Prophet Ralian awoke screaming tears flowing openly down his face and onto his bare chest. He had dreamt of a monster walking amongst them wearing a man’s flesh. It destroyed all it touched as it led a horde of abyss spawn through his family estate. Ralian shivered. It was horrible, but he knew a sign from his god when he saw it. It was his duty to find this monster before it had a chance to wreak havoc upon the world. Yes, it was his duty. He stood up from his bed seeing that his serf woman was weeping feebly on the ground beside his bed, pathetic. He got dressed in his usual garb, but before leaving he turned to the serf and kicked her. Of course, he adjusted his strength enough to not prevent her from performing her duties. He wasn’t an animal. She let out a choked scream but he didn’t care. His tent had the necessary inscriptions to allow for his habits.
“Prepare for my return,” he said before stepping out of the tent and into the chaos outside.
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Nyx ran, the trees around her giving ample cover to avoid the onslaught of arrows and magical projectiles the eight enemy soldiers sent her way. Whatever He did had caused enough of a stir in the camp for them to bother scanning the terrain; unfortunately, she had been spotted while she climbed down the oak she had used as her lookout point. She activated Shadow’s Grace, speeding up her movements as she narrowly dodged a lance of gold mana. The enemy was persistent she would give them that, but they needed to work on their aim. The one soldier firing golden lances from his spear was the first to die, Nyx rolling into a firing position and sending a dark wood arrow into the man's throat. Too bad he was only level sixty otherwise he may have survived the hit. Nyx fired a second shot taking a grazing hit on the side but hitting a second soldier in the left eye for their efforts. Both soldiers dropped and Nyx felt the familiar rush of experience gain as she dashed away again. She wanted to hang about and finish the soldiers off but the elders would disapprove especially once she told them of His presence. She just hoped she got to be on the retrieval team.
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The moment Dalen heard the screaming he dashed out of the tent and towards Melisia’s tent. Dalen knew Kal would still be there, his friend wouldn’t miss a night of training if he could help it. There was nobody guarding the entrance so he just ran inside to find Kal unconscious on the ground, his head resting on Melisia’s lap with Leo standing beside the both of them. “What in the fuck is going on? Is Kal alright?”
Melisia nodded warily, “Kalum is fine, but he is exhausted and will need some time to recover.”
“Ok,” Dalen sighed with relief. “What happened? Did he get affected by whatever is going on outside?”
Melisia looked between Dalen and Leo before speaking.“No, he is what caused it. Well, his birthright to be exact.” Leo’s eyebrows shot up, and so did Dalen’s for that matter.
“Kal has a birthright! Which one?”
Melisia smiled,” Not one that has been documented officially. I suggest we get him back to his tent so that he may avoid any difficult questions.”
Sounds about right, of course, Kal would have something that would get him in even more trouble. Dalen sighed and pulled out a bottle of a particularly strong spirit he had distilled before leaving Farninghold. “I’ll need Leo’s help carrying him, but first why would he need to hide it? It could get him the help he needs right?” Dalen trusted Melisia but she had been acting strange for days, she had been a friend of his during his time in Larnas. She had only just started as an apprentice at the time.
“In awakening it, it appears that he had to cleanse a significant amount of Dhinir’s mana from his core space. I’m sure we can all agree that we should attempt to delay the Prophet’s suspicions for now.”
“Right, yes, good plan.” Dalen emptied about a quarter of the bottle onto Kal’s shirt, then another onto himself. Leo got the hint and lifted Kal around the shoulders, Dalen doing the same on the other side. Kal was freezing, and his breathing was shallow. Dalen shook his head as they dragged Kal out of the tent. Well, at least Kal was playing the part. Outside the tent, the chaos had grown. Dalen could see a group of imperial guards led by the prophet of Dhinir searching tents just to the left of Melisia’s towards his and Kal’s tent. Yeah, not going that way. They both turned to the right and kept moving through the camp. Many of the off-duty soldiers had thrown on their equipment and were joining in the search. Dalen heard from a passing group that they thought it was some kind of ambush from the cultists and that they were hunting a group of them now. That was good, it seemed that they didn’t suspect it to be anyone from their camp let alone Kal.
“You there! Stop!” yelled a voice that would have annoyed Kal.
