Chapter 43: Pathways.

"You have levelled up to Level 7"

Experience to next Level 0/144

Hp increased to 56

Mana increased to 119

"Select a Second Tier Mana Technique before continuing, Select an improved cantrip before continuing, Select a second Tier Candle Casting Technique before continuing."

I looked over my list of basic cantrips, I'd been informed ahead of time by Victoria that most spellcasting classes saw several chances to upgrade their most basic abilities while levelling up so I wasn't too surprised by this development.

I couldn't pick any new cantrips which meant my choices were; Light/Snuff wick, Summon Wick and Waxen Patch. I looked at their tooltips in order starting with Light/Snuff wick "Improved Wick Control, lighting or snuffing a wick can be performed as part of another spell, increasing effective casting speed and opening the Blazing Candle Pathway."

I was intrigued by the sound of that and a further query to the system gave me information on pathways, much like how my Umbral flame subclass had allowed me to weave shadow mana into any candles that I crafted these pathways would allow me to further specialise. Unlike my subclass though, I wasn't actually locked into a pathway once i picked it up, rather I could unlock multiple pathways and then split experience points off from my main pool to level up these pathways at my discretion. Farrah had explained how she could bank experience in order to survive fatal damage and this seemed to be a similar concept.

i spent a few minutes reading through the pathway abilities and came to the conclusion that if I took this upgraded cantrip I could begin to augment my spells with Blazing Candle which focused on quicker casting and at later levels would help me learn techniques for further ranged manipulation of candles and lamps. Useful but not mandatory, I moved on to my next potential cantrip..

"Improved Wick Summoning, summoned wicks will provide an additional 10 percent boost to damage, duration and range of spells. Provides access to the Eternal Candle pathway" The boost to my summoning cantrip would be tremendously useful if I didn't already have access to a workshop, but as it was I could get better results by using improved materials to craft my wicks rather than summoning them on the fly. The associated pathway seemed to be all about creating candles from nothing, shaping raw mana into the fuel that would sustain and channel my spells. It was a pathway that blended more standard arcane techniques with my own rare discipline and would make it far easier to take tutoring from experienced mages rather than continually bumbling through things by myself. So far I was leaning towards this over Blazing Candle but I had 3 cantrips and so I had 3 options.

The last choice was of course an improved version of Waxen Patch "Waxen Salve is the upgraded form of Waxen Patch, stop bleeding, hasten the healing of burns, draw out venom and numb pain. This improvement opens the Investiture of Wax pathway to the Spell-Chandler class" I thought longingly about that one, it was a trite observation but pain was a terrible thing.

I'd only been on this world for a short while before being burned so badly that If i'd still been on earth I would have had no chance of survival and even with access to magical healing I would have spent a week in an infirmary, tossing and turning in agony if I hadn't been lucky enough to have a level up in the chamber. Only a few days after that trial the carnivorous river fish had shredded my flesh, including some very, very painful areas and my worst nightmares since that day were literally just unvarnished memories of those bastards tearing into my groin, armpits, belly and fingers while I fought my way to the surface.

One could argue that I had always healed up with time and now had demonic blood to shorten that waiting period but the pain of those experiences would likely never fully fade away and would remain something I would want to avoid at just about all costs.

I couldn't justify taking the upgrade just for the ability to numb pain just yet though, I needed a tutor, and so far only the path of the blazing candle would help me out. I still looked over the Investiture of Wax though, it seemed this final pathway was all about finding the similarities between the composition of a candle and the composition of Man before using that understanding to influence casting. I probed deeper and felt the familiar feedback of the Akashic, the kind of maddening psychic static that could apparently shatter my mind forever if I pushed too hard, I saw the abilities that lay down this path, substitution of flesh for wax and wax for flesh, it was all fuel, in fact the first trait I'd ever taken, Overburn; had shown me this basic mechanic of Spell-Chandling already. I attempted to withdraw my mind from the bottomless abyss that longed to stare back when I felt something strange, another mental force pushing me over the edge, I panicked, flailing inside my mind as I tried to keep my footing and then I was falling.

I saw spots, my vision tunnelled. The mushroom forest was gone and instead I saw visions of my foes becoming blazing pillars, living candles whose flesh and mana served as an accelerant to the energies that would consume them, all it would take was my spark touched to the wick of their souls, of course, why hadn't I seen this before, the concept had been hammered home to me when I'd selected my subclass in Ranyai's cave, a soul was just a wick and the flesh encapsulating it served as the wax.

My body seized up, a pressure built up in my mind and I found myself looking upon the different ways in which my flesh could flow and twist into new and spectacular forms. I could reshape my disgusting Bipedal form into the limbless might of the Holy Worm, I could become a flowing tube of sublime flesh that moved beneath the earth in divine sublimation.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

Time melted in on itself and then... then I was back in the caverns and realising I had inadvertently lost myself in the Records again. My senses returned bit by bit, I realised someone was shaking me and as the rest of my senses returned, I realised that I'd drooled down the side of my face and although Farrah's feline face was looking down at me her hands actually seemed to be holding me still rather than violently shaking me against the rocks and trees. 'How strange' I thought idly as a blood vessel popped inside my nose. Farrah turned her head and called out with a sense of alarm I didn't feel the need for but dimly appreciated.

