Omen of the Witchblade Chapters 11 - 20 (Patreon)

Chapter 11 – Enter the Serpent

Mel stared into the gem’s captivating beauty. Things seemed to slither endlessly within it, like she was holding a miniaturized world in her hand.

[Serpent Aspect Gem]

(Aspect Item)

(Epic)

A distilled manifestation of Serpent Aspect in the form of a raw gem. Scaled serpents twist beneath the jagged surface, infesting a strange realm captured within crystal.

Imprint: Use to bind Serpent Aspect to an attribute.

Do you wish to bind [Serpent Aspect] to an attribute?

Mel didn’t hesitate to bind it.

For the most part, Mel would take what she could get. Besides, serpent aspect seemed plenty powerful to her.

Please select an attribute to bind: Strength, Vigor, Sense, Arcane.

Sense, Mel told the system. The snake had snuck up on her. She wanted to make sure that never happened again. With her sense stat raised to Copper, she hoped she would be able to prevent being ambushed like that again.

Are you sure you wish to bind [Serpent Aspect] to Sense? This choice cannot be undone.

“I’m sure!” she snapped.

Everybody turned to look at her. “What’s wrong?” Sabrina asked.

“Nothing,” Mel told her. “System stuff.”

“Ohh, yeah, Nathan mumbles what he’s reading aloud,” she said with a sage nod.

You bind [Serpent Aspect] to your [Sense] attribute.

Your [Sense (Serpent)] advances to [Copper Rank (Grade 0)].

You awaken the [Gaze of the Serpent] Serpent aspect skill.

The world immediately grew more vibrant and colorful. Sounds from all directions assaulted her. At first, it was overwhelming. Mel’s mind struggled to filter out the random noise.

A few seconds later, the world returned to the way it was before. When Mel focused, she could see farther, hear distant sounds, and even smell things she never would have been able to before.

The coppery scent of blood was overpowering, forcing her to immediately block out her senses again, bringing them back to ordinary human levels.

I need to get a handle on that, she thought to herself.

In the meantime, Mel glanced at her status.

[Mel Harper]

Race: Human

Standing: [#N/A] Exile (G-League) [1st Echelon]

Class: Mystic

Rank: Mundane

Next Rank: Copper (42%)

[==Attributes==]

Strength [No Aspect Bound]: Mundane (Grade 0)

Agility [Mist Aspect]: Copper (Grade 2)

Vigor [No Aspect Bound]: Mundane (Grade 0)

Sense [Serpent Aspect]: Copper (Grade 0)

Arcane [No Aspect Bound]: Mundane (Grade 0)

[==Aspects==]

[Mist Aspect] (Copper Rank) (Grade 2)

•        [Hidden Mist] (Grade 2)

[Serpent Aspect] (Copper Rank) (Grade 0)

•        [Gaze of the Serpent] (Grade 0)

[==Knowledge & Traits==]

Class: [Light Armor Knowledge], [Basic Weapon Knowledge], [Novice Ritual Magic Knowledge], [Mana Hardening]

Combat Arts: [Quickstep]

[==Titles & Blessings==]

Titles: [Boss Rash (Legendary)], [Bloodseeker (Legendary)]

Blessings: [Wound Recovery (Common)]

[==Aspect Skills==]

(Mist/Agility)

[Hidden Mist]

(Mist Aspect)

(Copper, Green/Spell)

(Grade 2 [5%])

Cost: Modest Mana

Cooldown: Moderate

Blanket an area in mist, obscuring the vision of your enemies and making them easy prey.

Imprint(Copper Rank): Create a layer of obfuscating fog that you and any allies you designate can see through. Area affected by fog is considered difficult terrain. Mana cost increases as the area of fog increases. Additional mana may be expended to illuminate the fog from within.

(Serpent/Sense)

[Gaze of the Serpent]

(Serpent Aspect)

(Copper, Green/Ability)

(Grade 0 [0%])

Cost: Low Mana

Cooldown: None

Borrow the eyes of a serpent, allowing you to view the world in gradations of colorful heat.

Imprint(Copper Rank): Grants infravision, replacing your normal eyesight with gradations of color based on the heat of surrounding objects. There is a brief delay when switching from one mode of perception to the other.

[==Racial Abilities==]

[Shardscript System]

[Shardrune Quests]

[Wayward Traveler]

[Adaptability]

Mel reread her new aspect skill at least three times to make sure she understood it properly.

She let out a low whistle. It was better than she hoped.

“What is it?” Sabrina asked, once the commotion over looting had settled down.

Mel looked distractedly over at her before turning her gaze back to the Shardscript. “New aspect, who dis?”

“It’s Sabrina.”

“I know, it’s–never mind.”

Mel still had plenty of mana from the fight. [Quickstep] only consumed stamina, and she used her [Hidden Mist] very much.

“Nobody freak out,” Mel told them. “I’m going to try this out.”

The gasps surrounding her would have been enough of an indication that she had used [Gaze of the Serpent] properly on the first try.

Aspect Skill: [Gaze of the Serpent]

Everything shifted from clearly defined shapes to blobs of color ranging from black to white-hot and everything in between. Faces and features resolved in shades of reds, oranges, and pinks.

The detail slowly increased second by second until Mel could have easily picked out who was who by facial recognition alone. Wounds were easily visible because of the added heat being vented into the air.

Creatures that she had missed before were sharply visible, clinging to branches up above or hiding with optical camouflage in the underbrush at ground level.

Mel couldn’t have seen them better if they had neon arrows pointing to them.

It was a lot to get used to. And yet, it was more useful than Mel thought possible.

It was a perfect match for Mel’s sense attribute. She wondered what the aspect skill might have been if she bound Serpent aspect to a different stat like strength or arcane.

Her choice seemed to influence what aspect skill she awakened, but she couldn’t be sure.

Not without finding more aspects.

“Your eyes are glowing,” Nathan said.

“What color?” Mel asked absently, watching a small bird nesting in the branches high above. She had noticed the rare animal before, but now she was seeing the world through a new pair of eyes. Quite literally.

There was so much motion, so much life all around her. She never would have guessed.

“They’re faintly glowing with a strange emerald light, kind of like a cat’s eyes if you shine a light at them at night.”

“Are they slitted?” Mel asked.

“Looks normal to me.”

“Sweet.”

“So about looting,” Nathan asked. “How did you do that?”

Mel looked at him. His face was glowing red hot. Was he ashamed or embarrassed to ask her?

Oh, this is going to be way more useful than I first thought.

Blinking, Mel switched back to her standard vision, letting her mana slowly refill. Her serpent gaze didn’t immediately switch over. There was a delay of several seconds as the beautiful colors of heat washed away to reveal the world as she had always known it.

Though it lacked the comfortable palette that her human eyes were used to, there was something uniquely beautiful about that other world.

“All you need to do is touch the creature,” Mel told him. “You should get a notification asking if you want to loot it. Might have to think about it, but it should pop up. All you have to do is agree when it does. The items go straight into your inventory if you have room.”

“Our what?” Maddie asked, looking up from where the snake had been. She had clearly been curious about where it went.

In all the excitement over Mel’s new aspect skill, she had briefly forgotten about the pants and gloves on the ground. Considering everyone else appeared to have a full set of clothing or armor, she didn’t feel too obliged to offer them to anyone.

Though most of them wore a hodgepodge of armor and old-world clothes. They at least all had clothes. Mel still had no pants, and the cold morning breeze blowing through the trees and her tattered coat made her abundantly aware of that fact.

Without caring what anybody thought or said, she slipped on the serpent skin trousers. Like the snake she had killed, they were a gorgeous emerald green. They fit snugly, just like the gloves.

[Pair of Scalebane Trousers]

(Copper Rank, Armor)

(Rare)

Deep emerald trousers found from a young, yet no less vicious Verdigrand Python. The hardened scales grant protection against physical and magical attacks in equal measure.

Imprint: Raises wearer’s physical and magical defense with increased effectiveness against serpent family monsters. Resists poison. Slightly raises cold insulation.

[Pair of Scalebane Gloves]

(Copper Rank, Armor)

(Uncommon)

Deep emerald gloves found from a young, yet no less vicious Verdigrand Python. The hardened scales grant protection against physical and magical attacks in equal measure.

Imprint: Raises wearer’s physical and magical defense with increased effectiveness against serpent family monsters. Resists poison. Slightly raises cold insulation.

Instantly, she felt significantly warmer than she could remember. It was like being in front of a crackling fire. What was more interesting, she could feel through the palms of her gloves as if they were her skin.

No more fumbling keys or coins because I can’t feel through my gloves, Mel thought to herself.

“I said, our what?” Maddie prompted.

“Oh, right. Your inventory.”

“We’re not shop owners,” Maddie told her. “We don’t have inventory.”

Mel looked at the silversteel ring that appeared on the outside of her glove. Odd fashion statement, but I can live with that. She looked back at the rest of them. “None of you got an item that gave you an inventory? Like in a game, y’know. A place where you can store items.”

They collectively shook their heads.

She motioned to the bottles of poison on the ground and lifted them up. “Then I guess whenever you loot something, it’ll go on the ground like these did.”

Part of Mel worried that being able to loot something was a power they lacked for some inexplicable reason. Just like summoning and desummoning weapons.

Now wasn’t the time to get into that.

“Let’s get back to my campsite and finally get some rest,” Mel said.

“You’ll take us?” Maddie asked in a small, quiet voice.

Mel nodded tiredly. “You didn’t need to come looking for me, and you sure as hell didn’t need to put your lives on the line to help me. If you’re willing to learn, I’m willing to teach. I can’t promise more than that.”

The others nodded.

Mel wanted to ask what they had decided to do about Travis, but she figured some questions were better left unasked. Even if they had managed to bury him, it wouldn’t do anything but bring up more grief.

His death was best left in the past.

Mel led the way back to her campsite. She kept a watch out with [Gaze of the Serpent]. It had the added bonus of revealing the heat signature of the camp long before she would have otherwise seen it. Smoldering coals were easily picked out against the relatively cool morning air.

The way back was longer and more circuitous than she remembered. With her enhanced sense, she could easily pick out familiar sounds like the stream she had followed.

Soon enough, they were back at her camp. The fire had burned out, and a few animals had clearly come to investigate, but nothing else seemed amiss to Mel.

“Holy smokes,” Maddie said, stepping up to the edge of the plateau.

For a brief moment, Mel worried that the grieving mother might jump, but she held herself back as the older woman gazed out across the magical landscape.

“I can’t believe this was all right here, and I never saw it.”

“It’s beautiful!” Sabrina cried. “And…well, terrifying.”

“We really are somewhere other than Earth,” Bernard said softly.

Shane let out a long whistle. “Boy, I’d hate to be in that area right there. Look at it! There’s got to be a thousand lightning strikes going on every minute.”

“Strange,” Bernard said, cocking his head to the side. “I can’t hear the thunder.”

“Bet it has some good aspects,” Mel said, eyeing that stormy plateau with interest.

They all turned to her as if the thought never occurred to them.

Mel grinned and motioned. “From what I can tell, every aspect is tied to powerful symbols.” She held up two fingers. “The two I’ve got are Mist and Serpent. Each came from a creature or quest that was highly associated with their respective elements. I’m guessing that plateau over there would have some cool lightning aspects.”

“I would love to have Storm aspect!” Nathan said excitedly. “Imagine running around with lightning arcing across your body as you move too fast for people to see you!”

“That would be pretty cool,” Sabrina said, clutching her wand. “I wonder if I could cast lightning magic spells.”

Mel motioned to the rest of the campsite. “Have a seat. I’ll take a few volunteers out into the woods to find some more kindling, and then we’ll set up a guard rotation.”

“What’s that?” Sabrina asked.

“Some of us will stay up on guard duty while the others sleep,” Shane answered. “Nobody wants anything to sneak up on us, so it’s the job of the guards to keep watch and wake everybody if there’s trouble.”

Mel pointed at Maddie and Bernard. “You two, come with me. I’ll show you what you want to look for. We’ll start with kindling.”

Despite her earlier misgivings about Maddie, the older woman proved to be surprisingly good at woodcraft. She could spot herbs that even Mel missed, and was able to gather some edible berries and mushrooms that Mel hadn’t been sure were safe.

“My family grew up in the smokies,” she told Mel with an armload of kindling on the way back to the camp. “I had three sisters and four brothers. You learn to be self-sufficient and to pitch in to help the family.” Her voice broke at the end, but she tilted her chin up, refusing to cry.

“I’m sure there’s a thing or two you can teach me then,” Mel said.

“It’s the least I could do.”

Chapter 12 — Class is in Session

It felt good to have pants again. Ones that were snug in all the right places. Sure, it was a weird thing to miss, but Mel enjoyed being warm. And snug.

It was satisfying wearing the armored hide of a monster Mel slayed.

She fingered one of the many holes in her coat.

Unfortunately, her coat had seen better days. After just a day of battle, she had worn several holes and rips in it. Despite the Mist affinity it gained, that was the only magical aspect it had.

It did not repair itself, no matter how much mana she pumped into it.

She didn’t have any tools to fix it. Even if Mel did, she didn’t know how. Stitching was probably involved, maybe something more?

I’d probably just stab myself with the needle, anyway.

It would eventually need to be replaced. It was only Common rarity anyway, which was considerably weaker than her pants and gloves.

The rest of the day passed in a blur. Mel slept like the dead, and though nobody woke her up for her turn to keep watch, she didn’t get upset.

It was a kind gesture, if a little foolish. One of the perks of grouping with other people was that she didn’t wake up with a monster snarling right in her face. With nobody else on watch, that might have happened.

Even though the fire seemed to scare away most monsters.

Maddie had gone out with Nathan to forage, returning with a meager meal for all of them once Mel woke up.

It was nothing special, but it was food. Mel hadn’t counted on being so hungry all the time. Fighting and walking constantly built up an appetite. She had learned firsthand just how debilitating hunger could be.

“First thing first,” Mel said. “Do all of you have [Wayward Traveler]?”

One by one, everybody nodded as they checked their status. Something that Mel had taught them before going to bed.

“Then why are you carrying your weapons around like a bunch of goobers?” Mel asked.

Nathan furrowed his brow. “What do you–oh.”

“Yeah.”

Holding her hand out, Mel summoned and desummoned her weapon in a swirl of silver ash. “Lesson one: focus on desummoning and summoning your weapon. It shouldn’t take more than a focused thought.”

Mel hadn’t expected them to take so long to master such simple magic, but she took it in stride and tried to be encouraging. What was most interesting wasn’t how long it took them to catch on.

It was that every person had a different color associated with their summoning magic.

No two people had the same color.

At first, Mel suspected it might have to do with the classes they picked, but she wasn’t so sure.

In some indefinable way, Mel felt it was a reflection of their personalities.

