PROLOGUE – IN RUINS, ACCUSTOMED

I ran my fingers along the walls, feeling the age in the cold metal. The ruins were old. Older than the oldest Aelves, likely. I had taken my gloves off in order to feel the cold steel, and to commune with the dungeon itself. See, I didn’t have any kind of real magic, but I could Delve. And that’s what I was hired to do.

“Seif.” I looked over my shoulder to the young Warlock who was sitting on the ground, staring into a smoking, bronze bowl.

He didn’t respond. His eyes were unfocused and he was rocking side to side in a meditative trance.

“Schera, can you get his attention, please?” I slipped my gloves back on and adjusted my hat, trying to at least look reasonably stable, even though this particular ruin caused me a great deal of discomfort.

The young Aelf girl, a Rogue, Schera kicked Seif in the side with, knocking him over.

“Hey, what gives!?” Seif barked as he shook his head, the smoke in his bowl disappearing entirely when he lost his connection to whatever he was communing with.

“Boss wants you.” Schera nodded to me, and Seif rolled his eyes.

He collected his things with magic, tossing them into the rucksack he had laid out on the ground, then turned to me.

“What?” Seif’s attitude was a problem.

Sure, he was a powerful Warlock, capable of splitting souls and using terrifying magic. But he was also barely more than eighteen and acted like a pain in the ass.

“I’m going to Delve, I need you to watch.” I said, placing both hands against the wall and focusing, for just a moment, on the connection I held with the metal.

“Yeah, whatever.” Seif replied, his snarky comment grating on my nerves.

I chose to ignore it and focused on the wall.

One of my abilities, though I was limited in scope, was the power to Delve a ruin, discern the layout, and find traps, hidden objects, and supplies, without having to actually enter them more than a few yards.

It was a highly sought-after ability, since very few of us, collectively and terribly unironically knowk as Delvers, existed. As far as I was aware, there were only six, and two were MIA.

I closed my eyes and focused, letting out a pulse of energy that technically didn’t map the dungeon, but it did provide me with an internal visual of the layout.

<<<<>>>> 

Delve – Rank III

Using your innate powers as a Delver, you can produce an internal map in your head of the general layout of a Dungeon. At Rank III, you’re also able to discern the location of traps, hidden doors, and supplies, as well as monster locations, though you are unable to discern the variety of monsters, or the number.

Spell Type: Innate Power

Spell Cost: None

Range: One Floor

Cooldown: 24 Hours

Spell Level: Rank III (29/500 to Rank IV)

Effect: Receive an internal layout of the ruins, which can then be used to produce a physical map.

Effect 2 (Rank II): Locate Supply Caches within the ruin

Effect 3 (Rank III): Locate Traps, Hidden Objects, and Monster Locations within the ruin

Being a Delver is great. I get paid an assload for very little work, and my maps are always 100% accurate. ~Delver Sirius, Deceased

<<<<>>>> 

The ruin’s shape popped into my head as a green, semi-translucent outline, then quickly filled in with detail.

Small red pockets appeared along the hallways further in, monster locations. Other items, the longer I kept my hands to the wall, began to populate as well. Gold blips for supply caches, orange marks for traps, blue for hidden doors.

The ruin was relatively empty of anything useful, except for a place where the map in my head went fuzzy, which had never happened before.

I grabbed a piece of parchment from my pack and my box of cartography supplies, and set to work, sketching and filling in the detail of the ruin.

My hands worked deftly, providing every single detail that my mind could see. After all, I only had an hour before the image would fade, and I would lose the chance to sell the map once we got back to Arbiter, the main Guild Hub.

The Adventurer’s Guild always paid handsomely for complete, thorough maps, and I was more than happy to sell mine. It paid the bills, after all.

“You done yet?” Seif asked, annoyance prickling his already gruff voice.

“Just about.” I signed the bottom of the map, then pulled a dagger from my belt and pricked the tip of my finger, dropping a small amount of blood onto the signature.

Whenever I signed a map, I always encoded it with a blood seal, so nobody else could steal my work.

The blood reacted with the charcoal of the signature line, and sealed it with a quick puff of smoke, leaving the acrid taste of ash floating in the air.

“And done.” I handed Schera the map and she rolled it up, stuffing it into a tube, and slipping it into her own rucksack.

“Not too shabby, quick work.” Schera said, helping me up off the floor.

