It had been four years since my Father died and I was just starting to feel that I wasn’t pretending to be him every time I spoke to the settlement. I still left most things to the elders but made sure to be the voice of leadership whenever it was called for. In the aftermath of that day and the following trial of old Ping we found out many sad things. The worst was that the bandits had apparently attacked and brutalized two families that lived in outlying farms away from the village. I helped the survivors the best I could but there was little I could do. I did resolve to take up hunting to have an excuse to check on the far flung holdings of the settlement.

The next thing I found was when I took over old Ping’s house, he held onto the deeds for all of the Sun family homes. He had apparently threatened to oust anyone who didn’t listen to him. With the reparations I now owned all of their homes. I kept the three that were unoccupied after the attack and traded two to the owners of the burned down houses on either side of the shell of my fathers house. I sold the rest back to the Sun’s in exchange for labor in rebuilding. I expanded the family home to all three lots and used thicker stone walls and two stories. I roofed it in slate like the smithy. A few people thought I was putting on aries but as I told the council, I wanted a place the village could fall back on should we be attacked again. The construction finished last year and we moved in with a big celebration paid for with the last of the bandits gold. The only thing you would recognize was the fireplace, with the cornerstone that covered the box I built to hide the family treasures.

That first year was rough. Trying to walk my fathers path was not something I hoped to happen for many years. We cleaned up the village from the attack and fixed the gate, we even fixed the houses that had been left empty by deaths. The houses didn’t stay empty long as the summer brought people fleeing the monster hordes from the lowlands. Just as we were getting settled with our new neighbors the band of monsters attacked. It was just a few goblins but only a couple of men would dare face them with me. I killed them easily and took their Essence. I used Aegis for the first time during that battle, saving Kelder Lee’s life. After the next three attacks he was the only one to go with me to find their den and put a stop to it. I made him my official captain of the militia afterwards. That fight brought me to level 3.

There was only one peddler that year and Tyrone the grain merchant. I made a deal with Tyrone to bring me more books the next year, trading him not just the coin value of the books themselves but the hide of two of the high mountain elk I had brought down over the summer. Apparently the elk hide was in demand because when I proposed the same thing the next year he took the hides rather than the coin. That was good since I needed the coin to help the village expand. The refugees kept coming, not just those fleeing the monster hoard but an increasing number fleeing conscription into the local lord’s armies.

Between my hunting/scouting trips and my work around the village, I studied and trained voraciously. I put together the settlement militia that now had three dozen official members, though most of them are archers by necessity. I avoided Old Gran Cosh’s increasing hint that I should take a wife, along with the silly girls my age who were vying for the position. Mostly though, I tried to find a way to earn the coin the settlement needed to feed all the new mouths.

All of this is to say that there is a reason I am hanging from a cliff trying to find a way around an ancient bridge abutment. I thanked the heavens for every point of strength and constitution I gained from training these last few years. I hung from my arms from a jut of stone twenty feet below the edge of the cliff and kept failing to hook my foot on the next one. I originally thought I could swing myself over like I had done earlier in the climb but when I tried it here the stone started to shift.

I adjusted my grip and pulled, trying to heave myself higher on the stone block without shifting it. Little by little I edged my right side higher up the wall until finally I got my right leg over the lip of the block and could let go with my left hand. Hooking my right foot over the far edge I managed to roll myself up so I was crouching on the stone with my back to the cliff wall. This put me away from my planned route and I looked around for another way up. There was a crack in the cliff face to my right, further from my route but it looked to go all the way up to the remaining buttresses above me.

I carefully turned to face the wall and reached for the crack. It was too far away, I could only graze it with my fingertips. I shifted my weight all the way so I could reach and froze. I heard a grinding sound and felt the rock below me shift. I listened and thought I could hear the faint clatter of pebbles hitting the ground almost a hundred feet down. My stomach dropped and I felt a moment of pins and needles in my feet and palms while the world threatened to spin. I took a breath and the world settled again.