She decided to keep that theory to herself for now. No two people were the same class. Travis had been a Mystic, which made Mel wonder if the system was trying to create groups to better weather the competition.

Yet another theory she pushed aside, because that would mean the system knew Travis would die well before anybody else did. And once you started going down that road, your sanity would be the first thing left by the wayside.

Besides, she didn’t like to think of herself as replacing Travis, and certainly didn’t want to plant that seed in anybody’s mind.

The rest of the day was spent on simple survival training. Maddie was a great help. She knew certain herbs and folk remedies that Mel had never heard of.

At first she was doubtful, but when she found [Green Spirit Herba], Mel stopped being so skeptical.

[Green Spirit Herba]

(Copper Rank, Item)

(Common)

A bunch of fresh, vivid green herba filled with Green chromatic energies and invigorating mana. A core component in stamina potions.

Imprint: When eaten raw, increases stamina recovery speed.

They picked as many as they could find. Unfortunately, that only amounted to a few leaves per person.

It wasn’t until the sun began to dip below the horizon that Mel finished her quest.

Quest Complete: Teacher, Teacher

Additional Objective: Teach survival basics to (5) people (5/5).

Reward: (1) [Small Health Potion]

With room in her inventory, Mel’s lone health potion was directly deposited through the system’s beautiful streams of light.

“What was that?” Sabrina asked.

“I completed a quest,” Mel explained. “That line of light was a reward going into my inventory.”

“How do we get inventory?”

“Mine comes from a ring I found.” Mel shrugged. “Otherwise, your guess is as good as mine. Have you completed any quests?”

They all nodded. “We wouldn’t have gotten our [Soul Kilns] otherwise,” Maddie said. “At first I was skeptical, but quests are…kind of fun.”

“We don’t have typical attributes,” Shane said. “Most games I’ve played have simple numbers and levels. I have no idea what a rank or grade is. Not that I have any aspects.” He looked at Mel. “How rare are aspects?”

“I’ve fought over thirty monsters so far,” she said, turning to look out over the plateau. The sky was painted with rays of gold. “From all that, only one monster gave me an aspect. The other came from a quest. So, best case scenario, one out of thirty-ish? Not a bad ratio really.”

Shane chuckled. “If you’ve ever played Runescape, you’d know that’s nothing.”

“Runescape?” Nathan scoffed.

“Except there’s no respawning here,” Sabrina whispered. “We don’t have endless chances against monsters.”

“There isn’t in iron man Runescape either,” Shane muttered under his breath.

“I swear, Shane, sometimes…” Sabrina trailed off.

Mel chose to ignore him. “Sabrina is right. Tomorrow, we’ll start your training.”

“What do you mean?” Maddie asked. “Can’t we just stay here until this whole nightmare is over?”

“No. If we do, eventually a monster or person that’s stronger than us will be a problem. Listen, I know you all just want to survive, but in order to do that, you need to get stronger. Without aspects, your stats aren’t going to change from Mundane.”

“Which is no different from what they were on Earth,” Sabrina guessed.

“That’s my understanding,” Mel agreed. “You already have knowledge and training from the system for your weapons. Now you need to familiarize yourselves with them. You have combat arts, and you work well in a team. Use that and you’ll be unstoppable. Any bandits that we encounter are likely to be too suspicious of each other to work properly as a unit. We can exploit that.”

Sitting around the embers of the fire, Sabrina pulled her knees up to her chest. Her long Mage robes flowed down to her ankles. “You make it sound like any moment some band of murderers and thieves will jump out and try to kill us.”

“Because they might, Sabrina.”

“You don’t know that. We saw other groups. They weren’t trying to kill each other.”

Mel leaned forward. “Then why aren’t you still with them?”

“Because they were shady,” Shane said. “Don’t look at me like that, Sabrina! It’s true. Some of them were okay, but you know that one group with the white-haired guy and his rat-faced servant? There was no way they weren’t planning some shit.”

Nathan shook his head. “Shane’s right, that guy gave me the willies.”

Sabrina shook out her blonde hair and tilted her chin up. “Well, excuse me for believing there is some good in the world. Even though Earth is gone, I choose to believe that people will band together for safety. Some might seek to exploit that, but most will form small groups that turn into towns, and those towns into villages.”

Mel wanted to roll her eyes so hard that they fell out of her head. Before she had the chance to, Sabrina turned to her with a wide smile. “That’s what you want to do, isn’t it?! You want to make a village!”

“No–”

“Then you want us to be strong enough to fight monsters so we can find a village,” Sabrina continued, completely undaunted.

Mel looked at the rest of the group. “Is she always like this?”

“Brina could find the silver lining in a mushroom cloud,” Shane said with a shake of his head.

“Excuse me for looking on the bright side! We have magical powers. I, for one, am not going to believe people will kill each other for sport just because society has had a little hiccup.”

“A hiccup?” Bernard said. “Society is gone, Sabrina. It’s every man and woman for themselves. This is some sick game for somebody’s enjoyment, only we’re not told who.”

“Oh, yeah?” Sabrina asked. “Then where are all the kids? Where are the old people? The sick and infirm? If the system is so bad, why aren’t there people who were in the ER with stab wounds bleeding out all over the place? You heard that one guy talking when we first woke up here! He had cancer and now it’s just gone. He was in hospice, for crying out loud!”

Mel had wondered about that, but she assumed something altogether a bit darker. Even though it didn’t affect her in any real way, she felt relieved to hear that the system wasn’t cold and cruel.

There was something else they weren’t considering. This was a competition. One that ended in about two months.

What would happen then? Mel didn’t know. However, it didn’t matter much at the moment. That was a problem for future Mel, not present Mel.

What they did now was all that mattered. What happened after was immaterial. They had to survive first.

“Have you checked out the Emporium yet?” Mel asked, as much to change the subject as to teach them how to access the shop.

Unsurprisingly, they didn’t even know what that was.

Mel explained, including how to access it. She had no idea how they managed to stay alive as long as they did. Given their doe-eyed stares, even surviving a few hours was an achievement.

“Oh my god, I can buy things!” Sabrina said excitedly. “I have just enough to buy a [Fallen Realm Seed]. I don’t know what it is, but it sounds cool.”

“It should tell you what it does,” Mel said, trying hard to keep the judgment from her voice.

“Oh, so it does! I’m so pumped I must have missed it.”

Mel deliberated on what to purchase from the Emporium herself. She had more Battle Points than before, but still not enough to buy the [Aspect Seeker Scroll].

No one else in the group had enough either, which wasn’t surprising.

That 1,000 BP was a steep price tag.

“We can’t pool our BP together to buy something, can we?” Sabrina asked.

“Give it a whirl,” Mel told her distractedly. She wouldn’t hold her breath, but it would be better if Sabrina learned firsthand.

Mel was beginning to understand that Sabrina was the type of person who would argue with you until her face turned blue, if given half a chance. Not out of spite, but because she clearly had some deeply held beliefs.

The best way to help her learn the realities of this new world was to show her them. Only an idiot argued with facts.

Getting another aspect would be incredibly valuable, but so would becoming stronger with one of those branches, Mel thought.

Then again, binding another aspect lifted a stat up to Copper rank, so it was kind of the same thing.

Except she couldn’t afford that scroll yet, whereas she could get a branch. One she could gain the benefit of sooner rather than later.

Mel mulled this over while studying the magical plateaus. There would definitely be aspects out there. Chances are the environment will offer clues as to what kind of aspects I could find.

The scroll would give no such guidance. It would direct Mel to any random aspect in the area. While she doubted there was such a thing as a weak aspect, she wasn’t particularly crazy about the possibility of finding something ordinary like Wood or gross like Fungus aspect.

She shivered in revulsion at the thought of Fungus aspect. Shroom colony digging around in my brain, no thanks. This isn’t the Last of Us.

With just over 300 BP, Mel decided to buy up a few [Fallen Realm Seeds]. High recovery meant she could spend less time healing and more time fighting. That gave her something that neither the branches nor the scroll could.

Perhaps if she had gotten the seeds sooner, she wouldn’t have needed to take most of the competition’s second day to recover back to full.

Resting by a fire and eating were the only two ways Mel knew how to speed up her health recovery. It was clear that you couldn’t chug a magical elixir and suddenly be hale and healthy. Rest was necessary. Anything that minimized that necessary downtime would be invaluable.

As soon as Mel purchased her first [Fallen Realm Seed], she noticed something had changed.

Son of a bitch, each seed is more expensive than the last!

The first seed had been 100 BP, but the second was 200.

Screw it, I still have enough points.

(2) [Fallen Realm Seeds] have been stored in your inventory.

Mel pulled them out and gave them a quick look over to make sure their information was the same.

[Fallen Realm Seed]

(Mundane Rank, Item)

(Rare)

Darkly glowing desiccated vines tangled around a seed of dwindling energy, which fell from a higher realm of power in the multiverse.

Imprint: Use to permanently enhance restoration and recovery-based effects from items and food by 1 tier, limited to a maximum of 5 tiers at Mundane Rank.

Mel immediately used one after the other. A dull golden glow suffused her body, matching the setting sun perfectly.

She couldn’t put her finger on it, but she could feel the difference already.

They didn’t increase her native regeneration, but Mel could still tell something was different. As the sun began to set, Mel got an idea.

“Since we’re already awake from sleeping all day,” Mel said, “we should go out hunting at night. Most people will be trying to shelter or huddle around a fire. With my vision and mist, we can ambush other monsters that are out prowling at night.”

“But aren’t there usually predators at night?” Sabrina asked.

Mel gave her a vicious grin. “Exactly. Get yourselves ready. As soon as the sun goes down, we’re going hunting.”

Chapter 13 – Midnight Hunting

“Sabrina, on your left!” Mel called out.

A screeching bat the size of a black bear dove for the Mage, but Mel’s warning reached her in time. She turned and raised her wand, firing off a wisp of blue light that lit up the surrounding pitch-black dell.

Using her opening salvo as a marker, Bernard let loose [Powershot] at the bat, followed by a larger blue blast from Maddie’s staff.

Mel had been intrigued to find out that the two magical weapons were so different. Maddie’s larger staff was stronger, but took longer to use, while Sabrina’s iconic Mage wand was faster but weaker.

More blasts accompanied the first as the bat’s element of surprise was lost and the creature faltered in its ambush. Mel watched it all with her serpentine gaze.

The colorful gradations of heat made the bat as easy to see as a glowing billboard. In fact, all the monsters that they had taken down so far were easily spotted against the cool background of the nighttime forest.

Mel lunged forward, clipping the bat’s wing with a downward strike. Before the bat could continue its fall to the ground, she reversed and sliced upward, opening the creature’s greasy hide in a spray of hot orange-red blood to her heat-sensitive eyes.

She couldn’t help but watch in amazement as the blood painted a tapestry of color across the trees and leaf mold on the ground.

The others finished the bat off before it could release its stunning screech. Mel was right. They worked well together. Especially for normies who, just a few days ago, were working 9-to-5 jobs. All they needed was somebody to direct them.

You defeat the [Screecher Bat (Copper Rank)].

You gain runes of Mist and Serpent aspect experience.

You gain Battle Points.

Quest Update: Seeking Danger

Objective: Slay 5 different nocturnal monster types (4/5).

Reward: [Dark Ember]

Additional Objective: Deal less than 50% of the total damage (4/5).

Reward: [Umbral Hood]

Mel had no idea what an [Umbral Hood] was, but armor for her head was the last major piece she was missing besides a shirt or vest. Even if it was a simple hood, at least it would keep the rain off her face. That alone was worth it.

Besides, by holding herself back, she was helping the others. If she killed everything for them–which was hard not to do at times–she would be doing them a disservice.

It wasn’t that Mel was overpowered compared to them. Even with [Hidden Mist] illuminating the area for the others and calling out the monsters thanks to [Gaze of the Serpent], they were not used to fighting.

They’re normal people from a normal Earth, she thought to herself. Mel paused and wondered why her thoughts had phrased that sentence so…oddly.

A moment later, whatever was bothering her about it was gone.

She looked at the others high-fiving and celebrating quietly. They had already learned the mistake of being too loud. Without Maddie’s [Sacred Path], Nathan and Bernard would be limping.

While she couldn’t directly recover health, wiping away an injury as if it never existed was the next best thing.

It was a lesson they wouldn’t soon forget. In Mel’s estimation, those were the best kind. Still, there was a dearth of equipment to be found. Most of them wore hoodies and t-shirts with their armor. Sabrina wore a Sailor Moon t-shirt beneath her robes, and Shane wore a Metallica shirt beneath his.

Despite that, each of them had more equipment than Mel did.

Shane reached down and looted the monster. Since they had all participated, thin streams of light arced out from the dead body to each person.

(2) [Bat Fangs] have been stored in your inventory.

Nobody but Mel had a private inventory, so each of them had to hold out their hands to receive their reward. Most monsters dropped fangs, bones, or something that you would find by skinning the monster itself.

“I’m so glad we don’t have to spend hours carving these things up for loot,” Bernard said, holding the [Torn Batwing] away from his face as he stuffed it into a battered leather satchel.

Though nobody else had an inventory, everybody had some sort of storage. Technically, Mel could have used her [Exile Bag] too, but it wasn’t a requirement yet. With some junk cleared from Mel’s [Exile Storage Ring] she now had room for more monster loot.

“I’ve been meaning to ask,” Mel said, joining them after making sure the coast was clear. “How do you all have so much equipment? You said you didn’t fight anything you could run from, but that doesn’t line up with how outfitted you are.”

Nobody would look her in the eye.

It took her a moment to grasp why. “Oh.”

Sabrina studied her wand intently. “It was bad.”

Maddie wrung her hands on her staff. “We were out shopping…or rather, they were out shopping at the Eastland mall. I was out with some friends–” Her voice cracked and she choked back a sob.

“It’s okay, Maddie,” Sabrina said, wrapping an arm around the older woman. She looked at Mel. “We were all shopping, buying new outfits because Shane got a promotion at work. He was treating us.”

Shane rubbed the back of his head bashfully, his cheeks heating up to bright spots of orange. Though he was a ginger, in Mel’s serpent vision, his hair was bright green with hints of yellow.

“So you all bought matching handbags or something?” Mel asked, motioning for them to keep moving.

They kept their voices pitched low as Mel and Bernard–the only other person with good sight thanks to Archer’s [Owl Vision]–kept an eye out for threats.

“Whole outfits,” Shane clarified. “It was a bet. First person out of college that got a major promotion buys new wardrobes for everybody. They were trying to bankrupt me.”

“We were not!” Sabrina hissed, slapping him playfully. “We were coming out of Express when…when it happened. Everything changed so fast. Nobody knew what was going on.”

“Then the screaming started,” Nathan added. “Hundreds of people in one location, still with shopping bags in their hands, suddenly transported elsewhere and given weapons and armor from fantasy video games? We thought it was a mass hallucination or something. Then the monsters showed up.”

