Yelena
Profession Guardian Level 2 (EXP: 160/250) Sub-Class NULL Skill Points to Distribute 1 HP 30/30 GLANCE 10/15
Base Attributes Rating /50 Resilience 8 Reflexes 3 Strength 10 Channeling 3 Speed 10 Charisma 6
She looked at the black tendrils that forming words before her with silent resignation. When she decided investing the 'skill point' wasn't worth the hassle right now she sighed and blinked them away into the nether that surrounded her.
Just like on the surface - she knew the basic fundamentals, what the odd labels denoted, what information she could glean about her capabilities from the mere thought - the urge to know. It was like a mirror was being placed against her inner self whenever she demanded to know her status.
And yet, why did she feel like she saw less each time she called forth the strange coiling letters bathed in darkness?
Brushing them aside, she was confronted with her more pressing conundrum: what to do with the thief who was faintly recovering his consciousness beneath her. She had dragged him to the safety of this cavern's corner, and had done little else since except guard this place against all intrusion. Here and there the little spider-like sand demons - the Crocharachnids, by her Appraisal - had attempted to snatch at the fallen prey so close to their dead mother. They had the instinct, it seemed. The scent that could sniff out gradually fading life.
Yelena had shown no remorse in putting the vicious little pests down.
She had done so from the moment she'd entered this blasted realm. Their kind was born of the putrid slime of this place, and her sword had cut through their hide with such ease that it had given her pause. Then, from the deepest impulse that had started beating within her since the moment she touched down on the desert sands that swam above, she had delved deeper into this cave.
But it looked like she'd reached the depths, and so sat in confusion over her next move. She had assumed the Everloft moved only down - that her journey would be purely vertical. But this labyrinth was winding and filled with dangers that struck from all corners - even the walls themselves.
So as she observed the thief's eyes gradually open and he gasped for the dead air that surrounded them both, she wondered: how had such a thin, unarmored specimen survived this place?
His mouth moved intermittently, drawing in what oxygen it could and trying to form some coherent words. She waited patiently, but his hoarse whisper urged her forwards. She would hear this one's testimony.
"D...Ding," he said.
She double blinked.
"Is that your name, thief?" she asked. "Ding?"
"You," he said, lifting a weary finger to point right between her eyes. "You got a ding."
She pulled away from him. His breath stank of dead meat. Who knows what he'd been eating to survive in this pit.
"You are delirious," she said. "Take time to recover and regain your composure. You need rest, and -"
"No, I mean-" he coughed, and vomited a small ball of green mush from his throat - a collection of moss that looked like a clump of barely digested weeds. "Ding - the sound it makes when you 'level up' or whatever. You've got it."
He pointed at her with a weary grin. "You got a ding, gal."
She rolled her eyes and focused again on the 'SKILL POINTS AVAILABLE' notification that had been blazing against the back of her mind since she'd slain the possessed Warrior.
"I must look into this before I spent the point, that's all," she said, looking away from him. "When I know the best option, I'll take it."
She smiled as she realized she'd just quoted Lord Jael's exact words from the Ruminations. But then, the hoarse voice of the thief cut through her reminiscence:
"Sometimes you don't have the luxury of time," he said.
"I suppose you speak from experience, thief?"
He drew himself up and caressed his forehead.
"Everloft etiquette #2," he said. "Use names - that'll get people on your side way more effectively."
She turned to him suddenly. "Unless I'm mistaken, I just saved your life!"
"I had the situation under control."
"You're delusional!" she sputtered.
"No," he said. "I'm just a bad liar."
He smiled suddenly and Yelena was ashamed to feel herself blush unconsciously.
"You'll have to forgive me," he said. "It's not every day an angel comes to my rescue."
She turned her face from him again, focusing instead on the corpses that surrounded them.
"Don't try and flatter me," she said, her thumb caressing the hilt of her blade. "I know how silver tongued rogues operate."
"You met many of them?"
She smirked. "Not many survive the encounter."
He laughed and gestured towards his fallen assailant.
"Well, I'm not about to tell you you should trust a down on his luck thief,' the raggedy-man said. "But there must have been a reason you helped me and not the Big Guy over there. Good job, by the way."
She looked at the corpse of the dead man, his eyes still glazed over and frozen in shock. He had not expected to die down here. What he did expect, she did not know. She could not know what lies the Voidspawn living in his brain had promised him.
"You have made it down here, and you're still human," she said. "The same could not be said for him."
He furrowed his brow. "Guy looks pretty human to me. A little less alive than the usual guy, but still a guy nonetheless."
She sighed. "I can't tell you more than that."
He considered her for a moment, his attention rapt, and his mind racing. She could tell he was thinking now that the shock of his survival had caught up to him.
"Got secrets, eh?" he said. "No issue. I know you Argents keep things hush hush, and its not my place to pry. As a matter of fact, we've all got secrets, right? Well, the unhealthy among us do, and that's pretty much most of us."
He rose and straightened out his back, checking his torso to see that his flesh had indeed been fully healed. Apart from the hole torn through his leather armor, there was no signs of trauma on his flesh at all.
