Max stepped into the gate as it became fully functional, and messages appeared as a feeling of weightlessness washed over him.
Tutorial Dungeon Entered:
Location of Entry – Selected
He exhaled slowly, steeling his nerves as the world around him seemed to ripple and bend for a few moments, until his feet finally touched solid ground.
Current Objective: Escape Tutorial Dungeon Alive.
Lineage will be confirmed upon escape.
Welcome to The Echo, Traveler.
The shifting, blue, streams of light faded from his vision, and Max now stood in a small, square room. The walls were dark, cobbled stone, and the only light trickled in through the grate on the door in front of him.
It almost looked like a cell, as there was quite literally nothing furnishing the space, not even a bedroll or a bucket. He inhaled, the air around him damp, but cool, like the inside of a cave.
“Time to get to work.”
Max strode forward and up to the door, peering out at the hallway beyond his room.
The faint light came from dim, flickering torches, held in sconces along the walls. The corridor in front of him stretched forward into darkness, the end of which wasn’t visible.
Max shoved open the door, which was made of rotting wood and pitted iron, and it creaked as the hinges ground against the movement. He cringed slightly as the sound echoed off the walls, and he waited for a response from the dungeon.
Silence.
He sighed in relief, and decided that caution would be best going forward.
As he exited the room, he mimed a gesture with his right hand, and the blade appeared in his grip, materializing from a wisp of shadow. Out of curiosity, he shifted it to his off hand, and willed the weapon to change. The sword morphed into a bow of similar aesthetics, with the same dark body and silver engravings.
The bow, however, possessed no string or arrows. Max experimentally raised the weapon, and drew his hand back as if nocking an arrow. With a faint hiss, an arrow made of black, warbling mist appeared out of thin air, automatically aligning itself with the center of the bow.
He smiled to himself.
“Handy.”
He tossed the weapon into the air. It returned to it’s sword form as it spun and landed in his right hand, and he gave it a flourish, dismissing it to…
Well, wherever it went when he wasn’t holding it.
“Back to that thing maybe?” He thought.
Strolling through the corridor, he kept an eye out for intersecting hallways, summoning his tome and examining his class features again.
Level: 1
Class: Warlock
Archetype: The Begotten One
Max frowned. Apparently every aspect of being a warlock came with some sort of cryptic information, not that he was really complaining.
He always had the desire to understand, to delve into something until he knew it well enough that using it could become second nature. If he could do that with this system…
He could become quite the serpent indeed.
Max continued along, but froze as he heard commotion ahead. Instantly, he crouched, and the sword appeared in his hand. A message flashed through his mind,
Stealth Skill: +2
You are lightly obscured
So his skills were passive bonuses, automatically applied to certain activities as he did them. He briefly pondered what would happen with his persuasion skill, but he quickly staunched his fantasies.
Max crept forward, avoiding the torch light, and spied another hallway diverting from his. The sounds that came from it were… frantic, to say the least. The speech was alien, garbled and nasal, and there were so many voices he couldn’t tell what was happening. He heard clanging, bashing, the sounds of combat, and through the odd noises he heard a woman’s voice.
He snuck to the corner of the doorway, and observed the scene before him.
The room was circular, and was full of small, humanoid creatures with green skin and long pointed noses. They wore loin cloth’s and shoddy, wooden armor, accompanied by rusty weapons. Max knew these sorts of creatures all too well, and goblin was the only name he could possibly ascribe to them.
There must have been at least ten of them still alive, with several of their corpses littering the floor. In the center of the goblins, slowly backing up, was a woman.
She looked a bit tall for a girl, with golden blonde hair and pale skin, caked with sweat and dark green blood. She wore a breastplate, and wielded an axe and shield against the creatures before her. Her eyes were wild with rage and she yelled in a language he didn’t understand, punching, kicking, and chopping at the goblins.
For a moment, Max simply watched her work. She lashed out with the shield and crushed a goblins nose against its face, kicked a second to the ground and hacked into the collarbone of a third, the sound of breaking bones and dying gurgles echoing through the room.
She whipped the axe sideways and split the skull of another enemy, and viscera spattered across her face, into her eyes. She yelled something incoherently, stumbling backward as the goblins surged forward with glee.
Max stared unblinkingly, and for a moment had resolved himself to do nothing. Bad positioning and bad luck had placed her here, and it wasn’t his problem. If he was going to survive, he couldn’t go helping everyone in peril.
He felt the weapon shift to a bow in his hands, and as he looked down in confusion, he felt a whisper in his ear.
“Go.”
This voice was different than the being in the library. Softer, more human.
Against his judgement, he listened.
He drew back the weapon, closing one eye and noticing that it possessed no draw weight whatsoever. He’d taken an archery class once when he was eleven, and sadly he doubted any of that had stayed with him through the years.
He exhaled, and loosed the arrow.
