Dungeon of Knowledge

Aliandra

 

Ali flew down the ventilation shaft, growing ivy and creepers along the way before heading out through the ruined city toward the library. It wasn’t necessary to reconnect her domain through the shaft given that it flowed up through the library and out through the cavern she had given to Lira, but after having had the bulk of her domain destroyed by disconnection once already, she felt safer having the redundant link. After all, she had wiped out half the Ruins of Dal’mohra dungeon by deconstructing the giant bone spire in the center of the library and disconnecting the top from the bottom half of the domain. The top disconnected section had just collapsed, causing a moderate dungeon-break of the remaining Kobolds.

 

Besides the giant Elder Tree growing up through the center of the library and spreading its branches throughout the upper forest cavern, she hadn’t claimed much of the ruins yet. All she had was a thin trail of moss and mushrooms following the path they had taken through the city, glittering like a giant slug had wound its way between the ruined buildings. Or like the mana trails of Naia’s dungeon. I need to visit her again.

 

Besides that, it was dark – that was the overall impression she got as she flew over the ancient, dusty, bone-encrusted stone ruins. Almost all the light came from her tiny golden mushrooms, shining like glitter along the narrow moss path, her barrier magic, and the Luminous Slime she was carrying with her.

She turned the issue over in her mind, trying to figure out what she wanted to do. She was loath to make too drastic of a change here – both from the enormous effort it would take and also, she admitted to herself, because it held so many sentimental memories for her.

 

But I should do something, she thought as she flew through the doorway into the upper level of the library.

 

Her thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a blinding flash of light and searing pain as something sizzled across her face. She screamed, tumbling off her barrier and cracking her head against the cold hard stone as everything went dark.

 

Instinctively, she snapped a spherical barrier into place around herself and struggled to blink as her Kobolds screeched and chirped in alarm. All she could sense in her sudden blindness was the mana from her Fire Mage shooting a firebolt, and the holy magic her Acolyte immediately sent her way. A sudden, intense beam of mana appeared, and her Kobold mage let out a piercing screech. She felt him hit the ground through her Martial Insight.

 

Fuck, I can’t see a thing. Suddenly reminded of her unusually potent perception skill, she spent enough mana to slam her awareness into all three of her minions, and images of the library abruptly flickered through her brain.

 

She gasped at the sight of her own ruined face seen from the eyes of her Acolyte. Something had burnt a line across the bridge of her nose and both eyes, leaving only blackened flesh. Her struggling Fire Mage glanced in the opposite direction and out in the atrium, hovering below one of the enormous boughs of the Elder Tree, was a glowing disk of undulating light about half a meter in diameter.

 

Coruscant Ray – Elemental – level 33 (Light)

 

The monster’s orange-red spine glowed intensely as its main attack powered up again. Fuck! My barrier is worthless against that. Instantly, she realized just how exposed and vulnerable she was trying to hide inside her transparent bubble.

 

Desperately, she grasped for the only thing she could think of – the heavy stone of the floor. It warped and flowed in response to her will and magic, rising from the ground to create a wall of stone.

 

With an audible hum and a blinding flash, the ray fired again, this time striking her hastily constructed stone barrier, leaving a glowing trail of mana-infused slag as the potent light magic melted part-way through the stone. Ali didn’t let up, pouring more and more mana into her Domain Mastery, reinforcing the mundane barrier between her and the monster, and drawing her Kobolds in behind it.

 

Ali took a breath, feeling the pain ebbing away as her Acolyte’s gentle magic healed the grievous wounds to her face and eyes. She blinked as her vision returned. Her Fire Mage popped his head out, snapping off a firebolt before ducking back as the Coruscant Ray returned fire.

 

Keeping herself mostly behind the wall, she peeked her head out to look, and then immediately ducked back as the ray turned toward her. Stupid, she thought, trying again, but this time using her Kobold instead. The ray still hovered out there, near the trunk of the giant tree, below the enormous branch that stretched out overhead – a branch that reached to the bookshelves on the wall by the library doorway. Suddenly, an idea popped into her head.