Shane looked down at his noisy chainmail clinking merrily with every step. “The only reason I didn’t die immediately was because I had heavier armor on than others. Even then, running from monsters is a numbers game–”

Mel nodded, getting a vividly gruesome image of what happened. “You didn’t need to outrun them, just the other people.”

“That’s…a dark way of putting it,” Bernard said.

“But not untrue.”

He tested the draw of his bowstring. “No.”

“We scavenged what we could from…the fallen. There were so many people dead. We took what we could when it was safe,” Sabrina said softly.

Mel shrugged. “They didn’t need it anymore. In a way, they helped you to survive.”

“How can you be so cold about it?” Sabrina asked without any judgment in her voice.

“Pragmatism reigns supreme in times of distress,” Mel explained evenly. “If you let yourself get bogged down with emotion and worry…you’ll die before you make a choice. Fractions of a second matter in a crisis. You have to worry about yourself first before you worry about others. Can’t help anybody if you’re dead.”

They lapsed into silence after that, walking quietly as they could through the underbrush of the forest. They sounded as loud as a stampeding herd of elephants to Mel’s enhanced sense ears, but she had already taught them as much as she could about keeping quiet.

Their noise drew the attention of a pair of Mundane rank monsters. Mel called them out easily. They were bright, glowing beacons of red and orange against the cooler shades of purples, violets, and blues.

It was impressive how detailed her vision was, and it seemed to be getting better each time she used it.

Binding this to sense was a stroke of luck, Mel thought. She could have just as easily received an ability that didn’t rely on sense.

The two badger-like monsters split up and flanked them, keeping low to the ground and under cover. Mel kept the group moving in the same direction without alerting the monsters. It was always best to turn an ambush against the attackers.

Mel thought the monsters were taking a long time to pounce on the group. The moment she called for the group to stop in preparation for the attack, they struck.

Infusing [Hidden Mist] with extra mana illuminated the fog-filled area for her allies, and just to be sure, she called out the location of each monster.

Bernard and Maddie peppered one with arrows and bolts of magical energy. Mel dove onto the nearest one, impaling it to the ground while Sabrina launched stinging blue bolts of magic at it. Nathan and Shane got there at the same time, finishing it off with a deadly combination of sword and hammer.

Runes flowed from the two monster corpses, but they gained no items to speak of. Instead, the bodies simply vanished into the streams of experience runes that flowed to each person.

Mel froze. Something felt wrong.

The moment passed with nothing happening. She swung her head around this way and that, but nothing else jumped out to ambush them. There were no hidden monsters lying in wait.

It was just an ordinary pair of badger-like monsters that they had already faced.

For making such extensive use of [Gaze of the Serpent] and [Hidden Mist], Mel earned some much-needed improvements.

Your [Gaze of the Serpent] Serpent aspect skill advances to [Copper Rank (Grade 1)].

Your [Sense (Serpent)] attribute advances to [Copper Rank (Grade 1)].

Your [Hidden Mist] Mist aspect skill advances to [Copper Rank (Grade 3)].

Mel could already feel the differences in the aspect skills. The spreading fog of [Hidden Mist] reacted slightly faster to her intent. It was thicker and obscured more. Details resolved quicker with [Gaze of the Serpent]. She could switch between her standard vision and that of her heat vision faster as well.

It seemed so far that when an attribute’s aspect skill first advanced to Grade 1, that improvement carried over to the attribute itself. So long as that attribute was sitting at Grade 0.

Mel shook her head. No, that wasn’t it. Not entirely.

That explanation didn’t account for why [Hidden Mist] was now Grade 3 and her agility was still Grade 2.

Raising an aspect skill’s grade clearly impacted the overall aspect and attribute it was bound to. That much was obvious. However, if it was a simple one to one, she would have expected to have agility at Grade 3 now.

Which meant she was either relying too much on her skills, or she needed to have more aspect skills to raise the attribute higher. The first was easily fixed by focusing on training and improving her agility instead of just using [Hidden Mist] over and over, expecting her agility to go up like this was some sort of game.

Whichever it ended up being, more aspect skills would help her to grow faster. Two Mist skills would not only allow her to be a more effective fighter, they would (in theory) allow her to raise her Mist aspected agility faster.

I’m going to need a lot more aspect skills to grow stronger, aren’t I? That, or a lot of monster fighting, and training.

[Mel Harper]

Race: Human

Standing: [#N/A] Exile (G-League) [1st Echelon]

Class: Mystic

Rank: Mundane

Next Rank: Copper (50%)

[==Attributes==]

Strength [No Aspect Bound]: Mundane (Grade 0)

Agility [Mist Aspect]: Copper (Grade 2)

Vigor [No Aspect Bound]: Mundane (Grade 0)

Sense [Serpent Aspect]: Copper (Grade 1)

Arcane [No Aspect Bound]: Mundane (Grade 0)

[==Aspects==]

[Mist Aspect] (Copper Rank) (Grade 2)

•        [Hidden Mist] (Grade 3)

[Serpent Aspect] (Copper Rank) (Grade 1)

•        [Gaze of the Serpent] (Grade 1)

[==Knowledge & Traits==]

Class: [Light Armor Knowledge], [Basic Weapon Knowledge], [Novice Ritual Magic Knowledge], [Mana Hardening]

Combat Arts: [Quickstep]

[==Titles & Blessings==]

Titles: [Boss Rash (Legendary)], [Bloodseeker (Legendary)]

Blessings: [Wound Recovery (Common)]

[==Aspect Skills==]

(Mist/Agility)

[Hidden Mist]

(Serpent Aspect)

(Copper, Green/Spell)

(Grade 3 [1%])

Cost: Modest Mana

Cooldown: Moderate

Blanket an area in mist, obscuring the vision of your enemies and making them easy prey.

Imprint(Copper Rank): Create a layer of obfuscating fog that you and any allies you designate can see through. Area affected by fog is considered difficult terrain. Mana cost increases as the area of fog increases. Additional mana may be expended to illuminate the fog from within.

(Serpent/Sense)

[Gaze of the Serpent]

(Serpent Aspect)

(Copper, Green/Ability)

(Grade 1 [9%])

Cost: Low Mana

Cooldown: None

Borrow the eyes of a serpent, allowing you to view the world in gradations of colorful heat.

Imprint(Copper Rank): Grants infravision, replacing your normal eyesight with gradations of color based on the heat of surrounding objects. There is a brief delay when switching from one mode of perception to the other.

[==Racial Abilities==]

[Shardscript System]

[Shardrune Quests]

[Wayward Traveler]

[Adaptability]

Halfway to Copper, Mel thought to herself. Not bad with only two aspects.

“Man,” Shane said, dismissing his war hammer in a swirl of brown ash. “I really am too slow. Nathan was twice the distance away from me and he got there at the same time.” He pointed at Mel. “And you were all the way in the back and got there before either of us.”

“Find some aspects,” Mel advised. “It’s night and day.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Shane said.

Nathan kicked a rock with his leather boot, inexpertly twirled his sword, and vanished it in a swirl of pale green ash before it fell out of his hands. “Nobody saw that.”

“We all saw it,” Maddie said with a shake of her head.

Mel watched as, one by one, everybody dismissed their weapons, each with a different color. It had been hard for the group to learn how to do, but walking with a weapon out only made their trek more taxing.

It didn’t seem like much, but carrying a few extra pounds over the course of a day could make all the difference.

What was more curious to Mel was that even with her heat vision, she could see their colored ash. Her own ash was still silver, a color that she hadn’t seen yet in her heat vision.

“Maybe there’s an aspect under here,” Bernard said, hefting a large rock and turning it over. It thumped heavily to the ground, shaking the forest floor oddly.

Nathan wrinkled his nose. “Man, did you rip one?”

Bernard glared at him. “I did not.”

“Well, it smells like you did!”

Mel’s danger sense spiked again. She looked around, wondering what the noise of their argument attracted.

A distant voice spoke to her from the past, “Nobody ever looks up.”

Mel did, but she should have been paying better attention to the ground instead. The rocky ground trembled again, drawing her gaze away from the treetops.

In her heat vision, the ground had gone from a stable green-blue to hot orange.

Her shout of warning was swallowed by the cracking of stone as the ground gave way beneath their feet and plunged the group into darkness.

Chapter 14 - The Descent

Mel tumbled through falling rock and debris as everyone screamed around her.

In the darkness, her heat vision was priceless. She could see every shift in the surrounding rock. The pit was deep. Deeper than her newfound sight could see.

All around them, gouts of superheated air blasted from tiny holes and side passages. Somebody cried out as they were scalded. Mel tried to grab onto the rocky wall. When a burst of steam burned her, shaving off an agonizing quarter of her health, she decided against that course of action.

Instead, she concentrated on [Hidden Mist], making it as dense and thick as possible to protect them from the narrowing pit’s scalding exhaust vents.

A rush of hot red color rose up from the darkness below. “Brace yourself!” Mel called. “Water below!”

If only it was a placid pool of water. Something non-threatening to blunt the fall.

The geyser of scalding water cooled as it hit Mel’s [Hidden Mist]. Her mana drained at a startling rate as she battled with the natural elements.

They sunk into the water, burned but alive, and rode the geyser down to its source. Water steamed and dripped everywhere as Mel crawled out of the unfathomably deep but narrow pool of hot water.

She pulled Shane out, who had immediately started to sink with his heavy chainmail. Sabrina grabbed a screaming Maddie.

“I can’t swim!” Maddie shrieked.

Bernard got out on his own, dragging Nathan by the collar of his armor.

They all collapsed into the side tunnel, glowing red like lobsters in Mel’s heat vision.

Maddie spluttered and struggled to her feet. Despite the wild-eyed look of terror on her face, she kept it together enough to use [Sacred Path] to mend their various wounds.

Mel had no idea how the others were doing, but she had dropped to under half health from the heat of the water, the fall, and the steam vents.

Wisps of steam rolled off every surface in the side tunnel around them. The glowing light of [Sacred Path] encircled them.

“Nathan!” Sabrina cried, dropping to her knees. “Is he okay?” she asked Bernard.

“I think he hit his head on the way down.”

Sabrina took her hands away from the sides of his face. “What do I do? I don’t think you’re supposed to move his neck, right? Is that right, Mel?”

Mel dropped to one knee beside his body as the geyser shot up again, drowning out all other noise and filling the tunnel with unbearable heat and a sulfurous stink that turned her stomach.

She pulled back one eyelid and inspected the pupil, amazed that she could tell such fine-grained detail with her heat vision.

“He’s just out cold,” Mel said, confident in her diagnosis but unsure how she knew. “We should move farther in.”

Nobody argued against her. She was their leader, whether she liked it or not. Shane carried Nathan on his back as they ventured deeper into the tunnel system until they could barely hear the geyser erupting.

It still smelled like the bowels of hell, but at least the heat and humidity were slightly less. Mel’s heat vision was working overtime trying to resolve the washed-out mess of reds, whites, and oranges. The only major contrast was their bodies.

Everybody took a moment to take stock. It was only when they were all completely silent that Mel heard it.

Mel wasn’t sure if it was the water in her ears or something else, but as she looked around at the others’ faces, she realized they heard it too.

“Please tell me that’s just the noise caves make,” Sabrina said, swallowing hard.

“Sounds like chanting,” Shane said, tilting his head. “Like when you’re outside a church.”

Mel’s danger sense spiked again. Despite the heat, a shard of ice dripped down her spine.

New Quest: The Descent

You’ve found an unexplored area of tunnels deep underground. There is no way back out the way you came. Find another path of escape.

Objective: Discover the source of the chanting (0/1).

Reward: [Aspect Gem (Rare)]

Divergent Objective: Or find another way out before the source of the chanting finds you (0/1).

Reward: Freedom

“Oh, I don’t like that,” Maddie said, clutching her staff like it was a lifeline. “Did anybody else just get a quest?”

“The Descent? Yeah. Hated that movie,” Sabrina said, hugging herself tight. “But there’s a silver-lining. We finally get an aspect each.”

“That doesn’t exactly fill me with confidence,” Bernard said.

“What does it mean by divergent objective?” Sabrina asked.

All eyes turned to Mel while she was distracted by the choice. Either gain more power or seek out freedom.

If you run away enough times, eventually you’ll find something that’ll be too strong and too fast to escape from, she thought.

“My guess is that it means only one can be completed,” Mel said. “Either we find out what that noise is, or we leave, but we can’t do both.”

Shane furrowed his brow. His coloration, like everybody else, was slowly returning to normal. “Why not?”

“You probably don’t want to know,” Mel said.

“We’re here,” Bernard put in. “I, for one, would like to know what you think. You’ve rarely been wrong before.”

Mel leaned her head against the slick rock and shut her eyes. “Keep in mind this is just a guess…but it’s likely that the reason it’s divergent is that if we find the source, then we will be forced to deal with it. If we escape, then whatever is making that noise continues doing what it’s doing.”

“That doesn’t make much sense,” Sabrina said. “Why wouldn’t we just turn around and leave?”

Mel shook her head. “If we find out what’s making that noise, I don’t think it’ll just let us walk out again.”

Sabrina frowned. “Then we leave. We find an exit and just get out before that happens.”

“Might not work either,” Mel said. “If it’s magic we’re talking about, the normal exits might already be sealed and we’d have to find a way to break out. If we’re really unlucky, then we’re already trapped. Think of it like falling through a hole in the roof of a prison. You weren’t meant to get in the way you did, and your way back out is impossible to reach. Sometimes the only way out is through.”

Shane looked up and down the narrow, water-smoothed tunnel. “What could do that? If there’s a window or a door, we just break it, right?”

Taking a deep breath, Mel said, “Because if it was that easy, we wouldn’t all have gotten a quest for it. Besides, I have a bad feeling about this.”

“It’s just some sort of monster though, right?”

Mel glanced at him. “There are worse things than monsters.”

Sabrina went bug-eyed at that. “What’s worse than a monster?”

“People,” Mel said.

Maddie and Sabrina took a moment to let that sink in, then they nodded. “Bear in the woods?” the older woman asked.

Mel shook her head again. “Worse.” She took a deep breath and told them about the Bloodtide Covenant, skimming over the gory details of their murders but not over the horror of [Blood Bomb].

Maddie began crossing herself and muttering a prayer under her breath.

“Yeah,” Mel said, seeing their disturbed expressions.

“And you think that this is them?” Shane couldn’t help but ask. He looked like he really didn’t want to hear her answer.

“No,” Mel said. The relief on his face was instant. “I think it’s something worse.”

“Oh come on!” Shane hissed. “You didn’t have to pause like that!”

“Look,” Sabrina said, putting up a hand to quiet Shane. “Nathan’s coming around.”

The Brawler blinked and groaned, lifting a hand to touch the sticky blood on the healed wound on his head. “What happened?”

