Oscar woke up in a strange room, the bed he was in was easily the most comfortable piece of furniture he had ever even seen, let alone slept in for a whole night. After he awoke, he took a shower, with hot water, something he’d never done before, he’d only ever taken sponge baths or bathed in cold rivers. Hot water flowing down his skin made him somehow feel even cleaner, it felt relaxing, the same way he felt while he braided his hair.
He changed into his clothes, and spent some time braiding his hair, he spent a shorter time braiding it then he did last time. After he had mostly dried off he walked to the hotel room across from him and knocked on the door.
Calida answered in feminine pajamas, they weren’t risque or in any sense revealing, but Oscar still averted his eyes, quickly jerking his head to the left.
“Oh you’re one of those guys, the whole ‘I can’t gaze upon a womans’ sleeping attire’ Fenrir is like that too, that’s why he insists on getting his own room.” Calida said, while putting on an overshirt. Oscar kept looking down the corridor and noticed Amon and Fenrir leave their rooms at the same time, also sleeping across from each other. Apparently Fenrir slept in his scar, given he was also in his undergarments. Amon was all the way dressed like Oscar was.
As the three adventurers went into the room that Calida, Onwyn and Rodrick shared, they sat at a round table, making plans for the day and eating breakfast.
“The first step is to pick out your essences” Onwyn said
“I already have 3 essences I want to use,” Oscar noted. Everyone looked at him, he definitely didn’t look like he had essences. He opened his bag and riffled through the bottom, pulling out 3 cubes “Spear, Swift, Adept.”
“Master Confluence” Onwyn said almost immediately.
“You have them all memorized?” Oscar asked
“Of course not,” Onwyn said “If you have an Adept Essence, you’re most likely going to get a Master Confluence, in addition you have a weapon essence, making it assured.”
“I already have might, but I don’t really know how to branch off from there. I like the idea of a magic confluence, but that doesn't really go well with might…” Amon added with his head held low
“Anything goes well with anything, that's the point of the confluence” Onwyn said, Amon's face lighting up, if he had a tail it would definitely be wagging, meanwhile Fenrir still didn't have his tails, his wolves would need to be resummoned, he was planning on doing that today.
“What should I do for the last one?” He asked. The final essence he chose would also result in what confluence he gets, so it was an important question. Each person suggested a few, the essences they chose would mostly result in the Mystic or Empower confluences, Meanwhile Oscar suggested the Death essence which would result in Amon’s swift and immediate execution.
After a few minutes Amon eventually decided on Might, Magic and Shield, giving the Force Confluence. In total the adventurers received 8 Gold Coins, 1 for each of them, and 4 to buy Essences and Awakening stones for Amon and Oscar. However, Oscar already had all 3 he needed, and Amon had enough money to pay for his own essences which he did, meaning that they could get some rarer awakening stones.
Many people thought rarer awakening stones meant more powerful magical power, this was not true. Instead rarer awakening stones were more specified, giving a smaller range of powers. If you used 16 of the rarest stones possible, then you could have an insanely specified kit, having 20 amazing answers for something, and 20 pretty bad answers for everything else. Meanwhile if you use only common ones , then you get 20 mediocre answers to everything. The best way to build a kit is to go with a balance of specificity and range.
“We need to plan our journey” Onwyn Said “There’s two real options we have, since you two are going to be really weak, either we plan our course around low magic zones, to make sure there’s nothing that can hurt you, the problem is that there aren’t many towns on that path, so restocking would be difficult, there’s also the problem of awakening stones, this place has fairly raised prices due to the low magical density, however if we go on the more dangerous path, we won't have to pack as much resources, and we can get some amazingly priced awakening stone in Falan.”
“How long till Falan?” Rodrick asked
“WIth their speed, I’d say, a little more than a week, maybe 7 days” Calida answered before Onwyn could.
