Though it was sometimes inevitable, Prince did not like dying.
He might have gotten used to the pain. He might have gotten used to surrender himself to the black void.
But he never got himself to feel indifferent about his life counter going down, no matter how many lives he had earned and hoarded over years of good services, paying lip services to the gods themselves.
He was not surprised to wake up at the outer edge of Arvandor, his current boss looking down at the vast expanse of Arborea, enjoying the breeze in her impossibly beautiful face, her silver hair dancing in the wind behind her.
The true face of any God: the very picture of hedonism and without a care about the plight of her followers.
"Prince!" She exclaimed. "How good to see you! I was actually wondering how my recent investment has been doing since her last misguided use of my guidance."
Her stares had turned murderous as if the Tressym had been personally responsible for the girl getting her hand on Guidance AND Song of Healing without her direct intervention. And so Prince rolled his eyes. Trust the divine to jealously try to protect all their shiny toys, and hold their servants, and the system, accountable for all their 'problems'.
"Last thing I know, the girl must be fighting and winning her fight against the sabertooth cats that took me down. Although she was already severely injured when I hit the bucket."
"Bah" The divine exclaimed dismissively, waving one hand down, "You lost one life? Who cares? I will give you back two and throw in a bonus once you are done." She said before coming dangerously close to comfort, staring down at him: "Now tell me what I really want to know."
"The girl is really different than her system profile suggested. I had thrown in hints of ways to get around the spirit of her contract while still reaping the benefits but so far, she had shown no serious efforts in pursuing them. She does not shy from combats but still avoids them whenever she can. Her only obvious defiance against you is her continued pursuit of archery, but you don't have any actionable disciplinary measure about that one, since she so vehemently refused your offer."
"Truly a pity. I had been crafting such a good leash for my new pet." The goddess lamented dramatically before her stare became icy cold once again: "It's making me nervous when things are getting off-script. At some point, she is bound to try something. So keep digging until you FIND something. Got it?"
So Prince had been dismissed. And back to a cage, he was.
★☆★
You have completed the tutorial second floor and earned a new boon.
After you are done with your selection, your companions and yourself will be assigned a new group together. Please try not to antagonize your new companions, if any.
You have five options available.
Rogue Archetype Sneak Attack Hide Dash Disengage
You can intuit actionable weaknesses of any foes you have an advantage against.
Advantage is acquired by things like utilizing the terrain, getting the upper hand in a fight, surprising your opponent, or sneaking behind them. Get creative!
You get a preternatural sense of stealth akin to precognition to help you prevent being discovered.
You can further hide from enemies by muffling the sound of your steps, sticking to the dark, and avoiding enemies' sightlines.
You gain a burst of speed allowing you to run twice as fast. The effect can be maintained so long that you can concentrate on it and will end within 6 seconds of losing concentration.
After taking a hit, drastically increase your ability to evade getting hit again, for six seconds.
You also get a preternatural sense of danger to evade projectiles aimed at you while fleeing combat.
Fighter Archetype Second Wind
Once per combat, you can draw on your stamina to heal yourself.
However, once the danger has passed, your fatigue will catch up to you.
You cannot assign less than a third of your boons to your Primary Archetype. You can have as many secondary archetypes as you wish but cannot assign them more boons than your Primary. Currently, you have:
[Rogue Archetype (Primary): 2 ] [Weavesinger Archetype: 2/2 ]
You can assign up to 2 boons to your secondary archetypes before you are forced to assign more boons to your Primary.
Sophia sighed internally at the sight of her boon selection. She wished she had her third Rogue boon already so she could have taken the Magus Arcana boon she now desperately needed after finally learning how to cast magic.
Prestidigitation and Shape Water were nice cantrips to have. And Prismatic Orb, once she got her hands on the mandatory 25 gold required to learn it, would be priceless. But alas, she had no such money and was locked into either taking a Rogue or the Fighter boon this time around.
She already made up her mind about it. Disengage was the least useful against giant monsters who could probably kill her in one hit anyway. Second Wind, Hide and Sneak Attack were redundant with boons she already had. And though she planned to acquire those anyway eventually, they were low on her priority list. Even lower than Disengage. Which left Dash as her default choice once again.
It was a good option to have but not one she was overly enthusiastic about as it only enhanced her running speed. And while she could use the extra mobility, it was less critical than enhancing her meager combat capabilities.
'I choose Dash.' She thought and immediately wished herself away from the void.
Hopefully, the respawn pod would take care of her bad arm or else she would be screwed.
And she woke up in her pod, satisfied to find herself back to peak condition, and effortlessly extracted herself from her slimy prison. It was quite a weird thing to get used to and somehow, she did.
She was also happy at the lack of a welcoming party waiting for her and immediately went to free Prince and get changed before Paolo even woke up in his pod beside hers and immediately went to explore the resting area.
As expected, they had been allocated some good resources but far less than they had been previously. As it was true they had wasted quite a bit of resources on the second floor and their performance had been comparatively lacking.