"But I'll tell you two things that ain't secrets," he said. "One: My name's Marius, and two: you did save my life. For that, I owe you one."
He held out his gloved hand to her and she looked at it blankly for a few seconds longer than what would be considered polite. She took his hand dumbly, grasping it with her gauntlet and returning his shake.
"You...you are welcome," she said.
As he withdrew with a grin she felt something remain in her hand and looked down to see a beam of light emanating from the tiny, pearl-light object that he'd placed in her open palm. She winced at its radiance and quickly closed her fingers.
Quest Item gained: Lux'Agathiel
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
Quest item...
"Many thanks, miss Yelena," the thief said as he turned and wandered off into the dark. "That's my payment for your timely assistance."
She double blinked.
"Hey!"
He stopped in his tracks, even as her head rushed to form something she needed to say in the moment.
"This - this is your treasure, sir Marius," she blurted. "It was what you came all this way for, was it not?"
His shoulders sagged, like he was under some heavy burden that he'd only attained momentary relief from.
"Yeah," he said. "But I ain't no fool. Life for a life. Treasure for treasure. Fealty for protection. I know how the Argents work - and you don't just go around saving people for free."
He turned his head only a fraction of an inch back to her.
"Or, am I wrong?"
"It doesn't matter what you believe," she replied quietly. "We live to serve the people of Averix. Even if they hate us."
She was surprised to find that the thief had no comeback for that - no jovial quip that could nip at the last vestiges of honor that remained in her bones.
"Well then, what's say you and I both claim the reward for this little bauble?" he asked, turning tail and charging right back up to her, his eyes glinting like those of a magpie. "This is the big quest in this cave, and I reckon there's some juicy profit to be made if we return this to its rightful owner, who juuuust happens to be my gracious employer. How about it? Share the loot?"
She looked at the gem in her hand, back at him, and considered it. An alliance with a thief? It was quite what she'd had in mind. She knew, of course, that she could reject the offer and simply claim the reward herself. She knew it, but paid little heed to the idea. It wasn't that she couldn't do that, but she was kidding herself, she knew, if she was really going to allow her baser instincts to take over already. It would be like a child succumbing to fear of the dark as soon as its bedside candle was blown out.
"Ok, sir Marius," she said. "I accept your proposal."
"Wonderful!" he exclaimed. "A 70-30 share it is, going my way, of course, as I was the one who found the-"
"50-50," she stated, cutting through his spiel with the swiftness of a knife through butter.
He stared blankly at her.
"But, you understand, miss Yelena, that I have struggled inexorably to find this little beauty. Of course, I seem to have stumbled my way into finding an even greater beauty in the process, but the fact remains that -"
"60-40 and stop it with the flattery," she said, suppressing a tiny grin. "You'll get your share, and I will get mine - for saving your life."
He smirked up at her, and she suddenly felt an odd sense of weight pressing upon her shoulders. A slight tingling sensation that moved down her body and put her hairs on end. It was as though, for a moment, she felt he had attempted to use some skill on her, and failed. Miserably.
"You drive a hard bargain for an Argent, Miss Yelena."
"Just 'Yelena' will do, sir."
"I'm no 'sir'," he laughed. "But I guess you already knew that."
He beckoned her towards a corner of the cave covered in moss and at her confused stare he walked up to the wall and struck his palm across it once. Instantly, the moss crept away as though a living, sentient entity that had responded to his touch. Before them stretched a green path covered with vines.
"The eyes of a thief do prove useful in the dark," he said with a wink.
And with a sigh of resignation, against her better judgement, she followed the thief called Marius into the vine-coated path.
----------------------------------------
SKILL POINT AVAILABLE:1
Profession Skillset
Battlecry NULL Searing Strike I/V Undaunted NULL Rally I/V Guardian's Ward I/V
Martial Skillset
Short blades NULL Long Blades II/VII Blunt Weapons NULL Archery NULL Shields I/VII Unarmed NULL
She pondered her options as she and the thief followed the path of vines through the strangely undulating tunnel.
She hovered her finger over Long Blades - thinking that she should try and master the basics first. If she could enhance her ability of the blade that she'd been training to hone all her life with nothing more than the swipe of her finger and the thought to improve, surely she had to take the chance.
But the dark powers that ruled this place denied her the capacity to improve so easily:
Long Blades II/IV - SKILL POINTS REQUIRED FOR LVL III: 3
So, she wasn't experienced enough to improve her best skills. It seemed that, for now, expanding her sword technique was locked to her.
She decided she may as well see just how much a skill point would serve her. In the pages of Lord Jael's book, using such early points were vital to a Delver's success. Saving points made more sense once you had some skills under your belt already.
So she picked the first skill that had served her well above ground and below - a perfect combination of both damage output and protection:
Searing Strike (Level II/V) You channel the energies of the Glance into a strike that repels your foes, giving you room to maneuver. This strike can affect up to two enemies in an arc in front of the Guardian. Level II effects: 15pts DMG (LIGH) Repulsion: 30ft in the direction the user is facing. Channeling Cost: 5
She saw her blade glow in her hand - an otherworldly glow of shimmering azure light. Then, just as quickly as it had come, the light died away. But thin sparks of power played across the surface of the weapon now.
