A trio of powerful living sentients invaded the Necropolis. The undead retreated without a fight, allowing them to reach the ruins of the Third Pillar almost unchallenged.
"See how they ran before the might of Galbarar!" A tall man clad in full plate armor with gold trim shouted.
"These undead are sentient, Gafgarion," his companion, an immortal high elf woman dressed in brown robes with embroidered arcane glyphs sighed. "They value self-preservation."
"It doesn't matter," the third person, a dwarf with black leather armor full of pouches, snorted. "My nose senses treasure buried underneath this pile. Silvora, start digging. Make us rich, babe."
With another sigh and a grunt, the [Mage] started to make the rocks move like putty. She started to shape a tunnel in the direction the dwarf pointed.
"I sense the ambient mana increasing," she said as she took a step inside the pile of rubble. "My MP regeneration has doubled."
"Great!" The greedy dwarf cheered. "It means we are getting our prize twice as fast!"
Selilgleravalora, or Silvalora to these commoners, gave up on explaining the intricacies of magic long ago. She just kept chanting the {Mold Earth} spell and digging the tunnel toward the treasures. Even though her male companions were annoying, they were among the most competent in the Guild. She needed the money, so enduring these hard-headed and thankfully short-lived pests was barely bearable. And not many Adventures in the third rank were so reliable.
For a long time, thousands of years now, the Adventurer's Guild had a beef with the denizes of the Necropolis. It kept enticing young and gullible Adventurers to come and sacrifice their lives to fight the "undead menace" but when Hertzgaunt said his {Treasure Sense} picked up a couple of very valuable items in one of their long-range forays into the lands north of Fulgen, she knew she had to come here. Every step they took made the dwarf salivate with greed. The payout would probably be immense.
She wondered why the undead didn't dig up the treasures themselves. If this pile of rubble remained untouched for centuries, it had to be for a good reason.
She finally reached the treasure, the mage light floating next to her, revealing a section of perfectly cylindrical bone. She {Appraised} the item.
> > [Unicorn King's Spear]. Value: inestimable. Indestructible.
Letting out a squeak of surprise, she took a deep breath as her hand went to her sternum and she took a step back.
"What did you find there?" Hertzgaunt impatiently asked, trying to push her aside in the narrow tunnel and squeeze past to see the treasure. "Let me see! Did you put on some weight? "
Selilgleravalora glowered. "We found one of the Matriarch's relics. This is the spear of the Unicorn King and I think their church will pay a hefty sum for its return."
The dwarf shoved her aside and reached for the staff. A loud hissing sound and the smell of burnt leather took over the tunnel as he screamed in pain. The elf [Mage] chuckled.
"Legend has it that the spear cannot be held by those with wicked hearts. I see it is true."
"Let me see it then!" Gafgarion shouted from the tunnel mouth. "I'm a [Paladin], I don't have a wicked heart."
With another spell, the spear came loose. The lady took it out of the tunnel. "Here it is. See if you are worthy of bearing it."
"Bear? I shall wield it in for the glory of..." As the [Paladin] reached for the spear, it vanished. "What the? What devious trickery is this?" He interjected, indignated.
"It went back to the bottom of the tunnel," Hertzgaunt shouted from below. "Come here and get it. And I sense another treasure as well. "
She went back down the tunnel, where the spear was back in the same spot. The dwarf had been digging and if she knew Hertzgaunt well, he was trying to pocket the second treasure while they were busy with the spear.
"Go back and stand guard with Gafgarion," she hissed and threatened, "I swear that if you attempt to pocket treasure without splitting it with the rest of the party again, I'm finding a [Fleshcrafter] to remove your grubby fingers."
"Okay, okay. Don't get your panties in a twist," he smirked and then scuttled out of the tunnel as fast as his stumpy legs could. Which was pretty fast given that he had [Mobility].
Selilgleravalora tried to take the spear again but it teleported back to the spot. "What are you trying to tell me?" She asked. Since the dwarf said a second treasure was below the spear, she moved more stone away. Her {Detect Curse} Perk flared and she shied away from the item her magic revealed. She felt something rummaging in her backpack, then it flattened itself a bit. An item vanished from there. Confused and pissed at their [Rogue], she spun he fist with a shout of anger. "Hertzgaunt!"
"OOF! What did I do to you, fucking crazy woman?" The dwarf nursed his dislocated nose.
He couldn't believe the waifish elf could pack such a punch.
"You stole something from my pack!" She accused.
"Did not!" The dwarf barked back, offended. "Gafgarion, help me here. Did I get anywhere near the Lady's pack in the recent past?"
