by Phil Tucker
How the world had changed. Phones had been replaced by omnis, for one. I sighed, flicked the rat’s corpse off my knife and opened my sheet.
You have gained 3 experience (3 for killing a rat). You have 28 unused XP. Your total XP is 108.
Huh. Down already from the five XP I’d earned as level one. Still, that meant I only needed to kill thirty-two and a third more rats to hit level three.
I chewed on the inside of my cheek as I considered my sheet, then waved the window away, scrolled down to my talents section, and tapped Uncanny Aim. While I was still looking to get Minor Magic and unlock the darkblade’s arcane abilities, nothing would help as much with killing rats as throwing pointy things at them.
Case in point: a second rat had emerged from the same gap in the wall and was staring right at me, doing that nose wrinkly thing they do, whiskers twitching. There was no way I could reach it before it ducked out of sight. I slowly crouched down and scooped up a rock the size of a tennis ball. I drew my arm back very, very slowly, and activated my new talent.
A thin silver thread appeared that began at my rock and arced over to the rat, locking in on its snout. My eyes widened, then I grinned. My arm whipped forward; the rock sailed through the air and cracked into the rat’s head.
The rat fell back in through the hole, and I heard my XP chime.
I cast around. There were dozens of suitable rocks at my feet. Perfect.
Another rat appeared in the hole. Dumb idiots. I scooped up another rock. My talent was still active, a new thread lining up, but the rat was moving. My thread tracked it down the wall even as a second and then a third appeared. Suddenly they were boiling out the hole, with more pouring around the building’s corner, emerging no doubt from the doorway.
I’d attracted the attention of the swarm.
Now, normally I’d deal with something like this with a fire storm or the like, wiping them all out at once, but such were the travails of a low-level character. I launched my rock at the first rat and scooped up a second rock immediately.
The silver thread leapt from whichever rat’s head I was looking at to the next. I threw, scooped, threw again.
Ding. Ding.
Six XP right there.
I backed up quickly, grabbing rocks as I went. I targeted the lead rats now, and my aim was amazing. I merely had to look at my target and I could hit it no matter which way it darted. Six. Seven, eight.
There were hundreds of them, maybe even more than a thousand.
More rocks. Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen.
The swarm flowed over the corpses of their brethren without hesitation.
Fifteen. Sixteen. My back hit the wall of the next little building.
I turned and grabbed hold of the rough rock, fingers digging into a crack, and hauled myself up. Athletics, Basic (II) for the win! Still, it was hard work, and I had to kick and grit my teeth to reach the top, finally pulling myself over onto the roof.
Which immediately began to collapse under me.
Eyes widening in panic, I activated Ledge Runner and caught my balance right at the edge of the roof as a half-dozen beams clattered down into the room below. Perfectly poised, I scooped up a clay tile, turned, and dashed it down upon the swarm climbing up after me.
Ding, ding, ding, ding.
Another tile, then a third and fourth. I was in love with my aiming thread. No movement from the wyvern’s tower. The coolest part was that now, with a larger tile, the thread split at the end into four or five different lines, each linking to the closest rats.
Gasping for breath, I stepped up to where the roof met the castle curtain wall and found a broader beam to stand on just as Ledge Runner ran out. My legs grew a little shaky, and when I tried to activate it again nothing happened.
Ah. Cooldown period.
Uncanny Aim also stopped working. Same deal. I tried throwing a couple more tiles, but my aim was off and it felt like trying to hit them with bent frisbees.
The swarm flowed over the edge onto the roof and came right at me.
My smile slipped and I considered my options. The roof looked scary. One wrong step and I’d plunge into the room below. And into the swarm too, no doubt. I shot a terrified look upwards. An oblique line of holes perforated the wall high above me, running from the bottom left up toward the higher right where they met with the battlements some twenty yards above. Most of them had planks of wood jutting right out of them. The remnants of a staircase?
