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BTW 59

Chapter 59

The last thing I had to attend to for hitting level 35 was a skill choice. The Basic abilities I previously had access to had all been upgraded to Initiate; I assumed my basic proficiency with my skills overall elevated them. Even my [Flameheart’s Hunger] had grown to Initiate, most likely from how much I’d used it in the past few levels. Most interesting to me, however, was that one of my first skill offerings had been updated quite a bit.

Supernatural Perception (Initiate): Gain Basic proficiency with enhancing your ability to perceive your surroundings. Your senses now fully extend into magical ranges based on your affinities, with an increased basic awareness of other supernatural energies and elements including Leylines, Places of Power, and Inspection of both items and entities. The enhancement is increased somewhat based on your Wisdom.

It looked like this level was mainly focused on upgrading old abilities to fit better with my current capabilities, with Perception being the only skill significantly altered. After just a couple of moments’ thought, I picked the upgraded Perception power, figuring that at least in the games I’d played, Detect Magic was a pretty much essential skill; this was the closest thing I’d seen to it. I couldn’t help but feel like it had something to do with my ‘Essence of Flame’ that I’d gained, and the weird things I’d started sensing afterward.

I felt the beginnings of a dull ache in the middle of my head, and a pressure in my sinuses as if something was swelling up inside of my head. The discomfort grew over the span of a handful of seconds before turning abruptly into a dizzying pain, my vision swimming as a feeling like a balloon blew up inside of my head. I clamped my eyes shut, part afraid that they were going to simply pop out, and clapped my hands to my face against the agony. It only lasted an eternal few seconds before the sensation simply vanished, and when I opened my eyes, blinking back tears, I couldn’t believe what I saw.

The whole world was painted in bright, vivid colors. My vision was already sharper than a human eye ever could be, but this was another level. If I focused, I could see the veins in the leaves on the distant trees – the ones that weren’t burnt up, anyway. I felt like I could count the blades of grass in my sight, if only I had the time to spare. I drew in a breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding, and when I exhaled, I could see faint traces of energy spilling from my lips, melding into the steady clarity of the air around us. Everywhere I looked was instinctual understanding, tying in the sense of everything’s flammability with a deeper sense of why, a dazzling array of information about everything from the latent energies present in nature to the unnatural uniformity of the breeze and the false distance beyond the trees, an ink-washed projection of a larger world encapsulating the little bubble that we stood within. Perhaps even more usefully, when I glanced toward my allies, I got a sense of each; their powers were each below mine, but only somewhat. It almost felt like a warmer-colder scale of strength, with each of them brushing across my awareness like a cool breeze on a warm day. More to the point, I could see the energy wrapped around them, flowing through them; only a faint image, like a light shining through a leaf, but enough that I could see the rough flows of energy that spilled through and around them.

I didn’t quite know what to do with all of this information, yet, but I studied them for lingering moments nonetheless. Once everyone seemed to finish consolidating their gains from the battle, we all gathered together as if drawn by a magnet, looking toward the doorway. Cenna pushed open the door, and gestured for me to go through first. “Go on in, David! I’ll be right behind you. And Ella. And Dima. And Alex. I’ll make sure nothing comes in after us.” I snorted and rolled my eyes, then stepped through the shadowy doorway into the space beyond.

After the intense fighting of the previous floor, the next two were weirdly easy. Perhaps it was because we were working better as a team, or that our abilities just worked especially well to counter them, but barely struggled to fight our way through. The third floor was a cave full of various burrowing creatures, but they were sensitive to bright lights and sounds – between my flames and Dima’s lightning, it was almost too easy, even if we ended out the floor having to shout to hear each other, laughing at being deafened by the sound of thunder in confined spaces. The fourth floor was a jungle swarming with Serpanthers and other ambush creatures, but between Cenna’s perception, Ella’s reflexes and, well, me setting most of the floor on fire, our biggest challenge was smoke inhalation. Dima did seem somewhat upset that the edge of his robes had been burnt in a few places, and Ella’s hair might’ve come out of it a little frizzier than usual, but I felt it was a worthwhile exchange.

It was only upon reaching the fifth floor that my sense of trepidation returned. My near-death experience wasn’t so easily shaken as I’d hoped, and the others could pick up on my nervous bearing as I spoke, explaining to them what I could remember of the boss fight before. It wasn’t raining as hard as it had been the last time I came to this floor, but everything was soaked as if a strong rain had just finished, and there hung in the air a heavy, damp presence that made drawing in my powers just a little bit harder. It was like straining against an invisible pressure in the air, as if the wall between me and the Cindervault was just that little bit thicker than usual. I reached deeply into it, feeling the biting energy gnawing at my fingers as I tried to force the breach open and draw out my firebolts, allowing them to dissipate instead of keeping them cohesive. As I’d hoped, the attuned Fire energy fought against the lingering but mindless damp, like raiders sweeping down on an unprotected village, burning away everything they could reach while the resistance was weak. I knew I’d need all the power I could get for when-

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Cenna screamed, and a moment later Ella cursed loudly. “What the Hell is that thing?” Dima gave a startled curse in another language, reflexively blasting lightning toward the source of movement. The bright flash in the darkness left a jagged cut across our vision, revealing only one of the long, spindly split-limbs, each spidery leg tipped with another bundle of smaller legs just like it, splitting outward like talon-tipped fingers, unnaturally thin and long, with tufts of reddish cactus-like spines pushing out from every joint. However, the attack only struck the tree where one of the gaunt ‘hands’ had grasped, the arm stretching off out of sight. I dragged a bunch of energy out and hurled it toward where I suspected the main body to be, the matted colors of its’ black and green hide blending almost too well into its’ surroundings. Only the trickle of sluggish energy flowing through it gave the pattern any distinction, energy cycling faster as it prepared to attack, the burst of flames revealing its’ many eyes and venom-dripping fangs.

