by Trey Myr
“Loot quickly then go to door,” Katya summed up the plan, and went to search one of the dead demonesses.
The demon lord’s sword disappeared as soon as it died, and it didn’t look like it was carrying anything of worth, but large, clear blue Shard was visible in the middle of its chest, and Ed had to climb the demon’s body to reach it.
Numen
Tier 0
Level 1
0/500
The first step on the pathway of the Mythical, Numen have the power of the divine, and the potential to strive for the utter good of the celestial, or the utter evil of the infernal
Faith: The Mythical draw their power from the belief of mortals. +1 stat point per follower.
As soon as he drew the Shard out of the demon, it vanished from his hand and a second message appeared in front of him.
Congratulations! The second trial of Sindbad has been completed!
Luck of Sindbad level 2 Rewards:
+1 Shard slot
Numen Raceshard
“What was that Shard you found there?” Lucy asked curiously. “And where did it just go?”
Before Ed could answer her, however, the fight between the demons and the escaping angels spilled into the room. “Through the door, quickly!” he shouted at his companions, and raced around the throne.
The four companions ran through the door, expecting to find themselves back on the stairway in the bazaar, but stopped suddenly when they found themselves instead in a large grassy meadow.
A small fortress sat on a tall hill about a kilometer away from them, besieged by a large army. It was impossible to see any details about either side, but the red and gold banners flying over the fort seemed oddly familiar to Ed, and he was on the verge of recognizing them when Ingrid cried out and started to run towards the fort.
“What’s wrong, Ing?” Lucy asked and started to run after the hobgoblin.
“Those are Bjørnson banners! It’s my family’s fort, and we need to help them!”
Ed started to follow the two women, before he noticed that something wasn’t right.
“Ing, Lucy, wait!” He shouted at them. “Where’s Katya?”
Ingrid reluctantly agreed to stop and look for Katya, but after ten minutes of searching fruitlessly, Ed had to accept the fact that Katya either wasn’t there, or just didn’t want to be found.
“We need to get to the fort,” Ingrid told her friends. “If we’re in the middle of a monster surge, we’re not safe here. Monsters could come here from higher floors that we won’t be able to defeat, especially when we’re not at full strength. We’ll be safer with allies around, and the fort should have a gate out to the Arcology.”
“I’d really like to know what happened,” Lucy added. “One minute you were holding what looked like a Raceshard, and the next it’s vanished. I don’t want to believe that Katya would just grab a Shard and vanish, but I also don’t believe in coincidences. Not in the Labyrinth.”
“Katya doesn’t have the Shard,” Ed shook his head. “It got Sliced into me on its own. It’s also listed as part of the reward for the second level of the Luck of Sindbad, along an extra Shard slot.”
“That’s a very nice reward,” Lucy whistled. “Most delvers would give an arm for an extra slot.”
“So what race was it?” Ingrid asked. “You look exactly the same as before, and I can’t think of very many Raceshards that would be this subtle.”
“Something I’ve never heard of before,” Ed answered. “It’s called ‘numen’, and claims to give me the power of the divine, and to give me one stat point per ‘follower’, whatever that means.”
Ingrid paled at hearing the Raceshard’s name, grabbed both of Ed’s shoulders and looked into his eyes. “Be very careful with that race, Ed. Back when Granddad was still delving with his original party, the one that discovered the Labyrinth, Adrian Markopoulos got his hands on a numen Shard, and Granddad says it’s what set him on the path to becoming the titan thávmatos.”
“I’ll be careful, but I have no idea what to avoid. Titan might be a rankup option, but I don’t even know what the options are at this point.”
“If I remember Granddad’s story correctly, Dr. Markopoulos had the options to become a celestial or infernal when numen was maxed, but celestial was locked because he didn’t meet the requirements. I’m guessing you should avoid infernal for now, but we should probably talk to Granddad about it.”
“I’d say that you’d have to be mad to choose the option described as ‘the utter evil of the infernal’, but you’re saying Dr. Markopoulos chose it before the titan race drove him mad. Do you at least know what I need to have to choose celestial?”
“Any light element Shard should work, and any dark element Shard should work for infernal.”
“So I need to stay away from dark element, and be on the lookout for a light aligned Shard? I think I can work with that.”
“If we’ve established that Ed shouldn’t choose to become utterly evil,” Lucy said while looking around nervously, “can we hurry up and get to the fort? We really don’t want to be caught by something from floor forty out here.”
“Sorry, Luce. I got a bit carried away there. Granddad’s stories about traveling around with Thávmatos after he started going insane are really not something I want to live through.”
“That’s fine. It’s not like I want Ed to go insane. Especially with the two of us bound to him. You should be able to summon two cloud horses now, right Ed? That should be enough to get all three of us in.”
“I should be able to, yeah. But I don’t think we want to go flying into the fort while it’s under attack. We’re far too likely to be shot down by our own allies.”
“We should approach on the ground,” Ingrid agreed. “I can signal the fort to identify us when we get closer, but they won’t see it from above. And I think we should keep the option to escape into the air in case we run into anything we can’t handle.”
