Amun.

25th of Duotra, 1492

El-Did Province, Shujen Kingdom. The Hall of Meditation, Nydorden Monastery.

04:13.

***

I finally understood.

I truly understood what it meant to have a suitable vessel for Death's energies. It meant more than mastering the Monastic Arts. It meant mastering them in a near-death state to allow my sorcery to infect the ki developing within me, corrupting the perks of my class. It didn't mean learning how to shift one's body to reduce the impact of an attack as Dextrous Defense dictated, it meant shifting the body toward the attack, slightly diverting or sometimes tanking it entirely awaken my Undying Defense. It meant redesigning my Martial Arts to fight past the limitations of a debilitated body, releasing the limiters on the mind to unlock the unyielding strength found in the undead. It meant putting every ounce of energy into movements to awaken my Undying Locomotion rather than conserving it as the Dextrous Maneuvering skill required.

It was then when I completed my tasks and arrived at the 1st Step, that I truly became one with Death. That was to say, standing before Death's Door birthed an eerie strength within me, yet the pain was still there. Regardless, then came Ki. Something like gasoline to the engine that was my body, an analogy I used throughout the last few days of meditation and training.

Even now.

I felt a sudden coldness race through the turbulent fires around me to brush against the back of my head and reacted immediately, using the potent fuel to snap my hand in the path of a somewhat blunt bolt just as it came into range; and after a surge of fuel, a quick snap sent it rushing back.

<<"This marks the verification of your initiation.">> Etan entered the ring, waving the many, many slaves to discard the leftovers before gesturing for me to take another bowl of that strange porridge and follow him.

Of course, I felt a particular way about the practice. But there was nothing more I could do for them than give them a sweet release of suffering through death. Besides, the dwindling fires within my Ki Pond reminded me of the poor state of my body. So I took the strange food greedily and grinned wide as the fires of ki were reignited within me.

With the pain gone and Etan's silence, I had a small moment to think about the state of this place. It went without saying, but it took a lot to hide my disgust. Slaves outnumbered the drow almost five to one, and there were thousands of drow in the Monastery alone. Most of them were monks, of course, but there were many religiously dressed drow ladies thinking they were hidden in the shadows. They did nothing but watch and talk amongst themselves the entire time, however, making every comment one could think of for days on end.

I was at least content with Abbot Eiriol's treatment of the girls. More than content, I was grateful for the devotion she showed in not just training them, but educating them. I even learned a few new things regarding Core Annexes and Divine Aphids, but my focus kept me away from the Net for now, thus I gave the old Abbot a small blessing to help her teach and left her to it.

The only other saving grace came from the place's historic beauty. A small hut on the surface of Shujen gave entry to a buried tower of inclined floors, or Halls that extended for kilometers, coiling around a central shaft to form a geometrical paradise of ingrained history. The air had a strangeness to it unlike any I smelled before. A smell, I knew, that came from the countless monks before me sinking the odors of their efforts into the stone itself. Every step within was like following a path led by a thousand generations of ghosts I couldn't see, which was strange to think about now. Over the ages, their daily movements made groves on the stairs. The force of a trillion consecutive stomps created lattices of depressions on the parade grounds. Fungal trees stood with bowed stalks, making a testament to the resiliency of both nature and man- or in this case, drow.

It was the third time I'd seen such a wondrous place. The first being on Earth and the second being the Arxis Hub. But this was structured more like the latter, for its layout guaranteed an acolyte passed the requirements for entering the next Hall before they even saw the end of the current one. As was the case here.

We were nearly at the end of the Meditation Hall, although the exit was occluded by octahedral huts made almost entirely of divine tree roots and what appeared to be clay.

Ignoring any coming explanations, I stepped inside to meet the same midnight purple glow as Etan's… stand. Only this light was cast by roots as thick as my body creeping up the walls, making footholds for subterranean bugs, lizards, and insects that added to the concentration of Ki within. Like fire dispersed in the air, the energy churned and coiled in on itself continuously, and yet it seemed to seep into yet another piece of familiar geometry, etched into the floor to shoot back out as linear flames.

Crossing my legs, I sat at the center of that sacred pattern and focused on the swirling fires. Not of those within the room, but the ones swirling around my spiritual body, contained within a void near my Arcana Well- near my heart- like a heliosphere pushing back the interstellar medium. But unlike stellar radiation contained by a magnetic field, the fires of my first Ki Pond had a release- a network of conduits sprawling through my spirit-like veins and arteries, formed by mana to house this Ki.

Therein lay the object of my newfound focus, a seemingly random 'vein' within the network of the brain region was pinched to create a blockage while more focus went into forming a 'valve' behind it, thus expanding the walls apart. Therein my focus split evenly. Half was split towards containing the churning flames in the growing Pond whilst simultaneously guiding and compressing the incoming Ki while the other half sought to continue where the energy left off in expanding the membrane into a sphere with a slightly smaller radius than my brain.

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Carefully. Slowly, I worked, taking caution to not condense the ki too much and trigger an implosion; taking heed to not allow the incoming flames to burn the firmament dry; being patient to not spread the membrane so thin that it would tear.

Icarus with balloons.