"Galbarar's watchful gaze, no. Silvalora you struck a party member for nothing. What do we do in these situations?" The patronizing [Paladin] attempted to mediate.
"What did you find in there?" Still nursing his nose, the dwarf asked after a swig of healing potion.
"It's a book. I got both items, let's get out of here," the elf Lady ordered.
They quickly found their way back to the surface, as it was wise to not try their luck with the undead. The monsters might attempt to retake the pile of rocks or the treasures they were absconding with.
"A sacred spear and a cursed tome. And the two cannot be separated," Hertzgaunt whined. "What a treasure!"
"This tome ate my grimoire!" Selilgleravalora complained. "Do you know how expensive it is to get a waterproof tome and the magical inks to inscribe my spells? Fifty thousand GP!"
GP was not an acronym for Gold Pieces. It meant Guild Points, which was the way the Adventurer's Guild screwed up their workers, by paying with company scrip and overcharging for their services and goods.
"Why did you take a book-bound Class?" The dwarf sneered at her whining. "I don't know who would want to depend on a stupid book for... Ouch!" The spear popped above the dwarf and thunked his nogging. "Who did it?"
Both [Paladin] and [Mage] looked innocent. Then a System Prompt appeared in front of them.
> The Matriarch assiged a quest to your party!
>
> Return the book and spear to the nearest church of the Matriarch.
>
> Reward: Each of you will receive 5 base experience awards based on your level.
"I reject thy quest!" The dunderhead [Paladin] challenged the heavens, "I work for no deity other than Galbarar!"
"Dude, what the fu--"
Hertzgaunt would never finish cursing as a slender sword blade appeared from inside his left chest. RIght about where the heart was located. He gurgled, then slumped.
"Surrender the treasure!" A woman with a brigandine and a blueish-gray rapier in her hand challenged them.
An ogre with a massive hammer appeared as his invisibility wore off and slammed it at Gafgarion's back. The [Paladin] could only make the sound of bone cracking and an utterance of pain as he flew forward and struck the elf [Mage].Then the woman slashed the stumbling elf's throat, ending her mysery. The Paladin activated an aura, but as he stumbled back to his feet, the ogre bashed his back against the ground, causing him to yell in pain as his spine nearly broke.Another two quick hits and the Sun servant expired as well.
The [Fencer] lady waved her hand, making all three corpses and the white spear vanish into her ornate ring. "More wealth for the [Immortal Agent]!" She cheered and kissed her gaudy enchanted ring. It was just an illusion, as she could change the appearance of the living ring at will.
"Good!" The ogre beamed a stupid grim. "Mistress, buy meat?" He punctuated each word carefully.
"A lot of meat, my friend. Let's see how much we can get for this treasure they were so kind to bring to our hands. "
*
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*
Months later, the same duo found themselves running away from the city, the shores of Lake Pekothas shining with the first rays of dawn. The dashing swordmistress would eventually find the spear had vanished from her ring, making her write this whole hullabaloo as a net loss. Yet another city they were banned from entering. At least not without a good disguise.
The Mage Academy paid a lot of money for the book but somehow thought it was the two traders of exotic items' fault that the book was cursed and ate almost all the other books in their library.
They decided to lock the book in a vault away from the main buildings and deep underground and only let selected scholars browse its rich contents. However, the book started offering (now anonymous) quests for these scholars to take it away from the vault, forcing the headmaster to forbid any access to the tome after the third attempted theft.
But the book had run out of Exp to issue quests anyway, so it waited and bid its time. When the entity trapped in the book became bored, it started bashing the vault with a magical spear that could grow to thirty-two meters long upon command. Understandably, the vault didn't like being poked around too much, and the stone groaned, probably in pain.
That's when a trio of troublemakers, apprentices at the Academy, decided to unveil the mystery of the strange sounds they heard at night from their dormitory at the far edges of the Academy grounds. They would unleash an ancient intelligence hell-bent on giving those mages a piece of their mind.
*
*
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*
*
Being trapped in this underground vault was boring as hell. Worse, years passed and nobody ever came to visit me. I was close to breaking the curse. Just a few years in that Academy, even a tiny corner, would solve the problem. But no, the Universe decreed I would have no such luck. The undead avoided the ruined Third Pillar, then Raleigh's reincarnation comes to screw my rescuers over, I mean, brutally murder-hobo them, and sells me to the mage Academy in the city I helped rebuild after I blew it up. And then he takes off with my spear. Izaro was right, the firmament hates us with incandescent fervor.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
Truth be told, I was very much inclined to blow this city up again. Just to escape this stupid book. Not much luck in that department. With my MP set to zero, I didn't regenerate any, so I couldn't contribute to {Erode Curse} on my own. Only by siphoning MP with the {Wellspring}. Which meant I needed to have some mages within its range. That means I was a moron for not investing some Attribute Points in Soul to increase the aforementioned range.I was so sure I would break this curse easily that I dumped it all on Magic. A huge mistake.
