Tech Duinn: An Ether Collapse Series (Ether Flows Book 1)
Page 5
Hello Trainee,
Please provide the bag of Crystals to the headmaster. This is his payment for another trainee making it to his eighth year.
This note may be a copy of the original, but it does not change the severity of the information within. Do not share what you read below with anyone. It is knowledge shared only with the sons and daughters of the King.
Welcome to the Sovereign Elite,
First and foremost, congratulations on completing your training, and I look forward to your rise through the ranks of my other alleged children. You may have already noticed that there isn’t a Sovereign Class available for you to choose. That’s because my class of Sovereign isn’t truly a class.
That’s right, I will not share with you what my actual class is, but I can tell you that if you are reading this, I have yet to complete ‘The Quest’ to lock my class to familial relations. Why then do all of your ‘brothers’ and ‘sisters’ have a class of Sovereign when you see them? That’s because of the skill imparted to you. Your instructions are as follows:
Choose a Combat Class.
Obfuscate the name of the class to Sovereign.
Obfuscate the name of the sword to appear as a Soul Blade.
By completing these steps, you too will be a member of the ‘Ancestral’ Class.
Your father,
Erebus Sovereign
The Sovereign King
Added:
If this addition is still penned, it means that the war between Guilds and the Sovereign Empire still wages. Unfortunately, the Guilds have discovered our secret and thus do not fear the power of the Sovereign class anymore. They are fighting to begin controlling planets, and through those planets, they hope to gain power. Unfortunately, with most new worlds under oppressive planetary occupation, their best option is to secure weakly defended, already existing planets. Their unfortunately timed discovery of our secret has placed the once supreme Sovereign Empire directly in their crosshairs, as I cannot be everywhere at once.
Erebus Sovereign
The Sovereign King
Azrael crumpled the note and threw it. That explained quite a bit. Pieces of the puzzle fell into place. He hadn’t missed the ‘alleged children’ line either. His father didn’t care if Azrael really was his son. He only wanted more children to carry on his ruse.
After a moment, he went and collected the note and placed it back in the ring. He still didn’t have an explanation for the letter telling the Headmaster to keep him.
One thing in the letter had his heart pumping magma through his veins, though. The King had known about the war and still left the Sovereign Halls so under defended?
Chapter Six
He practiced some unarmed combat forms to vent his final, clinging frustrations. Part of him wanted to run away. To abandon his trainers and Mark. But Azrael knew better.
As for the information of the fake Ancestral Class, Azrael could use it to continue the lie, but he would gain nothing from it. His trainers may believe the discovery of his Ancestral Class when he returned, but what would that achieve?
Congratulations! You have learned a new skill.
Martial Arts
● Martial arts are a highly practiced form of defending and attacking without a weapon. Practitioners of Martial Arts are said to be able to create attacks and defenses that rival all other combat forms.
Each level of Martial Arts increases the inherent Ether in your fists, feet, elbows, knees, head, and shoulder by 0.1%.
Current Rank: Weak level 1.
If anything, his deception would put himself and his group in more danger on Tech Duinn. His trainers likely believed that his Ancestral Class would grant them amnesty or alert someone to rescue them. Azrael now knew the truth, and none of those things were going to happen. He punched out viciously, pretending the air in front of him was his ‘father’s’ face.
The year’s worth of training after a Son reached his eighth birthday also made a sick sort of sense. They likely increased the level of obfuscation in some way, while also placing the individual son or daughter under a compulsion to never reveal the information. The plan was destined to fail, of course, as a high level individual would, and did, see through Obfuscate—but Azrael also began to understand why Sovereign Elites were never stationed near the edges of the Empire...
From his training at the Hall, he knew of the history of the system. In the early days, individuals absorbed Ether and learned to control and manipulate it to create skills. Often fighters would take centuries to craft a single skill, and then they would level it. skills varied greatly, and practitioners rarely taught their life’s work to anyone but descendants.
In a way, this was very effective as family lines formed kingdoms and passed on skills to the main branches and sub-branches of their lineage. However, it was also vastly inefficient, as skills often duplicated in multiple nations, under different names. Trainers would offer to teach a skill, only to discover that the trainee already knew the technique under a different name. In time, the Atlantean Council passed the Globalization of Skills law, and all the same or similar skills became grouped under one name.
Then more changes were necessary because vast disparities began to form between Lords and peasants, between crafters and the less fortunate. Slavery began to grow rampant. Until slaves stole techniques, and a rebellion occurred. Once the slaves rose to significant stature, they petitioned the council, and classes were created, for equality of opportunity.
People were happy for nearly five hundred years, as class options slowly built, until individuals had access to many options. Although classes were now beginning to cause a universal issue, as any individual could choose the custom class. Once named, this class became an option for others to accept. However, that new ‘class’ may have the same skills as another. Since skills formed groups and paths known as skill trees, this created multiple named classes that were mostly the same.
