It turned out that the girls were right. When I selected ‘yes’ to absorb the crystals, the System message cleared up and displayed another message directing me to place the crystals in my mouth.
As soon as the first one touched my tongue it dissolved like cotton candy, but left no flavor behind. There was only a fizzing sensation that quickly faded as another message flared into being.
Crystals absorbed 1 of 3
The message continued to hang in my vision, so I shrugged and popped the other two into my mouth like they were M&M’s, which was about perfect for the size that they were. The counter ticked up twice before the message flared brighter and was replaced in my vision.
Does the Traveler wish to redeem for System points, or allocate power directly to improving Mastery rating?
SP // Mastery?
While I knew that SP would be useful in the short term, I knew that Mastery would be harder to gain, especially for my Shape-Shifting as it had been creeping up much slower. So I mentally selected the option for improving my mastery. A faint memory of a discussion with Cerebaton and Cariad about mastery floated up as well while the message faded.
I swear I remember them telling me the only way to improve my mastery rating was through using the abilities. I guess this must be an exception to the rule? I thought while the flare of light around the edges of my vision shifted to gold.
Allocating improved mastery, please stand by.
Mastery allocated between the two powers the Traveler possesses that have not been fully mastered.
Power Mana Reservoir (Minor) has achieved Mastery 1000/1000.
New Powers available in the System interface.
Congratulations, Traveler.
Smiling happily to myself, I quickly closed my eyes and checked my character sheet. The only skill I had that was dependent on mastery rating now was just Shape-Shifting (Moderate), and it was now at 630/1000. It had been in the low four hundreds when I’d checked it during our break before entering the complex, and I knew from my training that it had added maybe ten points since then, just based on how slowly it was growing now.
Flipping over to the new powers section, I quickly skimmed to find out what had been unlocked. Surprisingly, there were actually three new entries, one that I was expecting — the next level of Mana Reservoir — and two that I had not expected.
Mana Reservoir (Lesser) - Cost: 2,000 SP - Grants the Traveler a lesser mana reservoir equivalent to 50 mana. This mana will regenerate at a fixed rate, depending on ambient mana of the environment. Spells cast by the Traveler will pull from this reserve first, then any other mana reservoirs in the Traveler’s possession.
Drain Reservoir - Cost: 1,500 SP - Grants the Traveler the ability to drain physical embodiments of mana into their personal reservoir of power. This allows for quicker casting and a better exchange rate than casting using an external reservoir.
Empower Reservoir - Cost: 1,500 SP - Grants the Traveler the ability to drain their mana reservoir into an appropriate medium and store mana inside of it for later use. Mana spent in this fashion regenerates slower.
“Huh. Those will come in handy, but not for the moment,” I muttered to myself, checking my remaining SP to see it was still hanging at two-hundred and seventy. I’d have plenty to spend when we finished this mission, so I filed the knowledge away to use when it became pertinent.
Opening my eyes, I nearly fell backwards in surprise to find Rieka standing only inches from me as she intently peered at me.
“Did you know that your eyes glowed during that whole event?” the wolf-eared woman asked curiously, her head tilting to one side. The motion made her pointed ears flop to one side.
“Nope. News to me.”
“What happened, Liam?” Kassandra urged, the desire for knowledge thick in her voice. I turned towards my serpentine companion to find her alternating between glancing up and down the hall, and into the cupboard where we stood, bouncing slightly on her tail in excitement.
“It gave me the option to exchange the crystals directly for SP, which is the resource I get for doing missions with you girls. I use it to buy my powers. It also gave me the option to have the energy directly infused into the powers I already have to boost their mastery. That’s what dictates mostly what new powers unlock. It gave my Shape-Shifting a big boost, but also mastered my Mana Reservoir power. This opened up the option to get a larger pool, as well as a few other powers.”
“Like?” Rieka had stepped up beside me while she settled the empty jar into her bag, she must have decided that it was worth keeping with her for now.
“Apparently, I can get the ability to drain mana from physical sources like the coins into my reservoir, and there is another one to then pour my reservoir into ‘appropriate mediums’ to store it for later use.”
Rieka had been nodding thoughtfully, but when I said the last part, she whipped her head around to stare at me in surprise.
