The first room on the left, the one opposite to the one he had found the stash in, was dark. He stood for a moment at the entrance, his shadow casting a silhouette into the room. The window had been boarded up from the inside, and he could see that one corner contained pots and pans, scorch marks on the floor and a lump of what he presumed had once been food of some sort. Two cots were pressed against each other on the other side of the room. A small table was on the hallway side. There was nothing else. Lifting his sword cane to head high and pointing forward, Ambros took careful steps inside, making sure to clear every corner before relaxing. Looking at the table, he could see two spots of dust. If he was being generous, he would have said it looked like a sheet of paper and a quill once had been there and slowly turned to dust. The inc glass he found under the table with dust inside supported his theory.
The cots contained an adult and a child's skeletons. By the pelvis, the adult had been a female. He was not about to go rummaging in the dust of the cots after loot in the dust the two skeletons had sunken into. Taking a moment to wish them, especially the child, a better opportunity in the next life, he went back into the hallway and gently closed the door behind him.
The next door on the right held dusty bookshelves, the remains of a couple of chairs and a table with a decanter. The dust around the chairs told him they once had been quite comfortable. He still had no idea why the furniture and items inside the buildings were degrading so much faster than the actual structure, but when he used the fire poker to poke around in the bookshelves layer of dust, they simply crumbled.
The middle door on the left was barred with what looked like a plank popped under the handle. It didnt really give Ambros the safe and sound vibes he was looking for, so he stood ready with the sword cane raised at head level, careful with his balance and double-checking his Arcane Shield. He kicked the plank only to watch his boot go through the middle and the rest crumble into dust. Apparently, it hadn't been a deterrent for some time. He didnt keep his eyes off the door for long because the moment the plank turned to dust, something started scrapping at the door from the other side. It sounded like a dog desperately trying to get out. Occasionally it would almost get the handle down to open the door from the inside. He almost opened it himself before he came to his senses. He liked dogs. You were supposed to be nice to dogs. Whatever was in there, however, hadn't been a dog for a long time going by the plank. That he couldn't hear any barking or whining spoke against it being alive. No, it was some sort of undead abomination. Damn, he hated to do this. He really, really liked dogs.
Getting the fire poker in his left hand and standing ready with the sword that sometimes was a cane in his right, he stabbed forward with the fire poker at the middle of the door about where he would expect a dog's head to be. The fire poker went through on the first try, and he felt something clamp onto it from the other side. Not wasting a moment longer, he cast Arcane Bolt right over where the fire poker was through the door and quickly stabbed into the new opening with the sword cane. He didnt know what he had hit in there yet, or where he had hit it, but the moment the sword pierced whatever it was, there was a muffled explosion, and everything went silent. He fervently prayed to whatever greater power was out there that he hadn't made too much noise. He could also feel his mana had been drained an unreasonable amount during the stab. Had to be quite the enchantment on the sword cane, he thought.
Battle Award
30 Exp
40 Sp.
Do you wish to loot the corpse?
Yes, he would. Unlike the last time, it appeared directly in his dimensional bag. Another grain of power and the fang of what he presumed was dead inside the room. On the bright side, his plans had just gotten a major boost. He wasn't sure he wanted to see what had been the last resting place of what he assumed had once been a family pet, but he opened the door anyway. The System had taken the corpse, but the room spoke its own tale. There were scratch marks along the walls, and dust covered the floor, so he assumed there once had been furniture. However, the only place it looked to have been disturbed for a long time was in front of the door. The thing had sat there waiting, probably since it was the last place it had heard a sound. At a guess, he would say the family had locked it in here before it turned once they discovered it had gotten contaminated by whatever animated the dead in this place.
Closing the door again, he went to the last door on the right. No sounds came from the other side of the door, so he gently tried the handle, but it was locked from the inside. However, it must have made a sound on the other side because something thudded against the door. Again and again, it hit the door. Enough time must have passed for the door to get brittle because cracks about shoulder height appeared on the door.
