Elijah rolled his shoulders as he strode forward, but in the back of his mind, he realized that the effect was probably ruined by the curious, bouncing gait required to walk across the seafloor. He didn’t care, though. Instead, he only had eyes for the monster that had tried to eat him.

It was an orca.

Or that was the closest analogue Elijah could conjure. The thing was at least a hundred feet long, with the same sturdy, yet sleek black-and-white body as the familiar marine mammals. But like all the other animals he’d seen in the sea – and on the island, come to that – everything about it seemed more exaggerated. From its huge, jagged teeth to its slightly more angular body, it was like a cartoon version of the creatures with which he was familiar.

And it was obviously dying.

The thing was still breathing, but it couldn’t move more than a few feet in any direction. So, as Elijah approached, it only succeeded in flopping around a bit. Still, it was a monster that probably weighed dozens of tons, so there was a very real danger of being crushed. With that in mind, Elijah took great care as he drew closer.

But it didn’t even acknowledge his presence. Instead, it seemed wholly focused on its own agony as Elijah’s repeated usage of Venom Strike slowly ate away at it. Given the orca’s massive size, Elijah knew its death would not be quick. Instead, it was in for a slow and agonizing process.

There was a part of him that thought it served the creature right. After spending what felt like an eternity being digested by the sea mammal, Elijah thought it had gotten its just desserts. However, the marine biologist inside of him rejected that idea. As much as he wanted to take pleasure in its suffering, Elijah couldn’t shed the lessons he’d learned at his father’s knee.

Killing wasn’t wrong. Instead, death and predation were necessary parts of nature. Elijah had never shied away from hunting or fishing. But his father had taught him that any responsible hunter tried to minimize his prey’s suffering. So, as much as Elijah wanted to anthropomorphize the enormous killer whale and assign blame, the reality was that the thing had merely been acting according to its nature. There was no sapience there. It was just an animal, and so, it couldn’t be blamed for its actions.

So, taking vengeance on the creature was an exercise in futility. It would never understand its mistake. There was no lesson to be taught. No reform to be found. And, even though Elijah knew he’d feel a certain satisfaction when the thing was dead, he also knew himself well enough to recognize the fact that, with the benefit of time and distance, he would regret it if he let the thing suffer more than necessary.

So, it was with mercy on his mind that Elijah raised his staff and conjured his Swarm of piranha, which wasted no time before tearing into the monster. It wasn’t enough to finish it off. Nor was the second cast. Or the third. Soon, it became clear that, if he wanted to hasten the monster’s death, he would have to do so up close.

That was why he found himself leaping from a hastily climbed stalk of coral onto the orca’s back. It didn’t react. Instead, the creature only continued its weak convulsions as Elijah climbed towards its head, and then, when he reached his destination, transformed into a mist panther.

Immediately, he felt awkward, and his instincts screamed at him to somehow get out of the water. He pushed through that and embraced Guise of the Unseen. Before the fact that he was out in the open and standing atop a giant killer whale could degrade his stealth, Elijah reached back with his claw and used Predator Strike to gouge a massive hole in the orca’s head.

That woke it up, and its bucking sent Elijah spinning through the water before he landed in a cloud of silt. With the panic of his feline instincts threatening to overwhelm him, Elijah transformed back into his human form. Then, after he healed the minor damage he’d sustained – just a few bruises – he waited for his Ethera to regenerate enough that he could repeat the process. When his core was saturated with Ethera, he climbed the coral stalk, leaped onto the orca’s back, and repeated his previous strike. This one went a good deal deeper, but the result was much the same, and he ended up back on the sea floor.

It took three more uses of Predator Strike before Elijah broke through the monster’s thick skull. After that, it only took one more attack to destroy its brain. And just like that, a wave of kill energy swept through him, giving him another level and a new ability.

More importantly, he also received an update to his task, congratulating him on killing the guardian. Now, he just needed to reach the center of the Sea of Sorrows in order to complete the second level of the Keledge Tower.

Elijah’s shoulders sagged, and he took a moment to dig a bit of the monster’s brain out. One look at the black tendrils that had infested the creature’s flesh, and he knew he couldn’t eat any of it. Which was a shame, considering that he had no idea how long it had been since he’d eaten anything.

Perhaps his body was more magical than he’d originally thought. Or maybe his constant usage of his healing spells had helped keep him on his feet even as he starved. It was even possible that his perception of time had been skewed by the persistent agony he’d endured. He had no idea, but regardless of how he’d managed to live through his ordeal, he was now starving.

So, without hesitation, Elijah slid off the monster’s back and immediately set off through the Sea of Sorrows. Eventually, he stumbled across a school of mid-sized fish that he killed with a trio of Storm’s Fury casts. Then, like the starving man he was, he tore into them with reckless abandon.

Elijah had never been a huge fan of raw fish, but in that moment, he considered it the best meal he’d ever had. He gorged himself, then gathered a few of the fish he hadn’t already eaten before moving on.