The platinum-blonde woman’s head moved so fast in the moment that her left ear turned partially inside out, exposing the pink inner-shell of her ear. Kassandra just gaped at me, her cute mouth hanging open while her eyes were wide behind her silver-rimmed spectacles.
“What?” Rieka demanded in a high-pitched voice.
“If I spend the SP for it, I can get a power that lets me drain mana into my reservoir?” I suggested, smirking internally at the cute image that Rieka made with her ear turned inside out. I’d been hoping to see that, and it was definitely adorable beyond belief.
“Not that! The other one!” Rieka demanded. I debated playing with her, but I knew which one she wanted to hear again.
“If I take the correct power, I can pour my mana reservoir into a container. Which means that I can refill some of your coins for you,” I said gently.
Deciding to take advantage of the moment to help calm Rieka down again, I shifted my right arm back from its fighting configuration into a hand. I then brought that around to dig my fingers into the loose braid my companion kept her hair in, right at the base of her ears. I used the motion to gently flip Rieka’s ear back right-side-out, before beginning to rub the base of her ears.
Rieka’s intense expression melted into a radiant smile, and she leaned into the hand with a contented groan. Meanwhile, Kassandra continued to gape at me in surprise. It took her a few moments to gather herself enough to respond.
“Liam, that is huge! There is no known way to speed the regeneration of the mana-infused metals, other than isolating them so they can absorb from the environment without competing with each other,” Kassandra squeaked at last.
“Yeah. But there are some limitations,” I said to calm Kassandra down before she got too excited. “The investment isn’t cheap, and I still only have ten mana at the moment. That’s about thirty iron coins worth, if I pour the whole ten into coins. The power states that mana spent this way regenerates slower, but not specifically how much slower. Hell, it might slow to match whatever it is that I’m investing power into.”
Kassandra’s face fell at that thought. It was clear that she had not considered that idea, and she glared down at the ground in irritation while she thought it over.
“I’m still going to get it, though.” My words brought both girls out of their distractions, though Rieka was struggling to focus through the feeling of her head-scratches. “It’s got too much potential not to use. And both my Manipulate Element and Mana Reservoir are ready to upgrade. Mana Reservoir increases my amount on hand to fifty mana as well.”
“That would be equivalent to around one-hundred and fifty iron coins, fifteen copper, or one and a half silver,” Kassandra mumbled, her dismay giving way to thoughtfulness.
“Liam.” Rieka still refused to step away from me, but she was doing her best to focus through her favorite kind of affection with hooded eyes. “You don’t need to take these abilities just for us.”
“I’m not.”
“You aren’t?” The girls chorused before smirking at each other.
“Nope,” I agreed with a smile. “Think about it. Mana-infused metals are considered the upper end of your currency and also how you ‘pay’ for me to come and visit. The power basically allows me to create money for you, and it also means I can use it to defray the cost of you girls summoning me if I get the power. Which I plan to do.”
Both of my girls stared at me in surprise, utterly still as they considered the implications there. I knew that they hadn’t thought about it that far yet. The two of them were both spell casters. So their minds had likely gone to me being able to refill their reserves of spell coins. This would have allowed them to cast more at the cost of my own magic usage, which was minor to begin with.
I’ll likely keep boosting Mana Reservoir in the future for that exact reason. The Manipulate Element thing is already showing utility at this level, with Shape-Shifting being my primary combat power. I thought with a smile while the girls worked to reboot their brains. Rieka wasn’t helped by the fact I was still rubbing the base of her ears with the fingers gently tangled in her braid. Despite that distraction, it was Rieka who was first to form words.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
“That would be interesting for sure. We’d be able to have you top up our coins for us, rather than having to just spend the expended coins to get them back into circulation to let them renew naturally. How much use it gives would depend entirely on how quickly you regenerate the mana. It was, what, two or so points an hour?”
“About that,” I agreed, smiling down at the distracted wolf kin woman. “Though it’s probably double that down here since the ambient mana is so thick.”