The black, shadowy projectile hissed through the air, faster than any arrow he’d seen from a standard bow.
It struck one of the lead goblins in the back of his head and the creatures skull was crushed inward, as if a hammer had been driven into it. The rest behind the front man immediately whirled around, only for another to take an arrow to the chest. It let out a gurgling scream, falling backward as it’s diaphragm collapsed and blood poured from its mouth and nose.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
The woman staggered away, furiously wiping at her eyes as Max sent another bolt of death into the goblins. The third enemy fell as its leg was torn from its socket, and Max grinned to himself at the sheer force of the weapon.
“C’mere you little fuckers…”
The last two creatures rushed him in a fit of rage and desperation, and he stood from his place near the entrance. The weapon took on its sword form as he tossed it back to his right hand, and he hacked down towards the goblin.
Their tactics were terrible. He wasn’t sure if they thought anger would see them through, or they just didn’t care, but the goblin stared at the weapon as it sank into its neck, chopping so deep he thought he might bisect the creature.
Max tried to yank the weapon free but the goblin had fallen limp, and the blade was so tightly embedded it dragged his sword arm to the floor. Max threw up a hand in an attempt to stop whatever blow was coming from the final goblin, squeezing his eyes shut and waiting for the bite of a rusty hatchet.
It never came.
He opened his eyes, and watched as the woman from before rose from a kneeling position. She pulled her axe from the spine of the last goblin, then turned her attention to the one that been dismembered. It crawled miserably towards the exit, blood pooling under it as the woman approached.
She brought her boot down on its head with a crunch, and the room fell silent.
Max got to his feet and re-summoned the blade to his hand, not bothering to try and dislodge it from his victim. He locked eyes with the blonde warrior as she stared at him, breathing heavily.
She narrowed her pale, green eyes.
“Wer bist du?”
Max made a face,
“What?”
The woman rolled her eyes,
“Sprechen Sie Deutsch?”
Max shook his head, giving her a defeated smile.
“Sorry lady, I don’t speak uh… German?”
She sighed and dropped her axe into a ring on her belt.
“No. I would not think so.”
Her voice was deep for a girl. Soft, but low, and her accent was heavy. Especially not how he expected German to sound, with how many jokes there were about the language being aggressive.
Now that he was closer, Max made a few more assumptions. She wore armor, a shield, and a pretty sturdy weapon, meaning she must have been some kind of warrior class. Fighter maybe?
She knelt next to the goblin bodies, picking over them and rummaging through their waist pouches. Max cleared his throat, unsure of what to say next.
“Thanks for the assist back there, by the way.”
She grunted in reply,
“I could say the same.”
Max watched her, still wary of the interaction. Her eyes continued to flick up to him every few seconds, her hand still close to her belt. As he watched, she visibly took a breath and stood, drawing her axe and cracking her neck to either side,
“Let us be done with it.”
Max took a step back, the blade in his hand flicking up. He held up his other hand in a defusing gesture as he backpedaled,
“Woah easy now, let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”
The woman didn’t move, but narrowed her eyes. “You have done nothing but stand and stare. Though you have saved my life, you cannot be as new as you seem.”
She gestured to the weapon in his hand, “That appears to be magic, and you wear no armor. What are you, and why are you here?”
For the briefest of moments, the thought of killing her flashed across his mind. It would only take one, maybe two hits. His mystic strike could cut through her deflection like hot butter, and he could leave her here with the goblins.
Max blinked at the floor, wide-eyed. Was that his first reaction to power? To take another life for the sport of it?
The woman coughed mockingly, and he returned his attention to her. He said,
“Listen, I’m… level one, okay? I’m a wa-“
Suddenly a voice boomed in his mind, the same one from the library. This time, however, it didn’t assault his psyche like it had before. It was firm and absolute, but calm and instructive.
DO NOT REVEAL YOURSELF. IT IS NOT YET TIME.
TELL HER THAT YOU ARE VERSED IN MAGIC.
NOTHING MORE.
Max cleared his throat mid-sentence and course corrected.
“I’m a… mage. This weapon said it was compatible with my class, so I took it.”
The woman didn’t seem to buy it, but she sighed in defeat.
“You do not appear to have many other items on you, and if you are a caster with a weapon… perhaps you are a magi. I do not expect you to trust me, nor I you, but I am grateful for your intervention.”
She stepped closer to him, and he could see now through the blood on her face that she was around his age, maybe slightly older, and stood almost as tall as him. She was on the sturdier side, with wide shoulders and hips that betrayed a powerful, athletic form.
“I am Adelaide.”
He smiled slightly,
“Maximilian, but Max is easier.”
As they exchanged pleasantries, Max suddenly became aware of the messages that had appeared in his mind a few moments ago.
Goblinoid (x3) killed.
Goblinoid (x1) assisted.
Level point gained.
He felt that same itch of excitement, the one that had appeared when Mystic Strike rose in power. Adelaide continued to survey the room as Max did some further research in his tome, and spent his level point on warlock.