 

“Go,” she said, forming a detailed image of what she wanted and sending it to her Luminous Slime. It was a complex idea – for a slime – and she had to override its desire to face the intruder. “Yes, I want you to go the other way,” she told it. It wobbled and blobbed its way over to the doorway, emoting frustration that she was making it run away. But she held the image of her instructions firmly in her mind, and as soon as it got to the doorway, she made it climb, just like she had seen Naia demonstrate. And just like back then, the slime scaled the sheer stone wall with the same ease she would have walking on a paved road. Up and up it went, until it reached the outstretched branches of the tree, brushing up against the wall.

 

While her Kobolds engaged the ray directly, she sent her slime along the branch until she could see it lined up just above the flying light elemental.

 

“Drop,” she sent, and it did. The rush of its primal excitement filled her as it landed directly on top of the Coruscant Ray with an audible plop. Pseudopods of glowing semi-transparent slime shot out of the creature, grappling with the enemy ray as it engaged. They weaved and swooped erratically, the ray struggling to keep flying under the extra weight of the slime. With a reckless disregard for its own safety, the slime extended more and more pseudopods as it enveloped the ray with its body.

 

Ali closed her eyes right before the slime unleashed its dazzling light magic, warned by her senses still connected with her minion. She could feel the body of the ray growing hot through the slime’s membrane, and it blasted its devastating magic from inside the slime’s body. But the slime was partially transparent, also a creature of light magic affinity, and the potent ray of light refracted through the slime, blasting out in a chaotic spray of beams, striking the walls and floor in all directions.

 

Ali dove for cover behind her wall of stone.

 

Still connected to her Acolyte, Ali realized she somehow knew the attack had damaged her slime, but not nearly as much as she would have expected. Curious at the strange sense, she focused on her Acolyte and suddenly she realized she could see its health – and the health of the ray.

 

Is this Life Sense? Healer’s Sight?

 

The ray fired again, filling the library with brilliant beams of light, taking almost twenty percent of her slime’s health. The Acolyte channeled her magic into the slime, and Ali watched, fascinated, as the slime’s life began to replenish, regrown under the influence of the holy spell.

 

The ray’s health continued its slow decline, consumed by the acid within the slime enveloping it, giving Ali plenty of time to study the surprising new perception skill she had found in her Acolyte.

 

It’s slow, she realized. Her slime was winning because her Acolyte was healing it, but the two light-affinity monsters both seemed highly resistant to each other’s magic. As the ray began to falter, Ali summoned a barrier to catch the struggling pair while she continued observing using the senses of her minions from behind the cover of her wall. The familiar chime sounded. Ah, there it is.

 

Ali checked quickly.

 

You have defeated Coruscant Ray – Elemental – level 33 (Light).

Domain Mastery has reached level 16.
Martial Insight has reached level 28.

 

A ripple passed through her slime as it reverted to its normal spheroid-blob shape, bouncing slowly on her barrier out in the middle of the atrium.

 

“Aliandra, are you ok?” Lira’s voice carried across the space to her as her aunt emerged from the giant tree. “I heard a scream.”

 

“I’m over here,” she called out. “I’m fine.” … now. She flew her slime back to safety and flattened her wall back into the floor. “You told me monsters would be attracted to the mana, but I had no idea. My forest was full of zombies and skeletons when I got back, and now this elemental came in from the jungle down there.”

 

“I’m sorry, Aliandra,” Lira said. “This is all my–”

 

“It’s not your fault,” Ali answered before she could even go down that path. “I was surprised, that’s all.” It had not occurred to her that the jungle had two spawning pools and that they had left the door open, connecting it with the library. The library which was now the densest part of her domain mana. Thousands of wisps and glow bugs had been drawn in through that open doorway by the scent of her mana – she should have expected something more dangerous.

 

“I’m not strong enough to close that door,” Ali said.

 

“I don’t think I am either,” Lira answered.

 

Briefly, Ali considered summoning a Forest Guardian and swapping her Empowered Summoner buff to strength, but she decided she would rather keep the intelligence boost for now – she had a lot of work still to do. “I’ll wait for Mato to get back. This is… frustrating.”

 

Lira nodded, “We’re new at this. It’ll come.”