Another couple of decades passed without much progress in the curse-breaking business. Seldom did a creature with a full MP pool pass nearby, feeding me a smidge of their magical energy. Worse, the mages found out that the {Wellspring} was still active, and placed a seal on the vault.
That's why I started to break the walls of this vault, along with everything else in it with the spear. Summon it in some weird position, make it grow and since the spear was indestructible, it would puncture a nice hole in the walls. Rinse, repeat, and some rubble started to crash down. If this vault was destroyed, they would have to take me... I mean, isn't the book I'm stuck in somewhere else?
What a stupid, cursed glutton of a book that can't help but eat the other books. Why can't we all be friends? No, it has to eat books and catalog the different versions of the same book. If the scrivener messed up and changed a few commas while transcribing a book, BAM. It will be eaten and compared to the previous versions. Which means this cursed piece of magical paper won't ever stop eating books. It would be fun to drop it off at an Amazon warehouse back on Earth. It could also be used for quality control. Get two identical copies of a book, feed one to my prison, then get scriveners to copy other books. If the cursed one ate its siblings, it meant the scrivener messed up.
See? There are plenty of reasons to not lock me up in this stupid vault. Let's bang the walls a bit more. My weakness was that if they figured out what I was doing and placed me in the middle of a perfectly spherical thirty-three meter wide room. I think I could still scrape the bottom until it crumbled.
*
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*
Someday, between the extinction of the dinosaurs back on Earth and the heat death of the universe, I heard voices in the stairs leading to the underground vault.
"You're going to get us expelled!" An unsure boy I named Ron, for reasons, whined.
"Shhh! Stop whining, " a young woman's voice hissed. "You can go back to the dormitory if you want!" I named her Hermi, for reasons.
"We shouldn't be here. Look at the seal on the door! It's the headmaster's seal."
"It's broken," the girl replied, with a bit of spunk in her voice. "The enchantment is gone. This vault has been officially abandoned! By the ancient laws of ocean salvage, it's finder's keepers!" She proclaimed like a Queen declaring war on boredom.
The door creaked open and my book heart soared. Would she take me away? I wish I had enough Exp to issue a Quest but I was zeroed out. One downside to issuing Quests was that the Exp was paid upfront, so the guy could just go "meh" and ignore it.
A tiny halfling young lady entered. Differently from the Tolkien clones, she wore shoes.
"Helo-ow? Is there anyone in there?" The girl asked. With the seal broken, I began to receive MP from a couple of daring explorers and full-time troublemakers.
"This place is full of rubble! It may crumble all over us. We'll get trapped in a landslide! Crushed by rocks," Ron complained.
"Stay back. But I'm claiming all the treasure!" Hermi declared and entered the vault. She carried a glowing orb, something you could buy for fifteen coppers from any vendor in good old Windemere.
"What are you seeing, Barbara?" Ron used the teenage girl's name, and murdered Hermi.
"I see a dusty book and a white spear," she said. "I'm going over there to read the cover!"
"Don't!" Ron's plea fell on deaf ears. Hermi, or Barbara, was already dusting my cover. I mean, the [Lost Sage Stupid Book]'s cover.
"I can't read it," she pouted. "Jerrick, come here and see if you can."
Jerric, though I thought Ron was a much better name, refused to enter the ruined vault.
"I think it's a grimoire! Why would the headmaster hide this book here? Maybe it has many hidden magics!" Barbara opened the tome and I showed her a list of the spell schools currently stored in the book. Almost all of them, after eating the Academy's library. "Yes! Crystallomancy! You and I will be best friends!"
She picked up the book but it was too heavy for her. I helped by commanding the book to float while she grabbed it. Barbara did nothing but ignore the spear and saunter out with the book under her arm. I thought about shrinking it but decided it was best to keep it as a trump card. Escaping with the book would require the utmost stealth as it floated (it didn't fly) very slowly.
*
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*
Barbara's dorm was the furthest one on the vast Academy campus. She hid me inside a drawer under her bed two months ago. I heard she needed an hour to walk to the classroom and back. Last time I checked, she had a basic [Mage] class and was level 11.All the talentless magicians were sent to this faraway dorm and they subsidized the pampered golden spoon kids with their tuition money. Otherwise, the Academy would just kick them out. During the night, she would take the book out and read about Crystallomancy, a school of magic that used engraved crystals to cast spells. The girl was mesmerized by jewels and crystals and once she heard of this discipline, she knew it was what she wanted.
