While her demonic nature let her go longer than most without certain physical requirements, she still had to tend to the needs of her own body eventually. Silently, she made her way out of the room to the facilities at the end of the hall, partly in hopes that a solitary student would appear more inviting to The Defiler. Nothing projected an air of vulnerability better than actual vulnerability, so her trip to tend to her needs wasn’t faked. She lingered in the washroom for a few extra heartbeats, but nothing changed in the building to her senses.
She exited the restroom and spied the Master, who stood watching the hallway. As she passed, he placed his hand on her shoulder to stop her.
“Nearly didn’t recognize you, Constable,” he rumbled, taking pains to keep his voice low so as not to prematurely wake his charges. “Makes me more comfortable knowing you’re here. And your partner, too; suppose Stormbreak saw the risk and sent you with backup.”
Zizzy shook her head in automatic negation. “I work alone. None are my equal.” A moment passed before horror slowly stole over her expression.
The Master, seeing her paling face, grew tense. “There were two extra students when we passed into Ridgewater. If the other wasn’t your partner, then—”
As Zizzy’s eyes widened, twin bolts of agony and suffering broke over her senses, sending her staggering into the wall. “M-Master Breaker—!”
The Breaker reacted, drawing a clear crystal the size of his thumb from a pocket in his cloak, hurling it to the ground. As it broke, a sound like a massive gong echoed throughout the building and beyond, shouts and cries going up immediately afterward.
The succubus let her disguise fade, body flowing smoothly back into its natural shape as she pelted toward the source of the feelings—the room she’d just left.
I can’t sense him! she realized, a flash of insight dashing her like a cold bucket of water. And he can’t sense me! We’re both hunters, drawn to our prey and not each other! What she could sense in horrifyingly exquisite detail, however, was the reverberating waves of horror, pain, trauma, and weak outrage emanating ahead.
Drawing on the power afforded her by the hellfire coursing through her veins, she smashed through the wall into the room beyond, wood crumbling into splinters before her implacable might. The sound was somehow muted, even standing as she was in its midst. He has a muffling Skill! That’s why—
She took in the scene without slowing down as she burst into the room. Before her stood a tableau so wretched it might have been borne from a nightmare, from the hell that gave birth to Zizzy herself: one girl lay curled on her side, clutching at her throat while blood-tinged froth bubbled at her lips and painted a crimson hook on the floor ahead of her. She hacked and coughed, trying to draw breath through her own viscera while she looked helplessly at her sister.
The other screamed, raw and animalistic even in the soundless space, at a writhing, shadowy form that sat both atop her and in the air above her. It resolved into the twisted form of what had once been a man, but was no longer, feral and lengthened in a wholly unnatural way.
Zizzy leapt forward, raising her hands, the air ahead of them wavering before her heated aura. The Defiler’s free hand rose as well, catching the onrushing succubus by the face, ignoring both her snarls and the way she wrenched at his forearm.
As he resolved further, his other arm tensed and jerked back, parting the girl’s belly with a sick, wet sound and splitting her from sternum to crotch, a fresh wave of agony rolling out from the girl as she screamed anew, audible now as he laid aside whatever Skill he’d been using.
His bloody arm reached under the ragged garment he still wore, crushing something over the girl’s horrific wound as Zizzy drew her legs up to kick him in the side, tearing herself from his grip. Whatever he crushed over the girl had immediate and terrifying effect, forcing the misaligned, tattered flesh and bone to heal in place, further intensifying the girl’s agony. The sheer power of the pain nearly broke Zizzy’s composure as she was exposed to its full extent.
“I chose them because you did,” the beast who was once a man growled, his voice guttural and sharp. He disappeared into the room’s shadow, only to emerge to her left, this time assuming the guise of a male student she’d sat beside mere hours before. “You smell…different,” he continued, voice now cooler and smooth, almost curious. “Not afraid. Your magic, too. It hisses and burns.”