“We would need to experiment to see. I think the only thing that would make it next to useless would be if it hamstrings your regeneration to where you cannot recover at a reasonable rate,” Kassandra interjected. I turned to look at my redheaded lover to find she was smiling at Rieka and me, specifically at the happily wagging tail of the wolf kin woman. “The summoning costs have been slowly increasing as time went by. You are up to four mana silver to summon and about three mana iron per hour to maintain. I’m not sure what governs the exact amount of the increase, but that’s what it’s costing. If you can meet or beat that rate, then we will actually be able to get mana back in a refund if you spend long enough with us.”
This thought clearly excited the dwarf lamia, as Kassandra was beginning to bounce on her tail in excitement.
“Provided that him doing that doesn’t negatively affect the local mana levels,” Rieka interjected. She had been shifting slowly, but now pressed herself into my side. Rieka settled her head to rest her chin on my shoulder and lean into me while I continued to give her scritches. “We can’t impede the local fields, as that would actually affect the economy. But in remote areas like this?” Rieka let the idea trail off and Kassandra grinned wider at that.
“Or at our estates… there is a lot of potential there!”
“Something to consider for later,” I sighed. I finally pulled my hand from Rieka’s hair, getting a soft whine of disappointment from the fourth princess. Rieka remained leaning into me, but her tail began to slow its back and forth. “We can worry about all this when we are done here. We need to finish inspecting these ruins. Once that is done, I can consider buying some of the powers. No reason to get excited about it right now, as it’s not something I can use.”
“Fair point,” Kassandra grumbled before glancing back down the hall. “Come on, then. Let’s check these rooms out. I never thought I’d be one to hope for fewer secrets to discover, but I could use a break.”
“If this takes much longer to finish searching, then we can head back to the safe room we established by the station platform and rest.” Rieka stepped away from me and took a moment to adjust her hair. I’d been careful not to make a mess of her braid while I was ‘helping’ her out with her ears so it only took her a moment. A faint blush graced her pale cheeks, but she was smiling softly and stealing the occasional glance at me, so I was pretty sure she was happy.
“Okay, let’s take a look at these other rooms, then. We can worry about my ability to potentially crash economies later,” I teased. Rieka rolled her eyes and Kassandra giggled mischievously before we headed back into the hallway.
<><><>
The other seven rooms off the left-hand side of the hall were nearly identical. Their doors were large iron affairs that were barred from the outside. The iron bar for the door was usually sitting in a cradle next to the door, where it could be lifted into place without too much effort. Several of these cradles had been torn off the wall and the bars were missing, but the holes in the wall for the racks remained to show that each door should have had one.
None of the other seven doors were obviously damaged, beyond some superficial scarring. So, after checking the first one to ensure it wasn’t locked, I opened it up to look inside.
The room itself was about twenty feet square, with the glowing light panels set into the walls and ceiling at regular intervals to ensure the room was well lit. Unlike the hallways and the other rooms, it was not tiled at all. The walls and floor were instead a single plane of smooth stone. They were covered in elaborate sigils and symbols drawn in the blue chalk that we had seen in the storeroom.
Kassandra excitedly set about studying the runic circle and drafting it into her notebook. Meanwhile, Rieka and I stood guard over her. There was nowhere to hide in the room and the lights ensured there were no shadows to conceal a threat. So, after a minute or two, I told Rieka to go study it as well, since I could tell she was curious from the glances she kept stealing at Kassandra while she worked.
I stood by the door to ensure we weren’t locked inside the room while the girls scampered back and forth. Whatever binders that had been in the chalk to begin with, they had long dissolved and it was only the stillness of the air and whatever odd magic preserved the place that kept the pigments where they were. Rieka discovered this when she accidentally scuffed one line with her boot and was scolded by Kassandra.
The two girls worked quickly to document the elaborate circle in Kassandra’s notebook. Only when they were satisfied did we move on to the next room in the row. This one was much like the first, but with a few key differences that had Kassandra bouncing excitedly on her tail. When I asked about it, she urged me to wait until she confirmed her theory so we didn’t waste time.
We’d made it to the fifth room before Kassandra’s smile dropped away and she was staring at the circle in confusion.
“What’s up, nugget?”
“This one doesn’t fit the pattern… it’s thrown my theory off.”
