《The Prism》 Beginnings I awoke knowing something was not exactly as it should have been. I was laying face down, and the ground beneath me was hard. Was I supposed to be sleeping on something hard? I didn¡¯t believe so, though I couldn¡¯t remember. Maybe this was how it should have been, thought for some reason it did not feel right. I inhaled deeply, and immediately regretted it. The dust, or dirt, that came into my mouth made me convulse in a fit of coughing. As my coughing subsided, I pulled myself to my knees, looking around me. I was located on a large dirt hill that overlooked even more dirt in every direction I turned. There was also a statue a good 10 feet from where I knelt. Pushing myself to my feet, I brushed the reddish dust off the front of the blue jeans and black shirt I wore. Both were now more a reddish-brown color than their original blue or black. As I was cleaning the dirt off me I realized I had no shoes. That struck me as odd. I should have shoes, people wore shoes. Shouldn¡¯t I have shoes on, didn¡¯t I own shoes? I couldn¡¯t remember. I was starting to panic, over shoes. ¡°Hello.¡± I spun around, trying to isolate where the greeting came from. There was no one on the hill that I could see, other than the statue. I did another full turn, my head and eyes swiveling in every direction, trying to find the greetings owner. There was no one. I must be going crazy, and I had no shoes. ¡°Are you broken?¡± I started the spinning and looking in every direction at the same time all over again, this time I started walking around. As I walked, turned, and glanced in every direction, I realized that at the center of the hill, off towards the statue, the ground was different. It didn¡¯t hold the deep red color of the rest of the hill. I made my way towards the different colored earth, to where the strange statue was. I continued my attempt to look every direction at once, the whole time seeing nothing. As I approached the center of the hill, the voice spoke again. ¡°Just great. The first one to activate and it is malfunctioning, better not be setting a precedent. Maybe it¡¯s what I deserve for doing business with a Finare. The Provost is going to be so disappointed if this batch malfunctions. I could just blame the selector though, say that the species was not compatible to begin with.¡± The voice still sounded like it was coming from no where at all. It was high pitched, and the words were very fast, quickly strung together with no room for breath in between. I was still looking around, though I had lost hope that I was going to find the speaker. As I approached the center of the hill, I did what I should have probably done when I first heard the voice. ¡°Hello?¡± The word was fractured, my word sounded rough and dry, cracking when it came out. It also made me cough again. Swallowing that bucket of dirt was not good for speech. I could clearly hear the voice as I doubled over coughing. ¡°Oh? Maybe it¡¯s just slow. It¡¯s been some time since I greeted it. It¡¯s going to be very, very troubling if they are all this slow. That¡¯s even better though, I can fully blame the selector if the entire batch is like this one.¡± I straightened as my coughing subsided. I swallowed a few times and spoke softly as to not bring on another fit of coughing, ¡°Where are you?¡±. There was a long pregnant pause after I asked my question, the silence was followed by a torrent of chittering and clicking, and then words that felt like they were full of amusement, ¡°I¡¯m not even going to need to make anything up. It¡¯s an idiot, and the selector is going to be fully to blame. Did they even test the species before they harvested them?¡± As the voice spoke, I noticed movement for the first time. It came from the statue that was now only 5 feet away. The statue was of an oversized ant, its head reaching 4 feet off the ground. It stood on its 4 hind legs while the rest of its body was upright. It also had on a coat and a top hat, that were both the same color as its entire body, a dark gray. The movement that caught my eye came from the antenna on top of the statue. I closed the distance to get a better. As I came upon the statue, I leaned down, placing my face a good 6 inches from the gyrating antenna. By this time the voice had stopped talking, though the antenna continued to move. After a moment of staring, I reached out a hand to feel them. As my hand came close the head of the statue moved, its gray mandibles clicking at my fingers that were only a few inches away. I stumbled and fell backwards as I pulled my arm away. I was now on my back pushing myself away from the overly large ant statue that was now very animate. It took a few steps to the side, while placing one of its¡­ legs? Arms¡­? One of its front arm-legs on the side of its head and pointing the other one in my direction. ¡°What is wrong with you? Antennae touching is only for the hive, and why would the first thing you do be to reach out and touch someone? Are you all like this? Do your kind communicate through touch? It¡¯s not what the selector has down here, they put down you primarily use sound, so why would you try to touch me?¡±. I stared across the hill at the statue turned very irate ant. This wasn¡¯t normal. At least, I didn¡¯t think this was normal, though I couldn¡¯t remember quite what normal was, and I knew that not knowing what normal was, was strange. Looking across at the ant, while thinking about how I didn¡¯t know what normal was, my eyes came to rest on my feet. My feet without shoes, toes now covered in the reddish-brown dirt. ¡°Why don¡¯t I have shoes?¡± Even as I asked this, I knew it probably wasn¡¯t the right question. At least the right question currently. I did want to know why I didn¡¯t have shoes, I also wanted to know why there was a very large ant in a top hat speaking to me. I should probably get my priorities in order. There was another instance of clicking, this time it sounded annoyed. Can clicking sound annoyed? ¡°That¡¯s what you want to know? Why you don¡¯t have shoes? Are you simple? I can work with simple. You don¡¯t have shoes because I didn¡¯t give you shoes. There. That¡¯s done. Now, let¡¯s get this introduction over with, I can feel another one of you starting to activate. I¡¯m required to say this only once, and that is all I¡¯m going to say it because I don¡¯t think I like you. You have been harvested to serve in the expansion of the Ethnor Empire. If you miraculously develop your Prism before it is corrupted, you will find yourself under the care of House Nar. I¡¯m going to skip over what happens then because I don¡¯t think you¡¯ll get to that point. As for developing your prism, there are four sections. I¡¯ll activate the first in a moment. Once activated, the prism will attempt to put itself together. As it tries to put itself together, the corrupting elements of whatever aspect that section of the prism has taken on will try to assert themselves. Your job is to defend against the corruption. If you fail, and from what I¡¯ve seen so far, you will, your prism will shatter, and you will cease. Now, before I activate the prism, what class would you like, and what sort of companion should accompany you to your eventual end?¡± I tried to follow along the best I could. The ant¡¯s speech never paused, there was no delay in its words. I didn¡¯t understand what it was asking, and I couldn¡¯t figure out if I should understand. Maybe I was simple, like it said earlier. ¡°I¡¯m confused.¡±, I said, I didn¡¯t even really know what I was confused about, where was I before this? As I thought about that, I realized I didn¡¯t know. I should know where I was before this, or even who I was before this. I couldn¡¯t even think of my own name. Amnesia? ¡°I don¡¯t understand what¡¯s happening, why can¡¯t I remember anything?¡±. The answer from the ant came instantly, ¡°I said I¡¯m not repeating anything, but as to why you can¡¯t remember anything, you can. Well, you can remember everything that doesn¡¯t have anything to do with yourself. The Provost within House Nar, in their infinite wisdom, deemed self was something that restricted a Prisms growth. A Prism remembering who they once were had a potential to cause resentment, and that resentment would eventually cause issues. Almost all the houses remove this aspect from their harvested Prisms. You will find you still remember things from your world, things like shoes, you will just not be able to remember what kind of shoes, or how many, or if you cared if you had shoes before. It seems you care now, a bit too much really, though before the harvest you may not have cared at all. That part is kind of a hot topic within the Empire, a lot of debate around what still comes over after the self is cleared from a sentient. Primal urges should still be there, things like not wanting to die, but that falls under self-preservation, and if self was removed, why would a prism want to preserve it? Really too much deep thinking for me though, and for you, I¡¯m sure.