“Which one do you want to pick?” Sera asks, and Vey just looks into her eyes for a moment. Since they got back, her aura has exploded. She definitely isn’t lying to Vey about having leveled up multiple times, he thinks.
“I don’t know. I don’t want to rush and pick one. The first time, they were all either easily dismissed or so similar that I didn’t think it mattered, but now…” Vey trails off, thinking about the evolution options a little harder, before finally settling on a course of action. “I think I’ll wait to see what the new magics I can make look like, and pick based on that.”
“Ah!” Vey re-focuses on Sera as she blinks to herself for a moment, looking obviously confused. “My level ups, I’ll probably also get stronger magic, I didn’t think about that…”
Vey thinks to himself as she sits back for a bit. Five levels in one combat… We did kill that priest and thief, and all the other people who we killed probably contributed, but isn’t that still too fast? Vey thinks back to its growth over the last few months, and comes to a somewhat alarming conclusion. He has leveled up very, very rapidly compared to what all of the information in his books had and even what Sera has stated, and he doesn’t really know why. Sure, killing the necromancer and figuring out magic leveling him up makes sense. Sure, defeating an entire party of adventurers himself would probably bring him up to at least their level, and- Vey stops when he hits on what might actually be going on.
“Sera, how fast do people usually gain levels? You’re going from zero levels to eight in just a month or two, that doesn’t seem normal.” Vey decides to ask first, just in case there’s something he’s missing, but Sera shakes her head before responding.
“No, now that you mention it, that is weird. Even if I do have the achievement credit for killing over a hundred and fifty people now, that isn’t eight levels worth of achievements. At least, I don’t think so. Most soldiers don’t even have levels, even after multiple battles. My dad was a hunter for over a hundred years, at least, and didn’t have a level.” Sera takes her hands off of Vey for a moment, and puts her left hand under her chin as a thoughtful look reaches her eyes.
“I think there might be something going on with our rates of growth. What’s the common thread between all of the times we’ve leveled up?” Vey tries to probe for more, but there’s an unmistakable creeping feeling in him now, similar to what he felt when Saxt tried to kill him with magic, but amplified a thousand times over. “We level up when we come back to the dungeon, not before. Dragon squad also shouldn’t have evolved so quickly, either…”
Sera’s eyes go wide at that, and Vey tightens his hold on her body. He doesn’t know why the feeling is there, but he can tell that Sera is starting to feel it too, judging from her stunned silence, and the way she closes the gap between them more. He lets her nuzzle her way under his chin, and moves his arms up her body to more closely match her embrace. Vey thinks that the dungeon itself, or perhaps something in it, has something to do with the frankly weird and absurd way they have both grown in such a short time, but has no theories just yet. The closest thing he has is the various disparate points of information, none of which feel useful just yet.
He’s always leveled up, or received the level up notification at least, in the dungeon. It is always ‘after your most recent encounter’ in the notification, but at least with the caravan he raided, he was well and truly both outside of the dungeon when the fight concluded and he spent a significant amount of time not in combat before returning. And yet, he didn’t actually check the notification until he was in the dungeon, and didn’t go through with the level up till he was near the dungeon’s ‘heart’, the fountain.
The only odd piece of data is Sera’s first level ups from the battle at the hilltop, the cavern there is pretty far away from the dungeon, all things considered, and yet she still showed astonishing growth there. Vey thinks that this might be explained away by the water from the fountain that Sera has as her exclusive source of water might be a connection to the dungeon, or perhaps Vey himself counts for that. One way or the other, that piece of information is the main reason he can’t form any theories. Either it discounts any theories he could make, or the implications ask for more answers he doesn’t have.
“Vey… I think we need to learn more about dungeons. And this dungeon, specifically… I think I know where we should start. Have you looked at the altar with your arcane sight?”
--
Sera holds Vey’s hand as they look at the crude fur blanket Sera had thrown over the altar. She’d done that a while ago, mostly because she was just tired of looking at it, but now, she’s pretty confident that taking a look at it is a very, very good idea. She lets go of Vey’s hand, and pulls the fur blanket off, and turns to look at Vey. She notes the way his eyes look at her, then at the altar, then at the fountain, then repeats. She decides he’s going to need a moment, and wraps her naked body in the fur blanket out of boredom. While Vey is looking and thinking, she decides to perform a more ‘practical’ examination.
She sits on the altar, and looks around the chamber. The fountain room of course has the rules of their pact carved into one wall, the fountain, the drain in the corner, and the altar she’s sitting on, but not much else. If anything, for being the deepest important room in the dungeon, it’s a little bit boring, with not much to it. Rooms like the workshop have cool looking decorative carvings on some of the stonework, most of the large hall chambers have scones on the walls that clearly held torches long ago, before Vey used [Permanent Light] to illuminate the place.
In a way, it almost feels unfinished, as if whatever this place was built for, it never got used. The unfinished tunnel up in the barracks room is probably the best evidence for that, since it means that either it was never finished, or someone tried to renovate the place and caved some of it in while trying. It is a dungeon, and dungeons are all unilaterally classified as such because they’ve been there longer than anyone has history, but that also means there’s no real rule or reason to what they’re for or why they’re there. Some of them, like the Shrines, have obvious purposes; they’re ancient shrines to gods, but most don’t. Maybe this one never had a purpose, because it wasn’t finished? Her ears twitch at the thought.
