You’ve reached level 19!

…

You’ve reached level 22!

[3] Unread Accomplishments

[Common Accomplishment] Do battle in a dungeon or infestation at a threat level above your rank. [Reward - Common Armor Token] “That was amazing! I must admit, I was kind of crossing my fingers to get assigned to Elyon at first. There’s just something about a man with a big sword that gets me going. But I’m really coming around on you, Seraphel. You’ve got a bit of craftiness in you. A little survivor’s grit, if you will!”

[Rare Accomplishment] Do battle in a dungeon or infestation at (2) threat levels above your rank. [Reward - Rare Armor Token] “That Circa woman is really something. For a Heart stone user, even a Silver, she’s really quite powerful and impressive.”

[Common Accomplishment] Slay (10) enemies inside a dungeon or infestation. [Reward - Common Weapon Token] “I like this Rock guy, too, by the way. I think you should keep him around. Also, I should mention your whole party killed exactly 1,878 of those things. You personally dispatched 219 of them. 183 with magic, 31 with your fists, four with your feet, and one with your ass. Who knew falling down on things could be so deadly when you’re being pumped full of power by a Silver? You made it look intentional, though, so no judgment here!”

“And I know what you’re probably thinking. The accomplishment only says ten! That’s because there are complicated rules about augmentation magic, group fighting, and especially fighting alongside individuals of higher rank. In short, you’re lucky you even got credit for ten of those. So congrats!”

I read through the notifications as we made camp with the rest of the group. We were in a smaller series of rooms we’d found after descending more stairs. There was a central hallway that went down into a dead end. Several rooms branched off from the hall. Some groups sat in the main hall, while others broke into smaller rooms to rest.

The space looked like a holding area for gladiators of some kind in the arena above, making me think about all the deaths that must’ve taken place here. Would we find an entire city if we kept going deeper? Or was this the only surviving part of a larger kingdom that once stood in the area?

I supposed none of my questions were life and death for the moment, so I dismissed them.

I was sitting and chewing on dried rations beside Lyria, Rock, and Circa. We had set ourselves up far from the rest of the group in a room near the back of the long hall, opposite the stairs we’d come down.

“I imagine this isn’t your first shitstorm,” I said to Circa. “Reaching Silver… that had to involve a lot of things going sideways, right?”

She smiled a little at that. “Indeed. My mother used to say you should never trust someone who claims to be great but wears clean shoes.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because the path to greatness is full of mud, blood, and shit,” she said, voice wry.

I chuckled. Even Lyria smiled a little at that. Rock was just picking at his nails with a knife. “Rock will piss,” he said, getting up suddenly and leaving the room.

I watched him go.

“Do you mind if I ask you a personal question?” I said.

She looked apprehensive, but nodded anyway.

“Why did you agree to… you know. Follow the path you’re following. The one that led you to me.”

I expected a simple answer. Duty. Tradition. Family obligation. Instead, she frowned in thought. “I spent much of my childhood fighting my parents about it. They wanted this for me, and I wanted glory.” She laughed softly at herself. “I wanted to reach Gold. I wanted a Captainship in a divine house. I wanted to help a great deal of people. Devoting my life and talent to the possibility of maybe helping one person in my lifetime? It wasn’t a glamorous prospect when I was a young girl that everyone said was destined for great power.”

“Oh,” I said, surprised. “What changed your mind?”

“My father was killed. There was a group of Forsaken Silvers gathering strength near our city. The capital knew about it for ages, but the Gold assigned to our guild in the area had a political agenda. He wanted the guard to be seen as weak so he could impose sweeping changes. He wanted his people in positions of importance and thought a catastrophe would speed his aims along. My mother and father were Silvers. They decided to take as many adventurers as possible to deal with it themselves.”

“What happened?” I asked, trying to imagine an entire group of people as strong or stronger than Circa.

“Death,” she said simply. “They weakened the Forsaken enough to foil the political whims of the guild watchman, but they gave their lives for it. Ultimately, the Forsaken slipped away, and there were no consequences. The Gold took credit for chasing the Forsaken off, and he was promoted to a high seat in the inner circle.”

