Lifetime Achievement earned: Human(Common) Killed: 1
Lifetime Achievement earned: Kills Via Tamed Monster[Evolved Skeleton]: 12
Congratulations Sera!
You have leveled up, your available class options are: Barbarian(BRB), Bard(BRD), Fighter(FTR), Hexblade(HEX), Rogue(ROG), Ranger(RGR), Spellblade(SPB). Some of your options have been overwritten by statuses: Non-Chaotic, Evil, Str<14, Int<13. Would you like to level up?
She finally takes the time to read the notification as she sits down in her bed. Sera took her clothes off, but didn’t have it in her to wash any of the blood out of them or off of her. There’s not that much on her skin, so she just didn’t bother yet. She looks at the notification, and struggles to figure why exactly killing someone is something she’s rewarded for. She doesn’t think it’s wrong, with a clearer head now, she knows she could do it again, if it was a choice between them or herself and Vey, but thinking about that sort of thing right now is… a bit much for her. Sera can do what she feels like she’s always done whenever something bad happens. Waiting for Vey.
And eventually, he comes. She sees that he’s not done any more cleaning himself, and Vey doesn’t sit down or anything, just stands there and looks at her. Sera really wishes he had expressions to read, but the fact that he’s focusing on her is enough to calm her down.
“I leveled up… I could pick a class now, if I wanted…” Sera chokes out the words, trying not to fall back into the chaos her mind was in earlier. “So that’s… something.”
“I figured you would. I did too. Do you… Hmm…” Vey takes a step towards her, and offers her a hand to help her up. Sera takes it, and Vey finishes the thought. “Let’s clean ourselves off, then we can talk more while you warm up. I have the skeletons working on a crude doorstop to keep people out for now.”
Sera nods, and doesn’t let go of Vey’s hand when he tries to break away. He squeezes her hand gently, and she returns it, then finally allows him to break away, a small exchange Sera used to do with her parents, but now uses it for something more meaningful to her.
--
Vey lets Sera try and clean in-between the joints on his elbows and shoulders, and she doesn’t do it forcefully enough to hurt him, but sadly also doesn’t do it forcefully enough to actually do anything. Regardless, he now feels clean, and a cursory inspection of Sera proves that she is too. Vey carries her(mostly because he knows she likes being carried) back into her bedroom, and sets her on the bed. She starts covering herself up in the increasingly higher quality blanket she’s been consistently fiddling with, ever since coming here initially.
Vey goes ahead and starts his own level up to level 5 as he sits down on the ground next to Sera’s bed, and asks the first necessary question. “What classes do you have as options?”
“Uh… Let me read them again.” Sera answers, and Vey gives her some time to do so by fixing her blanket to actually cover her feet. “Some are crossed out, so just Fighter and Hexblade. I… don’t know about those, though.”
“‘System help, class’ is the command to get information about them, if you didn’t know.” Vey informs her, and checks the options she stated as he sees her doing it as well.
System Help
Subject; Fighter
Fighters are the most basic, but also most versatile, practitioners of martial combat. They focus equally on the three physical stats Str, Con, Dex, and have immense freedom in the skills and weapons they can use. A fighter’s biggest strength is the ability to acquire a larger number of skills and proficiencies than other classes.
System Help
Subject; Hexblade
Hexblades are a specialized melee combatant, focusing on passive buffs and debuffs(auras) and targeted, temporary curses(hexes). Hexblades use charisma to dictate the effectiveness of their auras and hexes, but also make use of the three physical stats equally for melee combat. A hexblade’s biggest strength is the particular effectiveness of many of their abilities against mages.
Vey is kind of worried by Hexblade, understandably, since the idea of a class inflicted curses, temporary or not, is terrifying, as is the idea of those curses being incredibly effective at killing mages like himself. Hexblade is, however, the obvious choice for Sera’s extraordinarily high and apparently growing charisma stat. Come to think of it, maybe that stat is the reason Vey is the reason she counts as having ‘tamed’ Vey.
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“Vey… I don’t like these options…” Sera says it softly, almost as if she doesn’t actually want to be heard. “Neither of them looks right to me… You said you wanted to be a wizard… I don’t feel like that with these.”
Vey considers that for a moment. While it is true that if Hexblade’s abilities are tied to charisma, it’s the natural choice, but by that token, shouldn’t Vey have tried to be a fighter, and focus on commander-like abilities? It makes sense to him that he would’ve gone for wizard no matter what, because that’s what he wanted more than anything, back when that was the only way he could feel. Why should she be any different?
“What are the other options, do any of them ‘feel’ right?” Vey turns to face her fully, rather than simply turning his head every time, and focuses on her aura for a moment with his Innate Arcane Sight. He wonders if it’s just because of how much time she spends with him, but remembers the fight today, and instead switches his theory to it being involved with her being able to level up. Her aura looks like something now, like a film over her skin as opposed to something beneath the surface, a weaker version of what all the stronger-looking and presumably leveled attackers today had looked like.
