with her legs dangling over the edge.
That must be her.
Mage [Ancient] – Fae – level 51 (Arcane / Nature)
I could just kill her from Greater Shroud, and she would never know I was there. But then, the phenomenon that was her domain would unravel. It was abundantly clear from the mana flowing through the creature that she was the dungeon. The very structure of the domain emanated directly from her and flowed through her like it belonged to her.
No, the dungeon can wait. I must study this first, he thought, pulling out Elowynn’s magical tome from where he had tucked it under his robe. He floated past the figures watching the fight intent on the shrine itself, and the remnants of magic all around it. To his surprise, quite a few of the people sitting around and spectating, cheering the fighters on, were all level one, and many of them had surprisingly powerful mana affinities.
Is that Vivian Ross? But he was suddenly distracted by the powerful pulse of magic from the weathered old man beside her, and he recognized an Elder of the Ahn Khen.
What is this? Rezan Jin? What is he doing here?
Yes, he would stay his hand for now. He bent down and plucked out a shard of golden magic and immediately consulted the book held in his other hand to try and unravel the exquisite structure of the spell fragment. Shockingly, it eluded his comprehension – all that was revealed by his vaunted perception skills and centuries of study was that this small fragment was ancient – far beyond his years. How it still held potency after so long was a mystery he would dearly love to unravel. What couldn’t I achieve with something like this? He slipped the shard into his pocket, not bothering to try to use his storage enchantment.
He ignored the banging of stone and the brilliant flash and thunder of lightning magic in the background, choosing to examine the shrine next. It, too, was an enigma – far more advanced than any level fifty-one dungeon had any right to be. His scholarly side yearned to study it – he had not had such a shrine available when he had created the synthetic ones that had led to the Class Renaissance across the kingdoms. What is this? An attunement option?
When I kill her, I should bind this shrine. Even if it took decades of hard work to refill such an enormous mana reservoir, it would still be worth it. Then those Trolls won’t have the monopoly. An alternative to the Aman Rak shrine would catapult the Elves to unheard-of heights of power. In a few short decades, he could unlock dozens of potent class evolutions, selecting among the most powerful who remained stuck at the threshold of the second tier. Not to mention the unprecedented opportunity to study such an artifact and unravel its secrets – something those arrogant Trolls had never allowed.
He glanced toward the Fae, but immediately backed up as he saw her approaching. His Greater Shroud was good, but it didn’t make him incorporeal. Stumbling along behind her followed several rather beaten-up classless people.
Are they conducting a Class Advancement ceremony? Typically ceremonies were rather mundane affairs, conducted with the synthetic shrines he had painstakingly crafted and bestowed on the Kingdoms. The only time dungeon shrines were used was when the dungeon itself was defeated and the shrine became temporarily available for use – a strategy only used by those most desperate to advance beyond level one hundred without risking a Natural Path evolution.
And then, without fanfare, the dungeon activated her shrine. Dazzled by the complexity of the formations, Nathaniel could only stare as the immense power of the artifact warped the very mana around it. Again and again, she activated it, and each time one of the five initiates earned a mana affinity and then a class. Nathaniel suddenly glanced back at the crowd, recalling all the level-one spectators with affinities. Did she do… all of them? At once?
Suddenly the Fae looked directly at him and spoke.
“Malika, something is here!”
Aliandra
Your Forest Guardian has been defeated.
Ali felt a tiny pang of disappointment when her Forest Guardian finally died, but then immediately felt guilty about it. After all, Malika had been part of the training fight, and she didn’t want to accidentally hurt her friend.
“Good boss,” Mato said, nodding his approval.
“Thanks,” Ali said. She had tried to emulate the strongest combination of minions she had faced when she created it, and for the enormous cost of more than two thousand mana, she had hoped she would have a strong defender. But it had surpassed even her most optimistic hopes, fighting the three powerful Ahn Khen fighters to a standstill for over three-quarters of an hour. It’s very strong, she thought – and that had been with Malika already knowing the surprises beforehand. “It’s probably a bit weak against ranged attackers, though,” Ali observed, considering the incredible Lightning Javelin attacks that Hala had unleashed.