"Vic, get over here, your boyfriend is stroking out or something"

I realised that I was convulsing violently against the rocks and with great effort I stopped myself and slowly regained control of most of my facutlies, noting with great relief that I hadn't shit myself and only feeling minor annoyance at the knowledge that had been so crystal-clear only moments before now fading back into incoherence, concepts simply too advanced for me to grasp at my current skill level.

I knew what had happened, the memories of the high priest were lying dormant in my circlet and they had briefly taken control, forced me over the edge and tried to possess me while I was vulnerable.

That hadn't worked out, the priest's consciousness had caused me to select an upgrade to Waxen patch and the associated Investiture of Wax pathway but It had revealed itself in the process and I wouldn't let it catch me off guard again. Even now I could feel the malevolent presence seething away.

I wanted to put a permanent stop to it but the priest of the Grey strain was fighting valiantly in the back of my mind, exerting a psychic pressure that stopped me from tearing off the circlet or asking for help but unable to actually force me to take actions unless I was distracted or incapacitated.

I blinked a few times, the rest of the party had come over by now and were making loud ringing noises instead of words, I smiled goofily up at them and focused on assuaging their concerns.

"Sorry, I messed up Level Selection, I'm ok with the Pathway I picked though, seems like it should be pretty useful anyway. I can dull the effects of the worm's venoms even when we run out of Neutralisation spells now."

Those words came out a tiny bit more slurred than I'd wanted them too and my friends were looking no less concerned than they had been. I tried again. "No, Really, I'm ok, It's alright. I've made this mistake before, A little error in the system, I get my brain overloaded and then I'm ok again after a while, honest."

Farrah shook her head with slow disbelief before she spoke. "You messed up your Level Selection? Something any child can do without issue?"

I nodded seriously. "Yep."

Farrah let out a slow breath. "Jack? If you can mess that up then I don't understand how you can breathe without strict supervision."

I looked around for support, only Victoria looked like she had something to say but before she could we were interrupted by a sudden commotion. I still needed to select an additional pair of casting techniques but after my latest accidental foray into the Akashic I was happy to take the distraction. Apparently the Grey strain Derro and their fellow slaves weren't getting on together, Luna was cursing the stubby little death-cultists out and they were gesticulating wildly at the slaves. As I got closer I could hear what they were arguing about. "The slaves are cowards, they will not help you snatch the sacrifices from the Purple Vermin. You need us, you need the power of the Grey Strain on your side. Let us sacrifice these slaves and summon the truest of worms."

The words rang true, my circlet pulsed, I could almost taste the purity of the Grey Strain, the finality with which it could erase my foes, poisoning a soul, devouring it much like my candle-flame devoured its fuel. I tried to take complete control but it was so difficult, it felt like a big warm woollen doona was draping itself over my thoughts, smothering any suspicion with a lovely peace that I just didn't want to break. Mental magic was bullshit, I could feel that I was being fucked with but I had no recourse available to me. Internally I raged as my mouth refused to speak words and my legs began to move of their own accord.

I pointed at the Derro who had spoken and saw my fingers subtly cross first one way and then the other, even if my friends had been watching they might not have noticed the slight tic, only my connection to the priests thoughts told me it was a type of sign language used by the Derro when noise had to be avoided. I had lost control, my voice spoke words I had not intended. "No sacrifices, but a temporary truce is in order, you will bring us to the temple, use the tunnels intended for transporting ritual components to bypass the city itself and reach the great chamber before the ceremony is complete."

The Derro put on a show, one hissed about taking orders from a surfacer, another swore that the forest must be cleansed of impurity with the blood of the slaves and a third quieted them down and begrudgingly advocated for an enemy of my enemy approach to the problem.

My friends seemed to have heard the wrongness in my voice, obviously surprised by my words but when I tapped a finger on the circlet and shot them a reassuring grin they all relaxed a little. I was a prisoner behind my own eyes, helpless to watch as this presence deceived them. My hands flashed more words. "Which ritual are they conducting? Where is my blade?"

None of the prisoners made it obvious that they were watching my hands, in fact the response seemed very natural, a derro called out like he was adding to the conversation. "Surfacer, you clearly know some of our ways, but the sacrifice is no normal one, the raiding parties captured some very interesting components, one is a store of immense aetheric energy, the kind that my people once harvested from the gnomish theocracy."

That was the cleric, the Derro had slaughtered thousands of gnomes and extracted massive amounts of energy from their priests in torturous blood-sacrifice, using them to open tunnels, literal wormholes between realities, sending missionaries and small expeditionary forces through to attack nearby realms until eventually they had run out of gnomish priests. None of the expeditions had ever come back but the Derro didn't care, they had venerated anyone who took the jump as a saint and continued hunting for a divine energy substitute, that was what had finally driven them to make preparations for an attack on the cursed and much-maligned surface.

The two Derro exchanged more signals and my heart sank. Merri had been right to fear Karl, the Derro were going to use him in conjunction with the cleric to open a pathway through the hells, the plan was to stabilise the tunnel as much as possible using the Cleric's lifeforce and then use Karl as an anchor and the Hells as a nexus in order to permanently access other worlds. At the end of the ritual Karl would be trapped, oscillating endlessly between the temple on our plane, the plane of hell he was bound to and whichever world he would appear in. The surface would be spared as the Derro simply weren't confident in attacking it, instead they would attempt to jump from subterranean world to subterranean world, repeating their conquests again and again.