Fortune has no meaning, nor victory the prize, save when we acknowledge, life is what they’re for.

Praise then be to Otga, Shurum takes his given due, light and darkness find you, live yet one day more.

-From “What It’s For,” a poem by Aoleic Ethassa.

==Sevso==

Confusion greeted me, as I awoke.

I woke feeling… good, for one. Better than I had in years.

In the dim light, coins glinted in a pile next to me, a blanket shifted as I sat up; two new titles announced themselves: Lucky Fool V and Back from the Brink I, seen as I automatically triggered to see an overview in response to a prompt. These, alone, were staggering, however, I froze on seeing another change announced: single new status effect: Life Debt.

Wait what?

I stared with disbelief as I saw my new titles and condition, but though I jolted with sudden energy it did little to clear away the clouds in my mind.

The faint light revealed the bare stone of a cave, or… I looked around more closely. No, too square, too regular. A home, buried into the stone? Not on a bed, though.

I remembered… arguing. I’d felt the presence of a dungeon, but I wasn’t alone. Tadius had clearly sensed it too.

We argued about the reward.

Not much of an argument.

I was no fool. I was no match for him. I was more than willing to give up the majority to him. It hadn’t been enough. There had been a gleam in his eyes as they hardened. A gleam I had seen before, and had hoped never to see turned my way.

Tried to do more than break my bones.

I had turned to run, not really expecting to succeed, but hoping desperately.

Then everything was a mishmash of images. I slipped slightly on the wet ground, a bloom of pain, my head hit stone, and I toppled backwards into the water. The cold shock of it faded with the pain, my mind drifting away. I knew I was going to die.

Except, now I had woken up.

Who saved me?

I was damp, but I felt a soft bit of thick cloth blanketing me, with another laid beneath. The one below was sodden with water. Must have come from my clothes.

I recalled the pain in my back again, reaching around to feel.

There was still a hole in my shirt, but my body was smooth and unmarked. I was unmarked anywhere. I didn’t have scars anymore. I didn’t have any injuries at all, old or new. I was laying on a blanket that was wet, on cold stone, and I was not even sore.

I called up my health… I stared. Impossible. One hundred percent, perfect health. No one in the slums was ever at perfect health. Maybe we started out that way, when we were born, though I wouldn’t count on it. And as we grew, forget it. By the Maw… No one was in perfect health… without powerful healers.

I looked around the room again.

Except room isn’t quite right, either, is it?

It was simply a long stretch of empty space carved into the stone. There was something at the far end, with faint light pouring through, but it looked like natural stone.

So, what…? A healer and a stone mage found me and then shoved me inside a room they carved into the stone? Why bother? If they really wanted to heal me, why not just bring me to an inn? Why leave me in wet clothes, but have blankets soak up the water?

Sounds like an old story. Some spirit passing by that helps, but doesn’t really understand humanity. Fixes the problem in a roundabout way.

I shifted slightly, marveling again at the ease.

I suppose this would help explain my new title. What ridiculous circumstances led to me being healed by someone that powerful?

And who owns me now?

I called up my full status.

Status

Name: Sevso

Race: Human

Subtype: Male

Health: 100% - Perfect Health

Status Effects: Life Debt (Permanent)

Mana: 50/50

Primary Level: 5

Class: Street Tough

Former Classes: Orphan, Urchin, Pickpocket

Ability Points: 7850

Class Skills:

Intimidate II

Street Sense II

Strength I

Toughness I

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Borrow Authority I

Titles:

Orphaned

Survivor II

Thief II

Muscle I

Lucky Fool V

Back from the Brink I

More titles and I might need to hide them like my normal skills. That AP though!

I called up my notifications.

Back from the Brink I

You survived that which should have killed you. Did you learn caution or boldness?

+100 Ability Points

+All skills are easier to learn while you are in personal danger. (+10% Bonus to Learning)

Lucky Fool V

A series of circumstances, entirely out of your control, have conspired to save you from grave peril. The power of luck shone so brightly that you are left with a residual glow. However, beware. The power of luck that is left with you is no match for the sheer scope of the fortune that was required to save you.

+7750 Ability Points (250+500+1000+2000+4000)

+Random events are significantly more likely to be in your favor

+Chaos magic and skills are significantly easier to learn or buy (50% Discount)

Status Change: Life Debt

Your life has been saved by another with no thought of reward. Your life now belongs to them. Align yourself with their purposes and morals.

+Immunity to other life debts

-Actions taken against the wishes of your debt holder can result in pain, injury, and death.

Debt holder: Caden – Dungeon

There it was. The reason for my gains, and my debt, were both apparent. After seeing the notice, I also realized I could feel where this Caden was in my mind. The destination was so far away though. Impossibly far, mostly to the west, but north as well. Caden had to be across the ocean, and I had no idea how to get there.

A dungeon saved me, even stranger than a spirit.

Numbly, I collected the coins on the floor and put them in my pouch. I wasn’t sure what to do when I got to the other side of the room and saw the wall, where the light came through.

Laugh if it left me sealed in, not understanding I’d find it hard to get out. I’d have to break it down… if I can.

I put my hands on the wall, which promptly revealed itself to be a door, with a small bar of stone holding things closed. I removed that, and it opened easily to the touch. The cold was biting, but a few steps out of the cave was enough for me to orient myself relative to the valley walls, and therefore the city.

Shouldn’t be far from the south gate.

I made up a story to the city guards, spinning a tale about being injured in a dungeon, but they asked no additional questions when they saw me. The blood and my dazed look was enough to convince them.

