Chapter 36

While I’d had a lot of time in the past eight days for introspection, I’d learned that part of my mind shied away from questioning my own motivations too deeply. It wasn’t anything so mild as reluctance to dig deeper or a fear of what the answer might be; it was like something had been standing between me and the thought, and I could never quite navigate around it. Not that I hadn’t tried to think about it, but instead that any attempt to really investigate it would lead to being forcibly redirected into thinking about the desire to gain power, grow stronger. It was for this reason that I was quite startled to find myself sitting exactly where I had been, now thinking about that very subject.

I trawled backward over my memories, flitting back to my major decisions. I had chosen the path of Arcane Power, grabbing hold of magic and the allure it held, the image of a world in flames where nothing could touch me; fear and uncertainty burned away in the presence of that power. I first encountered my Shepherdess, a flame-haired woman who told me that the nature of the new world was conflict; she told me that the old world was dead, and the only path to victory was through strife. She pulled me back from the dead a dozen times or more, each death blending into the next as I fought relentlessly against the creatures she summoned to oppose me. My first real struggle after she disappeared resulted in being wrapped in bloodthirsty vines that cut and tore into my flesh, the desperate flames I conjured to destroy them burning their imprint into my body, resulting in thick, rope-like scars wrapped around my arms, chest, and throat.

Believing myself invincible, and that death was only temporary, I fought my way through the towers as if compelled, drawn to them through the immense forest. When I first encountered Marcus, that immense armor-clad mountain of a man with his two-handed hammer that seemed to have a gravity all its’ own, I didn’t hesitate to fight him over the Fragment I’d just won, putting my life on the line to defend it. It was different, fighting him, as opposed to fighting the Greenwarden’s Disciple that had defended the tower; that fight hadn’t felt real, more like a video game than a true life-or-death battle. I remembered the terror of the man’s presence, pressing down on me like a physical weight, and wondered where I’d found the courage to resist him.

The ascent up the next tower was far more dangerous than the first; some other adventurers, including someone I knew from the old world, had been slain by the Writhing Soldiers – the vine-animated zombie soldiers that defended the towers – and been reanimated to fight against people like me. It was a much harder fight, but I took down that tower, too. I first encountered Cenna there, weeping outside the door to the boss room as her party had been murdered, one by one. When I recklessly leapt into action to defend her, she joined me in the attack, desperate to avenge her comrades. I couldn’t say what compelled me to leap into battle when I knew for a fact that several others had died in that same fight moments before. I had to go all out to take down the last of the Disciples and pushed myself far past my limits to do it. When I collapsed in the wake of the fight, Cenna had looted the chest and left the fragment in my keeping, only leaving a brief note of apology carved into the face of the chest.

The third tower I hit like a freight train; Marcus had cleared the other two towers, and I knew the one I stood in was the last. I tore through it like a hurricane, dispatching not one but two bosses along the way. This time I drowned the tower in fire to prepare for my battle with the walking dreadnaught that was coming my way. I placed my three fragments into the device I found at the very peak of the tower, and prepared myself for Marcus’ inevitable arrival with every tool at my disposal; even so, I wasn’t able to defeat him, though it was a very near thing. I discovered that death in this world was final – the lie-by-omission my Shepherdess had taught me had been enough to drive me fearlessly out into the world, and even claim the life of a handful who had attacked me unprovoked. It was in this battle that Marcus had offered me his name – a stark departure from our first encounter, where he had refused to speak with me at all. Even with all of my preparations, it wasn’t enough to bring me a decisive victory; at the end, neither of us was able to muster up the strength to finish the other, some kind of berserker rage giving the hammer-wielding man incredible power in exchange for sapping his vitality, leaving him too weak to even pick up his hammer. I survived the fall from the tower, and surrounded myself in flames to protect myself in case he pursued, able to do little more than cocoon myself and pass out once more.

By the time I awoke, Marcus had already given his two Fragments to summoning the Greenwarden; a mountain-sized facsimile of a man whose lower body remained submerged in the earth. That verdant giant remained in contemplation in the center of the massive circular area of our tutorial, three Guardians arising to defend him; one for each surviving tower. It turned out that the wildfires I carried with me into battle had consumed enough of the plants enwrapping two of the towers that it had killed the powerful roots which lay beneath them, leaving cavernous absences in the Greenwarden’s immense form. I couldn’t say what compelled me, then, to seek out the nearest Guardian; was it a suicidal wish, a reckless striving for power? I wasn’t sure. Every time my step had faltered, the Shepherdess' voice was there, whispering to me: Strife, Power. The Old World is dead.

I had fought the first Guardian, an enormous serpent made of soil and plants, and managed to damage it badly enough to put an end to its’ first stage; it had shed the outer shell of verdant growth, revealing a thick, bark-like hide beneath. Rid of the slowing growth that covered it, its’ movements became faster and stronger, the disguise falling away to reveal that there was some kind of animate skeleton underneath all the plant life, the skull easily the size of a small house. Unable to stand against its’ more powerful second form, I had fled into the forests, where I encountered the small village of Hideaway, appropriately named considering it was made to be a hidden refuge, tucked away from sight, where people tried to go on clinging to the Old World lives they’d once had, trusting in their walls and their protectors – stronger adventurers, chief among them Cenna and Lyrella. I had encountered a taciturn Blacksmith, a man with charcoal-black skin and muscles enough for three men, who relentlessly imposed his will upon the weak and malleable steel that fell between him and his anvil. He taught me the basics of Blacksmithing, my quick progress and curiosity compelling me to create my own path, fusing my control of flames into the System-given knowledge. Combined with [Crystalflame] , I had the ability to create constructs out of fire, imbuing my Intent into it to give it the hardness and resilience of steel. I spent a handful of days in town, desperately needed rest outweighing my desire to grow more powerful, the distraction of my blacksmithing enough to keep me from ranging far outside the walls.