 

In the meantime, Ali flew down to the ground floor, bringing her minions with her just in case and trying to keep from glancing over her shoulder every other breath, and constructed a barrier to block the entire doorway, attaching it to her domain mana. Then she summoned several Kobolds and a couple of Scalding Slimes, giving them orders to guard the library from intruders. She sent the slimes climbing the great tree, hopefully, to take advantage of a similar drop strategy to the one she had just used. It wasn’t a perfect defense, but it should do for now.

 

“What about the second level?” Lira asked.

 

“Good point,” Ali said. Flying creatures could get through there, and those included Wyverns, bats, and the Coruscant Rays that annoyingly ignored her barriers. She blocked off the second-level doorway too. Even though the rays could theoretically shoot right through it, at least they wouldn’t be able to enter.

 

Oh, they can get up to the top level too, she suddenly realized, recalling the giant hole in the northern part of the upper city level. It presumably connected all the way down to the jungle level. This is trickier than I thought. If the monsters had access to the upper city ruins, they could use the ventilation shaft to access the forest cavern. She blocked off the upper doorway with another barrier and decided that would have to do. She had some minions to protect her while she slept in case something got through the long way.

 

 

Seth

 

Your Undead Blight has increased to 84.

 

Seth groaned and rolled over, inadvertently squashing his face on the cold stone flagstones of his cell. It was freezing cold without even a blanket, and he was starving, bruised, and battered from the unwanted attentions of his bored captors. There was even an unhealed stab wound on his arm from when Conrad had ‘missed’ during his dagger-throwing practice.

 

Out of all his kidnappers, Seth hated Conrad the most. He was always bored, and whenever he was on guard duty, he would pick on him, or one of the other prisoners he knew were kept in cells nearby. And he loved pain – so long as it wasn’t his own.

 

His cell was entirely bare other than himself and the small tin bowl containing a foul gruel over by the doorway. But as hungry as Seth was, Conrad had relieved himself in it, and he wasn’t quite that desperate yet.

 

Besides, he was going to die.

 

The undead blight he had caught during his forced servitude to Alexander Gray had consumed almost eighty-five percent of his maximum health now, and he had just over two weeks before it claimed him. He grimaced at that thought, but no matter how bad his current situation was, it was nothing compared to that compulsion collar.

 

For a while, he had dreamed of infecting his captors with the blight and enjoying their surprise, but when it had finally happened Conrad had just retrieved a glowing green potion and drank it, continuing business as normal.

 

I wonder what they’ll think when they find my animated corpse in here?

 

If the undead blight didn’t kill him, the specter of his horrific natural class still loomed over him like a dark cloud. If that unlocked, he would be hated across the kingdom, driven away at best, and at worst killed on sight for having committed the crime of necromancy. It was rather ironic though – the kidnappers kept forcing trials on him, hoping to trigger the unlock of a class that would fetch them a substantial price. He wasn’t about to tell them the truth.

 

He found he didn’t much care either way, having been forced to come to terms with the inevitability of it. On the bright side, either death would save him from being forced into a class of his kidnappers’ choosing and sold into slavery for the rest of his life. I think there’s something wrong with me… shouldn’t I be terrified? He wondered again about the lingering effects on his psyche of being subjected to Alexander Gray’s torture.

 

Despite his uncannily calm acceptance of his situation, he instantly tensed at the sound of heavy boots on the stairs, having quickly learned to identify who they belonged to. There were some muffled voices as the guard changed, the clanging of locks and doors followed by the sound of dragging, and then finally the heavy wooden door to his cell block opened with a bang. The metallic clicking of iron-toed boots approached, scraping against the hard stone.

 

“Now then, you are the last of this batch. It’s time for practice,” he announced, and Seth instantly confirmed his fear. “You hear that, blight boy? It’s your lucky day today!”

 

Conrad.

 

“Don’t you need to help me unlock a valuable class?” Seth croaked. Anything to delay Conrad. Although it was not likely to slow him down at all.

 

“Oh, but I am! I’m going to teach you a very valuable class: Target.” He laughed at his own stupid joke, opening the iron-barred door to Seth’s tiny cell. “Come on, you know the drill. All you morons unlock Laborer or Farmer anyway, and Hawkhurst doesn’t pay too much for those.”

 

Seth did know the drill – he had already learned the hard way not to fight it. Sullenly, he followed Conrad out of the cell and into the next room where he was made to stand up against the thick wooden door with his arms outstretched. His heart thumped in his throat, all his previous fatalistic calm vanishing at the prospect of violence.

