Congratulations, Aurelian Lucis Imperius!
You have met the requirements to unlock the skill Exploration (UC)!
Exploration allows you to delve the forgotten depths and ascend the sprawling heights of the world’s most ancient and enigmatic of locations. With this skill, all the Realms are a playground for you to enjoy.
Try not to wake up any ancient leviathans, Reclaimer!
Aurelian had barely stepped into the long corridor outside of his spawn point—as he was calling it—before the new alert popped into his vision. He scowled at it in annoyance and dismissed it with a flick of his mind while grumbling under his breath about snarky System messages. The area before him was far taller than the room he’d started in, and he recognised it to be wider as well. Walls space far enough apart for two double decker buses, and a ceiling that could fit three of them stacked on top of each other loomed before him.
He felt momentarily daunted by the sheer scale of the building, and marvelled at the architecture for a moment despite his situation. It was incredible to think that this had been built by civilisations that were, by his guesstimate of the weaponry and extremely limited exposure to the world, likely in a mediaeval or equivalent time period. He unconsciously double-checked the straps of his bedroll and then walked forward, eyes still sweeping with open wonder across the walls and swirling, complex patterns layered upon them.
Philology is now Level 2!
He didn’t even react to the level up notification, ignoring the chime and dismissing the alert while following the corridor. The only light sources were a number of high-set stained glass windows that offered prismatic shafts of illumination as sunlight filtered through their surfaces, and which showed nothing of the outside world. The windows themselves were massive, easily six to eight metres in length and at least half that in width. Each one depicted scenes he could only vaguely recognise as ‘heroic’ or ‘regal,’ though he missed much of the context that might have otherwise given him solid insight into their history, origin, and meaning.
“Those must be Elysean in origin, if the sword unlocked the door…” he murmured while he walked, alternating his gaze between the windows and the hallway. “Reminds me of the French back on Earth.” His progress through the hallway took him towards what he belatedly realised was a branch in the path, leading down another corridor that met his current one. “So, this one is the top of a T intersection? Huh.”
He sped up a little towards the new access path and peered down it curiously while noting that there were a few more, brighter light sources within; including some from some sort of repeated ceiling construction spread over large, but even intervals that allowed sunlight to stream in unmolested. The branching path, or perhaps the main path given its comparative length, went on for far longer than his current one and Aurelian had a feeling he was probably in some sort of wing or minor extension of a much, much larger complex.
“It would be nice if I had a way of keeping time, or knowing how long I had left in the day…” he muttered while he considered his choices. He wanted to explore as much as he could, especially since not doing so could result in him missing something critical or useful. That’s usually what happened in every situation where people explored an ancient or forgotten place, after all; they skipped the one room or location where everything might have been just fine if they’d bothered to check it.
“Alternatively, they wake up the fucking undead.” he reminded himself while remembering the plethora of movies and stories that ended very badly for people who didn’t leave well enough alone. It was… difficult to decide which path to take. On one hand the potential for missing something critical was high, but on the other hand he was in a world of magic now and the chance to accidentally unleash some sort of apocalyptic threat was also… well, perhaps not exactly as high, but even a slim chance was almost more than he wanted to risk.
Almost.
“Fuck it,” he whispered, subconsciously worried about disturbing any possible big nasties. “I’ll go full Link.”
That decided, he turned away from the longer corridor for the moment and quickened his pace along his original vector; passing the yawning intersection and not-quite-jogging towards the other end of his original hallway with what might generously be called a power walk. He was surprised at how easy it was to maintain the pace as he moved, barely feeling any strain and noticing his stamina regeneration was already faster than his consumption at his current speed.
“I really need to see how fast I can run consistently,” he murmured idly while making a mental note to do just that when he found the time. Knowing how fast he could consistently flee would be incredibly useful in the event something did go wrong. Or more likely, when things went wrong.
Gnawing on that lovely thought, Aurelian came at last to the end of the corridor and the door that mirrored the one he had sheltered behind what felt like minutes ago.
“Probably because it was minutes ago…” he mumbled to himself while he examined the door as carefully as he could, not quite touching it but close enough that he could investigate its design. The first thing he noticed was that something illegible—or at least illegible to him—had been carved into the thick wood that made up the door’s material. The polished surface had been chipped at and slashed in a way that his own door…
He paused the thought process.
He had never actually checked ‘his’ door.
“Double checking that should come first, probably,” he said under his breath. “Establish consistency if there is any.”
