Just as promised, Marisar was healed back to full health. In fact, the Selenian casually strolled through the underground dungeon’s entrance, escorted by two guards, not half an hour after I was unceremoniously dumped back with the other slaves.
I’d been pacing up until that moment, with Gronch muttering a constant string of unintelligible words. At first, I’d been somewhat worried the others would have a negative reaction to my actions during the fight, but I quickly learned it had not been broadcast to them.
It wasn’t until Marisar was in my sight and alive that my need to pace halted. No one ran to congratulate Marisar on living or to let him know he’d been missed. The reality was none of us could spare that type of emotional capacity, and even if we’d wanted to display such a potential weakness for someone openly, it was inapplicable to the current situation as Marisar would have probably been better off dead. Nothing much awaited him as a Selenian slave in a combat arena. At least it’d been relatively painless.
“I see not even the nine hells wanted you,” Gronch snorted, the first of us to break the stillness, and clapped Marisar on the shoulder. I raised an eyebrow at the expression. This world believed in Nine Hells? Not Four? I’d have to look into that and the associated cults. At least on Ordite, the Cult of the Four Hells had been a massive pain in the side of every nation. Their atrocities never had any rhyme or reason, simply violence for the sake of violence.
“I was granted a Pill of Resurrection,” Marisar responded, his large eyes wide, and his words slurred as if he was dreaming. Julius whistled, and Romeo frowned. Gronch said nothing and just gave another snort. I couldn’t tell if it was out of disdain toward the slavers or mocking Marisar’s surprise.
Julius rubbed his growing beard in clear thought. His beard was no longer a solid orange and was now peppered with flashes of white and gray to match his ever-growing wrinkles. “That is quite a precious elixir. Even a king would think twice before using it. I wonder why it was used on Marisar. When I heard the announcement, I just figured a High Ringed Healer from the church would heal him.”
“Perhaps it was too late.” Having seen Marisar and that he was in relatively good health, I allowed my muscles to relax and collapsed to the ground in exhaustion. “I’m not sure. Even when I left the arena, there was no sign of your soul exiting your body. So, my understanding is that you should have still been far enough from death for a healer’s magic or energy to work.”
Marisar nodded along and raised an eyebrow at my description of not having seen his soul. Despite that, he didn’t look surprised. “I think I can explain the soul part, you know.” His hands moved like he was clicking through something in front of him.
“You were injected with the Blood of Orpheus as well?” Romeo asked, suddenly perking up.
“Mmm,” Marisar confirmed, his eyes still flashing with the glint of the Orpheus system's invisible screen. “Ah, here it is. I received a class change when the Drakoryx stabbed me, you know. The system says Class change: Soulbound Healer.” His long blue fingers swiped down, and he continued. “Effects: Your destiny is set and cannot be changed. All events within Orpheus’ jurisdiction that threaten your destiny will be nullified.” He glanced up at us, eyes wider than I’d ever seen them. “I’m not… I’m not sure I would have died even without being saved.”
They all looked at me.
“What?” I asked, meeting their expressions with a quirk of my eyebrow. “I didn’t touch his soul. Whatever the Orpheus system did to him had nothing to do with me.”
“Lady Lilliana, why do I get the feeling that’s not true, ya know?” Marisar said with a small sigh. Gronch and Julius burst out laughing, but Romeo’s eyebrow furrowed with thought.
I just scowled at the lot of them.
“Even if I wanted to, only high-tier necromancers can forcefully soulbound,” I said, still frowning. “That’s not even a type of heart ring energy I’ve awoken to.” I was tempted to add that I probably would awaken to it within the year, but I was still unsure about how this world considered necromancers, so I kept that bit to myself.
If it was anything like Ordite, where most necromancers were killed on sight, that information could easily be the death of me. Fortunately, based on what I’d seen of the Soul Weaver abilities, there was quite a bit of overlap between it and necromancy. Passing one off for the other wouldn’t be too difficult.
“In any case,” I said, changing the subject, “What do the rest of your classes say?”
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I wanted to see whether any other interactions with the Orpheus system were similar to mine. Marisar’s description of his experience with the system was dramatically different than my own, where I only received the occasional notification.
Only after the rest took turns sharing their interactions with the Orpheus system did I realize just how different and limited my own had been. The four of them described things like experience points, stats, abilities, and explanations for each ability. Apparently, the system also laid out their strengths and weaknesses in numeric numbers. I had none of that.