Fuck, Dalen looked at Leo who shook his head.
“We run and he will just follow,” Leo said, already guessing Dalen's question.
“Dammit..” The two of them stopped and turned to find the prophet standing walking towards them. When he got close his face shifted to sneer as he looked over the three of them, he smiled slightly when seeing Kal in such a state.
“Ah yes, the freak follower of… Dhoerin right?”
Cheeky bastard. Dalen thought as Leo answered, “Quotz sir.”
The smile faded into a grimace, “I see, what has happened to the man? Was he perhaps badly affected by whatever dark magic the cultists have brought us?” The man kept staring at Kal, his expression changing rapidly.
What the hell is with this guy? “Eh..naaah, we’ve ju..just been having a few from new stock,” Dalen reached into a pocket and pulled out an identical bottle as before, and offered it to the priest. “Want some?”
The Prophet grimaced, “No,” staring closely between Dalen and Kal, ”When the freak recovers, ensure that he attends the camp follower’s little training session tomorrow. Perhaps then he can make the correct decision,” and without another, the Prophet turned back to the squad of imperial guards and continued the search through the camp.
Breathing a sigh of relief Dalen and Leo continued through camp eventually double backing towards Kal’s tent. The camp was a bloody mess. Dalen had traveled in similar armies before but this one easily had the worst organization. The soldiers were aimless and the camp followers were absolutely useless. Half of them were simply running between the empty tents looking for their masters and the rest were doing nothing at all, just lying around confused about the commotion. When they finally made it to the tent they deposited Kal onto his bedroll. He had still barely moved, his skin still incredibly pale.
Dalen turned to Leo, “Does your identification skill tell you anything about his status?”
Leo shook his head, “I’m sorry but no, it only functions that way during a scenario it determines as a training session.”
Dalen frowned, he had hoped the man could at least tell him Kal’s health value. He didn’t think anything he had would help Kal in his current state, none of his brews helped with the more exotic damage types, just physical and mental. If Kal’s birthright did the damage he suspected it would be soul damage but it really wasn’t his area of expertise. Dalen thought he should be catatonic after hearing that Kal had a birthright, but really it didn’t surprise him that much. There was always something different about Kal besides his failed ascendance. Sure Kal was miserable for most of the time he had known him but he was always so determined to improve. Dalen knew that he would have given up if he were in Kal’s place. With a sigh, Dalen patted Kal on the shoulder before leaving the tent.
Leo spoke up, “I will guard his tent tonight though I will continue to make it appear otherwise. So you may rest easy, Dalen. I have high hopes for Kal, I feel Quotz has guided the three of us to the man for a reason.”
Ha! I’m sure Kal would love to hear that… “Sure. Alright, I’m hitting the sack. Wake me if any more of Kal’s chaos kicks up.”
They separated and as Dalen laid down on his bedroll one thought never left his mind. If Quotz guided them here, then why the hell would Dhoerin get involved?
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Kal awoke the next morning, the memories of the night before coming back to him. Damn, everything hurts. He sat up, his body stung all over like he had a bad sunburn. It sucked but at least it wasn’t itching. He checked his status hoping everything would still be there. His eyes widened when he saw it. It was a god's damned mess, the normal display was torn apart and floating in different orientations. His Health was upside down beneath his skills menu and his strength was in its original place but next to vitality instead of stamina. He panicked for a moment but the moment he thought of how they should look they began to move around back to their original position. Once they were all in place a crimson glow glided over the surface of the menu, seemingly locking it in place and giving his status a red display. Well, that was weird. Now let’s hope everything is still there.
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Kalum Lesta Status Class: Null Level: 0 Race: Human Health: 180 Stamina: 240 Mana: 0 Attributes Strength: 24 Agility: 14 Endurance: 24 Vitality: 18 Intellect: 11 Perception: 16 Will: 30 Wisdom: 19 Titles
Core Bane, Defier of Dhinir
Skills
Soul Forge [Corrupt]
Race
Birthright: Slumbers
Kal skipped everything else and looked straight to his titles. Yes! He had finally got a title and not just one but two. He was pretty sure he got scammed by his busted core during the fight with the rogue but who cared he had two now. He focused on each of the titles viewing their descriptions.