Class Level Increased
Warlock: Level 2
Inherent Spell Available
As Max continued his leveling, he occasionally looked up to watch the woman as she picked apart the spoils of her kills. She was hooking several of their small hatchets on her belt, and pocketing vials that she pulled from their small, leather bags.
He turned back to his tome, having unlocked a new inherent spell, this time being a choice from a list of several.
Inherent Spells: Choose 1 From –
Psychic Shard -
Casting Time: Instant
Range: 30ft
Effect: You choose a single target, and afflict them with a shard of mental pain. Their resistances are decreased by 1 point for 5 seconds. This effect does not stack with similar effects.
Ember -
Casting Time: Instant
Range: 10ft
Effect: You choose a small surface within range, and toss an arcane coal to the desired location. Immediately, a small bonfire comes to life, shedding light and heat as if it were a real fire. This effect lasts for a number of hours equal to your primary casting attribute.
Fortitude -
Casting Time: 3 Seconds.
Range: Touch
Effect: You choose a single, non-hostile target within range, and bolster their physical resilience. They gain a +5 bonus to deflection for 10 seconds. This effect does not stack with similar effects.
Max gave a low whistle as he read over his choices. Fire on demand, physical protection, a mental debuff, and all at will?
“These could be game changing…” He mumbled aloud, weighing his options. Sadly, he could only select one at the moment, but he would get the chance to gain more at later levels. Noting this, he chose Fortitude as his second inherent spell. He needed the deflection if he was going to be facing down enemies, even if it was only for a few seconds. Psychic Shard would have been his first choice, but he had no abilities that utilized his defense check yet, so that would go on the back burner for now.
Max looked up at the sound of Adelaide clearing her throat, and spied the woman standing in front of him with her arms crossed. He raised an eyebrow,
“Can I help you?”
Her eyes flicked from his face to his tome a few times before she spoke,
“You are quite good at this, yes? You know the system well?”
He quickly dismissed the book, then answered her, “I’ll understand it better after awhile, but I’m doing just fine.”
Adelaide nodded, staring at the floor as she chewed her lip.
“This is good. You will need it. I am… less than equipped…”
She trailed off, but quickly snapped back up to face him, her hand on her axe. “…But do NOT take me for easy prey. If I think you have a… that you want to…”
She sighed and snapped her fingers, as if forgetting something.
“How do you say it? When you wish to do something, you have a…”
Max furrowed his brow at her,
“You have a mind to?”
Suddenly her finger was back in his face.
“Yes, that. If you have a mind to harm me, I will split you like these foul things.”
He raised his hands in surrender.
“Okay, I get it. I’m not going to hurt you. I think it would be better to stick together anyway. I’ve got solid range and you have the toughness..”
She seemed to relax slightly, having got her point across, though she still didn’t seem fully comfortable with his presence, and he couldn’t blame her. Max fixed his coat and continued speaking.
“Listen, my hp is low, and my deflection is lower. If one of those grubby little weirdos gets too close, I’m done for. You however, can beat them into a paste with no problem, and if I’m picking off the ones you miss, we’ll both be better off for it. Not to mention the problem of… Other travelers.”
Adelaide had begun flipping through her own book, her brows knit in a worrisome expression. “Yes…” She said quietly, “The man in the tower told me.”
Max leaned against the wall and crossed his arms. He examined her tome, and though it was still patterned leather, the designs and colors were varied. The leather itself was off-white, embossed with swirling roses and thorns that shone like gold in the torchlight.
“What level are you?”
She shot him a glare and he threw up his hands in frustration, “Girl if I wanted to hurt you do you think I’d just be standing here, basically unarmed? Help me help you, yeesh.”
Adelaide grumbled something to herself in German, then turned to face him again.
“I am level 3. Fighter.”
Max nodded, pondering on that for a moment. At least she knew how to allocate her class points, and if he was receiving new abilities, she must have received something by now.
“Check your features, see if you have any new options to choose from.”
She was silent for a moment, squinting at her tome and moving her head away from it in a sort of bobbing motion. It didn’t take Max long to recognize that she was far-sighted, as he’d seen his mom perform the same gesture numerous times.
Mom.
Max immediately shoved down the emotions that began to well up within him, taking a deep breath and trying to focus on the tasks in front of him. He knew that if he thought about his family, he would sink so low he would never make any progress in the Echo. If he wanted a chance of changing things, he needed to keep moving.
Gain power.
Escape the tutorial dungeon.
Adelaide spoke and interrupted his thoughts,
“I believe I have a choice of combat style.”
She brushed a stray, blonde hair behind her ear, her eyes still erratically panning over the pages.
“Do you want any help?” He asked, raising an eyebrow.
She met his gaze, then sighed in defeat.
“It would… be appreciated, yes.”
“Then let’s get to work.”