“I know you’re a bit taciturn at heart Alarion, but I expected at least some reaction,” pouted Valentina.
“Hmm?” Alarion said, looking up from the notification. He thought for a moment, trailing her words back, then shook his head. “Mm. You were just toying with me anyway.”
“Oh? And how did you make that fine deduction.”
Alarion glanced over one shoulder, toward the drain in the floor that had consumed the elemental. “Can it really be a god if it lost a fight with a fifteen-year-old?”
Valentina opened her mouth to argue her point, then paused as something else interrupted her. A look of consternation ran across her features, before she offered a nod of acceptance.
“A fair point.”
“It was a Thoughtborn, wasn’t it? Not a god?” Alarion asked as he fell into step beside Valentina, the two of them returning to her home through a convenient new exit.
“And here I thought your education was lacking.” Valentina winced slightly at the glare Alarion threw her way and quickly adjusted her tone. “You’re correct. What you fought was a juvenile Akasian Thoughtborn once known as ‘Il Valias’ or ‘The River God’. A rather nasty piece of work if I do say so.”
“How did it end up here?”
“One of Mother’s children trapped it years ago, for use in these challenges. Life is one of the few things I am incapable of manipulating within this space, so a compromise had to be made in order to provide worthy opponents. Mother keeps a substantial menagerie that I’m able to draw from, primarily fiends, revenants and particularly recalcitrant lesser gods.”
“Her children trapped it?”
Valentina gave him an odd look as if trying to tell if he were serious, then quickly shook her head. “You know about Thoughtborn, but not the Godborn? I should have stood by my critique.”
“I have heard the name!” Alarion protested.
“It’s fine, Alarion. The failing belongs to your teachers, not to you. From what I understand, your benefactors do not think highly of the divine, or of the Godborn by proxy. I’m not shocked that they’ve only skimmed the subject as it puts a bit of a dint in their ideology of blood supremacy. Just as you do. The Godborn are an Incarnation’s direct offspring, or the children of those offspring. If I’d had children after mother chose me, they would have been Godborn, with silver dusted skin and eyes.”
“Not giant water monsters?”
“Perish the thought, no.”
“You said if,” noted Alarion.
Valentina’s smile faltered somewhat as she pulled a chair out on one side of her desk and urged him to sit. “I did.”
“You never had children?”
Her gaze was cool as she moved around to the other side of the desk and lounged back in a chair that looked far more comfortable than the one she’d provided him. “I did not. Lal Viren selects for the sort of ambition that rarely results in an Incarnate who wants to spend her years as an actual mother.”
Alarion looked to say something more but was shut down by an upraised palm.
“We have other matters to discuss, Alarion. You have the option to take a class?” Valentina asked, moving the topic to something more palatable.
“Mm.” The young boy nodded as he pushed through the notification. “Just one, this time.”
“This time? Interesting. Tell me the details.”
> Unbound Magi [Common](Rank I)
>
> Description: Unfamiliar to most, the heterodox path of an Unbound Magi is one filled with mystery and uncertainty. Eschewing traditional methods, you have embraced unstructured magic, trading reliability for flexibility. This class focuses primarily on skills and attributes related to unstructured arcane magic.
>
> Requirements: Unbound Spellcraft. At least four known spells. Basic spellcasting proficiency.
>
> Growths - STR – +4 – 40% | AGI – +4 – 40% | VIT - +4 – 40% | INT – +4 – 60% | WIL – +4 – 60% | PER – +4 = 60%
Valentina was already shaking her head by the time he finished. “You should not accept that class unless you are forced.”
The sheer conviction in her words struck Alarion like a slap in the face, curbing much of his enthusiasm for the new class even as he re-read its description. “Is it that bad? It is common, but the whole point-”
“Yes, yes, your time pressure. Lopping off a leg to make sure you arrive on time…” Valentina dismissed the justification as one would a servant. “Even within those confines, you can do better. You can level up your Spellcraft, earn a new feat of strength, perhaps even a title. Any of these could lead to a better class offering. Even an uncommon would be preferable.”
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“Is there that much of a difference? It is only a few attribute points between this and my Stubborn Swordsman.”
The once God rolled her eyes. “Those differences will compound. A lower rarity class means lower rarity skills. You’ll earn less attributes from those and be worse equipped for your role. You’ll struggle with challenges that should be easy. This in turn means that when you rank up you’ll be given worse options due to your lower feats and attributes, which will only lead to worse outcomes and offerings until an eventual plateau.”
“Perfect should not be the enemy of the good.” Alarion shot back defensively.
“We are not talking about perfect, Alarion.” Valentina scowled. “I understand the political realities facing your instructors, but they are crippling you out of haste and fear.”
“Why do you even care?”
“Because it is like I am watching a once in a generation artist decide to take up fingerpainting rather than sculpting,” she sighed as the boy tensed up, ready to snap back at the perceived insult. “Alarion, your aptitude is four times my own, fifty points higher than the best human student I had in my lifetime, which makes it infuriating to see it wasted. Bad enough to see them mold you into a weapon, without those idiot teachers making you dull as well.”