 

“Obedient today. Good.”

 

It was not like he had a choice. He had been beaten unconscious several times and he wasn’t even sure how many days he had lost. This kidnapping operation did not spend any money on healing or potions for their prisoners. In fact, Seth had been shocked that they had ignored his blight, telling him it was his responsibility to get a good class and whoever bought him would pay to have him healed. If they knew how bad it was – how close to killing him – they would probably not have been quite so nonchalant about it.

 

“Time to warm up my arm, ey?” Conrad declared.

 

Seth winced as the first dagger whipped past his ear, nicking it, and drawing a little blood. He stared at Conrad as he picked up a second dagger – the thug would beat him if he closed his eyes, too.

 

“Looks like my aim is good today,” he said, letting out a guffaw, before throwing his next dagger.

 

One dagger thumped into the wood between his legs. The next struck under his left arm. The third pierced through the palm of his right hand. Seth screamed, unable to hold it back even knowing he would be hurt for making a noise.

 

Conrad just laughed and threw the next dagger, punching through his shoulder just under the collarbone. Seth collapsed in a heap on the ground to the sound of Conrad’s cruel laughter.

 

“Get up, you worthless piece of shit, I’m not done practicing yet,” Conrad said.

 

Through the haze of pain, Seth heard a pure chime sounding in his mind.

 

You have gained the class Undead Commander.

Undead Commander has reached level 1.
+10 attribute points.

You have gained an affinity for Death mana.

 

Oh no… The class had unlocked, the seed of death Alexander Gray had sowed within him had finally bloomed, and with it, Seth felt a powerful surge of chilling energy coursing through his veins.

 

He shivered uncontrollably, but the notifications spilled out like an avalanche of dark fate.

 

You have gained the class skill Summon Volatile Wraith.

Summon Volatile Wraith – level 1
Mana: Summon a Volatile Wraith to attack your enemies. Duration: 15 seconds. Recharge: 5 seconds.
Death, Minion, Intelligence


You have gained the class skill Raise Skeleton.

Raise Skeleton – level 1
Requires: Corpse.
Mana: Summon a skeletal warrior minion. Reserve: by level.
Death, Minion, Intelligence


You have gained the class skill Raise Zombie.

Raise Zombie – level 1
Requires: Corpse.
Mana: Summon a zombie minion. Reserve: by level.
Death, Minion, Intelligence

You have gained the class skill Eyes of the Damned.

Eyes of the Damned – level 1
You are attuned to death mana. You can perceive with the senses of your minions. Higher intelligence allows you to use more sources of perception simultaneously.
Death, Minion, Intelligence, Perception


You have gained the class skill Curse.

Curse – level 1
Mana: Curse your enemy with one of your known curses.
Known Curses: Amplify Damage.
Death, Curse, Intelligence

You have gained the class skill Undead Commander.

Undead Commander
Undead minions gain additional armor and magical resistance.
Mana: Sacrifice an undead minion to gain its health and mana over the next 30 seconds. Recharge: 5 minutes.
Death, Minion, Mastery, Endurance, Wisdom.

 

Seth groaned, trying to roll over. All of a sudden, his mana twisted, and a pulse of dark energy shot out, crawling across the room like a black nova ball of lightning.

 

Curse has reached level 2.

 

“What the fuck!” Conrad yelled as a twisting knot of darkness settled within his body. “Necromancer!”

 

Conrad started to sprint across the room with a dagger raised in his hand, fear and murder in his eyes, but the eerie power caused him to lurch and stumble against a worn, bloodstained wooden bench.

 

“No… no… this can’t be happening…” Seth whispered. I don’t want to die.

 

Somehow, there was a part of him that had failed to accept his fate. A part that was barely stronger than his loathing for Alexander Gray and the terrible gift he had left him. Necromancy was evil, but he still didn’t want to die.

 

He raised his head and stared at the eerie phenomenon. Dark wisps of a miasma billowed out from his own body, and within the chest of his charging captor, the dark tangled knot of a curse twisted and writhed.