She was stronger.
As she pondered this sight, the thief was yammering on about something he probably considered important:
"Then Yingmae - and stop me if I've already covered this - he jumps up on the tavern table and screams 'I ain't your pretty kitty, human monkeys! I'm a LION. Hear my roar and tremble!' But like he said it in the loudest yell a Tigran could muster (which is still little more than a shrill meow), and when we all just rolled around laughing, you should've seen his cheeks flush a shade of red I never knew even existed! He was a beetroot - a living, breathing beetroot!"
"You...have a passion for storytelling," she said.
There was little else she could say.
"Funny story about that, actually!" The thief beamed. "When I was a wee lad, my ma always used to say two things. One: 'Marcus' (she'd often get my name wrong in her eldest years, Amarata bless her shriveled old heart) Marcus! You've got the eyes of a magpie. An honest-to-goodness magpie. You just swipe anything that sparkles. Anything that ain't nailed down. And two:..."
Coming back to her own problems, she wondered how best she could hone her new abilities. She was one of them now - a Glancer. She didn't deny it. She felt the corruption that ate away at her soul with the sharp teeth of a viper, but she couldn't just lay down and die. She'd made a promise, and in order to use the tools of The Enemy against them just as Jael and his companions did before her, she needed to trust in the Ruminations. Lord Jael had been thorough, she thought, but then his 'class' had been entirely different from hers, hadn't it? She was a Guardian. The same as Lord Miron. If only he had kept a journal like his leader!
As they made their way through the tunnel only twice were did they meet the head-on assault of Crocarachnid warriors and workers stumbling around in confusion, nipping away at the strange, lithe fauna that gesticulated through their labyrinthine home. The first time the thief had shown his prowess with the bow - impaling one crawler right between its eyes with a precision that reminded Yelena of Cynthia's trick shots. She smiled thinly as she observed this Marius proudly flourish his weapon, but in the next instant three warriors broke through the ground and thundered towards them, their mandibles dripping with acidic slime.
She took a single step forwards, waited for them to enter striking vicinity, and then sliced her blade through the air in an arc that trailed azure lightning:
Searing Strike (LVL II)
GLANCE Type: LGT
The three creatures' moss-coated bellies spilled open as her sword broke through their thorax's - sending their spume drenched innards flying as their bodies were propelled away by the force of the blast. The impact they each made against the hard stalactites still adorning the walls finished them with ease. They lay still, limbs twitching slightly, as the grip of death took them.
EXP: + 10
EXP to LVL 3: 170/250
Ten extra for three warriors, she thought. In her last few duels with the beasts, she'd gained at least double that number. It seems Lord Jael's notes indeed proved correct: the more of the same beast you killed, the less experience you gained. The less power of you felt rush through your veins.
Eventually, battle with these yipping little demons would prove to be nothing but a waste of time.
'Exactly what I'd expect from a warrior," Marius chimed in as he stepped passed the Crocarachnids' bleeding carcasses. "I personally feel the Everloft gave me an unfair handicap with my own 'class'. Who's to say I wasn't a valiant defender of the good and just upstairs? Who's to say I didn't train with my pa's blade from the time I was a mere babe, ready to tear down all the evils of the world?"
"Did you?" Yelena asked.
He stopped and shrugged. "Well, no. But its the principle of the thing, right?"
She shook her head and moved on.
----------------------------------------
When finally they made it through to the other side of the tunnel, Marius stood and let seep an air of satisfaction from his whole being.
Yelena couldn't quite make out what was so special about the place - it looked just like any other old ruined cavern she'd seen as she'd made her fall towards the bottom of this pit-within-a pit dungeon.
"So, what do your 'thieves eyes' tell you about this place?" she asked.
He looked back at her and smiled.
"No no no, my dear," he said. "Right now, its my heart that guides me. And right now, my heart calls for one thing: Mistress Raava, most beauteous mushroom in all The Everloft."
As he said the name there was a general quake Yelena felt beneath her feet. Then, thunder struck the very core of her being as a plant the size of the Great gate of Caer Argent itself stretched out from the lush ground cover in the center of the chamber. Her stalk was decayed, wretched, and dripping with the dead slime of the little ankle biting creatures that made this place their home. Her red helm turned slowly as though nudged by a gentle breeze and then, having found its target, struck towards them both and stopped inches from Marius' still grinning face. Two of the white spots adorning the plant's 'head' then blinked to reveal that they were, in fact, the creature's eyes. And beneath its head, in the center of its veiny stalk, a slit opened itself to reveal teeth far more vicious than that of the devilish Crocarachnids.
"My little thief," it said with the voice of an old, aging crone. "You have returned to me."
Yelena drank in the sight, trying to maintain her balance, and her hand slowly moved to her sword's handle purely on impulse.
"This is your benefactor," she said, matter-of-fact.
For some reason, the thief interpreted this as a question.
"Yeah," he smiled nonchalantly. "I sure know to pick 'em, huh?"