A full week passed after the attack before life at the Academy returned to a sense of normalcy. David, Amelia, and Cassandra were all unhurt and returned to their dorm room the morning after the attack, when the students were allowed out of the bunker they’d evacuated to. They told him that the instructors and staff had escorted them and a number of visitors to the bunker. The headmaster had been everywhere, cutting the greater undead down like they were zombies with his flaming axe. Damnit, I was supposed to help with that. I knew he was holding back at my entrance trial!

A large number of students were removed from the Academy by their families, citing the attack and the overall increase in danger in the world. I’d have thought that would be more reason for them to stay and train, but instead they’re retreating to their family strongholds. Several of the instructors had to be replaced, too, either slain in the battle, or unwilling to risk staying around.

Duncan apologized to the headmaster for not escorting students, explaining he’d been badly hurt by the first Corpse Golem, then had been involved in fighting the Lich after he’d been healed. The headmaster waved off his apology, saying, “It all worked out in the end. We got the other students to safety, and you helped defeat the Lich.”

Duncan used the extra time off to have Elliot secure a small manor house and a governess for Bente and hired several guards to protect the place, and to evacuate Bente in the event of an attack. He left specific instructions that they were to contact him if Bente said she needed to talk to him. He delved the Sawiskin dungeon three times and took his roommates and Paul through the Academy training dungeon once. He also spent several hours a day on his own training in various armors and with various weapon combinations. Master deBouteville and Master Guilford continued their lessons without interruption.

Once the classroom-based classes resumed at the Academy, Duncan received a very pleasant surprise. “Good morning, students. My name is Pelleas Fenbalar, and I will be teaching the Elven language class for the remainder of the school term.” The distinguished looking elf smiled warmly at the class, and Duncan grinned back.

After class, Duncan waited with several other students to speak with Pelleas. When his turn came to talk, he arranged a private meeting in Pelleas’s office the following morning.

The rest of the day passed quite quickly, and Duncan was in a noticeably better mood than normal. At dinner, his roommates commented on it. “Did you kill a new monster in a dungeon overnight?” asked Amelia. “Or meet someone and fall in love?” added Cassandra. “You do look unusually happy,” said David.

Duncan shrugged, “The person who advises me on my Techniques is in town. I’m happy to see him, and I’m looking forward to discussing my build some more.”

“Ooh. He must be a miracle worker, to get a great lump like you to a hundred so young. Do they consult with others?” asked Cassandra.

“Hey now. He had a whole lot to work with, given my natural talents,” replied Duncan. “I can ask him if he’ll consult with you guys if you want. Technique builds are his primary focus, and he’s very knowledgeable. I know you already have advisors, though.”

“Hah,” David laughed. “My uncle advises me, and his advice has been to go with what I can learn from our soldiers rather than Technique stones. I think I’d like a second opinion now that I’ve got a little spending money and a better understanding of what’s out there.”

The girls nodded. “It never hurts to get a second opinion,” said Amelia. “I assume your advisor is bonded, Duncan?”

“Bonded? He’s under a geas not to discuss my Techniques or affinities or build with anyone. He’s an adventurer’s guild appraiser and consultant. Or at least, he was when last I saw him. I’ll have to check how that works now. I’m meeting him in the morning.”

“Let us know,” said Cassandra, getting up to speak with a student who’d been idling out of earshot waiting for her attention.

The following morning, Duncan met Pelleas in the elf’s new office on campus. “It’s good to see you, sir,” he said.

“And you,” replied Pelleas. “With the sudden surge in undead activity, there was some upheaval within the guild, and I took the opportunity to transfer to the Lanport branch for a while. I’ll be on the appraisal desk during the overnight shift, and teaching here in the mornings, which gives me the afternoons and evenings to explore and attend to my studies.”

“I see you have continued to grow at a rapid pace, despite being in a low mana city with no good dungeons nearby, and further despite focusing on your non-Technique skills. If you want to discuss your build, we should meet in a consultation room at the guild hall. This building doesn’t have the privacy wards necessary for that sort of discussion.”

A subtle way of telling me that anything I say here may be overheard. “I understand, sir, and I would like to do so. Do you have an appointment available this evening before your shift starts?”

“I can accommodate you then, yes,” said Pelleas. “In the meantime, tell me how you’re enjoying your studies here at the Academy.”

“It’s gone surprisingly well. My sword studies under Masters deBouteville and Guilford are exactly what I was hoping for, and the classroom studies have been pretty good, too. I haven’t noticed any overt hostility from other students. I don’t know if that’s because the power gap is so overwhelming, or because the students are less shallow or less arrogant than I’d expected. It also helps that one of my roommates is heir to the Duchy of York, and no one wants to get on the wrong side of her.”

Duncan continued, “I love being beside the sea. It’s majestic and awe inspiring. Lanport seems to be a pretty nice city, not that I have anything to compare it to. It’s a shame there’s a dearth of worthwhile dungeons in the area, though.”