 

Fumbling with inexperience, Seth shoved mana at the first skill on his list. He hadn’t even had the time to read it. A translucent shadow appeared in the air before him, half there and half not. Seth recoiled at the wrongness of it. With a shriek that echoed through his bones and sent fingers of ice up his spine, the thing flew out and bit Conrad, passing right through the arm he raised to protect himself.

 

Conrad screamed with bloodcurdling pain and lashed blindly at it with his dagger, but the monster of shadows barely rippled as the blade passed through it and emerged from the other side.

 

It bit him again.

 

Seth shuddered; an urgent need to scream rising in his throat, but instead, he cowered in the corner, shivering from the pain and the horror of whatever he had just unleashed upon the world. He stared, aghast, at the one-sided fight. Conrad flailed about with his dagger, terrified to the point of incoherence, unable to hit whatever it was while it simply swooped around his head, darting in rapidly again and again. And every time it touched him, he screamed in pain.

 

Suddenly, the monster stopped in mid-air. A rapid shiver pulsed through its ethereal form, briefly flaring with darkness. Then it exploded; a silent blast of black light. Conrad dropped, his head bouncing off the ratty rug. The dark energy swirled back toward Seth, and to his intense surprise, the dagger wounds on his hand and shoulder began to close.

 

You have defeated Thug – Human – level 3.

 

In the distance, muffled shouts percolated down to his hearing. The sounds of his kidnappers raising the alarm, and the thudding of boots running across the floor overhead.

 

Shit. How could this day get any worse?

 

No doubt Conrad’s screams had been heard throughout the building. He scanned the skill notifications for his class, desperate, now, for anything that might save him. In his cursed class list, he found something. Three things to be exact. Raise Skeleton, Eyes of the Damned, and Curse.

 

Sick to his stomach, trying desperately to ignore what this would mean for him, he cast Raise Skeleton. He targeted Conrad’s corpse lying on the ground, unleashing a ropy tendril of black mana that rushed to fill the dead flesh and, just like Gran, the skeleton shifted. It tore itself free from the clutches of the freshly dead flesh with a spray of blood and gore that painted the walls red.

 

Seth retched in the corner, but there was no food left in his stomach.

 

Warrior – Undead Skeleton – level 1

Your reserved mana has increased by +8.

 

In trepidation, he looked up to find the dripping skeleton standing silently in a gruesome puddle. The loud footsteps reached the stairs outside.

 

“What are you doing? G… get the dagger…” Seth yelled at the awful thing, his voice cracking under the strain.

 

The skeleton turned slowly, and then walked over to the dagger and picked it up, its feet making clacking sounds as the bone struck the flagstones.

 

Seth turned away, trying to avoid looking at it. Instead, he pushed open the heavy wooden door, staring down the poorly lit corridor to the stairwell at the end. He reached his hand around the edge of the door and summoned a Volatile Wraith – the strange spirit creature of death mana that had killed Conrad.

 

The unearthly screech echoed loudly in the hall as the thing shot off toward the stairs, and Seth closed the door, activating Eyes of the Damned. He could tell he could use his skeleton, but he chose the Volatile Wraith instead, and suddenly his perspective lurched sideways.

 

He was in the dark corridor, zipping around the corner and flying up the stairs with unearthly speed. Everything around him was a monochromatic haze, illuminated with a strange, flowing, creepy light – almost as if he wasn’t quite here in the realm of the living. The walls, the floor, the corridor all seemed gray and washed out, and every now and then something flickered just outside of his vision, but when he tried to see what it was, it just seemed like the corridor.

 

Do I have enough mana for this? The thought suddenly crashed into his mind. He had never used mana for anything except Identify before, and now he was spending it without thinking. Think, think, think!  If he didn’t get control, he wasn’t making it out of here alive. Quickly, he pulled up his status to check, but to his surprise, it was not his own status that he saw in front of him.