“Yes,” Mato said. “But the bats seem to help with that.”
Suddenly something prickled in Ali’s senses – nothing was seen, just an electric tingle along the back of her neck and down her arms. The sense of powerful mana flowing nearby. Quickly, she focused on her nearby Luminous Slime, trying to catch a glimpse of what it might be – the fleeting feeling of a nearby heartbeat. But it was gone before she could pinpoint anything unusual. Did I imagine it?
Ali quickly cycled through the perceptions of her nearby bats and wolves, but she was unable to find anything out of the ordinary. Certainly nothing more than the novices excitedly discussing the battle they had just witnessed or playing with their brand-new skills.
She turned to the bedraggled and tired members of the last group to return from their trial. It looked like they had had a rough time.
“Come on, let’s get you guys your classes,” Ali said, gesturing them toward the shrine, her thoughts shifting to excited anticipation at what they might unlock. Despite her worries yesterday, her conversation with Lira had really cleared up the muddled confusion in her heart, and today she had been excited, even eager to see what classes everyone would get. Many of the adventurers had already gained classes with enormous potential and the entire event had already been a great success. Being more open about who she was and stepping a little more into the public eye would be fraught with challenges, but she had a strong boss now, and she was still growing.
Ali explained the shrine to them as she led them up to the giant stone artifact. “Who wants to go first?”
“I’m ready.”
The Gnome was the first one in their group to step forward, and Ali instantly recognized Donella Novaspark’s daughter. Brena. She was the spitting image of her mother, but perhaps not quite as forged and tempered yet. Something in her trial had spooked her though, and her mood had lost some of the edge Ali had seen when she had first led them down through the sewers.
“Here you go,” Ali said, smiling at the downcast but determined Gnome. As Brena unlocked her lightning affinity in a spectacular display of magical energy, Ali felt the same prickle in the back of her mind a second time.
There! Someone, or something, was watching from nearby.
She focused on all the minions in the area simultaneously, feeling the flood of sensory input, but it felt like trying to pin down one of Naia’s Stinging Jellies – transparent in the water. Invisible, felt by the faintest brush on the skin before vanishing once again.
What is that?
Again, she was unable to find it when she searched, but now she was alerted to the fact that something strange was happening nearby. Is it just the number of people? An effect of the mana? But she knew somehow that was not it, and she kept her sensory connection to all her monsters while she worked her way through the remaining applicants. All of them unlocked impressive classes, but she felt a little too distracted to truly enjoy the experience to the fullest.
Your Kobold Warrior has been defeated.
What? That’s not… It happened moments after the last girl, Sabri, had finished choosing her extraordinary soul magic tank class, and the shrine’s energy had begun to dim. Ali flipped her awareness up into the sewer, but most of her monsters were already dead, and by the time she had eyes in the Kobold chambers, it was empty of everything except three corpses of her Kobolds. Even her domain respawn recharges confirmed that both her bosses were dead and had almost six hours remaining before they were respawned.
“Malika, something is here!”
Malika was on her feet and instantly alert the moment she spoke, and Mato too, a fraction of a second later.
“Where?”
“I’ve been sensing something shrouded nearby, and just now something killed my Kobold warrior boss. I can’t see them.”
“I’ll get Rezan and Vivian to help look,” Malika said, sprinting off to where they stood among the novices, answering class-related questions.
“I’ll look too,” Mato said, immediately planting himself on the spot and growing into his Tree Form.
Ali darted through the senses of her minions, pulsing the echolocation of her bats, and drawing several Timber Wolves in closer to see if she could catch the scent of the intruder.
A sudden flurry of activity broke out when Mato’s roots erupted from the ground near the shrine, and an explosion of violet arcane energy tore them to shreds. Instantly, Rezan and Vivian rushed toward the disturbance, but Ali still could not perceive it. Even the pulse of magic had been far too quick for her hasted reactions to identify it.