Core Bane [Birthright]
Your desire to be free of a deity has pushed you to the destruction of your very own core, freeing yourself from the will of all gods. May your will be forever unbroken, your potential limitless. +15% Will, +10% Vitality, + 10% Endurance
Defier of Dhinir [Birthright]
Your defiance of the god of conquest will be your undoing, that at least is what the sheep will say. May you forever spit in the eye of Dominion and his lackeys. +10% Will, +10% Endurance, +10% Strength.
It seemed that each of the titles was somehow connected to his birthright, which meant that was likely how he was even able to get them without a working core. Putting the thought aside for now Kal thought both titles were amazing, he would have to ask Melisia how powerful percentages that large were. He frowned at the description of Defier of Dhinir, it seemed different to the descriptions he had seen previously. Like somebody had written it specifically for him, either that or whoever wrote it seriously didn’t like Dhinir. Kal could definitely agree with that sentiment. With both titles, he had gained a total of thirteen more stat points, and the moment he thought of comparing his stats to the day before a small menu appeared.
Statistic Comparison
Health
10
Stamina
40
Mana
0
Strength
2
Agility
0
Endurance
4
Vitality
1
Intellect
0
Perception
0
Will
6
Wisdom
0
Total
13
He had never thought to try that but he felt proud of himself with the gains. His stats were pretty ridiculous now when considering he didn’t even have class yet. He stretched the sunburn feeling slowly fading. He wanted to ask Melisia what happened after he destroyed his core, but first, he wanted to check out his core space. He knew he got rid of whatever Dhinir had done, he wasn’t really sure how though. He sighed, yet another thing he needed to ask Melisia. Kal crossed his legs and entered his core space. It was remarkably quick this time, almost instantaneous probably because whatever Dhinir did wasn’t keeping him away from his core anymore. His perception manifested somewhere pretty far away from his core but unlike the previous times he had come here, he could sense a warmth in the distance which he immediately knew was his soul or birthright. He wasn’t sure which it was, it was probably both. Kal moved through the dark again and arrived at the site of his old core. The core fragments were completely gone, all that remained was the crimson flame, though it had changed since last night. It was much smaller now but it seemed more erratic, like it could explode at any moment. This brought Kal back to his thoughts on whether it fed his anger or if it was the other way around. Well, at least all those ember things are gone. But now he had another problem to solve. How did he go about creating a new core? His memories of the previous were practically engraved into his mind but he had no confidence that he could recreate it the same way as before. What the hell, he might as well give it a go. So he began weaving a long thread, trying to replicate the strands he identified in the original. There were several of note. There were several that simply represented his attributes, he suspected that they were required for whatever class he acquired to grant him his attribute points at each level. Next were three core strands, Health, Stamina, and Mana. Those were a lot more complex and he had no idea where to start with the mana strand, he didn’t have any mana to draw inspiration from in the strand's creation. The others felt he could at least make an approximation now just by mentally willing it but he still hadn’t actually tried it yet. He started with the attribute strands first since he felt they were the simplest. To Kal’s surprise, each strand formed easily, from the darkness around him a multitude of colors moved toward him and merged with the strands he directed them to. Each felt similar to what he felt from his original core fragments. The sensations were vague but each was unique, strength felt kinda of heavy but agility felt quick. The attributes really were simple but he could still tell his weaving wasn’t perfect, his application felt rather coarse like frayed rope compared to silk. Only practice would help him here he thought so he continued weaving the attributes into the thread. He wasn’t concerned that he might make a faulty core since it seemed fairly clear that he could just destroy his next one with very little to worry about. The attributes finally weaved through he made his first attempt at weaving health, and well it went about as well as he expected. When he thought of vital energy nothing came, the same when he tried it with his stamina which he should probably have guessed wouldn’t work since he didn’t even know what that one was really called. He sighed and decided to see what happened when made a ring with what he had. It fused perfectly but it quickly began to warp and expand rapidly, a moment later it burst back into his cloud stuff. Well, shit. He had really thought he was getting somewhere then. It was clear to him that he needed to learn more about the other energies tied to his body and presumably his soul. Kal exited his meditation and jumped to his feet, his body no longer stinging. Hopefully, he had time to ask some questions before he started his combat training. He left the tent, thoughts of last night's rage forgotten.