The first rats reached my feet and I lashed out, kicking them over the edge. I sent perhaps five flying before they began to scurry up my legs, biting and clawing at me.
Time to go.
I activated Adrenaline Surge, crouched down, and leapt. The fire in my veins made me feel like I’d soar right up into the sky, but instead I only leapt high enough to dunk. My fingers closed around the uppermost edge of one of the wall’s huge masonry blocks, and not wasting any time, I began to climb.
What I lacked in skill I compensated for with sheer strength and adrenaline. Sweat stung my eyes as I hauled myself up the wall, fingers digging into each crack, the rough masonry working in my favor. The rats grabbing the front of my legs chittered furiously as I smashed them into the wall, and then fell away.
Up I went, block by block, till I reached the first of the shattered beams of wood. I grabbed hold of it, praying fervently that it wasn’t rotten, and boosted myself up to land on it in a crouch as if I were a ninja.
I paused as I realized how high up the curtain wall I was, what a drop onto the swarm and ruined roof would do to me, and the enormity of what lay ahead.
I had seconds before Adrenaline Surge left my system and I collapsed. Desperate, I tried to activate Ledge Runner again – and it worked.
I bolted. Straight up the ruined steps, taking them three at a time as the adrenaline fizzled in my blood, my balance that of an Olympic gymnast. I placed my feet flush with the wall where the wooden beams emerged for maximum security, leaping the gaps where they’d fallen away altogether, going so fast my feet blurred.
I was five steps from the top when Adrenaline Surge gave out, and exhaustion clamped down on me like the world’s heaviest iron hand.
With a desperate cry, I threw myself upward. The last of my strength disappeared. For a sickening moment I was stretched out over the void, forty yards above the bailey. Then my waist slammed into what was left of the wooden platform at the top.
I scrabbled at the weathered wood, trying to find purchase even as my gorge rose in my throat, my muscles cramping, my body sliding down.
No shadows to sink into. Summoning the last reserves of my will, I managed to wedge my fingers between two planks and throw a knee up and over. A grunt, every fiber in my being protesting, and I rolled up onto the wooden platform.
Which immediately creaked and sank beneath my weight.
Terrified, I rolled onto my stomach and frog jumped onto the battlement as the platform gave way and fell into nothingness.
I lay on the stone wall, heaving for breath, then rolled onto my side and puked. The distant crash of the wooden beams hitting the bailey below floated up to me, but couldn’t make myself care. For what felt like hours I lay there shivering and shaking, covered in a cold sweat, every muscle cramping up – and then the pain receded and I was fine again.
“Gah,” I said, sitting up and wiping puke from my chin. I was staring to hate Adrenaline Surge as much as I loved it. I crawled to the edge and looked down into the bailey. I could barely make out the rat swarm far below, fading back into its little house. The undead ogre had emerged from its lair but was staring around vacuously, trying to locate the source of the sound.
Only then did I raise my head and stare at the top of the wyvern tower.
I fully expected to see it rousing itself, spreading its wings, staring right at me – but the tower was still too tall for me to mak
e out much from where I crouched. I could see the top of a massive nest, woven from thick branches, but no sign of the wyvern itself.
I breathed a sigh of relief and scooted back, along the top of the wall and to the mangonels themselves, against which I sat, catching my breath and wiping the sweat from my eyes. With a grin, I opened my character sheet.
You have gained 104 experience (104 for killing 36 rats). You have 107 unused XP. Your total XP is 212.
Congratulations! You are Level 3!
I let out a whoop of joy and then clamped my hand over my mouth. Why risk your life fighting peasant skeletons for twenty-five XP a pop when you could wipe out a bunch of rats with much greater ease? Ah, the joys of low-level grinding. So much easier than going after massively more difficult opponents.
I was about to move on to the next window when I paused. One hundred and four XP for thirty-six rats? That was off. I did some quick calculations and then realized what had happened: the rats had gone from three XP a pop to one XP a pop as soon as I hit my new level. Dang. Reaping that reward was going to take a lot more work.