All of that ended when Cenna approached me one day while I was out, wrestling with the concerning revelation that there was something of a cult forming around me, with others branding themselves with the rope-like burns that scarred my arms from my first near-death experience. She made a Faustian bargain with me, persuading me to force Lyrella to grow stronger so that she would not be left behind; in return, she promised their aid in slaying the Guardians, though it would take several days after I laid waste to the town and humiliated her in combat in front of her followers before she was in any position to deliver on her promise; while it had been a painful lesson, it was one Lyrella had taken to heart: The Old World is dead.

Which led me here. Why was I still here? Why had nothing happened?

“Not nothing,” a softly seductive voice whispered into my ear, close enough to feel the warmth of breath against my shoulder. “It’s time for us to meet once more, my disciple.”

The flames I had surrounded myself were fitful candles in the presence of the Shepherdess herself, whose very clothes and hair seemed imbued with living flames, heat rolling off of her skin like rays of sunlight. I wondered how I was able to stand before her when we first met; it even hurt a little to look at her directly, so I kept my gaze fixed on the floor between us as she took a seat before me, the smile I could just glimpse filled with a heat that made my breath short and my chest tight. She laughed, a lovely, musical sound, before the sudden weight of desire faded, the fires dimming as if she had reined them in by force of will.

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“So, what motivates you, David?” Her tone was mysterious, seductive, eyes alight with curiosity. “Why do you fight? Why do you kill ?”

I had just relived the past three and a half weeks in my head, going over every memory, every important encounter, with a nearly sadistic thoroughness. I could no more hide from my actions than I could from the woman sitting before me, her robes seeming to shift and writhe over her skin, patterns of flame dancing over its’ surface, obscuring her true form in a heat haze. “I want power,” I told her, decisively, fists clenching in my lap. It was a simple answer, and one I felt was true, but her lips curled into a playful smile, as if disappointed in me.

“Come now, David; that’s not the real reason. Dig deeper. ” She commanded me, her words striking like irons clamping around my body and mind, forcing me over the memories again. I remembered the way I felt seeing Cenna weeping in the hallway; an echo of her terror. Marcus and his gravity-bending hammer, the uncertainty that gnawed at me, the weakness and fear in my mind pulling me down, threatening to drown me in it.

My mind brought me back to my first encounter, the snake-like vines that tore at my flesh, the way I could feel my blood spilling out over my body, the looming fear of death.

A fear that hadn’t faded despite all my bluster, despite the way the mist-creatures had torn me limb from limb.

Fear of death. Fear of pain. Fear of failure.

I lifted my gaze to her, pushing against the agony of staring into the sun itself, the blinding radiance scorching into my skull. “I want the power to never be afraid again.”

This time, she smiled at me, and I was suddenly surrounded with blazing heat, drenching me in a torrent of fire and pain, a heat that tore through my flesh to claw at my very soul, wrenching at the clay that made up my innermost self. I could feel the flames pouring through my veins, filling me with a reckless flame.

When the pain stopped, some interminable time later, I was met with a handful of prompts.

[Level up! You are now level 25. +9 Free points gained from Race and Class.]

You have sufficient stored EXP to level up.

[Level up! You are now level 26. +9 Free points gained from Race and Class.]

You have sufficient stored EXP to level up.

[Level up! You are now level 27. +9 Free points gained from Race and Class.]

Title Upgraded

[Sprinter -> Front Runner]

All attributes increased by 5% -> 10%

You are among the first to reach level 25 and evolve your race. Will your momentum persist, or falter?

Race Evolved

Human (F) -> Firetouched Human (E)

5 Free Points per level -> +3 Presence, +3 Willpower, +4 Free Points per level.

I scrolled through the notifications with wonder; while the upgraded race had cost me one free point per level, it had given me six extra; now ten total points per level. Less than my class, but still a lot of extra points. I put a dozen into my Intelligence to round it out a bit, and the rest into my Cunning, concerned that if my attributes were too lopsided that it might negatively impact me going forward.

After all, with class and race putting so many points into my main attributes, I could afford to spare them.

I opened my eyes, and realized I was surrounded by darkness. Something seemed to be restricting my movements, as close and tight around me as a second skin. I struggled for a moment, feeling whatever barrier surrounded me breaking apart. I coughed and choked as some of the ash fell into my mouth, spitting aside the bitter taste as I greedily pulled in air, standing out of the ruins of something that looked an awful lot like a casting of a meditating monk, formed entirely of ash. I understood on some instinctive level that this was some kind of weakness expunged from my body, my skin aching as if it had been pulled, whole and intact, from within me. I staggered away from the ruined shell, looking around to see that all of the flames had long-since doused themselves around me, completely drained of power and fuel.

My eyes settled on first the notification of how much time was remaining: I had only half a day to cross the distance to the tower where we were meeting, having somehow spent almost eighteen hours in meditation. I gathered up the few belongings that didn’t live in my spatial pouches and stood up, setting my eyes on the distant tower. I jumped lightly down from my burnt roost, feeling the way the flames more easily rose to my call, softening my landing with a careful upwelling of hot air. I started into a jog as I looked at the last notification waiting for me.

[Level 25 reached. Skill selection available.]