“Tell me the theory, then? Maybe we can figure it out if we talk through it.” I didn’t know enough about magic to really have a guess, but I’d known a guy in high school who would use me to ‘rubber duck’ his computer programming problems. Apparently, that was where you explain your work in excruciating detail to someone who doesn’t understand the mechanics so that you go over every bit of it, and that usually helped a programmer spot errors in their work. I was hoping something similar might work here, since he’d usually figured his problem out before he even finished explaining it to me.
“These are all a type of summoning circle,” Kassandra began after a moment of thought. She slithered over to show me the diagram she’d copied onto the page of her notebook. “You can tell the circle’s purpose from a handful of key points. The shielded section for the summoner to stand that would protect them from the creature that they summon is here.” She pointed to a curved section towards the bottom of the diagram. “Right before it is the offering space, that is where you would place the crystals or coins to power the ritual, and any items you wish to use to bribe a specific spirit to appear. Like fruits to summon an avian form creature. This is the targeting matrix, where you would enter information on what you are trying to summon.” She pointed to another section to the right of the main circle. “The binding circle is here in the center and links to the specific protections to help contain the summoned creature.” Kassandra drew a line to the left where familiar looking symbols were drawn.
I recognized that part of the circle from my initial summoning, the one that had ripped me off the side of the highway up in the mountains and brought me here to meet the girls initially. A portion of that section of the circle had been damaged and it hadn’t been functioning properly. This had allowed me to wander out of the center ring of the summon, and apparently scared the sense out of most of their housemates.
“Okay, following that part so far,” I said to her after a moment. “Are all the circles the same?”
“Yes! All five we’ve looked at have all been laid out the same, except for the targeting matrix and protection list. The first circle we found had these,” Kassandra pointed to the opposite page to a block of symbols at the top that included a rune cluster that my Traveler power told me meant ‘fire.’ “These were meant specifically to target and summon creatures of a fiery nature. The protections list was extensive and didn’t have any smearing around it, but the targeting information was altered in small ways and showed some ancient smearing from corrections being made. It was like they were dialing in how to summon a specific entity or type of elemental entity.”
“That makes sense,” I muttered and glanced over the next three entries. Each of them were similar, but had the other three major elements listed instead: water, air, and earth.
“What I don’t get is this one, though,” Kassandra grumbled and pointed at the fifth entry. “I don’t recognize these runes. I had figured they would have gone into more specific or expanded elemental types, like lightning or ice, as we have.” Kassandra indicated Rieka and herself. “But this one is strange and I don’t know what the heck it is.”
I stared at the entry for a moment, and the translation power continued to boil in my mind before it presented an answer for the symbols that actually translated directly into a concept. When it finally settled on an answer, I blinked in surprise.
“That one means light…” I murmured, tapping the rune set that would have designated the ‘elemental’ portion of it. The other runes around it were not as well written as the first four, and I couldn’t help but wonder if they had been refining this circle at the time that whatever disaster occurred.
Kassandra stared down at the glyph thoughtfully before snapping her fingers. The sharp sound made Rieka and me jump, and we both turned to stare at her.
“That’s it! Primal elements, rather than advanced forms! I’m not as familiar with them, so I hadn’t recognized the rune set,” Kassandra crowed and turned to hurry towards the door. “That translation power of yours is impressive, Liam. Come on! We can confirm this theory with the next room, if you can decode it.”
I shared a glance with Rieka and the wolf-eared woman shrugged, so we followed our serpentine companion. The hallway was still as dead silent and empty as it had been before, so we proceeded down to the next door. There was only one more after this before we reached the end of the hallway and the damaged double doors, so I kept a wary eye in that direction while opening the door to the next ritual room.
This was the first room where things had deviated from the norm. While the previous five rooms had been brightly lit by the glowing panels, this one was dim and dark, with barely a fourth as many lights to illuminate it. We were quick to produce our light stones to ensure nothing was lurking in dark corners, but the room was empty save for the broad chalk circle on the smooth floor.
“Liam, come look here,” Kassandra called, urging me to follow her to the right side where the targeting matrix was. She scanned over it quickly before pointing to one cluster. “There! What does that say? I’m positive I know, and given the light levels in the room it should be obvious. Double check it for me?”