“You want it sugar-coated?” Bernard asked him. Mel could see the relief wash through each of them. Though nobody had said it, they must have all been worried that they might lose another one.

“How long have we known each other?” Nathan asked groggily.

“Too long.”

“Then you know what I want.”

Bernard rolled his eyes. “We’re taking a little detour down here so we can avoid fighting monsters up above. There’s some people singing a happy little hymn up ahead, probably some good catholic college girls who haven’t seen a handsome man in their entire life–”

“Okay, okay, enough sugar-coating,” Nathan said, struggling to sit up. “What’s really going on?”

Mel snorted. “Why are you looking at me?”

“Because I can trust you to tell me the truth, even if it sucks.”

Shane leaned in. “Especially if it sucks.”

Rolling her eyes, Mel recounted her theory in its entirety.

“Kinda wish you sugar-coated it a bit there,” Nathan said with a wince.

“Shouldn’t have asked me then.”

“Fair.”

“So…what are we going to do?” Maddie asked. Her knuckles were cool compared to the rest of her hands, suggesting she was gripping the staff so tight that they were practically bloodless.

Glancing at her health, Mel stood up. She was over three-quarters full, good enough to start moving. If her dreadful suspicion was correct, they would need to move fast to have any chance of getting out alive.

“I can’t tell you what to do. This is something beyond a single person’s decision, but you need to understand what’s going on.”

“Which is?” Sabrina asked.

“This is a competition. This Convocation? It’s bigger than what’s going on here,” Mel said with growing conviction. “If you want to call it quits, there’s no harm. Hole up somewhere and try to survive if that’s your goal. Odds are good that most people seeking power will go toward those magical plateaus for more power and better monster hunting. You don’t need to compete, but surviving often means getting strong enough to defend yourself and those you love. You can’t divorce one from the other. Not entirely.”

Maddie leaned on her staff as if it was the only thing keeping her up. “What’re you going to do?”

“I’m going to compete,” Mel said with iron certainty. “There’s nothing else for me. I have a laundry list of questions that need answering. That’s not going to be possible if I just sit around twiddling my thumbs until the trial is over.”

“Then I’ll go with you,” Maddie said, standing a bit straighter.

“You don’t have–” Mel began, but Maddie interrupted her.

“I know I don’t have to. I want to. With Travis…well, Isaac died when Travis was little. You saved us when nobody else would. Do you know how many people we ran by as those beastmen were chasing us?”

Nathan stared at his boots. “Nearly a dozen.”

Maddie motioned to him. “None of them helped us. But you did. You even tried to save my boy. I know I said some harsh things…but I am sorry for them. I don’t know who else I would follow. If you want to barricade a room and wait it out, I will wait with you. If…you want to charge into a church of cultists, then I’ll march right there beside you.”

“Wherever you go, I go,” Sabrina said. “I know you think people are worse than monsters, but you saved my life without a second thought, then immediately took off to save Maddie and Travis. If that’s not what a hero does, I don’t know what is.”

“Ditto,” Nathan added in.

Shane shoved him. “Too cool to admit your feelings, huh?”

Bernard looked up at Mel. “I think it’s plain to see that you’re not going to be getting rid of us anytime soon. So you might as well let us help you. We’re not as skilled or equipped to deal with this strangeness as you, but we’re not letting you go on your own.”

Mel wasn’t comfortable having so much faith placed in her. She had good survival skills, and even better combat instincts, but that didn’t mean she was somebody worth following.

And yet, what are the alternatives? The only other remotely organized group I’ve seen is the Bloodtide Covenant, and I wouldn’t want to run into them again for a million dollars. Whatever this is, at least it’s not them.

In the end, it didn’t matter how Mel felt about herself. As she saw it, there wasn’t even a choice to make. She was going to compete, and the only way to get stronger was to fight.

To survive, they all needed power from aspects.

Mel turned to the others and started walking toward the distant sound of chanting. “If that’s the way it is, let’s see what’s making all that racket.”

Chapter 15 – Not a Cult

Mel led the group down into the bowels of the plateau. It was amazing to realize that a complex network of tunnels had been right below their feet the entire time.

More than once, Mel made a wrong turn and had to backtrack. With her heightened sense attribute, she was out in front leading them toward the source of the chanting. Mel guessed that usually that would be the role of an Archer. Lightly armored, one of their focus stats being sense, and with [Owl Sight], that class would be great for it.

Unfortunately, [Gaze of the Serpent] trumped anything Archer could bring to the table.

Minute by minute, the sound grew louder until they could pick out individual voices in the chant.

“What’re they saying?” Sabrina whispered, clutching her wand tightly.

“Nothing good,” Mel said. She had no idea what they were saying, but she could feel the malice of their words in her bones. This was dark magic, though she didn’t know how she was so certain.

Monsters never spoke that she knew of. Not with any kind of human language. The chanting had to come from people, but nobody from Earth would know how to unleash dark magic so quickly.

At least, she hoped.

Several tunnels were caved-in or had choking vents of foul gas that forced them to take an alternative route. If they could have gone straight toward the sound of chanting, it would have only taken a few minutes.

By the time they reached a downward slope, they were hot, sweaty, and hardly able to breathe in the cloying underworld stench. It wasn’t just the sulfurous reek, there were other horrid odors mixing in. Rotten meat, open sewer, and something metallic and coppery all mixed together in the humid air.

Alone, the humidity would have made it hard to breathe. With the stomach-emptying stench clinging to every breath they took, it was hard going.

More than once, Mel was tempted to take one of the passages that smelled a little cleaner. She noticed the wistful looks of the others whenever they passed one of those tunnels.

This new aspect better be worth it, Mel thought fiercely, directing her animosity towards the system.

Not that it would care. It was probably an unfeeling, omnipresent entity. Not cruel, but not merciful either.

Wherever the chanting led them, it would have to be in a nightmarish place to rival the dark song. If they were going to find the source of it and earn an aspect each, they weren’t going to find it by following the signs of fresh air.

“It feels like we’re walking inside some living creature’s body,” Nathan hissed. “It’s so damp, and I swear the floor is pulsing with a heartbeat.”

“You’re just imagining things,” Mel told him without turning around. She had felt the same thing, but wasn’t about to admit it.

“Are you gaslighting me right now?”

Mel kept a straight face. “What? No. You’re crazy. You sound crazy right now.”

“You are! You’re gaslighting me! Brina, she’s–”

“Trying to keep our spirits up,” Sabrina cut in.

Mel had no idea how the stench could get any worse, but as the tunnel bent to the right, they were hit in the face by a physical wall of odor so strong that even Mel gagged.

It wasn’t the first time that several people emptied what little remained in their stomachs. After the retching and gagging were over, Mel pressed on.

They didn’t have far to go.

The tunnel opened up into a room of stone walls fitted with large gray blocks of stone and worked with obvious skill. The room looked disused, but there was a hall beyond it and the sound of chanting was louder than ever.

A puddle of warm water gathered in the cracks of the stone floor right below the leaking tunnel. There was nothing of note in the room.

Torches burned and flickered in the hallway, warming the stones to Mel’s eyes. She put up a hand to keep the others in their place, and poked her head into the hallway, then motioned when the coast was clear.

“What is this place?” Nathan asked, his voice barely audible, as if he didn’t want to speak at all.

“How should I know?” Mel whispered back.

The smell was even worse, telling Mel they were on the right track. Thick stone blocks shifted under their feet as a tremor rumbled through the underground complex.

Mel eased up to the wall at the next junction and scouted ahead. Down one passage the torches were dark and in her heat vision she could see a collapse had closed off the hallway about 100 feet away.

Seeing no alternative passages that way, Mel took a right into the next tunnel, keeping her hands free in case she needed to summon her weapon quickly.

The others, clearly not trusting themselves to call their weapons in time, had theirs out and ready to use at a moment’s notice.

An ancient, half-rotted door creaked open down the hallway to admit a small man in a moldering red robe. A robe Mel had hoped she wouldn’t see again.

Taking no chances, Mel rushed forward, grabbed his robes and threw him back into the room he just came from.

She was on him in a second, hands wrapped tight around his throat, her knees pinning his shoulders to the stone floor.

Sabrina gasped and grabbed Mel under her arms. She wasn’t strong enough to pull her off, but with Shane’s help, she was.

“You idiots! He’s Bloodtide!”

The Covenant member looked at Mel with abject terror as she fought and struggled to get out of their grip.

Why didn’t I bind an aspect to strength!?

She managed to use her superior agility to wriggle out of their grasp and slip free, but by then it was too late.

Seeing his death coming so assuredly, and now with time on his side, the Bloodtide zealot muttered hoarsely under his breath. His hands traced a familiar series of red sigils in the air.

Aspect Skill: [Blood Bomb]

“Out!” Mel shouted, reversing her movement and trying to pull the others out of the room. They more readily obeyed that, but it still wasn’t nearly fast enough.

The blast took the rotten door straight off the hinges and painted the far wall like a Jackson Pollock painting of gore and blood.

You defeat the [Bloodtide Covenant Acolyte (Mundane Rank)].

You gain runes of Mist and Serpent aspect experience.

You gain Battle Points.

(5) [Blood Coins] have been stored in your inventory.

The hallway rumbled and shook from the blast. Heavy blocks of stone and dirt collapsed the path they came from, sealing off any hope of escape.

Nobody survived unscathed, but at least the injuries were relatively minor. Burns and bruises were better than broken bones.

Maddie immediately used [Sacred Path] to get ahead of the worst of it.

Sabrina sat heavily on the ground, her face and body covered in scalding blood. Her skin’s blistering eased with each passing second of [Sacred Path], but the horror did not leave her bright blue eyes.

Mel was up on her feet a few seconds later. She was seething with anger, but realized now wasn’t the best time to berate them.

Still, when she turned to Sabrina, the other girl flinched as if she expected Mel to slap her. Mel took a deep breath and did her best to scrub the anger from her voice. “These are bad people. You see a person in those filthy red robes, you kill them. No questions asked. They won’t hesitate.” She motioned to the blood-splattered wall. “These are the same Bloodtide zealots I told you about.”

“I thought that skill looked familiar…” Nathan said, shellshocked. “He just…blew up.”

“His insides became outsides,” Shane said, staring at nothing.

Mel could see where this was going. She had to head it off before they went too deep. Despite being the smallest person there, she lifted each of her allies to their feet. “Up. Get up. You think that’s all of them? This was just one guy! Those voices we hear? That’s the rest of them. More will be coming any moment. We don’t have the luxury of breaking down now. On your feet!”

They looked unsteady, but the fear and horror were fading from their faces, replaced by grim resolve.

Fighting these zealots wasn’t fair. Mel’s group was filled with average people from Earth. These Bloodtide were already accustomed to life where monsters and magic were commonplace.

Didn’t the Convocation say that two worlds were uplifted? Earth and…what was the other one?

Lormar.

“Remember,” she added, “we’re here for the quest. We need those aspects! And in doing so, we’ll stop these people from hurting anybody else.”

“Falran, what the hells are you doing?!” Called a voice from an adjoining hallway. “It sounds like you were giving birth to the Gnawing Hunger herself. I told you not to have that second helping. Young men always give you such stomach problems.”

A red-robed man turned the corner and halted in his tracks, seeing the half-dozen intruders splattered with what Mel could only guess was Falran.

Before even Mel could respond, an arrow shaft sprouted from the man’s chest. He looked down, shocked, at the spreading darkness of his own blood.

Mel rushed forward, summoning her twinblade. She slashed his neck in one clean stroke, silencing his voice. The hallway couldn’t take another explosion.

Reaching his hands up instinctively to his throat to stem the flow of blood, the zealot gasped and went down with a well-placed kick to the outside of his knee. Mel reversed her grip and speared the man through the shoulder and into the chest to silence him for good.

It was over in just a few seconds.

Mel looked back at Bernard, the only other person who had reacted fast enough. He gave her a grim nod that she returned.

You defeat the [Bloodtide Covenant Brawler (Mundane Rank)].

You gain runes of Mist and Serpent aspect experience.

You gain Battle Points.

(5) [Blood Coins] have been stored in your inventory.

(1) [Blood Ember (Common)] has been stored in your inventory.

The shock at taking part in killing another person shook the others less than the first time. Bernard helped guide them down the hall after Mel.

Mel’s stomach turned at the thought of what that [Blood Ember (Common)] might grant to armaments. Despite that, she wouldn’t refuse something else of use.

For now, fire affinity worked exceptionally well.

“Did you hear what he said?” Nathan whispered in horror.

“Yeah,” Sabrina said softly.

“Are they cannibals or something? How evil can you get?”

Mel looked over her shoulder at them. “I told you people were worse. Monsters don’t get to choose. They simply are. But people? People choose to be like this. They build systems around it to keep it going, to facilitate the horrors. Give me a monster to fight any day.”

“How do you know all this?” Shane asked.

Mel didn’t answer, because she truthfully didn’t know. It was like she lived through something like this before.

With her twinblade in hand, Mel took up a brisk pace down the hall. They passed a few empty rooms. Some had rotting crates and burlap sacks that were filled with holes, but they found no more Bloodtide to fight.

Several rooms looked like they had been slept in, others held entirely different horrors that nobody spoke of. Rooms filled with piles of scarlet bones, bloody handprints, and streaks going across the hallway from a room that was barred from the outside to a dining hall of nightmares.

Mel used the horrible sights to fuel her anger, quickening her pace. When she took a turn down the hall and saw two Bloodtide zealots standing in front of a heavily fortified door, she didn’t even blink.

Tapping into every ounce of speed she could, Mel sprinted down the hall and opened the first zealot from groin to shoulder in one rage-fueled slice.

The other man was faster, but he chose poorly. Instead of attacking Mel when she was vulnerable, he slapped his hand to the iron-studded door. The bloody handprint he left behind pulsed with power and a thick red gel wriggled its way across the door, fully encasing it.

His yellow-toothed grin was permanently fixed on his face when two arrows thudded into his chest, followed by several bursts of magic projectiles, and finally a crushing blow from Shane’s war hammer.

Shane stood there, thunderstruck at what he had just done. The man slumped to the ground.

More runes of experience flowed from the two corpses, and more [Blood Coins], including another grotesque [Blood Ember (Common)].

Extra [Blood Coins] fell to the ground, shining wetly like freshly spilled blood. Shane looked like he was about to be sick. He turned away and heaved, but nothing came out.

Like the rest of them, there was nothing left in his stomach from the tunnels.

Sabrina came up and patted his back, her head turning to look up and down the hallway. She saw the same thing Mel did.

There was no other way forward. They would need to double back and look for another hallway or go through one of the horror rooms to find another way.

Shane wiped his mouth and followed Sabrina and the others when Mel noticed movement by her feet.

