Trent woke up to the sound of yelling and metal clanging. He bolted upright, prepared to fight, only to see Noah, banging metal pots together.
"WAKEY WAKEY! TIME TO GO, WE'VE GOT A SCHEDULE TO KEEP! THE SUN IS UP AND SO ARE WE!" He yelled, watching with glee as his charges groaned.
"I think I hate you, Noah." Terrance muttered, dragging himself out of his cot.
"A surprising amount of people say that to me. For the life of me, I can't figure out why." He responded.
"Alright, lets get going, daylights burning!" He said cheerily, marching to his spot at the head of the caravan, leaving the trio to drag themselves to their wagon. Once they woke up some more, they started discussing their plans for once they got to Vantall. Trent explained his plan to go for pure spell casting and combat magic. Terrance was looking into arcane study, and more theoretical magic. Joan, however, was specializing entirely in earth magic. She was hoping to learn and practice as many applications of earth magic as she could. So far, none of them knew how to cast yet, but they each had a prodigious theoretical knowledge on their chosen focus, especially Terrance, who scored a 110% on the exam.
They discussed what they knew of the College, and what they guessed at, for the better part of the day, only stopping once a rest for lunch was called. While eating the bland rations Noah had supplied, Trent heard a hissing noise that seemed to vibrate the base of his skull. He looked around for whatever was causing it, but found nothing that seemed likely. Unfortunately, he did find a group of 3 forest wolves, sporting a familiar set of red eyes and foaming mouths.
He called out to Noah while drawing his sword, but the wolf closest to him reacted first. While the other two circled him, Wolf 1 launched towards him in blind fury. Recalling all of his one battles, Noah held the blade out in front of him. Unfortunately, he wasn't so lucky this time. The wolves were smarter than the squirrel had been, even if only by instinct, letting the wolf shift to the side to catch the sword to the shoulder instead of impaling itself. Trent was strong enough to keep hold of the sword even with the added weight, which meant the wolf slid towards him and bit deep into his shoulder. A blue flash stopped the wolf's jaws cold, preventing them from closing down.
Health: 172/150
The numbers flashed in his vision, forcing him to see how much his health had dipped. Damn, that is one strong bite. Maybe I shouldn't let that happen again. He dropped the sword, and the wolf along with it, and swung a low kick at the wolf's legs. He heard a crack, giving him hope before he was tackled from behind by Wolf 2. He tried to get back up, but couldn't get the wolf off of him. Right when he thought the wolf would bite down on his neck and crack his mage armor, the weight was gone. He stood up just in time to watch Noah take apart the group of wolves with ruthless efficiency.
Noah held a sword in each hand, clearly ones he had conjured. The one in his right hand was made from fire, while the left consisted of rapidly flowing water. He decapitated Wolf 2 with the water sword, spun, and planted the fire sword in Wolf 3's skull. He pulled it out again, and swung the two swords into each other. When they connected, a large burst of steam billowed out, creating a smokescreen. Trent tried to see what was going on inside, but only heard Wolf 1 whine in pain, and then silence. Noah walked out of the fog, his swords gone. He turned back, snapped his fingers, and the fog condensed into water droplets which fell onto the forest floor. The corpse of Wolf 1 was nowhere to be seen, only a red splatter of wolf blood where it had been standing.
Noah turned to each of his charges in turn, making sure they were all okay, before standing up.
"And that, kids, is why you stay in school." He said, before marching over to the forward wagon and setting off once more. The trio just gaped in shock for a few seconds, before running to catch up to their wagon. When they settled in, they immediately all started gushing about Noah, wondering how he could pull that off.
"I could barely react to the wolves, and I saw them coming. He just swooped in and they were gone. That was awesome! That's exactly the type of magic I want to learn." Trent said to his friends, watching them nod their heads vigorously in agreement.
"I saw the wolf jump you, and he was just off. He ran to get something from his wagon, and then almost flew across the camp to slam into that wolf. I want to know how he got that much power in his jumps." Joan told him.