¡± The ant¡¯s antennae had continued to twitch, though the rest of it had stopped moving, again resembling a statue. I was still laying on my back in the dirt, trying to follow along as the ant¡¯s words continued in a rush. ¡°A few more things I¡¯m required to go over in the introduction before I can activate your prism. It will take five full cycles for each of the four part of your prism to activate, towards the end of the activation, the corruption usually pulses stronger, trying to take control. Roughly 80% of new prisms fall during this period of activation. Though if you even make it to that point I¡¯ll be surprised. After this first section of the prism is activated, the success rate goes up due to the prism being able to assist you. That assistance will change depending on the aspect the Prism has taken on. You¡¯ll need to figure that part out yourself, it¡¯s almost always unique. It really won¡¯t matter, you won¡¯t get to that point. As you defeat the corrupting elements, you will gain essence, you can use that essence to level, or you can use that essence to purchase items from your prism. The items, and how far you can level, are dependent on your prism development. I believe that¡¯s everything I¡¯m required to tell you. Yes. All boxes checked. Do you have any questions?¡± Yes, I did have one or two questions. ¡°You removed who I am? How is that even possible? Why would I help you defend this Prism thing after you did that? What even is a Prism? And how do you expect me to defend something against corruption? I should probably want to go home, but I don¡¯t even remember what my home was like¡­¡± I sighed, staring at the ant. ¡°What do I get for helping you? And why wouldn¡¯t you want to give me more information, wouldn¡¯t it be better if I knew more? What is the Ethnor Empire, and why would I be in House Nar? are there other houses? Also, why do you speak so fast, I can¡¯t follow along, and why are you wearing a hat? It looks ridiculous.¡± There were probably better questions, and I probably shouldn¡¯t be insulting the ants clothing choices. I just felt lost and confused and was beginning to be a bit frustrated. The ant paused after my tirade of questions, then spoke extremely slow. ¡°I¡¯m only required to answer three questions after I¡¯ve gone through the introduction. One; Yes, your sense of self was removed before implanting you within the prism. Two; To defend the prism, you will need to destroy the creatures that the corruption manifests. Three; What you get for helping me, it¡¯s not really me you¡¯re helping, I don¡¯t care. What you get for defending your Prism is to live. You are housed within the Prism, if the Prism becomes corrupted, it will be destroyed.¡± There was a pause after the ant answered the three questions. Then it took a step forward and continued talking. ¡°I¡¯ll also answer two more, just because there are a few more moments left. I speak fast because I usually am talking to other intelligent sentients, and my hat is extremely fashionable. Now, I¡¯ve given you the required time to make a choice, and since you¡¯ve refused I can pick for you. I¡¯m not allowed to pick a non-combat class for you, because then I would be accused of intentionally causing you to fail, instead I¡¯m selecting random for both, with the hopes that you get something like Cook, or Tailor. Ohhhh, and I hope your companion is a linguist.¡±Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings. When the ant stopped speaking, colored boxes appeared directly in front of me, causing me again to flinch and crawl backwards. I heard the ant clicking and clacking. After the initial bout of fear subsided, I realized the boxes that appeared in front of me contained text. I started to read.
Class: Obelisk Mage
An Obelisk Mage is a caster that falls into the category of summoner. Like most Mages, this class holds an emphasis towards both Wisdom and Intelligence. Due to falling into the Summoner category, Wisdom will grow at a higher rate.
Initial Starting Statistics:
Constitution: 10 Strength: 10
Agility: 10 Dexterity: 10
Intelligence: 11 Wisdom: 12
Unallocated: 2
Skill:
Summon Obelisk
Summons an Obelisk ¨C Area of Influence 5 feet from Obelisk + 1 foot per point of Intelligence.
¡¤ 50 mana to summon. ¡¤ 15 mana drained every 5 seconds per imbuement.
You may select one of the following spells:
Imbue Obelisk: Lightning
¡¤ Every 5 seconds Obelisk will shock the closest enemy within the Area of Influence. ¡¤ 10 base damage + 1 damage per point of Int.
Imbue Obelisk: Regen Health
¡¤ Every 5 seconds Obelisk will pulse with regeneration. ¡¤ Restoring 10 health + 1 point per Int.
Imbue Obelisk: Aura of Fugue
¡¤ Every 5 seconds Obelisk will pulse with an aura inflicting all enemies with a loss of awareness. ¡¤ If an enemy is affected by 5 pulses, they will suffer hysteria.
I had no idea what was going on, what I did know is that of the 3 options, only one of them would hurt someone. And I really wanted to hurt someone right now. The only problem was I didn¡¯t know how to select the option I wanted. I reached out and touched the screen, as I tapped the Lighting option, the screen vanished, instantly replaced by another. This box only had four lines of text.
Companion Selected
Class: Death Knight
Race: Gnome
Name: Gronnex
I continued to not know what was going on. I reached out tentatively and tapped the screen, it disappeared just like the first. Just like the first, it was replaced by a third box.
Prism Aspect Discovered
Aspect: Darkness.
It will take the Prism five cycles to rebuild itself with the aspect of Darkness.
Defend your Prism from the corruption of the Darkness aspect.
I reached out and tapped the screen, making it vanish so I could again see the Ant standing on the hill. It was clicking excitedly. ¡°Well, that¡¯s got to be one of the worst initial aspects to get. I¡¯m quite pleased, and what¡¯s this, a Gnome!? Oh, very pleased. What class did you get, please tell me it is a crafting class, it would really make for a great story.¡± The ant had resumed speaking quickly, I was barely able to follow along. What I did notice is that the ant didn¡¯t already know what class I was, and I wasn¡¯t going to tell him. ¡°The screen said the class was Cordwainer, is that what you mean?¡± I held my breath, hoping the thing couldn¡¯t tell if I lied to it. I¡¯m still not sure why I was lying, I just felt like I shouldn¡¯t tell this creature anything, because it was a jerk. The ants head tilted to the side, its antennae twitching, ¡°That¡¯s new, I don¡¯t know what that is, what did it say you did?¡± Perfect, ¡°It said I make shoes.¡±. It took a few minutes for the excited clicking to stop. ¡°Make, shoes. Just the best. Who says the expanse doesn¡¯t have a sense of humor? If only you had the material to make them, you could solve your shoe problem. And it looks like the corruption is starting to manifest, so I¡¯ll be taking my leave. Darkness, how unlucky you are.¡± With that, the Ant just¡­ vanished. I was still laying on my back, staring with my mouth open at where the ant had been. Where did it go? I pulled myself into a sitting position, crossing my legs as I continued staring at where the ant had been. As I stared I realized that the I couldn¡¯t see as far in the distance as before, not that there was anything to see, just the reddish-brown dirt stretching through the distance. As I squinted, trying to figure out if I the distance I could see really was decreasing, a voice sounded up directly behind me. ¡°I¡¯ve never been able to stand Wasmannians, there even more insufferable in groups, if you can believe it. Each time I¡¯m awoken, I hope they are among the species that are no longer around, and each time I¡¯m thoroughly disappointed.¡± As the voice spoke, I was jumping to my feet to run in the opposite direction. As a raced forward, I felt a little bit better that I could tell where this voice was coming from. I turned to see who this new intruder on my hill was. I laughed at myself with that thought. My hill. The new addition, that I had fled from in terror, wasn¡¯t even as tall as the ant had been. It stood 3 feet high, standing on two legs, and only had two arms. The only thing that was strange about the creature was its huge bulbous nose. Well, and that it was here at all, and that it was only 3 feet tall. ¡°Are you going to be this skittish about everything? It¡¯s going to be hard going if you are.