I was well beyond any place I recognized when I stopped, and even then it was because I couldn’t take another step. I fell to my knees in the middle of the the corridor and gasped for breath.

Stars. I’d faced death more than once, but this was the first time I’d faced something so much worse. I couldn’t help but shudder at the idea of being trapped as something else’s puppet.

After a few moments of letting my burning muscles recover I looked up and tried to get a bearing on my new surroundings. They didn’t look all that different from my old surroundings. Same empty hallway, same empty sarcophagi. Less corpses than back where Garrett had gone on his killing spree, but otherwise the same.

The place was really quite desolate. No ghouls, no undead, just the cold silence of the grave. I shivered. I needed to regain my bearings, and get a better handle on what I’d need to do going forward.

I peeked into the closest shattered sarcophagus and, once I was satisfied nothing was dwelling there, clambered in. The top half of the lid was snapped off, but the rest was intact, leaving just enough room for a goblin to squeeze themselves in and be entirely hidden behind solid stone. I sat down with crossed legs and let out a deep breath as I finally allowed myself to relax.

My circumstances weren’t exactly great. I’d lost my bag when I used it to set the first undead on fire, the weapons I’d built were broken off in some ghoul’s corpse, and all of Garrett’s loot was back with the undead Hob. I could still get at that I suppose...but I wasn’t about to. The Hob could fucking keep it, I wasn’t going back there.

Of course, I still had one of the knives I’d taken from Garrett. That was nice. I held it up and gave the blade a closer look. It was a good two and a half hands long, slightly wider than two fingers, and had the fairly simple straight crossguard that was quite typical of the human weapons I’d seen. The steel had a subtle swirling pattern to it, but was otherwise unadorned.

I smiled. It was small, but a nice reminder that, at least in some way, I had gained as well as lost. The cloak didn’t hurt either, even if I still thought Garrett was a ponce for wearing that crap indoors. I wasted no time in cutting the garment down to size and tying the scraps around my hands and feet for a little extra protection.

And, of course, there were the intangible gains to consider. I closed my eyes and sunk into my soul sense. It was the first time I’d had a chance to really look at it in a while, and the inmaterial benefits of killing Garrett didn’t disappoint.

I’d gained six whole levels, and the thought couldn’t help but make me smile. There would come a day when no one could threaten me, and every incremental increase brought me closer. The question was, what to spend them on? Some Stat boosts couldn’t hurt, but new Skills could give me entirely new options.

Of course, how much could I count on Skills? My [Beggar’s Disregard] had crapped out on me in a big way, and that could easily get me killed. I glanced at the level responsible for the Skill, but it was vastly different than it had been the last time I’d seen it.

Seriously? I swear, every time I looked away from the damn thing my soul would completely reinvent itself. The level was far more robust than it had been before, with much denser soul stuff and a correspondingly higher level of soul energy. I supposed that not all of my newfound energy had gone into new levels.

“[Beggar’s Disregard].” I whispered the name of the skill so softly that I could barely hear myself, watching as the energy in my invested level began to churn. Waves of mental influence were sent outwards just as they had been the last time I’d activated the Skill, but unlike last time there was no noticeable drain on my energy. It cycled, replenishing itself as quickly as it was used up.

Well that changed things. With the fact that Skills could potentially be used without knocking myself out made evident I decided to split my new levels fifty-fifty. That would give me…about twenty-one points worth of Stats and three new Skills. If the new Skills worked like [Beggar’s Disregard] then they might take some time to get off the ground, so I started with Stats.

I needed to cover my weak spots, especially now that I didn’t have Garrett to take hits for me. Not that I intended to take any if I could help it, but life had a tendency to throw a wrench into the best laid plans. I spread my increases pretty evenly, making my current Stats:

Speed: 10 (+4)

Agility: 10 (+5)

Dexterity: 9 (+5)

Constitution: 9 (+3)

Toughness: 6 (+3)

Metabolism: 13 (+2)

Senses: 16 (+2).

As for the Skills… I wasn’t sure what to do there. I could use some defensive options, but I was hesitant to commit to that. Avoiding attacks would always be better than absorbing them and increased durability would do nothing to help me on my climb upward. I needed something that gave entirely new options, not just a buff to something I already had.

On the other hand, I wasn’t sure how I could do that with a Skill anyway. I’d relied on my experiences and understanding to create my first Skill and I had no idea how to create a Skill of something I’d never done and didn’t understand. That left me with a few good options for any potential new Skill in the narrow overlap between shit I didn’t know and stuff I knew too well to need a Skill for.