She scanned everywhere, ranging wider with all the senses at her disposal, and that was the only reason she found the second group of intruders. The large reptilian form of a Kel’darran Spear Warrior, and a priest of some kind, controlling the Kobold Fire Mage with a leash of dark shadow magic wrapped around its neck. They approached at high speed, rushing through the forest on a collision course with the group of worried level-one combat classes. Neither of them looked friendly, with spells and weapons held at the ready and set to attack. The pulse of a swooping Giant Bat picked up two additional intruders, both in stealth.
They’re going to be killed! Ali had no idea why, but the intruders’ intent was abundantly clear. They charged for the newly initiated with hard expressions fixed on their faces. Rezan and the group of high-level classes hunting for the elusive shrouded figure were too far away to reach the new threat in the seconds that remained. The only other person who noticed the intruders was the hesitant little Ahn Khen girl, Sabri. She readied her scored bone shield with a grim expression on her face.
Good instincts, Ali thought, but they would need much more than a level one warrior with a shield. She used her Arcane Recall and stopped time.
It was only the vaguest notion of a plan, and Ali had absolutely no idea if it would work. She froze, mentally as well as physically, as her powerful spell took hold. The entire Grove darkened and faded to gray, and she could see every single person frozen. The landscape flickered to an earlier moment in time, briefly showing an empty Grove, before flickering back to the present. It was not the first time Ali paused to wonder what it might mean.
Out on the moss, near Vivian and Rezan, Ali beheld the strangest disturbance she had ever seen. It was as if a gray, glowing cloud hovered above the ground taking a vaguely humanoid form. Streaming from it were long undulating ribbons of midnight black, attached to the figure with lamprey-like barbs and hooks. The… tentacles… writhed slowly – unsettling movement in the frozen landscape, as they trailed away from their anchor into the distance.
Ali would have shivered in fear at the sight, but her body was unable to move. What the thing was, she had no idea, but she was certain it was what had been prickling at her senses all this time. She almost Identified it automatically but caught herself before she wasted her Arcane Recall on something so trivial.
Which one? With two sets of intruders on opposite sides, she had to decide. The apparition was terrifying, but… Vivian and Rezan can take care of themselves. The novices had no chance against four high-level attackers bent on murder.
I just hope this works. Arcane Recall explicitly said it ignored recharge timers, so she called up her Domain Mastery and triggered her Domain Respawn, trying to target her Forest Guardian. For a second, she was certain it wasn’t going to work, but then time restarted with a lurch. Immediately, she pulsed her mana into a domain-enhanced barrier sphere around the shrouded figure she had seen in her strange gray vision moments before.
An immense quake of mana surged through her entire domain. Every single domain-powered minion respawned instantly. The recently defeated Forest Guardian, and all its minions, suddenly appeared right in front of the crowd of novices. The little Ahn Khen defender yelped in surprise. Ali’s Kobold Warrior boss respawned. Every defeated monster in the sewer respawned, and even several goblins down by the Emberforge Mines reappeared. The force of the mana surge staggered her, but she held her focus with an iron grip.
“Protect them,” she commanded her Guardian, sending her intent firmly through her connection. But her boss was just a little too far away. The Kel’darran leveled his spear, and Sabri raised her bone buckler, stepping forward to protect her companions. There was a rush and a loud crack as the Kel’darran blurred, appearing before Sabri, towering above her with his spear piercing clean through the shield, leather armor, and her chest, emerging from her back with a spray of crimson blood.
The Guardian roared and charged, making the ground buck and shake with the weight of its stamina-empowered stride. The Kel’darran warrior ripped his spear out of his victim’s chest, tossing her aside and turned to meet it, skillfully bracing the spear against the ground, impaling it through the Guardian’s thick chest plates of bark armor using the momentum of its own charge against it. But the Guardian did not falter. Roots, thick brambles, and thorny branches burst forth from the ground, entangling, entwining, and crushing.
Ali gasped in horror at the sight of the girl flung from the warrior’s spear like discarded trash, but Sabri rolled to her feet, coughing up blood and gasping in surprise. Ali glanced sideways to find blood dripping from a great sympathetic hole in Mato’s trunk, already slowly growing closed, and a palpable relief flooded through her as she realized Mato had caught the damage. Thanks, Mato. Incredible.
