Much Ado

  Several things happened at once as the creature died. First, there was a flash of light, so bright I thought there was some final self-destruct explosion that would take all of us out with it. But it only left me with a throbbing headache, swimming vision and ringing ears as it subsided, and in place of the body I could now see a golden chest. Then, there came scratching from all of our journals. It went on for longer than usual. Finally, my HUD spell detected a new element. Over the top of my vision there was now a countdown, which started at 60:00:00 and immediately began counting down by seconds, suggesting we had an hour. Considering that above the countdown it said ‘Time until Dungeon Reset’ I felt pretty sure we had to get out.

  “Fuck, there doesn’t seem to be another exit. We have sixty minutes, then it ‘resets’, whatever that means,” I said.

  “Wouldn’t want to be in here when it does that,” Anna said.

  “Don’t exactly want to be out either,” Sarah said.

  “I have an idea. This is important. Please let me investigate the structure,” Adam said.

  “You gonna be any more clear, buddy?” Chum said.

  “The construct of the dungeon dimension. There must be so much mana tied up in here,” Adam said, “I will figure it out.”

  “I guess it’s not like we can leave anyways. If I was those elf bastards, I’d wait outside for exactly this moment,” I said.

  “Fine. Check your journals and let’s get the looting done,” Will said. He took charge by default, which wasn’t exactly how I remembered him from back on Earth. Then again I had been doing that more and more lately myself, and I knew Will didn’t come in here with a goose egg in Self-Esteem.

  “Keep a look-out, anything moves I want to know about it,” I said to Chum.

  “Sure thing, boss. But c’mon, get to the loot,” Chum said.

  Loot was loot, but first things were first. I opened up my Journal and quickly skimmed the party chat. It’d become a lot less fun since we’d started using it as a sort of diplomatic communique channel with the other two known groups, but at least I saw that Artemis and the others were still alive, and thankful for a quick, impatient update I gave to them before getting to the juice of the rewards.

  Log

  Dungeon cleared: Rock Toad Caverns Experience gained to level 17 40 000/40 000

  Experience gained to level 18 1120/50 000

  Level Up! You have reached level 17!

  You have gained 1 attribute point

  You have gained 1 title ability

  Bofus Sanctus defeated, Experience gained

  Bofus Sanctus defeated- Divine heretic defeated. Directions to the Divine Seal effect unlocked.

  Abilities

  You have reached an odd level. Choose a title ability for Sentinel 17

  Fleet of Foot: Replaces Class (Coward) ability Run Screaming with an upgrade. Your maximum running speed is increased by 2.5 times what your attributes would normally allow. When running at half your maximum speed or slower you gain exhaustion at the rate that you normally would by walking. When running at maximum speed, you still get exhausted only at the rate you would exhaust yourself at a jogging speed.

  Sentinel Support (IV): Gain a tier 4 abjuration spell. This spell will be a mass support related spell.

  Righteous Vengeance: Upgrades your Vengeance trait. Vengeance trait benefits all your party members instead of just yourself, and the effects take place no matter who lands the killing blow on the vengeance target. Furthermore, in addition to gaining bonus experience upon killing the target, you gain one-time use of the Mass Heal spell each time you defeat a Vengeance Target. This spell is cast automatically after the successful killing of the target and targets all friendly creatures within a 50ft radius.

  I was starting to get more and more ability choices that replaced or upgraded my previous abilities. Hell, you could argue that all three of these options were upgrades, if you keep in mind that I got my invisible barrier from a title advancement ability called Critical Support. And it was, after all, my favorite spell to this day. The main issue with the spell option was its lack of clarity. I did know 4th tier spells were really fucking powerful, but if I didn’t know what it was, it could end up being very situational, or so focused on mass support that its effects would be less impressive on the party-sized group I usually adventured with.

  My Run Screaming ability was already upgraded once, so that I generally ran faster than most in combat scenarios, as I ran faster both directly away from enemies and directly towards them- and the Tower wasn’t super picky about what ‘directly’ meant. I’d gained the speed boost running in diagonals more than once.

  The Vengeance trait was a good one, but again, situational. I could ask Will and Sarah if they’d got the trauma trait recently, which they very well might have, but that’d mean the ability wouldn’t kick in until we faced the mountain elves.

  Ultimately, I was just too curious, and, besides, from Anna showing off her own 4th level spell, I really wanted to see what I could get out of it. So I hoped for the best and picked the spell option.

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  My attributes were easier, I just dropped another point in Enlightenment and felt that calm, empty space closer to my mind than ever. I found I could enter or exit meditation in an instant, though I was pretty sure I couldn’t do it in a fight, at least not fighting effectively. Still, it boosted my mana regen significantly, and I could feel it right away. My Wizard ability Unshackled Mind would let me push all of my Mind attributes one point over the cap, and I thought I might use that the next level up to push my Arcana to the maximum natural human potential if I ever got that far.

  Then I flipped over to my Spell page to see my new spell. Just like with Invisible Barrier I knew the incantation and sigil instinctively, but even thinking of it made my head hurt. The incantation was a poem of two dozen lines, while the sigil was now actually three-dimensional. I knew how to represent it in my spellbook, but knew that even that would take a good thirty minutes. But I still had to look up what it actually did in the Journal.