“I like the way Spellblade reads and sounds. It’s magic, like you, and I liked practicing with the sword, that felt ‘right’...” Sera plays with her hair, something Vey associates with nervousness, and he reaches a hand out to take hers, mostly to stop her from messing up her hair, he likes looking at it the way it is. She takes it in hers, and continues. “I just don’t meet the requirements… I think it’s the intelligence one, cuz of the description.”
System Help; Spellblade.
System Help
Subject; Spellblade
Spellblades are specialized melee fighters that incorporate certain types of magic, namely most buff spells, combat spells with touch-range, and a select few others into their swordplay. Their spellcraft relies on the Int stat, but their actual casting uses Cha. A spellblade’s biggest strength is the ability to more seamlessly weave spells into melee combat than any other class.
“I’m probably a bit biased here, given that I’m a wizard, but if wizard wasn’t an option, and I’d known about this, I would have picked it instantly. Are you sure this is the only one you have that feels right? What requirements do you think you need?” Vey realizes he rambled on a little more than he meant to, but Sera thankfully still looks attentive. He squeezes her hand, and she squeezes it back. Vey’s not sure why, but she likes that, and he likes the smile she gets on her face when he does it.
“Intelligence 13… I’m at… 12…” Sera’s ears droop as she admits the deficiency she thinks is responsible at the moment, and Vey contemplates. “I could try and work at getting that up… but if it’s one of the other things the message says it might be, I don’t know if I can do it.”
“I can help you study by having you help me work on spellcraft, since it sounds like you’ll need to do the same thing as well. What other things might you need?”
“A chaotic alignment, which I’m pretty sure is impossible for me… Strength 14, I’m at 11, so that would probably hurt… and I think ranger’s the only one that cares about me being evil, so that’s it.” Sera, somewhat sheepishly, sinks lower into her bed as she admits to being evil, which leaves Vey somewhat confused.
“Why do you look ashamed of that?” Vey cocks his head as he asks, struggling to put the pieces together on his own.
“Since it means I really can’t go back to living anywhere but with you, even if I wanted to… People with evil alignments don’t usually get to choose what they do with their life, its usually reform, die, or run, and I don’t think I can reform and keep our pact, so… I'd choose us, and our pact.” Vey nods at Sera’s surprisingly resolute sounding statement, and tries to think of some way to return the gesture, but can’t come up with one before she continues. “A-Anyways, back to the class stuff…”
“Right, I can help you train Int, strength is something… wouldn’t you be able to train that just like intelligence and wisdom can be studied for?” Vey thinks about it for a moment. “I can’t train physical stats because I don’t have a body that has biological components, but surely for you?”
“It’s not that simple… I could train up to 14, sure, but then I’d need to maintain that training almost constantly because of how extreme that buff is. The higher you increase a stat by training, the more you need to use it to keep it.” Sera shakes her head, then shrugs as she continues. “If I wanted to get a more permanent boost… Keeping up with a training buff for a full year supposedly makes it permanent.”
“That’s quite rough for you biological creatures…” Vey admits, realizing how truly difficult something like that would be almost immediately.
“Yeah, but there’s got to be something about being an undead that I’d consider terrible, so far you’ve made it seem like it’s all upsides.” Sera joking asks, letting out a small giggle as she finishes.
“I can’t reproduce in any way, shape, or form. I don’t have a convenient method of stress relief like sex or sleeping or eating food, I don’t have a family by default, and from what I know, almost everyone alive wants me dead by default.” Vey pokes the crack in his skull and shows it to Sera. Sera goes quiet for a few moments, so Vey tries to think of something to lighten the mood. “Hey, it’s not like I’d want to be an elf or a human either, everything you’ve told me about socializing and having to live with and around people sounds like it sucks.”
Sera thinks on Vey’s words for a moment, as while she does think all of those things would be pretty bad as an undead, her actual thoughts are that she’d be ok with that, if it was to stay with you. That’s dumb, and she knows it’s dumb, she’ll easily live another couple hundred years provided there are no more incidents like today, so she won’t have to worry about any of the constraints of time that might otherwise inform such a stupid thought. She lets her thoughts go, and tries to stay on topic.
“So the plan, you teach me spellcraft, I try to help you, then we see if I can become a spellblade?” Sera asks, pretty sure that’s the plan, but wanting the confirmation from the person who has actually leveled up before.
“Yeah, I finished my level up in the middle of our discussion, by the way. It’s not like it’s some big ordeal that you’ll need to go to sleep for or anything.” Comes Vey’s response without a moment’s hesitation.
“That stuff is just for monster evolutions!?” Sera's shock at the information that leveling up is 'not some big ordeal' quickly fades into a deep curiosity on why, then, so few people that aren't adventurers have levels.
“And when you get tired normally, yeah. Oh, sorry for using the sleep spell on you earlier, I didn’t want you to panic any more than you were.” Vey apologizes for something Sera didn’t even know he’d done, which makes her quite happy, actually.
“I don’t mind… It was a good idea, and waking up in your arms was… very comforting, after that. But I still want revenge.” Sera lets a devious grin slip onto her face as he realizes that Vey’s apology means she can probably get him to agree to almost anything. Actually, she realizes he’d probably do what she’s about to ask anyways, but the fun of feeling devious is the point. “You’re going to sleep tonight. I’ll try and teach you how it works.”