Without another word he took a few steps back and turned to face his origin point, at which moment he paused. This would be an excellent moment to test his upper limits. Grinning to himself despite the vague feeling of tension that came from being alone in a gigantic, ancient building complex that looked like the first minutes of a Constantine film; Aurelian exploded forward into a sprint towards where he’d started, racing as fast as he could down the corridor.
The first thing he noticed was that he was really quick. Much more so than he’d ever been on Earth. The second thing he noticed, rather abruptly, was that he also had no coordination when it came to running with his larger and more powerful frame. That of course led into his third revelation when he went chin-over-crotch and smashed into the ground with an agonising and mortifying sliding finish: falling down at speed hurt.
Congratulations, Aurelian Lucis Imperius!
You have met the requirements to unlock the skill Running (C)!
Travelling beyond a brisk walk is something of an art form more than a mere act of locomotion, as many denizens of the Realms—you now among them—have discovered. It involves no small amount of practise, conditioning, agility, dexterity, and endurance to become truly proficient at high-speed movement. This is especially true in combat. By unlocking this skill, you have taken your first steps towards better mastering your physical self!
You know what they say about walking before you run, Reclaimer!
Aurelian said nothing while he picked himself up, dismissing the System message in silence and wallowing in the mortified embarrassment radiating through his body. Of course, running was a skill. Of course, it was. Why wouldn’t it be? It made perfect, awful, humiliating sense. It took every ounce of his willpower not to stink eye the spot in his vision where the System message had been, in all its mocking mirth.
He had thankfully avoided hurting himself in any way the System might have categorised as worth mentioning, but he’d definitely wounded his pride at the least. With the Running skill unlocked however, he did feel as if a piece he hadn’t realised was missing had clicked into place. Taking a breath to steady his beating heart, he started forward again, and this time accelerated gradually.
He moved from a walk into a power walk, a power walk into a jog, and then finally a jog into an accelerating sprint. This time he moderated his pace, keeping an eye on his stamina and easing off on the proverbial gas the moment it started to dip quicker than it regenerated. Based on that observation alone, as well as how quickly he was closing in on his point of arrival; Aurelian estimated he could run at nearly fifteen miles per hour before he hit net stamina loss.
That was unreal, not the least because he could theoretically run forever as long as he had stamina and—most likely—food or something else to fuel his regeneration.
“This is pretty cool…” he admitted while he slowed down towards the door.
What was even better was the chime that followed.
Running is now Level 2!
. . .
Running is now Level 4!
It was a small effort for such a massive gain, but Aurelian wasn’t about to complain. He didn’t quite understand why his relatively short jaunt down the hallway had netted him three levels, yet his hours and hours of practise had barely netted him eight—but neither was he about to complain about it.
He had bigger fish to try, so to speak.
“Bigger doors to examine…? Whatever.” he shook his head at his own thoughts and reached out to grab the door he’d left ajar, pushing it closed with a muted thud and a wince at the noise. Choosing not to smack himself for the carelessness, he instead examined its surface quickly and carefully.
In a similar place as with its twin were markings scrawled into the door, and once again Aurelian found himself confused. He had assumed the door had been locked because someone had intentionally sealed it, but the markings on both the current door and its twin were… haphazard. They were clearly done in haste, and the harsh scratching looked almost desperate in how they differed with strokes and depth between each different mark of the strange alphabet.
There was a pattern he felt that he once again should have been able to discern. A flow to the symbols and an order to their creation that tickled him. It was like a word or a sound just beyond reach, begging him to find the way to it. The pattern seemed to hold some measure of consistency, he just couldn’t quite discern what it was, nor how it played out in the greater scheme. Some critical piece of information was missing, but he was getting closer.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
He could feel it.
The System chime a moment later reinforced it.
Philology is now Level 3!
Aurelian dismissed the alert after a quick glance and looked at the markings again for only a moment, before looking down to the large doorknob. “Now I had opened this because of my sword, so I wonder if…” he reached out and gripped the knob, and then pushed the door into its frame with an expression of his enhanced strength. He was surprised by how much physical force it required to do so, though it was still not quite enough to strain him.
With only a little resistance he pushed the door back into place and pondered the rounded mechanism he still held. “I didn’t do anything really, I just wanted ou—Aha! Intent!” Magic often operated more on intention than on mechanics, as he had read about more often than not.
More than a few literary fictions had proselytised about the correlation between personal willpower and the invocation of magic, and the very few and far between written accounts on Earth about esoteric forces often agreed that an individual’s will or desire was a core component of arcane execution.