The upside to being a Delver was it paid well. The downside was that Delving really drained me, to the point of needing help to get up off the floor sometimes.

“I tried. Let’s move on. There are a few groups on this floor, though I couldn’t tell you what they are, or what numbers, so keep on your toes.” I leaned against the wall and fished a small rolled cigarette out from behind my ear and lit it.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

I pulled the smoke into my lungs and held it for a moment before letting it slowly release through my nose and mouth, encircling my head like a cloud of thick fog.

<<<<>>>> 

Buff Added

Nicotine: Increases your Stamina Regeneration, Mana Regeneration, and Mental Acuity by 15%. Duration; 30 minutes.

Debuff Added

Nicotine: Decreases your Maximum Health by 10% and Health Regeneration by 15%. Duration; 30 minutes.

<<<<>>>> 

Yes, everyone always told me smoking would kill me, but I needed to be quickly back on my feet, and these delightfully addictive rolls of paper and leaf would provide just the buff I needed.

“You’ve gotta quit smoking.” Schera said, taking the cigarette from my lips and tossing it on the floor.

“Hey, whoa, that was my last one.” I shook my head and sighed, blowing out what little smoke I had inhaled before she snatched my cig away.

“Now it’s gone. Such a shame.” She rolled her eyes and stomped away.

“Women, am I right?” Seif walked by me, hiking his Rucksack higher on his shoulders.

“Something.” I followed after the two of them, heading deeper into the ruin, keeping my head on a swivel for the items I recalled seeing in the mapping magic I had used.

Seif slowed down and let me catch up to him. He twisted his wrist and waggled his fingers, then closed and opened his palm.

In between his fingers sat three clean, freshly rolled cigarettes.

“Sorry for being an ass.” He said, letting me take one and lighting it for me with a snap of his fingers.

“Yeah, it’s fine. We’re going to be working together for a long time. We need to be able to do this well.” I took a long drag from the cigarette, and Seif rolled his hand again, making the other ones disappear.

“Duplication Magic.” Seif said, smugly.

“What?” I asked around my cigarette.

“I used Duplication Magic. It’s a Warlock Talent. I can take certain, mundane objects and replicate them in quantities of up to ten.” Seif pulled a copper coin from his rucksack and twisted his wrist the same way he had done it before.

After a waggling of his fingers, coins literally spilled out of his palm, tinking against the metallic floor tiles of the ruin.

“You can do it with currency too!?” I nearly shouted.

“Only coppers. Silvers and Sovereigns are enchanted.” Seif pulled a face and shoved the few coppers he had left into the pocket of his long, black overcoat.

“But you could make a mint.” I said, raising an eyebrow.

Hundreds of plans went through my head about how my money worries were over, but Seif shook his head.

“Nah, I can only do it three times a day.” Seif waved a hand in the air, dismissing all of the dreams I had like the smoke that was vanishing as I puffed on my cigarette.

“You two, shut up. We’re coming up on the first group of monsters.” Schera hissed, her voice barely more than a whisper.

She had vanished in front of us, without us even noticing. The power of a Rogue always impressed me.

A few grunts and a couple squeals echoed around the tunnel corner, where firelight could be seen glinting off the metallic wall, dancing in red and orange.

Likely Hobgoblins and Kobolds based on the noises. I had been Delving a few times and dealt with their kind. They weren’t horribly strong, but they weren’t to be trifled with in a pack.

I pulled the long sword that was at my hip, bringing it up to the ready. Seif nodded to me and ducked around the corner, a dark aura surrounding him as he went.

Schera was nowhere to be seen, but the noise of a creature hitting the ground, and the others raising the alarm with shrieks and a roar made it clear where she was.

I stepped around the corner after Seif and saw, for the first time, something that made me nervous.

In the center of the small group of Hobgoblins and Kobolds stood a lanky, vine-covered monstrosity that I had never seen in all of my Delves.

A nametag popped up above it, informing me that it was a [Lesser Leafy Elderwood].

It had managed to wrap Schera up in its vines, and was slowly squeezing her.

Seif was standing in the middle of the hallway, covered in a dark aura, shouting at the creatures to let Schera go.

I stepped past him and walked up to the Hobgoblins, who just stood there, watching me.

“You’ve enthralled them?” I asked the Elderwood, which tilted its stump-like head at me, peering through small little holes.

