She could kill the Rogue. Cyn could create mana needles near her feet and shoot into the back of Hex’s head. At less than half health, it would be overkill. He would never see it coming.
But she refused to fight, even if some part of Cyn screamed the truth that his death would save Dana, Sam, and herself. Sacrificing one of her party just was not an acceptable outcome in her eyes, and she would rather die trying to save everyone.
As Spam reached a crescendo, Cyn felt her hair being moved behind her, then a slight pulling as the frog climbed to have its front legs on her forehead. She couldn’t see much of the creature, but it definitely felt and sounded pissed off. It took all her willpower not to laugh at the absurdity.
Now smiling, Cyn channeled Restoration on Hex through their contact, her hand on his cheek. The Rogue’s eyebrows slowly furrowed, and the coldness in his gaze was replaced by confusion before becoming unreadable to Cyn. A chime rang through the Hungering Labyrinth as Hex removed the knife from her throat, quickly dropping the blade and replacing it with the firm pressure of his hand. “Are you going to be alright if I remove the other one?” Hex’s voice was thick, barely audible over her familiar, and he had been careful not to jostle her while removing his first dagger.
Relief flooded through Cyn, her tightly reigned rage and frustration fading as the trial ended. “Leave it in. Help Dana, please. She’s doing bad.” Cyn was sure she would not need help removing the blade, unlike after the fight with the Illuminant Queen. She just needed to do it when she had a bit more mana to heal others too. Hex flinched at Cyn’s wheezing request, but nodded and carefully moved off of her.
She remained lying on the ground, pulling the blade in her chest out only a little so she could breathe safely and, as she felt the Rogue retreat, Spam's angry croaking changed to concerned warbles. Cyn carefully reached one arm up to pet her familiar, whispering, “I’m alright, really.”
During the next few minutes of mana farming, she idly kept stroking Spam and mentally keeping track of her party, feeling Hex move first to Dana. The Archer gained a small amount of health shortly after, so Cyn assumed the Rogue had managed to get her to swallow a potion. He then carried the woman to just outside the trial and set her down, returning to leave Cyn’s range of health detection towards where she left the Warrior.
Believing she had enough mana, and wanting to check on the others for herself, while Hex was out of range she carefully removed his dagger and healed herself. It was definitely a close call, and her actions a massive gamble, but she did not regret it even a little. Honestly? Could have been worse.
Feeling better, she picked up both of Hex’s daggers and slowly got to her feet. The weapons felt strange the longer she held them, and she got the feeling she would fumble if she tried to actually use them. A quick Inspect provided a little bit of context as to why.
Left (Unique)(Soulbound - Henry Smith III) - A simple iron dagger given to novice Rogues. Part of a set:
[Stabbing 101] - 0/2
[Stabbing 101]
You have two hands, use them.
+1 Agility.
Neat. The second dagger was identical, except for being named ‘Right’, and both showed as being Soulbound to Hex. That would probably explain why they felt awkward to her, she could pick them up but not use them properly because they belonged to him. She also had not considered the idea that 'sets’ of gear would exist. This one was very simplistic, but Cyn liked the wit involved with both the name and flavor text.
Spam had climbed on and activated the Tabard of Small Familiars, sticking to her shoulder, since the pouch at Cyn’s chest was damaged from having a blade shoved through it, not to mention being coated in blood. Looking around, she saw Hex partly dragging the Warrior out of the trial arena, the unconscious man's large body too unwieldy to properly carry. Following after them, Cyn caught sight of only a single reward chest and she veered off slightly towards it.
Only one reward seemed a little unfair, since all of them had technically survived, but Cyn severely doubted anyone would argue it belonged to her.
Resplendent Chest of Will (Epic)(Soulbound) - Contains rewards for completing the Trial of Will within the Hungering Labyrinth, after both resisting temptation and saving multiple members of your party from each other.
Rewards are generated based on your performance within the Trial.
A returning Hex met her at the chest while she pondered the description. “I wasn’t able to pick that one up in my storage, unlike the other three. Since it's yours I guess.” Hex’s voice was quiet, almost timid.
At least they got some rewards. Cyn handed off his weapons, nodding, then stored the reward chest to open in a little while. “That would be my guess too. Your weapons feel a bit weird to even carry around, probably for the same reason.”
He didn’t respond, so she wasted no time in exiting the arena to check on the others who were still noticeably injured. The Rogue had laid down the unconscious members of their party a decent distance apart, with their reward chests sitting beside them. Sam was starting to stir, groaning, and since his condition had not worsened since Cyn left the Warrior on the other side of the arena she quickly moved on to the Archer.
Dana’s health had improved further since the Rogue took her out of Cyn’s range of detection, but the woman was still solidly unconscious. Since no one was in critical condition, and Cyn would prefer to save mana, she moved to near the middle of her traumatized and mostly unconscious party to sit down and open her reward, before going over missed notifications.