¡± His voice was higher than mine, but not as high as the ants had been. He also talked at a more reasonable pace. ¡°What are you?¡±, the short blinked at me a few times, then just stared. That wasn¡¯t that bad of a question. I did want to know what he was. I told myself I was not simple. ¡°I mean, why are you here? Can you tell me what¡¯s going on? The ant wasn¡¯t very helpful, you¡¯re not the ant in disguise, are you?¡± There, those were questions someone that wasn¡¯t simple would ask. There was a very exaggerated sigh from the short guy across from me. ¡°I¡¯m your companion. Names Gronnex, and yes, I¡¯m a Gnome Shadow Knight. I¡¯ve heard all the jokes, so you don¡¯t need to make any unless you really want to start our partnership off on the wrong foot. As to why I¡¯m here, you picked me, not the other way around. And what¡¯s going on is that we need to get your Prism up to snuff before the corruption takes hold. Also, no, I am certainly not the¡­ ant. I think I like that name, I¡¯m going to call them that from now on.¡± Gronnex sighed again, ¡°Why don¡¯t you know any of this? You new?¡± The gnome shook his head, ¡°Doesn¡¯t matter. Your class looks good, the first 5 aberrations will probably be a little rough for us, but after that it should be smooth sailing.¡± With that he turned to look out from the hill. ¡°The aberrations are already forming, they¡¯ll just meander around down there for the first day or so. Once the Prism has put itself together enough they are going to sense it and start wandering up here. We need to have ourselves ready by then or it¡¯s going to go poorly in a quick way.¡± I moved by gaze off the Gnome to where he was staring. A good 30 feet from the bottom of the hill there was movement. It took me a moment to realize what I was looking at as it shambled forward a few feet, then changed direction and shambled that way. It was a skeleton. As I stared at the creating moving back and forth, Gronnex kept talking. ¡°The good news is this prism has the hill as a natural defense, and we¡¯re lucky that you got darkness as the first aspect, and then it¡¯s manifesting as undead. Undead are dumb, at least initially. It won¡¯t take too much to put together a good defense. First thing before that is we need to destroy a few of these so you can get me a shield. Also, what¡¯s your name?¡± I tore my gaze from the skeleton that had meandered even further away from the hill to stare at the gnome. I thought about it for a bit, then responded with ¡°I don¡¯t know.¡± Gronnex turned to look over at me with a blank stare. Yeah, he was going to think I¡¯m simple, just like the ant did. ¡°I mean, I can¡¯t remember. They deleted my sense of self.¡± I decided explaining something I didn¡¯t understand was hard. ¡°Ah, they are still doing that? Thought that trend would die out¡­ Okay, open up your character sheet, you get to choose your own name.¡± I was again, confused. On the plus side, it seemed Gronnex knew about the whole no sense of self thing, on the other he was telling me to do something I had no idea of how to do. Seeing my confusion, the gnome gave more instruction. ¡°Just think Character Sheet really hard.¡±. I gave it a try, and to my credit only jumped back one step when a screen flashed up in front of me.
Character Sheet
Name: Unknown Class: Obelisk Mage Level: 1
Hit Points: 100 Stamina: 100 Mana: 110
Statistics: Unallocated: 2
Constitution: 10 Strength: 10
Agility: 10 Dexterity: 10
Intelligence: 11 Wisdom: 12
Abilities
Spells
¡°Okay, now just focus on your name, think about what you want it to be, and that should be that, if I remember right.¡± Gronnex mumbled the last part. Well, what did I want my name to be? Naming myself just felt off, do people normally name themselves? ¡°I don¡¯t know what to name myself.¡±, I admitted out loud. I sat there staring at the line that read Name: Unknown when Gronnex started speaking again. ¡°I think you look like a Charles. If I get a vote, your name is Charles.¡± The line changed from Unknown to Charles. I blinked, rereading it. ¡°What? No! That¡¯s the worst name!¡± I panicked and focused on the line that held the name Charles, willing it to change back to Unknown. Gronnex huffed, ¡°Well you don¡¯t need to be rude about it, and you don¡¯t need to pick it, it¡¯s just what I think of when I see you. Charles. It¡¯s a really grounded, simple name.¡± I almost cried. ¡°I don¡¯t want a simple name¡­ and I can¡¯t change it.¡± ¡°What? Oh, ha! See, I was right, you are a Charles. It says so right on your character sheet. I have an intuition about those kinds of things. Now, let¡¯s go get us some essence so you can get me a shield.¡± With that, I heard him start moving his short legs down the side of my hill. I moved after him, the screen with my character information blocking a good portion of my view. The slope was relatively steep, and I had to focus so as not to fall as I tried to get the screen to go away. I tapped it a few times, like I had the other screens to get them to go away, this one was being a bit more stubborn. I snuffed my pride and called out in front of me, ¡°Gronnex, how do I get the screen to go away?¡±. I was sure this was a side effect of being named Charles, I doubted they had much pride. ¡°Just think about closing it. They really should teach you these things before binding you to a Prism.¡± I did as I was instructed, and the screen vanished, showing that we were at the bottom of my hill. Looking back, I realized my hill rally wasn¡¯t that far off the ground. The top of the hill was only about 15 feet up a very steep slope. I realized the top my hill wasn¡¯t very wide either, only about 25 feet across, it was also the only landmark on the otherwise flat plane. ¡°Stop gawking, we¡¯ve got work to do if you want to keep existing.¡± Gronnex called from a distance, he hadn¡¯t stopped moving in the direction of the skeleton. Heres the Deal I hurried after the gnome and was thoroughly surprised by how quickly the he was moving. My legs a very good portion longer than his, and I was having trouble keeping up. Even though the skeleton wasn¡¯t moving in a straight line, it had continued to shuffle itself away from my hill. Gronnex had stopped a little over 15 feet from the skeleton, leaving us a good 30 feet from the base of the hill. Each of us stared at the skeleton as it moved back and forth, a good few minutes passed until I broke the silence, ¡°How do we do this?¡±. I was hoping he wasn¡¯t waiting for me to come up with the plan. Gronnex grunted, then after a few more moments spoke, ¡°Okay, so here¡¯s the deal. I¡¯m going to run up and pummel it, while you use your magic on it till it¡¯s dead. Well, deader.¡± He was nodding as he detailed his intricate plan. I turned to glare down at him, ¡°That¡¯s not a plan, and I don¡¯t know how to cast spells.¡± ¡°Sure you do! You just focus on the spell, thinking about it really hard, and it happens. Just like everything else. And it is too a plan, or at least the only thing we¡¯re going to be able to do until we get a bit of essence. These aberrations should have about as many hit points as us right now, and there are two of us. If you focus on it, again, really hard, you can see its name and level. You just take your time and tell me when you got your spell figured out. Tell me when you¡¯re ready and I¡¯ll start pummeling.¡± I had to admit, he did sound pretty sure of himself, maybe this would be as easy as pummeling it and thinking really hard to cast a spell. I looked back at the skeleton, focusing like Gronnex had told me. Above its head formed red lettering [Skeleton, Level 1]. It really didn¡¯t take as much focus as I thought, just staring with intent. It being my same level also made me feel a bit better, if casting a spell was as easy as getting that name to appear we should be in business. I started to focus my mind, getting ready to cast, and realized I couldn¡¯t remember what the spell was called. Reminding myself that people named Charles had no pride, I asked my new gnome friend, ¡°I don¡¯t remember what my spell is called, how can I figure it out, so I can focus on it?¡± Gronnex gave a long, drawn out sigh, ¡°Just think spells¡­ to answer any further questions, if you want to know something just think about it, if it doesn¡¯t appear in front of you, then ask.¡± Yeah, I probably should have been able to figure that out by this point, and yeah, Gronnex probably thought I was simple. On a more positive note, I felt I was acting like a Charles. I focused on spells and a little screen appeared a couple feet in front of me, there was only one entry.
Imbue Obelisk: Lightning
Every 5 seconds Obelisk will shock closest enemy within range of Area of Influence. 10 base damage + 1 damage per point of Int.