“I’ll ride one of the cloud horses with Lucy, you go solo on the second. We’ll approach close enough for you to signal, and when they acknowledge you we’ll fly over the rest of the way.”
Ingrid and Lucy agreed to the plan, and Ed summoned his cloud horses and dismissed his phantasms. The three mounted the horses and started to ride towards the fort.
The party began to ride towards the fort, but they quickly ran into a group of ten ghouls. The ghouls were clad in brightly colored Japanese style armor and carrying katanas. Ingrid charged into the group, and her lance pierced the first of the ghouls, killing it instantly and moving on, barely even slowed down by the monster. The slow-moving undead couldn’t even come close to the delvers, and between Lucy sniping at them with Firebolts and Ingrid’s Charge attacks, the ghouls were easily eliminated by the party, and the three continued their way.
The direct way towards the fort was blocked by the monstrous army, so the party had to take a fairly long detour towards the far side, and even though they stayed away from the main force, many scattered groups of ghouls, skeletons and other low ranked undead blocked their way.
After the fifth such group of monsters, Ed received a message that his new Shard was ready to rank up, and the party stopped for a minute while he checked the Shard’s information.
“Ing, you said that I’ll have the option to rank up to either infernal or celestial, and that I’ll need a dark element or light element Shard for them to unlock, right?”
“Yeah, that’s what Granddad said, why?”
“Because it seems I have three rank up options, and two of them are available.”
Numen
Tier 0
Level 5
Closed
The first step on the pathway of the Mythical, Numen have the power of the divine, and the potential to strive for the utter good of the celestial, or the utter evil of the infernal
Faith: The Mythical draw their power from the belief of mortals. +1 stat point per follower.
2/2 stat points av
ailable.
10% resistance to earth
10% resistance to water
10% resistance to fire
10% resistance to air
Evolution options:
Celestial (tier 1)
Eldritch (tier 1)
Infernal (tier 1) requirements umet
Chapter 18:
Back to (Un)life
“That’s weird,” Ingrid said. “You shouldn’t have celestial unlocked, and I’ve never even heard of eldritch.”
“Let me check them,” Ed said and chose first the celestial option and then the eldritch. “It looks like the buff we got from the angel unlocked the celestial rank-up, which means I might lose it after the buff is gone. Eldritch is a secret rank-up, and was unlocked by me having a chromatic damage Shard.”
“Yeah, that would explain why Dr. Markopoulos didn’t have the option.”
“This is interesting and all,” Lucy interjected, “but it’s really not relevant, since you are not going to become a Deep One. I’m an adventurous sort of girl, but I draw the line at sleeping with the fishes.”
“I’m with Lucy on that one. As nasty and annoying as some of our gods are, at least some of them have our best interests at heart. Nothing good ever comes out of something described as eldritch.”
“You’ve made your point,” Ed shook his head ruefully. “And it’s not like I actually want to take that option. If becoming a titan drove Thávmatos crazy, I really don’t want to know what becoming a Great Old One would do to me.”
“Good. Then go ahead and rank up to celestial, and we can keep going.”
“And if we’re stopping anyway,” Lucy added, “I need to rank-up too. The past couple of battles maxed out my Flameweaver.”
“I’ve maxed out Spinner as well,” Ed said. “It was in the middle of a fight, and I didn’t even have a chance to see what the last level gave me.”
“We really shouldn’t stop before we’re in the fort, or even back in the Arctology,” Ingrid shook her head. “If you know what you’re taking, go ahead and take it. If not, it’ll wait until we’re safe.”
“I’ll take celestial now,” Ed said and went to choose his rank up. “It’s a no-brainer, really, and I’m actually at zero open Shards now, so any fighting feels like a waste.”
“And I’ll go ahead and choose firedrake,” Lucy went to call up her own status screen. “It’s the option that fits best with the rest of my bui… what the hell?”
Having chosen to rank-up his numen Shard into a celestial, a wave of white light covered Ed for a few seconds, and then receded to leave him nearly unchanged. His features were a bit more refined, and his hair turned from a rather nondescript brown into a deep oaken color, but other than that he was the same as he always was.
Celestial
Tier 1
Level 1
0/5000
Mythological beings following the path of light. Generally considered to be beneficent towards Humanity.
Ignore the damage resistance granted by Mythological races.
+30% resistance to light and dark
“What’s wrong Luce?”
“My rank-up options just completely changed. I’ve got solar drake and comet serpent instead of firedrake and water serpent. Even the locked options changed from earth wyrm to lunar wyrm and from air wyvern to star wyvern.”
“All types of stellar dragon-kin. Must be because I’ve changed into a celestial and you’re linked to me.”
“I guess so. And it doesn’t even change my choice, since a solar drake is better for me in just about every way.”
“I’d say to just go for it then. We still shouldn’t stay here much longer.”
“Yeah, you’re right. We can talk about how these things work later. Ing, you have anything to add?”
Ingrid, however, didn’t seem to have heard any of the conversation. Instead, she just stared in shock at the air in front of her.”
“Ingrid? Is everything OK?” Ed went and tried to nudge her out of whatever system message she was looking at.
