Chapter 13 - Class Options Acquired
He’d told them all to keep as quiet as possible while they moved ahead, and Trey had just heard something from around the corner. Night vision had already been activated but the other humans and dwarves behind him couldn’t see in the pitch black. They were inching forward with their hands on one another’s backs and Trey was doing his best to guide them.
Motioning for the others to stop and turning around the corner, he saw that there was a U-turn in the hallway. Coming around and peering down the tunnel he then saw three figures, although the features were indistinguishable at this distance so he couldn’t be sure if they were culn or not. The three potential enemies were standing on the other side of the wall directly across from where he’d left the freed prisoners in the dark, and they appeared to be talking to one another under the torchlight. Trey silently slunk back towards his newfound group and tugged on Farthom’s robe to lead the way forward. As silently as they could, the men and women rounded the corner, gathering up at yet the next turn on their right. The torch that’d been lit down the hall gave off faint light that didn’t quite penetrate to where the escapees sat huddled.
Trey’s targets were a ways away and they would see him coming if he charged head on. He’d wanted to try something new anyways so he motioned for the group to stay there and watch the guards after he estimated the distance down the tunnel relative to the opposite side he had just traversed.
Trey silently retreated back down the tunnel until he stopped at what he thought was the right spot, where the guards were hopefully on the other side of the wall. He pulled out his claws and smirked, thinking about what he was about to do and hoping it would work. Truth be told, he’d never enjoyed killing this much. He was even having fun!
Why was that?
He dragged his claws along the wall with his left hand and scraped them loudly across the rock. It made a screeching noise like nails on a chalkboard but much louder and deeper, reverberating down the stone walls.
He heard the faint talking of his enemies stop abruptly at the noise, and knew they’d be looking down and away from his chosen approach. Trey and Sithis simultaneously let out a sinister, demonic laugh that echoed throughout the tight corridors for intimidation’s sake.
Somehow... Trey could literally smell their fear, and he recognized what it was through internal prompts Sithis was sending his way. Or perhaps it was the fear of the people he was helping. He couldn’t know for sure.
“Let's go.”
Envisioning what he wanted to do before he cast the spell - Trey vaporized and immediately rematerialized mid air on the other side of the wall. He was dead on, appearing right behind the three victims just as he had hoped he would. Black wisps of flaming shadow engulfed his person as his claws were held out to either side. Glowing red eyes and razor teeth smiled from ear to ear wickedly behind the three demons a couple feet above them.
It took Trey a four seconds to decapitate all three of them, his claws were splendidly sharp and even cut through bone without much of a problem. They didn’t have any time to react, never even seeing him coming, and their bodies slumped to the floor. Killing them had made little to no sound, and Trey looked pleased that his idea had worked.
“You have gained XP. You have gained the Assassination skill. Congratulations.”
Again Trey felt a lust overcome him and pleasure coursed through his body upon successfully executing the kills. An instant later and he had another surge of hunger too, so without wasting anymore time he flipped over one of the bodies. Pulling off a large iron breastplate that he tossed to the side, he excitedly ripped out the heart to eat...
5 minutes later.
“...Trey?”
Trey looked up, snapping out of his feasting trance and saw the entire group watching him. He looked back down to his hands, threw the colon to the ground and wiped his hands on his already bloodstained clothes.
“Sorry about that,” replied Trey looking to Farthom and smiling sheepishly with a hand scratching the back of his head. “I keep getting carried away. It’s kind of hard to resist...”
The older man smiled and actually began to chuckle, though it definitely seemed forced. “Very strange. But I do not judge you. Without you we wouldn’t stand a chance, so no need to apologize. Shall we continue?”
Trey gave a thumbs up with both hands and stood up. He then handed the torch to Farthom after taking it down from the wall. “If I see anyone else as I scout ahead, I’m going to have you extinguish the torch. But until then it’d be easier to navigate for all of you with this and we’ll make better time.”
Farthom promptly agreed.
A startling bell sound indicated the All Spirit’s presence as another pop up notification shot into view. This one hadn’t been summoned, and Trey’s brows furrowed as he looked the screen over.
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“Based upon your actions, circumstances, and recent events, you have qualified for the Dark Paladin class: this class emphasizes a high defense and the black magics. Please see the following for maximum caps on abilities:
- Dark Paladin
o 8 spells
o 8 sacred arts
o 8 miracles
Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
o Enables one to pledge towards a specific deity but only if that deity grants favor,
allowing a pledged priest / priestess / paladin to transcend into a higher form of being.
Based upon your actions, circumstances, and recent events, you have qualified for the Warlock class: this class emphasizes sustained high damage output at the cost of defense and emphasizes the black magics, allowing a single minion. Please see the following for maximum caps on abilities:
- Warlock
o 20 spells
o 1 sacred art
o 4 miracles
o Enables only 1 minion of demonic, fallen or enslaved classes.
o Spell damage amplification bonuses
If you wish to accept any of these classes please refer to your status page, select the class, and press ‘accept.’ Choosing a class will unlock skill trees that would otherwise be unavailable, and add additional stats or traits correlating with your choice. Otherwise you may remain as you are and choose at another time. Be warned, though classes are not permanent choices if you switch off your original class to pick another one: it results in a reduction of total levels by half and results in a 1 month wait period prior to choosing the new class. So choose wisely.”
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The mechanical feminine voice Trey had come to recognize so well faded away as did the message once he had finished reading it.