Lyria shook her head with the kind of disgust reserved for old, tired patterns that never changed.

Circa sat a little straighter as if forcing herself not to slump. “So I decided to follow their example. I didn’t want to be part of a system that put political advantage above people. And I knew my parents believed in the cause, like their parents before them. But… I must admit I could never quite make myself believe. I thought it to be superstition and foolishness. It’s why I spent my time chasing down beasts like this one instead of truly searching for signs of you.”

“And yet you were in the right place at the right time,” I said.

“Fate is cruel,” she said, laughing softly. “Two years led me to this moment, and hundreds of years went into watching for your return. And what do I do? I selfishly cling to my own agenda, despite you falling right into my lap.”

“I’m glad you’re still trying to stop this Forsaken,” I said. “If I die trying to get back to where I was, then I was a fool for sending myself back the way I did. I’m choosing to trust that I knew what I was doing. That means letting my instincts guide me. I would’ve known I’d have those. I would’ve known what kind of person I was when I arrived here from my world. So if you ask me, we’re right where we should be.”

Her smile was a little sad. “You vex me. If you had left, you wouldn’t have been a god worthy to sacrifice for. But you stay, proving you’re worth saving, and yet the act of staying puts you in the most risk. What am I to do?”

“You do what you came here to do,” I said firmly. “Kill that thing so it doesn’t hurt anybody else.”

My words hung over the group for several minutes before the spell seemed to break and we settled into something like rest. I wasn’t sure if anybody could actually sleep, but I imagined we were all trying to regain mana and recover some mental stability.

I gave myself a moment to think about my excitement for gaining some levels, even though I hadn’t earned nearly as many as I expected. We’d killed hundreds of those things, and several were Iron rank. I supposed my experience took a hit because they were trivial for Circa and because I was part of such a huge group.

My brain felt a little too numb to care much about the details. I was chewing absently on the rations Circa handed out. It was dried meat, and I didn’t ask what kind of animal it came from.

I couldn’t say I was particularly hungry, but I made my jaw move anyway.

Once the excitement of my increased level faded, I tried to stay focused on meditating to recover my mana. I still had siphons, but there was no use wasting them.

I tried to open my mind to peace and calm, but the only visitors were vivid snapshots of the battle.

I saw the freeze-frame images with painful clarity.

A claw squeezing my leg and veins twisting up pale, thin-skinned flesh.

Lyria’s wide eyes as she ducked from a pair of palefiends, only saved at the last moment by a swipe of Rock’s quarterstaff.

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My fist obliterating a creature into a thick, pasty mist.

Peace.

I repeated the word to myself like a mantra.

I could get used to this, like anything else. I had once opened a car door at a crash scene and watched a severed head roll out to land between my feet. I had found somebody’s grandma in her apartment after she was finally reported missing half a year after her death. I hadn’t ground my life to a halt because it was upsetting or horrible. I had moved forward. EMTs had to learn to keep moving if they were going to survive the job. That lesson had come early.

Now that I was here on Eros, I could do the same. Instead of shoving the memory of the fight with the palefiends in a dark corner of my mind, I brought it to the surface. I replayed everything I could remember, trying to determine what I could’ve done differently. I wondered if I could’ve saved the two who died.

It was almost comforting to focus on what I could have controlled and how I could’ve handled myself better.

I could have focused on using my poison for longer before I got distracted and tried to wade into the melee with my hands. At my heart, I saw myself as a ranged fighter, more like a mage. Pounding things with my fists wasn’t where I wanted to find myself in any fight. If my corestone started to evolve that way, I wouldn’t ignore my abilities, but I was going to hope I earned myself magic that let me keep my distance.

I had also sprayed most of my poison blindly into the darkness in huge, overwhelming streams. With Circa’s power flowing through me, it had been easy to push out more power than I needed. I could’ve concentrated the mana into a tighter beam and aimed for their heads. Or maybe I could have even spread the beam out looser, spraying it down over huge portions of the approaching swarm like a sprinkler of death.