Studying the angular glyphs drawn on the floor, I waited for the translation to pop into my head. It did a moment later, and I turned to smile down at the excited dwarf lamia.
“I think that just confirmed your theory. It’s ‘darkness’.”
“Yes!” Kassandra cheered. She quickly began scribbling down the runes before winding around the room to document the binding symbols.
“Wonder what all this means,” Rieka muttered from her place beside me. She was studying the circle again, but seemed content to let Kassandra document it herself, now that we’d seen so many of the same circles with only minor changes.
“They were clearly researching summoning, or using summoning to try to contact specific creatures for their research. The dissection room and the cages lead me to believe that they weren’t too picky about if the creatures they summoned were not compliant,” I replied. The idea made my stomach roll, but I had to say something.
“That or whatever they were summoning provided the captives. There are dark things amongst even the best of species,” Rieka said gently, stroking my left arm lightly with one hand.
I’d shifted my right back to my current combat form of the scorpion tail, but my left arm was still my original and the sensation of her fingers on my skin sent a shiver down my spine.
I was about to speak when Kassandra returned and urged us to move to the next room, as it would firmly lock in her theory. While we walked down the hall, the dwarf lamia rambled on about how the primal elements were only barely known, with only light and dark being confirmed as part of their makeup. There were many theories as to what the other two points on the compass were. Since the regular elements numbered four, it was believed that the primal elements numbered four as well.
We reached the last door and Kassandra hesitated before opening it, still bouncing slightly in place in excitement. She shot me a quick grin before yanking the door open to peer inside. She’d made it about five feet into the room before Kassandra let out a yelp of surprise and abruptly reversed direction.
Her noise of surprise was such that I acted immediately. As soon as her torso reached me, I looped my left arm around her waist and dragged her back down the hall away from the door, letting it swing shut. Rieka was right beside me, her spell-rod trained on the doorway and ready for any threat that would emerge.
“No, no. Wait!” Kassandra protested as I pulled her back bodily. Since most of her weight was in her tail, it wasn’t as hard as it might have been to just lift her up and run.
“What?” demanded Rieka as Kassandra started trying to wriggle free of us.
“I was just taken by surprise, is all. That room has been trashed. Something fought and died in there, but there’s no body.” Kassandra was babbling, trying to reassure the two of us. It took a moment before I relaxed enough to set her down and we could return to the room.
This time, I led the way. The door had a bit more damage to it than the others had in the form of several deeper gashes. The door’s bar was bent at a thirty-degree angle and lying on the chipped tiles of the hall. But the door itself wasn’t dented at least. Pulling the door open revealed what Kassandra was saying.
While the other six rooms had been clean, orderly, and untouched, this room looked like it had been the site of a battle.
The chalk lines were smeared and washed out; large, dark stains covered much of the floor and speckled the walls with drops and streaks. There were dents, scratches, and chunks clawed out of the walls as well and broken rubble all over the place. The room looked like the site of a battle, but without the physical remnants of a fight in the form of the dead. Which was good, as I didn’t want to run into whatever could dig those kinds of pits in the granite walls.
Kassandra cautiously slithered over to inspect the targeting matrix, but it was one large smear of ancient blue pigment, the rusty color of old blood, and an odd black/brown color that reminded me of the oil stains in a parking lot. The section with the protections had actually been dug out of the ground, leaving chunks of broken stone lying nearby from some blow or explosion.
“Well damn! That ruins the chance to confirm that theory,” Rieka sighed from her spot by the door, keeping watch on the hallway.
“Not entirely,” Kassandra said, her voice subdued but clearly trying to maintain her previous energy. “There’s still that room at the end of the hallway. It might have a clue we can use.”
The three of us shared a look and trooped back into the main hallway. The reminder that we were exploring an ancient tomb had marred the sense of adventure and discovery. We were in the ruins of something that was once great, but now was full of only the ghosts of the dead and dangerous threats.
Standing out in the hallway, with Kassandra on my right and Rieka on my left, all three of us stared down the roughly fifty feet of the hall at the double iron doors that guarded that end. Iron doors that were obviously distorted from a massive impact on their far side, an impact heavy enough that it belled the doors outwards into a dent almost as wide as the doors themselves.