Ambros stepped back down the hallway so he didnt stand directly in front of the door as another thud could be heard. He took a stance with his right foot and sword forward while he had the fire poker ready to swing from behind and above or below. Another thud, and the entire frame came loose. The once overweight zombie was halfway into the hallway, stuck in the door as it tried getting up. Taking a step forward, Ambros stabbed down with the sword, trying to hit the thing in the eye, but its trashing made him miss and hit its cheek instead. The same thing happened this time too. There was a small explosion, but now that he could see what happened, it looked more like a kinetic force pushed against the face of the zombie flinging it to the other side. To his disgust, the only thing it achieved was blowing away the skin on that side of the zombie's face and letting him see right into its rotten mouth and the far-too-long tongue sticking out between its teeth from where the flesh had been and reaching towards him. Ambros hit its skull with the fire poker, but it bounced off, but he could see some cracks in the skull where the flesh was missing. Slashing the sword at the cracked bone, he had to lean against the wall from the lack of mana in his body, but it had been enough to crack the thing's skull. He knew enchantments were generally more expensive to utilize than most spells. The amount the sword needed was slightly ridiculous, especially since the enchantment didnt seem all that powerful. Sure, it would give a certain advantage in a duel, but to slay undead, it was basically just a concentrated wind gust.
Battle Award
20 Exp
30 Sp.
Do you wish to loot the corpse?
Yes, he would. Another zombie ear but also another grain of power. Holding it, he felt like a man given a skin full of water after wandering for days in the desert. Regretfully he stored it in the dimensional bag. It would be a waste. His mana would come back soon enough. Having three of the grains made his plan a lot more feasible.
Not feeling up to exploring the room the zombie had come from or the last room on the left just yet, he made his way back to the window by the stairs. He may as well see if the zombies outside had reacted to the fight. The four zombies standing in the ring were still there, but two of the three zombies he had seen to the left of the intersection were missing, the last one still lying on the ground. After a moment, he spotted them standing at the corner of the house he was in. They seemed to have stopped for now. Leaning his head slightly out of the window, he could still see the zombies walking to the building entrance and back further down the street to the right. Sitting down for a moment, he put himself in a state of Meditation. It would at least speed up his mana absorption. The place was packed with power, so it shouldn't be too long. Thinking of the two he had found in the cots, the dog and, finally, the zombie that had been fully claimed by the system, he wondered at their story. How many houses around here had similar stories to tell. What tragedy had made this possible? It wasn't really good land for the undead either. To much sun. While they had ways to counter that it would be costly, he doubted they would bother with a place like this unless forced to.
Feeling his mana pool was about a quarter full again, he walked to the doorway where the zombie had been. The room was the same size as the others, and it would have been well furnished at some point by the amount of dust on the floor. Now it was just an empty husk of what it once had been. Even its memories would be gone with the occupants dead. He didnt feel any draw to investigate the room further, just took what remained of the door into the room so it wouldn't get in his way later. To his surprise, the door turned to dust when he placed it against the wall. Feeling the wood going from hard to powder in his hands was strange. Yeah, definitely something at the center of this powerful enough to overwrite reality.
It was beyond his understanding since he had never encountered or read about an artifact or natural treasure affecting an area the size he had seen so far. It could also be its own realm with rules that differed from what he was used to, but who had created it and, more importantly, why implement arbitrary rules that would affect materials differently depending on where they were or what part of a building they belonged to? What other strange rules were there? There were too many things that didnt add up with either theory.
Getting ready to open the last door hallway, he held the sword cane at a ready as he gently opened the door with his left hand. It swung open without any issues. The room had been some sort of storage by all the boxes he saw. He didnt find any whole boxes. Most had crumbled parts of them, probably from his earlier fight in the hallway. Walking around with the fire poker, he dragged it around the room, turning the boxes into dust. The dust was strangely heavy. It didnt float as much as he would expect of dust particles. Maybe something in the air was turning them into larger particles than he was used to. After a disappointing round of the last room, he returned to the hallway and walked left to the stairs to the last floor.
The table had strangely survived the zombie crashing through the door and what followed, even the wooden bowl. To his surprise, he could actually pick up the bowl. It had all the hallmarks of being whole, but it was firm in his hand and didnt crumble. Trying the same with the table with the same outcome, he decided to store them for later study. Either there was something special with these two things, or whatever turned things into dust only worked in some places. It didn't make much sense, but then nothing much did with this place. He would have to do some tests in the coming days, so he accidentally didnt bring out something important, only to joyfully watch it turn into dust. That got him questioning why his clothes were unaffected, or even himself and the undead, too many unanswered questions floating in his mind when he should be paying attention. Dangerous Ambros, get a hold of yourself, he thought.