“The undead incursion was horrible. I knew the average citizen was weak, but zombies overran so many people. The greater undead were devastating. I was in Lanport when the uprising happened, and I went to the cemetery early. I killed a lot of greater undead there, and discovered the Lich in a cavern underneath, but it hit me so very hard I had to flee. Its death magic was overwhelming.”

“I’ve fought the Lich twice since. I was able to kill it when I ran across it in town, but of course, it didn’t stay dead. Then it attacked the Academy, and one of its minions almost killed me with a single strike, so that was a reminder that I’m not as strong as I should be.”

They chatted about inconsequential things for a short while, then Duncan took his leave to attend a sword lesson with Master deBouteville, and it was some hours later that they were able to reconvene in a warded room in the Adventurers Guild hall.

“So,” said Pelleas, as soon as Duncan closed the door behind him. “I assume you’ve picked up some additional skills. That much advancement from the skills you had seems unlikely, even for you.”

“I did,” said Duncan. “A number of them came from a surprisingly lucrative delve in the nearby Sawiskin dungeon.” At Pelleas’s raised eyebrow, he continued, “It’s a dungeon on an island nearby. The guild rates it as level ninety, but, other than the rare monsters I face, it’s probably closer to level seventy. I don’t get a challenge from the regular inhabitants anymore.”

“I’m aware of the dungeon. The guild included it in its briefing when I arrived, along with instructions to not tell anyone about it because it’s so dangerous,” said Pelleas.

“It’s not as dangerous as they say. Which is probably why I get so many rare encounters when I’m in there. I’ve fought a flame turtle and a hydra and some crabs, and all sorts. But the suspiciously generous encounter came right after the undead uprising. I fought a winged man with the head of a dragon. It was a difficult fight, but he dropped so much loot.” Duncan pulled his seven new swords and his dragonskin armor from storage so that Pelleas could appraise them.

“In addition to this, I got a box of Technique stones. The whole thing felt like it was a gift from the gods, so I used the stones, and, well, I got a couple of surprises there, too.”

Pelleas was examining the swords and armor, admiration writ large on his face. “These are amazingly good swords. Each with a very specific use and a very specific class of enemy. And the armor is breathtaking. A couple of the dwarven masters can make living armor, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard of any dropping as loot in a dungeon. And you got an entire set to go along with the swords.”

Duncan nodded, storing the loot once more. “It felt like the gods were saying ‘Looks like shit is kicking off, and you’re not ready, so here’s a helping hand’ – it’s more than a little disturbing, honestly.”

“And here’s the result…” Duncan shared his soulgem’s assessment.

Name:

Duncan

Class:

Warrior

Level:

105

Profession:

Adventurer

Strength:

282

Intelligence:

73

Dexterity:

260

Wisdom:

60

Agility:

264

Endurance:

283

Concurrent Active Techniques:

3

Health:

26660

Health Regen:

16800/hour

Stamina:

3880

Stam Regen:

42000/hour

Mana:

20702

Mana Regen:

6860/hour

Mana Reserved:

401

Cultivation:

Mid Earth

Affinities:

Body

Outstanding

Death

Weak

Mind

Strong

Lava

Weak

Spirit

Outstanding

Gravity

Weak

Fire

Weak

Poison

Negligible

Air

Weak

Blade

Outstanding

Water

Weak

Ice

Weak

Earth

Moderate

Decay

Weak

Stone

Moderate

Soul

Moderate

Lightning

Weak

Corrosion

Negligible

Gemstone

Moderate

Space

Outstanding

Nature

Negligible

Healing

Outstanding

Life

Weak

Shadow

Moderate

Metal

Moderate

Blood

Negligible

Techniques

Active

Rank

Passive (limit reached)

Rank

Blade Echo

8

Tempered Blade

8

Fold Space

6

Regeneration

7

Blink

6

Coagulation

6

Mind Spike

6

Hardened Skin

6

Destrin's Restoration

5

Tranquil Mind

4

Flying Sword

4

Spiritual Shield

3

Bladestorm

3

Personal Space Pocket

5

Remove Affliction

4

Ignore Pain

5

Regenerate Other

2

Shadow Sight

4

Cage of Blades

2

Assessment

4

Extract Resources

2

Blade Sense

3

Understand Languages

2

Skills

Rank

1H swords

7

Plate armor

4

2H swords

5

Mail armor

2

1H axes

3

Leather armor

3

2H axes

3

Anatomy

2

Shields

5

Survival

2

Spears

4

Skinning

1

Daggers

3

Meditation

3

Bows

3

Swimming

1

Tracking

1

Riding

1

Elven Language

1 (+1)

“You’re making good progress in your primary combat Techniques, both active and passive. Wait – you have twelve passive Techniques and eleven active Techniques. That shouldn’t be possible. Ah, you are the most fascinating case study. Do you know what your soulgem means by cultivation level?”

