Eleisa thrashed in the water, trying to regain her feet. Every time she came close, some unseen force yanked her back down. She was constantly on the edge of drowning, her struggles just allowing her enough air to keep fighting. Filthy water forced itself into her mouth, her nose, her eyes. Her wings were worse than useless; sodden and heavy, they weighed her down. Her unseen attackers were all over her, digging into her armor and skin with their razor-like claws.
Her heart raced, adrenaline flowing through her blood as she tried unsuccessfully to defend herself. If she tried to dodge to one side, the liquid around her slowed her movements enough that her attackers could block her escape. She couldn’t swim down, as the stone trough wasn’t deep enough. If she tried to stand, something pulled her back down.
She fought for what seemed like hours, her energy waning until she could fight no longer. Then just as she was drifting off into unconsciousness, the scenario restarted. The ambush. One creature hitting her, then a second before she could catch her balance, plunging her into the filth.
Over and over the cycle repeated. Ambush. Struggle. Failure. Repeat.
At some level, she recognized that she was dreaming, but she couldn’t escape, no matter how much she tried. Again and again she relived those terrifying moments, unable to do anything but struggle futilely. Occasionally she would wake for a few moments, but the pull of sleep was inexorable, each time returning her to the nightmare.
Endlessly she fought, never making any progress or difference. Frustrated and weighed down by fear and hopelessness, her mind raced to find something, anything that could help her out of the endless terror of the dream.
That thought triggered something from her memory, the last letter she had received from her Queen coming to mind. It had mostly contained pleasantries and information of little import, but at the end, she had written something that, at the time, Eleisa had passed off as mere words of encouragement and inspiration.
Do not lose yourself to what you dream. Reach for them. Grasp them. Bend them to your will. Only you have the power to realize your dreams.
Something within Eleisa seemed to fall into place as she recalled the words, and as a new cycle began, she did something different. Activating Enhance Reflex, she dodged out of the way of the first ambusher, spearing the second as it fell right where she had been a moment earlier.
Skill Spearmanship upgraded from (Skilled IX) to (Exceptional I)
Skill Enhance Reflex has been upgraded from (Exceptional VI) to (Exceptional VII)
A jolt ran through her like she had been hit with a shock spell. She sat bolt upright in her bed, breath heaving. She checked her notifications and found more than she expected. Not only had her Spearmanship and Enhance Reflex Skills been upgraded, but she had gotten a new Skill.
Skill unlocked! Nightmare Crucible (Unskilled I)
Nightmare Crucible (Unskilled I) - Having undergone a traumatic experience, you began suffering nightmares. But this did not deter you. Against all odds, you harnessed your nightmare, using it for your gain. You can now gain and upgrade Skills while in a nightmare. When you go to sleep, you may choose to have a nightmare. If you do, your sleep will not be as restful. Restfulness while in nightmares increases with level in the Skill.
Skill Nightmare Crucible upgraded from (Unskilled I) to (Unskilled II)
If this Skill did what she thought, it would change everything. She could now train her Skills and gain new Skills in her sleep. That, combined with her Aspect of Self and Open Mind would give her an unparalleled advantage when it came to Skills.
Aspect of Self
Effect: You gain an additional 10 Class Skill Slots. You may remove Skills from your list freely.
Open Mind (Skilled IV) - You can learn any Skill, regardless of Class or other restrictions. When you learn a new Skill, you have a 6% chance of also learning which Skills it has the highest rates of combination with. This bonus increases by 0.25% per level in the Skill
As she was considering possibilities, another thought struck her. She could have Enhance Learning active for as long as she had mana, and mana regeneration was greatly increased while sleeping. This would more than double the rate at which that skill leveled, which would in turn speed up her growth in all other areas.
She was still tired from their trip into the sewers, but more than that, she was excited to test out her new Skill. She lay back down, activating her new Skill. Her eyes fluttered closed, and once again, she was in the sewers. This time, when the ambush came, she was ready.
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Jared was getting worried about Eleisa. She hadn’t come out of her room since they had returned from the sewers, and that was almost a full day ago. He had tried to check on her several times, but her door was locked and she didn’t answer. The only thing keeping him from breaking down her door and barging in was that she still appeared on the party interface, indicating that she was, at the very least, still alive.
In order to pass the time, he had Mimi take her doll form and started teaching her how to use a spear. It wasn’t the most ideal melee weapon for her, but it was the only one he really knew how to use with any degree of skill.