Using the one foot of each side of the stairs wobble he had learned getting up the first set of stairs, he soon found himself on the third floor. To his surprise, it was as clean as the first floor. Empty window frames lined the room, letting in plenty of air and light. The sealing was whole, and the beams seemed sturdy enough. A trapdoor could be lowered and bared with a rotating wooden lock over the stairs. Not the sturdiest material, but it should stop someone casually opening it and give Ambros a few moments of warning if someone opened it in a not too casual manner. It made for a decent camp to keep in mind for exploring the local area or a quick getaway. He would need to remember the house now that it had been cleared.
Walking around, the floor seemed sturdy enough as he approached the other side of the room. Time to check in on how his neighbors were up to. Peeking out of a window facing the left-hand of the intersection, he could see the two zombies if he leaned his head out. They still stood facing the building he was in. The one on the ground had managed to stand up and made its way to the opposite house on the other side of the intersection. It looked like one of the medieval one-story stone houses. The four straight ahead in the intersection still had a staring contest in the middle of the road. Looking to the right and a bit of counting, he could still make out nine different zombies making their way in and out of the building entrance. Why was anyone's guess, but one thing he had learned long ago was that arguing with a zombie was about as efficient as arguing with a girlfriend in a mood. No matter what you said, it didnt go in, and no matter how logically you made something sound, it would have enormous holes made out of any previously perceived slights or misdemeanors. In other words a completely pointless endeavor. Better to just beat it. When it came to the zombie, the literal sense of the words could be applied, unlike the pissed-off girlfriend scenario.
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He was quite pleased that plan: “Where have all the zombies gone?” was a go. Sitting down in a spot with as much light as the windows allowed, he brought out his keychain and decided to use the storage key first. Hopefully, he would get all three stones done before it broke.
Bringing out the five flattish stones he had picked up on the way, Ambros selected the three with the best surface area for writing. Rune scripting was startlingly logical for most humans, he imagined. The closest compersion he had to Rune scripting in the mundane world was the use of logic gates, unlike enchantment. Enchantments relied as much on the enchanters' subjective understanding of how it worked and how they expressed that on what they enchanted. The closer they got to the truth that was engraved somewhere on the firmament of reality, truly understanding what they were dealing with, the better the enchantments became, but it was as much artistry as it was following formulas. Sure, you could make an enchantment so grand, complex and powerful it could stop the world in its tracks, but you needed an equal amount of power to make the enchantment work, and the less you understood of the forces and consequences in play, the more power was needed. It was why powerful enchantments were made to work as arrays. They spread the cost over multiple power sources. The idea was the same if that was individuals or condensed power like the grains. Just have more than one power source, and you could do some incredible things. In reality, stopping the world in its tracks was a bit of a tall order. You would need more power than the world could supply.
Runes were different. They worked by a very simple system of yes and no. Sometimes just a yes or no, was enough. What he had planned for these stones was a bit more complex. Now that he had three, he made one containing air and light mana. The sequence of them completing their intended jobs was also important to get right. It took him, at a guess by the sun, an hour just to have the rune sequences put down right. He ended up having to divide it into two seperat sequences since he wasn't exactly an expert on the practical application of runes yet. The other two would be easier, though. The second and third rocks he engraved a rune sequence on consisted of a sequence for an 80/20 mix of life and light mana to release. He engraved in five seconds to start proximity check on it that kept the main sequence from starting unless the criteria were met of three entities sensed near the rock.
He went looking for a way up on the roof through one of the windows and found one with an old metal ladder attached to the outside of the building. It was close to the staircase he had covered by the trapdoor. The less-than-ideal part was that he would need to pull himself around the overhang, so he summoned the rope he had found in the dimensional bag and used it to create an extra rung between two of the roof beams and fervently hoped it would hold his weight and not let him fall three floors down on rocks. He wasn't feeling ready to test out the limits of Revitalize just yet. If it held, he would have a way to get back inside without tearing up the roof. Taking a breath, he swung himself out and got a hold of the overhang and a boot on one of the ladder rungs. To his relief, it was as sturdy under his feet as when he had tested them with his hands earlier. Shimmering up, he got a leg over and, with his new strength, managed to roll over and lay flat on his back on the shingles that made ou the roof. They felt and looked like slate, so he would never have done that if it was wet outside. It was strange, but he could see so much more than when he had been inside. It was like the world had opened before his eyes.
