Riley stared at Arubis in confusion, keeping a firm grip on his staff. Snake-eyes aside, she seemed totally normal. And she wasn’t making moves to kill him either. Still, she was another symptom of this incredibly strange situation.
“My... Oracle,” he murmured beneath his mask. “Yeah, the Arbiter said something about that. What does that entail?”
“You are a Warden. It is your role to walk the Path of Strife. To that end, you kill monsters born of Rot and Chaos. I, your Oracle, guide you to your destination and help you hone your strength.” Her voice was soft and melodic, tinged with an accent Riley couldn’t put his finger on.
Riley gave her a flat stare. That didn’t explain much of anything, but she was at least nicer than the Arbiter had been. “I still don’t understand. What’s... a Warden, exactly?”
“An agent chosen by the gods. One who maintains order and roots out those who wish to devour all that is good in the world. The Path of Strife is your sacred mission, a road without end that is filled with countless battles.”
“Oh.” Riley narrowed his eyes behind the lenses of his mask. “Is that all?” Why in the world did he have to get roped into this?
“I am sure that it sounds difficult and daunting, but your soul possesses the strength to endure. If you are willing to rise to the challenge.” Arubis rose to her feet, and much to Riley’s shock it seemed that her robes were utterly devoid of any dust or dirt. She seemed utterly immaculate, a vision of beauty that stood in stark contrast to their grim, dingy surroundings.
“Insidious forces are rife across the cosmos, seeking to tear worlds apart at the seams. It is only through the efforts of noble Wardens, such as yourself, that chaos is pruned and kept at bay.” She offered him a beautiful smile, attractive enough to distract from her serpentine gaze.
“And you... make me stronger?”
“Yes. Foes you slay will leave behind their Essence. And with this Essence, I can channel it into your body to render you stronger.”
Like a video game, Riley noted. But ultimately this would be far more dangerous than any video game by the sound of things.
He opened the menu again, his eyes roaming further down the list of labels. ‘Stats’ was just beneath ‘Spells.’ Curious, he reached for it and tapped on the label. A string of numbered stats appeared beneath his biographical data.
Vitality 8
Capacity 12
Fortitude 8
Nimbleness 14
Might 7
Wisdom 16
Awareness 10
Riley furrowed his brow, reading the modest numbers. Whenever he focused on the title of each stat, he was greeted with a small blurb to explain the stats. Vitality reflected his total health. Capacity was for his maximum amount of mana. Fortitude referred to stamina, and his ability to resist certain elements.
Nimbleness was tied to skill with swift, precise weapons. Might, conversely, was for heavier weapons. It and Fortitude contributed to the available carrying weight of equipment. Wisdom controlled the strength of magical attacks, and dictated the complexity of spells an individual could learn.
Awareness, however, was worryingly vague.
‘The ability to see the unseen.’
Riley frowned, dismissed the menu, and pressed on down the frosty corridor. A chill breeze wafted over him, largely muted by the sturdy material of his robes. Arubis followed him, only a few paces behind.
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“What does ‘see the unseen’ mean?” he asked.
The strange woman offered him a calm smile. “There are things that exist beyond mortal perception. A heightened Awareness allows you to perceive and interact with these forces. Your abilities in this regard will be... limited, for now. I would advise you to start slow if you wish to augment your Awareness.”
Somehow being sent to a lake of fire sounded slightly more pleasant than all of this. At least with the lake of fire, you knew exactly what you were going to get.
Their footsteps echoed through the vaulted corridor, which grew increasingly misty as they moved in deeper. Riley made a point of checking each cell, and found them to be either empty, or filled with bones that had been picked clean a long time ago.
“Where... are we?” he asked.
“Fort Bane. An outpost that sits upon the eastern border of the Vergoll Empire. It is, in their eyes, the very edge of civilization.”
Definitely high fantasy. Or, dark fantasy I guess. It was not deeply informative, as far as statements went, but Arubis was a thousand times more helpful than the Arbiter had been.
Another question formed on Riley’s tongue, only to die as he rounded a corner and laid eyes on a moving figure. A shaggy, ape-like man with emaciated muscles and dried blood flaking his fur. Riley swallowed hard, gripping his staff as he laid eyes on the strange creature.