I focused on the spell. Nothing happened. I squinted, and really concentrated on it. Still, nothing happened. I then realized what the spell was actually trying to do, imbue something that wasn¡¯t even there, and felt a wave of relief that I didn¡¯t ask Gronnex for help. I focused on my skills information and a screen popped up next to my spells screen, containing just one entry.
Summon Obelisk
Summons an Obelisk ¨C Area of Influence 5 feet from Obelisk + 1 foot per point of Int.
50 mana to summon. 15 mana drained every 5 seconds per imbuement.
It only took the briefest of seconds to think about the skill, and my vision changed slightly. About 15 feet ahead of me a small purple outline of a four-sided obelisk appeared on the ground. There was also a circular area around the small obelisk that gave off the same purple glow, I realized this must have been the Area of Influence mentioned in the skills description. I discovered it only took thinking about where I wanted the obelisk to be, and the purple outline would shift. As I glanced around, the small purple obelisk moved to wherever I was focusing. I found myself glancing back and forth, moving the obelisk and its circle, it was kind of fun. ¡°Are you ready yet? You realize the longer we wait the harder everything is going to be.¡± I wondered if Gronnex could see that I had been moving the outline of the obelisk back and forth for fun, or if he thought I was just confused on how to get my new abilities to work. I settled on that both options painted me poorly and tried to make the obelisk actually appear. Nothing happened. I shuffled the obelisks position a couple more times, thinking about how much I wanted it to materialize. Only the purple outline of it appeared. By this point, Gronnex was tapping his foot. I considered asking for help, and then immediately rejected the idea. I could figure this out on my own, I really didn¡¯t want to live up to my name. My mind wandered back to the spell, and that was all it took. The purple glow that I had been moving all over the place vanished, in its place an obsidian version of the obelisk grew out of the ground. One of the sides that was facing us held symbols glowing in a bright blue. I felt like casting my first spell should have filled me with some sort of sense of accomplishment, it didn¡¯t. All I could think while staring at the obelisk was that it should have been bigger. I had summoned it a bit far away from me, so it was hard to tell exactly how high it reached, though I was fairly certain that the obelisks tip was less than a foot off the ground. ¡°It¡¯s kind of small.¡±, my companions statement caused me to frown, I was a bit surprised someone standing 3 feet off the ground would be un-impressed if something was small. As I debated on how to respond to the sizest, an arc of bright light connected the tip of the obelisk to the back of the skeleton. ¡°Well this wasn¡¯t the deal at all!¡±, My companion shouted up at me. ¡°I was going to go first, then you were going to do the casting!¡± As he yelled, the skeleton turned and started shuffling towards us. I wouldn¡¯t call what the skeleton did a full run, though it did pick up a little speed as it held its arms out in front of it and started to smash its teeth together. As the skeleton came closer, I discovered that it was even taller than I was, and it was much taller than Gronnex. I was standing at the perfect height of 5 feet 10 inches, while the skeleton was probably a good half a food taller than me. I was wondering how Gronnex was had been planning on pummeling this creature that was at least double his height. As I was assessing the size differences, my short friend had taken a few steps forward, placing himself roughly two feet in front of me, blocking the skeletons path. ¡°Leave it to me!¡±, he called over his shoulder. Gronnex held both of his arms up in front of him, like a boxer would, his tiny little hands balled into fists. I found it admirable and endearing that the 3-foot-tall gnome was going to defend me from the over 6-foot-tall skeleton. The skeleton that was picking up even more speed as it grew closer, its teeth chattering faster and faster. My obelisk struck out for a second time as the skeleton was 5 feet from my companion. As the skeleton took its next few steps I found myself eagerly awaiting to see what Gronnex had planned to stop the skeletons charge. When Gronnex made his move, my earlier feelings of admiration and endearment quickly turned into panic and horror. The gnome gave out a high-pitched squeal, diving to the side as the skeleton rushed past him. I stood in place, mouth agape and eyes wide as the skeleton closed the last few feet to rake both hands down my chest. Taking after my companion, I gave out a high-pitched scream as the skeletons fingers drew back from their assault. I then tightly shut my eyes and inflicted the most pain I could on my attacker, flailing my arms as quickly as I could while screaming at the top of my lungs. As I continued my assault I felt the skeletons fingers pierce into my left shoulder. The pain caused my eyes to bulge open and my scream choked off. The pain also made me realize I was acting like a Charles, standing toe to toe with this skeleton was not smart, and not something I should be doing. There was another flash of light as lightning arced out of by obelisk and connected with the skeleton. The skeleton was reaching its right hand towards my face when I got my act together and shoved it with every ounce of strength I had. The skeleton stumbled backwards a step, missing my face with its sharp fingers. Instead they settled into my outstretched arm, leaving deep furrows. Looking to my new wound, I realized pushing was probably not going to work either. It was time to use my ace in the hole. I started running. I told myself this was a strategic running, not a screaming with my hands in the air sort of running; though I was screaming, my hands were not in the air, at least not both of my hands. I couldn¡¯t lift my left arm, so how could that be in the air? I told myself it was strategic because I was going to stay within my obelisks reach. My legs moved as fast as I could make them, I had only taken 8 or 9 steps when my obelisk arced out again, the lightning connecting right behind me. I didn¡¯t need to turn and see if the skeleton was still there, I could hear its chattering teeth as I fled. Each time my feet would connect with the ground I felt bolts of pain in my left arm and chest, my eyes were streaming tears as I moved forward. Through my blurry vision I could make out a soft purple line on the ground to my left. I had almost made it halfway around the outer area of my obelisk when the lightning arced out for the fifth time. I continued running a few paces when I realized I could no longer hear the chattering teeth behind me, glancing back over my right shoulder to verify if I still had a pursuer caused me to promptly trip and slide across the ground with my already injured left arm breaking my fall. My mind was screaming at me to jump back to my feet and continue running, I couldn¡¯t. With my face planted firmly on the ground, my labored breathing had caused my lungs to fill with the red dirt. For the next few minutes, all I did was cough and cradle my left arm against my wounded chest. I lay on the ground struggling to breath. After a few moments I figured that that fifth lightning strike must have finished the skeleton off, or maybe the skeleton felt bad for me and decided to just leave me alone. Either way, I was ecstatic that I was not being mauled by its surprisingly sharp finger bones. It took a few minutes for my fit of coughing to cease, I then pulled myself to my feet, still cradling my left arm against my chest.This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it. Gronnex stood a good 10 feet away, staring at me with his hands on his hips. ¡°Well, I think we did a pretty good job. We will need to work on your coordination, but overall I¡¯d call that a successful engagement.¡± I glared at him, ¡°A successful engagement?¡±. The gnome nodded, ¡°It wasn¡¯t perfect by any means, that bit of slapping you did at the start really wasn¡¯t what I¡¯d call grade A material.¡± He sighed and shook his head back and forth, ¡°Maybe with practice, though I don¡¯t see why you¡¯d ever want to be standing that close to an enemy as a caster, that¡¯s usually more of what fighters do, but don¡¯t let that stop you! If you want to slap your enemies I¡¯ll fully support your decision.¡±. ¡°I did not slap the skeleton!¡±, I protested loudly. After shouting I felt a bit silly, I knew that I had absolutely slapped the skeleton, multiple times. I also knew that out of all the things to be angry at right now, my combat prowess shouldn¡¯t have been top of the list. ¡°It stunned me too!¡±, Gronnex was nodding, as if he was in agreement with me, ¡°When you started running I pulled up the combat log and see what kind of move it was. While those slaps of yours didn¡¯t do too much damage, you sure laid them on quickly. You were able to hit 7 times before that pile of bones attacked you a second time.¡±. I continued to glare at the gnome while thinking about what he said. Combat log? I focused, and a screen appeared a few feet in front of me.