And I knew exactly what to start with. “[Soul Sense].” I spoke, and my soul listened. I felt the level roil and churn, reshaping itself entirely in mere moments as I imprinted my ability to sense souls into it. My brow furrowed with concentration and I called upon every memory of it that I could, including the one time where I’d actually seen anyone else’s soul.

As I hit the final stages of Skill creation the handful of moments stretched out into an eternity, the effort of creation turning into an unbearable weight. Cold sweat began to soak my clothes as I struggled, but eventually the end came into sight and I ended it with the finality of two spoken words.

“[Soul Sense]!” The image of my soul, blurred from the distraction of my fatigue, snapped back into full focus. I grinned in triumph. I’d had to consume nearly every ounce of its soul energy in the process, but I’d fully succeeded in reworking the soul stuff contained in the level. Now when I cycled soul energy through it I could call up my soul sense without having to spend nearly as much time or focus, allowing me to check my status without rendering myself vulnerable.

I let the Skill release before I drained the last drops of energy from the level. The energy would replenish itself eventually, and then I could use the ability to its full potential. Until then… I yawned. I could use a nap.

I closed my eyes and let myself drift off to sleep inside a stone sarcophagus deep beneath the earth. The places life takes you…

I opened my eyes again hours later. Or so I assumed at any rate. I felt pretty well rested, so it had been awhile. My growling stomach chimed in to remind me that that wasn’t just a good thing. I was also that much closer to starvation.

“[Soul Sense].” At least the Skill worked well. I was free to examine my soul without minutes of meditation or becoming completely oblivious to my surroundings, which really was great.

I needed food, and I needed it soon, leaving no time to invest any more levels. As happy as I was with my new Skill, I would probably have done something else first if I’d known it’d knock me out again, but there was no changing it now. I could worry about what other Skills to create after securing a source of food.

I couldn’t hear anything moving in the hall outside my coffin, so I peeked up and took a look. Well, a ‘look’. I couldn’t see a damn thing, but my ears could pick up sound a lot better without a solid barrier, so the ultimate effect was similar.

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After a few seconds of scanning the surroundings, I was pretty well satisfied that there was nothing to hear, and clambered out of my morbid hidey-hole. Right, time to hunt. Or foraging, if there happened to be a convenient apple orchard down here. I kept an ear out for potential threats as I prowled down the stone corridor, and a nose out for potential sources of food.

Unfortunately the former appeared first. I hear slight movements from more than one sarcophagus as I passed and I began to hear movements in the dark ahead. Some manner of undead no doubt. I had no interest in fighting the creatures, so I slipped off through the next branch I saw.

I stopped as soon as I entered, scanning the room with every sense I had, but it was devoid of anything that moved or breathed. Of course, not every possible threat did either, especially down here.

I clicked my tongue. The soft sound echoed back to my ears, barely audible, but more than enough for my purposes. The clarity of the echo indicated hard and flat stone, not the chaotic curves of tangled vines or the absorbent give of soft flesh. There were no mind controlling undead trapped against the walls here, and that was enough for me. I stepped fully into the new passage, only barely catching a subtle sound from the passage I was leaving.

Footsteps.

I froze. The hard scrabbling of claws on stone had cut off a few seconds ago, but I hadn’t fully recognized what that meant because I’d been so focused on scoping out my new direction.

I bit off a curse as I realized what had happened. A ghoul had heard my tongue clicking and froze briefly before moving towards the prey with greater stealth than it had been bothering with before.

I clamped my dagger between my teeth and sprinted forwards, bare feet slapping on the stone. I swiveled my ears around backwards, listening in the silence between my footfalls. As soon as I heard the ghoul pick up the pace to match me I dug my heels in and spun around. I ran back towards the entrance, casting aside the clumsy sprint of before to glide across the ground instead.

I leapt, using all four limbs to absorb the shock of impacting the wall as silently as possible before latching onto the bas reliefs and using them to pull myself up above the lintel. As much as the undead Hob terrified me, I certainly appreciated his people’s architecture. Their elaborate carvings were great for climbing, and the doorway was spanned by a solid stone block that made a nice place to plant my feet.

I was just lucky this wall was the same as the last one I’d seen, or I’d have just run face first into a wall and fallen on my ass.