The [Blood Coins] that Shane hadn’t picked up were vibrating and sliding across the floor toward the door covered in red energy.

“Wait,” Mel said, holding up a hand, watching with great interest.

One by one, the coins touched the blood-red gel on the door and vanished. The gel took on a decidedly pinker hue.

Mel turned to the group. “Everybody get out your [Blood Coins], I’ve got an idea.”

Chapter 16 - It’s in the Blood

Nobody objected to Mel collecting the coins. She pressed them against the barrier and watched as the coins were consumed to dispel the magic.

Mel reached out to grasp the iron ring, but a hand clasped on her wrist to stop her.

“No,” Sabrina said. “We have no idea what’s inside there. We could be walking into a trap.”

“The chanting is loudest right here,” Mel argued. “I’m not going to turn around now.”

Sabrina shook her head. “I’m not asking you to.” She swallowed hard. “I have another idea.” She looked at the two corpses on the ground.

***

“This isn’t going to work,” Mel said, pulling the cowl low over her blonde hair. “They know each other by name.”

“I know what I’m talking about,” Sabrina said.

“Listen to her, Mel,” Shane said, his wrists bound with a makeshift rope in front of him and cut on the inside so he could break free at a moment’s notice. “She was on the fast track at a consultancy firm for Fortune five-hundred companies. If anybody knows how to waltz into a place and act like they belong, it’s Sabrina.”

Mel glanced at the young blonde woman who looked more at home as a college cheerleader than in a pantsuit in a boardroom. She did a little mental reassessment. “Fine, but I still don’t see why I have to dress in this filthy robe.”

“Have you looked at yourself in the mirror?” Sabrina asked, laughing quietly. “You look terrifying. That’s the look we need to sell this act. You and Bernard captured us outside in one of the tunnels. Make up something gruesome. I get the feeling they’re fond of gory details. We just need to get through the door and beyond whatever’s inside.”

“And if they’re all in there chanting?” Mel asked.

Sabrina gave her a sad smile. “Then do what you do best. Kill them.”

Mel couldn’t argue with that.

Something interesting that Mel realized as they stripped the bodies of their robes was that the Shardrune treated them differently than looted items. Mel could pick up their weapons and their armor right off their body, but they had no stats. No system message even recognized the items as existing.

Must mean that only looted items have any magic to them, Mel thought. Otherwise, the items must be no different than the clothes from Earth that the others wore. Sabrina had mentioned that her Sailor Moon shirt had no stats on it, but she couldn’t bear to part with it.

The door pushed open easily enough once they were ready. Mel and Bernard led the group with the cowls of their hoods pulled low. They tugged on the rough hempen rope they found in one of the rooms, causing their “captives” to stumble forward.

The room beyond was bathed in a red glow and more closely resembled an old gothic church than some evil den of iniquity.

There were hardly a dozen people in the room altogether. Their voices rang out clear and loud, however, filling the air with the hum of power that made Mel’s skin crawl.

A few eyed them as they walked across the faded, moth-eaten carpet that ran down the center aisle of stone pews. Clearly, this wasn’t an oddity to the Bloodtide Covenant. Nobody bothered to stop them.

At the back of the room was a raised dais flanked by burning braziers. Along with the red candles stuck to random flat surfaces, the room was dimly lit enough that Mel didn’t feel any need for her heat vision.

Which was a good thing, because it drained her mana continuously. Even though she had switched it off after the first zealot detonated, she was barely back to half mana.

On the raised dais were two figures, a high priest by the looks of his cleaner garments with their extra embellishments, and a squirming sacrifice chained to the altar.

Mel wanted to rush ahead but reminded herself that the odds of coming out alive against nearly a dozen zealots were next to zero. She was not some hero with infinite power. Her class wasn’t even Copper rank.

What was worse, she felt the presence of a Legendary title from the head priest. He was facing the crowd of Bloodtide Covenant members, a ritual blade held high in his hands over the squirming victim.

Any hope Mel had that she might stop the sacrifice was crushed when she saw the blood dripping from the knife’s sinuous blade.

“Ah, Malkor!” the priest said jovially. “You’ve done well to bring more sacrifices. Their life force will ease the way open.”

Bernard tilted his head in gracious acceptance of his patron’s praise.

Mel watched, keeping her head slightly bowed so she could hide her face as long as possible. The two guards had luckily been a man and a woman, but the woman had red hair instead of blonde. Anybody getting a close look under their hoods would see the truth about who they were.

In fact, anybody looking at Mel for more than a few seconds would notice she was several inches shorter than the guard had been. At a scant five feet tall, Mel was almost always the shortest person in any group. Luckily, the Bloodtide members were more interested in the sacrifices than the two guards.

“Act like you belong,” Sabrina had told her. “You’re doing a task you’ve done a dozen times before. It’s almost boring.”

Mel tried to keep the guidance in mind, feeling the stares of the other zealots on her back. They never stopped singing, which lent her confidence. She must have been imagining those stares.

As much as Mel wanted to rush straight up to the priest and cut him down, she remembered to keep a slow and stately march.

She watched, the edge of the hood covering her vision slightly, as the priest plucked droplets of blood from the tip of the ritual dagger as if they were jewels.

He pinched each droplet and placed it in the air as if gravity didn’t exist. Halfway to the altar, the symbol that the priest was making began to take form and alarm bells gonged in Mel’s head.

She didn’t know what it meant, but she knew something very bad was about to happen.

The entire room rumbled and shook. The choir reached a frenzied crescendo as dust and rubble fell in streams from high up in the chapel’s ceiling, deep beneath the plateau.

Mel was keenly aware at that moment that there were thousands of tons of rock right above their head, pressing in on them. One slight shift could bring the whole place down, burying and killing them instantly.

Or worse, trapping them below ground with no hope of escape.

Despite the plan, Mel couldn’t help but pick up the pace. Bernard stumbled to her side, hurrying to match her stride.

The priest was too distracted to notice their shift. The symbol, made with droplets of blood, glowed brightly. Lines crossed between the droplets in mathematical perfection. Despite the mounting horror she felt, a small part of her found beauty in its perfection.

Before she could be repulsed by her own admiration, the symbol turned into a portal. A window into a world of unspeakable horrors, giving Mel a front-row seat to countless abominations. She couldn’t have shut her eyes if she wanted to.

The portal pivoted until it was a flat disc, thankfully hiding the worst of the nightmares from her sight. It hung over the sacrificial altar and began to spin. The edges of the portal sprayed scalding blood across the room.

A bloody umbilical cord shot out of the portal and attached itself to the poor victim on the altar.

Quest Evolved: The Descent

Having sought out the source of the chanting, you have entered a gruesome den of the Bloodtide Covenant. Your foes are more powerful than you had foreseen, increasing the rarity of your reward.

Objective: Stop the ceremony (0/1).

Reward: [Aspect Gem (Legendary)]

“Now that’s more like it,” Mel whispered with grim satisfaction.

“Legendary?” Bernard muttered. “Haven’t even seen anythin’ better than Rare before.”

“Plan’s changing,” Mel said to him. “We go now and we go hard.” More than two-thirds of the way there, Mel abandoned her disguise and rushed forward.

The zealots were too focused on their chanting, all eyes glued to the horror show on the altar. By the time anybody noticed one of the red-robed figures was sprinting toward the altar, Mel already had her twinblade in hand.

She took the steps two at a time, used the prayer stool as a springboard, and leaped over the altar. She intended to attack the priest first, assuming with his death that the ceremony would be ended.

Her first look at the victim on the altar changed her mind, and that indecision cost her greatly.

Instead of a naked human chained to the stone altar as she had expected, it was a horrible monstrosity. Though it had two legs, a torso, and a head of sorts, that was as far as the similarities went.

It had no arms to speak of. No face at all. A grievous wound glowed ruby red from its groin to the top of its head. Bordering the wound were hundreds of wriggling fingers and serrated teeth, just inside the fleshy pit.

Mel faltered, trying to cut the umbilical cord first, but she didn’t put enough force behind it and only managed to nick it.

Blood sprayed out like she had just hit an artery. Mel crashed into the surprised priest. Pain, sharp and clear, lanced across her hip as the priest’s knife grazed her on the way down.

Mel fought like a feral cat, using her twinblade when she could bring it to bear but otherwise using her teeth, elbows, and knees. Anything to stop the priest from resuming his chant.

Somewhere behind Mel, she could hear the choir stuttering as they realized something had gone wrong. Mel only focused on the priest, his coal-black eyes burning with zealous rage.

This was no time for finesse or proper fighting. Mel kneed the priest in the groin as hard as she could, using the motion to bring her boot up within her hand’s reach. She pulled the knife stored there free and stabbed relentlessly into the priest’s body.

Her knife didn’t cut as deeply as she had hoped, so she put both hands on the blade to give it all the strength she could muster. Still, the blade struggled to dig deep, even with all her weight on it.

That didn’t deter her one bit. Mel screamed and stabbed again and again, the blade biting deeper and deeper with each driving thrust.

The cold tide of fear and realization washed away the fragile flames of the priest’s rage, snuffing them out utterly as Mel vented all her anger and frustration on this horrible, wretched man.

Mel hardly noticed when his blood stopped pouring out and instead hardened into a thousand little needles. They jabbed into her as a last-ditch effort to defend himself, but Mel was beyond pain. She was beyond rage. Her attacks only grew more ferocious.

You defeat the [Bloodtide Covenant Priest (Copper Rank)].

You gain runes of Mist and Serpent aspect experience.

You gain Battle Points.

With her [Simple Dagger], she ripped and tore until the body below her stopped moving. She would have kept going until the priest was no longer recognizable from a pile of meat if she hadn’t been stopped.

Her only thoughts had been on punishment. She lost sight of her goal.

A punting kick hit her in the ribs, forcing her off the dead priest. She fetched up hard against the stone wall, her knife clattering to the floor as she desperately tried to suck in enough air to clear her darkening vision.

The nightmarish creature was standing above the priest’s bloodied body. The only thing that stopped it from killing Mel at her most vulnerable was the presence of an easy meal right in front of it.

Leaning down until its upper body was parallel to the floor, the creature’s many fingers extended several feet until they were long enough to reach the Priest’s corpse.

Cradling the body in multi-jointed humanoid fingers, the monster pulled the entirety of the Priest’s body into its massive maw, devouring what was left of the man.

Before the creature could finish its grisly meal, Mel had recovered enough to summon her twinblade and spread a layer of dense mist all around her.

The dais was covered in flames. One of the others must have knocked down the braziers to create a burning barrier of fire. It was the only reason she could see that the zealots hadn’t killed them all yet.

Even still, several burning, red-robed figures were fighting back, and they had superior numbers on their side.

Mel wasted precious time she could have spent attacking to create a patch of ice in front of the monster’s fleshy “feet”. She dove forward and rolled, holding her twinblade out and hooking the creature around the back of the knee.

Yanking with all her might, she managed to shift its weight slightly. Standing nearly eight feet tall, there was no way she had the strength to move it very much.

But she didn’t need to.

When its misshapen foot slid forward and it hit the icy patch, the creature lost its footing completely and fell onto its back right as Mel was finishing her roll.

She bounded to her feet and transferred the rest of her momentum into a powerful horizontal slash, cutting through the rest of the bleeding umbilical cord.

The fleshy tube snapped back into the portal like a snipped rubber band, and the bloody window into the nightmarish landscape shrank into nothingness.

Which just left a room full of enraged zealots, and a monster from the depths of her nightmares.

Chapter 17 – Fiend of Ill Omen

Mel stabbed down into the prone monster, trying to spear the creature through its wriggling maw.

To her utter disgust, the Priest’s body blocked her attack. The creature had spat the Priest’s body back out at her, knocking her strike wide.

Mel dodged to the side and swung her twinblade in a low, slicing arc. Trailing fire, the tip of the blade sparked against the stone and cut into the creature’s shoulder.

The flames on her blade caused the creature to go berserk. It flailed and bucked like it was being electrocuted. Though she had only grazed it on the shoulder, the wound looked grievous and blackened.

Twisting and kicking out with its freakish feet, the monster tried to knock Mel down. Mel used every trick in her book to keep upright. She knew without a shadow of a doubt that the moment she was on the ground, she would be dead.

Icy patches formed randomly. Her [Hidden Mist] spread out, obscuring her form and those of her friends. The flames made it hard to push the effect too far, but Mel lent them what aid she could muster while keeping herself alive.

Her boots, enhanced by the difficult terrain, kept her one step ahead of the monster’s attacks.

Biding her time, Mel waited for the perfect moment to strike. Using [Quickstep], her twinblade dove in when the monster over committed to an attack, and she was forced to jump above its flailing legs.

Mel traded one leg going into its maw for the ability to stab down with everything she had. Her stomach seized in horror as her leg sunk up to the knee inside the creature’s maw, which should have been impossible.

It couldn’t have been more than half a foot from the ribcage to its spine, but Mel didn’t bother to refute the obvious display of magic. She gripped her twinblade’s hilt and twisted the blade back and forth as flames roared from the blade.

If the monster had gone berserk before, it entirely lost its mind now. Mel was bucked and kicked through the air, but her twinblade remained lodged in its bloody maw.

A torrent of scalding blood erupted from its gaping maw, covering her entire body, tanking her health. Mel refused to let go. She twisted and wrenched on the twinblade with all of her might.

Ash flew into the air as the blood turned to black flecks wherever they touched the licking flames of her weapon.

The monster bucked one final time, throwing Mel off and across the altar. She heard and felt a rib crack on the edge of the blood-slick stone. Paralyzed by the pain that wracked her body, she could do nothing but watch as the monster got to its feet and charged.

With the last burst of strength she possessed, Mel pushed off the altar and spun her twinblade end over end, slicing up as she faced the creature’s deadly embrace.

A dozen fingers were sheared clear of the monster’s maw, their nubs burning down to nothing as they crashed together with her twinblade between them.

The flames didn’t just burn the monster’s skin, they ignited the blood that squirted from its missing fingers as if it was gasoline. Mel barely managed to spin away, stumbling to the ground in a haze of pain as the monster’s battered body went up like a magnesium torch.

You defeat the [Minor Bloodfiend (Copper Rank)].

You gain runes of Mist and Serpent aspect experience.

You gain Battle Points.

Mel didn’t have time to celebrate. She staggered to her feet and joined her friends at the edge of the guttering flames. The smell of blood and oil was thick here, nearly making her swoon, but the sight of Sabrina swinging a burning plank of wood brought Mel back.

One Bloodtide zealot lost an arm to her whirling twinblade’s first strike. She speared him through the middle as she reversed the attack, the second blade coming in low under his remaining arm.

Shane booted the zealot off Mel’s blade, sending him back through the obscuring smoke and flame that was quickly filling the rest of the room.

Before Mel could thank him, another zealot jumped through the flames.

