Potions: I drank one of my Potions of Iron Skin as the demons came toward us, giving a little boost to my Physical Resistance. Then I cast a Supercharged Telekinetic Hammer and blew half of the crowd back along the pass, knocking them into one another and sending them sprawling along the ground like a pack of upset bowling pins.

I stepped out in front and cast a Supercharged Haste on myself, stacking my Defense Rating higher even as the saurshrike reached me and triggered my Reactive Armor, which gave me yet another boost to Defense Rating that began to ebb away as more of them came in for the attack.

It didn’t matter: I had almost ten seconds of near-unhittability, and I started throwing out Purging Radiances. Cuby took a little attention as she attacked my targets, but not enough to break her Mana Shield.

We’d come up with a plan via the mind link—I left three of them almost dead, but didn’t kill them. When I started taking more hits because my Reactive Armor had declined below its baseline, I let them break my Mana Shield and Cuby dropped the demons with low Hit Points, healing me through it while my Mana Shield spent ten seconds replenishing—after which point there were too few monsters left to matter.

And then we heard the cries of wyverns ahead—but we’d long since solved the wyverns. Fear them, board them, fear their rider, knock their rider off, and burn them to death in the air.

And so we fought our way up the mountain, growing ever better at anticipating our rivals. Psychic Parasite told us that the morthoths, while intelligent enough to give sensible orders, were angry, cruel creatures—the same instincts that led them to order wyverns to crash into us in hopes of crushing us could be used against them. The morthoths were faster than their corrupted footsoldiers, and when they came at the same time as the packs of their underlings, we could leap into the air, glide further down the mountain, and then take the morthoth out when it pulled ahead. The simple fact was that they didn’t have the wits to realize they needed to stay with their groups: they boiled with too much rage and hate to do anything but order everyone to attack.

And attack they did. Wave after wave; Cuby struck level 13 and I cracked Moment of Mastery for her so she could level in combat, grabbing a Technique Augment called Banishing Blow that helped her kill demons.

We fought on, both looking forward to when I’d hit level 11 and grab the Hierarch class. When things didn’t go our way, we could easily pull back, leaping and gliding further down the mountain to gain time to cast heals, store spells, even lay rune traps.

As we fought, I gained a kind of appreciation for the system that I’d never had before. It was strange to think about it: I’d realized how extraordinary it was that I was meeting people from alien species, even under these circumstances, but I’d never stopped to think of how incredible this place, this Colosseum, really was.

I was dodging swords, chains, and bolts of demonic power. As I cast my spells, my lightning-rod would whirl as my left hand, wreathed in a blue flame that hovered, flickered, and flared while I purged the demons from the face of Mount Mirrak. My simplest thoughts had become movements that might have required years of training—and it felt good. Despite our occasional retreats, despite grabbing everything we could from the demons—we kept the stones, but left the armor—we were pushing our way up the mountain.

And if things went wrong? We had 3 instant heals still stored up and an ability that would let us fly away without hindrance.

While we fought at the base of a great stone stairway, my Telekinetic Hammers dealing massive damage to the corrupted gnomes—I would leap behind them as they came, then throw them down the stairs—I found the greatest marker of our success.

I was actually close to running out of Energy.

I wouldn’t, of course—my level was only a few monsters away. But Energy was at 250, almost 15%, easily the lowest it had ever been. Sure, Supercharged buffs were expensive—the aegis spells and Cuby’s elemental weaponry were 5 out of my 17 per minute regeneration as it was.

But Mana Shield was a whole 30 Energy to regenerate its full 428 absorption, and it was taking the brunt of the damage, with some skirmishes seeing them take triple that amount in damage. Everything else cost between 10 and 20 Energy.

There was no real way to play conservatively, as far as we could see—without going hard, we’d take more damage overall, and Healing Light was less efficient than Mana Shield.

Our potions could tide me over for a while—close the gap between the Energy I needed to spend for level 12 and the Energy I’d actually have. We still had some: Cuby had been the only one to drink some, and that was while we traveled. But now she needed Stamina Potions for herself, and that left 8 Mana Potions for me. Enough for level 12, surely—but level 13?

I posed all of this to Cuby through the mind link: did we have the resources to assault the dungeon without having to take hour-long breaks so I could regenerate two-thirds of my Energy?

And Cuby’s answer was a simple thought: if Haroshi arrives before then, he’ll bring potions with him.

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I couldn’t help it. I started laughing.