It nodded and looked at Schera, then looked back at me.

“Could you put her down, please?” I held up a hand and it nodded again, slowly placing Schera back on the ground.

She pulled her daggers from her hip.

“No, leave it.” I said firmly, a commanding note to my voice I didn’t know I could have.

“It tried to kill me.” She complained, her chest heaving, blood running from her nose down her chin.

“No, it was protecting its family.” I said, still staring at the Elderwood.

It shrugged and all of the monsters that were standing around the fire with it shrugged.

“A family of monsters?” Schera asked, putting her daggers away.

As she did so, the Hobgoblins and Kobolds put their weapons away as well.

“Looks to be so. Moreso, the Elderwood enthralled them with spores. Probably unintentionally.” I said, pulling on lore I didn’t know I had knowledge of.

“How do you know all of this?” Seif asked, the black aura around him gone.

“I don’t know.” I shook my head, a twinge of pain settling in behind my eyes.

I hadn’t had a headache in a long time. In fact, I couldn’t remember ever having a headache before this moment.

“So it just, what, joined their camp, and accidentally made them all slaves?” Schera asked, staring at the group of monsters, who were staring at the dead Hobgoblin that was lying on the ground.

Schera had been visciously efficient and slit its throat before any of the others had even known she was there.

“Is that what happened?” I asked the Elderwood, which nodded its stump head at me. “I’m so sorry.”

“You’re apologizing to a monster, Ren.” Schera shook her head at me.

“It’s not just a monster, Schera. It’s a living part of the world we exist within. Elderwoods are connected to the first Druids that brought magic back to the world.” I said, certain of the words, though not sure why.

Static overtook my vision for a moment, and I saw a ritual taking place. A man was raised up into the boughs of a great tree and consumed by the leaves. Then the vision faded.

My head hurt even worse, the pounding starting to make my vision pulse.

Where was all of this knowledge coming from.

I felt weak and staggered to the side. My head and shoulder hit the cold, metal wall of the ruin and I slid down the panel, collapsing in a heap on the floor.

 My vision swam and the fire in front of me seemed too bright for my eyes.

I had to close them, I had to.

“Ren!” Seif’s voice punched through the darkness of my mind, but I was already fading too quickly.

I had never passed out before, and I wondered if that was what it felt like.

Something cradled my body and lifted me from the floor, but what it was, I couldn’t have guessed. I imagined that Schera and Seif would have been too weak to lift me, but it was possible.

I felt my body moving away, and my spirit dissociate from it, as blackness invaded my mind.

Blinking back fatigue and exhaustion, I stood before an enormous tree.

A dozen faces stared at me through wooden masks made to look like the deities of the forest. Druids, all of them. Ready to give their lives in a ritual that would destroy their bodies and souls, to produce something that was altogether not to be trifled with.

A series of runic circles had been inscribed on the ground, and I knew I had to walk into it. It was part of my job, part of the ritual, part of my destiny.

Stepping beyond the first line of the circle, the Druids around me began to chant in a language I couldn’t fully understand. The words were harsh and grating, like the sound of gears that need to be oiled terribly.

The second circle was harder to walk over, like pushing through dense muck in a swamp, which had been another part of my trials to reach this place.

Pass through the forest, to the Great Tree. Overcome the trials of the world around you and become wholly one.

The trials were a blur, though I had succeeded in them in a way that would make even the staunchest Druid proud of my accomplishments.

Before me lay one more circle, the smallest, yet most powerfully constructed. It was engraved of Silvril, a rare mineral that combined Mithril with Silver to create something powerful, something almost deific.

It was inscribed in the root core of the Great Tree, which reached into the heavens before me.

I looked down at my hands and saw my soft skin, stained with mud and dirt. My long, once-painted fingernails had been chipped and cracked, several of which had been ripped off in my trials to reach this place.

My clothing, the ritual gown and dress I was wearing, had been shredded by briars and my smallclothes barely covered my breasts.

This wasn’t me, though. I wasn’t a woman. I was Ren, a man. A Delver for the Adventurer’s Guild. Whose dream, whose memory, was I living out?

The world-view shifted, static blurring my vision, then the tree was burning before me. My hands were blazing with power, and the Druids all lay dead at my feet, unable to overcome my power.

I had destroyed the World Tree, Ygdrassil, and I wouldn’t let anything stand in my way of bringing my control over the entire world.