It stood to reason, then, that such a process was a definite possibility within the Realms, and so he had but one thing to try.
“Lock,” he said with as much willpower behind it as he could muster.
The sound of a massive lock slamming home seconds later inspired him to throw his hands up in victory. “Fuck yes! Magic is my bitch!” he exclaimed happily while very intentionally ignoring how ludicrous the statement sounded.
One had to enjoy the victories where they could take them, after all.
He then quite quickly remembered where exactly he was and froze, eyes widening in horror at how loud he’d shouted. “Shit,” he mumbled while he turned, eyeing the well-lit hallway and half-expecting to see some horrible thing racing towards him.
When a cursory examination showed the coast was well-and-truly clear, he heaved a sigh of relief. “Well then, back to the other door,” he whispered to himself cautiously. “And no more bloody outbursts.”
It had been a cool discovery, though.
One very chagrined run back to the other end of the corridor later, one which included a very cautious and extended look down the larger corridor; and Aurelian much more confidently approached the mirrored door. If the room he’d been in had been empty, then the etchings must not have been a dire warning as much as, perhaps, the final records of a desperate soul.
It could also have been some sort of apocalypse survivor labelling things to be found later.
It sounded unlikely, he had to admit, given the still-apparent haste and near-evident desperation inherent to the carvings… but evidence to the contrary superseded any other worries, and in the worst case he now knew he could run pretty damn fast.
Unless it was a greater demon, or a horrible dragon or—
“Enough of that.” he grunted at himself. “Focus up, dude.”
Aurelian lifted his right hand up and drew his sword relatively smoothly from its sheath—meaning it only snagged once, and only for a moment—and quietly revelled in how cool it was to be drawing his fucking Runesword in preparation for a possible fight.
Reincarnation was awesome.
“Alrighty then…” he said as he placed his left hand on the doorknob. “Here… we… go! Unlock!”
With only a few seconds’ delay the sound of a massive hidden bolt thudding back into its gears echoed from the door, and Aurelian grinned at his success. “Awesome!” he exclaimed quietly as he wondered why his use of intent as magic hadn’t granted him a skill, given it seemed inconsistent with the greater theme at play within the Realms. Everything, or just about everything, seemed tied to some kind of still.
It was odd that using his magic to unlock doors wasn’t.
A mystery for another time. He promised himself as he looked down at the knob and started to pull open the door. The moment he did however, he staggered backwards at a sudden rush of foetid, mouldy, and stale air that came rushing out of the door as if it had been released from a pressure seal.
It blew over him in a cloud of rancid meat-smell and the long-fermenting stench of liquid waste, causing Aurelian to stagger aside and vomit noisily against the wall.
Condition: Nauseated (Minor)
Aurelian ignored the flashing image of a head, open mouth, and far-too-graphic lines of ejection coming from the mouth as it flashed a dull green in his HUD. He was aware he was nauseous. He could feel his stomach roiling in rebellion at what he’d smelled, and what he could still smell for that matter. Even with the dispersion of the air into the greater mass within the corridor, the complete lack of airflow within the area meant that the remnants of the stench hung around with exceeding stubbornness.
“That is awful!” he complained quietly, remembering to be delicate with his volume while he wiped his mouth and flicked away any remnant flecks of vomit. He worked hard to ignore the fact that he had thrown up in the first place, lest he do so again; though the echoing taste of bile did nothing to help.
At least he hadn’t eaten anything chunky or particularly spicy, or else he’d have—
“Stop.” he mumbled as he felt himself getting bad again. “Focus on the stink room.”
Encouraged by his own advice and desperate to forget what had happened, Aurelian muscled through the errant thoughts of his mind and refocused on the task at hand.
Which of course, is when he was interrupted by several chimes and a System alert.
Willpower has risen to 16!
…
Willpower has risen to 18!
Congratulations, Aurelian Lucis Imperius!
You have met the requirements to unlock the skill Iron Will (R)!
Too many to name are the events in the Realms which can result in a distracted, fearful, confused, enraged, or otherwise compromised mental state. Conversely there are far fewer denizens capable of overriding or blocking out those feelings and sensations in order to focus on the task at hand. Possessing an Iron Will is your first step towards conquering such things.
Mind over matter, Reclaimer!
Iron Will is now Level 2!
Iron Will is now Level 3!
That… actually wasn’t a bad improvement. He could already feel the strength of his mind’s resolve, and the way it seemed to almost mute the nausea and accompanying thoughts. Interrupting and annoying, perhaps, but definitely not something to be ungrateful for. Perhaps the System could be magnanimous in its own way.