Combat Log
Your Obelisk shocks a Skeleton for 21 points of damage.
Your Obelisk shocks a Skeleton for 21 points of damage.
A Skeleton scratches you for 30 points of damage.
You slap a skeleton for 1 point of damage.
You slap a skeleton for 1 point of damage.
You slap a skeleton for 1 point of damage.
You slap a skeleton for 1 point of damage.
You slap a skeleton for 1 point of damage.
You slap a skeleton for 1 point of damage.
You slap a skeleton for 1 point of damage.
A Skeleton scratches you for 15 points of damage.
Your Obelisk shocks a Skeleton for 21 points of damage.
You push a skeleton for no damage.
A skeleton scratches you for 15 points of damage.
Your Obelisk shocks a Skeleton for 21 points of damage.
Your Obelisk shocks a Skeleton for 21 points of damage.
You have slain a level 1 Skeleton, gaining 10 essence.
¡°You reading it? I was a bit nervous when I saw your health dip below 50%, then you smarted up and started to run. That¡¯s real mage work there, running, smart.¡±, I could still see Gronnex to the side of the combat log that floated in front of me, he was nodding to himself again. ¡°You can read my combat log?¡± I asked, ¡°and how could you see how much health I had? And more importantly why didn¡¯t you help me?! My arm is ruined!¡±, my voice grew louder at each word that came out, by the end I was screaming at the gnome. ¡°You really don¡¯t need to yell, I can hear just fine, and it¡¯s not your combat log. We are partners, it¡¯s our combat log, and I can see your health for the same reason. We are partners. You can see mine if you cared to, and you should, since we¡¯re partners. It¡¯s actually rather inconsiderate that you didn¡¯t have my health information pulled up when you started combat, and I figured you had things well in control since you were the one that threw out my plan and went ahead with your own, starting combat without even telling me.¡±, Gronnex huffed, ¡°It¡¯s not like I could have done anything anyway, I don¡¯t have a shield.¡±. I willed the combat log to vanish as I stared at the small gnome, his hands still firmly planted on his hips. Did he just call me inconsiderate, and then blame me for this mess? My right eye twitched. Could I fight the gnome? I was pretty sure he¡¯d be easier to take on than the skeleton had been. How many hit points did he have? As the thought crossed my mind, a small box appeared in front of me. It displayed Gronnex¡¯s name at the top, then showed his health as 110, stamina as 100, and mana as 130. I left the small screen that represented Gronnex up in front of me, I then focused on generating one that would show my own. A similar screen appeared above the gnomes. I read the name at the top of that screen and cringed, Charles; Health 100, stamina, 100, mana 110. Glancing between the two screens I asked, ¡°Why do you have more mana than I do? Aren¡¯t you a knight?¡±. ¡°I have more mana than you do because I have more Intelligence than you do.¡±, the way he said it made my eye twitch again. ¡°You really should have placed your unallocated stat points before you started combat.¡± I turned and started stomping my way back to my hill. Maybe the ant was back, I bet I could beg him for a new companion. Gronnex was shouting behind me, ¡°Where are you going?! We need to collect 40 more essence before you can buy me a shield!¡±. I rounded on him, ¡°We?!¡±, I was yelling again. ¡°We didn¡¯t do anything, I did everything after you dove out of the way and left me to fend for myself. We are not going to be doing any more skeleton fighting because my arm is¡­¡± my words trailed off. I had been swinging my left arm in his direction, as if to show him how my arm was ruined. It wasn¡¯t until then that I realized my arm didn¡¯t hurt any more, neither did my chest. I stared down at my left forearm where the skeletons fingers had left long gouges. The blood was still there, caked with the reddish-brown dirt that covered every inch of me, but the wound was gone. I rubbed away the blood and dirt with my right hand, the wound was just¡­ gone. I looked up from my arm, ¡°How?¡±. Gronnex looked at me strangely, ¡°How what?¡± ¡°How is my arm fine? And my chest? Did you do something?¡±, I wasn¡¯t yelling any longer. I think I was more in shock. ¡°I¡¯m not a healer, and those wounds weren¡¯t anything special. Your health regen isn¡¯t anything to write home about, as long as there¡¯s no poison, disease, or bleeding effects, or anything like that, you¡¯ll recover in time. With your 10 constitution you¡¯ll regen 5 health every tick, every 5 seconds. Nothing special. How do you not know this Charles, did they take away more than just your sense of self?¡± Gronnex seemed genuinely concerned when he asked his question. I took a seat, right there in the dirt. I felt tired. Not sleepy, just mentally drained. I also really didn¡¯t like him calling me Charles. I let out a breath I didn¡¯t know I¡¯d been holding, ¡°I don¡¯t know what they took away, I don¡¯t even know who they are, other than what the ant said, and I couldn¡¯t follow anything it was talking about. What I do know is, where I came from, there were no giant ants with top hats, or skeletons that attacked you. There was also most definitely not any healing based on how much constitution you had, or any constitution, at least that you could quantify in numbers. There weren¡¯t any of these screens either. This is all new to me. There was never anyone casting spells where I was from, at least I don¡¯t think there were, and there weren¡¯t any gnomes either. Everyone was just like me¡­¡± Even though I was now seated, I hadn¡¯t stopped looking at my arm while I spoke. I was still amazed that it didn¡¯t hurt any more. ¡°No Wasmannians? And your undead don¡¯t attack you? That sounds like paradise. I¡¯m sure they just erased screens and statistics when they erased your sense of self, you can¡¯t have life without statistics, and the world would be no fun without screens.¡± Gronnex sounded just as confident as he did when he laid out his original plan of attack for the skeleton. I glared at him while responding, ¡°There definitely were not any gnomes either. I have a feeling I wouldn¡¯t forget dealing with gnomes if they are anything like you.¡± ¡°Aye, you never forget gnomes. I wouldn¡¯t expect there to be any of us where you¡¯re from. There haven¡¯t been any gnomes outside of a Prism is a very, very long time.¡±, The way he said it made me feel sad. I wanted to ask him for more information but couldn¡¯t come up with a way to do so that felt appropriate. Asking why gnomes were only in Prisms didn¡¯t seem like such an invasive question, but I couldn¡¯t form the words. We each sat there in silence for a long while. While the silence stretched I started to pull up different screens, I really wanted to learn about the different statistics. If constitution determined health regeneration, what did the others do? I pulled up my character sheet with a thought, and then it took me more time than it really should have to pull up information regarding each individual statistic. All I had to do was focus on the attribute name in my character sheet, and a description would appear.
Constitution One Constitution provides 10 health. One Constitution provides .5 health regeneration per 5 seconds.
Strength Strength determines lifting capacity as well as damage with certain weapons.
Agility One Agility provides 10 stamina. One Agility provides .5 stamina regeneration per 5 seconds. Agility determines damage with certain weapons.
Dexterity Dexterity impacts physical accuracy.
Intelligence One Intelligence provides 10 mana. Intelligence impacts spell potency.
Wisdom One Wisdom provides .5 mana regeneration per 5 seconds. Wisdom impacts spell duration.