"I also saw you with that first wolf, Trent. I'm guessing you don't actually know how to use that sword, but that kick looked very clean." Terrance complimented.
Embarrassed, Trent rubbed the back of his head. "I only get the sword yesterday. I'm hoping they'll teach me at Vantall."
"That's a good plan. I would try and rely on your sword less though. While it's sharp, you could harm yourself if you don't actually know how to use it. And you seem like you could make do with just your hands anyway." Joan said critically. "At least you aren't covered in blood this time."
The conversation then turned to ribbing and jokes, which they used to pass the time until they rested for the night. Trent was digging the latrines for the night when he heard the hiss again, much louder this time. He looked around, but it was too dark to see anything. Which is why he never saw the long tendril that grabbed his ankle and yanked him off his feet. He hit the ground, too dazed to call out, and a second tendril wrapped around his mouth to prevent him from making noise.
Unable to do much of anything, he settled in for the slow, uncomfortable journey. He was complaining heavily about his inability to see anything when he remembered his ISD. He mentally directed the enchantment to turn on, and was happy to see his surroundings light up.
While the angle was poor, he could occasionally catch glimpses of his captors. They had a fleshy look to them, but rippled with muscle. Eventually, as they dragged him, he noticed a change in the trees. The leaves had been a vibrant green along the caravans path, but here the trees seemed to almost suck life into them. The ground was dry and rough, and Trent hadn’t seen an animal the entire time.
Eventually, he decided to just keep track of landmarks and figure out how to escape once he wasn’t hitting his skull on every rock in the forest. Twenty minutes later he saw a tree directly in front of him, entirely desiccated. The few leaves it had were gray and lifeless, and the ground around it looked more like a desert than the forest floor.
As he noticed the tree, the tendrils suddenly sped up, sending him shooting into a hollow at the base of the tree. Once he entered the space, the tendrils let go immediately. Unfortunately, the hollow was much deeper than it seemed, and he slid down a winding path through the earth. After a minute of just sliding, Trent slammed his tailbone into hard stone, eliciting a yelp of pain.
Trent opened his eyes and held up his wrist to shine light through the room he had landed in, revealing far more bones than any room should have, with a trail of them leading down an ominously dark path. Trent scuttled back, putting all of his weight on a bone only for it to send a sharp crack ringing through the cavern. Once he regained his bearings, he looked for an exit. The path he had fallen down was high in the ceiling, far to high for him to reach. As he scanned the room, he came to his least favorite solution so far. I need to walk through the big scary doorway, don't I.
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Passing through the doorway revealed a long hallway, bones strewn about the floor. Trent crunched his way through, stopping when his light caught engravings on the walls. While he couldn't understand much, he noticed a scene of a large creature getting attacked by stick figures with spears. He leaned in to look at the creature, but the picture was damaged, obscuring what was likely his foe.
He turned away, starting down the hallway once more before arriving at a large, ornately carved set of double doors, reaching far into the ceiling. Trent hesitated for a moment, but felt a thrum in his heart. He recognized it as the call of adventure, and wasn't about to turn it down. He swung the door open, revealing a wide set of stairs leading up to an altar. It was marred with scratches, hiding what was once beautiful imagery. Lining the sides of the room were delicately carved pillars, crumbling in places from disuse. Small glowing stones were embedded in each pillar, lighting up the room. He took a step into the room... and was immediately grabbed by a familiar looking tendril.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
"Oh shit, not again, I'll just walk dude, please!" He begged of the tendril, to no avail. He was once again dragged across stone and dirt. Trent lifted his head up when being taken up the stairs, not wanting to hit his skull on every single step. Finally, he was dropped in front of the altar, watching as a rumbling noise emanated from it. Slowly, the top of the altar shifted sideways and fell off, revealing a void that seemed to suck in all light.
"That seems exclusively bad." Trent thought before a large shape squeezed itself out of the gap. Stumbling back, Trent could only watch as a ball of the tendrils formed on top of the altar, before splitting across the middle to reveal an eye almost as wide as his torso was tall. It snapped open and shut repeatedly, almost as if trying to blink dirt out of its eye, before unleashing an unearthly screech.