She wasn’t totally ignorant to the glances Hex kept throwing her way, or the fact there was probably going to be some very awkward conversations between all four of them, but Cyn would rather put that off as long as possible. Or at least take it all at once, rather than individually.
Pulling back out her reward chest, Cyn popped it open. Like with the Trial of Agility, there was an assortment of potions, food, credits, and junk within, but true to the name of the item there was an abundance of all of it. At the very bottom was a long, solid white, silk ribbon.
Ribbon of Mercy (Epic) - You do less damage and more healing proportional to your target's missing health.
+3 Mind, +7 Will.
Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.
White, the stereotypical color of healers in every dimension, apparently. The color at least was not as unfortunate as it might seem. Cyn had noticed that her gear, namely the pieces that actually had effects, did not seem to hold stains or grime like normal clothing. While her pants were positively disgusting, her boots, cloak, and tabard actually looked pretty clean despite her recent swim through blood. Water washed it all away very easily. It was some kind of hidden effect, but one Cyn was definitely appreciative of nonetheless.
The description of the ribbon did not indicate that the effect was only for allies, so Cyn would have to presume it would lower her damage to enemies as well. That would not keep her from equipping the item, though. Only two pieces of her equipment gave raw stats, and both only provided a single point. Ten points was a mountain comparatively.
Knowing just where to wear it, Cyn swung her braid over the shoulder Spam was not occupying. Her hair desperately needed to be washed, and re-braided, but it would have to wait. For now, she just wanted to replace the ribbon she had tied to the end of the braid with her new one.
The old silver ribbon looked like it had been through hell, clearly never intended to be worn after being untied from her Awakening gift. As she went to tie the Ribbon of Mercy onto the end of her braid, she had a quick look around to confirm that neither Sam nor Dana had quite woken up yet, and Hex was just staring into the middle distance with an unopened reward chest in front of him. Nothing to be done until everyone was awake, so it was time to move on to checking her other notifications. The first of which made her skin crawl.
Kill, or be killed little Mage…
Cyn immediately removed that notification. Creepy bitch. The next notification left her gobsmacked, forcing Cyn to reread it multiple times to make sure she was seeing correctly.
New skill gained! Mental Fortress (Divine)(Passive) - Your mind is your own.
You are immune to the effects of most mental afflictions, regardless of source.
You are not able to be fooled by illusionary magic.
You are able to detect and shrug off attempts at mental influence.
This had to be the notification Cyn received when she was desperately trying to get rid of the voice by flooding herself with mana. The pain inside her head, followed by euphoria and the ability to control her misplaced anger. But damn that was one hell of a skill. Based on her next notification, the System agreed.
New feat gained! Divine Class Protege (Divine) - Acquire a Divine quality class skill before level 10.
+10% to all stats.
That was the first feat Cyn had seen. The area of her menu dedicated to them had just read N/A, with no more information, since the start. A percent increase to all stats? Additive or multiplicative? Probably additive. Whatever the answer, it didn’t really matter at the moment. While she held no hope of getting the likely profession equivalent to that feat, she couldn’t find enough negativity to care. Cyn had gone from relieved fatigue to over the moon in the span of just a few notifications. And there was still more to be read.
New feat gained! Elite Adapter (Unique) - The front line and the final bastion.
Completed System adaptation before the final stage.
This feat can grant extra objectives within System Events and dungeons.
+10% to all stats.
Two feats in one go. Her stats might be experiencing diminishing returns, but her joy was not. Cyn did not know what exactly it meant to have completed System adaptation, but it hadn’t kicked her out of the dungeon. She had only completed one stage, though, based on her Promising Ring of Holding. Perhaps the stages were based on an average, and that was why she received a feat for finishing early?
Shaking off her unanswerable questions, Cyn checked the final notification, confirming it was a class level up to nine. One more level to go, then another anticipated skill selection. At least based on what others had experienced when hitting level ten in their profession.
Name: Cynthia Price
Race: [Human]
Class: [Mage] Level 9
Profession: [Creature Handler] Level 7
Health Points: 324/430
Mana Points: 198/1020
Stamina Points: 498/550
Free Points: 6
Vitality: 43
Mind: 48
Will: 78
Strength: 27
Agility: 42
Luck: 30
Racial Skills: [Dimensional Translator] [Inspect]
Class Skills: [Restoration] [Mana Ball] [Mage Regeneration] [Purify] [Overload] [Hubris] [Soul Slip] [Mental Fortress]
Profession Skills: [Pet] [Friendly Aura] [Harvesting] [Familiar Bond]
Feats: [Elite Adapter] [Divine Class Protege]
Six free points, but Cyn was going to wait for more until she worried about where to put them. Some very sketchy mental math made her think the feats were additive, but she couldn’t be sure. Math was not her strong suit.
Despite ending on a more calm note, her gains had Cyn grinning like a fool when she closed her menu. An exceptionally inappropriate expression, considering the state her now-conscious party was in.