  Spells

  Spellrod, Abjuration Tier 4 Rank 1

  The Abjuration spell Spellrod is a powerful anti-magic abjuration. Upon casting the spell a physical rod of solid, indestructible spell-crystal will shoot up from the ground at a point indicated by the caster. From that point on, for the next 4 hours every harmful spell cast against the caster, their allies, or an area of effect including their allies within 120ft from the rod will be drawn to the rod, failing instantly and restoring mana to the caster equal to the mana cost of the spell. The caster may choose to drain all spells, not just hostile ones, when casting this spell, allowing for pooling of mana for major workings when working together with allied mages. Any mana over the maximum mana capacity of the caster will quickly dissipate at the rate of 2 mana per second, but the caster will not suffer any ill effects from mana overload from mana acquired through this spell. This spell consumes any dispelling magic of its rank or lower. If targeted by a higher level dispelling spell or ability, the caster still regains the mana used on the dispel, but the rod is destroyed.

  Requirements to increase the spell to Rank 2:

  Mana Drained 0/1000

  I wasn’t exactly happy with this spell. Don’t get me wrong, it was a real mage-killer, hell, if it was cast against me, I would be left entirely helpless. But that it only worked when enemies were throwing mana around severely limited its usefulness. That said, the impressive radius and the utility in the mana draining… Wait, hold on, actually:

  “Adam, I got a new spell. It lets me drain all mana and go over my mana capacity for a while, would that help with your idea about the Nothing expedition?” I said.

  “Tell me how it works exactly,” Adam said. There was unusual urgency to his tone. And so I did.

  “Yes! Yes, that is perfect!” Adam said.

  “I’m sorry?” I said.

  “I know how to traverse Nothing. Probably. But we have to go just as the dungeon collapses. Cast the spell now. I am sorry, I do not have the ability to explain the theory in simple and quick terms right now,” Adam said.

  I looked at my friends, all of whom were just getting out of their own Journals- I wouldn’t be surprised if each of them had gained a level what with the hefty amount of experience we’d gained.

  “We have to do it if there’s a way,” Anna said.

  “What’s this about?” Will said.

  “We have people trapped in… God, how do I explain this, did you ever get into the walls in the first challenge?” I said.

  “No, I did not. But if people are trapped and need help, I’m in. Let’s be big goddamned heroes,” Will said.

  “Alright,” I said, uncertainly, and called the spell to the front of my mind. I could tell that it’d cost immense mana and concentration, but it shouldn’t take longer than a couple of minutes to cast.

  I spoke in a language I didn’t know, but as the words flew in long, rhyming sentences this time, I could almost sense a syntax to them. I was surprised to hear more scratching from my Journal as I completed the spell, casting it correctly the first try. A glowing, silver-mist rod sprung up from the pool in the middle of the room, darting into the ceiling, apparently continuing above.

  “Cool, what’s that do?” Chum said.

  “Spellrod,” I said.

  “Niiiice,” Chum said, “Now get to the loot before I die of greed!”

  There was a lot of gold in the chest. It still didn’t feel that useful, but on the other hand it weighed nothing, so we split it evenly, except I gave my share to Chum just to cover whatever magic items I might pick up. And there were plenty. There were three scroll-cases, which was the most exciting for me. I scanned them quickly, gave the fire spell to Anna, and kept the others to myself.

  There was a blade of a metal that looked like pure gold, with a ruby the size of a walnut set as its pommel. It was unbelievably gaudy, but it suited Will well in his current form, so we gave it to him. Indeed there seemed to be an item for everyone here. Anna got her own wizard hat, as was to be expected from the tastes of the creature that was the Tower’s architect, Sarah picked up a helm that reminded me of those Valkyrie helmets in comics and old art, and even Adam got a custom loot drop. He got a roll of bandages that were pure white, and gleamed with silver thread writing out runes over and over again, over hundreds of feet of fabric. He was too busy driving pitons and nails into walls, connecting them by thread and muttering something to really pay heed to it, however. I myself got a silver ring with tiny, engraved writing on it. I put it in my pocket, ready to read up on what it did whenever I’d get the chance.

  I was disturbed for a moment, as I saw sunglasses sized for a child in the chest. Surely there weren’t any children actually in this place. But then it hit me.

  “Hey, Chum, try these on,” I said and tossed the pair of pitch-black aviator style glasses to him. He caught them in mid-air, put them on and said “Nice. Thanks, Boss,” and they fit him like a glove.

  “The manifolds are cracking. I feel the countdown in my bones. It will need to be shattered at the exact right moment. Alex, you will have to be ready for anything. Remember. We exist. Time is real. The Universe is real. Spells work. Thoughts manifest. Use the invisible barriers. See more deeply in the spellcraft. This is going to be very difficult, so you will have to focus,” Adam said.

  The walls around us started cracking as the countdown moved towards its end. The air felt thin, no, it felt like it wasn’t real. I stopped feeling the moisture in the air, only points of cold on my skin. The world around us became a projection, and the glass in the room of mirrors was beginning to shatter in a spiderweb of cracks.