Trent sprinted down the steps as fast as he could, looking back to see 3 tendrils launching towards him, a number more holding up the creature. Trent jumped to the side just in time to avoid getting speared, landing on a pillar. He climbed up, trying to get away from the tendrils, but looked down to see them circling the pillar to get to him. Suddenly, the light in the room seemed to bend towards the altar. Trent looked over to see the abomination pulling the light into its eye.
Trent, recalling everything he knew about creatures with prominent eyes, jumped to the pillar next to him, turning to watch the spot was just in get vaporized by a beam of crushing darkness. He slid down the pillar, ran to the center of the room, and planted his feet. Pulling out his sword, he waited for the tendrils to attack him before swinging his sword as hard as he could. The ends of the tendrils flew over his shoulders, separated from the creature.
The being screeched in pain and rage, blasting another beam towards him, forcing him to sidestep. Trent charged up the steps, dodging blasts of darkness and tendrils trying to trip him, slowly but surely closing in on the creature. Whenever a tendril got close, his sword flashed and another appendage hit the floor. Occasionally he would miss, but the motion of his swing let most of the hits graze his extremities, though a lucky shot left a particularly deep notch in his shoulder.
Trent mounted the top of the steps, bracing his sword against himself, and charged the creature with a roar. The abomination, unwilling to go down without a fight, flashed a tendril Directly into his side, but Trent pushed on. With a grunt of effort, he jumped, planting his sword squarely in the creatures enlarged eye. Unleashing a horrifying shriek that rattled Trent's skull, the creature dropped to the floor, Trent following him shortly after. With the last vestiges of his consciousness, he felt a sharp pain on his back, but the darkness claimed him before he could worry about it.
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Trent woke up to the gentle rumble of a wagon. He let out a groan at the headache, sitting up and looking around. Before he could get his bearings, he was tackled by a familiar form.
"You're awake! I thought you were gonna die! What happened Trent?" Joan questioned rapidly, shaking him slightly just by touching him.
"Ugh, my everything is killing me. What happened? How did you get me out of that fucked up room?" Trent groaned, gently pushing Joan off of him. He looked around, noticing both Terrance and Noah looking at him, concerned.
"When no one could find you for dinner, I checked your tracking on your ISD. You were moving deep into the forest, so I tried to follow you, but it took a while. when I finally caught up to you, I had to dig down with earth magic to get to you. I found you unconscious and bleeding heavily on top of the corpse of a Servant. What the fuck happened man?" Noah explained, his hands flashing golden as he touched each of Trent's injuries in turn. As he explained what had happened to him, Noah moved to the wound on his shoulder.
"Not that one, please." He said, grabbing Noah's wrist gently.
"Why not, what if you get infected?" Joan asked, Noah nodding in agreement.
"My dad always said that scars are proof that we persevered. I want to have something to remember this by." Trent explained.
"You'll have one hell of a story, I guess." Noah said, backing off. Trent pushed himself up... and then looked down at his hands, still in his lap. How did I do that? He wondered, before a scream resounded through the wagon. He looked over to see Joan pointing at his back and yelling loudly, Noah next to her overpowering her voice with his shrill scream. Terrance just sat there, calm and collected. Trent peered over his shoulder, jumping up when he spotted the now familiar tendrils emerging from each of his shoulder blades.
"What the FUCK?!" Noah yelled once he was done shrieking.
"I DONT KNOW?" Trent responded, grabbing a tendril and trying to pull it off. It felt like trying to remove a finger, hurting like it was a part of him. Eventually, he realized that the tendrils weren't moving, making a very unhappy connection.
"Goddamnit, these are a part of me now, aren't they. Noah, you went to school, care to explain just why I have tentacles now?" Trent asked his senior, unconsciously wiggling them for emphasis.
"I DON'T KNOW! THIS DOESN'T USUALLY HAPPEN! I STAY AWAY FROM THE BIOMANCY DEPARTMENT FOR A REASON!" Noah yelled, shielding his eyes. Terrance walked over and gently poked one of the tendrils.