They had been in a rush and she took full responsibility for her choice. Yet they had finished the second floor in four days, preparation included, meaning they were back ahead of schedule and could consequently use a bit more preparation.
Better be prepared and not lose time dying on this floor anyway, as they had no allies to lead the way this time around.
Yet, surprisingly enough, the previous users of this resting area had left many signs of their passage. Messages pinned on the walls that were intended for people she did not know. The other beds that had been stripped away, and the mattress turned into a training implement. And the people who had left a gruesome unsanitary pile of dirty dishes behind.
At least, it answered one of her questions: Nope, the resting area did not automatically reset after they left.
She immediately proceeded to put all the trash into a bag and throw them out of the one-way portal. And then, she headed back to the library, waiting for Paolo.
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
★☆★
"You got anything good?" Paolo asked as he finally joined her.
"I took Dash. You?" She replied immediately.
"I got second circle spellcasting. And a spell." He said, voluntarily withholding information for effect.
"Spit it out." She poked him. "You spent so much time on it that it oughta to be incredible."
"I followed your advice and kept shoring up my weaknesses. I picked Magic Weapon. It's a concentration spell. So now I can empower my attacks with two spells at once."
"No defensive option?" She asked.
"Nope. I had hoped I would get to pick a first circle spell as well, so I might get my hands on mage armor, but the system did not offer."
Sophia understood his frustration. In comparison, Michel had Mind Sliver, Bone Chill, Sleep, and apparently... Detect Thoughts. All very nasty and flashy wizard spells. Reducing your opponent's ability to recover, debilitating them, or outright rendering them unconscious? He had proven countless times how ridiculously effective it was. And detect thoughts? Well, Michel was probably thinking it was the best investment in his life after what he learned from her.
Paolo on the other hand... He had been dealt a bad hand from the start but his efforts were finally paying dividends. And his magical knowledge would get him really far if he survived long enough to make use of it.
"Well, congrats on the new spell. And before you ask, not a chance I'm not going to let you test your new combo on me."
"I thought we agreed you are the monster in our team." He replied playfully in feigned indignance.
"Once you two are done flirting, would you mind telling me how long you plan on wasting here this time around?" Prince asked from the doorstep.
And so Paolo was looking at her intently, asking himself the same question.
"We are going to inventory all the new books for hidden gems, and maybe take one extra day to read them if we find any." She decided for the group. "That would put us a single day ahead of schedule in case an accident happen."
"Always listen to your rogue." Paolo dismissed the subject with a sigh. He obviously disagreed but could not find a single argument to counter her logic.
In the meantime, Prince looked positively amused but kept his dirty mouth shut, satisfied with her answer.
★☆★
This time around, their findings had been of the lore rather than the magical variety reflecting her own efforts from the past floor. This included children's bedtime stories filled to the brim with warnings, an inn ledger that informed them of the cost of living, and a history book telling them of the realm's recent foundation and how the many sapients that composed it had all gone through the same tragic series of events:
Their homeworld dying. Their youngs being forcefully conscripted into the tutorial and locked into martial Archetypes. The rest of the population being slowly rescued and offered a larger variety of slightly lesser civilian options for their Primary Archetypes. And then years of errance and grim survival before they managed to settle down.
It had been as informative as it was depressing to read.
"So even in the best-case scenario, we are totally screwed, right?" Paolo summarized her every thought.
They had been locked into martial Archetype so everyone inducted into the tutorial would never know peace ever again. Even after they were done with the tutorial, they would still be responsible for their peers' continued survival. And if they were lucky to still be alive by then, humanity would only settle down once again by the time they would be approximately in age to retire.
And like everything back on earth: Many were called but few were chosen, and so, only a few 'Heroes' would get all the recognition, status, and fame for the multitude of anonymous sacrifices that had been forced on them all.
But, well.. life was unfair. It wasn't new to Sophia.
She already had tried and got burned once.
She just had to do it all over again and dodge the bullet this time around.
★☆★
Finally, they decided to leave two days ahead, their reading being quite motivational, if nothing else. Maybe they were far from ready to tackle giants but they were not given much of a choice anyway. It was either do or die trying.
However, her earlier decision to dispose of the trashes at the door ahead proved misguided, as it had attracted all kind of unwanted attention. A pack of hungry raptors had been waiting for them, ready to ambush them the moment they appeared, had they not slightly miscalculated the angle of the door that gave away the tale tells of one of their shadows.
Which Sophia had pointed out to Paolo so they could set up a counter-ambush.
First, they were to throw out a ton of water using their new cantrip in tandem. Paolo would barge in with Shocking Grasp. Then Sophia would get a chance to test out her ability to Sing to the Weave to sneak past them while they were distracted, attack the raptors from behind, and hopefully force them to walk inside Paolo's danger zone. If it worked, it would be brutal and swift. If it failed, they might enter the floor already injured, which would reflect badly on their chances of clearing it.