He’s managed a Class Evolution or gained a shifting skill already! The thought trickled through her being like ice water down her back. To face a [Mage-Eater] was dangerous in its own right, but ultimately simple enough, once you mitigated their ability. This particular [Mage-Eater], however, had obviously unlocked a more sinister specialization for whatever his particular Class was, amplifying him into an even more formidable opponent. Dread filled the constable, but she couldn’t back down.
“I’ve got more for you,” she replied, voice low and dangerous. Her tail flickered out, looping around his ankle. Her hands grew longer, palms and fingers elongating as her nails slid into claws, burning with a sulfurous light that was mirrored in her wings. She leapt forward as her tail yanked the man’s leg out from under him, raising her claws to strike.
He fell and rolled with inhuman agility, dropping his glamour once again to rise as the feral beast, wreathed in shadow. So fast! she thought in shock. He’s even faster than me! As he rose, he yanked on her tail, spinning her around and drawing a bark of pain from her throat to add to the distressed wailing of the crippled girls.
He got both hands on her tail, strengthening his grip, and Zizzy barely had time to realize what he was doing before he tore at her spine, flooding her with agony as she collapsed against the wall. Stronger than I thought, she whimpered to herself as all feeling abandoned her legs, leaving her paralyzed from the waist down.
She felt the man shift as one booted foot planted itself firmly between her shoulder blades, aborting her attempt to push herself away. He leaned in and took hold of her wing, and a long, tearing sound and fresh waves of pain preceded one burning wing settling to the ground. Never before had she had to square off against someone with such physical strength, always relying on speed, surprise, or emotional manipulation to level the playing field. Panic began to rise like bile in her throat as the weight of her mistake crashed down around her.
As a demon, death didn’t mean the same thing for her as it did for mortals; instead of cessation, she would merely face banishment to the Hells for a time, a fate she had hitherto avoided for a half-century. She was saved from that ordeal—as a succubus, she knew there were fates worse than death (a notion the two girls on the floor might object to, if they could) —by a sudden ring of steel and throaty shouts as someone else burst into the room, drawing The Defiler’s attention.
Thankful for the brief reprieve, Zizzy slid down the wall and rolled toward the center of the room, her healing abilities already working to repair her spine and patch over the stump of her wing, a process which sent bolts of lightning up her spine from her hips to her back. The severed wing had disappeared into motes of hellfire, already fading, and Zizzy knew it would be days before she could take wing again.
She saw the Master standing beside someone she didn’t recognize, facing down The Defiler. The newcomer brandished a mace, bringing it down it in a savage arc and activating a Skill which made it glow briefly with an inner light. The Defiler brought his arm up to block the strike, but his limb crumpled before the heavy blow with a sickening crunch. He snarled, turning to merge with the shadows, but the Master whipped a vial from his cloak. It broke against his body before he could disappear, evoking a sizzling sound as his shadow-wreathed flesh began to melt. He howled, a savage, bestial sound as he turned and burst through the window and out into the pre-dawn twilight.
Nobody bothered giving chase; the moment he left, he was gone, the trail cold before it began. Her failure burned in her mind, almost as hot as her own wounds and the slowly-fading—too slowly—agony of the girls before her.
/> The girl who could still move did so, weakly coughing as she dragged a cloak over her sister’s ruined form, attempting to give her some measure of dignity in their remaining moments.
Though Zizzy wasn’t a mage herself, she could feel the ragged edges of their magical essence as they shriveled and faded away. It was a sad truth that the life-force of those who use magic—anyone alive—was inextricably linked to that core. To remove it is to promise death, with the cold inexorability of the tides. She could feel the girls’ life slowly fade, bleeding drop by drop, into that abyss.