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“Sera, do you feel anything, sitting on that altar?” Vey asks, and she focuses back in on reality enough to shake her head. “The altar has an aura of magic, but not… The altar isn’t magic, I don’t think. I think something inside of it is magic.”
“What, you mean like, built into it?” She asks hesitantly, and taps her knuckles against the stone. Sera slides off of it, and kneels on the ground. She runs a finger along the top, then sides, then rubs the dust she acquired on the furs. “I don’t see how it could be a hidden tomb or chest or anything, so it’d have to be ‘built’ into it, right?”
“I don’t know… There’s an aura of…” Sera watches as he focuses on it again for a moment before looking back at her and continuing. “I don’t know what type of magic it is, but it isn’t divine magic or any spell school I know. And it’s not really a full aura, more like the focal point for something that should have an aura, but doesn’t. That’s the feeling it gives me, at least.”
“So, do you think it’s something sealed in it? Like an artifact or magic item or something?” Sera asks, and tries to stifle the fear in her voice to no avail.
“I… I don’t know enough about either.” Vey admits, and gives her a light shrug. “But the reason I asked if you felt anything is because its weird magical signature thing has a sort of… ‘tendril’, I think is the right word, connecting to you, and I can sort of make out more pointing to the direction of the other undead upstairs. I think it has one connected to me too, but I can’t see it. That might be why it felt weird to think about it earlier.”
“That’s… unsettling… Do you think maybe that connection is causing us to grow faster?” She asks, but she thinks the answer is ‘yes’, regardless of what either of them say. Her mind races, but she knows that she probably doesn’t have even half a hope of figuring out what’s going on if even Vey is stumped. Not being smart enough does not preclude one from making wild assumptions, however. But before she can reach any truly harebrained ideas, she spots Vey’s unfocused eyes, and decides it’s probably for the best if they don’t think about this any more just yet. “Vey… We have level ups to do, and I’m still nearly about to pass out from exhaustion, so can we sleep, and think about this after we’ve done our routines tomorrow?”
--
She’d initiated her level up the moment they were comfortable in bed together. Sera had taken the time to fully explain the way her first level up had made her feel before she passed out, and so Vey had taken it upon himself to more or less pin her with his body. If nothing else, not being able to struggle against the way her entire body seemed to scream out for relief was probably very good for her. She’d passed out almost immediately after the pain reached the tipping point, which she hopes is an intentional part of the leveling process and not some horrible side effect. Actually, it probably is a horrible side effect. The difference in the experiences is probably because of how many more level ups she did all at once this time, and she imagines that if she’d leveled up one at a time, it would’ve been little more than a brief bit of exhaustion and a short nap as opposed to…
She’s not sure how long she was out for, actually. Usually she has a decent idea of how long she’s been asleep for, but not this time, which means she was probably out for a while. She certainly feels like she’s been resting a while, enough that she’s aching to do something with her body. Said body also feels different, too. That’s something she should definitely check her status for, though.
Level and Hit Die:
8, 8
Current HP/MHP
56/56
Armor Class
14
MP
96
Class:
Spellblade
Name:
Sera Eranda Eclir Luvil
Race:
Elf
Subrace:
Undead High Elf
Age:
16
Alignment:
Neutral Evil
Height
5’4 ft
Attributes:
MHP
STR
CON
DEX
INT
WIS
CHA
SPD
LCK
NAC
Base:
56
12
12
12
11
10
19
30ft
-4
10
Race:
0
0
0
4
0
0
0
0
0
0
Training:
0
2
2
2
0
0
0
0
0
0
Study:
0
NA
NA
NA
2
3
0
NA
NA
NA
Total:
56
14
14
18
13
13
19
30ft
-4
10
Proficiencies
Skills(Passive)
Skills(Active)
Magic Effects
Pacts and Curses
Simple Tool Proficiency
Elven Dexterity
Spellblade(Touch, Ray)
Foreverqueen’s Shroud
Pactbound(Vey)
Simple and Martial Weapon Proficiency
Undead Endurance
Flash Cast(Self Target, Ally Target)
Beauty of the Foreverqueen
Light and Medium Armor Proficiency
Appendage Crusher
Aura Armor
Spontaneous Spellcasting(Spellblade 8)
Spell Storage(Spellblade 8)
Her very first thought is that she’s grown another inch, which probably means that specific part of her growth is just her natural body’s growth and not related to any stats or levels. She’s gained one point each in her physical stats, probably because of the level ups, and her charisma has gone up again, probably because of her blessing. The improvements to her spellblade abilities and her vastly improved mana pool are good too, if a little bit dull in terms of flashiness. Aura Armor is an interesting name for a skill, since the way Vey talks about seeing magic aura with arcane sight doesn’t really mesh with the idea of using it as armor, but maybe it means something else. She doesn’t really feel like reading it right now, anyways. There’s something more important that she remembers as she finishes looking it over. For starters, she’s starving and thirsty, but more importantly-
“Vey… You can get up now, I don’t know how long I’ve been out for, but I’m up now.”
“Two days, almost. Don’t worry, I never left.” Vey shifts his weight off of her, and to her surprise, he’s the one to push his head forward to hers for a kiss.