With Mel’s spinning, twirling twinblade, her allies found a new anchor and centered their attacks around her. Bernard’s arrows found gaps in the zealots that were kept busy with Mel’s whirling twinblade.

Shane swept zealots aside with a show of strength she could not have even guessed at. Nathan was there by her side, darting his blade inexpertly in and out wherever he could find a gap. Having to deal with Mel’s twinblade and Nathan’s sword proved too much for the zealots.

Those that managed to find a way around them were met with a burning plank of wood to the face courtesy of Sabrina. All the meanwhile, Maddie used [Sacred Path] to mend their wounds, keeping them going even as their health plummeted. She was the only reason Mel hadn’t fallen over from her injuries.

As the fighting wore on, instead of weakening, the six fighters gained steam. Meanwhile, the zealots were losing limbs and numbers fast.

The loss of their Priest and monster was a devastating blow to their morale. Mel took several cuts and bruises that would have spelled her end without Maddie’s constant wound repair. Even still, her health dipped dangerously low.

Healing wounds did not recover health. They only allowed her to keep fighting and prevented additional, life-threatening damage from further wounds.

The difference between her group and the zealots was obvious. They lacked a healer to wash away their wounds. Cuts bled freely. Broken and sprained limbs refused to move, further weakening their ability to stand against Mel’s party.

Standing with the flames crackling in front of the dais’ steps, Mel waited for the next zealot to come at them. She couldn’t remember when she cut the last one down, or when she last saw a notification.

Using the last of her mana, she condensed her mist and smothered the flames to reveal a charnel house.

The zealots that were alive were barely clinging to consciousness, grasping their missing limbs or grievous wounds. Mel walked among them, granting them a merciful end that they didn’t deserve.

She was just glad none of them tried to blow up. However, judging by the splatter marks and blasted stone pews, several had.

“Is…it over?” Sabrina asked, hefting her burning plank. She followed Mel’s eyes to the burning plank and gave a bashful shrug. “I lost my wand.”

Mel couldn’t help but laugh. It was an infectious sound that spread throughout the group as the weight of what they had just accomplished settled in.

Their momentous achievement was followed by a flood of relief. It was finally over.

Mel staggered over to them just as Maddie nearly fell over from exhaustion. “Sorry I wasn’t able to contribute much,” she said as Shane eased her into a sitting pose beside the altar.

Nobody seemed to care about the blood and gore all around them. They had been victorious against odds worse than they could have ever anticipated.

They didn’t talk for a while as they recovered and recuperated.

Mel looked down at the leg that had slipped up to the knee in the bloodfiend’s magical maw, surprised that her [Scalebane Trousers] were still in one piece.

The same couldn’t be said of her [Exile Coat]. The Mist effect flickered and faded in and out as the magic of the coat failed. It was filled with more holes and rips than she could count.

There was a faint pop somewhere above the altar as a small spray of blood gently pattered to the stone.

Mel had thought the portal closed earlier, but clearly she had been wrong.

Quest Complete: The Descent

Objective: Stop the ceremony (1/1).

Reward: [Aspect Gem (Legendary)]

(1) [Aspect Gem (Legendary)] has been stored in your inventory.

Shane let out a surprised shout as a gem sparkling like the sun in the dim room landed in his lap.

One by one, the others gained their first aspect. Each Legendary aspect was different from its fellows. They glowed so powerfully that the room was filled with multi-colored light.

“What do we do with them?” Sabrina asked, looking at her seething purple aspect gem.

All eyes found Mel, but she was so relieved she hardly cared that they were seeking her advice. “Pick the stat you want to invest in. Until you get another aspect, that’ll be your strongest one. If you want to deal more damage, pick a stat that’ll do that.”

“Like strength?” Shane asked.

“Or arcane,” Mel said, motioning to Sabrina and Maddie.

“What did you pick?” Nathan asked, one eye swollen shut.

“Agility first, then sense.”

“And now?”

Mel shrugged. “I guess it depends on the aspect, doesn’t it? What’d you all get?”

Nathan held up a black gem. “Darkness.”

They each held up their gem for Mel to see. Despite how tired and drained she was, she couldn’t help but feel a sense of pride. Not just in how far these people had come, but in herself. She never could have done this on her own.

A smile blossomed on her pixie features, her emerald eyes glittering as she looked hungrily at each of the aspect gems. It seemed oddly appropriate that they were all sinister in some way or another, considering the quest they came from.

Each of the Legendary gems was a gorgeous concentration of power. Power that would elevate them beyond anything they had ever thought possible.

For the briefest of moments, Mel realized she could have taken them and finished binding her stats once and for all. It would have been easy if she were as bloodthirsty and power hungry as the Bloodtide had been.

Just two extra aspects and she would have every attribute at Copper. How easily would she have beaten her opponents then?

She dismissed the thoughts out of hand. Not only because it was wrong, but because they had earned their rewards. For some reason, the thought of taking somebody else’s aspect filled her with a strange sense of revulsion.

Mel reached into her inventory and pulled out her reward. She nearly dropped it as one of the sharp edges cut into her palm when she gripped it a little too hard.

“Brutal,” Shane whispered, looking at the sharp angular stone in her hand. “What is it?”

“Omen aspect,” Mel said, staring at the hypnotic item.

[Omen Aspect Gem]

(Aspect Item)

(Legendary)

A distilled manifestation of Omen Aspect in the form of a polished gem. Accursed symbols scar the angular, multifaceted surface, dooming an infernal realm captured within crystal.

Imprint: Use to bind Omen aspect to an attribute.

Mel wasn’t sure she wanted the aspect. Not after what she saw in that portal. Power is just power, she reminded herself. It’s up to the wielder to shape it. Not the other way around. Only the weak are shaped by their powers.

Concentrating, Mel sent a thread of mana into the gem. The feedback of power it gave her was immense. Despite her initial misgivings, she could hardly wait to see what it gave her. She sped through the confirmations.

Do you wish to bind [Omen Aspect] to an attribute?

Please select an attribute to bind: Strength, Vigor, Arcane.

Omen felt like a magical aspect, though she couldn’t have said why. It just was. So far, her instincts had been spot on, so why not keep trusting them?

Are you sure you wish to bind [Omen Aspect] to Arcane? This choice cannot be undone.

You bind [Omen Aspect] to your [Arcane] attribute.

Your [Arcane (Omen)] advances to [Copper Rank (Grade 0)].

You awaken the [Omen Mark] Omen aspect skill.

The flood of power that roared through Mel’s veins crumpled her legs. She wasn’t the only one, either. One by one, each of her friends slumped to the side as the power settled firmly onto their weary shoulders.

Darkness descended over Mel, but she had weathered this twice before and found a reserve of willpower to push the fatigue back. At least one of them needed to stay awake. There could be more zealots showing up at any moment.

Shifting her legs out from beneath herself, Mel grabbed onto the lip of the altar and pulled herself back to a standing pose. She limped over to the large doors and shut them, barring them with a heavy wooden plank dropped into the iron braces.

She shook her head, realizing that if the zealots had properly barred the door, they never would have gotten inside.

Safe for the time being, Mel set up a campfire in the center of the room, cleared out the bodies to one side, then read and reread [Omen Mark] several times.

Coming from a Legendary aspect gem, it was notably different from her Serpent and Mist aspect skills. She couldn’t wait to try it out.

Chapter 18 - Omen Mark

Mel roasted the remainder of her scavenged mushrooms and guzzled a full potion bottle of water before she could stop herself. Her stomach was growling something fierce and her throat burned. Everybody would need something to eat and drink before they could even think about finding a way out.

It was hard not to use the water to wash away the gore and blood from herself, but she had precious little as it was.

I would kill for a shower, she thought. Then she looked at the dead bodies neatly piled in the corner and chuckled darkly at the irony of her statement.

Once the food was roasting, Mel turned back to her new aspect skill.

[Omen Mark]

(Omen Aspect)

(Copper, Yellow/Spell)

(Grade 0 [0%])

Cost: Modest Mana & Stamina

Cooldown: Short

Single out a target for death, marking it with an ominous and debilitating sign.

Imprint(Copper Rank): Mark a target, enabling you to sense where they are within a 100-foot radius and triggering the [Marked for Death] affliction. Only one target can be marked at a time. Upon the death of a target, the mark can be moved at no additional cost.

[Marked for Death]: Creates a glowing sigil above the target’s head that only you and those you choose can see. Reduces the target’s physical and magical defenses proportional to your own. Afflictions placed upon this target will stack regardless of their original properties. Physical contact applies stacks of [Decay].

[Decay]: Withers the physical vessel of a target, dealing stacking damage-over-time and depleting stamina. Stacks accrue at a greater rate the longer you remain in physical contact.

“Legendary aspect indeed,” Mel whispered huskily. She grinned to herself despite the grim surroundings. The chamber was truly painted red.

Noticing that, Mel cleared her throat awkwardly. With the food still cooking, Mel got up to loot what remained of the Bloodtide Covenant members she had moved to the side of the room.

Good riddance.

Streamers of light streaked out from their bodies to each of her friends, depositing small piles of loot for them to wake up to. Mel now had a coin purse of [Blood Coins] stuffed so full that she couldn’t close the drawstrings. It didn’t even fit it in her inventory. Not with everything else she had looted.

Using up those [Mist Coins] was long overdue, anyway. That would make some more room.

The collection of daggers, bows, and swords she looted from the bodies was extensive. Most people had more than one weapon, likely looted from a hapless victim based on their descriptions.

It never struck Mel just how heavy and cumbersome looting a pile of weapons and armor was. Mel couldn’t figure out what influenced the type of loot they dropped. Their armor was, as far as she could tell, functionally useless.

They had been burned, stabbed, sliced open, magically attacked, and peppered with arrows. Yet the armor pieces she looted from them looked like an identical twin to what they were currently wearing. Only they were in pristine condition.

Though the sample size was small, Mel couldn’t help but draw the conclusion that the more damaged the person’s armor, the more likely they were to drop that armor. Almost as if destroying the armor raised the chance of it dropping a perfect replica.

System shenanigans, Mel thought to herself, shaking her head.

Using a cloak ripped off a body to carry her bundle of armaments, Mel dragged her spoils to the campfire.

While looking over the various armaments Mel collected, she took out the [Mist Coins]. She rolled one across the back of her knuckles by habit.

Mel looked at the action as if it came from another person. Huh, didn’t know I could do that.

[Mist Coin]

(Copper Rank, Item)

(Uncommon)

An overwhelming condensation of Mist mana in the shape of a coin. Exceedingly light, this coin is cool and damp to the touch, as if it might fade away any moment.

Imprint: Use to reinforce the Grade of an attribute and aspect skills bound to Mist aspect, up to Copper Rank.

Mel rolled the coin into her palm and crushed it. A burst of power surged through her arm into her middle. Her eyes went wide at the thrill of power surging through her, wiping away some of her fatigue.

Without missing a beat, she consumed the rest of the coins, eager to revitalize herself. It was as if somebody had just injected adrenaline into her veins.

Oh shit, these could come in handy to stay awake–oh wait, never mind, here comes the crash.

Struggling to keep her eyes open, Mel pushed the heavy velvety blanket of sleep away once more, but it was much harder. Slumping, she barely managed to keep her eyes open until the overwhelming sensation passed.

Note to self: don’t use magical aspect coins as a substitute for good old-fashioned coffee. Or, y’know, sleep.

Unsure what to do with all the equipment, Mel got up and went over to her unconscious friends. Their piles of loot might have tempted her at one point, but she knew deep in her heart that they had earned every spoil.

Hal was right, an unbidden thought came to her, it is good to be part of a group. To trust and be trusted.

Shaking the alien thought free, she stepped around her newfound friends and their loot. Even on her own, Mel had enough equipment to haphazardly outfit all of them in at least one decent piece each.

Together? They had more than they could probably wear.

While lamenting the fact that nobody had a twinblade, and that they would no doubt have to leave most of the loot behind because they couldn’t carry it, Mel approached the half-eaten body of the Priest.

She tried not to look at the grotesque form of the bloodfiend. She knew she should loot it, but she knew it was going to give her something disgusting.

The Priest, on the other hand, was a different type of class than she had seen and he was Copper. If her hunch was correct, that meant he had five aspects. No doubt funneled to him by his congregation.

Guess there are upsides to being part of a group.

Which meant that, if she was lucky, she might find an aspect on him. This was the first time she had ever faced somebody else with more than one aspect, though she couldn’t have said what was else he had.

Probably something gross, she thought to herself as she gently tapped his lower half with a boot and looted him.

Boot ‘n loot! Her eyes widened at her spoils, particularly the black piece of armor that dropped to her feet. You were holding out on me, old man!

You find (1) [Heathen’s Cuirass].

(1) [Armament Scrap Ritual Scroll] has been stored in your inventory.

You earn the Title: [Blood Tax].

(20) [Blood Coins] have been stored in your inventory.

(2) [Blood Ember (Common)] has been stored in your inventory.

Much to Mel’s disappointment, the priest didn’t drop one of his bound aspects. What that would have been, she didn’t know. Probably something more messed up than Omen aspect, if she had to guess.

So much for that theory, she thought with frustration. The cannibal bastard kept ‘em all to himself.

She knelt and picked up the cuirass, at first dismayed because she expected it to be made out of metal. Instead, she found it to be surprisingly light and pliable like leather. Hardened leather plates were embossed with silvery designs that looked vaguely Nordic to her eye.

There were, however, an uncomfortable number of circular motifs with snakes eating their own tails. She couldn’t remember the name of the mythological creature, but somehow Mel had the impression that this armor had not come from the Priest.

It didn’t match him.

Then again, she guessed it could have been stolen from somebody else. They certainly killed enough people by the looks of it.

[Heathen’s Cuirass]

(Copper Rank, Armor)

(Epic)

An exquisite piece of black plated leather and chainmail turned to occultic purposes. Marked with silver embellishments of an Ouroboros, representing the cycle of death and rebirth under the Anchor Rune of the World Serpent.

Imprint(Copper Rank): Resists physical status afflictions. Increases stealth. Blood spilled on this item repairs its durability.

That’s the name! Ouroboros. Mel could hardly believe her eyes. Not just that she found a new piece of equipment, but at how good it was.

She wasn’t about to go stripping what was left of the Priest to see if he wore this item or not, but she doubted it. Not enough gore and blood motifs on it.

This almost seemed purposefully designed for her.

Picking her way back toward the campfire, Mel stripped out of her filthy burial dress and ruined coat. She tossed both into the fire, happy to finally be rid of them once and for all.

Slipping the [Heathen’s Cuirass] over her head, she found it surprisingly padded and comfortable against her skin. At first, she had intrusive fears about the cold chainmail creating some rather unfortunate chafing, but thankfully that wasn’t the case.

I’m just missing a headpiece now, she noted. Hopefully that [Umbral Hood] will be good.

