Staying focused had become a lot harder for Bab after he’d been struck by that club.
He’d been so close to dying at the end. Had the Guide not intervened he could have died, or he could have ended up looking like Hecate.
She was a mess.
He hadn’t seen her go down, but he and Berra both heard it. His sister, always calm and collected, kept them focused on the fight. The screams had been hard to ignore but their lives were at risk. It had been an easier choice when neither could help her.
Now that they were running he was struggling to stay on his feet. Berra supported him while they did their best to keep up with the Guide.
Guide Halus, unhesitatingly, led them deeper and deeper into the maze, taking turns at splits like he knew where they were going. All the while he cradled a whimpering Hecate in his arms like she was thin and fragile glass, one wrong move and she’d shatter all over the dungeons garden.
“How much longer are we going to be going like this?” Berra called out to Halus. Bab was starting to really struggle and by this point his sister was holding up most of his weight. They weren’t in a condition where they could keep pushing as they were.
Halus didn’t bother looking back or responding to her. He took the left path at the next fork in the maze leading them all the way down.
When the group stopped they found themselves standing in a clearing with a massive fountain at its center.
A stone flower poured water from its petals. The clear flow pooled into the two massive hands that held the bloom between them.
“Prince Edgar.” Guide Halus leaned Hecate against the fountain as gently as he could, pulling the Prince's attention out of his notifications.
The Prince, like Bab, had been helped through the maze as they ran. Unlike Bab the prince wasn’t injured, he was just busy making decisions about his new class and skill. Bab had the same blinking notification letting him know that he could make his own selection, but he hadn’t had time to look yet.
The Prince had no choice but to make time, for Hecate’s sake.
“I got the healer class and it came with one skill.” The Prince told Halus.
“Will it heal Hecate?” The Guide asked in a calm clipped tone.
For the first time since Bab had met the Prince he saw hesitance in the royal. He didn’t answer the guide immediately. His eyes flicked between his hands and Hecate filled with a doubt that Bab thought was probably foreign to him.
Hecate had passed out from pain during the fight but even in her current state she moaned and cried. Her left shoulder had been shattered and her right arm was bent the wrong way, a bone was sticking out of her forearm.
“Will it heal Hecate, Prince?” Halus repeated when he got no answer.
“I will try.”
They gathered around Hecate as the Prince squatted at her side. He reached out over her with shaky hands, careful to not actually make contact. His palms trembled hovering over her and for a moment nothing happened. Then a white light enveloped the Prince's hands. It somehow flowed from his fingertips down into Hecate’s shivering form.
The light offered little comfort as it made Hecate’s body right again. She screamed awake when the bone began to pull itself back beneath flesh. Her shoulder writhed as muscle separated from her shattered shoulder and clavicle.
“It-it hurts.” She barely got out, her own sobbing and pain made saying the words a challenge.
“Push through the pain, Hecate.” The Guide didn’t touch her but Bab felt the odd feeling of whatever power came with Halus’ path moving towards Hecate. There had been a sense of safety he hadn’t noticed until it was gone, but he could almost see a bit of peace return to the young fae.
“I’ll have to do this a few times. The spell only costs 8 mana so it shouldn’t be a problem, but this won't be quick.” Prince Edgar said. His confidence back, like it never left.
“Keep doing what you can.” The guide nodded in understanding. To Hecate he said, “Pull up your notification. If you can, check what your options are and see what the words in our heads have to say about you. I’ll be watching for anything else coming our way.”
Hecate didn’t answer but the Guide didn’t seem like he’d expected her too. His assurance was enough. For Bab and Berra it would have to be enough as well.
They took the opportunity to check their own messages.
You have slain Garden Shambler Puppet Lv. 5
You have aided in the slaying of a Barbarian Shambler Puppet Lv. 2
You have no combat oriented path to accept XP at this time.
Congratulations you have slain an integrated monster and proven yourself worthy.
* Status sheet available.
* Basic class Choice available.
* Skill Roll
The first notifications were like the ones the Guide had described seeing. A welcome to this new system of power and a message about losing out on something called XP.
He’d pick his class first. There was no point risking missing out on anything else by not having one. The thought pulled up his choices.
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Basic class choices
The Basic classes are:
* Warrior
* Rouge
* Ranger
* Healer
* Mystic
* Craftsman
Choose
Again the message was the same as the Guide had said he’d gotten. Thanks to that Bab had an easy time on his selection. Now it was time to see his status.
Status Sheet:
Name: Bab Orea
Race: Human
Age: 18
Stats:
* Strength: 10
* Agility: 10(11)
* Dexterity:8
* Vitality: 10
* Will: 9(10)
* Mind: 8
* Perception: 10
* Spirit: 7
Traits:
* Cloud Treader (15% base increase to Agility and will attribute)
Classes:
* Warrior (Basic) Lv. 1 :
First Skill: Fury
* N/A
* N/A
* N/A
* N/A
Skills:
* (Roll for Random skill selection)
Mutations:
* Shifter
* Ethereal connection (perception +1)
* Shifter’s vitality (Strength +2, Agility +2, Vitality + 2)
The fact that his race was marked as human caused Bab to pause in his reading.