“No sir,” Duncan replied. “Repdam said that cultivation was a thing from outside the Valley, along with quantifiers – that’d be people who use soul gems – and that cultivators focused on Body, Mind, and Spirit.”

“I see. Which of your new Techniques came with your swords and armor?”

“Cage of Blades, Extract Resources, Understand Languages, and Regenerate Other,” said Duncan. “I learned Blade Sense by training with Master deBouteville. It was my eleventh passive, and I only tried to use the Techniques from the stones because I’d already broken the rule about ten and ten. I wouldn’t have chosen Extract Resources or Understand Languages myself. Well, really, I wouldn’t have chosen any of the four that came with the armor and swords, but the whole thing felt like instruction.”

“I can understand that sentiment,” agreed Pelleas. “The new Techniques turn you into a bit more of a generalist, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I assume you can stack Regenerate Other and Destrin’s Restoration to instantly heal your target?”

“I can. It’s very mana intensive with Regenerate Other being such a low rank, but it’s quite effective, and it can even restore long lost limbs. I’ve been healing some of the amputees in Lanport to help advance the Technique, but it’s slow going,” said Duncan.

“Doubtless the lack of imminent danger causing that,” Pelleas mused. “You should try healing your group in the training dungeon during fights. Or maybe do a dungeon with more folks your own level so that there’s a real risk to you as you heal people.”

“Perhaps I’ll be invited the next time the Duke’s forces go after the Lich,” said Duncan. “There’s plenty of risk in that.”

“I expect so,” said Pelleas. “For Cage of Blades, I suggest casting it during every fight in which you have more than a single opponent. Most creatures that are a threat to you will break out of it, but they’ll take some damage in doing so, and you won’t advance it if you only cast it when you truly need it, and it won’t help when you truly need it if your target can break out of it because it’s low rank.”

“Extract Resources is a rare Technique, and potentially quite valuable. The materials you can recover from dungeons and monsters may be very valuable both in terms of gold and utility as you rank it up. But it’s going to rank up very slowly, because you’ll be using it out of combat. Use it on every monster corpse and dungeon feature you come across. You never know what you’ll get. You could get a rare ore out of a random boulder.”

“Understand Languages has the same drawbacks – you’ll need a lot of exposure to foreign tongues to rank it up.”

“I’ve been sitting in on other language classes at the Academy,” Duncan interjected. “It’ll rank up at whatever rate it ranks up. I’ll be just as glad for my level not to shoot up further too quickly. Draws too much attention at school. I may just start showing a fake level to hide the fact I’m advancing.”

“Not a bad idea. If you show a hundred and five for the rest of the year, that’s still a ridiculously impressive value. For most people, it’s effectively as intimidating as your true level,” agreed Pelleas.

“Something else I need to talk to you about,” said Duncan. “I met a young orphan, maybe six or seven years old. She has rank six precognition, and a very impressive set of affinities.”

“Precognition?!” Pelleas exclaimed. “That’s one of the rarest Techniques. And at such a young age. I fear for the girl’s sanity.”

Duncan explained how he’d met Bente, and that the Lich really seemed to want her captured or killed. “I have her staying in a manor house I bought,” he said. “She has a governess and several guards to protect her or evacuate her. The Lich knows about her and has tried to kill her before. The girl found me and brought me back to her orphanage to fight it. She said the dead king told the Lich about her.”

“Very troubling,” said Pelleas. “Normally, Divine is an affinity that only manifests strongly in people sworn to the church. The gods protect their own. I assume her affinity is strong?”

“Outstanding Divine and Spirit, strong Healing,” Duncan confirmed.

“I wonder if the church has a strong presence in Lanport,” Pelleas said. “They have experience in helping people with a Divine Affinity. It may be that you’ll need to take her to a bigger center. I will ask around about the church here in the meantime.”

Duncan said, “I saw two representatives of the church when the Academy was attacked. One was a level one twelve warrior who went one on one against a corpse golem that almost killed me with a single swing. The other was a one oh four priest who maintained a barrier the Lich couldn’t penetrate with its Death magic and cast a bolt that shattered the Lich’s own barrier. They seemed puissant. I spoke to them a little afterwards, but they felt standoffish, so I didn’t get to know them at all. Not even any names.”

“I see. I will make inquiries and see if I can meet them myself to get a feel for them,” offered Pelleas. “In the meantime, you may want to build a warded room in that manor of yours – something where she can hide and nothing can sense her.”

“Thank you. I’m trying to keep Bente – the orphan – as safe as I can, but I can’t be there to protect her myself,” Duncan said. “Oh – one more thing. My roommates have asked if you’d be willing to give them advice on their builds. David is a penniless noble from the North who’s received some bad advice in the past, it sounds like, but the other two are Cassandra York, and Amelia Daughtry, who are apparently pretty important people, and have family advisors already.”

“I am always interested in hearing about people’s builds, so I’m happy to talk to all three of them. If they don’t heed my advice, that’s fine; they’ll still have provided me with their builds and there’s value for my research in that.”