Zoe learned a little bit more in the past couple of hours and began to question a whole lot. By the time she finally got into an area that felt somehow more—occupied—she had already fallen deep into the abyssal grasp of a total existential crisis and stumbled out into the light on the other side relatively unchanged. Yes, there was a lot to wonder about here, but the overwhelming majority of it turned out to be not very new but definitely very boring. So Zoe went ahead and glossed over the rest of it in favor of more stimulating ideas—thinking about rocks.
Okay, but like—are all these rocks made of something that would also exist on Earth? Or are they also slightly magical in some way? Zoe considered it. Or what if they’re not necessarily magical themselves, but they can only form in a world like this? Did the system just generate them in?
Zoe had been having a lot of these thoughts in the last few minutes and few ideas on how to answer them. At least it was entertaining—she hadn’t had many positive topics to dwell on ever since she learned all she could about how the basic stats and things worked.
The five stats she had seen already in her status—power, perception, acuity, durability, and vitality—were basically what they sounded like to her. The main benefit of the little bit the system seemed willing to provide was mostly confirmation and partly a small amount of extra clarification. For instance, all of the stats applied to a variety of both physical attributes and magic—stuff.
Power was raw strength, might—whatever you wanted to call it—in any domain. It was physical strength, but also the total potency of spells. Interestingly, the system also indirectly clued Zoe into the idea that it would have a big impact on how fast she could move too. Which made sense, she thought, since being able to push off the ground harder would make her run a lot better. Probably. She wasn’t a real athlete.
Perception was, in Zoe’s opinion, even more self-explanatory. It boiled down to a mixture of how good her senses were and how observant and focused she was. Out of all of them, it was the one she felt was closest to being biased in a particular direction—the way it was described seemed notably mind-oriented. Sure, the system referenced both physical and magical senses—even something about spirit too. So it really wasn’t a huge bias, but Zoe did get a slightly different impression from it.
Zoe was tempted to just call acuity ‘dexterity’ instead. Out of all of them, it sounded the most in line with a classic standby from a highly traditional RPG lineup. She genuinely couldn’t decide if it was a simple case of a random synonym or something that could turn out to be a more significant difference later on. The—allegedly—more rational part of her said to err on the side of caution with that one. In any case, it was about her level of finesse, precision, reflex, or—well—dexterity in any context. From manipulating objects with her fingers to working intricate magic, acuity came into play.
Probably. Zoe hadn’t done any magic yet. Or added any of her extra stat points. I’m definitely right though.
Durability was even more obvious and barely needed explanation at all. How much of anything could she withstand before breaking? Zoe didn’t want to find out the answer to that, which meant that she should strongly consider investing in the stat.
Finally, vitality was sort of all the different kinds of recovery or regeneration fused into one. It sounded like it covered everything from healing wounds and fighting off disease, to stamina of body or soul, or to properly annealing the fragments of a broken mind. Zoe really didn’t want to find out what the deal was with that last one. At least with durability it sounds like I could prevent that sort of—thing—from happening. All vitality would do is maybe bring me back from it.
Zoe was already feeling like the best kind of healing ability that might exist in the system would be the S-tier cheat called just don’t get hurt in the first place, idiot.
Speaking of which…
Zoe was immediately distracted from returning to working her way down her new-and-improved list of best class options when something caught her attention. She really didn’t know what at first—she had been growing antsy and jumping at literal shadows for a few minutes now. The topic of speculative geology had been completely forgotten. Yet when her ears picked up another echo of a ghost of a whisper, Zoe hastened her already hurried pace, froze dead still, and then almost stumbled as she instinctively began moving again. Calm the—calm yourself, she chastised herself. There was really nothing concrete to worry about—the air had just gotten a bit colder is all, to the point she was really feeling it. Said air was also starting to smell a bit vaguely foul in a way reminiscent more of long-entombed than freshly slaughtered.
But that was normal. She was deep in a musty cave after all. Though she did feel that the plants and wildlife she could actually glimpse in the dim light—or hear fluttering through the stale air—felt a good bit more vaguely threatening. Zoe huffed a shivering breath—was it coming out visibly frosty now?—and swallowed her anxieties. Just man up. I mean, not a man, but it’s the twenty-first century. Women can man up too.
At least there were no more of those horrid—statues.This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.
Zoe had first encountered those when she finally emerged from the very top of the first winding climb up from the depths. She didn’t move for a whole minute. It’s not that the overgrown Humanoid figures were creepy or even threatening. They just radiated a bottomless tide of ancient gravitas which nothing outside of the sanctum where she had awoken in could match. Using identify only cemented the feeling.
[<veiled> GUARDIAN]
A forgotten relic.
The little hint of atmospheric storytelling lore there convinced Zoe that something seriously profound—or dangerous—was going on here. Not like that wasn’t obvious enough already. The next surprise came from the system.
Identify has reached level 2!
Zoe didn’t need to be told to do the obvious thing.
Identify!
[<veiled> GUARDIAN]
A forgotten relic of the Silence. Can your spark kindle its Voice?
