...Rho ...Boom.

“Bravo Squad is gone. Charlie Squad, on our right flank, get there now.”

...Rho. The whispered voice said again. The screams and explosions of the battle echoed all around me.

“What was that? Three hundred dead with that attack?”

...Rho. What? I silently screamed. Fuck.

“Base is gone, guys, looks like this is it! Let’s kill this bitch and die in a blaze of glory.”

...RHO.

“She’s dead,” someone said, fuck, it could have been me, came through the mind link. I was covered in so much viscera I couldn’t tell where I was bleeding from. Doesn’t help that I can’t feel my legs. The ceiling was falling down around me, and I thoughtmy legs were under a huge chunk of it.

“Aaaaagggggghhhhh.”

A scream filled the cavern with enough force that blood started to stream from my nose, eyes, and ears. Don’t they have specialty doctors for that, my warped mind thought. I didn’t see the blood, though I could feel it trickling down my face and neck. My head felt like it was splitting its own atoms from the sound wave produced.

“You said she was dead...” I started but was cut off by the dweller’s queen.

“The end of time is here, but before you die kn…” I stopped listening. The blood loss combined with the pain made it through the mental block, causing the world to fall away slowly. I noticed a flash and boom drowning out the screaming that instantly ensued

“Ha, no evil speech for you,” were my final words before darkness took me.

...Rho. I sighed mentally, the voice was back, calling from a great distance. Whoever the fuck you are, leave me alone. I’m dead. Seriously, what’s a guy got to do around... Wait, what? This time, I didn’t drift back into the great beyond, and surprisingly, or not—I guess it would depend on who you asked—I debated with myself. I didn’t remember what it was like on the other side.

With my survival instinct kicking in, my anxiety was rising at the thought of returning to the land of the dead. The beyond came rushing to the front of my mind just out of focus. I was in danger of losing myself, instinctively knowing that if I crossed that gate again it would be for the final time. For a moment, I even thought about heading there. Seeing my family again, forgetting all the pain. The mental blocks kicked in, having been healed enough to start functioning again.

I tried to open my eyes but found that I couldn’t, nor could Imove my body in any way. This did not help my mental state. Come on. Calm down, jackass, panicking won’t help. I had to stop and take a deep breath to center myself. Okay, I’ll meditate, check my stats, maybe that will help, or at the least give me a clue. I thought as I drifted into my mindscape.

CHAPTER ONE

I opened my eyes to a small, empty sealed cave with bare granite walls. That was the first surprise in a long and depressing list of things that had changed. None for the better. Before the final assault on the dweller queen, and the end of the world, I thought it was the end at least. My mindscape was the size of a planet, well, a small moon at best, but still, what the fuck. Next, I pulled up my character sheet.

Character sheet:

Name: Rho

Race: Gess

Class: Combat Sorcerer

Level: 1

Age: 3573

Base speed: 30’/s

Weight: 220lb

Spell Slots: 8/8

Healing factor: 2in^3 × con bonus (3) = 6in^3 per min. Raising by 2in^3 per level.

Six cubic inches a minute.

Maximum achieved at level five.

Attributes:

Strength: 8

Dexterity: 8

Constitution: 8

Intelligence: 8

Wisdom: 8

Charisma: 8

Class Skills:

Manipulate gravity:

Dense star:

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Haste/Slow:

Ion control:

Telepathy:

Shapeshifting:

Perception:

Precision strike:

Concentration: 5*

Bastard swords:

*These points do not count toward an individual’s skill point cap total.

Skill points available: 35

*Learned skills:

Light armor: 1

Medium armor: 1

Skill levels are as follows and grant a perk when each new rank is achieved (no perk for unranked): 0-9 unranked, 10-24 novice, 25-49 journeyman, 50-74 adept, 74-99 expert, 100-149 master, 150-200 grandmaster.

* Learned skills progress on their own and can be learned and taught by anyone. Skill points earned through leveling cannot be used to increase learned skills. Learned skills are still limited by an individual’s class skill restrictions. Ex: cooking (skill).

Spells:

* Manipulate gravity (skill): Can increase or decrease gravity by 5% in a three-foot radius centered on target when channeled. Increases or decreases gravity on individual by 5% when targeted. Gains 5%, and a one-foot radius per skill level. Duration one minute per skill level. Individual or self, line of sight. Instant cast. No cool down. Can be channeled. Uses one spell slot every five seconds channeled.

* Dense star (skill): creates a mini star with a gravitational pull towards it. Density and size are related to skill level. Will decrease the speed of individuals in affected area. Once speed is below zero, sun pulls target toward it, doing crushing damage that increases exponentially the closer the individual is to the center. Depends on mass of creature. Area of effect, line of sight. Duration: 20 seconds per skill level. Can be terminated early. Recharge of skill: thirty seconds.

* Manipulate air particles (skill) Haste/Slow: Can increase or decrease speed of target by 5% percent. Two percent change per skill level. Dependent on mass. Targeted, line of sight, touch. Lasts one minute per skill level. Five second casting time. No recharge, but not usable in a vacuum.

