Level Up!
Class: WZD
As WZD 1 is your first class level, you have earned a +1 to the class’s relevant stats of Con and Int. You have gained the Preparation Spellcasting(Wizard 1) skill! You have gained the Spellcraft(Wizard) skill! You now have a maximum MP value of 8! You now have access to the Spells Available for Casting menu for spell preparation! Your limit on prepared spells per day is now 7! Due to the Unique Tier title Arcane Thesis, you now have access to the Alacritous Cogitation spell-like ability!
Congratulations on your Level Up, Vey!
Vey reads the notification with pride in its nonexistent heart, the proof that its efforts were not in vain and the validation of its selfish desire made manifest in the text box in its mind. It checks its status, and to its delight, finds that its [Light] spell is marked as being prepared and available to cast. Vey would cry tears of joy if it had the fluids and eyes necessary to do so, but contents itself with its own thoughts for a moment instead.
Vey looks at the ball of light over the table, at the first spell it ever successfully cast, and bows to it in thanks. Now in a decidedly good mood, Vey delicately carries the paper with the [Light] spell on it to the wooden chest the necromancer had used for storing valuable items like coins or jewels, and empties said contents into a pile in the corner, and replaces them with the single piece of paper, gently resting in the bottom of the box.
This action is not illogical to Vey, being an undead created from assorted bones likely not all from the same person, Vey is intrinsically pragmatic and practical, and understands that while it needs a spellbook, it should keep backup copies of all of its spells in a safe location, in case of the destruction or loss of said spellbook. As for what it should use for its spellbook, Vey decides that such a question can probably wait until it has both more than one spell to write in it, and it has dealt with the pair of prying eyes poking through the fur flaps of the chamber.
In the time that Vey was making its breakthrough and the subsequent level-up and silent celebration that followed, the elf girl had washed off all of the excess blood from her body, and was now huddling in the doorway, shivering and watching Vey. She notices the [Light] spell hovering a few inches above the wooden table, and her eyes widen in surprise as she correlates the skeleton’s earlier actions with the magic now in effect. She swallows, and is hesitant to enter the chamber, fearing that the skeleton might decide to kill her with whatever powers it just… developed? Awoke to? Obtained?
When Vey turns to look at her, though, she almost falls over onto her butt in surprise, but manages to gracefully grab on to the fur flaps, pull them off of the wooden rod that had been holding them up, and fall into a heap with a thud. A high pitched ‘Ow!’ echoes in the dungeon for a moment, before a stream of curses in both common and elven spew from her mouth. Vey, of course, finds this humorous, but doesn’t know exactly how to express this. What Vey does know how to do, as is evident to the elven girl, is be unintentionally intimidating.
As she pulls the furs off of herself and rubs her left leg which bore the brunt of the fall, she freezes in place as the skeleton approaches her, mouth open, walking with heavy, purposed footsteps that remind her of the soldiers that sometimes march through the village. She closes her eyes as the skeleton comes to a stop about five feet in front of her.
“I want you to tell me about the outside, and the village you come from.” It demands of her in that same unnatural and cruel-sounding voice, and she winces from the sound before she manages to comprehend what it actually said. She rubs her cold arms with her hands, which conveniently also covers her exposed chest. She doesn’t know to what extent a skeleton would care about that sort of thing, but it is more of a reflexive action than a conscious one anyways.
“W-why would… you want to know that?” She asks in reply almost instinctively, forgetting to consider that such an undead might torture or kill her for talking back without feeling a single shred of emotion for it. Or worse. It might enjoy it.
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“Because I do not know. I know that you are an elf, that the village is a two days or so walk from here, and that the necromancer occasionally bought supplies from there, but I know nothing else.” The skeleton replies, with notably less malice in its tone. The girl wonders if perhaps the skeleton wasn’t intending to speak in such a malicious and grating way earlier, but simply didn’t know how to talk to people. She shivers again, the cold stone floor against her butt and legs and the cold water clinging to her becoming too much to endure.