Manipulating water had been surprisingly easy and the most difficult part had been to learn how to work with each other instead of cancelling out each other efforts. But they had managed to make a nice puddle of water on the other side of the one-way portal that both startled the Raptor and gave away that something was off, as Paolo went out directly after they were done, while she had started gently humming the song of weave, becoming one with its chant.
And the result had been astonishing as it was less about stealth or turning invisible than manipulating her presence, either to get more charismatic and get all the attention on her or trying to make her presence as diminutive as possible, which she did. And it turned out it was actually hard to make oneself insignificant on purpose.
And then, she headed out and that was as if both Paolo and the Raptor did not register her presence, though she was perfectly visible and within their line of sight. It was like she didn't exist. Which was absolutely amazing for what she was trying to do. Who needs hiding or invisibility anyway?
'Don't mind me. I just passing through and getting right behind your back to attack you.'
Even when she got into position, drew her arrows, and started aiming, not a single Raptor reacted and cried in warning. Until her first arrow had hit its target and the effect was interrupted despite her continued humming. It was too good to be that easy, she guessed. Of course, no amount of manipulating her presence would help her after doing something like this.
But it was enough. Some of the raptors who had prudently circled around Paolo at the edge of the puddle had turned around to face her and involuntarily stepped back, trespassing into Paolo's danger zone. He made the raptor pay the ultimate price for that mistake.
But the others, they ignored her taunting, even when she shifted from her bow and drew out her blades, and strategically opted to take a few hits right now, to maneuver their way left and right of her without crossing the puddle.
Of course, the Raptors were intelligent and would foil out their plan, avoiding their death trap entirely. What has she been thinking? But still, that first part of the plan was still working well enough. They had the terrain advantage and could fight from the safety of the puddle while the raptors were back at circling them, but could not do much against them.
Sophia had switched back to her bow and proceeded to take down the raptors one after another while Paolo kept threatening them with his electrified blade. They were still winning, albeit very slowly.
Until one of the raptors started screeching for an ominously long time and all the raptors suddenly were adorned in translucent shining Armor protecting all their vitals.
'Did that lizard just cast Mage Armor on its entire pack?'
Though she was honestly surprised, Sophia cleared her head and started thinking. 'Okay. Raptors in Armor is bad, really bad. But it must be a concentration spell. It has to be. If I can hurt that lizard-mage enough to break its concentration, the magic should stop and we would be back to square one.
But the raptors, now empowered with Armor were attacking with renewed vigor. And being the intelligent pack-hunting creature they were, they had immediately intuited her intention and started protecting her caster, willingly taking the hits so she could not interrupt their mage concentration.
It was a battle of attrition, with only three of them and thirteen of them, the fourteenth already down and lying in the puddle, dead. Many others had taken a shot from her and were currently bleeding to their death, although they didn't realize it, yet. But pack creatures, as humans, were susceptible to losing morale when too many of them died at once.
Ideally, getting that caster out and maybe a couple more of them would have done the trick. But with those Armors combined with their natural hard skins, her arrows could not pierce through, as she did not invest anything in strengthening her shots. They needed another strategy or one of them would make a mistake and get hurt before the raptor battle was done.
"Paolo, are you currently using your Magic Weapon spell?" She asked.
"Yes, why?" He asked.
"Do you have enough magic left to recast it on me instead?" She asked again.
"Yes. But it would be my last spell. What's your plan?"
"We can't take out that caster so long they are protecting it. I'm going to use my blades and sing to the weave to get all their attention on me. They might even forget about the puddle. But I'm going to be pretty vulnerable. In the meantime, you should have a window to throw a blade or anything else at their caster."
"That sounds risky. Are you sure you need that spell? Or even go through with that plan?" He asked, uncertain.
"No on both counts. But I would feel better if I had a way to defend myself and counter their shield if it failed. Besides, my arrows aren't working anymore. And we are trapped. They are just waiting for us to tire and make any mistake."
"Don't make this our mistake." He said before canceling his spell and reapplying it on her blade of protection.
And then, she had cast guidance on herself and started singing her lung out to the weave, forcefully demanding the raptors' attention. The reptile instantly forgot about everything else and charged at her forgetting any semblance of prudence and discipline.
And then, Paolo threw out her spare dagger at the lizard spellcaster before channeling his shocking grasp straight into the water while she was still chanting, dancing with blades to save her life as her patron always wished she did.
And as predicted, the gregarious lizard slowly but surely started to lose morale, abandoning their dead and their wounded behind as they scattered away to take cover from arrows as she had once again shifted back to her shortbow in one swift motion at the first sign of the tide of the battle turning back into their favors once again.
"That was incredibly ballsy," Prince commented while Sophia was busy putting the wounded lizards out of their misery.
"Well, singing in dangerous places is kind of my job, right?" She retorted, feeling daring. "Though she did not choose the place, I hope my patron was pleased with my efforts. I even offered her a front seat for my first-time performance."
"Oh, trust me on it: I'm sure you made her day with that one." The winged cat beamed with his best feral cat grin.