The Forest Guardian roared, and the Kel’darran roared back and, as they clashed, the strange priestess made the Kobold mage shoot firebolts at it. Bats screeched, swooping in from nowhere while an explosion of petals filled the air. Novices scattered, screaming and panicking. The two stealthed intruders revealed themselves with powerful ambush attacks, but the Forest Guardian’s enormous health pool barely budged.
“Dreamclouds,” Ali said, but the Spore Spreaders were already growing their rapidly spreading hyphae down into the moss-covered dirt. Tiny glowing purple mushrooms sprang up from the ground, unheeded by the attackers, quickly maturing under the powerful nature-affinity magic of growth and vitality, and suddenly all of them exploded simultaneously with an audible cascade of popping. A vast cloud of spores filled the space between the petals.
The priest collapsed, releasing her shadowy leash on the Kobold mage, followed by the druid shifting back from his puma shape to human as he fell unconscious. The assassin collapsed under the soporific effects of the Dreamcloud mushrooms next, but the Kel’darran warrior staggered, clinging tenaciously to consciousness. Two Giant Bats swooped down to dive-bomb the spear-wielder with sonic attacks, and he dropped to the ground with a thud, visible to her only via echolocation and the strange senses of her slime.
The Forest Guardian’s roar caused the pink petal cloud to quiver and vibrate. Heavy stomps and crashes shook the ground, punctuated by the distinct sounds of bones cracking. A few more stomps and the cracking sounds were replaced by sickening wet splats, and then a series of notifications chimes sounded.
Whoops, did I… oh. Ali shivered reflexively. Her deliberate hesitation had sealed their fate.
Silence descended as the petals slowly drifted to the ground, revealing the giant Forest Guardian with blood stains up to its knees walking calmly among four vaguely humanoid, petal-covered lumps on the ground.
Your Forest Guardian has defeated Feral Druid – Human – level 54 (Nature)
Your Forest Guardian has defeated Spear Warrior – Kel’darran – level 56
Your Forest Guardian has defeated Shadow Priest – Human – level 52 (Shadow)
Your Forest Guardian has defeated Assassin – Human – level 57
Arcane Recall has reached level 8.
Martial Insight has reached level 31.
Domain Mastery has reached level 23.
Something stirred within the empty sphere of barrier magic Ali had created, slowly resolving into a tall Elf with a robe covered in runes that pulsed with potent mana. He made an idly dismissive wave with one hand and caused a flicker of a complex violet arcane magic to appear. Ali’s Sage of Learning drew heavily from her mana pool, trying to memorize it, storing it, struggling to unravel the forms and floating runes, and suddenly he released it and her barrier popped into thousands of tiny golden sparks that drifted away, fading as they lost form and substance.
Archmage – Sun Elf – level ??? (Arcane)
“Well, that was impressive,” he said, applauding softly.
But Ali only had eyes for the book he was holding open in his hand. A book she recognized instantly.
“Nathaniel Sunstrider,” Vivian said, clearly recognizing the Elf. “To what do we owe this honor?”
“I am following up on a report from Lyeneru Silverleaf about a strange dungeon she found below Myrin’s Keep,” he said. “Elder,” he inclined his head toward Rezan.
Although Ali refused to lower her guard before the strange Elf, the body language of both Rezan and Vivian clearly indicated that they recognized him and didn’t consider him to be a threat. While the three of them talked, Ali picked her way through the battlefield and the gruesome lumps strewn around it, grateful that Malika chose to join her as she set about deconstructing the dead and dismembered.
Imprint: Human completed.
Ali froze, a sudden revulsion rising like bile from her gut.
Human.
Has it been that many? The implications were clear – she had killed and deconstructed enough people that her Grimoire was allowing her to add humans to her repertoire. Dungeons kill people. Part of the disgust that gripped her was the certain knowledge that the imprint would be extremely valuable and powerful – the sapient races had the broadest access to classes and affinities. Any dungeon that could, would definitely summon humans to defend their domains.
“You doing ok, Ali?” Malika looked up from her gory work of sorting the gear.
“I just got the human imprint. It’s the smart choice. I know I should take it, but I just can’t…” She wanted to throw up, run, or scream. She felt disgusting.
