I could see the paths available for the evolution of Elemental Projection in my mind.

Like before, my Soul corestone presented me with two options. The first showed me firing out three dart-like projectiles of elemental magic. They streaked forward in straight lines, apparently unaffected by physics.

As I watched the image, I was able to feel an intuitive understanding of the ability. I grasped that it hardly used any extra mana at all and required next to no concentration. However, there was a kind of blockage once the ability was used, like a cooldown. It seemed as though I would have to wait roughly a minute between uses of the ability, and the potency of the three darts was only moderate.

So the range and accuracy would be incredible, but I wouldn’t hit very hard or very often with this variant. I could still use my messier, lower tier stream of liquid, though. This evolution would just give me another way to use the ability.

Hmm.

As much as I liked the idea of slinging magical darts like a true-to-life mage, the cooldown was a bummer. Swapping my streams of hard-to-aim and friendly-fire-prone liquids for a barrage of tiny magic bolts would be a godsend—but the evolution here wasn’t really that.

This was more like a utility ability that would let me apply a status effect at longer range. It would cut some of the in-between steps for detonating Bombroot from a distance, for example. I could aim a precision shot of Dragon’s Tail bolts from as far as I wanted, so long as I had a straight shot.

But I could also use a Forge Echo of my bow with Dragon’s Tail arrows to do the exact same thing, just with a little more effort.

I scratched at my chin as I considered. I doubted the extra damage from three bolts of magic per minute was really going to turn the tides, either.

I pulled up the next option before I spent too long considering. I saw myself creating a… storm cloud?

The cloud appeared over a monster in the vision, raining down poison from above. The imaginary enemy died dramatically, waving its arms and flopping down motionless as poison continued to pour down on it.

I could sense that keeping the cloud active would drain my mana, just like other “summon” style abilities I had. It would also require concentration, which I was beginning to view as a resource almost as valuable as mana, if not more so.

A cloud that rained elemental damage was honestly awesome. I could, of course, rain down Healing Potions or buffs on my allies. I could even rain down the Potion of Life at a distant point and create chaos as all kinds of dirt and random shit came to life behind my enemies.

In chaotic fights like the one with the Host of Horrors, it would let me use my larger, more devastating area of effect abilities without the risk of accidentally hitting my friends. At least… it would make it less risky, because I could attack from directly above a position of my choice. As it was now, I had to spray a messy jet of liquid that tended to drip and splatter everywhere between me and my intended target.

Neither skill evolution seemed like quite as much of a no-brainer choice as my Forge Echo evolution had been. Even if I weighed my own stylistic preferences, I liked both. There was something elegant and satisfying about the idea of having precise, magical darts for small jobs. But I couldn’t deny there was a kind of awesome, raw power in making an elemental cloud to rain down status effects on friends and enemies.

I also wondered if my choices here would change the options I’d see down the line. For example, would choosing the cloud skill keep pushing my future evolutions to area-of-effect style abilities or stationary summons? Would choosing the bolts maybe be the less ideal choice for now, but lead to future evolutions like shooting elemental beams of magic out of my eyes or creating firestorms from my mind?

Everything about the way these corestones worked would imply it was all connected. One choice would influence all the rest… But I couldn’t know for certain. I was also surrounded by danger, and couldn’t afford to take weaker choices in the present to gamble on future power.

Besides, getting an area-of-effect focused set of abilities wasn’t even weak. It was just less compatible with fighting as a group. Of the two choices, the elemental darts were the only one I could at least replicate with another ability. Knowing I could use my own Silver Scream arrows or a Forge Echo to do the same thing with a little less ease pushed me over the edge toward the cloud.

I didn’t have any way to replicate that kind of power, so it was going to be my choice.

With my decision settled, I mentally told my Soul corestone I wanted the cloud evolution.

There was a warm rush in my core, and I felt my ability change. I could still use the old-fashioned Elemental Projection, of course, but now I had a new tool for the toolkit.

I summoned Pebble before testing the ability. He’d want to see this.

“New ability,” I whispered. “Want to watch?”

Pebble rolled back to a safe distance and waited silently.

It took a little trial and error before I got the ability right. Using regular Elemental Projection had become so second-nature already that I hardly had to think about the technique now.

I pushed a thread of mana through my fingertips, passed them through the element I wanted to use, and the rest was instinctual experimentation.

I was getting close to making it work while Pebble got bored and began rolling around.