She dragged herself with agonizing slowness toward the girls, gathering them in her arms, whispering meaningless platitudes, promises she couldn’t fulfill. Her skills, though geared toward the taking of life, did permit some flow in the other direction. She husbanded her Stamina and poured it into the girls, and she could feel their weak gratitude, even though her efforts delayed the inevitable by only a few, fleeting moments. Bereft of the ability to hold Mana, her gift trickled through the cracks, fading into the nothingness that reached out. The girls’ desperate stares burned into Zizzy’s face with a hopeless intensity, their pleading expressions nearly breaking her heart as oblivion smoothed them, stealing the breath from their lungs, the light from their eyes, and finally, the last, lingering spark of their lives. So clutching was oblivion’s grasp that, before it retreated, it nearly took Zizzy as well.
She sat there, breath frozen in her chest as she looked down at the two slowly-cooling bodies—silent rebukes, silent testaments to her failure—and wept like a broken-hearted child.
A world away, a dungeon burned.
A world away, a titan woke.
And in the here and now, on the back of a constable’s hand, a [Seal of the Oracle] flared into brilliant light.
Chapter 25: Wanderings
Morgan Mackenzie had lost track of just how long she’d spent aimlessly wandering the forest. The flood of notifications, experience, and more than one level up would have been bad enough, given what she’d just done to the dungeon. Worse, however, was the mental assault from the not-spider. It had left her dazed, drifting in a dreamlike state of unreality that didn’t seem to fade. She remembered the fire, of course; the taste of ash and cinder in the air as the greenery of the leafy maze burned, the splash of molten earth and stone beneath her toes as she ran out of the inferno like a toddler in hell’s own burning mud puddle. Though she was immune to Morgan’s fire, Lulu had eventually retreated into the storage rune on her hip as the lava flowed around its mistress’ legs. The hardest part of getting out of where the dungeon had once existed had been breathing; Morgan had been forced to resort to using Air magic to filter out the dust and fumes as they threatened to choke her to death.
Compared to the raging fire burning in her bones, the heat of the molten stone through which she trod had felt warm and soothing. Drawing on Fire as deeply as she had had wed her to the flames in her marrow, to the living thing inside her, the essence of [Fire] waiting eagerly for its chance to surge forth.
Morgan didn’t know how long she spent in a fugue state. Several days at least, she knew, because when she pulled the last parcel of broiled shellipede out of her storage, it was rotten and slick. As her mind cleared, she began to hunt as she traveled. She lost track of days and nights, walking when she was awake, and leaving a trail of ever more complex earthen campsites behind her when she slept. She killed and ate [Murdersquirrels], a [Wildpine Deer], and even a [Tyrannorabbit] that made the mistake of startling her with its scream. Her reaction to being suddenly paralyzed had been immediate and visceral, unleashing her Fire to rage against everything in her reach, a reach that had grown considerably after she’d allocated points to her Intellect in the wake of the dungeon’s destruction. There was barely a meal left of the rabbit after that.
Headaches frequently washed away her vision and sent spikes into her brain, driving her to her knees with their intensity while a frantic Lulu hopped around looking for whatever enemy assailed its mistress. But there were no external threats for the brave little scrubby to exfoliate, for the damage was in Morgan’s mind. She had no defense against it, and her brain was the one part of her body she couldn’t repair through her [Regeneration] skill. The overwhelming confusion had faded eventually, and all she could do was endure the headaches, and hope they would fade, as well.
Fortunately, they did; after what felt like an eternity, but couldn’t have been more than a few weeks, she was awoken by another notification that her [Psychic Resistance] had reached the second level.
“I don’t even remember getting the first level…” she said out loud, with more than a little concern for other things she might not even remember forgetting. That concern, however, couldn’t take the shine off how good she was feeling now that the constant migraine was behind her.
To celebrate her much-improved mood, Morgan treated herself to a bath. She’d built her nightly campsite within a short walk of a small stream, and made her way there through the early morning fog that blanketed the forest. [Terrakinesis] made quick work of pulling up stone and molding it into a luxuriously large and perfectly ergonomic bathtub, reminiscent of her old cast-iron clawfoot. “I really need to go back and get that old tub someday,” she remarked. The scrubby was inspecting this new thing its mistress had made, wurbling about the inside of the tub. When Morgan levitated a few globules of water from the stream to fill the tub, the loofah’s wurbles went from curious to gleeful trills. It puffled about in the water, exuding lavender scented suds. “Yeah, you get the idea!” She giggled as she heated the water with a touch of her Fire.
