“Gods,” Dovik puts his head against the wall in the corner. He laughs, a quiet, sad thing. “This is not how I thought this was going to go.”
“What do you want to do?” I ask. I watch as Macille sets Adrius back down on the floor. With my assistance, we manage to get some water into the man. “If we can’t go back…”
“Forward,” Dovik sighs.
The yawning passageway at the far end of the cramped room shows us only darkness. I stare into the shadow in the doorway, straining my eyes to try and see anything on the other side. Nothing.
“When?” Macille asks. He looks down at Dovik. “I don’t know how long it takes for someone to recover from this kind of blood loss. We could wait here. I think we have enough supplies for a few days that we could spend here.
“We don’t have that kind of time,” Dovik says. He looks down at Adrius with a pained expression. “This competition is a race against time. The deadline might be months from now, but we have hundreds of miles to travel. I have no idea how close we will be cutting it if we wait in here for a few days, but I am willing to bet that there isn’t an extreme amount of leeway.”
“So do we leave Adrius here or take him with us?” I ask. The two of them look at me like I’m crazy. “What?”
“We are not abandoning him here,” Dovik says.
“You want to bring him? If we go forward, we are going to be bringing him into dangerous situations where he can’t defend himself. Do you think it’s better to do that?” I say.
“There aren’t any great options,” Macille says. He looks down at the man. “Still, I say that we bring him. Leaving him here alone when he is in this state is too cruel, and there is no guarantee that we will be able to return for him. He isn’t too heavy; I can carry him.”
“Are you fully recovered?” I ask. Macille shakes his head at me. “We should wait until then.”
“That will take hours,” Dovik says.
“It’s better to wait now than to regret it later. If we are going to make Macille responsible for protecting an unconscious man, I want him at top condition. We are down two people. Anything less than our best might end up with us all getting killed.” I stare at Dovik until he eventually relents.
The man punches a wall and sits in a corner of the room. “We will take the time to rest then. We will move on in a few hours, rest up.”
Not wanting to waste time, I pull furs out of my inventory and make myself a pallet on the floor. I have only gained a single level since the last time that I reinforced my soul, but I am not going to let this opportunity to strengthen myself slip by. If it can help even a little, I think that it will be worth the short nap.
When I awaken a few hours later, I stay underneath the furs to not give away the allocation of my free points with the light show that follows. I look over my attributes for a long moment, trying to really understand just how different I have become from the girl I was a few months ago.
Charlene Devardem
Human(Level 21 → 22)(Rank 1)
Emperor Conflux
Attributes
Vitality: 36 → 37
Strength: 25 → 26
Magic: 209 → 215(250)
Defense: 36 → 37(57)
Magic Defense: 29 → 30(45)
Speed: 102 → 103(128)
Recovery: 161 → 178(208)
Perception: 26 → 27
Presence: 0
Healing Points: 370
Mana: 2500
Stamina: 745
Even putting all of my free points into Recovery, I am still a bit shocked at the massive jump. Until I put this ring on, I didn’t really understand how much of a gain five percent could be. Though, to be fair to myself, I think I only heard of the concept of percentages less than a month ago.
I waver back and forth beneath my protection of furs for a while longer before finally forcing myself to settle onto a plan. So far, I have been too haphazard with allocating my free points. Just two days ago I had put at least forty into Speed and given that I focus on not getting close to enemies, it seems like a complete waste in retrospect. I cannot deny the massive benefit having access to free points has given me. Through simple arithmetic, it isn’t difficult to see that having the Eye of Volaash has given me more than a two hundred attribute bonus through free points, and that isn’t including all of the other functions that it is capable of. Truly, it is an incredible artifact. Arabella giving it to me might almost make up for her sending me into this competition without properly explaining just how terrifying everything would be.
Having access to the free points does present me with a unique dilemma, however. After having asked Macille some leading questions, I have found out that while elves don’t waste any of their spiritual energy when reinforcing their souls, they don’t exactly get to decide how it is spent. Instead of free points, the additional strength in their soul reinforcement is split between effort values and their racial bonuses, meaning that how they train is even more important for them. Humans, all the ones except for me, have the opposite issue, where the inefficiency in their soul reinforcement culminates in a huge buildup of unused energy.