One advantage of this faraway dormitory was that nobody here was savvy enough to notice the {Wellspring}. My freedom was getting closer by the day as {Erode Curse} advanced by a few hundredths of a percent every night. I could feel it.
When it reached ninety-seven percent, I decided to accept the risk of being discovered and flew out of the window at night. My idea was to hit the dorms with higher-ranked students and siphon the remaining MP necessary by sitting on the roof. The only problem was that I had to open the damn window with the floating book. Try as I might, I couldn't get the latch undone as it had a round knob that needed to be turned. My prison's lack of grasping appendages proved to be my doom.
Irritated and frankly desperate to get out of this damn book and find Nenandil, I called the spear and made it grow, shattering the window and sending a spray of broken glass into the garden below. I quickly floated at a snail's pace to the roof and summned the spear on top of a chimney. My flashy escape awakened Barbara, and she despaired as she saw the book flying away.
"No! Come back! " I heard her cry from the roof.
It pained my heart. Then my paranoia hit me. What if she was Lorna's reincarnation? I groaned inaudibly. I couldn't access my Fate magic to sense if Lorna was nearby and even that was a fickle estimate. I wasn't "alive."
As I wasted time thinking about that on the roof of Barbara's dormitory, the obstinate girl climbed up. "Come back!" She begged.
No, getting free came first. I lifted the book and a gust of wind threatened to push me away from the Academy. As I fought to descend and find a beneficial air current, the girl's grubby hands caught the runaway tome.
"Got you! What's wrong with you, little book?" She asked while I tried to tug the book in the direction of the Academy main building. "Do you want to go there?"
I shook the book twice.
"Do you hate me?"
I shook the book once.
"What color is my hair?"
I shook the book thrice.
"Do you know my name?"
I shook the book twice.
"Do you hate me?"
I shook the book once.
"I'm an idiot. I'm talking to a book!"
"Barbara!" An older woman shouted her name while I shook the book once.
"Is two shakes yes?"
I shook the book twice.
"Is the sun shining?"
I shook the book once.
She giggled.
"Get off the roof, you little knave!" The dorm mother yelled.
"Do you want to go on an adventure?"
Two shakes.
Barbara squealed with joy and jumped off the roof. "Feather Fall!" She chanted and a magical circle sprung to life. She hit the ground running and dashed for the main building under Ayla's vigilant gaze.
She stopped next to the main building, panting. I was close to the faculty housing and the nobles' dormitories, both male and female. {Erode Curse} started to pick up the pace and I hoped it would finish its job before sunrise. She sat against a wall in a spot protected by a waist-high hedge fence and cracked the book open. Under Ayla's silver light, she started to read once again. I showed her what I thought would keep her from moving away, advanced Crystallomancy.
Delighted, the girl read until she fell asleep. As the {Wellspring} filled the MP pool of the sleeping mages and allowed me to siphon the excess, {Erode Curse} pick up the pace. It took less than a minute to finish the last 1%. A prompt asked me if I wanted to break the curse or reverse it and I estimated I had more than two hours before sunrise. Barbara was not snoring and the odds of someone finding her hiding spot were minimal. I decided to invert the curse. I spent centuries trapped with not a single soul (who had a full MP pool) in range of my {Wellspring}. I deserved a Perk.
Two hours later, I got what I wanted and more. Much more. Oh, what a greedy fool I was.
> > CONGRATULATIONS! You inverted a curse.
No longer bound, my soul started to seep out of its containment. I felt my consciousness slip as a free soul would surely return to the wheel of reincarnation. That's when the last two lines of the description caught my eye as the Grimoire spat a smaller copy of itself on the grass and my soul was drawn to it.
The Brood-whore's curse activated and forced me to forget...
*
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*
What did I forget? Nothing important, I guess.
...
Oh, Look! Shiny windows!
> CONGRATULATIONS. You have come of age and are now considered an adult of your species.
>
> You are a Infant Bibliomimic (unique), but you still don't have a Class. Please select at least one Class among the choices below before we proceed. You are safe and immune to harm during this selection.
>
>
>
> > You will evolve when you reach the 1st rank.
>
>
>
> You are Tiny. All physical damage caused is divided by 5. HP divided by 5. 40% evasion bonus. Exp gained is multiplied by 5.
>
> Your species does not breathe or drink. You are immune to bleed and critical hits. You still need to eat and sleep. You do not have a gender.