Thanks to Lulu’s constant ministrations every day, Morgan was far from dirty, and her incipient bath wasn’t motivated by hygiene. But sometimes you just need a good bath to relax…
Her resistances proved to be somewhat of a detriment in this one instance. She had to heat the water almost to boiling to get a comfortable soak, but she didn’t really mind, and Lulu didn’t seem to, either. She lowered herself into the water with an exaggerated sigh, breathing in the steam. Her [Primal Instinct] flared to warn her of something behind her, but she didn’t even budge. A lazy, almost negligent terrakinetic shove transformed a stretch of ground behind her into a graveyard of vicious earthen spikes.
“Well, that’s lunch here in a bit.” She chuckled to herself as the notification for defeating another [Murdersquirrel] faded from her view. The bath was relaxing, certainly something she needed in more ways than one. The constant demand of staying on edge and alert had begun to wear on her sanity. With her instincts finally calm for the first time since she’d entered the dungeon, she let herself enjoy the moment. She soaked, and she rested, and she contemplated her options for spending her skill points.
There were plenty of useless choices available, to be sure, but the ones that interested her were the new runes she could get as tattoos. [Soul Anchor] had increased to its fourth level, one time from activating all the enchantments simultaneously when she’d burned the dungeon, and another from layering enchantments into her stone huts when she camped for the night. She now had three options to learn new Living Runes, and her fifty-five skill points could snag her two of them, with a handful left over.
Skill Acquisition Menu
Leveling Class Abilities may provide unique skills for purchase when conditions are met.
Several unique Class Skills are now available for purchase due to learning the required skills. Experimentation and continued advancement will grant access to more skills for acquisition.
[Runic Armor (Living Rune)] - [25 Skill Points] This Living Rune links to your [Soul Anchor] rune. [Runic Armor] absorbs a portion of kinetic energy from impacts, reducing the damage you take, and converting the kinetic energy into Mana. Percentage of kinetic energy absorbed and efficiency of Mana conversion increases with the level of [Runic Armor]. Living Rune level is capped at the current level of [Soul Anchor]. Improving your abilities in combat and defensive magic will increase the level of [Runic
Armor].
[Runic Chain (Living Rune)] - [25 Skill Points] This Living Rune links to your [Soul Anchor] rune. [Runic Chain] allows you to inscribe one Spell per level of [Runic Chain]. Spells inscribed into the chain may be cast instantly to greater effect, at the cost of increased Mana usage. Higher levels of [Runic Chain] increase the effect and reduce the enhanced Mana cost of inscribed spells. Living Rune level is capped at the current level of [Soul Anchor]. Improving your abilities in combat and destructive magic will increase the level of [Runic Chain].
[Runic Core (Living Rune)] - [35 Skill Points] This Living Rune links to your [Soul Anchor] rune. [Runic Core] stores excess Stamina and Mana provided by your metabolic activities. Skills and Spells may draw part of their cost from [Runic Core], reducing the drain on your own reserves. Amount of Stamina and Mana stored increases per level of [Runic Core]. Living Rune level is capped at the current level of [Soul Anchor]. Improving your abilities with recovery and regeneration will increase the level of [Runic Core].
Morgan let out a low whistle after reading through her options. “Talk about tough choices, Lulu,” she told the burbling puffball as it propelled itself around the gently bubbling bath by some mysterious means. She’d long ago given up trying to understand how the scrubby did the things it did. Considering her options, she ducked under the bubbles to wash her hair before coming back up and continuing out loud.
“If I get the runic core…I can’t get the chain or the armor,” she realized after a moment.
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