But the floor continued to break as Reverend speed forward like a serpent, the wooden planks underneath him parting like a wave, and like a wave reforming behind him. The bulk of his body being far greater than anything Seraph had guessed as he witnessed some of what lay beneath the floor. The Reverend Seraph had been speaking to was little more than a puppet for the abomination that had been hiding beneath the floor. The undead monstrosity little more than a puppet for the true body of the monster that lived beneath the floor.
But still the monster came at him with a speed that Seraph had difficulty keeping up with and as he went to a guard position with his Cat’s Claw, he wondered for a brief second if it was even possible to get out of this situation.
Without warning and before Seraph could see anything the movement Reverend was upon him, hands like claws upon his throat and duel orbs of purple looking directly into his eyes. The monster sniffed once, then twice, “You lie cousin.”
And as Seraph went to protest, he was thrown across the room with enough force that when he hit the ground he heard an audible snap as his off-arm was broken on impact. Instant pain flooded through Seraph’s mind, but he couldn’t think about the pain regardless of its distraction, he needed to walk away from this alive. He grabbed from within his pocket the pills he had found earlier and took two of them to numb the pain as he tried to assess the situation as Reverend speed across the room again to finish the job and kill him as Seraph began to mentally charge his Starcall ability, this time focusing the point on himself.
Seraphs vision wasn’t working like it should have been, a sign of damage to his body that he didn’t want to consider, but he never saw Reverend as he was lifted off the ground again, this time the monster laughing as he was struck across the face with a blow that split his cheek on the sharped high bones of his skull and as he spit out white flakes in bloody spittle he wondered about deeper damage until he realized he had just lost teeth.
Coughing up blood he knew if this lasted any longer he was likely going to die, this was too early to face alone, this monster that Reverend had become was far behind him. Once again his ego and over-confidence would be his undoing.
“Weak. Pathetic.” Muttered Reverend with regard to Seraph. “Maybe he wasn’t lying about being a new adventurer, only new adventurers and regular humans are this weak. No, no, can’t be, he lies, he lies” Eyes flashed in disagreement but the monster continued to move across the room where it had thrown Seraph.
An idea came to Seraph as he struggled to remain conscious as his ears rang and the sensation of vertigo hit him. He just needed to present the Wormwood report and the Dungeon would be forced to send him onward to safety. Seraph held no illusion that whatever Reverend had become, this would not be the day that Seraph frees him.
“Stop!” Yelled Seraph as he released his Starcall. The room turning to white as he was unable to turn away in time. It seemed to work though as the blow that Seraph thought would kill him never came, and he quickly used the time to reach out into his spacial pocket and pull out the Wormwood Report. “I have the Wormwood Report Reverend, stop this madness.”
The monster stopped, and though its eyes had not been affected like Seraph’s had, they still lingered with some vestiges of limitation. “Let me see that cousin, if you’ve lied again, I'll spend the rest of your life flaying your skin and tissue from your bones, reanimating and healing you only to repeat the process.”
Seraph blindly held the report out and the undead man quickly smacked it.
“This report has been activated already, not just found” Accused Reverend, its eyes flashing deep red and purple. “You’re one of us aren’t you. You’re of Carrion Crow? What of the guild how do they fare? Only Officers are taught how to undo the seal.”
The monster looked in wonder and Seraph took the time to stand up himself and at least tried to get his posture correct, and he leaned in to whisper into the monster's ear. “You once called me Lord, I who was the Black Seraph. This truly is a new beginning, be well until I come for you again”.
As the monster looked in confusion and reverence at the revelation as Seraph disappeared.
The Dungeon had accepted his quest completion.
Chapter 20: Welcome To Hometown
* * *
Gradually Seraph began to wake, his face pressed into the fibers of the office carpeting he had been passed out on, his head heavily swollen and itching from the rough fabric. Impulsively he went to scratch his face and was met with an immediate response of agony as pain wracked his whole body as sensation returned to his limbs and consciousness returned to his mind. The idle sensation of carelessness he had been experiencing disappeared as he was reminded of the events that had put him where he was at.
Badly hurt and near death, Seraph had barely been able to escape being killed at the hands of his old guild member and companion, Reverend, whom had become an abominable type of undead wright, a Dweller in the Dark. At heart Seraph knew he had been outclassed by the monster as he had been unable to effectively do anything to stop him, until his injuries finished healing he had to resist the compulsive need to check his gum line to see if he was still missing his teeth, or if they had regrown already.
What Seraph knew is that he hadn’t been unconscious for long. That he was feeling currently starting to feel pain meant that the pills he had taken were wearing off, but that not enough time had passed yet for the Dungeon to heal his injuries. At least not all of them, he no longer felt the jagged tears in his chest and labored breathing indicative of a collapsed lung or broken ribs. Those at least had healed.