With time, the effort required for the task began to wane. Sometime after, I began to relax into a meditative trance. Eventually, my thoughts began to drift into the comforting darkness of my mind, leaving me standing or... falling into an abyssal plane of nothingness. My breath sounded like the dying gasps of an eldritch being. My lungs rose and fell ever slowly, despite no air flowing through my nostrils. My eyes stared at a distant point in the far beyond, despite there being nothing to act as my focus. Until, that was, a point of sea green appeared in the great beyond and flashed in a big bang that birthed a line, pouring from that infinitely far point in the before to race between my feet and end equidistantly at some point in the beyond.

My eyes fell, pushing my organs into my throat as my body plunged with them. Down and down and down and down, watching the line widen to a rod to a bar to a beam and to a… road. A road with trees of black bone that was like wood but also not, and with fingered leaves that burned with the abyssal-violet Flames of Moil. An avenue that led to a lone abode- a necrotic manse of black bones, fossilized masonry, and sea green vines of ichor; segregated from the Abyss by a gate of solid sludge and landscaped with a lawn of grasping hands.

It had never been so clear to me before; never had it been so far away, Death's Door.

I took my first step and felt my heart falter, for my eyes looked down, causing the road itself to break. The curbs crumbled, breaking down the road into a beam, and from a beam to a bar; a bar to a rod; and a rod, down a line of necrotic thread on which I balanced precariously. A tightrope of sea green energy that poured from an infinitely far point in the before to push against the soles of my feet, pulling it taut against the anchor point in the equidistantly far point in the beyond.

There I was, suspended on a tightrope within the infinite Abyss, high above Death's Realm, looking down at the sea-green tempest hurricane ascending with a roar of threats to blow me over the edge; hushing the promising whispers of greater strength.

—-

[Masterful Monastic Tradition: The Way to Death's Door: Step 3, Death - Task Complete]

[Reward: Mutation - [1st Deathly Ki Pond: Abyssal Avenue.] - The Avenue that leads to Death's Door is an accursed path, for the whispers carried by the winds at its borders grants one the strength to traverse it, yet the roars that rise in intensity with each step come with threats to push you over. When you toe the line with death, your Necrotic Ki activates and beckons the fires of the dying to reignite your embers and keep you on your feet. But do not fall, for the use of your Ki will wear the Abyssal Avenue thin, and the plummet spells doom.]

[Reward: Passive Skill - [Undying Ki] - The winds that blow over the Abyssal Avenue acts as a lifting agent to keep you dancing atop the ever-thinning Way to Death's Door, enabling you to surpass the limitations of mortality in exchange for Necrotic Ki.]

***

Head Monk Etan Za'Darmondiel.

***

<<"Tell me what you know.">>

'Fuck!' I internally exclaimed. How much I hated that voice. Hated more even than that most unpleasant face. So much like mine, it appeared, only adding to my ire. Not that I could show it. All I could do was take a deep breath and turn, kneeling as lowly as physically possible while I spoke her name with reverence. <<"High Matron Etyl.">>

For almost 17 years, a sneer from High Matron Etyl Za'Darmondiel was the nicest response she had the pleasure of gracing me with. I would have been a fool to think this coveted time would have been any different. She was the most powerful drow in all the Darkworld on this side of the World Seas. The most favored High Matron in the whole of Nonus by the Demon Queen of Spiders.

She was my mother.

Although she was as obsessed with Amun as any other elf, she was unlike Abbot Eiriol. High Matron Etyl of the Eldest House of Za'Darmondiel had all of the Demon Queen Spider's favor while the Abbot had not a drop. And so, despite her being vastly older and more experienced, among other things, the Abbot held little to no power over the drow of Zimysta Falls. Not even the male monks she trained.

Obviously, the same could not be said in reverse. High Matron Etyl Za'Darmondiel held all the power any drow ever could hold. All but one. I was not that drow. Thus I had no choice but to comply.

I began to explain that he met his marks. Only to be met with a prompt slap that left the taste of metal lingering in my mouth.

'Tell me of his magic!' she snapped her hands furiously. 'Tell me of his oddities. I do not care for his martial arts!'

'Everything about him is strange, High Matron.' I humbly signed back. 'Everything from his appearance to his personality and behavior, so much unlike ours or the Nox. The weave itself is strange around him.'

That made her angry. Then again, priestesses and their higher counterparts were always angry. She was a Matron Mother. They were always seething. That, however, was not the problem.

<<"Open the door.">>

<<"I cannot, High Matron. The Abbot will- >> I spoke without thinking, and her hand reaching towards her waist corrected me on the spot. Yet she sneered still.

<<"Your Abbot has deemed that you are to check in on him every twenty-five hours, no?">>

<<"Correct, High Matron.">>

<<"How long has it been since you've checked?">>

<<"Almost twenty-five, High Matron.">>

Again, a sneer was my only response, my only warning to push open the doors before she got violent. Lethally so.

When I pushed open the doors, any fear I had towards the hateful drow vanished. In my face now, was a swirling vortex of blue-green fire that wailed with the screams of ten thousand tortured souls, and at its center sat the exceedingly strange half-breed.

I stared in morbid awe for a full second before the vortex flowed into his form in a maddening torrent before peace returned to the Halls; only then did Amun stand, bringing me to notice the scars, dried blood, and oddly shaped limbs of his blue-green flame-wreathed visage. Or rather, the lack thereof. He turned, fully healed, to point those eldritch eyes into those of the hateful drow beside me.

<<"What is this?">> The Matron gasped, mastering herself in mid-sentence to turn her expression of shock into a mask of reverence, but all Amun did was raise a brow of indifference.

<<"Who are you?">>