The solution put forward was Ancestral Classes, a middle ground to remove skills from the global list. Of course, this was a bill pushed through by the Lords. Their influence needed a way to gain back what they lost.
The Sovereign King, his father, was so powerful and famous because he was the first to complete ‘The Quest’ to obtain an Ancestral Class. Or so everyone believed...
Azrael spit onto the black ground, feeling disabused. The history he had learned was the propaganda of his father. However, there was a tidbit in the story for those who paid close attention. Currently, there still existed a custom class option, and through it, you could create a class that became powerful. Of course, you were just as likely to develop something badly broken.
Azrael navigated through the thousands of classes available on Tech Duinn. The planet’s system was probably a carbon copy of all other Planetary Systems—derived from Gaia, the eldest planet. He confirmed that thought when he found the Custom option. He finished his tenth martial kata and placed his hands on his knees, sweat dripping down his face, breathing heavy.
Was this what he wanted?
He chose the option, and a prompt appeared.
What is the name of your Class?
He mentally typed in Revenant, a character in one of his only books growing up. In the story, the wronged man came back from the dead and claimed revenge on the people who had hurt him. It felt fitting—trapped on this prison planet, abandoned by his father and the Sovereign Empire. Abused by the Tuatha De Danaan.
Once the name registered, he waded through a list of thousands of first-tier skill options. Unsurprisingly, he didn’t find a soul sword option like the Sovereign tree was fabled to contain. What a joke! His ‘father’ might just be carrying around an obfuscated enchanted sword for all he knew.
How did he choose from hundreds of viable skills?
Azrael felt himself reeling at the sheer quantity of them. He had expected a large number, but this was terrifying.
It was easy to filter out the crafting skills. He
wasn’t particularly drawn to Non-Power Classes. They often grew to be extremely valuable and influential, but very few of the NPC’s would ever be on the front line—and to achieve his goal, he needed to not only be on the front lines but to survive it. The skills shrunk to half.
Did he want casting skills, and ranged abilities? Yes, but those would be secondary. If he couldn’t survive a close-range fight, he would likely never achieve revenge. Still, perhaps skills existed with dual purposes. Instead of removing range, mage, or melee, he checked the
The list shrank to a hundred, which was much more manageable. Could he narrow it further? Possibly.
He read through the skills. One hundred was not a bad number. It gave him options. At a mental command, Azrael favorited skills that appealed to his combat sense.
In the end, he had four skills on the list.
Phantasmal Blade
● This skill coats your sword in personal Ether, which can project an invisible attack at enemies. The density of the fired sword-like Blade increases in strength as more points are placed in the skill.
Skill gained at 1/5, “Phantasmal Blade.”
Ether cost is 25 Ether per stack.
--
Blink
● This skill uses personal Ether to teleport through space. It can be used offensively and defensively for a range of five feet. More skill points increase the distance one can travel with this spell.
Skill gained at 1/5, “Blink.”
Ether cost is 50 Ether per use.
--
Impact Absorb
● This skill can absorb the impact of a single object and store it. The user can then release that same impact on a future contact of their own. More points in this skill reduces the Ether cost.
Skill gained at 1/5, “Absorb.”
Ether cost is 10% of force absorbed.
--
Charge
● This skill uses personal Ether to increase speed and momentum. Users can Charge to a place or target an opponent. More skill points increase the distance the skill travels.
Skill gained at 1/5, “Charge.”
Ether cost is 25 Ether per use.
Azrael had one point and getting to tier two of skills only became available after maxing the first tier. That was a significant consideration, as most skills increased in potency as tiers increased. Still, sometimes the second tier of a skill was just plain useless. He groaned. Custom class might have been a mistake.
He removed Blink. While it was probably the most potent skill available, it had too high of a chance of linking to strictly mage skills at higher levels. Charge had a similar problem, with the opposite specialty. It may lead to only close-range combat.
That left him Impact Absorb and Phantasmal Blade. Impact Absorb was theoretically infinitely powerful. However, two rather significant problems existed. First, if the strike overwhelmed his Ether pool, he assumed the remaining power of the attack would still connect. The second consideration, of course, was Ether sickness. Bottoming out your Ether pool left the user feeling weak. Bottoming out your Ether pool in one shot left most people catatonic—at least according to his teachers.
So he chose Phantasmal Blade. Not because it was the most potent option; no, rather it was the most reliable choice when he considered its flexibility. Just because it was a ranged strike didn’t mean it couldn’t function in close quarters. It had a set Ether cost, and as he grew his Ether pool, it would gain additional functionality. Finally, because of its ambiguity, he assumed he would have more versatile options at the next tier.
Once he placed the point and confirmed it, his mind expanded and warbled. Then suddenly, he knew how to use his first Revenant ability. He charged his blade with the skill and slashed his sword through in the air. Instantly he noticed that the skill had coated his brand-new sword in an invisible layer of energy. He didn’t have to release the Phantasmal Blade as a ranged attack, which made this skill even more versatile.