I was still running through the battle in my head when Lyria came and sat beside me. I itched to remove my helmet to cool my sweating head, but somebody could wander in view at any moment, and I couldn’t risk it.

“Doing alright?” Lyria asked.

“Yeah,” I said, nodding a little too eagerly.

Circa looked like she might be meditating and didn’t appear to be listening. Lyria shifted her eyes toward the woman, then back to me.

“Ever faced a Forsaken?” I asked.

Lyria shook her head. “No. Not many have. They’re usually smart enough to keep themselves hidden for a long time. By the point people catch on, it takes direct intervention from a Divine House or the military to deal with them. Far above my pay grade.”

I wasn’t sure why, but the idea of an ordinary person in here with violent intent seemed far more chilling than whatever I’d been imagining. Maybe it’s because I’d seen the worst of people. At least monsters were single-minded. They didn’t hide their intentions or deceive. People, though…

“You’re sure you want to do this?” I asked Circa.

“If you only remember one thing from my teachings, remember this,” Circa leaned forward, eyes bright. “Live on the razor’s edge until you can barely stand the comfort of a bed or the quiet of town. Push yourself at every opportunity to grow. The heights you’ll be reaching for are far beyond what I can even comprehend, I’m afraid. I can only say with certainty that it won’t be easy. If it ever feels easy, it likely means you’re not pushing yourself hard enough.”

A chill ran across my skin at her words. I suspected she was right. Maybe some part of me hoped to enjoy the ride and find a little adventure on my path back to godhood, but I had to remember to keep striving for more.

I let the conversation settle into a feeling within my chest that seemed to grow roots, deepening until it was part of me. It hardened my resolve. “So what’s next?” I asked, voice more sure than before.

“Recover as much as possible,” Circa said. “I suspect the Forsaken will come before long. We’ll need to be ready.”

“Will there be more palefiends?” I asked, constantly scanning the darkness for blue eyes.

“Time will tell,” Circa said.

Comforting.

I pulled my knees up to my chest, wrapping my arms around myself to warm up.

Rock finally wandered back into the room after what must have been half an hour.

“I thought you were just pissing?” Lyria asked him.

Rock gave her a blank look, then promptly laid down and closed his eyes.

I grinned, inspecting him. He had jumped from level 44 to 45 during the fight above. Lyria had risen from level 28 to 30. My four levels were the biggest jump, but I couldn’t say if that was only because I was the weakest in the group or because of the experience bonus in my fertile seed prestige path.

We all sat silently as the hushed conversations from other groups around the area beneath the coliseum drifted toward us. It was oddly comfortable, considering what we’d all just been through up there and especially considering what we knew was coming.

But I supposed that was how people coped with trauma. Distract, distance, compartmentalize, and move forward. Move fast enough, and you could even start pretending it wasn’t always there, threatening to catch up.

Eventually, I managed to completely refill my mana without the need of my siphons. I blew out a breath, stretched my neck, and looked around.

It seemed that a few people were trying to sleep. I didn’t know how they managed. My body was still on high alert, and my senses buzzed with increased awareness as I jumped at every sound in the distance.

“I still don’t understand what leveling up does for me,” I said. Partly, I wanted to talk again to distract myself from where my thoughts went when it got too quiet. I knew Circa had given me an example about a flame and a torch and something along those lines, but I wanted more concrete facts, especially if it might help me to know what advantage I was gaining in a fight.

Rock cracked his eyes open to give me a confused look, probably wondering how the hell I didn’t know something so basic.

Circa glanced up briefly as if trying to decide how to explain it. “Your ‘level’ measures how much mana has concentrated in your spirit,” she said. “It’s what identification glasses measure. As a Wood, your level gives you better command over your corestone. You may find insights into how your abilities work coming more naturally as you advance, and you may also find subtle evolutions in how you can use your abilities as you grow. Think of your level as the pressure of water, your rank as the size of the pipe, and your corestone as the shape it all takes.”