No one has directly said it but given that Dovik is level fifty and still rank one, while the catfish I killed was rank two and level fifty two, I am assuming that level fifty is the threshold for the second rank. That means, that when Dovik gets access to a soul cage and is able to cross that barrier, he will have five hundred points of attributes immediately infused into him. Galea has told me that humans are able to control this allocation of energy somewhat, making them more akin to free points, though not as easy to use as the free points that I have.
The similarity between humans and elves, or more like inefficient soul reinforcers and efficient ones, that I don’t share, is that they end up being more spread out in their attribute allocations. This is where I am unique. My attribute allocations are completely lopsided. All that is left for me is to decide on whether that is a good thing or a bad thing. If I never have to worry about getting hit in a fight, then Defense and Magic Defense don’t do anything for me. If I never have to worry about recovering from a serious injury, then Vitality is in the same basket. I have already given up on Strength, despite my hesitation about it, so is there even a reason for me to worry about attributes other than Magic and Recovery?
This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.
One thing I have noticed is that every single time I have reinforced my soul, no matter what I did to gain the levels, Recovery is almost always boosted. It isn’t as if I can ask anyone else if that is the case for them as well; I am the only one able to see real numbers for my attributes after all. I think it has to do with the fact that I am a Recovery specialist. Add to that the fact that as a human I receive twice as much Recovery from leveling up than I do any other attribute, and I would be stupid not to take advantage.
According to a brief conversation I had with Dovik, it is rare for a human to break through the first threshold in a given attribute before they reach rank two. The elites with incredibly strict training regimens manage to do so fairly frequently, but for the average magician who cannot focus their effort values so narrowly, it is incredibly difficult. I have already broken through two different thresholds before I really even understood what they were, and I haven’t even made it halfway to the second rank.
I spend more than a full hour staring at the screen, eventually coming to a concrete conclusion about my path forward. My firepower, granted to me by my massive Magic attribute has been the only reason that anyone has included me in their parties so far. I haven’t had much experience competing against other Mages–other than Coriander–so it is difficult for me to take what Dovik and Macille say about my strength at face value. Some part of my mind whispers to me that they are just being nice with their compliments. Killing that weak part of my mind is more difficult than killing any monster I have faced so far.
Before remerging from the furs, I have come to my final decision. Are there clear weaknesses to being as specialized as I am right now? Yes, of course there are, but I have decided to keep going in the direction I am with the exception that I will be focusing more on Recovery. I would have given up on my Speed attribute completely if it hadn’t just saved me from getting an arrow through my eye. Given that, I will keep raising it. Who knows, maybe I will break the first threshold in three attributes before I make it to rank two.
The room around me is quiet as I emerge from my furry cocoon. Both Macille and Dovik sit against their own walls, each looking as if they are in the middle of serious thought. I give them time as I put away the furs and prepare a small meal for everyone. We eat in silence, Macille checking on Adrius every ten minutes or so. There is no change in the man, he remains pale and unconscious on the floor.
“Are we ready?” Dovik asks, handing me the crude clay bowl that I prepared our forest salad in. Apparently, someone in the big group we are part of is able to manipulate earth, and Lionel put them to work making bowls and utensils for everyone to eat with.
“I am,” I say, stowing the bowls away.
“I am as well,” Macille says. He stares down the passageway that we are going to need to take. “I guess all that is left to decide is whether you want me in the front or the back.”
“Back,” both Dovik and I say at the same time.
He motions for me to go ahead. “If you are going to carry Adrius,” I say, “then you staying at the back makes the most sense.”
“But we need a Guardian to be at the front,” Macille says.
“We don’t strictly need a Guardian,” Dovik says. He brandishes his weapon, swishing the tip of his fire poker through the air. “I’ll stay at the vanguard. If we encounter anything incredibly dangerous, Charlene will back me up with her magic. You can stay at the rear, guarding Adrius and our backs.”
