Harsh luminescent light shone down from above, waking Mark from his fitful sleep. Cracking his lids he expected a pounding headache to split his skull, and to some extent he was right, but the dull throb behind his eyes was nowhere near what it should have been. Looking around groggily Mark took in the room around him. It was sparsely furnished with little to no personal effects on the walls. A single bed and bedside table were the only furnishings, along with an ECG machine tucked into one corner of the room. Wires stretched from the machine and ran down below his shirt, attaching to Mark's chest. The soft sounds of the monitoring equipment at work were the only sounds in the room. A single open door led to a bathroom, worryingly there was no other door out of this place.
He was pleasantly surprised, for the first time in a while, he was in a proper apartment, albeit a modified one.
Mark frowned.
What the hell was going on? The last thing he remembered was getting across the river. Where was Daphne or Donny? Had everyone survived?
His [Telepathic link] had failed at some point, so contacting anyone was difficult. Taking out the comms he tried them too, but still no response.
Mark steadied himself and looked around. He needed to assess the situation to see what he did know, rather than worrying about what he didn’t.
First things first, there was no other way to look at this, he was either in some form of hospital, holding cell, or both.
This meant they’d made it, but then why was he here?
Removing the wires Mark got up, his body felt fine, and checking his energy levels he noticed he had almost 300 Prana. Seeing as he had zero before passing out, he had been asleep for almost fifteen hours.
There were no windows but if he had to guess it was probably around tenish in the morning.
Mark began using [Prana pulse] to asses how the damage was healing and in the meantime, he brought up his prompts.
312 x Corrupted humanoid cleansed(312)
55 x Corrupted Ordinator cleansed(110)
89 x Corrupted Ghoul cleansed(267)
67 x Corrupted Ghast cleansed(134)
734 System Points awarded
63 x Corrupted Titan cleansed[chaos - 2](630)
Partial exp awarded to (658 users - expand list)(7688)
Partial exp awarded to (Mark Young)(7688)
2562.5 System Points awarded
1521/1521
Level up!
+2 Prana, +2 Resistance
1600/1600
Level up!
+2 Prana, +2 Resistance
Congratulations on reaching level 40!
Rewards: 1x Bronze rank Path chest
1681/1681
Level up!
+2 Prana, +2 Resistance
1764/1764
Level up!
+2 Prana, +2 Resistance
1849/1849
Level up!
+2 Prana, +2 Resistance
Seeing the chest coming in Mark decided to open that first. He wanted to confirm if his theory about the next item was correct. Rolling it, the system returned an item.
Item: Tenders Journey (Bronze - boots)
Item lvl: 40
Resistance + 200
Prana + 40
Description: Healing effectiveness increased by 25% (Set bonus: 4/4)
Increase movement speed by 5%
Seeing the last piece of the set bonus arriving was great but to compare them, Mark brought up the pair he was wearing currently.
Item acquired: Wandering steps
Item lvl: 20
Resistance + 100
Mana + 5
Description: Increase movement speed by 10%
Mark saw there would be a minor loss in his movement speed and 5 Mana, but as a whole the new set of boots was a net positive. He could also tell when looking at the two sets of boots that level played a huge role in the number of attributes the item provided. What would it look like when an item's level was in the hundreds? Pausing to put the new boots on, he saw they matched the ‘Tenders’ motif well. Made of a slightly darker leather, they pulled the whole set together.
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As he placed the last piece on he felt something was wrong. The energy merging with his was moving as if it had a mind of its own. All at once he felt the four pieces connect and the set bonus trigger, but it was more than he expected.
Looking at the item he tried to figure out what it meant.
Item: Tenders Journey (Bronze - boots)
Item lvl: 40
Resistance + 200
Prana + 40
Description: Healing effectiveness increased by 25% (Set bonus: 4/4)
Increase movement speed by 5%
[Set bonus: Healing effectiveness increased by 50%]
Mark saw the one-line difference and put the two together. Getting all the pieces of a set gave an additional bonus on top of each item’s effect. This meant Mark effectively had a 150% increase in his Healing effectiveness. Which was ridiculous, but it raised another question.
If the set Mark had gotten was considered basic enough that all Prana users would eventually get it at level 40, then what was something like the purifier’s set bonus like? Did the number of items in a set make it more powerful? What was an Aura user's set like, or a Mana user for that matter?
Unfortunately, there was no way to know what that effect was until one assembled all the pieces.
For now, Mark was incredibly content with the bonuses this set offered, but he’d keep an eye out for others. Perhaps there was a place to find out more.
Bringing up his attribute Mark saw the five levels he’d gained had been evenly split between his two main attributes.
Name: Mark Young (22 - M)
Level: 43
Next level: 1319/1936
Stats:
Resistance
Aura
Mana
Prana
1183 (+10) [1065]
0 [+25]
210 (+25)[+15]
517 (+10, +25)[+150]
Unspent stat points - 0
Corruption value: 43.17% [+46%] - 89.17%
System Points: 12706.5
Skills: Meditation, Limit release(Physical), Limit release(Mental), Joint casting.
Spells: Passive Regeneration(Self)[8], Force bolt[15], Prana Pulse[7], Regenerate[7], Draw Corruption[6], Corruption recovery[11], Sculpt Mana(Force)[7], Invigorate[8], Cleansing surge[7], Read Memory[2], Mind Spike[4], Earth Control[7], Light Control[5], Bestowal[4], Telekinesis[6], Benediction[2], Nature control[2], Telepathic link[3].