* Ion control (skill): Can manipulate the charged particles in the environment to cause damaging effects. Targeted, touch, discharged through weapon (may cause weapon damage due to durability loss). Damage output dependent on skill level and cha score. Can be channeled (no target needed when channeled). Instant casting. Recharge dependent on environmental conditions with a minimum of one second to a maximum of ten seconds. Channeled spell uses a spell slot at the rate of 1 slot every 10 seconds.

*All magic skills can be used in any way that the combat sorcerer can imagine, within the boundaries of the skills, and relative skill level. Ex: Individuals cannot make a fireball (spell) with gravity magic. As well as not being able to call a meteor strike at skill level one in manipulate gravity.

Abilities:

Shapeshift: Can alter body at will. Cannot grow new appendages, however, can regrow existing appendages. Ability to change shape grows with skill points, but this does not grant the ability to change shape into another creature. e.g.: elven features are doable, but becoming a dragon is not.

Perception: Increased senses and magical sensing.

Identify: Combat sorcerers are able to identify magic items and potions. Increase perception to identify higher level items.

Darkvision: Can see in complete darkness.

Acid Breath weapon: Six-inch diameter stream out of mouth, for a maximum of ten yards. Lasts ten seconds. Does durability damage.

Dodge: Allows an individual a small window of time to get out of the way of an attacker’s strike.

Parry: Parries an opponent’s strike leaving them open to a riposte. Can be used with Precision Strike and is improved through it as well.

Quick strike: a lightning-fast strike that is unavoidable but does not guarantee damage. An example of such is hitting an opponent’s armor. Can be used with Precision Strike. If used with Precision Strike critical damage possible.

Silent casting: Individual does not need to speak in order to cast.

Spell recovery: Can restore spell slots at a rate one every five minutes of meditation. Does not count toward necessary meditative rest cycle.

Finesse: Dex based damage instead of str based.

Basic telepathy: Can mentally speak to other Gess. No language barrier (can be understood and can understand any language). Can be used on pets and familiars to deepen their bond.

Resistances:

Pain resistance (through use of a mental block. Works on mental pain as well) 85%

Acid immunity

Poison immunity

Magic (all types) resistance 50%

Mental manipulation immunity

Special:

Old Soul: the geneticists who made the Gess pulled souls from the beyond to inhabit the bodies of their creations. Your attributes, skills, and abilities from your old, and somehow remembered life, have transferred to this new body.

Military and war veteran: Your old body was trained and then tested in war. 4 str 2 wis 4 con 2 dex.

S.T.E.M. background: You studied technology, math, engineering, and science. 4 int 2 wis 2 dex.

Cultured: You have traveled around the world and studied other cultures, and beliefs. 2 wis 4 cha.

Old Man: Your old body lived a long, full life, unfortunately for you. -2 str -2 con -2 int -2 dex -2 cha -2 wis. Due to the time that has passed since you traveled, were in the army, and with old age taken into account, you have not been able to transfer any skills or abilities to your new body.

Memories: Your new body has its original memories. Learned Skill learning speed increased by 50%.

Alright, level one noob. Fucking, fantastic. I thought as I reviewed the downright pathetic sheet. Let’s see level one check: 3573 years old. Pretty sure that’s not right. That’s 3,461 years older than I was when I checked last, and that was with the old body’s ninety-four years attached. Let’s see, attributes are at eight! My knees gave out, luckily, being in my mind a chair popped up to catch me. Damn, no wonder I can’t move, I thought.

I had a debuff from not resting, thankfully, the meditation would handle that. A debuff for each of my low stats, anything under ten in a stat and you have a negative modifier. At a minus one for every two points below ten, I was minus one, thanks to my stats being eight, in all my attributes. This earned me yet another debuff for having all six in the negative and making me pretty much nothing but a breathing corpse.

The stats themself were basically self-explanatory. Want to be three times stronger than an average human, never understood why humans were the base of most things when races varied so wildly, but whatever. Put points in strength, or (str). That’s about it. However, it didn’t really explain that stats gave bonuses at even numbers at a base of ten. So, a score of twelve in str would give you a plus one bonus. Though having a plus one bonus didn’t mean that a person was twice as strong. It did mean that the person was much stronger than the average human. This bonus was applied in all kinds of different ways for all the stats. Like being able to carry more weight around, because of a higher str attribute.

Well, time to get back on track. I still have my abilities, but my skills have reset to zero again. Most of my power is gone, and along with it, a lot of my old tricks. I could have tried to wallow in self-pity, but with all the genetic tricks they spliced into my DNA that was easier said than done. No. Let me assign my attribute points, my racial bonuses will kick in once I add a point to each one. Then, I will worry about the rest of this nonsense. Hopefully, figuring a way out of this freaking mess I’ve found myself in.

Attributes:

Strength: 12

Dexterity: 16

Constitution: 16

Intelligence: 16

Wisdom: 15

Charisma: 18

After assigning my stats and seeing I could at least cast eight spells—even if it is a pittance of what I was last capable of—I felt a little better.

This bit of relief allowed me to relax for a while in my favorite chair inside my mindscape. I still had my skill points to assign, but at least progress had been made. I thought back to how I got there, letting the memories of my old life take me away.