Finally, around midafternoon, Eleisa emerged. She still looked slightly tired, but overall seemed much improved. She held herself confidently, and her hands didn’t tremble as they had the day before.
She walked up to him, a smile tugging at her lips. “I have found my path forward.”
Jared quirked an eyebrow. “Oh? Do tell.”
“From now on, dreams will be my area of focus.”
“Dreams? That seems a little out of nowhere. What made you decide that?”
She related her experience of the previous day; her endless recurring nightmares and her eventual breakthrough, earning her the Nightmare Crucible Skill. When she explained its effects, Jared’s jaw dropped. Possibilities raced through his head, each with greater potential than the last.
Eleisa didn’t seem to notice that his attention was no longer fully on her, as she continued giving her thoughts.
“It is fortunate that I gained this Skill before level 25.”
That pulled Jared’s attention back. “Why? What’s different about level 25?”
“At level 25, one ascends to the Consolidated rank. In this Ascension, the power that a person has gained is consolidated into a firm, solid power base. To do this, the person chooses a something to specialize in, usually a Skill, which will determine what sort of Class options are offered in the future. It is also the tier of power that most people become unable to progress. If a person chooses the wrong Skill, it can make it difficult, if not impossible to continue growing in power. Specializing in Nightmare Crucible will ensure my path forward remains unimpeded.”
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“Huh. I guess that makes sense.”
That got him thinking. What was he going to specialize in at level 25? The two Skills he used the most were Sniper’s Marksmanship and Sniper’s Fieldcraft, but he could see some good potential with his other Skills. Eleisa spoke again, bringing his attention back to her.
“Aside from that, I remembered some information I had gathered about the patterns of the monsters. Here, see what you can ascertain.”
She handed him a piece of paper with some notes, many of which were very similar to some he had taken himself.
He pulled out those notes and looked between them and Eleisa’s.
“We’re missing something here. Could you find any noticeable pattern to when or how many rats attacked us in the sewers?”
Eleisa shook her head. “I did not.”
“Me neither. There’s something we’re missing here. Some connection that we just can’t see.”
He was about to start writing again when a thought struck him. “Do we have a map of the city?”
“I do not, but there should be a general store or cartographer’s shop somewhere in the city that would have one.”
“Great, I’ll be right back. You’re welcome to stay here or come with me.”
He set off, and Eleisa followed. After a little asking around, he was directed to a small building, barely more than a hut, resting between two larger buildings on a side street. The sign hanging out front had the image of a compass rose. He entered, finding pretty much what he had expected.
The shop was filled with the rich smells of ink and paper. The walls were covered with maps of all sizes, each depicting a slightly different area. A small mostly human man with a pinched face and large spectacles sat at a worktable in one corner, his pen moving fluidly over the surface. He addressed them as they entered, not looking up from his work.
“I’ll be with you in a moment.” They waited patiently, and after a few minutes, the man set down his pen and turned to face them. As Jared took in his face from the front, he noted that the man’s nose was much smaller than was usual for humans, and he had thin whiskers, giving him a mousy look which was only exacerbated by his high, reedy voice.
“Welcome to Carter’s Cartography. I’m Joseph Carter, the owner of this shop. How may I help you?”
“We’re looking for a map of the city. It doesn’t need to be fancy, or even labeled, except the main streets and districts.”
Joseph didn’t even blink at the request. “What size are you looking for?”
Jared looked around the shop, pointing at a map on the wall that was about the size he was looking for; about one and a half times the size of an A4 piece of paper. “About that size would be perfect.”
Joseph nodded, opening a drawer in the workbench and pulling out a piece of paper that seemed about the right size. He slammed it onto the workbench and picked up his pen, beginning to draw. Jared’s eyes went wide.
The mouse-looking man was drawing with inhuman speed and accuracy, his pen flying across the page, filling it in with lines so perfect, Jared would have thought a computer drew them. In only a couple of minutes, he had finished the map to Jared’s specifications, and stood, handing it to Jared.
“That’ll be two Royals.”
Jared took the map and thanked the man, passing him the requested coins from his pouch. Then he was back out in the street, heading for The Raven’s Rest. When they got back to Jared’s room, he sat at the desk that seemed standard for rooms in inns and the like, placing the map down.
Pulling out a pen and the notes that both he and Eleisa had taken, he started marking down places where the invasive creatures had been spotted, when they had been spotted, and which types of creatures they were. When he had finished, he set down his pen, leaning back to look at the map. There were seven points around the map, with no apparent relationship between them.