“I… what?” Ingrid shook her head and turned her wide eyed gaze at Ed. “What did you say?”
“Lucy said that her rank-up options changed to stellar dragon-kin variants. She wants to take solar drake instead of firedrake.”
“I, yeah, I think that should be fine. I haven’t heard of solar drakes before tier two, but they’re a good race.”
Lucy finalized her own rank-up, and was almost immediately covered by a wave of intense red and gold light. When the light faded, it was obvious that her transformation was far more extensive than Ed’s.
Large, golden scaled wings sprouted from her shoulders, ripping apart her robes. Her formerly blue scales were replaced by a rich, bright gold on her shoulders and the outside of her arms, shading to twilight red on the inside. More red scales ran down from her armpits to her tail, leaving the dark skin of her chest and stomach exposed. The tail itself was much longer, reaching the ground behind her, and ending in a frilled tip.
Solar Drake
Tier 1
Level 1
0/5000
Solar drakes are a breed of lesser dragon. They are creatures of fire, and strongly aligned with the forces of light
Sunfire: all fire magic used by a solar drake is changed into sunfire, dealing fire or light damage according to the target’s vulnerabilities.
As soon as her transformation was complete, Lucy pulled the tattered remains of her robes together, tying them in place to give herself at least a semblance of decency. “Not that I mind giving you two a show, but we aren’t quite alone here.”
The transformation was enough to jolt Ingrid out of her daze, and she wolf whistled at Lucy’s inadvertent show.
Ed managed to tear his eyes away from the very pleasant sight of Lucy’s new appearance, and turned back to Ingrid. “So what got you so spooked?”
“I got a system message that I’ve unlocked a secret rank up for my Shieldmaiden class. And it has completely insane unlock requirements.”
“I’m guessing one of them is related to Ed’s new race?” Lucy asked curiously.
“Yeah. Here, I think I can share the screen with the two of you, since we’re all linked.”
Ingrid fiddled with something for a few seconds, and a message screen appeared before Ed and Lucy.
Valkyrie
Base class: Shieldmaiden
Unlock requirements:
1st tier spear class
Ability to summon a mount
Have taken part in at least one aerial battle
In service to a celestial power
Ed whistled in appreciation at seeing the requirement list. “This looks completely unreasonable, and yet it also seems intentionally tailored for you.”
“It probably is,” Lucy shrugged. “I told you guys the Labyrinth is watching us.”
“I’m definitely starting to agree. What does the class description say, Ing?”
“’Valkyries are the messengers of Odin, sent to collect the souls of the honorably dead, bring them to Valhalla and lead them in the battles of Ragnarok.’”
“Not very helpful, is it?”
“It is somewhat vague. Though anything the collects the souls of the dead might be effective against undead, which might be handy right now. Too bad I don’t have the slots for it.”
“You might want to keep it in mind if we find something we can’t handle,” Lucy said. “This is too much of a coincidence for me.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. Before we keep going, you said all of your Shards were maxed, Ed?”
“Except the ones Sliced in my Classshards. I’m at one active Shard out of three right now.”
“Can you rank up some Shards before we continue?”
“I think I can afford to rank up stoneskin, but not Manaflow. I have a feeling I’ll need all the mana I have soon.”
“What about your class?”
“I’ve got some of the standard summoner rank up options, bu
t I also have a couple of new ones. I want to talk about them before I choose, and we don’t have the time here.”
“Yeah, probably not a good idea to rush it. By the way, what is your level 5 ability from Phantasmal Spinner?”
“Heh. I haven’t even checked it yet. Let me take a look.”
Phantasmal Spinner
Tier 1
Level 5
Closed
The phantasmal spinner is a summoner who has learned to bind living humans into his conjured phantasms, giving them power in exchange for their service.
Phantasmal Shard – Distill one of your phantasms into a Shard, which can then be Sliced into any human target, turning them into a Living Phantasm. Limit of 1 Living Phantasm per level
+2 Intelligence
+2 Wisdom
+1 Shard slot, useable for buff Skillshards
Eternal Phantasm – Revive a fallen Living Phantasm. Mana cost depends on the target’s total essence, and can be accumulated over time.
This time it was Ingrid who whistled in appreciation. “That’s a very nice ability. And it certainly answers some of our questions about how the whole ‘living phantasm’ thing works.”
“We need to check the range on your abilities,” Lucy added with a wicked smile. “We might want to chain you to the bed and lock you up in the Arctology while the two of us delve. That way we can delve with no actual danger, since you’ll be safe outside to bring us back if we die.”
“And what would your ever watchful Labyrinth think about that?” Ed asked with a raised brow.
“You’re no fun,” Lucy pouted.
“That’s not what you said last time,” Ingrid teased.
“Enough chit chat!” Lucy announced, turning her head away haughtily. “We need to get into the fort!”
Ed smiled as Ingrid took the lead, and urged his horse to follow. Their way was surprisingly clear, and Ed was beginning to think that they’d be able to get close enough to the fort to signal the defenders and fly over the walls when Ingrid’s horse suddenly reared on its hind legs and threw her out of the saddle, then fell down to the ground with a black arrow sticking out of its eye.
