Chapter 20 - It's Not Over.... (Patreon)

You’ve reached level 19!

…

You’ve reached level 22!

[4] Unread Accomplishments

[Common Accomplishment] Do battle in a dungeon or infestation at a threat level above your rank. [Reward: Common Armor Token] “That was amazing! I must admit, I was kind of crossing my fingers to get assigned to Elyon at first. There’s just something about a man with a big sword that gets me. But I’m really coming around on you, Seraphel. You’ve got a bit of craftiness in you. A little survivor’s grit, if you will!”

[Common Accomplishment] Slay (10) enemies inside a dungeon or infestation. [Reward: Common Weapon Token] “I like this Rock guy, by the way. I think you should keep him around. By the way, you technically killed 309 of those things as a group. But accomplishment rules are very technical and because of the higher-powered group members, you only got credit for 10. I even had to pull a string or two to get you that many!

I read through the notifications as we made camp at the base of the stairs in the ruins. The darkened underground coliseum hung over us like a shadow, and I imagined a fresh pair of blue eyes in the inky black so many times I lost count.

I was excited to see I’d gained more levels, even though I expected a little more. We’d killed hundreds of those things, and the one I inspected was Iron rank. I supposed my experience took a hit because they were trivial for Circa. We might not have earned any experience for the ones she killed, come to think of it. My levels could’ve come entirely from the ones I killed myself.

My brain felt a little too numb to care much about the details. I was chewing absently on a ration Rock handed out. It was dried meat, and I didn’t ask what kind of animal it came from. 

I couldn’t say I was particularly hungry, but I made my jaw move anyway.

Once the excitement of my increased level faded, I found myself thinking about what would’ve happened if Circa wasn’t here. Even at Iron, Rock looked like he spent everything he had to hold back a fraction of the enemies we faced. Lyria and I combined didn’t even clear half of what Rock did. 

I suppressed a shiver. I needed to focus on finding peace, like Circa suggested. It would help my mana recover, and it would also calm my rapidly spiraling thoughts. 

When I looked for calm, vivid snapshots of the last few minutes burst into my mind. A claw squeezing my leg and veins twisting up pale, thin-skinned flesh. Lyria’s wide eyes as she ducked from a pair of palefiends, only saved at the last moment by a swipe of Rock’s quarterstaff. Circa clapping her hands and snuffing out an army of monstrosities in a blink.

Peace. I repeated the word to myself like a mantra.

I could get used to this, like anything else. I had once opened a car door at a crash scene and watched a severed head roll out to land between my feet. I had found somebody’s grandma in her apartment after she was finally reported missing half a year after her death. I hadn’t ground my life to a halt because it was upsetting or horrible. I had moved forward. 

Now that I was here on Eros, I could do the same. Instead of shoving the memory of the fight with the palefiends in a dark corner of my mind, I brought it to the surface. I replayed everything I could remember, trying to determine what I could’ve done differently.

It was almost comforting to focus on what I could have controlled and how I could’ve handled myself better. I’d felt the ground vibrating and stood still instead of jumping back. I sprayed most of my poison blindly into the darkness in huge, overwhelming streams. With Circa’s power flowing through me, it had been easy to push out more power than I needed. I could’ve concentrated the mana into a tighter beam and aimed for their heads.

I was still running through the battle in my head when Lyria came and sat beside me. I had my helmet off and between my knees so my sweaty hair could dry in the cool cave air.

“Doing alright?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I said, nodding a little too eagerly. “Seems like Circa has us covered. I guess this is just like training but a lot more terrifying.”

Circa was speaking with Rock and didn’t appear to be listening. Lyria shifted her eyes toward the woman, then back to me. “She mentioned a necromancer.”

“Right,” I said. “I’m assuming that’s bad?”

“I’ve heard of them.”

“Worthy foes,” Circa said, cutting into our conversation. Apparently, she had been listening after all. “You’ll recall that entities come to places of death like this to feed on the latent mana. That mana is corrupted. Feeding on too much transforms life. Twists it. An ordinary adventurer can come to a place like this and feed on it to grow in power, but they risk losing themselves.”

“So this necromancer is a regular person?” I asked.

Circa inclined her head. “Was a regular person, yes. They’ll be intelligent, not quite like a normal creature. It’s why the scribe couldn’t accurately judge the power here. The necromancer hid it, hoping to lure in more death so they could grow their power even further.” 

“If we know this was a trap, we should leave, right?” I asked.

“If you only remember one thing from my teachings, remember this,” Circa leaned forward, eyes bright in the glow of Rock’s staff. “Live on the razor’s edge until you can barely stand the comfort of a bed or the quiet of town. Push yourself at every opportunity to grow. Because you are not the only god currently racing back to the peaks of power.”