Cenna dodged behind a tree as another hand swept down from a different angle entirely, the talons flensing a tree of its’ bark in an instant. Ella grappled with another as it clawed along the forest floor, sidestepping the attack and grabbing onto one of the long finger-bones, trying to break it with a rapid series of strikes. Dima’s familiar wrapped itself around him in a shroud of lightning, biting and snapping at any limbs that drew too close. I threw darts of flame toward any limbs that came near me, doing my best to disrupt them and target wherever they grabbed onto trees, hoping to force it to relinquish its’ grip and lose balance.

Beside me, Alex seemed paralyzed, staggering away from the enormous spider with wide eyes and mouth agape, blinking rapidly as if trying to dispel immense, clinging terror. They turned abruptly and began sprinting through the forest away from us, mouth open wide in a soundless scream. Cenna twisted and began to run after them, only to be clipped by a broad, sweeping strike of a claw, sending her tumbling to the ground. Ella dove to her defense, a quick grab and hard twist shattering one of the talon-tipped fingers, its’ hydraulic innards spilling out in a brief gush. Two other hands moved to attack them, the brief vulnerability enough to draw its’ attention. Dima sent his familiar racing after Alex’s retreating form, trying to drive the attacking limbs away from the two girls.

I cursed as I saw our formation fall apart, and a moment later understood the cause for their retreat.

The massive body swung down between two trees, barely visible in the glimmering darkness, and a pair of slits opened along its’ sides, enormous eyes the size of car doors staring at me from the void. I felt their stare like a bolt of lightning, paralyzing my limbs and freezing me in place as my mind screamed at me to run, to flee in terror, to run until I saw the light of day and never again set foot near the shadows. As if lit from within, I could make out more details of the body the longer my will dueled with it, the pedipalps like the lips of an enormous mouth fit to swallow the world, the ridges of its’ body defining into shadows and lines that turned the spider-horror’s body into an enormous Oni mask, death and terror dwelling within its’ eyes.

But I was no stranger to fear. I drew in a deep breath through lungs that felt paralyzed, inflating them behind ribs that felt locked in place, my muscles so tense around them it was like they threatened to crush my heart. I could feel my strangled heartbeat thundering in my ears as the image became more and more defined, until with a rush of energy I simply opened the gates to the Cindervault around me.

Fire exploded outward, drenching me in embers and heat, burning away at my extremities despite my protections, flesh sizzling in the deluge of flames. It broke my line of sight for just an instant, but that was enough to force my Intent outward, grabbing onto the loose flames and sending a wall of them careening toward the immense body of the creature. Suddenly cast into light, the illusion dispelled, revealing the misshapen and horrifying body of the creature. Despite its’ terrible visage, it was nowhere near the world-eating maw of darkness and death that it had seemed, and the huge eyes on its’ sides were revealed to be huge luminescent patterns on its’ back, veiled by beetle-like wings. The wings fluttered as they began to close, but the buffeting wave of heat drove them back, and I hurled a flaming dart toward one of them.

When the dart struck, the creature shrieked with a sound that echoed in my bones, and my eardrums felt like they were going to burst. It dropped bonelessly from its’ place among the trees as its’ many limbs tried to withdraw defensively, the beetle wings snicking shut around the vulnerable flesh. In the wake of the flames, the sudden darkness was aching, blinding. I summoned another wave of attacks, only to see that the creature had vanished as quickly as it had appeared, leaving us suddenly defending against shadows and attacking nothingness.

The sudden silence was so loud I could hear my breath thundering in my ears, my heart hammering within my chest. Cenna stood up from where she’d been beset, and took off running after Alex once more, Ella in close pursuit. Dima looked back at me just long enough to see that I was coming toward him, then set out in pursuit of the other two. Only Cenna’s shiny red hair catching the light of my candleflames was enough to keep track of them; the two were much quicker and lighter on their feet than myself or the lightning mage, though we could at least clearly see the passage his familiar had taken by the scorched branches and bare-stripped trunks that lined the path.

There was a sudden scuffle from our right as a barrage of spidery limbs charged toward us, plunging the area into darkness once more. We were forced to dodge and defend as best we could from the attacks, but it seemed like they weren’t targeting us directly. Dima dodged out of the way of one strike and vanished behind a tree, only momentarily out of sight.

It wasn’t until the attacking limbs withdrew just as abruptly that I realized the trail we were following had been completely destroyed, trees and shrubs torn up and shredded, bark shorn from the trees.

Just like that, I was on my own.