“I… I can tell you some things… For starters… My name is Sera, will you let me live?” Sera asks with no small amount of fear and a smaller amount of hope in her voice.
This was the very question Vey had been hoping to avoid having to answer, since it couldn’t even answer the question to itself. Perhaps the best way to answer Sera’s question is with honesty. Perhaps Vey should lie, or simply ask another question of its own to distract her. Perhaps it should kill her now to avoid having to ponder such things further. After a moment’s thought, Vey replies.
“I am Vey. And I do not know.” Vey replies as calmly as it can manage. It has figured out by now that it should hiss less when talking, and it should give more time between its words, and its efforts show on Sera’s face when she visibly comprehends Vey’s statement far faster than she had any of its previous ones.
“I… I see… C-can I at least… Fuck… Can I at least warm up a bit in there?” Sera feels her eyes starting to tear up again, but she manages to force it down for now, since the skele-since Vey didn’t directly say it had plans to kill her, she shouldn’t give up yet.
“Yes. I do not require to rest as the previous occupant did. The food and bed are available to you until I decide otherwise.” Vey responds confidently. Vey knows it could kill her practically at any time; it knows children don’t have the melee relevant stats, namely Str and Con, to put up a proper fight, and it knows that she is much slower in a sprinting match than Vey, so she can’t run either. Vey smiles internally in self satisfaction, and supposes there’s no point in hiding it-It enjoys the thought of having someone at its mercy-but understands that this exact scenario is what Vey rebelled against so violently today, and Vey knows it is not sustainable.
Ideally, Vey should choose one of two options: just kill her, or just let her go, but strangely, Vey doesn’t actually want to do either of those. For Sera’s part, as she flips around and uses her hands to push herself up, begins fiddling with the furs from the door flap and the dislodged wooden pole, before dislodging the furs and motioning with her hands that she’d like to walk past Vey into the room, clearly intent on using the furs to cover herself as she warms up.
Sera thinks this intent is clear, but to Vey, it is not, as Vey doesn’t understand why the girl is so intent on both covering her body in general, and specifically hiding herself from Vey. It allows her to pass by itself, and watches her back curiously as she walks, but turns away as she begins sorting through which furs are clean and can be used, which are not, and so on. Vey walks out of the now cover-less chamber entrance into the ritual room, and notes that the girl-Sera-has hung all of the previously bloodsoaked but now just soaked-soaked furs on the wood and metal standing rack that was previously near the altar, but the Sera has evidently moved to sit near the right of the chamber entrance.
Vey wonders idly if she knew what its former master had actually used the torture rack for, but decides that given how Sera has been acting since whatever it was that its former master had done to her, it would be best not to tell her either way. Vey also notes that the fountain is at only about 1/4s capacity, and based on Vey’s experience after washing the rags from the corpses, it won’t be full again for about two days. Vey silently hopes that amount of water is sufficient for however much Sera needs to drink, since it would feel like an extreme waste if she dies of dehydration because she used too much water cleaning herself.
Vey touches one of the hanging furs, and presses some of the water out of it, before letting it be instead grabbing the whole pole, carrying it over to the area by the drain, and setting it back down again. It wonders if Sera hadn’t considered that the water that drips off of the furs would have nowhere to go if it wasn’t by the drain, or if she just wasn’t strong enough to move it.
Vey makes its way to the corpse-room, which is what Vey has officially decided to call the room with the newly installed stone table and the corpse-pile, and finds that several rats have once again moved in. Vey feels genuine confusion for a few moments, because it remembers thoroughly eradicating the rat infestation with the help of its fellows, but supposes that these must then be new rats. Vey makes a note to come and kill these new rats on its lonesome, ideally using some sort of magic, to try and advance its wizard class and expand its knowledge.
Vey then makes its way to the entrance, and confirms, with a small amount of sadness, that with the necromancer dead, the alarm spell on the entrance is gone. Vey’s non-existent heart sinks as it realizes it would have no way of knowing if a hostile force is in the dungeon now, and resolves to use its [Undead Lieutenant] ability to rally the troops, as it were, and organize a more strict and less conspicuous defense of its home.