Race: Human
There was a time in the history of the shifters when their lives had been short, and the many tribes had been all considered one race. That had changed, or was supposed to have changed. When the tribes each chose a creature to bind their souls to they gained that race as their own. He had expected his Race to be Cloud Treader, not Human.
“Sister?” Bab asked. He hadn’t said much but he knew he wouldn’t have to. If her status screen was similar to his then his intuitive sister would know what the problem was.
“It says: Human.” Berra answered. Her voice was filled with a confusion that matched her brothers.
“That couldn’t be right…could it?” He asked her, she always had the answer.
“It could be.” She frowned before diving back into her own status. Taking the conversation to have reached an unsatisfying ending Bab did the only thing he could, he went back to his own status.
He’d found what he would have thought to be his race in the Trait category. His race offered him a fifteen percent base improvement on his will and agility but he couldn’t figure out if that was significant.
Next he looked into his new skill
Skill: Fury:
Pull on your Vital energy to infuse the body or weapon with potent power. This skill will heighten emotions while in use. 2 vital energy per minute.
Bab frowned at the end of the skill explanation. it was another thing to add to his growing list of complaints. Heightened emotions seemed like it would go against the ethos of his people’s warriors. They taught that a calm mind was the key to victory. The two didn’t mix.
Instinctively, he knew how to activate the skill but he wasn’t sure how to check his vital energy.
Once again proving Itself to be intuitive the system answered his thoughts.
Vital energy: 100/100
Health: 100/100
According to the notification he had enough Vital Energy to run his Fury for just under an hour. He wasn’t sure how useful the skill would be but at least he knew something about it.
“Sister? What path did you choose?” Bab asked Berra. When they had been home he’d known she intended to be a healer as well. Their mother and father had not wanted Berra to be a warrior. Her heart was too kind, unless she was defending someone else.
Berra pulled out of her notifications, her face lit up with excitement and gave her brother a rare smile.
“Something good, then?” Bab asked but he already knew the answer looking at her face. His own face split into a mirror of hers.
“Mystic.” She lifted her hand and a spark of lightning danced between her fingers. “The skill is Spark. I can use something called mana to generate lightning. I have seventy-seven of those, it seems.”
The two watched the power spark for a few more seconds before it fizzled out.
“Six mana to initiate it and a cost of one per second after. Seems similar enough to the Mystic skill the Guide said he received.”
Bab huffed in disagreement. “His Kindle skill also burned him. That lightning didn’t seem to do too much to you.”
“It hurt a bit actually. Luckily magic lightning doesn't seem to be stronger than real lightning.” Berra corrected. The Cloud Treader species was strong against lightning. They had a natural resistance that allowed them to run through storms without attracting its fury. They couldn’t take a lightning blast head on but they could discharge bits of power through their fur and horns.
“It sounds more compatible than my skill does.” Bab whined in a tone that was reserved for his family.
“You sound like you have a concussion.” Berra slapped her brother across the head where he’d just recently stopped bleeding. “It's probably useful. Tell me what it is.”
The twins continued their conversation discussing their own system interactions. All the while the Prince did his best to drag Hecate back to full health.
Hecate herself was trying to make her own decisions through the pain she was in. She’d never been hurt like this before in her life. No one had ever taught her how to handle something like this. The only things helping to keep her mind from succumbing to unconsciousness once again was her focus on her choices as well as a comforting hand that sat on her forehead.
Except, the hand on her forehead wasn’t real. No it was real but it also wasn’t there. She felt it not on her skin but on her soul. She knew the Guide was giving her comfort, he was like a silent supporter in the darkness of her mind.
Before this, when Halus had told them of the choices, she’d seen herself taking the path of a rogue or Ranger. Either of those choices could have fit the path she’d been taught as a hunter. She knew how to use a dagger well enough that she figured she’d make do if she just tried. Well, she did try, and this was how she ended up.
She didn’t want to deal with pain like this ever again. Either of those fighting classes would leave her vulnerable to something like this. She couldn’t take that. She made her choice.
Status Sheet:
Name: Hecate Magella
Race: Fae
Age: 18
Stats:
* Strength: 7
* Agility: 7
* Dexterity:9
* Vitality: 10
* Will: 8
* Mind: 8
* Perception: 11
* Spirit: 10(14)
Traits:
* Flora Fae (40% increase to base spirit attribute.)
Classes:
* Healer (Basic) Lv. 1 :
First Skill: Mend
* N/A
* N/A
* N/A
* N/A
Skills:
* (Roll for Random skill selection)
Mutations:
N/A
She wouldn’t let herself feel pain like this again.