As I learned the impact of both intelligence and wisdom on my mana I started to crunch the numbers. I currently had 110 mana from my 11 intelligence, and 6 mana regen every 5 seconds from my 12 wisdom. This allowed it so my obelisk could pulse a total of 6 times before I ran out of mana, each pulse would shock my target for 21 damage, doing a total of 126 damage. I also had 2 attribute points I could place wherever I wanted. I was tempted to put them both into constitution for more health and faster health regeneration. It wasn¡¯t like doing a little extra damage or regenerating 1 more mana every 5 seconds was going to be that helpful. Instead I could raise my hit points by 20%. ¡°Gronnex, where do you think I should put my 2 attributes?¡± I probably was not going to take his advice, I just didn¡¯t have anyone else to brainstorm with. He visibly shook himself, as if breaking himself away from an unpleasant thought, ¡°Attributes? Hmmmm, you¡¯ll want to be able to keep that little electric nub of yours up without it running out of juice. How much mana regen would you need to keep it up indefinitely? That¡¯s how much you want.¡± ¡°I¡¯d need 30 wisdom for it¡­ if I put my free points into wisdom each level I could get that by level 5. Don¡¯t you think it¡¯d be better if I had more hit points, and could heal faster?¡± I really liked the idea of healing faster. Gronnex sounded annoyed when he answered, ¡°No, you¡¯re a mage. You really shouldn¡¯t be getting hit at all. Like I said initially, this first little bit until I get a shield is going to be a bit rough. We only need to collect 40 more essence. Once that¡¯s done we need to get you enough essence to hire a mercenary from the within the Prism, after that we¡¯ll grind out some levels. It would be preferable to reach level 10 before the last 12 hours of the prism constructing its first aspect, for a lot of reasons that we can go over when we get to that point.¡± He sighed, ¡°For now, I¡¯m not sure if I¡¯ve mentioned it yet, I¡¯d like for you to purchase me a shield, and to do that we need more essence, so let¡¯s get moving.¡± His short legs carried him away from me, directly towards a skeleton off in the distance. The creature was a good distance away, 60 plus feet. I scanned our surroundings, the base of my hill was off to the left of us, a good 40 feet away. I scanned the horizon away from my hill and noticed there was a lot of movement out there. There were at least 10 more skeletons that I could count, and I was thankful that they were all further away than the one we were marching towards. Im a Runner. I discovered that I really didn¡¯t want to fight another skeleton, and this new discovery was annoying my companion greatly. Gronnex and I had come up with a plan of attack after we had stared at our new target for a few minutes. The problem was we were stuck on step one of the new plan, the step where I was supposed to summon my obelisk. I had my summon obelisk skill ready, the purple indicator showing where the obelisk would appear, with the outline of its area of influence gently glowing on the ground. I just couldn¡¯t make myself imbue it with lightning. I wanted to, at least, I told myself I wanted to, my mind would just not complete the action of imbuing the obelisk. According to Gronnex it was perfectly natural for me to be terrified and not want to re-engage the manifested corruption after being hurt. Also, according to Gronnex, he¡¯d never heard of someone being mauled by a level one anything to the point where they couldn¡¯t continue to fight. He was now explaining how I needed to stop being so lazy and get the show on the road. While he continued to lecture me on how laziness was not a trait that sentients should cultivate when trying to defend a Prism, my mind and eyes were wandering across the landscape. It had only been around 20 minutes since we had killed the first skeleton, and already the barren land around us was filling up with more and more of them. The one that Gronnex had selected for us to kill was about 25 feet away, pacing back and forth, acting oblivious to our presence. Behind and to the right of our current target, I watched as another skeleton appeared. I didn¡¯t know what it was at first, the ground seemed to heave up into a small mound about 80 feet away from us. My initial thought was that roots had been exposed by the grounds upheaval, then the roots started to move. What I had thought of as roots, were the arms of a skeleton. It took about 15 seconds for it to pull itself from the earth, then start to meander around the area it had come up from. While the rest of the area was flat, the ground where the skeleton had unearthed itself from remained an uneven mound of dirt. I did another quick scan of the horizon and found there were similar mounds close to where all the skeletons were wandering. I shuffled my weight from leg to leg as I looked down at my bare feet, still covered in layers of red dirt. Was there a skeleton resting under me right now, just waiting to reach up and grab hold of me? Gronnex noticed that I had started to fidget. ¡°What are you doing now? I understand you¡¯re a know nothing, but you really do need to hurry.¡± He gave a long sigh, ¡°I¡¯d really like for you to prove the others wrong, in that only a moron would pick a Gnome Shadow Knight as their companion.¡± That got my attention, ¡°What others?¡±, I asked, then quickly added ¡°Also, I really didn¡¯t pick you, the ant did, I¡¯ve had very few choices since waking up.¡± Gronnex ignored my question, ¡°Well you¡¯ve got a choice now. Start killing skeletons before more and more spawn and your prism gets over run with level ones.¡± He shook his head, ¡°I¡¯ve really never heard of anyone choosing to let the corruption run rampant in their Prism.¡± The reply, that I¡¯m sure was going to be extremely witty, never made it past my lips. In its place was a yelp, as both Gronnex and myself jumped away from the mound of dirt that started to rise up in front of us. I was surprised to see that my obelisk appeared right next to the mound, it¡¯s black surface breaking through the ground just as the skeletons arms broke through the mound. Neither Gronnex or I stopped backing away from the skeleton as it raised itself out of the earth. With this one so close, I could see that pulling itself out of the ground wasn¡¯t a very easy task. When my obelisk struck out the first time, the skeleton only had only just begun to clack its jaws together. The lightning struck it in the chest while the skeleton struggled to free the rest of its body. The mound the skeleton was exhuming itself from was definitely softer earth than what I was standing on, the earth was still not making the process easy for the skeleton. It was wiggling its body back and forth as it pushed and pulled itself out of the ground. We had made it to the edge of my obelisks range when the skeleton was getting itself to its feet. The obelisk struck out for a second time, as the skeletons head fixed in my direction and took its first step. The skeleton covered the 16 feet rather quickly, or at least a lot quicker than I wanted it to. Just like the last one, this one¡¯s teeth were chattering as it held both arms in front of it while it shambled forward. The skeleton made it over 10 feet away from the obelisk before it struck out for the third time, and as the lightning connected I enacted the second phase our plan. I turned to my left and started running, following the outline of my obelisks range. I could still see the skeleton coming at me from my right as I ran, hoping that I was fast enough to missing being gouged by its sharp fingers. There were two parts to this new plan that Gronnex had come up with. The first involved me summoning my obelisk, and the second involved me running around in circles. When I had asked what Gronnex would be doing, he advised ¡°I¡¯ll be supervising the whole endeavor.¡±. I had started to protest, then thought better of it. What could he really do, standing half as tall as the skeletons were, he¡¯d just get trampled. Not that I wouldn¡¯t mind seeing him get trampled. It would be better to expect him to do nothing, than rely on him. That also had got me thinking, what good was a shield going to be? The obelisk struck out a fourth time as the skeleton aligned directly behind me. I could hear Gronnex cheering somewhere behind me, at least he was giving me moral support. I was counting as I ran, eagerly waiting for the next pulse of the obelisk. I stopped running and smiled as the lighting connected behind me as I finished my five count. It turned out killing the skeletons was going to be easy, this one went down without a problem and it had surprised us. Even as I finished the thought, I knew something was wrong. Gronnex was screaming what sounded like ¡°Stupid!