“You don’t have to take it if it makes you uncomfortable,” Malika said. “I would feel weirded out too.”
Right in the midst of her discussion, she was interrupted. “You must be Aliandra.”
The mellifluous, cultured voice spoke Common with only the slightest hint of his native Elvish accent, and Ali glanced up to find the Sun Elf, Nathaniel Sunstrider, approaching with Rezan and Vivian in tow.
“I am,” she said, her tone guarded, tearing her thoughts away from her dilemma. Somehow, she couldn’t shake the image of the shadowy barbs and hooks of an unknown sinister-looking magic that had seemed to be feeding on his image when she saw him during her Arcane Recall spell.
“I am curious how you were able to pierce my Greater Shroud,” Nathaniel said.
“My ooze felt your heartbeat,” Ali said. It was technically true, but she wasn’t ready to trust him enough to explain her magic and how she’d really found him.
“This age’s greatest Archmage, laid low by the lowliest of monsters.”
Ali offered a smile at his attempted humor, but with everything that had just happened, she had to force it. At least she was relieved to see Sabri chatting away with Mato, amazingly alive and showing off a fresh hole through the center of her leather armor to her companions.
“I would like to discuss your dungeon with you if you have the time,” Nathaniel said.
Ugh. Not now. “Honestly, I’m feeling terrible. I was just forced to kill four people who were no doubt hired to assassinate me and kill all these novices, for what reason I have no clue,” Ali said, earning several surprised looks from Vivian, Rezan, and the three-mark Elf. She knew he was important and all, especially being an Archmage, but she simply couldn’t face it today. She still struggled to keep her roiling stomach under control. “Can you come back tomorrow?”
“Very well,” Nathaniel said, clearly disappointed, but too polite to make anything of it. “Vivian, would you like my services to teleport everyone back up to town?”
“That would be great,” she answered.
Ali carefully studied the extraordinarily intricate formation of arcane magic as Nathaniel weaved his teleportation spell, feeling her Sage of Learning once again draining her mana rapidly.
Ali waited till his spell neared completion, and then said, “When you come, please bring my mother’s book with you.”
“Your… mother?” He glanced down at the book he was still holding in his hand, and his eyes snapped back to her, registering shock and surprise as he and everyone visiting for the class advancement vanished.
She smiled grimly at the emptiness, then slowly wrung out her trembling hands. This did not bode well. Of all the shocks she had received today, seeing her mother’s book was easily the most poignant, the most unsettling. How dare he – how dare he even hold it so casually?
Malika
Malika felt the unexpected lurch of teleportation in her gut and realized that Nathaniel Sunstrider had literally meant everybody except Ali. She appeared in the guild hall, somewhat stunned by the raw power of the archmage, able to teleport the entire group on a whim – and not even needing to make use of the locus.
She ignored the elf, leaving him to his discussion about accommodation with Vivian Ross, and sat herself down beside Basir and Hala. Honestly, after the battle of attrition in which they had eked out a victory against Ali’s ridiculous Forest Guardian, followed by the chaos of the assassins and Nathaniel Sunstrider showing up, she was quite worn out.
“Congratulations, you all earned a class level,” Rezan said, sitting down on the floor next to them with the natural cross-legged posture of a lifetime of his personal meditation style.
Surprised, Malika glanced at her notifications, and sure enough, she had reached level forty-two. “Only one, though,” she said, frowning a little. It had been three of them against a raid boss, and although they were a little higher in level than it was, she, at least, was not that much higher.
“It is extraordinary to gain any class levels from a sparring match,” Rezan answered.
“Sparring?” It certainly hadn’t felt like a friendly spar in the ring. Although she had earned many broken bones in her spars against Basir and his frustrating rocks.
“Supervised fights don’t typically earn class experience,” the Elder explained. “You never leveled up from sparring with Basir and Hala. They would not have killed you even if you were completely incapacitated.”
“I guess that makes sense,” Malika said. Ali had been quite focused on the fight most of the time, and she would never have let her monster kill any of them. And Rezan and Vivian too. Perhaps there had been real risk while the others had been distracted, and therefore the reason she got even the single level.
