Chapter 23: Levels For Everyone.

I was on deaths door, pain rocked my body in waves and I could make it all go away if I took my level up. I would have done it too, but I'd seen Victoria level up earlier though and I knew the euphoric state it created left you vulnerable to attack until you were done choosing your upgrades and I didn't want to be vulnerable in front of Merri. Not anymore anyway, not now that she wasn't bound by any Master and potentially didn't need anything from us. I tried to put together what I knew about her. She claimed to be an unwilling soldier, she claimed to be under a geas and I believed that. I also believed Ranyai had been a sadistic master, we'd seen that. But Ranyai had claimed not to seek the destruction of these lands, he said that he only sought to return to the hells via the gate he would open.

Merri on the other hand had galvanised us into action by claiming that everyone in the region would die when the door was opened. Now Ranyai was dead and she was free to wander our world. Hence why I thought we needed some clarity from her before anything else happened. Merillax looked wounded at my accusation of a lie, "I might have lied about a few things, really just spiced them up. I was supposed to bring him the local nobility, he should have specified any member would do the trick and shouldn't have given me too much leeway in how I accomplished my task." I eyed her suspiciously. "You said he would summon his armies to scourge these lands."

Merri looked me dead in the eyes. "And you chose to believe me. Hardly my fault."

I felt a vein in my forehead twitch. "I see, what now then? Will you take these noble souls to boost your own power?"

Merri laughed. "No, no, I gain power through battle, noble souls do nothing special for me. Honestly, I'm going to see the world, maybe find a nice person to settle down with. Honest."

I growled, Victoria drummed her fingers on the closed spell book at her waist, Luna flipped a knife over and over while Balthazar lit a pipe and started smoking up the chamber. Merri pointed back the way we'd come in. "I killed his creatures for you, I had to wait till you were fighting him or he'd notice and order me to stop." That explained why the reinforcements never came but that had been when she still needed us. I asked a question aloud. "Can we trust her? Can we trust a demon?"

Balthazar nodded then shrugged, Victoria thought about it and did the same. Great, very helpful. Luna chipped in. "She's your friend isn't she Jack? What do you think?" I didn't know this world, I didn't know much about demons but obviously they weren't all bad or the others would'nt even be entertaining this. I sighed and gave my answer. "Go on then Merri, get out of here and thanks for saving us from those things."

Merri gave me one of the painfully sweet smiles that had threatened to steal my heart the first time I'd met her, the difference was how obvious the artificiality of it was now.

"Aww, I owe you one, I'm glad we didn't have to end this friendship in blood, I owe you for giving me that chance. Hit me up some time, I promise I won't bite, unless...".

Merri turned on one heel and began sashaying back out of the cave, I studiously looked over at Victoria instead of those swinging hips and the scholarly little platinum-blonde smiled a little.

We looted the cave after that, it was a pretty half-hearted attempt on our part though, the stench of rotten meat and entrails filling our nostrils and driving us out without finding much of value beyond demonic scrolls we couldn't read and a pile of iron coins that seemed slightly too hot to hold with bare skin. Giving up we straightened our backs and left the cave behind, picking our way through the bloody remnants of Ranyai's creatures. It seemed as if Merri had silently dismantled all of them before they could reach us. She was certainly powerful, and now she was unbound. Balthazar looked over the corpses of wolves with demonic spines growing off of their skeletons, Shadelocks clad in human skin, humanoid creatures that looked like goblins but with red, scaled skin and suppurating wounds all over their mutated bodies. Balthazar clucked his tongue.

"I'm glad she's gone, I know she helped us but she did grab me out of the woods and tie me up like that, hard to get over something like that."

I looked at Balthazar in shock. "She what?" He nodded like it was obvious. "Yeah, of course, she told me she'd help me if she could but she also seemed to be having a really good time watching me struggle." I eyed the more than a dozen corpses scattered around the chamber and sighed. I couldn't avenge them now, probably would have died if I'd tried. Besides, Ranyai gave the orders, Merri probably just obeyed. Probably.

"Want to take turns levelling up? We can cover each other's backs that way." suggested Luna.

That was a point, a very good point. I went first. Level 5. Stat point unlocked.

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I froze, looking over my choices and realising I should have expected this, should have planned out the stat I'd raise before I got to this point. I hovered over each choice individually and saw the effects, a level of dexterity would bring my hand-eye coordination from a lifelong fumbler to being able to catch a ball when it was thrown my way, the only things I was good at were Charisma, which explained why people used to put up with me despite my general ineptitude and constitution which I put down due to a lifetime of getting hurt, mostly due to the aforementioned clumsiness. Of course, my constitution was probably increased further due to constantly punishing my body with tons and tons of alcohol after every shift. My willpower was at 8, due to my addictive personality I guessed, looked like a single point would make me 50% less likely to become addicted to substances, give me 10 percent more attention to task and increase my stamina. I didn't use stamina much though so that was left by the roadside in favour of the only real option. Intelligence, increase Mana, Spellpower, Reading comprehension and speed as well as the rate of Mana regeneration. Yep, intelligence 11 seemed the way to go.