Dovik dusts off his pants as he stands. I take my cue from the man and get to my feet as well. “Any idea what else this dungeon has in store?”
“I know that it will end with a big dangerous monster,” Dovik says, stroking his chin in thought. “That is a staple of Willian Guild Dungeons. My uncle is the head designer for most of the dungeons that the guild creates and runs. The man is a bit…odd.”
I look back at Adrius on the floor. We have cleaned him up a bit, but he still looks terrible. At least his breathing has evened out.
“So, we will have to fight some big monster down two people,” I say.
“It shouldn’t be too difficult,” Dovik says. “This is only the first dungeon after all.” Both Macille and I stare at him. He looks between us, taking a few seconds to register our surprise. “Oh. Yes, there will probably be more than a single dungeon. I mean, we haven’t even made it a tenth of the distance towards the end of the competition. It would be strange if there was only a single dungeon for the entirety of the Passage.”
“You know more than you are letting on,” I say. Before he can protest, I brush past him and stand near the door. “As long as you aren’t holding back any information that will get us hurt or killed, that’s fine. Now, after you, fearless leader.” I motion toward the darkness. Behind Dovik, Macille gingerly picks up Adrius, slinging the man over his shoulder.
“Right,” Dovik says, approaching the darkness. “I guess I will just walk into whatever is waiting head first.” The man takes a deep breath before plunging into the dark.
Macille and I wait for a moment, listening for the sound of some creature attacking him in the darkness or some trap to be set off. After ten seconds, Dovik returns, a strange expression on his face. “No traps or monsters,” he says. He sighs, looking back through the door. “It’s best you see for yourselves.” Without another word, he is back through the doorway.
Macille offers me a shrug when I look to him, making the man slung over his shoulder look as if he weighs nothing. I shrug back to him, marching into the shadow of the doorway.
I emerge out into a large circular room of stone. It appears almost identical in make to the door room that we found earlier with the key difference that there are no other doors out of the room: a room of dark stone that forms a huge circle, a depression in the center. Dovik stands in the center of the room, shaking his head as he looks down at what I can only describe as a mannequin made out of meat.
Walking over to Dovik, the smell of the strange doll in the center of the room hits me like a punch to the face. I gag, the violent smell of days old meat making me stumble. For the first time, I hate my improved eyesight, as I can see maggots crawling over the slabs of meat that have been tied together with string and metal to resemble the shape of a human.
“What in the three hells!” Macille swears, a few steps behind me.
Dovik looks over at us, holding a handkerchief to his face. “There is a note on it,” he says, pointing down at the meat doll.
He’s right. Attached to the chest of the doll is a piece of paper that has writing on it written in an incredibly small script. I stoop, snatching up the paper, only to find Dovik looking at me with wide eyes as soon as I stand up.
“What?” I ask. He doesn’t need to bother reprimanding me for grabbing the paper; the sound of the doorway we entered through slamming shut behind me does that for him. I am thankful for the magic gloves that I am wearing. The sheet of paper in my hand is slick with something horrific that I don’t even want to identify, and it is a nightmare to keep the flies off me as I look down at the writing.
“Protect the meatman,” I read aloud. “This is a mock escort mission. Like all escort missions, the target will be completely useless and likely detrimental in completing the mission.”
Dovik growls and spits words in a language I don’t know, kicking the meatman on the ground. A rattling shakes up through the ground, rumbling up my boots and setting my heart to beating fast. I look around the room; dozens of holes begin to open in the walls, holes that rise all the way toward the ceiling. Macille hurries to set Adrius down in the center of the room, next to the toxic smelling meatman, and equips his shield even as the snarling begins to echo from the holes in the walls.
We spot the snarling beasts a moment later as the first one steps out of the shadows of the hole it crawls from. A head, like a cat’s, is the first thing that appears, followed by a second head just next to it. As it crawls forward, I stare at a huge cat, almost half the size of a horse, with two heads, two tails, and six legs. The dark fur, almost the color of night, make the monster difficult to track as it slinks through the shadows to begin circling us. More peek their twin heads from their holes, slowly moving out toward us when none of us are looking directly at them.
Cabal Cat(Level 42)