Somehow, the additional description that Zoe’s newly-improved identify unveiled just made it sound even more grandly mysterious. Zoe couldn’t say she felt comfortable with the way it addressed her, but she dutifully filed it all away for later. The reference to ‘the Silence’ all but screamed a really important event—calamity?—that marked a foundational shift in this world’s history. It definitely fit with the tranquil ruined temple vibe. She also made note to keep an eye out for more language with a theme about her ‘spark’ or kindling something. And what’s the deal with the excessively capitalized ‘Voice?’ There’s no way that’s not some mystic-sounding metaphor for overpowered magic.
No overpowered magic was forthcoming, however, and subsequent uses of identify on either the same statue or anything else gave her little. The system even gave her nothing at all on the topic of skill leveling. At least she learned that the moss had ‘potential medicinal properties.’ Whatever that meant.
Really—aside from the genuinely helpful info on stats—the system hadn’t provided her with much else to work with since then. Not that she was complaining. The system hadn’t actively screwed her over, yet, so she retained an overall positive opinion on it, if only for it simply existing in the first place. So in that spirit, Zoe stuffed down all her anxious feelings about her increasingly cold and spooky environment and got back to advancing her most critical open questline—class selection.
[BLOODY DEVOTEE]
Rank B
You are a creature of flesh and blood. Embrace it. Far from a curse, the present weakness of your flesh is but the first trial and opportunity on your path of carnage.
-Effects-
> +60 Vitality
> Bonuses to all body, blood, and life skills.
> Increased chances to learn blood and body skills.
> Grants Blood Magic, Regeneration, Rejuvenate, Mending and Rending Touch
> May grant additional skills at further advancement stages.
> Guaranteed evolution at next threshold.
> Adds Carnage Alignment.
Whether you choose to heal or to harm, your trail of blood will not be free of pain.
Zoe was currently looking at what she had gotten the system to categorize as healing classes. When sorted by her latest iteration of a quality ranking, this was the one that ended up at the very top. It definitely looked like something with extremely high growth potential, not to mention a rare and powerful specialization. It was the kind of thing Zoe wouldn’t even hesitate to pick—if she had imagined herself in this situation while still on Earth. As it were, all the mentions of pain and carnality ended up making her more than uncomfortable. She would still consider it as an option for now, though. Even the terrifying reality of the situation couldn’t completely silence the calling of obvious dark, twisted magic.
The very next one down the list appeared far more normal.
[DEVOTEE OF PURITY]
Rank C
You have experienced Revulsion, and now you seek Purity. With a Hallowed touch, you will cure, cleanse, and soothe the ailing and the impure.
-Effects-
> +25 Perception, +10 Acuity, +10 Vitality
> Bonuses to all Healing and Hallowed skills.
> Increased chances to learn Purity, Faith, Grace, and Healing skills.
> Grants Hallowed Touch, Healing Flame, Revealing Light, Soothing Touch, and Scour.
> Guaranteed evolution at next threshold.
> Adds Purity and Hallowed Alignments.
A helping hand to your local community seizes unforeseen rewards—even if you only did it for your high-school service requirement.
This was much more in line with what Zoe expected from a starting healer class. The degree to which the entirety of its description leaned into some sort of holy priestess thing was also a little off-putting, but in a considerably different way. Part of her couldn’t help reading between the lines and wondering what ‘cleansing the impure’ might really mean. The fact that now being in a magical fantasy world strongly implied the existence of real deities didn’t dissuade Zoe’s skepticism. She couldn’t help but grin—maybe I’ll end up with some forbidden god-devouring ability…
The reminder that Zoe still hadn’t figured out what her unique, ultimate cheat-power was put a damper on her sudden spurt of enthusiasm. A whisper from the dark, dusty recesses of her mind suggested that she might not actually get one. Zoe promptly strangled it and stuffed the thing even deeper back down into its gloomy corner. Shaking her head to focus, Zoe realized she was in the process of walking right past a grand staircase that was very obviously the main way up to the next level. Stopping and looking around again revealed that she was now at the very edge of what had been an area largely filled with natural cave formations, dimly glowing mosses and fern-like plants, and a number of dull, mottled-gray mushrooms. She had almost missed the palatial entrance leading up through more monumental, stone ruins.
Zoe hesitated as two things became immediately clear. First, the stinging chill that had at some point begun raking its dry teeth increasingly frantically across her bare skin practically radiated down from the looming ruins. Clearly the primary source was upwards and close at hand.
The second thing was that the faint hints of whispering had crescendoed to an echoing, ominous chanting reverberating down from those exact same cyclopean stones.
Zoe swallowed, manned up, and skipped across the chiseled steps with feet that danced in time with her leaping heart. Peeking over the top of the stairs revealed that there was still more stone between her and the voices—the contorted windings of the temple architecture seemed to be in greater disrepair here, yet also—for lack of a better word—far more recently lived in. Actually, the stack of wooden shipping crates and bundles of tools lent a whole lot of additional credit to that idea.
Yeah—I think I found those ‘other inhabitants.’