"It seems like you can move them, do you know how much? This might be useful for you if you have as much control as it seems." Terranced said analytically. Trent tried waving his right tentacle at Joan, surprising himself when the appendage followed his commands just as his normal arms would. He waved them behind him, stretching out their full length of a meter. When he was done testing, he coiled them around his torso, effectively hiding them unless you were closely looking for them.
"Well, that was horrifying. You said this type of stuff happens in biomancy, Noah? I might have to change my plans. I'm gonna look into getting these removed. Oh yeah, you called the fucked up eye thing a Servant? What's that about?" Trent asked, hoping to change the subject from his new limbs.
"Servants are spawn of a legendary beast called The Creature. No one actually knows what it looks like, because any time it shows up, it demonstrates terrifying skill in biomancy. It'll change shape constantly, so no one knows what its true form looks like. It creates spawn, like the Servants, to cause havoc. The battle mage departments try and deal with them wherever they can, but The Creature is notoriously hard to hunt down. The Servant calling to you specifically is kind of disturbing, You should talk to the Dean about that." Noah cautioned. "I'm gonna start the wagons again. we should make it to Vantall by midday if we can keep up this speed." He said, walking off to the head of the caravan.
"And you should rest. I'm not having my future classmate die along the way." Joan said, leading him back to the wagon. Trent laid down to rest, expecting a nap, but quickly sunk into a deep sleep.
He dreamed of a withered grove, the trees desiccated and the grass yellow. In front of him was a throne, hewn from the trunk of a great tree, twice the size of all the others. It constantly shifted, flowing around itself like a liquid. A skinny old man, as withered as his surroundings, rested in the seat. As Trent blinked, he shifted just as his throne had, becoming youthful and strong, then a small child, all in a breath. He changed colour, size, species, any and all variables were fluid to him. He pointed at Trent with a gnarled hand that turned to wood, and then stone.
"You. You, who have drawn the ire of The Creature, The Great Shifter of Retal. You have defeated a Servant, showing promise. If you choose to continue your path against The Creature, I would aid you. My name can not be heard by mortal ears, so you may call me Atharrachadh. Receive my blessing and defeat The Creature in my stead."
When the god, for only a god could demonstrate such power with just their voice, finished speaking, Trent knew no more until morning.
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Trent woke up to a glowing screen tinging the ceiling of his wagon blue.
Blessing Received
Liquid Mind
You will learn all Biomancy skills 50% easier and retain Biomancy information 50% longer. Fight fire with fire, and fight a shifter with shifting.
Trent blinked, mouth agape as the implications of the screen clicked in his head. That wasn't just a dream? How did he give me blessing without a ceremony? Does he want me to fight The Creature? He pushed his way past those thoughts, tendrils pushing him up. This made him remember his tentacles, which gave him his plan for the day. I'm going to see if I can at least get some use out of these things before I get rid of them. If they are as useful as I'm hoping they are, I might even keep them. Having decided what he would do, he nodded to his friends and hopped off the back of the wagon. Needing to maintain a light run to keep up with the caravan, he tried to move using his tentacles, hoping to be able to pull off some unexpected maneuvers. Unfortunately, the limbs collapsed under his weight.
Pushing himself up, he caught up to the back of the wagon. Seeing a loose stick in the undergrowth, Trent snagged it with a tendril, settling on of his questions. He swung the stick around a few times, getting a feel for how hard it could grip. While not able to move with them, Trent looked forward to training the new appendages up to par. He climbed up to the top of the caravan, doing as many pushups using the tendrils as he safely could before resting, and then doing it once more. Occasionally he would switch exercises, but he put his new limbs through the gauntlet until he caught sight of Vantall over the horizon.
"I can see it!" He yelled, filled with excitement, causing his companions to emerge from the wagon to get a look. A number of excited squeals later, Trent swung back inside the wagon to chat with his friends for the remainder of the trip. An hour later, the caravan came to a stop and they heard Noah call from the front.
"Welcome, folks, to Vantall!"