Class options? Oof! Now this got Trey’s blood pumping. Pulling up his status page he clarified that both ‘Dark Paladin’ and ‘Warlock’ were options he was able to select at any time. Pondering this for a little while he shook his head and closed the page. He wanted to select both of them, they both sounded like viable options and it took a lot to keep it under wraps… but he didn’t want to regret his decision later and have to switch only to lose half of the levels he’d gained. That would be a huge penalty to face, and he wanted to be sure he was making the right call when he did choose. He would get out of Oblivion and look around to find out what other people knew of this before he decided.
Quite frankly he didn’t know why he hadn’t gotten an option for the ‘assassin’ class after that last stunt he’d just pulled, but it didn’t matter to him too much. At the very least he was glad to have some choices now.
***
They came across many storage rooms just as Farthom had told Trey they would. The escapees stocked up on supplies, mostly food rations, as Farthom had stated it would probably take many days if not weeks to get to the portal site by foot. Thankfully they encountered no more traps.
“I must say Trey, those are some very rare and useful abilities you have. I’m a scholar and have heard of two of them, but others you have I don’t think I’ve even heard of ‘Chains of Chaos’ before. And I’ve made a living from knowing about various things like that.” Farthom looked forward again. “Scrolls, tomes or grimoires with any of those three spells would cost a fortune.”
About a hundred yards away and down the tunnel Trey thought he saw something move… a small humanoid figure in the distance, and then two more. Trey motioned for the light to be extinguished and everyone to form a line again. The cave about them dripped moisture onto his head as he slowly crawled forward. As he crept closer, the moving figures began to grow in number and went up one of the far tunnels to disappear from sight. Leading the group forward he took them down the same pass minutes later that went upwards and entered a large room.
Trey then saw the large gate that Farthom had mentioned earlier. In front of it were three minotaurs wielding giant axes like the one he’d fought before, and there were four culn as well. One of the culn wore robes and bore no weapons, and Trey was quick to question Farthom about it.
“That a mage?” asked Trey curiously as he pointed into the dimly lit room towards the culn demon wearing robes. He scratched both of his ears and leaned sideways to get a better look.
Farthom shrugged. “I can’t identify him from this far away. I’m not sure.”
Trey sighed and bit his lip before looking past the gated “dungeon” and on to a set of stairs beyond. There was no way that they would be able to sneak past without being noticed. If it were one or two? Maybe. But not 36 others aside from Trey.
“Yeah there’s no way sneaking by is going to work.” said Trey bluntly. He faced Farthom and the others, putting a finger up to his mouth as if to say keep quiet. “Do not. Make. A sound. No matter what happens. If I somehow die… well I tried, and I’ll respawn a few days after that. However, I don’t know if you all would be safe waiting around for me either. So that’s for all of you to decide if it happens.”
Farthom frantically interrupted him, pointing back into the room. “Look!”
Trey quickly turned and saw three minotaurs along with two of the culn walking in their direction. These minotaurs were certainly bigger than he was, but only about half the size of the one he’d fought earlier. Trey motioned for his allies to back up and stayed where he was, watching his enemies approach from where the ground just dipped into the tunnel. Eventually he heard the culn soldiers speaking as they drew closer.
“What the hell are they doing?” spat the bigger culn demon as he strode forward angrily. “My guess would be they’re slacking off again. They had one job! Just to feed the mortals to the larvae in the spawning pools. That’s it. It shouldn’t take them hours to do it.”
His companion gritted his teeth angrily. “We are going to be the ones that get yelled at if they don’t hurry up.” He glanced back to the minotaurs with irritation evident upon his features. “HURRY UP, YOU DUMB COWS!”
Those were the last words he said as a chaos ball caught him full on in the back of the head and sent his brains searing off in multiple directions. The other culn man exploded immediately afterwards as Trey’s other hand had simultaneously let loose a second ball of red and black flames encircled by lightning. As the two culn vaporized, the blasts caught the bystanding minotaurs with splash damage.
The surprise attack had caught them completely unawares.
The remaining demons shielded their eyes and wailed, which grew even louder as Trey lunged forward through the dissipating mana to slice off the foot of one before swinging his sword around to slice into the neck of the next. Chaos chains raced downwards from above to bind the two minotaurs in the back. Then the chains swiftly contracted, pulling them up into the air flailing about and slamming them forcefully into the ceiling before dropping them to the ground two hundred feet below.
As they fell, Trey undercut the massive legs of the confused panicking minotaur in front of him with a swift kick to it’s legs and used the momentum of the spin to continue full circle and slice off one of the muscular forearms of his opponent with his Oth’nune Longsword.
The blade whipped around one more time as the minotaur screamed and tried to scramble away before it came down into the back of his opponent. A loud crunch was heard as the sword pierced through the spine, which was followed with loud thuds as the two other minotaurs crashed to the ground. The remaining culn mage and culn soldier left back at the gate were outwardly stunned in the small amount of time the fighting had gone on, but recovered their senses as they ran forward to attack.
Before they reached him, Trey finished off one of the two minotaurs that had fallen from the ceiling and somehow managed to survive. The sword sank deep again into the spine of his opponent and he turned to smile wickedly with a cackle at his last two living enemies.
Trey’s confidence was slightly shaken a moment later though when the Culn mage, black robe flowing about it, summoned a multitude of ice shards that went soaring towards him. They came forward at such speed that he didn’t have time to dodge in time, and although Sithis shadowstepped out of the way to avoid most - Trey was still hit with two of them. One pierced all the way through Trey’s right arm had left a small hole through his bicep, while the other had grazed his hip and had left a large gash.
“Shit!”
He noticed that the status icon for bleeding appeared next to his health bar and he had lost 10% of his hp. Then he took a brief second to try and get a read on the asshole who’d landed the hits.