“Hmm,” I said. “Is that true up all the ranks?”

“No,” she said, smiling a little. “I’m afraid the metaphor breaks down rather quickly as things advance. But it’s a basic enough understanding to suit you through your journey in Wood until your corestone evolves beyond common rarity.”

“When you reach Iron and beyond,” she continued, “certain aspects of yourself will dramatically improve. You may find your strength, vision, agility, or even your mana reserves have increased. The growth you experience when you ascend will be determined by the nature of your journey from Wood to Iron. This is why I can’t stress the challenge enough. You must push yourself to the limit now because if you ascend to Iron after a soft journey, you’ll struggle to ever reach Silver. If reaching Silver is a struggle, you’ll never reach Gold. Do you understand?”

I nodded. It was daunting, though. “Stack up my advantages early, or I’ll fall short of the final goal,” I said. “The harder I make it on myself, the stronger I’ll be if I survive to advancement.”

“Big goals for a little man,” Rock muttered.

I grinned. Little? “I’m an optimist,” I said. “Circa is humoring me.”

Lyria was shaking her head.

“You disagree?” Circa asked.

“No,” Lyria said, laughing a little. “I’ve never heard somebody talk about failing to reach Gold as if that would be some great catastrophe. I’ve never even met a Gold.”

Circa stood suddenly, then walked a little way into the darkened room. I watched the platinum blonde of her hair fade from the light of Rock’s staff.

“Ever fought a necromancer?” I asked Rock, who had been silently chewing his dried meat.

He lifted his blue eyes. “No.”

“Think we stand a chance?”

“No,” he said.

I pursed my lips, nodding. “Anything you can add to what she told me?”

Lyria shook her head. “I can’t say I’ve ever heard anyone explain it that way. But I have heard of people reaching Iron and finding they can suddenly punch through a brick wall or they have the reflexes of a snake.” She looked like she was about to say more, then shook her head. “We should stop chatting and try to get some rest,” she said, though she made no move to lie down. She pulled out her sword and started scrubbing gunk from it with a filthy rag.

My mind wandered as we waited for something to happen. I thought about how I should have asked to stop and work on making more potions before leaving Riverwell or how I wished I’d ignored my exhaustion in the Black Wood and made more time to search for herbs. As potent as my rot poison was, I wished I had more options. A healing potion, for example, would make me feel a hell of a lot safer. The idea reminded me of the straw-like siphons I’d earned. I produced three siphons from my slip space and offered one to Lyria and Rock. “I forgot about these,” I said.

Rock eyed it appreciatively and put it to his lips without hesitation. He sucked in hard, and the straw glowed blue like the lit end of a cigarette. The whole thing flaked apart and drifted away, but Rock looked refreshed. Lyria followed his lead.

“You guys won’t get corrupted by sucking the mana out of the air here, right?”

“Little late to worry about that,” Lyria said.

“No,” Rock said. “Corrupted mana must be invited”

When Circa returned, I offered her a Siphon, but she waved me off. “I’ve recovered,” she said.

“Already?” I asked. “I assumed we were draining your mana to use your abilities back there. And you healed all those people. That must have used a ton of mana.”

“It did,” she agreed, sitting down without further explanation.

We sat in tense silence for a while. I jumped at every sound in the darkness, wishing I could afford to spend the mana to practice a little more. Occasionally, I thought of a question to ask Circa—mostly regarding how her enhancement spell worked. I wanted to know if there was anything I could use to my advantage next time, but it seemed to be relatively straightforward. She was pumping some power into us when she did her puppeteer move. We were temporarily getting a taste of what higher levels and higher ranks would feel like.

“Is lifeweaver one of those paved paths?” I asked.

Circa opened her mouth to respond but snapped it shut. She stood suddenly, summoning her staff. Around the room, I noticed the Irons were standing, too. Some of the Woods followed.

Jarn motioned for everybody to gather up.

“Be ready,” Circa said. “Something is coming.”