Trying to stand up, he found the pain was still too intense and had to calm himself to wait it out on the floor. Until a hand grabbed him by the back of his head and sharply pulled him off the floor, a light flashing in front of his eyes and behind that light he could only guess at who was examining him.
Anger and the force of wraith filled his body as his stature adjusted itself in the wake of his temporarily boosted status.
“Let go of me.” Seraph demanded with a voice full of hostility attempting to interject a hint of his power into the demand, but even he knew it would do no good, Seraph could hear the fatigue in his own voice.
“He’s still alive” Shouted a voice that Seraph knew he recognized from somewhere. “Go ahead and let higher know he’s going to make it.” Whatever the man had been looking for, he found because as soon as he picked Seraph up, he was placing him down on the ground.
Seraph strained to try to look at the man who had grabbed him but his eyes had still not adjusted and for his effort to look his only response was pain.
“Hey listen kid, knock that off, just give it a few more minutes so the healing can kick in and take care of you. You look like absolute shit I'm sorry to say and that face of yours has taken one hell of a beating, but I guess that’s just what to expect from the guy who just graduated first in his tutorial class. Congratulations by the way.” Said the man.
“I'm Garen by the way, and I just got to say well done kid, well done, none of us on this side of the fence had expected you to manage any of that on your own. I was positive you were a dead body until just now, that was intense. Well done, seriously. So take a second to catch your breath and get your bearings, I’m going to unseal the other participants in a minute. Each of them has been sealed away in a sort of stasis waiting for the tutorial class to end, we’ve just been waiting on you.”
Notification: Quest Completed - Complete Phase III by presenting the Wormwood Report to the monster known as Reverend
Reward: 300 Sol, 150 Experience Points.
Reward: Gain a tailored ability.
Notification: Ability unlocked. “Cold Hands” At will the user may siphon thermal energy on touch. The speed of the Siphon is 3% per second, with an additional 1% per point in intelligence.
Notification: As the first person to complete Phase III you have been granted an additional 300 Sol and an additional 150 experience points. Additionally, you h
ave been granted two stat points to assign.
Notification: The Wormwood Report has been upgraded and transformed into the Wormwood Codex. Data on the Fetches and the Infernals have been added.
“Good.” Said Garen. “Seems like you’re coming around judging by that look in your eye that says you’re reading status prompt notifications. Wait though to assign any points till after this is done ok? “
Garen looked down at Seraph who was still lying on the ground “Ok, give me a minute, this is really starting to bother me kid.” Garen bent down, his knees cracking with age and reached out his hand to help Seraph up. Seraph while prideful accepted the help, this wasn’t a man he wanted to offend, and he was still feeling the sheer magnitude of the extent of his injuries, if he had been a normal man he would likely be dead on the floor or worse back in that room with Reverend still screaming as his skin gets flayed. One of the benefits of the Dungeon was that he could at least rule out permanent damage.
“Here” Garen said as he guided Seraph to sit down in a chair. As Seraphs vision began to clear he saw that he had been seated alone at a table in what appeared to be a conference or training room. It was not lost on him that he was sitting alone.
Garen clapped his hands twice and those who had been in stasis appeared, disheveled and confused, seated in the other chairs around the table. Seraph inwardly cringed, this was not a confrontation that he wanted, this was just a side show he’d rather avoid. He looked around, and the others in the room avoided his eyes, at least those who knew him, he was already a pariah, a suspicion confirmed when not even Paul would look his way.
Garen moved to the front of the conference room and began to speak “For those of you didn’t hear me before, my name is Garen and I handle in-processing into Hometown, I've some other duties and functions that go along with that, but you’ll find out later about those, they aren’t relevant to what we are doing right now. Let's focus on the fight and the hell you’ve all just been through. I hope you learned a lot because it only gets worse and deadlier from here. In Spite of what you might think, this was done for your benefit.”
“So…” Said Garen looking at the group as he rubbed his hands together. “For those of you who are unfamiliar with this process, it's called an after action review, or a debriefing if you prefer, this is a convenient way to process and through what it is that you’ve done, what it is that you’ve been through, and what you can do better, I try to follow the three up and three down formula but I’m not married to it, so it just depends on the flow. That means focusing on ways to improve and sustain the good that you did if anyone was wondering. First, lets focus on those participants among you who managed to be killed before the start of Phase III and were afforded a respawn.”
“For the record folks” Garen empathize for clarity “We don’t do second chances here, if you die from here on out, it's for keeps.”
From the back of the room Alexander spoke up and asked “Why wouldn’t you just tell us that we would respawn if we died? I was terrified and I know I wasn’t the only one, that's not cool man.”
Seraph saw that most of the heads in the room nodded in agreement. “Fools, hardly able to realize the favor that’s been granted to them.” Thought Seraph in judgement.