I swiped eagerly to the next window.
Your attributes have increased!
Mana +1
Strength +1
You have learned new skills. Climb: Basic (I), Athletics: Basic (III)
Only a boost to my mana and strength? While that was really welcome, I couldn’t help but feel a pang of disappointment. I’d been growing used to broad stat boosts. And while the Climb and increase in Athletics were also great, I was still a little miffed. And it looked pretty official now: I was gaining a mana point each time I leveled.
I gave my head a good rub and swiped the window away. Lotharia had warned me about getting used to the early rewards bonanza. Looked like things were already getting a little stingier.
There are new talent advancements available to you:
This was the good stuff. Minor Magic, Sabotage Defenses, Double Step, Distracting Attack—those were all still there, along with a new talent:
Pin Down
XP Cost: 35
- A judicious application of your weapon to a foe’s foot, clothing, or other part will result in them being trapped in place for a variable amount of time.
- Pre-requisite(s): Uncanny Aim.
I chewed on my lower lip as I stared out into the sky. I could go big with this purchase. One hundred and four XP was more than I’d ever had to throw around. Looked like it was time to get Minor Magic at last.
Which was really exciting. A major reason I’d picked darkblade as a class was for the arcane aspect, and while the Shadow Stepping had already proven pretty sweet, I was eager for more.
I reached out and tapped Minor Magic.
The letters glowed gold, and then the world fell away from me.
My sense of self bled out of my head, like water sloshing out of a bowl. I became aware of the rocks around me; of the battlements; of the air, of its substance. Of its commonality.
More accurately, what they all shared in common. An essence. A flow. A force.
My awareness spread out even further, incorporating the entire curtain wall. I could sense where it was smooth, still well structured, the golden glow of its essence bright. Could find countless areas where it had been dented or ruptured, the golden glow growing diffuse and torn.
The landscape opened before me. I was at once flying above and flowing through the ground. Up into each tree, into each blade of grass. I was the rocky roundness of pebbles, the silvery, mercurial sweep of the stream. A brilliant knot of golden light hopped, stopped, and turned to look at me. An animal, a rabbit, but so much more.
The experience was dizzying. Everywhere and everything was suffused with this golden light. What was living or orderly glowed brightly. What was torn or broken bled the light out into the air.
I swept down to Feldgrau, which was chaotic to my new senses: fragments of bright gold rising up where walls yet remained, but everywhere else the dark, jumbled mess of destruction. Rubble and detritus, ruins and chaos.
Even as I explored Feldgrau, the rest of the world around it continued to open up to me, a golden expanse, the fields, forests, cliff faces, the clouds and sky—
But something caught my attention. A figure walking through Feldgrau, glowing with a cold, icy blue energy. The opposite of the gold. Unlike the animals and plants, I couldn’t flow up into it; I tried to touch its essence and was burned by its awful cold. There were more of them, countless of these icy blue figures stumbling and stalking through the ruins.
The undead.
My mind rose up over the village, and I saw a great pit of churning blue in the town commons, deep like a whirlpool and swirling as if full of broken ice. Beyond it, the remnants of a tower, and within it, a presence, an intelligence.
I hovered before the tower, and a presence noticed me. I felt its attention rise to match my gaze, twin ice-blue eyes staring at me from its dark interior.
Noting me. Sensing me for the first time.
I recoiled, screamed, and with a start I was back in my body, high up on the battlements.
I passed a shaking hand over my brow. What had just happened? Where had that come from? I squeezed my eyes shut and then it hit me: I’d just learned Minor Magic. Was that vision a sense of the magic in Euphoria?
I picked up a shard of rock that lay next to me. It was gray, dusty, unremarkable. Yet in my mind’s eye it had glowed more precious than any gem. Everything. Even the very air. Laden with that golden magic. That potential.