In the distance to what he thought was the east was a large green area. He imagined that to be a good place to set up camp. That many plants probably meant a river or something similar. Rivers normally had dinner coming in to slake their thirst. To the north, he could see massive highrises like termite mounds dominating an otherwise flat landscape. There seemed to be more bridges over smaller buildings and large roads running down under the cityscape too. To the west, he could see more of the same as what he found himself in, but it stretched out as far as he could see. It was a strangely sad sight. To the south, he saw the buildings become shorter and smaller, but there was darkness there. The smog thickened the further south he looked, eventually stopping his sight far earlier than in the other directions. He decided that while the South probably had a lot going for it, it wasn't the place he wanted to explore at the moment.
With a last look of appreciation at the strangeness he found himself in, he went across the roof to look down at the intersection. Hopefully, this would hide him well enough. He guessed he had about five hours of sunlight left, which should still leave him a lot of time to find a safe place to hunker down after he tested his theory. Summoning the three rocks he had prepared and the three grains of condensed power, he separated the first from the last two rocks before slotting in the grain of power where it was supposed to go and throwing it down into the middle of the intersection. The moment the rock hit the road, it didnt bounce or crack. Instead, it started making a high-pitched sound, like a kettle was proclaiming its water was boiling to the world. The thing about most lesser undead was that they were largely instinctual, and a few things exited them more than sudden high-pitched and loud sounds. That or sudden movements. They loved sudden movements more than kittens loved grasshoppers. Ambros was mostly relieved that the impact gate had engraved on it worked as intended and that it hadn't spewed out its shrill sound while he threw the rock.
Watching with interest, he saw the nine zombies lurk to a stop and scramble over each other to make it down the street first. The four doing the biting circle were also making their way toward the center of the intersection, as did all three of the ones on the left road. It was a success, he thought with a grin. Until he saw more zombies start streaming out of houses and making their way toward the intersection. A lot more zombies than he thought would be around. He easily counted a couple of hundred. Among them, he could also see the crawling gait of ghouls, slipping in and out of buildings, shying away from the sun.
That was a bit more than he had expected. He only had two more rocks too. Damn, he was an idiot while feeling the slate that covered the roof. Alright, so he had plenty of stone to make rune sequences on. He wouldn't need to make them all that complex either, by the looks of it. There only remained to test if the second part of his plan worked as he hoped it would.
The shrill sound the stone down in the intersection was making suddenly stopped as it had located enough moving bodies around to go into sequence two. Ambros got one of his two remaining rocks ready while closing his eyes. When he saw a flash of light behind his closed eyelids, he flicked the rock toward where the first rock had landed. This one wouldn't be so bright since it was mostly life-based mana. Looking over the overhang, he watched in interest as most of the zombies seemed to stagger and fall over each other, at least the ones around a hundred steps from the previous flash of light. It should have been enough to burn out any eyes the undead had, so none of them would see where the next rock was coming from. Cursing himself for not increasing the body count order for detonation on the previous rune stone, he threw the next rune stone down on the sixteen zombies gathered around where the noise and flash stone had landed earlier. It took two more seconds before it detonated, but he watched as the closest sixteen zombies turned to dust, and a few of the ones within fifty or so steps took damage. The closer ones seemed to lose some of their flesh, but mostly it was skin that got peeled away from their bodies.
Ambros sat waiting, hoping this part worked or the entire thing would have been a big waste of time and possibly put him in an extremely dangerous situation. A full minute passed before the text appeared in front of his eyes.
Battle Award
320 Exp
480 Sp.
Do you wish to loot the corpses?
It took him a moment to get over the feeling of leveling up. Yeah, that could become addictive fast, he thought.