“I got some good skills growth,” she said, studying the notifications.
“Me too,” Basir said, a big smile on his face.
Soul Monk has reached level 42.
+10 attribute points.
Soul Strike has reached level 25.
Healing Mantra has reached level 26 (+2).
Divine Step has reached level 24.
Second Wind has reached level 12.
Clarity has reached level 11.
Soul Sight has reached level 7.
Recalling Rezan’s advice about her attributes, she split her points carefully, putting two of them into raising her strength. Two more each went to endurance and wisdom, leaving three for dexterity and one for perception. Hopefully, she would have enough power to get through Basir’s armor soon.
“That is good,” Rezan said, “but it was not the true purpose of the match.”
She considered his words and all the teaching he had offered during her stay in Kezda before asking, “Was it for training teamwork?”
“So, you were listening,” he said with a grin. “The purpose of sparring with your allies is not just to practice your skills. How easy was it to team up with Basir and Hala?”
“Effortless,” she said, realizing they hadn’t needed a whole lot of preparation for the challenging battle. “I already knew what they could do, mostly.”
What they would do, she corrected. She understood their combat styles and how they reacted well enough to form a cohesive team with vastly less preparation time than she would have expected.
“Exactly,” Rezan smiled. “Whenever you have the opportunity, spar together to enhance your understanding of teamwork and cooperation. You never know when you might need it.”
She nodded slowly. “I value this lesson, Elder.”
It had been a good lesson, delivered with Rezan’s particular style of teaching, namely throwing her in the deep end and only explaining afterward. As Malika contemplated what she had learned about teamwork, she smiled to see Sabri and Brena chatting excitedly as they walked back from Mieriel’s desk, both wearing a copper version of what looked remarkably like her own guild ring. I’m glad everyone made it.
Rezan
Rezan would never have admitted it to anyone, but he had been extremely anxious waiting for the applicants to return from their trial. More anxious than he remembered being for anything in recent memory, and as more and more of the candidates had trickled in, and he still hadn’t seen Sabri, he had almost given in and searched for her with his sight. However, such supervision would have most likely interfered with their ability to earn experience properly and could have negatively affected their trial and class selection. Or worse, forced them to endure it for much longer.
His second challenge came when Sabri was struggling to make her class choice. Such a crucial decision in anyone’s life and he had had to ruthlessly suppress the urge to advise her. With her difficult life, she would have chosen whatever he recommended, not because it was the right choice, but because he was the Elder. It was a harsh way to teach the lesson, but if she came out of it with more self-assurance for her own decision-making, it would be worth it.
He noticed the new ring she was wearing as she said goodbye to her new friend and headed over to join them. So, she has made another choice. Sabri would not be returning home with him when he left.
Her mother will be sad, he thought. But this guild was a good place with a lot of promising people, and it would be the perfect environment for Sabri to grow, both in level and in the depth of her interactions with others. Teamwork was such a great tutor.
Malika would have been his pick for a mentorship role with her levelheadedness, but he hadn’t missed how quickly Sabri had bonded with the unruly Beastkin boy who had saved her life from the Kel’darran spear. Nor how she had connected with the Gnomish lightning mage – it seemed she would have friends when he left.
And she chose a powerful class. His right fist clenched deliberately by his side. Our people need more like her. Many more. He glanced around the guild hall, wondering if this place – and Aliandra’s generosity – may be the catalyst of a new hope for his people.
He glanced up as she approached, pretending to have just noticed her, but he had been studying her vastly more powerful aura through his sight.
She will be ok. Perhaps such thoughts were more to reassure himself than for her.
“Elder Rezan,” she began hesitantly, waiting for him to acknowledge her before she continued. “Would you please give this to my mother?” Nestled in the palm of her outstretched hand he saw a couple of dull copper pieces and a small gleaming silver crown, and he knew in an instant that she had sold everything she had earned from their combat trial to send money home.
“Sabri, you have a great heart looking out for your mother. But I cannot do this for you.” Her smile at his compliment faded as he finished.
“I… why?”
“How can I tell your mother that you gave everything to her when you will be fighting monsters without any equipment to protect you? Your mother loves you and she will want you to be safe. You shared your class with me – spend that money on the best armor and shield you can afford, and I will tell your mother that you are being careful.”