¡±, I just couldn¡¯t be sure due to the sound of chattering teeth as the skeleton connected with my back. As my face connected with the ground and slid forward, I decided this should be considered a learning experience, in that not all skeletons attack the same way. The first one just raked both hands down my chest when got within range, while this one had sunk its fingers into both of my shoulders while it continued running, slamming into the back of me while knocking both of us to the ground. For the third time since waking up, my face was firmly planted in the dirt. I gave a muffled yell. It was muffled because I had kept my jaw clamped tight, sealing my lips so that none of the horrendous red dirt could make me choke again. The skeletal fingers removed themselves from my shoulders and I scrambled to push myself up. When I got both under me I felt the skeletons fists connect with my back, first one, then the other. The second strike knocked me back into the ground. I looked to see how much health I had and panicked. With my face in the dirt, yet again, I couldn¡¯t see the screen that held displayed my health. I pushed myself forward with my legs, while at the same time desperately crawling with my arms. As I moved my arms forward, the areas on my shoulders where the skeletons fingers had entered burned. I could also distinctly feel where the skeletons fists had connected with my back as my neck arched back so that I was looking straight ahead of me. The screens showing my partner and my health appeared as I did so, the red bar was lower than halfway full, and flashing the numbers 44 in the middle of it. I saw the flash as my obelisk struck out for the sixth time, silencing the chattering of teeth that had been coming from behind me. As I lay there, looking at my health, I noticed that all 3 bars on the screen with the name Charles were flashing wildly. The green stamina bar displayed a 12, while the mana bar displayed a 6. I understood why both the mana and health bars were low, I could even do the math for why my mana was sitting at 6, and if I read through the combat log, I¡¯m sure it would show exactly why my health was 44. What I was shocked by was that my stamina had gotten so low. Looking at it the almost empty green bar, I knew it was used up from the running I had done. I really just didn¡¯t expect it, what would have happened if I used all of it? As I thought, I watched all 3 bars on my screen slowly fill every five seconds. I still hadn¡¯t placed my extra 2 points. I didn¡¯t trust what Gronnex had said, about that I¡¯d want to have my obelisk up forever. Then the thought of sleeping occurred. I couldn¡¯t ever remember sleeping myself, I just knew that sleeping was something that was done. Maybe it wouldn¡¯t be such a bad idea to have the obelisk up while I was sleeping. I pulled up my character sheet and focused on my wisdom, increasing it from 12 to 14, then willed my sheet to close. This change would allow my obelisk pulse 7 times before I¡¯d run out of mana, and it was what sold me on adding my points into wisdom. I groaned when I realized I could have just put one point into intelligence and my obelisk would have pulsed and additional time also. I wasn¡¯t sure if I¡¯d made the best decision, or even the most educated one, but I couldn¡¯t change it now. How did I get more attributes? The thought occurred as Gronnex got into talking distance of me. ¡°Why Charles? Why would you just stop? You were doing so good, and then you just stopped running. I don¡¯t understand.¡± I was still laying on the ground when the gnome finished speaking and stared down at me. I decided I wasn¡¯t going to answer his question, instead I¡¯d ask my own. ¡°Gronnex, how do I get more attributes, and what happens if I use all of my stamina?¡± As I asked, I pushed myself to my feet, rotated my shoulders and winced. My health was at 84, and while I couldn¡¯t feel any bruising from being punched into the ground, I could still feel where the skeletons fingers and gone into my shoulders. ¡°And don¡¯t call me that.¡±, I added as an afterthought. The Gnome was now staring up at me, his face holding an expression of concern. ¡°Were you scared to run out of stamina? Is that why you stopped and let the skeleton get to you?¡± Even though I he was staring up at me, he was speaking to me as if I were a small child. ¡°What? No, I stopped because I thought the 5th shock would have killed it, it obviously didn¡¯t. Why is that by the way? The last one died after 5, why didn¡¯t this one? Also, answer my questions. How do I get more attributes? And what happens if I run out of stamina?¡± The gnome¡¯s expression didn¡¯t change at my explanation. ¡°Uh hu, so stamina. If you run out, when you run out, you just can¡¯t do anything that requires stamina. No more running, or swinging weapons, if we had weapons. And abominations are going to have different levels of attributes Charles, not every undead is made equal, why would you think they were? You won¡¯t be able to do it for a while yet, but the more essence you absorb from the same type of abomination, the more information you¡¯ll be able to access about that abomination. After a few hundred skeletons you¡¯ll be able to tell exactly how much health they have, a few hundred after that you might be able to see what types of damage they are resistant to.¡± The gnome¡¯s eyes flicked from staring up at my face to something only he could see, then he continued to speak, ¡°Okay, your full health, stamina, and mana, time to get to work.¡± He pointed off at the skeleton we had originally been targeting.Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website. ¡°You didn¡¯t answer my question. How do I get more attributes?¡± My voice held a little heat to it, the gnome was just so frustrating. I was beginning to understand why the ant had been so pleased that I had gotten a gnome for a companion. The ant must have really disliked me. ¡°No, no more talking. Go kill the skeleton.¡± He pointed at the skeleton again, ¡°You¡¯ve wasted so much time already, we¡¯re really very behind.¡± Great, now he was just refusing to answer questions, and he was giving me orders. ¡°Stop saying lumping us together, I¡¯m the one doing all the work. The least you could do is answer questions while you stand round doing nothing!¡±. The gnome turned to me, placing both of his fists on his hips, ¡°I told you, I don¡¯t have a shield! And that is your fault, I should have one by now!¡± He huffed a few times, making his chest puff in and out as he glared up at me ¡°If you go kill that skeleton I¡¯ll answer your question.¡±. Now he was bartering with me? ¡°Fine!¡± I shouted, turning to where he had pointed earlier. ¡°I kill the skeleton, you answer me.¡± The skeleton was now a bit too far away for me to summon my obelisk where I stood, I needed to move closer so that the skeleton and myself were each within the obelisks area of influence. With the obelisks 16-foot range, I could be 32 feet from the skeleton when the first pulse dealt damage. I watched as the small black obelisk broke through the ground, then five seconds later shot out a bolt to strike the skeleton. Just like the last two, the skeleton turned to face me, raising its hands as it started to chomp its teeth together and move forward. With the second pulse of my obelisk I realized I had just engaged with another skeleton, I hadn¡¯t even hesitated. I had been so angry at the gnome that I hadn¡¯t even been thinking about the pain that the past two skeletons had caused me. Granted, it was pain that I got over in less than 2 minutes, but it was still a great deal of pain. Maybe this was what the gnome had planned, to get me worked up to the point where I¡¯d rather fight a skeleton than speak with him. No, I refuse to think he¡¯s that devious. The third pulse and ensuing bright lightning arcing from my obelisk into the charging skeleton brought me back from my thoughts. The skeleton was 6 feet away, and I needed to start running. I turned and started the tour around the outskirts of the obelisks range, the skeleton right on my heels. I watched the green stamina bar on the screen in front of me as it started to drain away. It was at 72when the fourth arc of lighting struck the skeleton behind me. I mentally started counting down from five, hoping that this skeleton only took the 5 pulses instead of 6, the entire time I watched the green bar empty. I ended my 5 count with my stamina at 41, the lighting striking at the chattering teeth behind me. Even though I couldn¡¯t hear the teeth beating against each other any longer, I continued to run. I carefully glanced behind me, focusing on not tripping. The skeleton was gone, in its place was a small pile of gray dust. I squinted at the pile, neither of the other two skeletons left anything behind when they died, though I really didn¡¯t look and see if they did, I was too busy with my face in the dirt. I scowled at the memories. I walked over to the small pile, it was only a little larger than my fist. Squatting down about a foot from the pile, I reached out a hand to take a pinch of the pile. It was a fine powder, moving it between my fingers caused the dust to absorb into my skin, turning them a light gray. What was this stuff? As the thought ended, blue lettering appeared above the pile [Corpse Dust]. ¡°Wonderful¡±, I cringed. I had just rubbed corpse dust into my skin. I turned to the approaching Gronnex, ¡°This stuff isn¡¯t going to kill me because I touched it, is it? What¡¯s it good for anyway?¡±. He glanced down at the pile in front of me, then returned his eyes to me, grinning widely. I did not like his grin. ¡°No, won¡¯t kill you. Not good for anything you or I could do with it, needs an alchemist.