It was too bad, evil cult-y humans didn’t count as nocturnal creatures.

Turning around and getting a good look at herself, she was thrilled with the result. The armor was sturdy without being bulky. Her range of motion wasn’t hampered, and it covered far more than she first thought. Thick flaps fell across her thighs and rear. The black chainmail and padded cloth covered her arms down to her wrists.

The sleeves even had a hole to slip her thumb through so the material stayed in place. The only oddity was how it fit with her [Scalebane Gloves].

Unlike the [Exile Storage Ring] she wore, the loop vanished as soon as she slipped her thumb through the hole. Only when she removed her gloves did she find it again.

Thought I was going to get stuck in a cursed piece of armor for a second!

Breathing a sigh of relief, Mel turned her attention to the second-most interesting item she received from the Priest.

His title.

[Blood Tax]

(Title, Legendary)

Earned by slaying Lord Bytram and transferred to you upon his death. As a high-ranking member of the Bloodtide Covenant, Lord Bytram was always destined for greatness. Given the best tutors Lormar’s dwindling nobles had to offer, Bytram invented many cruel and unique methods of enhancement. All in service to his vile god of blood.

Bytram’s unique talent of transferring agony into power manifested itself the moment he was uplifted into the multiverse. His meteoric rise to Copper was fueled by his ability to enhance ritual magic with blood, improving the effects of the spell based on the quality of the blood. That power now resides within you. Whether you use it to beget more suffering or sacrifice your own lifeforce is a choice only you can make.

Whenever you cast ritual magic, you can supplement the required ritual components with blood to enhance the effect of the spell.

As a Legendary title, it is eligible for additional growth should you satisfy specific requirements. Additionally, should you be slain, this title will be transferred to the victor.

Mel frowned slowly. Great, now I have two titles about blood. I’m beginning to sense a disturbing pattern here.

She could only hope that it was because of the source of the titles and not anything to do with herself. It wasn’t like she received Blood aspect or anything.

Omen was bad enough.

Speaking of rituals, Mel fished out the scroll she gained. It seemed appropriate that the Priest who used the suffering of others to enhance his own rituals would drop a spell scroll.

[Armament Scrap Ritual Scroll]

(Copper Rank, Item)

(Rare)

A furled scroll inscribed with the instructions for a type of ritual magic that breaks down and converts weapons and armor into equivalent rarity armament scrap, which can then be used to enhance the rarity of armaments in the [Soul Kiln].

Imprint: Use to learn [Armament Scrap Ritual (G-Tier)].

Requires: [Novice Ritual Magic Training]

Mel turned the scroll over in her hand. Not many of her friends would be able to use it. She just barely met the requirement herself.

From what she could remember during those few minutes she had to pursue the classes early on, only Mage had greater ritual training than Mystic.

No, I’m forgetting a class. Acolyte too, probably?

She shrugged.

The scroll was hers. If the system deigned for them to have a copy, that was between them. It was her favorite thing about the system, really.

It took out any form of in-fighting about loot distribution. The system handled it. If somebody got an awesome Epic weapon, but another person in the same group got a Common, that was between them and the system.

When Mel unfurled the scroll, the complicated geometric designs and mathematical formulae on the parchment burned their way into her mind.

For a moment, she thought she smelled burnt toast, then everything returned to normal. The scroll burst into flames in her hand. Silver flames that tickled her fingers consumed the aged parchment until not even ash remained.

You learn: [Armament Scrap Ritual (G-Tier)].

She immediately went over to the campfire and began sketching out the required diagram for the spell.

I’ve finally got a use for all those weapons! She looked to the side where red smears led to pools of tacky blood. And…technically, free blood.

Chapter 19 – Spellcraft

Inscribing the design was relatively easy. Using a steady drip of mana, she could mark the ground with glowing runes and geometric designs. Despite being bad at art, she was able to draw a perfect circle and straight lines without the use of rulers or protractors.

If Mel needed any further proof that this was a magical world, that was enough on its own. It would take nothing short of supernatural forces to grant her the ability to draw a straight line.

Once the ritual was outlined, all she needed to do was to assemble the ritual components. For the [Armament Scrap Ritual], that meant five [Copper Rune Coins] per piece of equipment scrapped.

She intrinsically knew, thanks to the scroll’s imparted knowledge, that the amount required scaled linearly. If she wanted to scrap two swords, she would need to expend 10 [Copper Rune Coins].

It did mean, however, that she didn’t need to perform the ritual multiple times if she had enough ritual components.

Mel found herself curious as to some of the intricacies of the magic and decided that she would use her time wisely. With her friends still out cold, Mel gathered up some blood using an old Bloodtide cloak.

While she could have used a vial of blood (not that she had a vial, nor would she want to taint such a rarity), the receptacle didn’t matter. Which meant a cloak turned into a blood-soaked rag would be just as good as an ornate sacrificial bowl.

Something that she found in a disturbing quantity littered around the chapel.

Mel took out her own [Simple Dagger] that she had used to kill the Priest. It was still stained with his blood and chipped from the man’s supernaturally toughened skin.

She had no more use for it. Especially not when there were so many sick looking ritual daggers. Where the hell did they get them all? Magical Hot Topic?

Shaking her head, Mel knelt in front of the ritual circle and took out five copper coins from her inventory. She set the stack gently in its prescribed location and pressed her hands in the right spot. A thread of guiding mana was all it took to get the process started.

The [Simple Dagger] glowed like a supernova, forcing Mel to shut her eyes. She heard a sound like cracking glass from the circle. Unwilling to stop the effect, she ducked her head and angled her shoulder to protect her vital organs in case something blew up.

Eyes shut tight, Mel heard a sound like crystal shattering just as the brilliant light behind her eyelids faded. When she looked again, the dagger was gone. In its place were two piles of faintly glowing metal scraps. Irregular chunks of pale silvery metal, like thick shavings, all neatly stacked where the dagger had been.

The blood-soaked rag was gone as well.

There goes my idea about using ritual magic to clean blood out of clothes. It nukes the entire thing.

Mel reached out, gingerly touching the scraps at first, then scooping them up into her inventory once she realized they were cool to the touch.

[Weapon Scraps]

(Catalyst, Scrap)

(Common)

The most basic form of a weapon, broken down into easily usable pieces for the enhancement or reforging of other weapons.

Imprint: Enhances rarity of an adjoining weapon when placed in the [Soul Kiln]. Amount required varies based on rarity.

She pulled out the [Soul Kiln] next and set it down beside the comforting campfire. It wasn’t exactly cold in the room, but it wasn’t anywhere near as hot and humid as the earlier sections where they broke into the complex.

Besides, there was something uniquely comforting about a fire, and the chamber was clearly designed to accommodate it with small slits and vents in the blackened corners of the ceiling.

Taking out her [Exile Twinblade], Mel placed it within the kiln and added the two scraps she gained from the ritual.

When she infused a pulse of mana into the kiln, it warmed and brightened, but then fizzled out soon after.

“Well, I guess it did say that it varied based on the rarity.”

That meant it took more than two Common [Weapon Scraps] to enhance the rarity of her [Exile Twinblade].

“Easy enough to remedy,” she said, setting up another ritual. The design persisted for a while after its use, allowing her to reuse it by adding the necessary components again.

Mel still only used a single item, this time a [Sacrificial Knife], also Common rarity. Out of morbid curiosity, she dragged a severed leg over to the ritual circle and placed it appropriately in accordance with [Blood Tax’s] power.

Another five [Copper Rune Coins] poorer, Mel learned that the ritual was more than capable of extracting the required blood from not just soaked cloth, but flesh and bone as well.

What remained reminded her of the gruesome room they had walked past with piles of red-stained bones and nothing else.

“Why do the bones remain and not the skin or fat?” Mel asked herself, knowing how dark and insane that sounded.

Thinning her lips, Mel glanced over the prone forms of her friends, making sure nobody was awake to hear how creepy that sounded.

Good.

Over the next hour, Mel experimented to her heart’s content. She found out a lot of valuable information she wouldn’t have otherwise learned if she had been “normal” or “well-adjusted” in her experimentation.

[Blood Tax] took a varying amount of blood based on what she was doing. As far as she could tell without accurate measurements, it also scaled linearly like the other ritual components.

That meant if it took a cup of blood for one use, it would take two for a ritual to scrap two weapons at once and going up from there.

[Blood Tax] gave her a straight doubling of materials out of [Armament Scrap Ritual]. Nothing she could do would lower the cost of the other components.

She still had to pay five [Copper Rune Coins] each time, which quickly dwindled her supply even with [Blood Tax] giving her a “free” extra [Weapon Scrap].

Even more interesting, though fairly gross, was how she could extract blood with [Blood Tax]. She didn’t need to use a bowl or vial. The vessel didn’t matter so long as there was an opening for the magic to extract the blood.

Mel quickly converted the room of corpses into piles of red-stained bones, with a few bodies to spare. In fact, the title was so beautifully efficient that she thought the Priest must have been an idiot or at least needlessly wasteful.

All it would take would be a small incision– Mel arrested the dark thoughts immediately. She didn’t like where her mind went, even if it was for the sake of spell efficiency and just in her head.

Doing her best to banish the mental image of a “blood farm”, Mel turned back to her newly enhanced twinblade.

Getting her [Exile Twinblade] from Common to Uncommon required three [Weapon Scraps] of Common rarity. From there, it took four Uncommon [Weapon Scraps] to raise it to Rare. Even with [Blood Tax] improving her output, bumping the weapon up two rarities consumed most of her [Weapon Scraps].

Mel’s twinblade was better than ever and even had a new imprint. She was pretty satisfied with the result, especially since she was new to ritual magic.

[Exile Twinblade (Fire)]

(Copper Rank, Weapon)

(Rare)

A sword with blades extending from both sides of the hilt. Originally created for new prospects that survived being inducted to the multiverse, this weapon has been improved in rarity twice through ritual magic.

Imprint: Inflicts greater countering and piercing damage.

Imprint(Fire Ember): Deals Fire damage. Increased Strength scaling effectiveness.

Combat Art: [Quickstep]

Mel was curious about the countering imprint. She didn’t necessarily have a skill for countering or anything like that.

So it must be a type of damage like piercing, right?

Her best guess was that countering damage occurred when doing just that, such as parrying a blow and then counterattacking.

Even with the [Armor Scraps] she made from useless pieces of equipment, she would never have enough scrap to upgrade her [Heathen’s Cuirass] to whatever was after Epic.

The only information she had was what Common and Uncommon required. Common needed three pieces, while Uncommon needed four. If it scaled linearly like she assumed, that meant Rare would need five pieces.

With most equipment she came across being Common, that would be an incredible amount of armor to upgrade one rarity level.

Still, it was an incredibly efficient system that she adored simply for its space-saving capabilities.

Mel could turn nine Common weapons she wouldn’t have room for into nine piles of Common [Weapon Scrap]. That alone was a large improvement on space requirements, but she could go a step further.

By using her [Soul Kiln] to enhance the scrap, instead of using it to enhance a weapon, she could turn the Common scrap into Uncommon scrap. Turning those nine pieces of Common scrap into just three small piles of Uncommon [Weapon Scrap] which easily fit in her inventory.

Mel paused and stared at the pile of glorious Uncommon scrap. “I might have a bit of an obsession with this.”

Her scalebane gloves were another matter. Unlike her Rare trousers, they were only Uncommon. And while there had been less armor than weapons, she was able to create enough [Armor Scrap] to enhance her gloves from Uncommon to Rare.

Thanks in part to the two pieces of Uncommon armor she found. Neither of which appealed to her. She wasn’t about to wear a [Fanatic’s Loincloth] or a [Blessed Waistcloth].

Ain’t nothing blessed about that waistcloth. I’d sooner streak naked through a snowstorm than put those nasty things on, Mel thought with fierce conviction.

The imprint on the gloves didn’t change, which was hardly surprising. They were already fairly good, and now they were even stronger at Rare. The difference between Uncommon and Rare was staggering. Just like her twinblade, upgrading a low rarity item into a higher rarity made the enhancements obvious.

It was more than the cleaner more refined look. The extra embellishments or the improved intrinsic attributes. Her twinblade went from sharp to razor sharp even after she slammed the blade into a stone. There wasn’t the slightest nick or dent.

Her gloves, meanwhile, became something else entirely. Originally, they had a slight grippy texture on the palms and fingers to enhance her grip. When she brought them to Rare, that changed into an odd magnetic sort of effect when she grabbed something.

Mel was a pixie in more than just her face and the light dusting of freckles across her nose. She was small. Even among women, she often was the shortest around. That naturally extended to her hands. Palming a basketball was normally an impossibility, but with her gloves at Rare, she could easily pick up a brick much larger than her hand and keep a firm hold of it.

Mel felt better prepared than ever to take on the hazards of the competition. Everything fit snugly, which was just how she liked it.

She was munching on a snack of mushrooms and slightly crushed berries from their earlier foraging when the others started to come around.

Sabrina was the first to get up. Mel was glad that she was done experimenting by then, because the room looked significantly cleaner than it had originally.

There was nothing she could do about the stains, but the bodies were far more…compact.

Mel kept both the barred door and her group in her sight while she ate and recovered her health. Even with [Sacred Path] helping to keep her wound-free, Mel didn’t think she would be back to normal for at least another day.

If only I could learn some healing ritual magic, she thought to herself. Not that Maddie’s healing was bad, but it drained the poor woman so much that she hadn’t been able to participate much in the fighting in order to keep it up.

Mel was already thinking about buying another [Fallen Realm Seed] from the Emporium. Having used two of them, the recovery effects from the mushrooms and berries were more potent than before.

Just not enough to keep up with extensive fighting.

She had been so consumed with testing out the scrap ritual that she had nearly forgotten all about the Emporium. Now that Sabrina was up, she kept it on the back burner for now.

“There’s food and water here,” Mel told her.

The woman looked confused and disoriented, her wide, innocent blue eyes taking in the remains of the pitched battle as if for the first time.

Don’t scream, don’t scream, Mel thought to herself, noticing the signs of a mental break coming.

Mel didn’t know what sort of things might be lurking out in the rest of the complex and didn’t want to attract them with noise, just in case.

Sabrina didn’t scream, thankfully. What she did was much worse. Mel watched, her heart squeezing painfully in her chest as the innocent light drained from Sabrina’s eyes. She looked down at her bloodied and soot-stained hands, her shoulders shaking with quiet sobs.

Dammit.

Chapter 20 – Brittle Spirits

Mel was never any good with tears or emotions. She didn’t know what to do as Sabrina sobbed quietly to herself, surrounded by the wreckage of their fight.

While Mel had been glad to be alive and to get a new power, she realized that she was different from Sabrina. And as the others woke up, she realized that difference was greater than she first feared.

Maybe there’s something wrong with me.