“But she will starve without me to help on the fields.” She was clearly feeling the anguish of this decision.
“She will strangle me if I don’t teach you how to be safe,” Rezan said, hiding his amusement. “How about this; I will take care of your mother for now, but you must promise me you will only send money back home if you don’t need it to protect yourself from the monsters. Ok?”
Sabri looked at him with a frown on her brow, but eventually nodded and closed her fingers around the pitifully small offering of coins. The girl and her mother were cut from the same cloth – both would starve themselves just to see the other with something to eat.
“Sabri, I want you to visit Kezda when you earn a bloodline skill. Don’t be like Malika here and let it go so late that it breaks.” Malika, sitting nearby, had the decency to look embarrassed. “And please let Malika or the Guildmaster know if you need help.”
Sabri looked at Malika and they both nodded.
“Sabri, before I go, I would like to offer you my mentorship.” He had the capacity for only one more protégé, and such things usually took a lot of thought and consideration – a process of months or even years. But life sometimes had a way of hurrying you along – first with Malika and now with Sabri. He had watched her grow up from a serious little toddler to the adult that stood before him wearing a shocked expression. He knew the dedication and determination she had for learning and the passion with which she approached the martial arts. But it was in that moment when she had readied her buckler and stepped in front of her new friends to defend them, facing down the level fifty-six Kel’darran spearman without a hope of winning that all Rezan’s doubt had vanished.
He expected her to immediately accept, given that he was the Elder, but to his surprise, and no small amount of pride, she appeared to give his words serious consideration.
“I know I’m not the perfect fit for your new class, I am not a tank. But we share a soul magic affinity and I think my mana can help you grow," he explained.
“I would be honored, Elder,” she said finally, giving him a bow.
He reached out and placed his palm above her heart and released his mana – certainly a lot gentler this time than with Malika.
Your patronage has been accepted.
Sabri added as a Protégé.
Protégé – Sabri
Class: Soul Defender
Traits: Soul, Defense, Bloodline, Melee, Strength, Wisdom, Endurance, Mastery.
Your experience, mana, and traits will influence the experience gain of your protégé. Experience tithed back to you via the mentorship tithe may influence your own traits and growth.
Enchantment – Tithe
Rezan felt relief and pride mingling within him. At least with this, he was certain she had the best opportunities he could create for her, and the rest would be up to her.
“Ok, I will come back every now and then to check on you, and I’ll watch your growth with my sight.”
“Thank you, Elder,” Sabri replied in Ahn Khen, using the traditional farewell blessing and a simple bow.
“Be strong,” Rezan answered, using the same language and clasping his palms together in front of his chest as he returned the bow.
Vivian Ross
Vivian rubbed her temples and sat down beside Mieriel.
What a day. Of all things, she had not expected to be hosting the highly acclaimed Archmage and Guildmaster of the legendary Elven Pathfinders at her fledgling guild. Nathaniel Sunstrider had a presence that defied explanation – not even the stories did him justice.
She had just finished inducting all the newly classed members as novices in the guild, giving them their rings and explaining their new roles and the facilities and training available to them. She would not admit just how worried she had been about how it would all go, assuming the results from the first time must have been atypical. However, Aliandra’s shrine had once again unlocked an abundance of magical affinities and powerful class choices for every single applicant – even the artisans and crafters would grow into powerhouses in their chosen fields. It was unreal. The typical proportion of magical affinities and related classes was vastly lower, and this was the second time Aliandra’s shrine had shattered her expectations.
Perhaps there’s something to that old tale that dungeon mana causes magical affinities to arise in people? It was a sobering thought.
Furthermore, of the fifteen combat applicants, ten had chosen to join the guild immediately – including all the candidates she had enrolled in preparatory combat training under Malika. The most surprising being the girl Rezan had brought, Sabri. And, of course, Brena Novaspark. Vivian had no idea how the girl was going to break that news to her mother, but that was not her problem. Even the class distribution was close to ideal; she had been able to break the novices into two teams of five, both groups having a tank and a healer.