Her words sent a chill through me. I’d gathered as much on my own, but hearing it aloud was a grim reminder of what I was up against. Nine gods. One hadn’t prestiged, but me and seven others were in similar positions. I couldn’t say if any of them would be allies or if they were all out for blood. But I might be the only one with no memory of my previous life. Unless I could use the perks of my path to push ahead of them, I was at a huge disadvantage. 

“Alright,” I said, feeling my resolve harden. “So, what do we do next?”

“Recover as much as possible,” Circa said. “We killed a great number of their creations. The necromancer will be coming for us, I suspect.”

“Will there be more palefiends?” I asked, constantly scanning the darkness for blue eyes.

“I believe not. It would have taken time to raise an army of that size. And I can’t imagine a reason to hold back any significant number of creations for a second wave. I think the necromancer will come themselves. So rest.”

I pulled my knees up to my chest, wrapping my arms around myself to warm up. Circa stood and began pacing into the darkened coliseum, disappearing from view.

I inspected Rock and saw he had jumped from level 44 to 45. Lyria had risen from level 28 to 30. My four levels were the biggest jump, but I couldn’t say if that was only because I was the weakest in the group or because of the experience bonus in my fertile seed prestige path. 

“Ever fought a necromancer?” I asked Rock, who had been silently chewing his dried meat.

He lifted his blue eyes. “No.”

“Think we stand a chance?”

“No,” he said.

I pursed my lips, nodding. “What about you?” I asked Lyria.

She shook her head. “We’re going to have to hope Circa can bail us out. Necromancy is a corrupt kind of magic. You can’t just push an ordinary class stone to learn it. You’ve got to feed in places like this and make sacrifices for it. No one in their right mind would do it, but those who do get a great deal of power for it.”

“At least we’ve got a Silver with us,” I said. “This should be good practice.”

Lyria just shook her head. “I’d stop chatting and focus on recovering your mana as much as possible. You’ll need everything you can get.” 

I took her advice but couldn’t help my thoughts wandering as I lost my grip on the peace I needed to fuel my recovery. I thought about how I should have asked to stop and work on making more potions. As potent as my rot poison was, I still had more herbs to experiment with and probably could’ve purchased even more in town. The thought reminded me of the straw-like siphons I’d earned. I produced four of the siphons from my slip space and offered one to Lyria and Rock. “I forgot about these,” I said.

Rock eyed it appreciatively and put it to his lips without hesitation. He sucked in hard, and the straw glowed blue like the lit end of a cigarette. The whole thing flaked apart and drifted away, but Rock looked refreshed. Lyria followed his lead.

I placed the siphon on my lips and sucked in hard. I had the brief sensation of mana rushing into me, pulsing through my veins in every direction. A fullness replaced the drained feeling in my core. 

“That’s nice,” I said. “We’re not going to get corrupted by sucking the mana out of the air here, though, are we?”

“Little late to worry about that,” Lyria said.

“No,” Rock said. “There’s a specific technique to draw on this death energy. You’re not going to do it by accident.”

When Circa returned, I offered her a Siphon but she waved me off. “I’ve recovered,” she said.

“Already?” I asked. “That looked like a huge spell you used.”

“It was,” she agreed, sitting down without further explanation.

We sat in tense silence for a while. I jumped at every sound in the darkness, wishing I could afford to spend the mana to practice a little more. Occasionally, I thought of a question to ask Circa–mostly regarding how her enhancement spell worked. I wanted to know if there was anything I could use to my advantage next time, but it seemed to be relatively straightforward. She was pumping some power into us when she did her puppeteer move. We were temporarily getting a taste of what higher levels and higher ranks would feel like. She’d withdrawn her connection before using her big finisher spell because she needed the power for herself.

“Is lifeweaver one of those paved paths?” I asked.

“Yes,” Circa said. “Seraphel himself paved it for his disciples. The watchers he left are all lifeweavers, like me.”

I leaned forward, curiosity spiked. “Why?”

“Seraphel didn’t make a habit of explaining his reasons. But I suspect it was for this exact purpose. He was leaving behind people with the skills to help him advance when he needed it. Theoretically, an army of lifeweavers could pour an avalanche of power into a single individual.”

I considered that with some sadness. On the one hand, I felt strange knowing I’d manipulated so many people for my own benefit. From how it sounded, many of them had also paid the ultimate price for their loyalty. And on the other hand, I worried that my plan had already failed. Was this army of lifeweavers supposed to be my ticket to power, and now it was already squandered?

Circa stood suddenly, summoning her staff. “Be ready. They are close.”

My gut clenched.

Rock stood, waving a hand over his quarterstaff so it started vibrating and humming again. A moment later, a protective orb of blue flickered into existence around him. It faded to invisibility after it solidified. Lyria covered her shield in molten fire that dripped hot globs to the dirt, sizzling with each impact.

I slid on my helmet, summoned my Alchemist’s kit, and got ready for a fight.