 

Race: Undead Spirit

Class: Volatile Wraith – level 1

- Touch of Death – level 1
Mana: Attack doing Death Magic damage. Range: Touch.
Death, Intelligence

- Volatile Detonation – level 1
Explode, consuming all remaining mana to do Death Magic damage to everything around you. Range: 3 feet. Trigger: Death.
Death, Area, Trigger, Intelligence

Aptitudes
- Mana (Affinity): Death
- Incorporeal: Immune to physical damage, attacks ignore armor
- Life Drain: Critical strikes cause Life Drain instead of Critical Damage
- Damage Absorption (Racial): Death damage is absorbed as healing
- Immunities (Racial): Poison
- Vulnerabilities (Racial): +50% extra damage from Holy
- Unstable: Dies after 15 seconds

Attributes
- Vitality: 1
- Perception: 4
- Intelligence: 6
- Wisdom: 6

Health: 10/10
Mana: 60/60

 

He stared at the status sheet in shock, when suddenly, several figures careened around the corner into view, each glowing with a strange light in the gray world. He saw a flash and Seth’s vision snapped back to the room behind the closed door. Screams echoed from down the hall.  

 

Three of them.

 

“You’d better be tough,” he muttered to his skeleton as he hauled on the heavy wooden door. “You go first.” Seth crept through the doorway into the dimly lit hallway, making his skeleton go in front. As soon as he was through, three of his kidnappers appeared at the far end of the hall brandishing various swords and daggers.

 

“Get him!”

 

“Don’t let him escape.”

 

“Kill it!”

 

His skeleton did not need to be commanded, it turned and broke into a shambling, awkward run down the hallway, gripping the dagger with its finger bones. Three sets of eyes widened as the men clearly realized the peril.

 

Seth’s heart hammered his chest as he tried to fold himself into the wall.

 

Focus, he told himself. He had his plan – rudimentary as it was – and he needed to stick to it. Curse… He had no idea how it worked; he had used it instinctively against Conrad the first time, but now he fumbled awkwardly with his skill. Come on, come on… Barely a moment before his skeleton reached the charging men, his skill flared with mana and a searing pain burned down his right arm. A dark writhing ball shot from his hand and down the corridor, settling upon the first assailant. The thug flinched, earning himself a dagger in the gut from the skeleton. Seth gulped and cast his Amplify Damage curse on the next attacker while they flailed with swords and shouted in fear.

 

It is terrifying, he agreed, watching the skeleton stabbing at them. Various sword strikes cracked against the gore-splattered bone, sending splinters flying. But his skeleton ignored the damage, taking several skill-assisted strikes before one of its hands went flying into the wall in a shower of bone bits. The loss of the hand didn’t seem to have any effect on the skeleton, but Seth couldn’t rely on just the slow-moving monster anyway. He summoned another Volatile Wraith, finding the scream to be just as jarring as the first time. But it shot off at high speed to bite his foes.

 

He glanced at the skill description quickly and summoned a second one. They seemed to be limited only by his available mana and the speed at which he could cast them. Just like a fireball? A twisted, evil fireball that bites people’s souls before exploding. He grimaced, but he couldn’t afford to hold back.  

 

With a dark blast, the first wraith exploded in a flash and a pulse of twisted energy. To Seth’s surprise, his skeleton’s hand began to grow back and the splinters and chips along its arms sealed over. The second wraith exploded, and this time the pulse of dark energy returned to him, healing his wounds a little more, as one of the kidnappers collapsed.

 

You have defeated Thief – Human – level 2.

 

Seth cast Raise Skeleton on the corpse. A second skeleton rose, ripping itself out of the corpse, it showered the two remaining kidnappers with gore and then turned to face them. Weapons clattered to the ground as both remaining kidnappers screamed and fled.

 

Your reserved mana has increased by +8.

 

“Go after them!” Seth whispered and summoned another Volatile Wraith to chase after them. Waiting till the hallway was clear, he followed along, stooping to pick up a sword on the way.

 

By the time he scaled the stairs, the door was open and there was no sign of the kidnappers anywhere. All he could see was the darkness of the alley outside.

 

Cautiously, he emerged from what seemed to be a decrepit old warehouse in some rundown part of the town and glanced about. It seemed they had been using the abandoned building as cover for their kidnapping operation. Not a soul could be seen in the deserted alleyway, but the night sky was beginning to lighten, and he knew dawn would not be too far off.

 

And people.

 

He needed to avoid people at all costs. I’m a Necromancer now. His eyes came to rest on an iron grate set into the stone pavement. With no better ideas, he crept over to it and tried to lift it, but he wasn’t nearly strong enough.