Cricise over, I settled back to plan my next move. That is of course when the block started to shift in earnest. With no time to think I did the only thing my panicking brain would allow. I infused as much Ki as I could into my legs and sprang upwards as high as I could.

This, as one might expect, was not the slow considered response that I normally used when climbing. It was in fact, the opposite of that, so it is with some surprise that I found myself wedged between two of the remaining buttresses within an easy climb of the top. Even after all these years I had yet to internalize just how much of a difference Ki can make.

I had had years to learn to use it but no training. Through experimentation I had unlocked a lot of the basic skills like power strike, dash, or in this case leap. They were all incredibly powerful, but with my meager reserves I couldn't use them often. Most of the time my Ki went into enhancements like my mastery skills and their subskills. Things that just made what I could already do better. At this point my strongest active skill was Superlative Endurance which let me train longer. Well, there was one other but it didn't count.

I crested the top of the cliff and looked around. I quickly found the javelins I had thrown across the gap with the lines attached. I made sure two were secure while I pulled the other across, towing the larger rope from the other side. It was heavier work than one would think but I got all three of the ropes up and tied off on this side.. Now I finally had a bridge of sorts to cross the ravines that cut off the old capital. I’d have to improve it if I wanted to keep using it but this was enough for today.

When I first decided to try this, to find the lost capital of Borinal, I thought I would be done in a month. That was two years ago. It took me over a year just to find which mountain it was on and I then wasted two seasons scouting around looking for a way up. Turns out there wasn’t one. The city was built to be an unassailable fortress and any climbable slopes other than where the three bridges used to be looked to have been quarried down to sheer cliffs that made what I just did seem a pleasant walk. There were a few places a person could descend but this was the only place I found to reach the top.

I walked a hundred yards to what I could now see was an overgrown wall and moved into the ancient city over a mound of dirt that was likely all that remained of the gates. Inside was what must have once been a great plaza or marketplace with the wall on one side and ruined buildings lining the other three. The grass still grew taller in the grid squares of the cobbles and in the center there must have been a statue. I could just make out the semblance of a hand poking out of the rubble. As I watched a dag tailed munia landed on it and watched me like it had not a care in the world.

As I moved deeper into the city I could track the progress of the army that conquered this city. The buildings inside the gates and along the major roads were all ruins and showed signs of fire, but many districts deeper into the city looked to have slowly succumbed to the ravages of time. Even if I don’t find the regalia I would have to bring Kelder up here to help me look for anything salvageable. Maybe we could find some weapons so the militia isn’t passing the same ten spears around. Good steel was hard to find around here.

As I seriously looked around I was suddenly filled with a mix of awe and sorrow. This was a small city of six or seven thousand people but they obviously loved their home. You could see it in the little embellishments and decorations that showed through the grime. That building has a mountain lilac carved in relief on the wall. That well was surrounded by a mosaic of leaping fish. The window box built into the side of that crumbling wall is still overgrown with thyme after so long. This was a place that people lived and it had to be abandoned because of ignorance and greed.

“This will be a problem.” I said to myself. I had reached the castle and found that while it looked mostly intact from the outside, inside all of the floors had collapsed in on themselves. The only first hand account I had read claimed the king’s sole surviving grandchild and his greatest treasures were secreted in a vault under the castle protected with a magic barrier that only the king or one of his blood could pass. I searched but couldn’t find a way down. I started shifting stones to see if I could find anything but most of the stones were too heavy to lift on my own. Frustrated, I started looking around for something to use as a lever.

I spotted an iron spit in the remains of a surviving fireplace. It had been sheltered enough that it looked serviceable. Walking over to it, it looked hale enough for my purposes but wouldn’t pull free of its socket. In a bit of a peak I stepped into the enormous fireplace, grabbed the iron bar with both hands, and tugged. The bar came free with a clang followed by a clack and then a bang as the trap door I was standing on gave way.

“I guess they really might be related to me, they use the same hiding place,” I said into the dark depths. I had only fallen about three feet to a landing at the top landing of a steep set of steps. I couldn’t see the bottom so after some juggling I managed to pull a small oil lamp from my spatial pouch and get it lit.