Like that, he kept going for the next few hours until he finally found a shallow cave in which he could rest. Once he’d blocked the entrance, Elijah settled in to inspect the ability he’d received upon reaching level twenty-six.

It was a spell:

Spell:

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Aura of Renewal

Tap into the power of nature to increase your Regeneration by ten (10) points. Usable on allies.

Elijah let out a chuckle that came out in a gurgle and sent a stream of bubbles drifting toward the ceiling of the small cave. That certainly would have come in handy while he was being digested. He just stared at the spell and shook his head before mentally canceling one of his other augmentations – Essence of the Monkey – and replacing it with his new spell.

Essence of the Monkey was great for when he was on land, but in the Sea of Sorrows, both Aura of Renewal and Essence of the Boar seemed much more important. Those two took up his only available enhancement slots, leaving Essence of the Monkey as the odd one out. Hopefully, though, he would get another slot sometime soon. At least Essence of the Wolf seemed to be a different category – perhaps because its effect was restricted to out-of-combat – so he didn’t have to make the choice between more Constitution or faster movement speed.

In any case, Aura of Renewal was a nice addition. Still, he couldn’t help but wonder what the future might hold. Perhaps he would get an augmentation that would enhance his Ethera next so he could complete the set. As he thought about his attributes, he couldn’t help but toggle open his status:

Name

Elijah Hart

Level

26

Archetype

Druid

Class

Animist

Specialization

N/A

Alignment

N/A

Strength

28

Dexterity

27

Constitution

33 (28)

Ethera

36

Regeneration

40 (30)

Attunement

Nature

Cultivation

Body

Core

Mind

Soul

Wood

Unformed

Opal

Neophyte

As always, his attributes had gone up by a single point for each of his two levels. It wasn’t enough that he could notice the difference from before he’d killed the orca, but looking back to when he’d first entered the Keledge Tower, Elijah certainly felt stronger, more durable, and more coordinated. And he could cast his spells more often, which spoke to the size of his core. Finally, he felt certain that, without those few points he’d gained in Regeneration, he never would have survived the killer whale’s stomach acids. So, while he hadn’t made huge strides, they were enough to make the difference between life and death.

Which was all Elijah could really ask for, all told. Aside from maybe asking not to spend weeks being digested by a giant orca. That would’ve been nice, too, but maybe that would’ve been expecting a little too much, given the world in which he now lived.

Such thoughts occupied Elijah’s mind as he settled in to rest and recover as much as he could. He slept, albeit fitfully, and soon enough, the urge to continue to the next and final level of the tower grew overwhelming. So, after once again gorging himself on the leftover fish, he used Touch of Nature to remove any chance of food poisoning, then set off.

The next day stretched his capabilities. Not by pitting him against powerful monsters. By that point, he’d spent long enough in the Sea of Sorrows that he felt almost as comfortable in that submerged environment as he did on his own island. Rather, the problem was his own body, which, despite his increased attributes, had been ravaged by malnourishment as well as the acid that had slowly eaten away at him. In fact, when he looked down at his thin limbs and exposed ribs, he suspected that he weighed less than he had at any time since the plane crash that had stranded him on the island.

And that was more than a little distressing, because at that time, he’d been fresh off his third round of chemotherapy.

Curiously, the problem didn’t present itself in a way he might have expected. He was just as strong as ever before, but he could only show that Strength in extremely short bursts before he grew exhausted. The same could be said for his ability to traverse the Sea of Sorrows. He could only go for an hour or two before he needed to rest, which was a far cry from what he’d experienced before his bout of whale digestion.

But gradually, as he continued to eat his weight in slain monsters – from fish to turtles and everything in between – his endurance returned. By the end of that first week after his encounter with the killer whale, he’d reached what he thought of as the halfway point in his quest to recover his stamina. A week after that, he finally felt fully recovered – a feeling that was supported by his increased weight.

It was just in time, too, because that was when he finally reached the center of the Sea of Sorrows, which presented itself as a huge hole in the seabed that stretched hundreds of yards across. It didn’t take a genius to guess that, in order to reach the third level, he would have to take the plunge and dive into the hole.

Still, he couldn’t help but hesitate, especially when he found himself at the edge of the hole and looking down into the shadowy abyss.

Could he have been wrong about it being his goal? Of course. But given the saturation of Ethera in the area, he didn’t think so. He’d also circled the pit, searching for anything else that might qualify as his destination. But he’d found nothing but more coral and kelp.

No – it was the right place, but knowing that did nothing to assuage the fear coursing through Elijah’s veins. The first level had been fairly easy. The second had stretched him to his limits. And it stood to reason that the difficulty would only increase going ahead.

But as he kept reminding himself, there was no choice in the matter. He couldn’t go back. Even the teleport associated with Ancestral Circle was disabled within the tower, which he’d confirmed at some point during the cycle of healing and dissolution he’d experienced in the whale’s stomach.

The only way out was through.

So, he squared his shoulders, then dove into the abyss.