We reached the top of the great stone steps and I was still laughing. A spirefiend landed before us, the biggest I’d seen:

Burning Spirefiend Patriarch – Level 12

—And I was still laughing as I tied its legs with a Hardlight Tether and the spirefiend, unable to attack the space between its legs, was forced to take off. I was laughing, almost maniacally, as I leapt on its back. And moments later—after a morthoth on the ground broke the tether and the spirefiend tried to land, only to be feared so that it fled again—I burned it from the sky and got a happy message even as I drifted down to join Cuby where she danced with the demons below:

Congratulations, you are now a level 11 Mage/Psychic!

You have a new Iconic Spell Slot. Open your Abilities pane to choose a new Iconic Spell.

You have a new Iconic Spell Slot. Open your Abilities pane to choose a new Iconic Spell.

Your Hit Points have increased by 70 and your Energy has increased by 130.

Human Adaptability increases each of your Strength, Agility, Focus, and Spirit by 2. You gain 2 stat points to distribute.

I cracked a Moment of Mastery, and time slowed: I saw Cuby, tensing to cartwheel out of the way of the morthoth’s chain as it rippled through the air toward her, her Hit Points full from the massive heal that killing the patriarch had just granted, two more cultists casting spells from where they stood behind their demon commander.

I opened my character sheet and put two points into Spirit.

I opened my inventory and found the class card. Used it.

Choose which class precedes Hierarch:

Mage / Psychic

So I could pick mage, even though it didn’t meet the prerequisites of the class itself? Not bad. Both mage and psychic would be replaced from level 11 onward, but mage gave fewer Hit Points and more Mana. More importantly, Cuby had said that you only got to rechoose abilities from your—

Wait a second, I thought, watching Cuby spring off one heel in slow motion as the chain crept through the air toward her. Level 11 was an iconic spell. Somehow in all the commotion I’d almost missed it, expecting as I was to maybe get an Unnatural Confusion out of the new level.

I canceled the prompt to choose, holding off grabbing the Hierarch class just yet.

Then Moment of Mastery ceased to apply—I’d taken too long—and I watched Cuby fly backwards with typical style and grace, hands seeming to barely touch the ground before she was wheeling back onto her feet to face the morthoth.

A set of thoughts was quickly exchanged through the mind link as I cast another Moment of Mastery, a sort of:

Sorry! Gotta figure something out.

It’s okay! Take your time!

And time slowed again as my cast finished, I opened Ability Selection to find myself with a single option for each class, the only spell that I’d been offered and not taken: Invert Hostility and Mana Bomb.

It was a tough choice.

The greatest threat to us was Haroshi. Invert Hostility could burn his miracles, but Mana Bomb could be useful for farming past his level.

But then—could it? How many situations had I been in where I really, really needed an area of effect spell? It just hadn’t come up very much—and without the Free Spell augment that had come alongside Mana Bomb as part of my mage passive, the spell would gobble up Mana like a healer on crack.

And if area of effect attacks did come up, I had a card in my inventory.

I chose Invert Hostility:

Iconic Spell – Invert Hostility

Oral: Command

Movement: Full

Mental: Focus

Cost: 16 Mana

Cast Time: 2.6 Seconds

Range: 20 Meters

Effect: Invert Hostility

This spell causes your target to see their friends as enemies and you and your friends as allies. Their judgment is otherwise unaffected. Creatures gain a resistance bonus to this spell for each time you have cast it on them in a given day. If you or your allies attack a creature you have cast this spell on, the effect will end.

If the target is already questioning the loyalty of their allies when you cast this spell, its effect is greatly increased.

And I replaced the mage class with Hierarch:

Congratulations, you are now a level 11 Hierarch/Psychic!

You have gained a new Fixed Iconic Passive: Hierarch Class

You have gained a new Iconic Spell Slot and the Iconic Spell: Moment of Solace

Your Hit Points have increased by 15 and your Energy has decreased by 20.

Then, as I was sure that my Moment of Mastery was nearing its end, I opened my Skill Selection and took the Extra Spell Slot skill, spending the last of my Mage Skill Points as well as all my Hierarch Skill Points and 4 of my remaining Psychic Skill Points.

Then I opened my inventory and learned the Slow spell. Finally.

Okay. I’m done.

Cuby, who was a little over half life, turned and flashed me a grin. Care to heal me?

Sure thing, I said, beginning to cast Purging Radiance on the morthoth. Coming right up.