World inventory. Marketplace. Trade
When Mark saw that that he was just 5 points away from the Mana regen threshold he let out a sigh. He didn’t regret what he’d done back on the bridge, it had helped him save lives, but now he’d have to pick it up next level.
Mark also noted that his [Corruption recovery] was passively burning out his Corruption from the spell before him.
With that done Mark decided it was time to investigate his environment, looking around the room in earnest, there truly weren't any doors or windows out of here.
If that was the case, then he’d just have to make his own way out. Placing a hand onto one of the concrete walls, he prepared to shift it out of his way.
Only there was a problem.
His will came into contact with someone else’s. Their Mana was stretched into the concrete like a net, stopping him from manipulating his way out.
Mark pulled a large amount of Mana to the threshold of his hand and tried to move it into the area. The will fought him, but Mark noticed it was slow and only reacted with minimal resistance. Whoever was on the other end, only wanted to repair the wall and keep it stable, with an almost single-mindedness. It was almost like they didn't notice him, but normally, brushing up against someone's will was not something anyone could ignore.
Frowning, Mark figured that if he wanted to he, could overwhelm the person on the other end with quantity, and take control of the surrounding earth.
He was about to do just that when one of the walls in front of him opened of its own accord.
Taking a step back, Mark readied himself to react if needed.
Stepping inside, a tall woman, geared to the nines, walked confidently into the room. Right away Mark could tell she was an Aura user by the way she held herself. He had often seen Jonathan moving in the same predatory fashion.
The woman’s features were bold and her body spoke of heavy manual labor.
“Good morning Mr. Young, I know this is probably slightly confusing but my name is Lisa Howl. I hope you are feeling better, if not I could call in our doctors to have a look at you”
Lisa spoke in a firm fashion and while he could not detect the telltale sign of military training in her speech, he had to assume she worked for the army. She was probably in her late forties.
“Thank you, but that won’t be necessary, I’ve already checked myself. Mostly I’m interested in finding out where my friends are and how free I am at the moment”
Mark emphasized the word free to see how she reacted.
To his surprise, Lisa seemed to nod in understanding, and rather than deflect his question like he was used to the army doing, she answered him directly.
“Of course, I’d be pissed too if I woke up in a new place without an idea of where my friends and family were. You are free to go, but I just want to ask you a couple of questions before you head out. I can even tell you where the majority of your people are located”
Mark was caught a little off guard by her willingness to cooperate but nodded mutely.
“Right, do you want to follow me?”
She stepped out through the opening she had entered from and looked back at him invitingly. He got the feeling it was more of a demand than a request, but she was being cordial so Mark saw no reason to not do the same.
He walked out into the hallway. There, he noticed a young bespectacled man holding a leather folder under his arm. He fell into step with Lisa as soon as they emerged. Greeting Mark with nothing more than a nod.
The hallway looked no different from a normal hotel corridor, with one exception.
All along the path, room numbers sat at intervals denoting the suit number, but the doors had been completely removed, leaving only a bare stone wall.
It would make sense if someone were out here guarding people, but Mark saw no one else here other than these two.
That’s when he noticed something incredible, on each of the walls outside the suits, crude scratches had been carved into the stonework.
They looked like the symbols carved on his staff, well not the exact same ones but they had this similar feel to them. They were messy and done hastily but they were definitely the same.
Mark stopped to inspect them, reaching a hand toward one of the symbols on the wall. They seemed to hum with an almost subtle power.
“Please don’t touch those, it was a mission to get The Guilds out here to install them and I don't want to have to call them again so soon if you mess with them”
Mark turned to look up at her, his hand frozen inches away from the wall.
“Ah, my bad. What are they by the way?”
Mark continued to follow her down the hallway.
“Oh, we put those there because having a caster watch over a flight risk is a grievous waste of resources. They’re calling them Runes or Inscriptions, we haven’t really settled on a name for them yet. But basically, those ones stop people from just breaking or magicking their way out of the room”
She looked at him like she knew he had been about to do exactly that.
“They don’t work so well if someone is above a certain threshold but it works for the general population”
Mark could help himself, as they had begun to descend a set of stairs.
“How do they work?”
The had definitely been someone's will in the concrete of the room, stopping him. Was that what the runes did? Did they put a will into the stone to stop magic? It would explain why it hadn't reacted to his will and its focus on repairing, probably for those who wanted to punch their way out.
People had started to appear in their path, moving through the area, all seemingly busy.
Arriving at the bottom of the steps Mark took in the large room. The sheer number of people working in an office-like environment made it feel like the world was still plodding along. That the people here weren’t affected by the fall. This was not true of course but Mark had not seen this type of order since all this had begun. The camp had always been efficient and well organized but this was on a different level altogether.
This floor seemed to give off the air of a police station and while there were no signs of any uniforms, there was a feeling of authority here.
Lisa woke him from his daze.
“No idea, but if you are interested I can put you in contact with a guy I know”
Mark absentmindedly nodded.
Lisa headed straight for one of the many non-descript doors in the corner of the room. As they passed Mark heard a couple of greetings directed at Lisa.
“Captian-”
He heard them say.
While it could be an army designation, Mark got the sense that it wasn’t, or at least not only that.
When they got to the door, the man who had been following them the whole while walked slightly ahead and opened the door for them.
Lisa entered without hesitation and turned to look at Mark.
Well, he’d better see where this was going, if what she said was true then his friends were nearby, he needed to get to them and find out if everybody made it.
Taking a step into the room the man followed them in, shutting the door behind himself.