It looks like I got a good one!
To test how the blade would function in melee, he moved to a tree and slashed it. Then he removed the skill by reabsorbing his Ether from it and cut another tree with just the sword. His first casual strike nearly doubled the penetration depth of his second!
He smiled, despite simultaneously noticing the ability had a small downside. Azrael discovered that Ether was lost for each swing that connected. Still extremely functional, but not all powerful as he had secretly hoped.
Next, he charged and released the skill at a tree from ten feet away.
The skill began splintering the wood and creating a strange, almost tube-like cutting pattern. The ability made it more than halfway through the tree before it ran out of juice. He moved to examine the damage and discovered what the skill points meant. Right now, his released Blade was wide and almost circular, and it appeared to use a continually rotating front end to cut. If Azrael placed five points, he surmised that would sharpen and increase its penetration.
Still smiling, he chose to find some wildlife to test his new skill on. Perhaps he should go back and bring a trainer with him? He shook his head, expelling the notion. They were probably just going to scold him for choosing a class before they decided one for him.
He jogged off, deeper into the woods, towards the treasure chest on the map. He jogged over the ground, reveling at the feeling of finally being able to do something he determined. He could level, and like a liquid under pressure finally given its escape, he was ready to burst.
The ground disappeared under his next step.
I should have been paying more attention.
Azrael shot his arms and his legs out, attempting to catch an edge of—the crumbling ground? Someone had placed a pitfall out here. Thinking fast, he dug the tip of his sword into the packed soil beside him.
His descent slowed but didn’t stop. He touched down at the bottom of the pit and didn’t break anything. He sighed with relief, feeling tension drain from his body. Maybe he could just climb back—
Welcome to “Apep’s Pitfall”!
You have entered in a group of one, suggested group size 2+.
Good luck.
Level: Unknown
Age: 155 Days
Best time: N/A
Clears: 0
Ether Concentration: Low
Looks like he had found the treasure…
Chapter Seven
Azrael was in an antechamber made of dark black stone. In front of him, a reflective archway made from onyx formed a doorway into deeper darkness. He had wanted to find the dungeon. But he had been hoping to discover its location and have time to prepare. Not fall into it…
He pulled the hand drawn map back out. Maybe it had a bit more information.
Nope, just the treasure chest.
Entering the next room may begin a puzzle, a delve, a reverse climb, an arena, a mob encounter, a timed challenge, or so many other options. Azrael glanced back up the shaft he had fallen through. Sadly, there was no climbing out; it was just too high, and the soil was too soft. He took a deep breath and checked the walls nearest him. They didn’t have any distinguishing features that might give him more information.
He only had the information the system provided. One hundred and fifty-five days old. Low Ether concentration and no clears. He could work with that.
He did some quick mental math based on his Dungeon Diving class. With low Ether concentration and its age, the monsters inside would range from level seven to ten of the Apprentice rank.
That was only if no sapient lifeforms had perished down here. Zero clears didn’t mean zero attempts.
Better put in five wild card levels. Even if no sapient lifeforms had died down here, it was common for dungeons to trap wildlife and gain levels that way. So, with a great deal of guesswork, this dungeon could classify as a level twelve to fifteen Apprentice rank, with a boss difficulty as great as Journeyman level five.
Theoreticall
y he could clear a dungeon with those mobs. His chances were probably ninety percent if he had time to prepare and recharge his health and Ether. If the dungeon came at him non-stop, those chances were probably closer to fifty-fifty.
Of course, if multiple people had attempted its depths, the mobs inside could all be Journeyman rank. In that case, his chances plummeted and it was better to sit in the antechamber waiting for his trainers to come find him.
Another consideration—not all dungeons locked people in. The odds worked out to a coin flip on that front. Azrael could roll the dice. This antechamber would remain a safe zone and he could retreat here. Then, of course, this could be a delving dungeon or a reverse climb. In that case, he wouldn’t have to enter the boss chamber or leave the first floor. He could just farm the first level until Dara and Verimy arrived.
Don’t ever expect help from others...
He repeated the hard-learned mantra in his head. That was right. He wouldn’t count on them to arrive. He wouldn’t count on any help from anyone. He redid his earlier assessment and left Verimy and Dara out of it.
The best chance for survival with his trainers out of the picture was to continue to fight on the first level, gaining enough strength to advance to the second. So for his best-case scenario, this would be a delving or climber dungeon. He would also need to find food and water to make that strategy work, of course.
Azrael’s heart increased its tempo as he squared his shoulders and walked through the archway into the next room. Lights blinked on in all directions. He shaded his eyes from the sudden change in lumens. A boom sounded behind him before his eyes could adjust. That roll of the dice had come up poorly. He was locked in.
He blinked the spots from his eyes and felt his heart stutter. His stomach clenched and seemed to fall towards his colon. He was greeted by a gargantuan, seat-less Coliseum. An Arena Dungeon?