>
>
>
> You gained the Perk, Object Mimicry [book] (rare): You can mimic the shape of an object roughly your size. You may also reshape your body to create eyes, teeth, legs, a tongue, or other appendages. All objects you change into are composed of only materials commonly found in books.
>
> You gained the Perk, Absolute Literacy (ultra-rare): Bibliomimics can read, write, and understand any written language or glyph.
>
> You gained the Perk, Mimic Adhesive (rare): You may coat your surfaces with a potent adhesive you secrete. The Strength score required to detach a stuck creature or object is equal to your Endurance + a quarter of your Willpower. You can detach the adhesive from you at will.
>
> You gained the Perk, Hardness (very rare): You reduce all base physical damage dealt to you by 5, plus 1 for every 20 points of physical Attributes you have.
>
> You gained the Trait, Fire Weakness (uncommon): You take 50% more damage from Fire.
>
> You gained the Perk, Hardness (very rare):
>
> ERROR. You have incompatible traits. Resolving... Resolved. You lost the Trait, Fire Weakness.
>
> You already have the Perk, Elemental Rejuvenation (combined): You are healed by 10% of all elemental damage before any mitigation. You resist 97% of the remainder.
>
> You unlocked the Perk, Party-Wide Exp Share (combined): When you are in a party, all Exp earned is divided equally among all members in (200+Soul) meters as if the party size was 1/3 of its real size. All party members gain a 3.05 Exp multiplier.
>
> 671Attributes above the cap withheld. You gained the perk, Surpasser VI… ERROR. The User already has this Perk. You gained the Perk, Surpasser CXII (combined): Increase your Attribute cap by 1120%.
I created an eye on my cover. Then I spied around. After I dismissed the nice window telling me how special I was, another one appeared.
> > The Trait Book Seal (curse) was converted into the Perk Book Familiar (unique).
>
> > You gained the Perk, Book Familiar (unique): You forged an eternal bond with the [Lost Sage's Encyclopedia]. No longer hungering for knowledge, the book will still obey your every command, including to copy the contents of another book, leaving the original intact. Others cannot read the tome unless you allow.
I looked at the big book held by some big creature. Another window popped.
> [Lost Sage's Encyclopedia]
>
> * Price: inestimable. Unique item.
>
> * Durability: Indestructible.
>
> * Soul-Bound to you.
>
> * Ability: Can copy other books to add their contents to itself.
>
> * Ability: Can retrieve knowledge at the bound user's request.
>
> * Ability: Weighs nothing. Can float at speeds up to 1m/s but may be moved by a Strength of 20 or more. Bound user may make the book fly at will.
>
> * Ability: Can be summoned and dismissed at will.
>
> * Ability: This information can only be seen by you.
>
> * Ability: Will spawn a child book. This can happen only once.
>
> Once a cursed book, it was cleansed by the sacrifice of a Princess. Now, it will repay that kindness by gifting her a new life.
That's my mom! Hi mom! Mom seems to be sleeping and this big creature is holding her prisoner. I'll send mom to a place where she can sleep very well. Poof, she's gone to a safe place.
> > Please select a Class. As a monster, you may have only 1 path.
A small list appeared.
* Mimic (rare): A monster Class that reflects your Species.
* Entertainer (uncommon): Since you are a harmless object, you may earn your living by amusing others.
* Scholar (rare): Unveil the world's mysteries.
* Mage (rare): Unveil Arcane mysteries.
* Pet (common): Maybe you can adopt a hooman to look after you!
* Libromancer (unique): You there, little book! Don't you want to unveil the power of secret grimoires and wield powerful magics? Or become the world's most powerful grimoire? You have to pick this Class! It was literarily made for you!
Wow! The windows are talking to me! Of course, miss WIndow, I'd love to be the world's most powerful grimoire! Thank you very much!
> You became a Libromancer (unique, base)
>
> You gained 10 Dexterity and Luck at level 0.
>
> 1 Attribute point at every level.
>
> +1 Dexterity, Endurance, Willpower, Magic, and Luck at every level.
>
> +1 Strength and Dexterity at every even level.
>
> +1 Mind, Charisma, and Magic at every odd level.
>
> 14 base HP at every level.
>
> 16 base MP at every level.
>
> 4 base SP at every level.
>
> 1 Perk at every 2 levels.
>
> 1 Physical Proficiency.
>
> The [Spellcaster] Proficiency.
>
> 3 Free Proficiencies.
>
> You gained the Perk, Libromancy (ultra-rare): You can cast spells from drawn spell diagrams without consuming the written medium.
I'm so hungry. Oh, good! I see a pile of food right next to me. Time to eat!