I crept down the steps, careful of any traps or pitfalls made by time. They ended in a dusty corridor with vaulted ceilings that curved back towards the center of the castle. I passed a couple alcoves filled with rubble that I took for other secret entrances. After a dozen yards the path hit a wall with a door on either side. One side was propped open and led to what looked like a sewer tunnel heading towards the river. The other was hard to open and when I finally did I found the other side was made to look like part of the wall.

The tunnel stretched away to either direction. I did as the dungeoneering books said and went right, but not before getting out some chalk to mark the way. About twenty yards later I came to a T intersection. The right hand path was blocked by rubble so I started down the left only to stop. On the floor before me were a half dozen corpses. The skeletons of soldiers left where they had fallen, one with a blade still in it's chest piercing mail and sternum alike.

At first I approached, thinking to search them for valuables, then almost recoiled at my own ghoulishness and left the dead where they lay. I would not dishonor them that way, dishonored remains could rise to undeath even centuries after their passing. It was bad enough they had been left here to rot, I would not compound the sin.

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I stepped around the bodies and continued down the corridor. As the dark closed behind me my mind filled with imagined clink and chattering as I thought of those skeletons standing up behind me. I eventually came to a stretch with a triple handful of rooms on either side of the corridor. All but one had the doors broken down and the furniture apparently destroyed. That last had a bare skeleton lying face down on the rotted remains of a bed with its skull smashed in. Despite my earlier thoughts I found a bit of rag from the floor over the remains to at least leave the poor soul that much dignity.

Shortly after what I assumed were quarters of some kind the hall opened up into a larger room. There was a long counter built into one wall and a couple of barrel rings notable in the debris beheith it. The opposite wall had a rack like one would use to keep weapons as well as a couple of pells. In the far corner I found an intact barrel. Breaching the top I found it full of oil, sand, and several intact maile byrnies and a coif. The two topmost shirts had some holes from rust but the rest were in fine condition. I pushed a small amount of mana into them all and though they absorbed it, meaning that they were awakened gear, they gave me no feedback so they were just basic kit. Still, it was better than anything I had, save my sword and my elk hide coat, so into the bag they went. Just because I could, I put the best byrnie and coif on under my coat and belt. I was finally a fully equipped adventurer after four years.

I moved around getting used to the weight. It was strange, the coat kept the jingle of the chainmail from sounding too loud but I could still hear it echoing from the hallway. I would have to be wary of that if I ever needed stealth in a stone building. More armored than I had ever been, I searched the rest of the room. I managed to find a couple of spearheads and a dagger that, while rusted, could probably be repaired by the smith in the village.

With no other exits to be found, I paused at the entrance to look around one more time in case I missed something and turned just in time to see a hand of yellow-white bone reaching for my throat. I dropped my lamp and scrambled back reaching for my sword. The spilled lamp oil guttered to life revealing the six corpses from earlier, risen and seeking the blood of the living. The only good news was that the only one armed was the one holding the same sword that had been in its own chest.

I pulled my buckler from my bag and quickly slid the disk of boiled leather into my arm, the metal ring on the edge biting slightly at my wrist and elbow. The smell of the bees wax and the honing oil from my sword immediately let me control my moment of panic. I looked at my opponent, at how slowly they moved, at the way they all acted independently of each other. This was not an unwinnable fight. I took a slow breath to top off my Aether reserves and let myself fall away leaving only the warrior standing in my place.

Before they could advance I took two steps forward and struck the first one across its reaching arm. The bone chipped, but it did not slow the creature. I slid to the side as it swiped at me and infused my sword with Ki, slashing at the grinning skull with my counter stroke. My ancient blade blew through the skull with ease and the skeleton dropped to the ground. I returned to a high guard even as I pushed the next closest away with my shield. I brought my sword down in an overhand cut but overestimated the undead’s coordination. The tip of the blade passed in front of it while it fell to the ground from my push. I kicked it away as far as I could as two more reached for me. I blocked the left with my shield while parrying the right with enough force to turn it to the side. I then drew my infused blade through its spine on the back swing, severing the skull and ending it.