 

“Lift that,” he commanded, pointing. His two skeletons immediately walked over and pulled the grating up. Handy, he thought, glancing at the two skeletons that seemed to obey his every whim. Just like him…

 

He was alive – although he wasn’t quite certain that was the best outcome anymore. He stared down the dark hole with the rusty iron ladder. Is this my life now? Do I want to stay alive like this? Seth rubbed his arms, but the skin felt all wrong.

 

It doesn’t matter, this blight will still kill me. Although the pain had diminished with his new class, he could still see the dark tendrils of its miasma billowing off of him. At least I can get off the streets. That way, he could avoid killing anyone when he turned into a zombie. Any more people, he corrected himself, realizing he had just killed two people with skeletons and undead wraiths.

 

He slowly descended the rusty iron staples into the darkness of the sewers, taking his despised and feared death magic and skeletons with him.

 

Malika

 

Malika sat cross-legged on the stone slab overlooking the waterfall in the mountains above the town of Kezda. Her eyes were closed, and she was meditating while following the guidance of Rezan as he instructed her in the appropriate forms. The icy mountain air, the sound of falling water, and the fine spray on her face all helped to calm her mind. Her body and soul were recovering, still very weakened, but her maximum life, mana, and stamina were slowly returning to normal under Rezan’s expert guidance.

 

He had said they would have returned to normal on their own over time, now that she had awakened her bloodline, but this way was safer and much faster. Malika welcomed the serene environment and the opportunity to learn from the elder’s wisdom and the deep well of his experience. Her initial impression of him as a harsh taskmaster dispensing teaching with his fists and feet had rapidly fallen away as she discovered his kindness and patience and the powerful desire to help the people he could.

 

“I think you’re ready, Malika,” Rezan intoned, his voice soothing and calm. “Slowly reach outward and let your mind connect with your senses. Do it carefully and stop if anything is painful. I will watch your energy.”

 

Malika breathed deeply, as she had been taught, holding her mind calm and in the meditative state she had been cultivating under his guidance. She let the prickle of anxiety and the fear of anticipated pain fall away as she tried to connect with her senses. She took another slow, deep breath and continued.

 

In the darkness of her mind, with her eyes closed, a spark of light flared. It was right in front of her as if it had always been there, simply waiting for her to notice it. As her energy flowed slowly around her body, the light brightened and clarified, pulsing softly. Curiosity rose within her, pushing the previous anxiety away. Light surrounded the pulse and it too slowly clarified into the form of a human, sitting cross-legged.

 

Rezan Jin. She knew it was him without even opening her eyes. The pulsing light within the center of his chest was the energy of his heart. The light surrounding it was his muscles and body. He was circulating his energy throughout his body in an even flow, appearing as white light that glowed within him under her magical sight.

 

“I see you,” Malika said at last.

 

“Good,” he said. As he spoke, she saw the energy flickering around his lungs, throat, and mouth. He raised an arm and she saw the energy flowing through the muscles making his movement possible. “Expand your awareness, now, to include Hala, Basir, and yourself,” he instructed.

 

She found it to be an easy task, her awareness expanding naturally as she willed it, and new lights entered her sight. Rezan’s disciples were clearly visible, their light not nearly as powerful as his, but steady and clear behind and to either side of her. Her own energy was visible to her also, a little trickier to observe because of the point of view at the center of her sphere of awareness. She watched, entranced, as the movement of her body was conveyed to her mind as a delicate dance of light.

 

Slowly she opened her eyes, finding that her sense of his energy was still visible, overlapping naturally with her mundane sight. Hala and Basir were still visible by their energy even though they were behind her and not visible to her eyes.

 

“In a day or two, you should be recovered enough to learn how to use it in combat,” Rezan said.

 

Soul Sight has reached level 2.

 

The notification sent a peal of relief rippling and echoing through the otherwise calm surface of her mind. Not for the skill level itself, but for what it represented – her bloodline was truly healed, and her skills could finally grow. And with her newly awakened bloodline, and the bonus from her aptitude, the precision and range with which she could see had both dramatically improved.

 

Soul Sight – level 2
You can see the flow of energy (stamina) all around you. You can sense hostile intent. You can anticipate the physical movement and attacks of your opponents. Range: 45.3 feet.
Soul, Bloodline, Perception, Wisdom

 

She puffed out her cheeks. It’s a new start.

 

 

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