It was not, objectively, horrifying. But the sight of something so inhuman, so alien to the reality Riley had spent his whole life in, right before his eyes... it was enough to make him freeze up, briefly.
“A wretch,” Arubis said, as the hairy wildman turned his sunken eyes toward Riley. A growl rose on the creature’s throat, his lips parting to reveal sharp, yellow teeth. “Mad from hunger and isolation. It would be best to kill such beings quickly, lest they try and hinder you.”
“K-kill,” Riley repeated. The thing shambling him wasn’t human. Probably barely intelligent, judging by that vacant look in his eyes. Still, Riley had never killed anything larger than a wasp in the past. To kill something that had been intelligent at one point...
The apeman groaned, raising his taloned hands into view. Great claws that could rend skin with all the ease of peeling an orange.
“Keep back!” Riley warned.
The beastly figure let out a horrid, gargling groan, lifting his claws and aiming for Riley’s throat.
“I said... I said keep back!” He swung blindly, catching the shambling figure in the side of the head with his staff. The impact knocked him aside as if he were weightless, landing in a heap on the cold ground. He went still and didn’t rise again.
Riley blinked in shock. “Wretches like these have been left to rot for some time. Assuming they are not merely reanimated corpses,” Arubis said.
Riley hesitantly reached over, poking the corpse with the butt of his staff. It remained in place. Suddenly strange wisps of smoking darkness began to hiss from the apeman’s remains. They flowed into Riley’s body and vanished entirely.
Curious, he opened the menu again. A small bar had suddenly appeared at the bottom right corner of his vision:
Essence: 80.
“Oh man,” he murmured. “Well, corpse or not, it had some of that Essence stuff in it.” He still wasn’t thrilled at the thought of killing, even if it was as a means to make himself stronger. He supposed he’d just have to get used to it. Anything after his head wouldn’t think twice, after all.
“Only a spark. You will need much more if you wish to truly hone your strength,” Arubis replied, gently closing her eyes. “But everyone must start somewhere.”
“And uh... will you be able to help me gather Essence?”
She shook her head. “I do not fight. My abilities are geared toward the manipulation of Essence, and my abilities to interact with the material plane are limited. My apologies,” the Oracle explained. “But I can, if needed, carry supplies for you. I have a magical means of storage at my disposal.”
Better than having to carry everything himself, Riley reasoned. If his Might was that low, an irritating realisation on his end, then it would be a chore to be his own paclmule.
They rounded another corner, another frozen corridor stretching ahead of them. Riley tensed, his eyes narrowing as he spotted three more wretched apemen lolling about. But, at the far end of the hallway, he caught sight of a winding stone staircase that led upward. A chance for escape?
“Do not feel bad about killing these creatures,” Arubis said, folding her hands together. “Their lands have been raided and razed by the Empire. Those here, in Fort Bane, are prisoners left to rot. Killing them would be a kindness, for all they have been through.”
Riley looked into the nearest cell. A skeleton was chained to the far wall, half turned to dust by the passage of time. Left to rot, forgotten and abandoned. A rat scurried in the darkness of the cell, beady eyes looking directly into Riley’s eyes.
Being a city slicker, Riley was no stranger to rodents. But, until now, he’d never seen a rat longer than his damn forearm.
“Fine. Let’s... give these spells a shot...” He took a few steps forward, until the half-dead creatures growled to attention at his approach. Riley raised his staff and took aim. “So how does this work exactly?” He paused, thinking on the spells in his inventory, and tried to focus on the Blinding Mist.
His staff throbbed in his hands, the metal spike suddenly glowing pale purple. A cloud hissed from his weapon and flooded the corridor ahead of him. The apemen shrieked and thrashed about, blinded by the pestilent fog. It made it easy enough for Riley to walk up and knock two of them to the ground with swift strikes. The third, however, collapsed on his own. He gargled, clawing at his own eyes until his flesh was shredded beneath his talons.
He landed in a heap, bleeding out on the frosty ground. His essence flowed into Riley only a few seconds later.
Riley shuddered from head to toe. “Creepy. Creepy, creepy, creepy,” he uttered. He picked up pace and hurried toward the stairs. Arubis followed a few paces behind him, calm and graceful.