¡± He continued to grin at me as I straightened, ¡°Right, well I killed the skeleton, now tell me how to get more attributes.¡±. He folded his small arms over his chest, ¡°No. I just answered two questions. I told you I¡¯d answer one, so you should feel lucky. Before you argue, I answered that grave dust won¡¯t kill you, and it is useless without an alchemist. Go kill another skeleton and I¡¯ll answer another question.¡±. He had not stopped grinning. I hated him. I didn¡¯t remember if I¡¯d ever hated someone before, if I had, I doubt I hated that person as much as I hated this gnome. Yelling incoherently as loud as I could, I summoned my obelisk right next to Gronnex. I was willing it to strike out at him with every fiber of my being, waiting for the first pulse to happen. I eventually had to stop screaming, not because I was any less furious, but because I had run out of air. I glared at him, breathing heavily. It had been a good 10 seconds now and the obelisk had not struck out at him. I was very disappointed. Gronnex glanced down at the black obelisk, then back at me. He repeated the action a few times, his head bobbing back and forth, before he asked, ¡°Did you just try to attack me?¡± From his tone I couldn¡¯t tell if he was shocked or impressed, maybe a bit of both. I folded my arms on my chest, imitating his posture, ¡°That¡¯s a question, go kill a skeleton and I¡¯ll answer.¡±. ¡°What is wrong with you!? If you don¡¯t go cull down the aberrations you are going to be destroyed, how is that so difficult to understand? Why would you want to become corrupted, to be destroyed?¡± He had uncrossed his arms, they were now straight at his sides, hands balled into fists. ¡°Well,¡± Even as I was saying it, I knew it wasn¡¯t the most mature of responses, ¡°you¡¯ll be destroyed too!¡± Gronnex just shook his head sadly, ¡°No. No I won¡¯t.¡±. He gave a long sigh, ¡°I¡¯m also not going give you a history lesson, we don¡¯t have time. Stuff like that, you really should already know all that stuff. It¡¯s strange you don¡¯t know anything.¡± He wasn¡¯t yelling any longer. I decided he should not be able to change moods so quickly, and just because he could go from being smug, to angry, to being sad and mopey didn¡¯t mean I was going to stop being angry. ¡°Answer my question then. You should be helping me, right?¡±, I quickly added, ¡°That wasn¡¯t a question, more a statement. You really should be helping me.¡± He gave off another over exaggerated sigh causing my hatred boiled up again, no one should sigh as much as this gnome did. ¡°You get attributes by leveling, or by obtaining equipment imbued with whatever attribute you want.¡± I opened my mouth to ask follow up questions, but was quickly cut off by the gnome, ¡°You level by obtaining essence, focus on Level, or even just essence, in your head. Something should pop up, and we¡¯ll talk about equipment later. For right now, every time your health, stamina, and mana are full, you¡¯re wasting time. Your mana is going to be full in a few more moments, go find a skeleton to kill.¡± I started to protest, and again was cut off by the gnome, ¡°I will answer questions when your health, stamina, and mana are regenerating. I will also be happier to answer questions once I have a shield.¡± Gronnex took a deep breath, ¡°Have I mentioned that I¡¯d like a shield?¡± I resigned myself to doing what the gnome wanted. While I scanned around us for the closest skeleton, I focused on level. A small screen appeared in front of me.
Level 1
Essence: 30/100
It gave almost no useful information, other than that I¡¯d probably hit level 2 when I got 100 essence. I wanted to know how many attribute points I would get once I got to level 2, also how much essence was going to be needed to get from level 2 to level 3. I was frustrated that the person next to me probably had those answers but wasn¡¯t going to tell me if I asked. I mentally willed the level screen to vanish as I made my way to the closest skeleton. This fourth skeleton was as easy as the third, meaning that I didn¡¯t get mauled. It did take 6 pulses from my obelisk before its teeth stopped chattering, and I was down to 8 stamina. I waited for Gronnex to catch up to me and then fired questions off at him as my bars refilled. He did have answers, though his answers usually caused me to have even more questions. For starters, each level required double the essence of the last level. So, level 2 to 3 was 200 essence, 3 to 4 was 400 essence. Each level would also give 5 attributes, though some of those attributes would be automatically assigned. It was usually the same every level, though would change sometimes, when question about what sometimes meant, he said there were too many variables and he couldn¡¯t go over them all. When I asked what the maximum level was, he said no one knows. He said there was always talk of the greatest prism bonded being in their thousands, though the highest he had ever seen was in their low 300¡¯s. I balked at that, then realized if the essence requirements doubled every level, they would need trillions upon trillions of essence even before you reached 100, and I was only getting 10 from these skeletons. ¡°How do they earn so much essence? It seems like too great an amount?¡± My mana had just finished refilling, and we my stamina only had a few more to go. I could see the gnome¡¯s eyes flick up to a screen before he answered, I would have bet he was checking to see if my pools had filled back up, ¡°Ermmm, well the essence requirement only doubles up until level 10. Then it just adds on ten thousand more each level, so less than doubling, by a good deal, but it¡¯s still a hefty sum. Okay, your full, enough questions.¡± Gronnex stomped forward, bringing us closer to the base of my hill for our next skeleton. As we approached, I realized this aberration was the closest one I had seen to the hill. I quickly glanced around and realized there were a LOT more skeletons now, and it had gotten darker, I couldn¡¯t see as far into the distance. I started counting the skeletons, getting to 27 when Gronnex interrupted me. ¡°Let¡¯s do this Charles! This is the last one for my shield!¡±, I hated him. Piercing my lips together, I summoned my obelisk to begin working on the fifth skeleton. The engagement, if you can call me running away from a monster an engagement, was as simple as the last two. I turned, expecting to be waiting a few moments for Gronnex to catch up with me, like I had the last few times. I was startled to have him already at my side, a little too close for comfort. He must have been running right behind the skeleton. ¡°Where¡¯s my shield?¡±, his words came out a bit too fast, making him sound manic. I took a step back while I replied, ¡°How would I know? You do remember I don¡¯t know anything, right? How do I get you your shield?¡± ¡°Uhhhhg, think about shopping, a bit screen should pop up.¡±, he was still talking a bit faster than he normally did. I thought about shopping, and to his credit, the gnome was right. A very big screen appeared din front of me. There were four tabs all along the top, and then a bunch of different ways to filter things on the left-hand side. Along the top I read [Equipment], [Supplies], [Mercenaries], and [Buildings]. The first three tabs were glowing in a soft blue, while the buildings tab was a dull gray color. I was focusing on the buildings tab, trying to select it, when I was interrupted. ¡°Stop browsing! Go to the Equipment section, then there is a filter on the left-hand side. Think weapons, no, no, think one handed weapon. NO! Just think Shields.¡± All I could think while he rambled off commands was that he was the absolute worst. Even while thinking about bad things I¡¯d like to happen to Gronnex, I was following his orders. Each time I adjusted my thoughts the list of items on the screen would shift, until finally there was a large list of shields, with their subsequent price tags, in front of me. There were a lot, and they were all a lot more than 50 essence. I started to panic, Gronnex was insufferable now, what would happen if he found out he wasn¡¯t going to get a shield because they were all a great deal more than he expected. ¡°Ummmm¡­¡± ¡°Stop talking! Just think about filtering by what you can afford.¡±, okay, I still hated him. The list shifted, there were still loads of shields, but the images next to their names all seemed rather bland. Even all the new names were boring, just [Round Shield], or [Raw Hide Shield]. As I focused on each different shield, I realized they were all of Poor quality. I don¡¯t know what I should have expected, but I had literally bled to get this 50 essence to purchase a shield, and the only ones that were available were the a quality called Poor. I was annoyed. ¡°What¡¯s wrong? Are there no shields? Tell me, what¡¯s there?¡±, I don¡¯t even think Gronnex was breathing any more, just firing off questions. ¡°No, there are a bunch here¡­ and,¡± I paused, examining what I had just noticed again. I then adjusted the filter once more. ¡°Gronnex, there are a lot of shields on here for less than 50 essence.¡± Gronnex didn¡¯t reply for a few moments, then quietly said ¡°Oh? That¡¯s strange.¡±.