“I think we should buy 10 awakening stone’s here, and then pick up the other 6 over there in Falan” Fenrir said “When we resummon my wolves today, they’ll finally be Silver rank, and according to Onwyn, they’ll be able to become armor that will make those two stronger. I think it’s the best move, plus this area doesn’t have a really high magical density anyways, the highest we’ll find is mid-silver, and we can go around that area.” All of Fenrir’s speaking quirks were gone, calling Amon and Oscar cubs, or his party members his pack.
“That could be the best approach, but just keeping them alive isn’t enough, we need to make sure they can be challenged but still be safe” Calida added.
“We could weaken all the monsters until they could kill them, they’d still be a challenge at Iron, but we could also be on the side lines to make sure they don’t die” Onwyn said.
“If you think two brand new Iron rankers could even hope to beat a Silver rank, even an insanely weakened one, you’re wrong.” Rodrick said
Onwyn then added “It’ll mostly be low bronze rank monsters, or large amounts of iron rank monsters, I say we just make sure they don’t die and injure monsters for them to finish off”
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“Do we get a say in it?” Amon asked the group.
Onwyn sighed deeply “Do you know the ambient mana density from here to Falan? Or from Falan too Draska, Draska too Arde-glaw? You do not? Then keep your mouth shut.” Amon shrunk in his seat.
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Amon and Oscar were led into a dark room, the black stone of the floor and walls absorbing the lights from the magical lanterns instead of reflecting it. Both Amon and Oscar were told that any clothes they wore would be stained beyond repair. Luckily the magical guild partnered with a local seamstress, who made clothing with leftover scraps of fabric from other pieces of clothing, the clothing had a weird mix of textures, patterns and colors, they were very uncomfortable.
As their exposed feet touched the chalkboard feeling floor, the chill in the room became apparent. The room was rather large, around the same size as the hotel rooms they had stayed in, with no furniture. No furniture at first glance, that is, at the far end of the room was a table with 5 glowing cubes. There were also 2 men in robes in this room, one looked like an underling, while the other looked more like the first one's boss.
“Amon Keybalar and Oscar Wyvern?” The older one said, without looking at them
“Yes” Amon and Oscar respond at the same time.
“We’re going to start with Oscar Wyver: Spear, Swift, and then Adept, give you a break while we do Amon’s Essences and then do your Confluence, then we’ll do his. Additionally we have been provided with two Awakening Stones of the Eyes, one for each of you.” The boss said
Onwyn was the one who originally suggested the eye stones. Almost every single adventurer would receive a perception power at some point or another in Iron rank. The Awakening Stone of the Eye almost always awakens a perception power, and the more time they had to get used to it before being in a life or death situation, the better.
The underling, who the boss kept calling him “Edwards”, had a power to levitate and control small objects, in this case chalk. The leader, who Amon and Oscar learned was named Brynn Eliot, sat on the sidelines and instructed Edwards on any mistakes he had made while preparing the first of the 5 rituals.
After the circle was complete Oscar stepped into the center, the Essence being given its own space in the magical insignia. Brynn raised his hand and the lines in chalk started glowing. The essence slowly started floating up, until it was at the same level as Oscars Sternum, it slowly dissolved into his chest, where it met his skin, a grayish light shone.
After the Spear Essence was absorbed, the floor was clean, and the next one began being written by Edwards, Eliot had less critiques this time, and instead of being drawn in front of Oscar, it was written around him. After that one was absorbed there was only the Adept essence left, which was a Gold color, and looked like a rippling pond.
The center of Oscar's head, the space above his eyes, started glowing along with the space below each clavicle. The three lights, one Grey, one Crimson, and one Gold left his body, like drops of water form a leaky faucet, the three motes of light floated in front of him, and orbited each other finally coalescing in the air. The light multiplied in intensity, then like nothing ever happened, disappeared. The only thing left in their wake was a cube that gently hovered there, Oscar grabbed it and went to go and sit down, he and Amon passed each other, almost bumping shoulders.