“Said the guy with the broken starter Sword and levelling bonuses,” he muttered begrudgingly as he immediately realised how idiotic his thought processes were.
Before he could be distracted by yet another tangent however, he flared his new skill and felt his thoughts become clear and refocused on the task before him.
The door. The room.
Aurelian stepped forward cautiously and did his best to ignore the stench—
Iron Will is now Level 4!
—and any System alerts as they popped up, mentally shuffling away the chimes and alerts the moment they sounded. He knew he needed to find a way to filter both, but the immediate moment was certainly not the time. His eyes shifted within the darkness of the room, noting immediately that there was neither any form of light nor a similar penetration in the ceiling as what he had awakened under. That was the first difference.
Exploration is now Level 3!
The second was the fact that from what he could see, the room was a charnel house. Skeletons with rags and the somewhat rusted remains of once-pristine armour upon their forms were mixed with the ragged remains of what appeared to be civilians or people of far lower station, draped together in a final embrace with surprisingly well-preserved weaponry lying on the ground beside them or sitting buried between or through now-revealed bones.
He also noticed more than a few rotted supplies piled up on the shelves, and what appeared to be a focused defensive line some three metres from the door. The civilians had attempted to make their stand, it seemed, and had been thwarted by the warriors in… He squinted his eyes and stepped inside while opening the door wider to let in more light.
“White armour?” he mumbled in question. White was usually not the shade you expected for arseholes, but then again assumptions helped nobody.
Congratulations, Aurelian Lucis Imperius!
You have met the requirements to unlock the skill Investigation (UC)!
Mysteries abound throughout the Realms, but where there is mystery there are thoughts that seek to solve them. Those that unlock this skill are famed for their dogged determination and increasing ability to put together the facts to find the truth beneath misdirection or deception. Learn what you can, discern what you are able, and uncover what you must!
Unravel mysteries as you desire, Reclaimer!
Aurelian dismissed the prompt after the briefest of examinations, pleased at the new skill but annoyed at its intrusion. The room was seemingly identical to his own in its dimensions, but seemed somehow more cavernous as he examined it. It was likely due to the lack of light creating dark, seemingly impervious pools of shadow in the far corners — though he was doing his best to ignore that fact.
Iron Will is now Level 5!
He stepped deeper into the room while dismissing the alert, examining the interior as he pulled the door as far as it would open in the process. He was not eager to be alone in a room full of corpses with no light, and even with the doorway unobstructed—not that he made much of a difference given its massive frame—he was able to maximise his vision within the space.
It was clear even as he moved just past the exit wall and closer to the line of corpses that the struggle within had been a slow and brutal affair. The way the corpses were wrapped together, and the manner in which the armoured dead had been pierced, punctured, or otherwise felled seemed consistent with a truly heroic struggle. Those that died had not done so easily, nor without courage. Aurelian felt a surge of respect for such resistance.
He additionally noticed that while the remains of the presumptive attackers seemed relatively uniform in pattern and type, the skeletons of the supposed defenders were less so. Bodies with longer skulls, double-jointed limbs, shorter or greater stature, more or less ribs, and even longer fingers and toes spoke to a culmination of races and creatures. Non-human ones. That was exciting.
Investigation is now Level 2!
…
Investigation is now Level 4!
The alerts were dismissed and he moved further forward towards where the skeletal remains sat in an arc near the door, urged on by a subtle draw to learn more. The fear he would have normally been feeling felt muted. It was there of course, but it was hidden and restrained beneath a layer of his own willpower that he felt immensely grateful for. His new Iron Will skill already seemed to be paying dividends soon after its acquisition.
Iron Will is now Level 6!
Aurelian assuaged his curiosity by moving closer still to the skirmish line, his sword still gripped within his right hand and his eyes glancing cautiously around him as he moved. Still detecting nothing in the way of living foes, he descended the small set of stairs leading towards the main part of the room and bent down to the peer more closely at the armour of the closest enemy. Riding a hunch, he activated his first and arguably most useful skill.
Revelate!
Name: ???
Race: Undead
Level: ???
Tier: ???
Health: ???
Description: Angry
“No name, no race, no age, no level, no…” he paused. “Wait, angry? Wh—?”
His eyes slowly trailed up the skeleton’s body towards its previously very dead head. Two decidedly hostile acid-green orbs stared back, burning within its eye sockets.
Aurelian swallowed audibly.
“Shit.”