“I got berserker,” Gronch grunted in his usual rough-natured way of speaking, but I could hear the pride in his voice. “The more I fight, the stronger I become. Even my intelligence seems to be rising from my fights. I didn’t even realize that was something that could be improved. Went from 23 to 40.” He explained a little about his new abilities to increase his strength by ten times and cover his weapons in energy. Apparently, that had been their saving grace against the Chimera.
“Knight of Questionable Morality,” Julius said with a half-smile, half-grimace. Snickering ensued until we realized he wasn’t joking.
“That’s an actual class?” I asked, truly perplexed.
Julius shrugged. “Suppose so since it’s mine.”
“What does it do?” Gronch grabbed some type of orange triangular fruit from his pocket and took a large bite from it.
“It just says I haven’t unlocked additional abilities beyond base stats yet.”
“What level are you?” Gronch asked.
“Level?” I could see the confused expression on Julius’ face as he seemed to flip through his invisible screens.
“Upper right corner.” Romeo moved to stand next to the older warrior and pointed to where, if a screen was to appear in front of Julius, the upper right corner would have been.
“Ah, I see it. I am level 27.”
“I think you gotta hit 30 for additional skills. I’m 31.” Gronch tapped his invisible screen that only he could see.
We looked at Romeo. “I’m level 25.” He frowned. “Must have been given less experience since I wasn’t able to do much against the Chimera.” His black curls shook as he shifted uncomfortably from where he stood against the wall. “My class is something called a Lesser Wizard of Caelos.”
Julius scoffed as if that title for Romeo was the worst fitting title he’d ever heard. “Bullshit.”
“Lilliana?” Romeo inquired abruptly clearly wanting to change the subject, his face still tinted red from shame or embarrassment, it was hard to tell. I suppose he probably wasn’t a fan of being called a lesser.
“It says my class is a Lunari,” I lied. “Some sort of warrior that gets strengthened by the moon.” It was true in that I was a Lunari and Lunari warriors were strengthened by the moon. There was a small twinge in my gut as I lied to the people who fought with me in life and death but pushed the feeling aside for the same reason I hadn’t told them of my inclination toward necromancy. Regardless of whether they could be trusted or not, sharing unnecessary information led to being blindsided by a third party. Always. That was taught in my lessons during the time I spent as a Queen candidate and something I experienced on numerous occasions as the Queen.
When asked about my “stats” I just shrugged and said they were no different from everyone else’s. In truth, I wasn’t sure what they meant by “stats” but I understood insofar as that they were some sort numeric evaluation of their limits.
The four men continued to discuss their stats and basic skills. At some point I’d tuned them out, choosing to eavesdrop on surrounding conversations. Discussion about the Orpheus system wasn’t an uncommon discussion topic anymore, though it was still one to be cautious about being overheard. Not all the slaves had been injected and others hadn’t been affected for some reason, but that didn’t mean you wanted everyone to know the intricate details of all your abilities and limits.
The one thing all of us did share, however, was the initial warning about the Orpheus System only being available or accessible within Orpheus’ territory - the arenas. Which may or may not be limited to the current arena we fought in, there was no way of knowing.
“I’m really curious how the Orpheus System can be used outside the arenas,” Romeo said, tugging at the steel collar newly placed around his neck. We’d all had one clasped around our neck after returning from the first trial, including any other slave in our enclave who was a System user. I didn’t know about the other slave groups.
The dark blue Drakoryx scale was heavy in my pocket as I gave Romeo a small, knowing smile. “I have a feeling we might find out sooner than we expected.” The boy’s eyes snapped to mine out of surprise and seemed to be looking for some hint or clue as to what I was thinking but I gave none. Not yet. I was completely drained of energy and so were all of them. We had a week to recover before the next trial and needed to make good use of it.
None pressed me and I climbed back to my feet, noticing for the first time in a while how small they were. Fresh cuts wrapped around my thin, pale legs and they screamed in pain with each step I took as the healing flesh tore ever wider. I ignored the pain, ignored the exhaustion for just a moment longer as I approached the bed I’d chosen my first day here.
It had looked like trash to me back then. Now, it looked like absolute paradise.
I could hear them theorizing about the restrictions that being outside Orpheus’ jurisdiction would cause, but I ignored them. At the end of the day, it was my own strength that would save or kill me, not some strange power given to me. Like everything else in life, the System was naught but a tool. If it conspired to be more, it would simply need to be better controlled and utilized rather than relied upon.
Thoughts for tomorrow. I sighed and fell into a blissful sleep of Nothingness thanks to my complete exhaustion fending off the nightmares beckoning at the corners of my mind.