Oscar intrinsically knew how to activate his powers; it was like he had always known. He held out his hands, his left hand above his right, both in a loose grip. A spear came out of the floor, and shot up to his hands, the spear resembled his New Water Knife, one single piece of wood, with a carved rock as a spear head, adorned to the shaft with twine. It even had the same runes as his knife. The biggest difference besides the obvious change in length was the tassel, it was a royal red color, the edges of it hemmed with golden thread. There were also two places for Oscar to put his hands, with leather that had been dyed a deep red.
His ability from swift surrounded his feet in a Golden light, and let him walk up walls or even on a roof upside down. While his power from his Adept Essence seemed kind of complicated; like a puzzle in his soul he needed to solve, he understood that he didn’t need to activate it, and it made him be able to fight for longer, which was good enough for him at this point. When Amon was done with his essences Oscar was upside down on the roof, getting a hang of his powers.
Oscar tried to jump down and flip onto his legs, he ended up overshooting it, and landed flat on his back instead, the roof wasn’t high enough to do any real damage, but it definitely did hurt. The two workers looked at each other before Edwards sighed and Eliot put his hand to his face.
Halfway through the process of writing the magical circle, Eliot told Oscar something:
“When we are done here, immediately run to that room there” Eliot pointed to one of two rooms, the room didn’t have a door, presumably to allow for quick entrance. After the Confluence was absorbed, Oscar questioned why he needed to run, he didn't feel very different, this feeling lasted for a whole 3 or so seconds. Oscar ran much quicker afterwards. As he got into the room he stopped on a metal grate in the middle of the room, then it started. Every one of his pores started leaking some combination of sweat, puss and blood.
It felt like he was vomiting from a million little mouths, even his sinuses purged their contents, including from his tear ducts. His clothes became soaked through with all of the humors that had been drained from his body. He fell to his hands and his knees it felt like he was being ripped apart, he wasn’t even sure if it had stopped yet.
His ramshackle clothes had been designed from the ground up to be easy to remove, there was one thread near the collar that when pulled the whole shirt would unravel. A similar thread was in the waistline in the pants, Oscar pulled them both, the whole outfit fell apart at the seams, and fell down the drain at his feet. After his clothes fell apart he reached for the bottle of Crystal Wash he had brought with him. Every one of the adventurers had insisted on its necessity. He tipped the bottle over his head and it quickly worked its magic.
Crystal Wash was a magical product in nature, it was a thick clear liquid, it quickly worked its way underneath the bile coating Oscars body, and separated the two, cleaning his body as it moved down it. After it was done it fell through the grate, leaving him smelling like vanilla.
He looked in the mirror, his reflection was a stranger. The little imperfections in his face, the ones that always bothered him were gone, his slightly sunken eyes, his faintly pointed ears, the tiny amount of eyebrow that formed a unibrow he couldn’t quite shave: all gone. What was left was a stranger, someone he didn’t recognize. The clothes laid out for him were startling white, he would never wear clothes like that, they would show their grime way too easily, he now realized that was the point of them. With how easily the clothes would get dirty it was a testament to purity to keep them clean.
Oscar had never understood the concept of purity, for something to be truly pure it must be perfect and homogenous, both concepts made no sense to Oscar. Perfection seemed more like a curse than a blessing to Oscar, if perfection changed, it would no longer be perfect, no matter what that change was, and that lack of change was what seemed terrible to Oscar. The homogeneity was equally terrible, if everyone in a society acted the same, looked the same, felt the same, what was the point of society at all? He decided to take a small amount of the blood that had spilt onto the ground and wipe it on the clothes before putting it on. Staining it, making it something Oscar would want to wear, it was a symbolic gesture that only a teenager would think worthwhile.
As he left the room in his new sullen clothes and sandals, he saw Amon leaving his room too, Amon was a bit taller, and his cheekbones lowered, making his face less pointy. Both men had been both literally and figuratively reformed.