One by one, each of Mel’s friends woke up to roasted food by the campfire’s warmth. Despite her efforts, it wasn’t enough of a comfort to banish the mental trauma of fighting in a bloody, gruesome battle.

They didn’t speak, didn’t say a word as they huddled around the fire. Mel couldn’t help but feel guilty about the whole thing. It was a weight that pressed continually on her chest.

She had been the one to bring them here. Falling into the pit hadn’t been intentional, but they could have taken a path out instead of seeking the source of the chanting.

They had followed her.

Why am I nothing like them? Mel asked herself, and repeated an earlier phrase as if that might bring some clarity. They’re normal people from a normal Earth.

When she had gotten a new power, she immediately wanted to learn how it worked and the best ways to improve herself. She had barely thought about the lives lost or how close she had come to being eaten by that horrible monstrosity still there behind the altar.

Am I broken?

Mel searched inside herself. She was glad to have finished off the Bloodtide Covenant. They couldn’t keep sacrificing people or doing whatever grisly deeds they were up to any longer.

That portal was shut. Nothing else like that monster could come through.

The fact that they were gone was a good thing. Mel didn’t exactly feel too comfortable around all those corpses, but neither was she horrified by them.

On the other hand, that hellish portal and finger-mawed monster were deeply disturbing.

The good outweighed the horror, and she found that she felt strangely numb to the death and bloodshed. It was all in service of something greater, wasn’t it?

Even if she disregarded the addictive thrill of battle, it was worth it to fight. Besides, the times she didn’t know if she would come out alive or dead were the best moments of her life. There was no greater test.

Maybe I really do belong in this competition, she realized.

“There’s some food here, and I have a bit of spare water,” Mel said, trying to sound friendly. “I figured we’d be hungry and should probably eat before we left.”

Hollow, shellshocked faces looked up at her, as if just realizing she was there. They turned to the roasted mushrooms, taking small mechanical bites more to satisfy her than their own hunger.

A hunger that Mel knew must be gnawing at their middle after so much fighting and traveling.

Mel didn’t know why she felt so guilty. She didn’t do this to them.

They had fallen into that water geyser together. They chose to seek out the reward of an aspect together. It was supposed to help them all survive.

Yeah, but they chose to follow you into battle. You were the one who led them here. You could have led them out to safety and freedom. It’s not like you saved anybody, Mel. There were no victims to be freed. All you accomplished was bloody posthumous vengeance.

She took a deep breath. No, she told herself, we stopped them from hurting anybody else. Sure, I did it for selfish reasons, but show me a person who seems to do good for the sake of good and I’ll show you a closet full of skeletons. We are all selfish. Some of us choose to make some good in the world at the same time.

Why did it have to break her friends then?

Unable to deal with the troubling questions, Mel got up.

Nobody even batted an eye at the motion. She just couldn’t look at their crestfallen faces anymore. It hurt, and it made her mad, but she couldn’t be mad at them. They didn’t do anything to deserve this. All they did was exist and have the unfortunate timing to cross her path.

To believe in her.

Shaking her head, Mel decided to face the final trial. Dealing with the body of the monster. She had no idea if it had been a person before it was changed or not. Monsters seemed to vanish when looted, unlike humans.

Until now, she didn’t want to know if what she killed had been a person. Somehow, that was so much worse than a monster. If somebody had been turned into that creature…she shivered uncontrollably.

Perhaps it was seeing her friends in such a state that made her want to punish herself. Maybe it was a simple distraction. It didn’t matter. Not really.

All she knew with certainty was that she didn’t want any of them having to deal with it.

The bloodfiend was the only creature not looted in the room. Looting it would reveal the truth of its origins.

Maybe she could give it a proper burial.

She thought about warning them. However, as she turned to look across the altar at them, they weren’t paying her any attention.

She suddenly felt very alone. She hastily crushed and buried the cold, oppressive feeling.

Sidestepping the Priest, Mel dropped to one knee beside the grotesque creature. She could think of no joke to lighten the mood. She didn’t even shy away from touching the fleshy skin to loot it.

If you were a person, I owe you that much dignity.

(1) [Blood Aspect Gem] has been stored in your inventory.

(1) [Strip of Cursed Flesh] has been stored in your inventory.

(1) [Goretide Emblem] has been stored in your inventory.

(1) [Bloodtide Emblem] has been stored in your inventory.

(5) [Vials of Cursed Blood] have been stored in your inventory.

Mel squinted sharply at the aspect gem. “Of course it’s Blood aspect,” she said dryly. “Because why not?”

She ignored the other items, more out of self-preservation than anything else. That was a little too much to unpack at the moment.

The only silver lining was that the monster’s body vanished completely once she looted it. That, and no streamers of light went to her friends. They hadn’t fought the creature, so at least she could spare them the horror of its loot.

In any other situation, she would have felt selfish about getting all the spoils. She was pretty sure they were close to breaking, if not already broken. The least she could do was spare them further anguish.

Mel breathed a sigh of relief, a weight lifting from her shoulders.

Do I really want to do this? Mel thought, pulling out and examining the new aspect gem.

In its own way, it was beautiful. Scarlet like freshly spilled blood, it glowed with unimaginable power, just like her Omen gem had. She knew without examining it what rarity it would be.

[Blood Aspect Gem]

(Aspect Item)

(Legendary)

A distilled manifestation of Blood Aspect in the form of a raw gem. Rivers of red run beneath the rough surface, bringing life to a desolate realm captured within crystal.

Imprint: Use to bind Blood aspect to an attribute.

Could she really forgo her fourth aspect just because it was distasteful? She didn’t have any problem using [Bloodseeker] or [Blood Tax]. What made Blood aspect so different?

You’re not a damn vampyr, for one.

The other was that when she paired it with Serpent and Omen, she was definitely getting a “villain origin story” vibe. It wasn’t that she disliked being a villain necessarily, but nobody wants to be forced into that role.

Having the system go, “hey, you look pretty dark and brooding, let’s make you evil!” isn’t the sort of thing you want to hear when you can barely remember your own past much less know what you want to be.

“Mel?” a quiet voice called from the base of the dais.

Mel poked her head up over the altar, “What’s up, Sabrina?”

“I think we’re ready to go.”

Mel nodded. “Just a sec.”

She looked back at the Blood gem.

I don’t have to take it, she told herself. I could wait until another aspect appears or trade with somebody else.

Somehow, she knew she was fooling herself. Power, Legendary power, was right in the palm of her hand. Hadn’t she been the one to say that power was nothing without the wielder?

Her friends were likely never going to be the same. Even if they were, how likely were they to follow her into a den of monsters or cultists again?

She had to protect them, didn’t she? This was her mess. She did this to them. The least she could do was get strong enough to avoid putting them through such horrors again.

Or you’re just trying to convince yourself it’s okay to grab more power.

Perhaps that was true. Maybe she was nothing but a power-hungry woman who hardly cared about anything else.

Mel shook her head. No. I was right before. Power is just a weapon. A tool. The wielder chooses how to use it and in what way. Only the weak are controlled by their power. This is my power, and I will use it however the hell I want. It does not define me.

Do you wish to bind [Blood Aspect] to an attribute?

Please select an attribute to bind: Strength, Vigor.

Are you sure you wish to bind [Blood Aspect] to Vigor? This choice cannot be undone.

Mel considered there to be a crucial element represented in every drop of blood.

It was life. The Bloodtide, meanwhile, clearly saw it as strength.

In this, Mel could choose how she interpreted the aspect’s power. Just like she had done for Mist, Serpent, and Omen.

Mel chose Vigor.

You bind [Blood Aspect] to your [Vigor] attribute.

Your [Vigor (Blood)] advances to [Copper Rank (Grade 0)].

You awaken the [Sanguine Coat] Blood aspect skill.

Mel eagerly checked her status.

[Mel Harper]

Race: Human

Standing: [#N/A] Exile (G-League) [1st Echelon]

Class: Mystic

Rank: Mundane

Next Rank: Copper (86%)

[==Attributes==]

Strength [No Aspect Bound]: Mundane (Grade 0)

Agility [Mist Aspect]: Copper (Grade 2)

Vigor [Blood Aspect]: Copper (Grade 0)

Sense [Serpent Aspect]: Copper (Grade 1)

Arcane [Omen Aspect]: Copper (Grade 0)

[==Aspects==]

[Mist Aspect] (Copper Rank) (Grade 2)

•        [Hidden Mist] (Grade 3)

[Blood Aspect] (Copper Rank) (Grade 0)

•        [Sanguine Coat] (Grade 0)

[Serpent Aspect] (Copper Rank) (Grade 1)

•        [Gaze of the Serpent] (Grade 1)

[Omen Aspect] (Copper Rank) (Grade 0)

•        [Omen Mark] (Grade 0)

[==Knowledge & Traits==]

Class: [Light Armor Knowledge], [Basic Weapon Knowledge], [Novice Ritual Magic Knowledge], [Mana Hardening]

Spells: [Armament Scrap Ritual (G-Tier)]

Combat Arts: [Quickstep]

[==Titles & Blessings==]

Titles: [Boss Rash (Legendary)], [Bloodseeker (Legendary)], [Blood Tax (Legendary)]

Blessings: [Wound Recovery (Common)]

[==Aspect Skills==]

(Mist/Agility)

[Hidden Mist]

(Serpent Aspect)

(Copper, Green/Spell)

(Grade 3 [10%])

Cost: Modest Mana

Cooldown: Moderate

Blanket an area in mist, obscuring the vision of your enemies and making them easy prey.

Imprint(Copper Rank): Create a layer of obfuscating fog that you and any allies you designate can see through. Area affected by fog is considered difficult terrain. Mana cost increases as the area of fog increases. Additional mana may be expended to illuminate the fog from within.

(Blood/Vigor)

[Sanguine Coat]

(Blood Aspect)

(Copper, Violet/Special)

(Grade 0 [0%])

Cost: Considerable Mana, Modest Health

Cooldown: Long

Summon a coat of blood to rest upon your shoulders, increasing healing received, resistance to toxins of the blood, and improving combat parameters. The coat persists so long as it has enough blood to sustain itself. Additional expenditures of mana allow for further customization.

Imprint(Copper Rank): Conjure a coat of blood from any sufficient quantity of blood. Properties of the coat will change based on what type of blood is used. Provides additional physical and magical defense. Grants a secondary health bar. All healing effects are increased. Resistances to afflictions are increased. Grants [In The Blood].

[In the Blood]: While wearing the sanguine coat, all Blood aspect skills are enhanced. Physical attacks inflict bleed damage-over-time. Your sanguine coat can be healed by consuming additional blood or through standard healing.

(Serpent/Sense)

[Gaze of the Serpent]

(Serpent Aspect)

(Copper, Green/Ability)

(Grade 1 [14%])

Cost: Low Mana

Cooldown: None

Borrow the eyes of a serpent, allowing you to view the world in gradations of colorful heat.

Imprint(Copper Rank): Grants infravision, replacing your normal eyesight with gradations of color based on the heat of surrounding objects. There is a brief delay when switching from one mode of perception to the other.

(Omen/Arcane)

[Omen Mark]

(Omen Aspect)

(Copper, Yellow/Spell)

(Grade 0 [0%])

Cost: Modest Mana & Stamina

Cooldown: Short

Single out a target for death, marking it with an ominous and debilitating sign.

Imprint(Copper Rank): Mark a target, enabling you to sense where they are within a 100-foot radius and triggering the [Marked for Death] affliction. Only one target can be marked at a time. Upon the death of a target, the mark can be moved at no additional cost.

[Marked for Death]: Creates a glowing sigil above the target’s head that only you and those you choose can see. Reduces the target’s physical and magical defenses proportional to your own. Afflictions placed upon this target will stack regardless of their original properties. Physical contact applies stacks of [Decay].

[Decay]: Withers the physical vessel of a target, dealing stacking damage-over-time and depleting stamina. Stacks accrue at a greater rate the longer you remain in physical contact.

Imprint(Iron Rank): You can transfer all afflictions a target gained while under Marked for Death to another target you can perceive up to 100 feet away. You do not gain additional effects from this.

[==Racial Abilities==]

[Shardscript System]

[Shardrune Quests]

[Wayward Traveler]

[Adaptability]

Mel stared at the flood of information. Huh, it reordered the aspects to match their position with my attributes. While the system was teaching her how to use [Sanguine Coat] behind the scenes, she busied herself reading it.

Looks like I won’t need to get another coat after all.

The fact that it seemed to be persistent was deeply interesting to her. Its obvious downside was the substantial cost of both health and mana. She had never seen anything list “considerable” before and could only guess at how much it would require.

More importantly, she had used up most of the readily accessible blood in the chapel. Draining her own blood just to conjure the coat seemed counterintuitive. Especially when the only way to heal that she knew of was eating and resting.

Wait, that’s not right!

Mel took out her earlier quest reward: a [Small Health Potion].

The ruby red liquid inside the glass vial couldn’t have been more than a shot glass’ worth.

[Small Health Potion]

(Copper Rank, Item)

(Common)

A stoppered bottle filled with a ruby-red liquid suffused with healing vital energies.

Imprint: Drink to apply a small amount of wound healing. All wounds are healed equally, splitting the available wound healing across them.

She shoved the vial back into her inventory. Son of a bitch.

Though she knew instinctively how to conjure the coat, Mel didn’t know if it required a constant supply of blood. If it didn’t, it would be the best aspect skill she had so far.

If it did…it would still be the best, but would require some creative thinking to keep it topped off.

I really hope I don’t need to go around draining everything dry, Mel thought to herself.

For the moment, it was a non-issue. She wasn’t going to sacrifice her health, and there wasn’t enough blood anymore. Even if she could use the vials of blood she received, wearing a coat of blood in front of her very traumatized friends was needlessly cruel.

She rose, heading back to the campfire and her friends. For some reason, she felt slightly guilty about what she had just done. As if she was hiding something important from them.

Mel looked around for something to put out the fire, then realized that there was no point. They weren’t coming back, and if it happened that the entire place burned down, she wouldn’t shed a tear.

“Ready?” Mel asked.

The others rose to their feet, one after the other. Shane mechanically picked up a scrap of moth-eaten carpet to put out the fire, but Mel put a hand on his arm.

He trembled slightly under her touch, but at least he didn’t flinch away from her. That would have hurt too much. “Don’t bother,” she said. When he continued to look confused, she added, “Let it burn.”

Mel kicked the fire as they passed it, scattering the burning embers across the room. “Let it all burn.”

Shane dropped the scrap of cloth and nodded, a bit of strength returning to his wide shoulders.

As it turned out, that had been the right thing to do. It was cathartic.

Together, they headed out of the chapel as the flames began to crawl across the wooden beams. Mel had a vague understanding that in some cultures, fire could be cleansing.

Before long, the grisly place would be gone, leaving only a bloody memory.