“I think I should give this new tier of Elemental Projection its own name, or it’ll get confusing. Something cool, though. What about Cloudkill?” I asked.

Pebble gave an uncertain wobble.

“Yeah… too dramatic? I guess it wouldn’t make sense, because the Cloud could be dropping Healing Potions, buffs, or modification elements, too. What about Cloudfall?”

Pebble bounced once.

I grinned. “Yeah. I like that one, too. It’s still dramatic, but a little less edgy.”

I put my focus back on figuring out how to actually use it. It was trickier than making the new tier of Forge Echo work, which introduced another interesting concept I hadn’t considered. I wondered if people without my prestige-path-enhanced mana manipulation would have to consider “skill difficulty” when choosing evolutions. If something like this was taking me a few minutes, I had seen enough to know it might take others weeks or months to figure out.

Thank you Seraphel for the foresight of leaving me some of your mana manipulation skills

It took about ten minutes, but I finally had it figured out.

Once I pushed the thread through the element, I had to reinforce it before it left my hand, almost like putting a lid on the end of a hose. If I didn’t, it simply sprayed the element, just like when I was using Elemental Projection. I was able to use a weave of mana to seal the mana thread closed, then push it as far as my concentration allowed. It was harder than the kind of long-distance thread I used to make Forge Echoes, though. This thread felt full, because it was filled with elemental energy.

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The full thread was “heavier” in a mental sense. Basically, it seemed to require more mana to push it out into the distance. I would need to do a lot of practice if I wanted to use this skill at great distances like I had been imagining. For now, I thought my reasonable limit was going to be something like thirty or forty feet.

With the mana thread capped and positioned where I wanted, I let the instinctual part take over. This, it seemed, was part of how skill evolutions worked. I probably could have done the capping of the mana thread and the extension before the evolution, but the final form of the cloud and the details seemed to be somehow handled by my core. I just had to get the pieces in position, and then my core filled in the blanks.

I watched a gassy green cloud form at the top of the tunnel. It extended out until it was maybe ten feet by ten. Drops of sizzling green rained down, pattering on the ground.

Pebble gave a few excited hops, then rolled toward me for a fist-bump.

I stuck my fist out, grinning as he head-butted my knuckles.

“Pretty cool,” I said. “I need to work on the distance and size, though. And this thing uses a lot of mana. I won’t be able to throw them up and forget about them. Not yet, at least.”

I snapped off the spell and got up. “Alright,” I said. “We’ve got time. I’m not positive, but I’m pretty sure the Full Night’s Rest buff wore off me a little while ago. That means I can probably sleep again. The Irons aren’t out of their passage yet, so I can squeeze this in.”

Pebble wobbled with uncertainty.

“I’ll be fine. Hey… I think I can keep you active while I sleep. You barely use any mana, so I’m pretty sure I’ll regenerate faster than you drain me, even sleeping. Do you mind just keeping watch for me? Give me a bump if something goes wrong.”

Pebble stiffened with resolve.

“Thanks, Bud,” I said.

Alright… Time for the bugs.

I checked my bed's hunger, even though I knew it should be low. I had been habitually feeding it dark mana crystals whenever I could. I even stashed a few extras in my slip space from the nightmaws I killed solo. There was no point feeding him crystals when he was nearly full, anyway.

[Hunger, 3%]

Good. So the bedroll wasn’t in danger of eating me when I summoned it.

All things considered, I thought the curse wouldn’t be so bad to manage. If dark mana crystals were always so easy to collect, I could simply stock up and get used to having some on hand. Assuming, of course, the dark mana wouldn’t somehow dissolve or grow less potent over time or when I tried to leave the dungeon.

There was still a solution to the hungry bedroll problem in the back of my mind, but I wasn’t sure I could justify that level of crazy. For now, I tried not to think about it.

I called it from my slip space and gave the bedroll a long look. It didn’t seem to be the kind of thing I could get used to. A demonic red bedroll covered in crawling bugs just… didn’t look like something I wanted to sleep in. Even Pebble rolled backwards. He didn’t like the bedroll at all, and had been finding excuses to roll off and do something he probably considered important when I summoned the bedroll before for feedings.

I touched the bedroll to unroll it and it immediately made a low, moaning sound.

Unnnnggghhhhh. Uhhhhhh.

I shook my head and backed away from the bed. Maybe if I let it sit out for a little while, some of the bedbugs would haunt themselves to death before I got in there.

Besides, I was pretty sure I had a little time to squeeze in some training and shoot for more tier-ups. So I did the reasonable thing and sat down while I waited.