The ghoul reached the portal only a few seconds after I had. My mouth settled into a menacing grin as I retrieved my dagger from it. Nature had its own rules, but I’d found the line between predator and prey to become awfully thin when sentients got involved.

The ghoul ran right on through with no clue of what lurked above it. I leaned forward, letting my weight pivot me off of my perch until I pointed straight at the ghoul before I drove my feet into the stone behind me. I shot forward like an arrow from a bow, impacting the ghoul and driving the dagger down. The hilt vibrated in my hand as it rasped through bone and the ghoul’s body went limp beneath mine even before we hit the ground.

The ghoul hit first, absorbing both our momentum with its face as it slid forwards against the ground. It gurgled and tried to turn to bite at me, but I wrenched the dagger from where it had pierced the back of its neck and brought it around to drive through its temple.

I sat back, listening to the darkness, struggling to catch any hint of the next threat.

Nothing. I relaxed. Oh well, it would come eventually. Until then… I gently worked my dagger free and felt the ears of the slain ghoul beneath me. They were pointed, although they didn’t have the same size as mine did.

Note to self, not every ghoul is as deaf as a human. Though some certainly were, after all, that hadn’t been the only ghoul I’d heard in that direction, but none of the others seemed to have noticed me killing it, let alone the quiet sounds that had brought it to me in the first place. That boded well for me getting away with some mistakes, even if I could no longer afford to deliberately make noise.

I rose from the corpse and flicked the ichor off of my blade. The foul black gunk splattered the walls and I shied away.

Stars, just the scent of these things burned. I turned and continued walking. Why couldn’t I have fallen into a beast dungeon? You could still eat a hydra or a chimera, hells, you could feed yourself for months off of just one!

But nooooo, those damn woods had to place themselves on top of a dungeon dominated by something that you’d have to be incredibly dumb to eat. Or, as my growling stomach reminded me, incredibly desperate.

I wasn’t nearly hungry enough yet, but I would be.

I aimed to find something else before that happened, and there was only one way to do it; just pick a direction and start walking. Any other place and I could have done better, but at least I wouldn’t die of indecision. I needed a way out of the barren stone of this crypt and fast.

After a few hours of walking the halls I began to get a feel for the place. A bit tricky to do when everything was carved from the same cold stone, but there were differences once you figured out what to check for. The texture of the cracks in the ground, the density of the vines on the walls, the number of ghouls still scrabbling at the insides of their coffins.

Towards the end of my first lap I could put together a rough map. The outer edges were the most intact, with the most corpses still animated. Whenever I’d felt too many vines beneath my feet I’d turned back, unwilling to risk a second encounter with the ancient Hob, but I could tell that the further you went towards the center the more of them there were.

On my second lap I pushed the edges of my mental map, never leaving the furthest wall.

Right up until I arrived back where I’d started. I glared at my starting point. Or rather the pitch darkness all around it. It was definitely the right place though, I’d taken a piss there to make sure I couldn’t miss it, and I sure as hells could smell that.

There was no exit on the edge. Honestly, I don’t know why I’d thought there’d be, I’d spent too long above ground I suppose. Down beneath the earth you could move in in more than two dimensions.

Of course, I’d had a good reason to lie to myself. I’d wanted there to be an exit here. Because otherwise, the most likely place to put a stairwell was the center, right where the vine cover was thickest.

The exact place where the Hob was trapped.

But, as my grumbling stomach reminded me, I had to. It was that or die.

And for the first time, I was considering death. Not philosophically, but as a practical option. A viable choice I might make. To die alone down here, just another corpse in a crypt, rather than risk a lifetime as someone else’s puppet. I’d spurred myself to bravery before only on the fear of death, faced innumerable risks because I knew a chance of painful death was better than a certainty. But with a fate worse than death on the table I no longer knew how to balance that equation.

But that was a lie. When had my decisions ever resolved down to an equation? I hadn’t seized this power because I needed it to live, I could have eked out a living in the wilds indefinitely, no immediate threat was about to end me. I took it because I wanted it. Because there were better things out there than simple survival. I hadn’t rescued the harem slaves of my Hob masters to save my own skin. I’d done it because it was right.

I was going to walk straight into that room and murder the shit out of that stupid Hob, not because there was something to run from, but because somewhere out there was a future worth running to. Even if I couldn’t quite see it yet.

Errr…. I was gonna sneak straight in there and murder the shit out of that stupid Hob. No sense being completely unreasonable.