Or perhaps how cold I looked.

What does the dungeon even want of me?

The thought of being saved by one… Beyond ludicrous. It had created a life debt. That meant that its motives were pure. It had saved me, with no thought for itself. How could that possibly be true? Dungeons were nothing but instinct. Right? And that instinct wasn’t something nice either.

Except if a pet saves someone from a burning building, they don’t earn a life debt. You have to understand what you are doing, the action you are taking, to earn one.

Which is why they are almost impossible to earn. Cannot earn one purposefully.

For now I simply started by making sure I survived. I had been saved, so it wanted me alive.

Gods know why.

Can’t go back to the slums.

Tadius would hear about it. Won’t get so lucky the second time. Except, I don’t need luck to survive at the moment. I have money. I would need to check later, but I might have more than the reward Tadius had tried to kill me for.

Sounds like something from a story, again. Exactly the kind of thing Otga would do, sowing chaos and flipping fate upon its head.

Have to make an offering later.

I went to the adventurer’s quarter. My clothes, filthy and bloodstained, only earned me sympathetic looks there.

Sympathy will only get me so far. Have to blend in, look like I shouldn’t be touched.

I entered one of the most expensive shops. Regardless of whatever the coins were, they should be able to make change easily from what I had. I hadn’t seen it all, but I knew some of it had glinted with solid gold. Pure gold, not even just a semi-whelm. And I had sensed magic coming from at least one coin. I had at least a single piece of dungeon gold, a full rupt.

How appropriate, considering who gave it to me.

The attendant nearly turned me away, as he took in my appearance, but instead he simply pursed his lips and kept a close eye on me. If this wasn’t the adventurer’s quarter, I would never have been let inside.

As I hoped, everything was clearly marked. Stupid to try and haggle when you don’t know what something is worth. I eventually chose a few simple, but extremely well made, sets of clothes and a set of cured hide armor. The label indicated it was leather from a Fiarad. I honestly had no idea what that was. Not sure what I can ask without showing how ignorant I am. Would a normal adventurer know what the monster is? No idea, but not worth endangering my guise. I can figure out the standard knowledge later.

The cost came out to four gold and two silvers, which the attendant announced while managing to look down his nose at me. Impressive, considering he is shorter than me. I reached into my pouch, lifting out the first thing that buzzed to my senses. The attendant’s eyes went wide when a single piece of dungeon gold entered his view.

The obsequious bowing and scraping that followed was amusing, and the attendant told me it would take only a few moments to make proper change. Five normal gold whelms, one semi-whelm, one demi-whelm, and eight silver dimids were soon presented to me by the owner himself. The change came in a fine leather pouch.

“I’m so sorry for any inconvenience, sir. If I had realized a patron of your status had come calling I would have attended to you personally,” The owner said, his voice oozing with implied adoration.

Only thing he adores about me is my money.

“Come with me, sir. The resizing and measuring will take no more than an hour. I hire the best you know! Well, of course you do, that is why you came here.”

I was escorted to a side room where another attendant was all smiles. He measured me with knotted pieces of fine rope, while I tried my best to pretend to be bored of the whole ordeal.

After being measured, I was escorted to another room where fine wooden chairs and small servings of food and drink waited. The attendant also, not so subtly, presented me with a basin of warm water and a towel.

Would have savored this, yesterday.

The fawning attention was everything I had hoped for, everything I imagined when I became a street tough. Only thing missing from the picture is the scantily clad whores with amble asses serving the food from their fingers. No one worked as a street tough only for the status, of course, and I had already achieved the impossible dream I had longed for… The slums are not my home any more… and I won’t miss them at all.

I would count myself lucky if only half my friends there would stab me in the back for a silver coin.

Hells, most would do it for a deca-dimid.

This body might be perfect, but by Shurum’s icy shaft, I’m tired.

Finally, everything was ready.

It was a new experience, in every way. The clothes fit like they had grown on me. The leather of the boots was supple and perfect. The entire suit of armor shone like blackened oil. Fit right in with the night prowlers. I was presented with a mirror… and I could not recognize myself.

The face was the same, but the armor made me look dangerous. Truly dangerous, competent, in a way I had never managed before. All the aura of danger I had, before, was my skill borrowing other people’s authority.

Still feel it, that skill, now that I think about it. It’s not drawing from the Boss anymore.

Just as I felt powerful, in a new way, so to did the skill. The depth of the power was uncertain, hinting at murky waters, where teeth lay in the darkness, waiting for the unwary.

I shivered, but passed it off as shaking to test the range of the armor.

I nodded, and left the shop. From there, it was simple to procure a room in a decent inn. The cost per night was a semi-dimid. Half of a full silver dimid, 50 copper arcs. Before, I would have considered it an extravagance beyond belief. Now it barely touched my funds. I had finally taken the time to count them.

I was rich beyond my wildest dreams, with fourteen dungeon gold remaining. A smattering of other coins: gold, silver, copper, and iron added a tiny fraction more, though oddly there were no semis, tetras, or decas, only the pure coins, save the ones I just got.

Tadius would have only received a small fraction of this, even for the whole reward.

Eventually, everything came crashing down on me. I had expected to sleep, but I found myself trembling as I realized how close to death I had come. The Shakes. I had received a major title telling me I should be dead.

Whatever you are, whoever you are… I’m alive, thank you, thank you.

I sat down, fumbling off my clothes, then laid on the bed holding my knees, trembling, while tears slipped silently out of my eyes, and sleep took me before I realized it had even come calling.