Actual gasps of ‘paladin’ and ‘the Radiant’ echoed from among the cultists, most of whom took at least one step back. The leader—Basil, it seemed—was the only one completely undeterred. He just laughed. Actually laughed. It wasn’t anything like a derisive snort or evil cackling. He was just laughing, like the whole thing was genuinely funny. Zoe found it concerning.
“Man, that’s—holy hell, how do you always have the best timing? Were you just waiting around outside for the cue?” The cult chief was sobering up a little, but he still didn’t seem to be taking the whole thing nearly as seriously as literally anyone else in the room. “That’s actually hilarious.”
“The hand of Justice wields a timely blade, and Her stroke is swift.”
The leader snorted. “First of all, Justice isn’t even your alignment, and second—no, forget it. Your hubris has already doomed you.” Turning back to the central altar, he raised his hands, and the maelstrom of blood and light began to churn once more. Only now, it was clearly funneling into the small, darkened vessel resting in the center.
The paladin shouted something back, but Zoe was only half paying attention by this point. She was more focused on quickly running back through her healing options than on the drama below. The entrance of the paladin—he was one no doubt—it was lucky enough already. Maybe Zoe wouldn’t die. Yet.
She did throw a quick glance to the ritual vessel as the blood and magic started funneling down into it, though.
Identify!
[DEMONIC CORE VESSEL]
Rank B*
Both the name and the bulk of the description seemed the same, so Zoe skipped through it. Only the very last bit had an obvious addition.
-Attributes-
> Rank A Capacity
> 99 Quality
> 0.6 Additional Alignment
> 4% Formed
She thought the first three lines were the same, but the last was new. Guess the ritual is actually working. Zoe wasn’t keen on finding out what would happen when the cult leader finished his Demonic ascension. So she needed to start moving and pick her second class now.
She stood up just as the entire chamber exploded into thunderous chaos.
“Just hold him back!” The chief was now yelling at his six subordinates while also protecting all of them from the rampaging paladin and still orchestrating the bulk of the Demonic blood ritual. Protecting might have been a generous term, as his idea of defense seemed to be forcing the paladin to stay back a bit and dodge rapid strikes from the jagged tendrils of reddish-black spikes erupting from his own body.
Not that the paladin wasn’t on the offensive too. Flares of rainbow light arced out from his own golden form, lighting up the dim chamber with a dazzling display and sparking brilliantly against the dark tendrils wherever they touched. A particularly explosive flare caught one of the cultists in the face. He went down instantly.
Growling, the chief paused his primary task of managing the ritual to flick his arm out. Zoe didn’t see what actually happened, only that the paladin ended up smashed bodily against a far wall, his unnaturally bright armor only just beginning to regain its shine as the crusty black frost now caking his entire form began to flake off.
“Do you want to die? ONE minute. Hold him off yourselves for one minute and you can count on me keeping you all alive. Or screw around and get killed, your choice.”
All five of his remaining subordinates shared a glance. Then they rushed the paladin as one. The leader returned to his ritual before the paladin had even gotten back up, and just as Zoe crossed the halfway point to the other side of the dome. Thanks for letting me know what time frame to expect buddy. I genuinely appreciate it. Now she just had to circle the remaining half, climb down to the other balcony, and book it out of here within a minute. I’ve got this.
The ongoing Frostburn was becoming increasingly problematic, though. Fortunately, Zoe decided on her best healing option just before reaching the ladder.
You have selected the Rank B class: Bloody Devotee.
Do you wish to consume 1 class choice?
The flesh-healing blood magic class was both somewhat terrifying and extremely edgy, but neither of those were much of a consideration right now. The obvious best two healing options she had were this one and Devotee of Purity. Technically, the latter could potentially be more directly applicable to her issue of a damaging affliction—but the former gave her an absolutely insane upgrade to her vitality stat and was also a whole rank higher.
You have awoken the Rank B class: Bloody Devotee.
You have consumed 1 class choice.
0 class choices remaining.
…
Beginning secondary class awakening.
Your secondary class awakening is now in progress.
Please do not resist.
…
An Aspect of the Hallow witnesses you.
Through the presence of a Hallowed Chosen, you have been touched by an Aspect of the Hallow.
You have learned the Tierless skill Hallowed Touch!
[WARNING: Interruption of Advancement]Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
An Aspect of the Hallow has awakened the Rank C class: Devotee of Purity on your behalf.
Secondary class awakening: Bloody Devotee suspended.
Resuming secondary class awakening.
Zoe stumbled, then fell over. She barely managed to keep herself from falling over the edge. What the fuck? That was a whole lot of very concerning system messages. It didn’t help that she was feeling some very bizarre sensations in her mind and body at the same time. It’s trying to change my class…? No!
Zoe panicked. The thought that she had been considering Devotee of Purity anyway didn’t even cross her mind. Something was terribly wrong. No! Stop! Not that one! Bloody Devotee!
…
Secondary class awakening: Devotee of Purity suspended.
Resuming secondary class awakening with Bloody Devotee.
[WARNING: Interruption of Advancement]
An Aspect of the Hallow has awakened the Rank C class: Devotee of Purity on your behalf.
Your title: Outsider has blocked this action.
Continuing secondary class awakening: Bloody Devotee as normal.
…
[WARNING: Interruption of Advancement]
An Aspect of the Hallow has attempted to reconfigure your secondary class awakening with Divine Authority.
Your title: Outsider has blocked this action.
Divine Authority denied by System Core.
Core protections applied.
Determining consequences.
Consequences for this incident have been determined by System Core.