I opened my character sheet and scrolled to the bottom. A new section had appeared, similar to Lotharia’s:
Spell List
Cantrips: Basic
I tapped the word “cantrips,” and three spells appeared, nested beneath that title:
Light: Summon a small sphere of illumination with the power of a well-burning torch. This sphere can be directed to follow you at a fixed distance, or moved as you desire up to a distance of twenty feet.
Mage Hand: Lift and move a small object by simply pointing your finger at it and focusing. You can manipulate objects within twenty feet of you, though the closer the object, the greater the weight you can lift.
Detect Magic: Detect the presence of enchantments and sorcery within a range of twenty feet. The strength and nature of the magic will be indicated by the brightness and color of its glow.
Nothing earth shattering, but still a start. Suddenly eager, I pointed my finger at a pebble a couple of yards away and focused. In my mind’s eye the pebble glowed golden, connected to my finger by a thin golden line. I pointed up, the line flexed, and the pebble rose smoothly into the air.
I snapped my hand into a fist, severing the line, and the pebble fell with a clatter. I could cast magic. What had that unlocked?
I swiped to a new window:
There are new spells available to you:
Death Dagger: Craft a blade from the essence of night. This spell allows you to summon a small blade imbued with the essence of the dark, dealing negative energy damage to your foes.
- Mana Drain: 3
- Cost: 75 XP
Night Shroud (I): Envelop your immediate environs in a pall of inky night, dousing flames and blinding all those who depend on natural light for sight.
- Mana Drain: 2 to summon, 1 to maintain for every additional minute
- Cost: 75 XP
Ebon Tendrils (I): Animate a length of shadow so that it obeys your will, growing up to a length of five yards and with half your physical stats.
- Mana Drain: 1 to summon, 1 to maintain for every additional ten seconds
- Cost: 65 XP
I whistled. Those all sounded amazing. I leaned back and played out each spell in my mind. I was starting to get a sense of just how lethal an assassin a darkblade could become. I loved it. But the XP cost! No wonder Lotharia’s talent
list was so limited; she’d been saving up for her spells. They changed everything, but came at the expense of normal talents.
Originally I’d intended to splurge and buy Double Step too, but now I wasn’t sure. Should I save up for one of my true spells? I spent several minutes pondering, then decided Double Step was the smartest move. It would allow me to move into an attack, and then escape right away. At the moment, regular Shadow Step served to either get me out of trouble or simply into combat. Having that versatility was key. After all, I was still only level three.
I sighed wistfully as I read the spells again, then tapped Double Step. The talent glowed a beautiful gold – a gold I now better understood – and appeared under my list of talents.
Time to continue exploring. I rose to my feet and looked both ways along the battlement. One side curved around to the wyvern’s tower. The other ended thirty yards away at a second tower, its arrow slits dark, the door that opened to the interior hanging ajar as if it had been nearly smashed apart by a fell blow.
I rubbed my hands together. Time to explore.
9
I moved quickly along the wall, peering between the crenellations at Feldgrau far below until I reached a mangled wooden contraption that filled nearly the entirety of the wall top. It was some kind of war machine, but had been badly battered apart, with entire chunks shattered and fallen. I bent down, peered at it from different angles, then realized with a start what I was looking at: the remains of a giant ballista.
It listed badly from the swivel pole on which it had been mounted, its huge boxy head banged in and the thick ropes that had twisted the stubby bow arms now hanging loose like mop-heads. A number of spear-length bolts lay on the walkway beside it, and the bowstring wire seemed to be in good condition.
Curious, I ducked under the end of the long stock, where a groove was cut out and lined with leather padding. With a grunt I rose to my feet, barely able to take the weight, and then lowered it once more. A stronger person than I would be able to aim the ballista where they wanted, using the swivel pole as a fulcrum. I reluctantly stepped around the broken machine. I wouldn’t even know where to start fixing it.