“It’s simple, it really is and I'm guessing most of you.” Garen answered as he looked at the group, his eyes lingering on Seraph for a moment. “Aren’t going to like the answer. You, all of you are being cultivated to fight and to kill, but most of you are soft these concepts as foreign as hunger to a man that’s never missed a meal. We needed you to learn and to overcome, again I repeat myself, this was done for your benefit most of all”.
A clamor broke out among the participants as they yelled and screamed over each other wondering what was going on and screaming accusations at Garen and his nameless we. Garen held up his hands asking for patience and silence, but all of them ignored the commands, all but Seraph who finally placed from where he knew the man. This man whom in that other life had been an early rival for Seraph, the man who was not a man at all. Garen was the leader of the elves who ruled over Hometown, and he answered directly to the spirit of the Dungeon, he was not a man to be ignored or trifled with.
“Quiet, quiet please.” Repeated Garen, his face strained with the polite and practice smile of a politician and when this still did not give him the attention he asked for, he used his power to demand it as he thrust a fist out and a wave of yellow energy forced the arguing participants back into their seats, and a follow up red wave silenced every sound from within the room except for him, though people continued to yell, no sounds could be heard.
Garen looked out at the shocked faces and shrugged, their discomfort wasn’t his problem, and they had interrupted him. “Now as I was saying, and please in the future, do not make me repeat myself, I will not be as accommodating, we will be focusing first on those of you who did, Mary Anne, it was an interesting choice to go with the mermaid cosmetics, and we did try to work out the details for you after but you refused our help. I hope the experience of suffocating out of water wasn’t too traumatic. I imagine it was a bit awkward to die like that, it certainly looked unpleasant.”
Seraph looked at the women that Garen was talking towards, her face had gone from blushing in embarrassment to pale from the reminder.
“That said, I've taken some executive liberties and removed those cosmetic selections, this is why you're reverted to your human form, you’ll be allowed to choose from a pre-set list of approved races if you find your human form unappealing.” Explained Garen.
Mary raised her hand and Garen smiled, waving his hand to suspend and bypass the spell of silence he had cast. “What are the selections?” She asked. “I think I'd like to be an elf like you, and like the others if that's ok.”
“Yeah, that's not going to happen.” Said Garen. “I don’t let anyone change their race to an elf, if you didn’t choose it from the very beginning that’s on you, that's your mistake. The elves will never be a selection on the pre-approved list, only the lesser races like humans, dwarfs, goblins, lizard men, and the undead.”
“Could I have a little more information about these choices before making a decision?” Asked Mary-Ann?
Garen laughed at her. “That's at you to figure out, just be more discerning with your choices from now on, they have actual consequences. Speaking of consequences, I'm assigning you an adventurer rank of F for your performance in this tutorial. You’ll receive a debt fine of 50 Sol, which is our currency, and a debt fine of 50 experience. Best of luck in your future battles.”
Before she could protest or ask another question Garen raised his hand and the same light flashed again and whatever sound she had wanted to make was gone.
Garen turned away from the woman and turned to the monstrous looking man with bull horns at the table next to her and started speaking. “Next up we have Dwight. Now Dwight, I really liked your cosmetic selections I did, a Minotaur can boost any team it’s on, but you need to under that until you upgrade your abilities and your gear you can’t just absorb hits. A tank without armor is worthless. I imagine it was quite the unpleasant sensation when that Sadie’s sword cut through your flesh like butter, leaving you gutted and bleeding out on the ground. You need to remember that a little healthy fear goes a long way towards self preservation. Even though you at least made it past the starting point, I’m also granting you an adventurers rank of F for your performance, you also will be fined a debt of 50 Sol and 50 Experience”.
Next Garen turned to the elven male behind Dwight his ears a give away for what his cosmetic selections had been. “George I know that being an elf brings with it feelings of elation that are difficult to control, but don't ever forget that the people who are here in the dungeon now elf and human alike are people that are masters of their craft and masters of the martial art that they specialize in.”
“You can’t just pick up a sword and be an expert. Especially not trying to dual wield swords. You have t
o learn to walk before you can crawl. For your efforts I’ll be awarded you an Adventurers rank of C. The willingness to close with an opponent is the true heart of the Warrior. When we're done here you can have access to up to 5 training sessions with some Elvin trainers myself included I have no intention of wasting your raw talent and passion just because you’ve been reckless.” Garen nodded at him and moved on.
“Alright Jack” Said Garen. “Jack I'd like to commend you for being able to take advantage of the situation like you did. This was a difficult challenge for you, your abilities were not well suited for the task but through conniving and working with others you were able to survive and actually get the award for the 1st to collect the 10 tokens. For these reasons I'm awarding you an A rank as an adventurer. Unfortunately, we do not currently have any necromantic trainers, so I cannot offer you that so as an award instead I can offer war one elite cosmetic selection that as a chance to change your racial attributions.”
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