I raised one arm, then lit it on fire with Dragon’s Tail before I could talk myself out of it.

The pain was instant, and it was exquisite. Exquisitely bad.

I panic slammed a Mana Shield down over the wound, but the pain didn’t stop, even after the flames died out. I flooded mana to the spot, healing the damage as my nerves screamed in agony.

I only managed to repeat the process four times before my brain revolted against the pain it knew would come. It was like trying to convince myself to jump into an ice-cold pool. I just couldn’t do it.

I sighed. I’d have to work on that, too. Pain was just a feeling, right? Especially when I could magically heal the damage.

But I did have a deadline. Those three Irons would be at the cave-in within the next few hours. I could squeeze in some rest without showing my weird cursed bedroll to the group, recover fully, get my boosted mana regeneration, and rejoin them before shit hit the fan.

I just had to deal with the bed bugs and the moaning bedroll.

“Alright,” I said. “Bed time, Pebble. You’ll keep an eye on me, right? Er… Sorry, no offense. I know you don’t have eyes. Figuratively speaking, though, you’ll keep me safe. Right?”

Pebble gave a hop of acknowledgment.

I could hear the microscopic screams of the bed bugs as I got closer to the bedroll. They were definitely getting haunted to death down there, but there were still plenty of them to bite me.

“By the way,” I said. “Don’t try to rest in this bed. I don’t know if summons can get haunted to death, but this thing is dangerous. Understand? You stay off it.”

Pebble gave a hop.

Good. I nodded my head, then crawled in, making myself as comfortable as I could.

After all the fighting I’d done, sleep actually came quickly.

Pebble was on my chest when I woke. I blinked, lifting my head and looking at him.

There was a single bed bug on top of him like he was a god damn mount.

“Pebble?” I asked.

The spectral rock stirred.

“Were you sleeping?” I asked, sitting up as he rolled off me. The bed bug fell off him and landed on my shirt.

I got up and brushed as many bugs off me as I could. Pebble seemed to sink down, almost as if ashamed.

“It’s fine,” I said, grinning. “I’m not mad, I was just worried about you. I thought you understood not to get in the bed. That was dangerous.”

I sighed. He was obviously alright, so I guessed summoned rocks were not in danger of the whole cursing to death thing. But I wished he hadn’t tested his luck to find that out.

“I’ll let you get some real rest, now. I might not bring you back out for a little while. I think something kind of bad is about to happen. So you just stay safe… wherever it is you go when I unsummon you.”

Pebble bumped my shoe, then waited patiently.

I unsummoned him, then spent a little while trying to clean all the blood and gunk off myself. I didn’t really want to make it too obvious how much killing I had done on my own. I suspected Lyria would get irritated or think I had been reckless if she knew I had killed several nightmaws alone, let alone the Host of Horrors. I did the best I could, and then pulled out my talking stone. “I’m coming back,” I said. “You guys still waiting?”

“Brynn?” Lyria asked, sounding a little breathless, almost as if she had been worried.

“No… I said. This is a nightmaw. I’ve stolen Brynn’s talking stone. Rawr,” I added after a moment’s thought.

“That’s not funny,” she said. “Just… get back here. We’re all tired of waiting.”

“I’ll be half an hour,” I said.

Without monsters to fight along the way, it really wouldn’t take me long. I had also noticed some subtle changes in my physical abilities. I couldn’t say if it was just the constant exertion doing normal, physiological things to my body, or if it was the magical bonus of leveling up so many times.

I thought it was possibly a bit of both.

Either way, I was able to jog at a pretty aggressive pace without much difficulty.

I found the group waiting by the cave-in.

They sat in a semi-circle while snacking on rations and sipping from water flasks.

Lyria rushed up and hugged me, then pulled back and punched my arm, glaring.

I laughed. “Thanks?”

“He returns!” Ramzi said, flashing bright white teeth. “Should we prepare for battle?”

I noticed they were all watching me carefully. I hadn’t admitted I had a literal map, but I knew I had said enough that the former slaves figured out I had some kind of ability to know what was coming.

I felt the weight of their expectations. Once again, a group of random people had apparently decided to view me as some kind of leader. I supposed I needed to get used to that.

“We need to get ready,” I said. “I don’t know if they mean harm, but some powerful people are going to be coming this way. If they want to hurt us, we need to have a plan.”

“We’ve been working on that,” Thorn said. “Remember those secret tunnels?”