“They are not idiots.” Alarion stood abruptly, his hands on the edge of her desk as he loomed over Valentina. “Elena wants what is best for me.”
Valentina snorted. “Does she now?”
The two glared at one another for several long seconds. In the end, Valentina was the one to look away with a heavy sigh and a conciliatory remark. “You’ve roughly a week remaining. Taking that class isn’t likely to give you a substantial benefit in the challenges to come. You have nothing to lose by waiting. So why not humor me?”
Alarion still seemed ready to fight, his jaw clenched as tight as his hands were around the hardwood lip of her desk. His posture shifted as he took in a breath, about to release some angry tirade. Then he breathed out and looked expectantly to the nearby wall. “I should not waste time, then.”
“Hmm? Oh.” Valentina picked up his meaning a moment too late to stop her confusion from showing. She followed his gaze and snapped her fingers, the door they’d entered through replaced by a new pair as a fourth candle sprung to life, declaring Alarion’s most recent victory. The door on the left was a three gem Combat challenge, just as difficult and dangerous as the one he’d recently completed, while the one on the right was an endurance challenge with only a single ruby set into the door. Easier, but potentially more time consuming.
“Here. Before you go.” Valentina interrupted his thoughts as she set two items down upon the desk. The first was a strip of textured crimson fabric, neatly looped in on itself to create a tight bundle. The second was a curious, flat bottomed potion bottle. The stubby bottle was only a few inches tall, with a wide mouth and no more than a trickle of unfamiliar brass liquid inside.
The few potion bottles Alarion had seen had been utilitarian designs. Hard glass with a cork stopper, meant to be refilled as often as they were used. This one looked more ornate, like something the governor would bring out for special guests.
Alarion carefully scooped up each item in turn.
> Hilt Wrap of the Lost and Recovered [Uncommon](Rank I)
>
> Description: A dark red hilt wrap embroidered with powerful marks of resilience.
>
> Requirements: None
>
> Attunement Cost: 12 points.
>
> Type: Weapon Accessory
>
> Enchantment: Provides a Major resistance to non-magical attempts to disarm the user. If tied around the wielder’s wrist, this wrap can magically extend and retract up to fifteen feet.
>
> Ability Bonuses: + 6 VIT.
—
> Minor Elixir of Perception [Rare](Rank I)
>
> Description: A dark orange potion that smells of strawberries.
>
> Type: Potion
>
> Enchantment: Upon consumption, increase user’s perception score by 25% for one hour.
—
“Make sure not to throw away the vial. It was expensive.” There was a special sort of smugness to Valentina’s smile, a grin that only grew larger after a conspiratorial glance upward. If it was a joke, Alarion wasn’t in the loop.
He frowned as he turned his attention back to the two doorways. Truth told, he felt he had a better shot at completing the combat encounter, judging by his admittedly limited experience. Combat felt right to him in a way that puzzles and endurance tests did not. It was direct, tactile. Simple. Given his irritation, smashing something with his mace seemed as though it would be more cathartic.
But it was also the more dangerous. As far as Elena and ZEKE were concerned, Alarion had accomplished his goal. They might find a way to haunt his ghost if he did something as stupid as dying in a bonus challenge.
With reluctance, he entered the endurance challenge.
The room was familiar, almost identical to the site of his previous endurance challenge. A bland cube of a room, its grey stone pitted with signs of age and the slight green discoloration of something growing between the mortar. Unlike his previous visit there was no leather chair in the center of the room, nor was there anything to replace it. Instead, there was a new opening on the far side of the small room, a six-foot-wide corridor that led to a door at its far end.
If the last time was any indication, it was clearly trapped.
Alarion let his other senses flow away as he focused inward on his [Introverted Mana Sense] and sure enough, the small corridor ahead of him was positively drowning in magic. It was thinnest at the entrance, slowly increasing in intensity as it drew closer and closer to the far door, until it was nearly blinding within his sixth sense.
As for what the magic did, Alarion could not begin to guess. Even with the levels he’d gained on the last challenge, [Introverted Mana Sense] was still in its infancy. It allowed him to recognize external mana but it lacked the precision to deconstruct the workings of a complex field like the one in front of him. At best, he was fairly certain it was focused primarily on Body and Decay affinities.
A foreboding combination if ever there was one.
In addition to the torrent of magic that filled the corridor, Alarion recognized the six jeweled panels built into the walls at regularly spaced intervals. These he recognized as magical siphons, though they were different in structure and thus in function than the ones with which he was intimately familiar.
With his sixth sense exhausted of clues and no others visible to the naked eye, Alarion approached the corridor and pushed his mace into the seemingly empty air.
Nothing. No notification, no reaction. He withdrew his mace, set it to the side and reached out a hand.
And then there was only pain.