On some instinct I jumped back. The rusted sword swung through the spot my own head had just been. I pivotet, bringing my shield up and my sword around to strike the unarmed monster. It became literally unarmed a moment later as my blade took off the two grasping limbs. I punched it in the face with my sword hand and felt a chill rush up.my arm as it clattered to the ground.

Unfortunately, I was now flanked by the two remaining skeletons, one of them armed. Worse, they both had mostly intact armor. The rusty sword came back down on the metal ring of my shield. I let the force of the blow push me towards the other foe and made a rotating cut to its neck that was fouled by the coif. That should have ended him but I had let the Ki lapse from my sword. As the swordsman readied another strike I kicked out his knee before turning on him fully. I reinfused not just my blade but my arm as well and came around in a power strike, shattering the skull and armor both.

I quickly moved over the top of my fallen foe before rounding on the last of them shield first. I bashed the thing in the face with my shield, knocking it over. I followed it down and pinned it before driving my sword through its skull, ending it. Just in time as the spilled oil of my lamp guttered and died as I got to my feet. I let go of my similarly guttering Ki reserves and breathed in some Aether to both calm myself and start the process of converting more Ki.

I felt around for the dropped lantern, not finding it until I had managed to scald myself on the remnants of hot oil twice. I managed to get the wick resettled and was searching my pouch for the spare flask of oil to get some light before I tried to cultivate the Essence from the undead. Even in the dark I could see the misty omissions of the five destroyed revenants. That was when I felt a cold grip on my neck.

I tried to infuse Ki into my body and pull away but the Ki was drained as fast as I could send it. On top of that the skeleton seemed to be getting stronger the more of my Ki he pulled away. I awkwardly tried to swing behind me with my shield. The monster not only grabbed the shield but bit down on my hand. With direct contact with my skin the creature was now starting to pull Aether from my dantian. I started to feel weak, the unnatural pull from my core causing a strength sapping nausea.

I thought of my brother and sister, of the villagers and the families on the outlying farms of the settlement. They were depending on me. I could not let myself die in some dark hole. I fought back my nausea and grabbed onto the skeleton's jawbone. Even as it worried at my hand I pulled with all of my natural strength until I forced the skull over my shoulder, then I used the metal handle of the lamp like a knuckle duster to bash the skull to pieces, ending the thing.

After that I channeled enough Ki into my sword’s Ki stone to give some light and checked the room before I re-lit the lamp. I then sat facing the door and cultivated Essence. Over the years I had gathered Essence from the beasts I hunted, and of course from the goblins, but I had only been able to make it to level three. To make the most of the meager traces I found, I have become very efficient at this most basic step of cultivation. I sat and drew in all the released Essence and pulled it into my core, enlarging it just a hair with each breath like an oyster growing a pearl. When it was done I could feel myself on the verge of level four if I could get just a little more. I had captured twenty nine parts in thirty with the last diffusing into my body. If I had just managed to hold onto that last bit I might be there.

I looked down at the corpses and decided that I would loot them after all, but I would also carry their bones out of this place and give them a proper burial. Most of what they had on them was worthless and rusted but a few pieces were worth salvaging. One man’s tunic served to bundle their bones together. That same man was wearing a wooden ring that was in pristine condition. Another had a silver chain with a leaf shaped pendant and dagger with a Ki stone set in the guard resting in what remained of his boot. I also found two pouches with almost a dozen gold in mixed coinage.

I took the three objects and laid them before me in preparation to use one of only two Mana skills I knew, Identify. The first thing I checked was the dagger. I gathered my Mana in my dantian and held the dagger between my palms. I then let a slow trickle of mana pass through my right arm to the dagger and then pulled it back up my left arm to my dantian.