System privileges added to user skill: Hallowed Touch!
You have successfully awakened your secondary class.
Secondary class changed to Bloody Devotee.
The fuck? Zoe passed out.
_____
Zoe didn’t actually pass out. She just felt like she should have.
Then everything caught up to her all at once, at which point she may or may not have screamed, but was most likely too incapacitated to manage it. Then she started crawling forward.
The Frostburn eating through the inside of her skull was still a bit of a problem, but it had stopped growing worse for the most part. Well, the actual magic had stopped spreading, but it was still likely causing damage where it had already infected her. On top of that, the damage that had already been done was starting to really catch up to her. I don’t think brain freezes normally last this long.
Nevertheless, Zoe’s disastrous class selection had somehow ended up giving her a massive boost of energy and resolve. She wasn’t stronger—weaker now, if anything—but she felt like she could keep going anyway, even when she felt like she couldn’t keep going. Not like that makes any sense. It was probably due to the jump in vitality.
-Stats and Bindings-
Power 17
Perception 65
Acuity 26
Durability 9
Vitality 73
Now that’s just ridiculous. Perception had been bad enough. This just discarded any pretense of balance in favor of, well, whatever this was. Durability in particular was looking a little pathetic. And with everything that’s happening, it’s probably the most important one. Suddenly recalling with her gloriously high perception that she still had a measly five free points, Zoe dumped them all into her lowest stat with another stroke of genius.
Durability increased to 14!
It still didn’t even catch up to her second lowest stat. It was also a little late to have been able to do anything about her current problem. Better late than never though, right? Feeling like enough time had been wasted already, Zoe heaved herself back to her feet with a herculean effort and stumbled forward towards the ladder.
She also started trying to figure out the whole healing thing at the same time. The boost to vitality was all well and good, but that was just a bonus—it wasn’t even the main reason she chose the class.
-Secondary Class Skills-
> Blood Magic 1 (Rank E)
> Regeneration 1 (Rank E)
> Rejuvenate 1 (Rank F)
> Mending Touch 1 (Rank D)
> Rending Touch 1 (Rank D)
You know, that really doesn’t look too bad. She would have liked some more impressive letters, but this really did look pretty solid. With the vitality boost as well, Zoe was becoming a bit more optimistic about her chances.
Not wanting to make the same mistake she did when she first tried to disguise herself, Zoe tried activating the skills one at a time. She skipped the first one. While it sounded the most enticing, trying to learn raw magic—or however you distinguished something like that from other magical abilities—probably wouldn’t be helpful right now.
Regeneration!
Oh hell yes! It did exactly the kind of thing she would expect it should do. To be specific—the mangled up bits of her head and face started very obviously regenerating. Quickly. Zoe was honestly shocked by how effective the level one, Rank E skill was. The Frostburn affliction even disappeared entirely within the two or so seconds it took for Zoe to recover from the bizarre sensation it caused. Holy hell.
Does the massive vitality boost the skill itself too? That would make sense, but there was no way of telling at the moment. Zoe moved on to the third on the list.
Rejuvenate!
Unlike regeneration, which seemed to continually apply itself once activated, rejuvenate was clearly a discrete, one-time sort of thing. A pulse of refreshing energy exploded from deep within her chest, echoing around inside her as it rapidly faded. It would have left her feeling much better, probably. As things were, that benefit was largely overshadowed by a sudden uptick in what Zoe had been identifying as soul strain. Oops.
She decided not to try the fourth yet, as she could instinctively tell that regeneration had mostly fixed her up. Only her eye stubbornly refused to, well, start existing again.
She didn’t activate the last one either. For the same reason as the fourth, but also because it sounded scary.
And now she had reached the ladder. That took way longer than it should have. Time was weird, but Zoe felt like that had probably been longer than a minute. It was a good thing that the cult leader had apparently been overconfident. Speaking of which—maneuvering herself into position for a quick-but-safe descent gave Zoe a natural opportunity to finally take stock of the fighting below again. Something felt different, though. It wasn’t like Zoe had been paying much attention, but she definitely sensed a change. Oh. The deafening roar of high-level magical combat had just given way to nothing but its own fading reverberation.
For some reason, the sudden silence seemed far, far worse.
Zoe still forced herself to move—but she could no longer tear away the gaze that had rooted itself to the two remaining figures several stories below. Should she just drop the rest of the way down? Things were very clearly coming to a close. She would almost certainly break something, but she could heal now. Better a broken leg than dead. But she didn’t know how long it might end up incapacitating her. Her skills had been getting harder and harder to use, after all—she went ahead and even canceled the ongoing regeneration.
I’ll save that option in case things go real bad real quickly. For now, she kept climbing down while keeping her ears—and remaining eye—on the lookout.
“Next time you tie yourself down with a ritual, consider choosing some more capable guards.” It looked like the paladin had finally broken through the living shield of subordinate cultists. They were dead now. Rising up from a kneeling crouch, he steadied himself and leveled his still-gleaming sword at the chief. “Though it looks like there won’t be a next time, I’m afraid.”
Damn. Zoe didn’t really have much of a side in whatever this was, but she guessed her current interests aligned more with the paladin’s. She only wished he could have taken a little longer. It’s not like the chief guy even ended up finishing his ritual thing in time.
“What is that saying you tin-cans have about us adherents of Disdain? ‘Pride comes before the fall,’ isn’t it? If there were to be a next time, I’d suggest you heed your own advice. But as you yourself said…” He glanced at the altar—and at the now faintly pulsating, dark crimson Demon core atop of it.
“Well, I’m afraid that there won’t be one.”