There was suddenly a lot to do! She had to clean out the dorm room below – at least three of the novices had nowhere to stay.
Hopefully, I can talk Aliandra and her friends into a more active mentorship role… She had seen how Sabri looked to Malika and Mato for advice, and it had immediately given her the idea of using the more advanced guild members to help the new novices grow. She was sure Aiden and Havok would help too, and perhaps Teagan for the healers, especially now that they were closing in on level twenty.
Then her expression soured. Not forgetting that I have to deal with someone that seems to have unlimited hatred for Aliandra and resources to throw away on trying to murder her. And now the Archmage himself.
Guildmaster of a small guild in a small town. She allowed herself a brief snort of amusement before knuckling down to her work.
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Comments
The one Sith to rule them all
Reading this again, I think Nathaniel was corrupted, since he shows no sighn of evil besids being scetchy right now…
Pholt
Lots of ppl use sentient and sapient interchangeably even though they are very different. I assume its meant to be sapient here
Tanj
Confused .. "monsters" are sentient. Sure when you meet them in a dungeon those are minions. But we have various non-minions as characters who are sentient, even a slime. The line about the things only "sentients" can do seems hollow.
Adrian Secchia
Fixed, thanks :)
HornboozeWFG
I can see where your coming from, although I don't think they would be mindless as we have seen that all minions has an sense of will, especially as we have seen lira and that one beast tamer help fill in some information on that aspect. And while yes most of the problems, Ali has are because most people are only seeing her as an dungeon and not as an person who is from civilization way older and advanced as there current Era, with zero intentions of hearing her out. I think having the human template being on the back burner would help as an Trump card as she can enhance one to raid boss level later on or when she gets the chance to read and comprehend more books she might be able to help the guild out more in staffing and instructing new comers making her team have more availability to fully fleshing out her ungrounded home. As I would think this would make her along the lines of an system administrator.
Tarrim
I personally suspect it's neither but maybe tied to one of those terrifying beings he saw beyond the realm.
Rensis Coren
I don't think it's Nevyn Eld, but whatever dark forces are behind the Lich.
Rip Woodham
yup, hopefully he doesn't turn into saruman
Tarrim
That stuff is probably from the divinitation toll he was using when we first met him
Rip Woodham
It's nice to have it confirmed that Nevyn Eld has hooks in Nathaniel! Hopefully Ali will point it out sometime...
Rip Woodham
Well... it's not just about Ali's morals though... even aside from her mental space, which I think would be bothered by having mindless human slaves, essentially... she's skirting the edge of being destroyed. If not for her ancestry Nathaniel would have killed her here. New Daria will want her killed. She needs everyone on her side she can get, and having human minions will only hurt that. She's not powerful enough that the power they could give her would offset that, yet.
Lijwent
She needs to at least test the human imprint! Also the would be assassins had the best timing ever!
HornboozeWFG
Now Ali, I know your... morals would say having an human template would be wrong... but you gotta remember your not the one at fault here, they were adults who made the decision to try and kill you of there own accord. It's not like you decided to go out and kill innocents at the end of the day to level up and such... And just imagine all the possibilities that could be open with this. Are they fully sentient? Can you customize everything about them? Like giving them bloodlines of different creatures. Could they be summoned at level 1 making it so they can choose different classes instead of just having one randomly assigned to them. How do they appear to the identification skill. Cause Ali, if there wasn't meant to be an human template then the system wouldn't have made it happen. All the research you can do at the tip of your hands... Just think about cause the template can always be found out by an more angry 'Dungeon' allowing the destruction to go out in waves like an certain blight summoner and blind necromancer...
Ope 'scuse me
Amazing chapter! I was so happy to see that team just go splat.
Pholt
Looks like I was right about what causes the "great filter" at level 100 :-)
Drakenclaw
Thanks for the chapter. It was a good thing Garret had seen the bloody lizard fight many times and had recognized the skill he got clipped. -> before he got clipped
Azgaroth
Thank for the chapter. Can't wait for Ali to have the same problem as Vivian, as the Guildmaster of a Small Dungeon Guilds of a Small Town/World....
Charles Hughes
First