My mana increased to 55 and I moved on to my next choice. Spell Chandler's path. I had three options, it was weird seeing my future laid out like this, I was frozen in a moment of pure clarity of mind. Soulflame, you can infuse any spell-candle you craft with a piece of your soul, spell power will be increased by 300% immediately and every future casting will increase this bonus by 1 percent until soul-destruction at 1000%. That didn't sound good, I was pretty sure I needed my soul intact rather than destroyed. Although a small part of me did the math, trying to figure out how many spells i'd cast so far, how far i could get rationing out my spellcasting, maybe finding a particularly long-lasting recipe of spell candle that would lift me to... I don't know what I wanted to achieve really. Just helping maybe, doing the right thing? Finding love and friendship?

It wasn't the right path for me, the other two choices were Umbral Flame and Light of Erudition. The path of Umbral Flame allowed me to naturally weave shadow magic into any one of my candles without any additional reagents and augment my spell power and mana with either the willpower or charisma stat in addition to intelligence. I thought about that path, how would a high willpower Shadow-Jack go about his life? I could imagine myself resisting earthly pleasures, becoming an ascetic of sorts, communing with shadow. Seemed too edgy for me.

I moved on to Light of Erudition. You focus on the art of spell-chandling, learning to treat mundane candles as if they were spell-candles, gaining additional spell power increases based on intelligence and abilities that bring you further in tune with the truth and reality glimpsed within a candle's lifespan.

That just seemed vague, I didn't think I wanted to become like a candle, fuck it, I made the choice the way I made most life choices, rashly.

Umbral Flame. How will you master shadow? Willpower or... I selected Charisma the moment I had the option. I already had a decent degree of that, some deceptive force to my personality that put me at above average.

Instantly I felt the presence of shadow mana all around me as I dropped out of the level up mindset. I was completely aware that everything cast a shadow and that included the very flame of the candle. I now knew how to weave that mana into my own creations and the boost to my intelligence left me feeling sharper, better able to digest new information. The final thing I noticed was a surge of potential as my Mana increased and I immediately brought up the number so that I could see the results. My mana had increased to 85, I frowned, expecting to have seen a higher result and focused some more. Ah, charisma x half level was added to intelligence times level. Fair enough.

I looked around goofily as Victoria took her own level increase to 5. Her party menu showed her almost immediately select Tomemistress, damn, there was something about that subclass title that did something for me. Victoria smiled when I commented on how quickly she'd levelled up. "You take a while because you're treading ground that no one has trod in hundreds of years. I have read about every choice I will be presented with for years now. The path will change depending on the items, style and spells I come to acquire or prefer over the years but I have a pretty good understanding of how it could go."

I was out of my depth, completely out of my depth. "When we get back would I be able to borrow a book? Whatever you recommend, I'm looking for a good story."

Victoria's eyes seemed to sparkle with delight, her emotions were probably heightened by the same bubbly feeling I had from levelling up but that didn't matter, It felt great to see it. My extra point of intelligence worked overtime as she rattled off a set off books, asking if I'd read them. I was honest and she seemed really excited to lend me her copies, it made me oddly sad that I couldn't lend her any of the stories I myself enjoyed growing up.

Balthazar took his own level while we chattered excitedly back and forth and he didn't have to choose anything. "Damn, got a dead level, was hoping for a perk but I rolled one of those 2 levels ago already so I wasn't holding my breath."

Luna took her 6th level with similar speed. "Double strike, been waiting for that" She thrust her blade and the supernatural quickness made it appear as if she had attacked twice in a single motion rather than two separate strikes.

The four of us laughed, all giddy with the sensation of fresh power, aware that we had dealt with a problem before it could become anything more serious and ready for greater things. I looked around for the mountain-top chateau and village, Croftop. There it was, far in the distance, lazy puffs of smoke drifting upwards from chimneys and all the people going about their day. They wouldn't have to worry about being butchered and dragged to hell, seemed like a job well done. "You want to come back with us Balthazar? Merri's still out there you know."

The spry old man waggled his eyebrows at us. "I wouldn't mind running into her in better circumstances, but I'll take you up on the offer, I could do with some downtime after that last set of misfortune."

We laughed again and the four of us set off into the noonday sun, chatting all the way.