It took me longer than expected to retrace my steps, but I still found it in the end. I took a deep breath.There was no going back from this. I wasn’t escaping from it a second time. As soon as it realized I was in there I would be committed.

I activated [Beggar’s Disregard] and moved through the doorway. The last vestiges of light were far gone, and I moved on my memory alone, sticking close to the wall on one side so I wouldn’t step on some brittle pottery or walk into a rock or something.

I was inching closer and closer when I stopped. Would a knife kill it? Could simple steel do what Ashael-ha, whoever the fuck they were, couldn’t?

Was I really so desperate for an excuse to back off that I was gonna act like the name Ashael-ha was something impressive? I hadn’t heard of that fucker, and I knew all the big boogeymen. The Forgotten King, the Sunspear, etc.

I mean it could potentially survive it though… I shook my head. No, I couldn’t afford to give up because of a maybe. I scurried forwards faster than my constant second guessing could keep up with, only a lifetime of practice letting me do so quietly.

I turned at where I was pretty sure the corner was and walked about as far out as the ancient Hob would be from the corner before stopping. It was impossible to pinpoint his position well enough for the surprise strike I needed.

Luckily for me, I had a trick up my sleeve.

“[Soul Sense].” It was barely a sound, just a whisper drifting in the still crypt air. But it was enough. The Skill activated, and for the first time I focused it outwards, bringing the Hob’s soul into the focus of a sense that needed no light even as my [Beggar’s Disregard] flickered out. The magic was too much for my Skill to brush under the rug, but the clear vision of its soul was just as glaringly obvious to me.

I sprung forwards the instant I perceived its position. My Speed worked in tandem with my Agility to send me shooting forwards, leading with the point of my dagger. Its soul swirled and spun, a vision of incredible complexity, as I felt the Hob call up it’s magic. Its reaction speed was admirable.

But insufficient. I hit the wall of vines sooner than I expected, but my arm plunged through the thorns to pierce the unbeating heart beneath.

The Hob gasped in pain and I twisted the dagger deeper, feeling desiccated flesh twist and tear around my blade.

The ambient mana of the world around us surged and flowed towards the Hob. His eyes opened, igniting with eldritch green fire. “You. Have quite the balls.”

Its mouth opened into a ghastly grin and blazing hellfire shot out from between its teeth, harsh shadows reducing the lines of its face to a skull like rictus. “The gods themselves could not strike me down, and you think you can?”

I grabbed a vine in my free hand and pulled myself deeper, compressing the vines between us and leaning in to stare my enemy in the face. “You know what I think? I think you’re a lying piece of shit.”

The Hob growled and the mana gathered faster, swirling down into him as he prepared his attack, but I kept talking. “You weren’t the master of this place, some dark god my ancestors prayed too. No, you were just another slave unlucky enough to get trapped down here when your civilization fell apart from its own incompetence.”

“Do not insult the Dark Trinity with your empty!” Mana shot out at me, spearing into my soul. I gasped and choked as every muscle in my body seized up. “The gods were wise to fear my masters, and you would be wise to fear me!”

Its attack was nothing like before, casting aside any attempt to encircle my soul to drive everything it had at a single point. The divine energy around my soul broke and the mana tendril connecting me to the Hob pulsed like a starving leech, sucking out my soul energy.

Fuckfuckdamn. I gathered up a handful of mana and desperately hurled it at the spell. I couldn’t afford to lose any of my energy, let alone all of it.

The attack sputtered against the spell, barely managing to scratch it. A bit of soul energy escaped out the side before the Hob patched it, but losing my strength to the void was hardly any better than losing it to the enemy.

But that was hardly surprising. No, what was surprising was that it managed to do that much. Throwing random ambient mana into a magical working could throw the thing off but it wouldn’t tear into it like that.

Unless that wasn’t normal ambient mana. I hadn’t had the time or the coordination to filter down to its most effective elements, but this was the same mana it had drawn on for its own spell. Of course it wouldn’t have been able to cast a spell powered by mana that was anathema to it.

I didn’t need to filter the mana cause it had down it for me and I wasn’t nearly stupid enough to pass up that kind of advantage. I drew in all the mana I could, body going cold as my organs began to shut down from the Hob’s continued assault. This was it, I had to disrupt the spell or die.

No. Survival wasn’t why I’d come here, I'd come here to win.

I ignored the attack leeching away my life force and channeled every ounce of power I could control along the steel of my blade and into the Hob’s chest.