-You have found a [Dagger of Shocking Edge]: infusing the ki stone in the hilt will coat the blade in lightning, stunning those struck and cauterizing some wounds.-

That was quite the find. The knack for making elemental weapons that used Ki had been lost in the region so those on the market were either antiques or costly forigne imports. It was in repairable condition in its metal sheath with relatively little rust. I doubted I had the Ki to charge the stone but it would sell for enough to feed twenty people for a year. I checked the other items. The necklace was just jewelry, the ring though was something else.

-You have found a [Ring of the Novice Sentry]: Wearing this ring will improve the effect of your wisdom on perception by one half of a degree and confer the ability to learn to see in the dark.-

It was a training ring, an item made to help someone learn a specific skill or group of skills. They were usually meant to help someone switch from one path to another; like from a generic warrior, which was a grade one path, to a sentry, which was a grade two. They helped a person learn a skill that was required for the path but was hard to get on their own. It was apparently more common with mage type classes but from what I had read the warrior ones were far more sought after because knowing the wrong Mana skills can block many paths but Ki skills generally didn’t interfere with each other until they were at a much higher tier. Plus this ring gave me something that was immediately useful.

I put on the ring and after a moment of hesitation I blew out the lamp. I could see nothing. I knew the layout of the room by now so I looked over at the counter. The white stone of the countertop contrasted with the wooden shelves beneath it. I stared for almost a minute before giving up. Then as I moved my head I saw a bright line of contrast just at the height of the countertop.

-You have learn a Skill: Dark Vision, you can see in the dark.-

Thank you world spirit, that was helpful as always. I moved my head some more and found that I wasn’t seeing the contrast of light and dark but rather the depth by which something was away from me. I would need to practice this skill more but I could see how any moving enemy would stand out like a beacon.

I kept my lantern and shield out in case I needed either and headed back the way I came to try the other direction. I did stop to collect the bones of that poor soul in the last bedroom but otherwise made good time to the first intersection and the hidden door. Leaving the remains there I started with my chalk again and headed down the left hand tunnel. My darkvision seemed to be getting clearer all the time, or maybe I was just getting used to seeing like this. It let me see, clear as day, a concealed doorway inset a fraction of an inch into the wall. Feeling around I found a stone that pivoted out allowing me to pull the door out.

When I opened the door I was assailed with a smell like mildewed leather and wax. Inside I saw a curving corridor like the one I entered through, though filled with rubble a few yards in. On the ground behind the door lay another body. This one wore fine clothes and looked much better preserved than the guards in the hall. Lighting my lamp again I saw the mummified remains of a man dressed in fine wool of rich blue lay propped against the wall with his hands still clenched over a gut wound. Out of caution I put my fighting knife in behind his ear before I pulled him out and laid him back with the others I intended to bury. I took a fine ring from his finger and a set of keys from his belt but otherwise left him alone. I continued in that way for the next few hours, finding the dead, making sure they were dead, and laying them out to be brought up and buried. Most were picked to bones by rats but two more were in sealed arias and had been left as dried husks. I found some jewelry and coins but after those I fought in the barracks I only found one item that I could identify. A pair of boots too small for me that would increase the wearers constitution.

I came at last to the end of that hall and found a room that looked to be a treasury, with several vaulted alcoves to each side littered with the remains of looted chests. At the back of the room was a set of intact doors set with bronze. I tried to touch it and found I could not. A barrier stood before me. I tried pushing mana into the barrier and it lit up a dim orange with a red hand in the middle. Taking the obvious hint I put my right hand against the red one. My hand and then arm heated for a moment before passing through the barrier. The door was locked but fortunately one of the keys from the dead noble opened it.

I walked into a small room lying on the ground next to a table was a well preserved corpse in the finest clothes I had ever seen. I went to him and carefully ensured he would not rise to undeath and then looked at what lay on the table. There sat a seal, a scepter, a jeweled sword, and a crown. I lifted the crown and sent my mana into it.

-You Have Discovered the [Crown of the Mountain King of the People of Borinal] also called the [Legates Crown of the Mountain Winds] one of five parts of the [Royal Regalia of Borinal]: You are a potential Heir to the Throne, would like to use the crown to try to claim Sovereignty of the [Crown City of Libor]? YES/NO-