Name: Ambros Mardux
Race: Human, variant. Grafted Primus modus
Titles: Eques
Class: Arcanist
Level: 1
Experience: 217/689
System rank: Questor
Circle: Neophyte
Step: 0/6
System points: 2,580
Body: 5 ( E )
Mind: 5 ( E )
Spirit: 5 ( E )
Unspent attribute points: 2
Active Skill: Analyze ( F ), Meditation ( F ), Arcane Sight ( D ), Sanctum ( F )
Passive Skill: Mana-Core ( F ), Revitalize ( F ), Omnilingual ( A )
Spells: Arcane Bolt ( F ), Arcane Shield ( F ), Control Heat ( F ), Control Earth ( F ), Control Wind ( F ), Control Water ( F )
Two new attribute points and not touching them without a System node. He did feel slightly better, as if he was more real in a strange way. At level two, his Arcane Bolt spell would double in damage if he understood the System correctly, while doubling in damage from almost nothing didnt seem like a lot. It could become a good tool to use in the fight until he got a few more levels under his belt and could cause some ranged damage without rune stones.
The Arcane aspect of mana was strange by other chosen paths to power. It wasn't set in stone like other mana types like fire, wind or light. It was a combination of things. What it was a combination of largely depended on the user's understanding of reality. That was one of the main reasons Arcanists constantly sought out new knowledge, forgotten tomes or even just sought glimpses into the reality of creation and destruction. Peered into the fabric that was reality. The more understanding an Arcanist had, the more power they could, in effect, wield over their domain when they one day ascended into becoming a Paragon. While they didn't stop growing at Paragon, it was an enormous advantage the class had when starting on that journey. His Arcane spells would take on more effects as his understanding of the matter he was using Arcana on grew, and he delved deeper into the mysteries of the multiverse. While it was weaker than, say, a firebolt against the undead, the more Ambros understood necrotic magic and the more he understood the reality of the undead's existence, the more his Arcane magic would take on properties to counter or help depending on what he cast on one of them. He could, for example, set the criteria the Arcane Bolt should paralyze the undead or, if he really delved deep into understanding them, simply disintegrate the undead if his mana was powerful enough. The possibilities were, in fact, endless and only hampered by his own understanding and power.
With a shake of his body, he gathered his thoughts and chose yes to the system prompt. Sixteen new ears turned up in his dimensional bag, but more importantly, so did sixteen new grains of power. The plan was a success for the most part a success. Now he needed to hurry up and make more rune stones before it got too dark.
A few hours later and he had ten more stones. It was going faster as he learned to scratch on the pieces of slate, but he had to change the key he used once already. Laying himself flat against the roof with a view over the intersection, he could see zombies had spread out all over the streets again. Some probably managed to stumble into buildings together with the slightly more intelligent ghouls. Intelligence was probably stretching it, but they had some slight inkling of self-preservation, unlike zombies.
Summoning a rune stone and a grain of power, Ambros was about to slot it in when he felt someone was watching him again. Carefully he turned his head to the side and looked out of the side of his eye, scanning behind and to the side of the street roofs and windows. Nothing there this time either, but it had happened a few times during the last few hours and had him on edge. He almost turned out Arcane Sight, but that would light him up like a beacon to anything close. It also was limited in the range it could see spikes of mana. Trying to shake the feeling for now, he focused on the zombies again, made some last-minute adjustments to the instructions in the rune stone, and slotted the grain of power before throwing it gently to the center of the crossroad. The mana that perforated the rune stone would keep it from cracking until it was spent. While the rune stone was making the high-pitched tone of a boiling tea kettle, Ambros scanned the roofs and windows again. Still nothing.
The zombies didnt let him wait long. They turned to the sound as one and started scrambling towards it, some even on all four with surprising speed. The ghouls were a bit more difficult to convince and seemed to be holding back for now. He watched in anticipation as more and more of the zombies were within the radius for the next sequence to start. He had been greedy and set it at forty entities, but at the last moment, a large group had made it together and triggered the rune stone's next phase with close to sixty zombies in the blast radius. A quick flash of light followed by a ring of life mana. It was almost beautiful to watch as the zombie's natural resistance was weakened by light mana and then see them getting hit by a wave of life mana. Cracks appeared all over their body before turning them into a pillar of dust that was blown away by the expanding ring of mana.
Battle Award
320 Exp
480 Sp.
Do you wish to loot the corpses?
Basking in the feeling of getting not one but two levels in one go for a moment, Ambros confirmed the looting of the dust that made up the corpses. He got 56 zombie ears and 56 grains of power. This wasn't such a terrible day after all.