“So, we have reports from the market square, which is on the east of the city; the church district on the north end; the barracks and the rulers’ ward, both towards the center of the city, next to the walls in the northeast; the northwest portions of the residential district; and finally some of the farms just outside the city to the southwest. At each of these locations, monsters show up seemingly at random.”
He examined the map, going over the information again and again, looking for patterns. There had to be something that connected them.
Rats were in the market square in the morning, then lurkers in the afternoon, like what ambushed us. But other creatures have been seen there, at the same times of day. There are seven types of monsters, just like the seven locations, but that seems to just be coincidence.
There doesn't seem to be much of a connection between the monsters themselves. I mean we’ve got rats, lurkers, giant spiders, giant cockroaches, harvestmen, which I guess are like spiders, octodonts, which are most like rats, and ants.
That line of thinking didn’t seem to be going anywhere.
The monsters move at random between the sites, and there is always exactly one type of monster at a site. Maybe it has something to do with the locations themselves?
He pulled out a blank piece of paper and drew a series of dots representing the seven locations, placing them in the correct spots in relation to each other. Then, he started drawing lines, connecting them in different ways. When this yielded no results, he moved onto something else.
As he worked, Eleisa stood beside him, watching with interest. Occasionally she would give a suggestion, some of which Jared thought had promise. But they, too, gave no real answers. After a couple of hours, Eleisa left, going back to her own room while Jared kept working, wracking his brain to figure out what the connection was.
He was forced to stop when the sun set, depriving him of its light. He could have lit candles or a lantern, but his brain was worn out, and he decided to take a rest, and look at the map with fresh eyes in the morning. Maybe Bonlanu would have some insights.
As it turned out, he didn’t. When he joined them for breakfast the following morning, Jared showed Bonlanu the map, asking if he could make anything of it. The arborial had been just as mystified as Jared and Eleisa.
“I cannot make out any pattern. Maybe if the creatures only appeared at any given location at certain time, but that is not the case.”
Undaunted, they kept at it for hours, brainstorming possible connections. They delved into the nature of each of the locations and why creatures might be attracted there, what might make them move around, and why they weren’t seen in other parts of the city. They explored many possibilities, but were ultimately unable to come up with any concrete answers.
Around midafternoon, they all decided they needed a break went their separate ways, planning to meet again at the Raven’s Rest over dinner.
Jared walked through the streets of Panstrum, just taking in the sights, sounds, and smells. He knew that if he left his mind to its own devices it would immediately go back to the frustrating puzzle before him, so he emptied it, not thinking about anything.
As he was making his way through the market square, one stand in particular caught his eye. It was a charlatan doing one of those shell games, but with wooden bowls and a silver Noble, enthralling passersby and persuading them to part with their coin.
As he watched, the performer spun the wooden bowls in a complicated pattern, his limbs moving too fast for lower leveled eyes to even track. As he was finishing the pattern, Jared spotted him sneakily remove the coin from underneath the bowl, flicking it into his long sleeve. Looking around at the reactions of the crowd, it seemed that he was the only one who had noticed. Shaking his head, he moved on.
Those games seemed like a test of skill or observation, but were ultimately nothing more than a way to swindle people out of their hard-earned coin using misdirection.
Jared came up short at the thought, and someone nearly ran into him as he stopped abruptly. The lizard-woman cursed at him in a language he couldn’t understand, ostensibly chastising him for stopping in the middle of the street, but he didn’t care. He turned back towards the Raven’s Rest and set a fast pace, all but running through the crowded streets.
Reaching the inn, he went straight up to his room and looked over the map again.
We had it all wrong. Misdirection. What if it’s not about where the attacks are, but where they aren’t?
He quickly spotted what he was looking for: sections of the city with no reported monster attacks. There were only two; one on the east side of the city, an area of restaurants and other food shops, and one in the southwest, called the scholar ward.
Something about those places nagged at him, but he couldn’t tell what. He scanned the map until his eyes fell on the list of creatures that had been spotted.
Rats.
Lurkers.
Spiders.
Cockroaches.
Harvestmen.
Octodonts.
Ants.
No…it can’t be that easy.
He took the first letter of each creature’s name, giving R, L, S, C, H, O, A. A slight shuffling of letters, and he had the word SCHOLAR.
There was no way this was a coincidence. The infestation was not random. Someone was doing this deliberately. And he had an idea of where to find them.