The spiral stairway’s stonework was different from that in the tunnels or even the area where Morgan first came into the Crucible. The blocks were uniform and fit together closely, with no apparent mortar. The lanterns gave off enough light to see the steps clearly and quite a way up the stairwell. The stairwell itself was a pretty impressive feat of engineering. The steps were uniform, the outer wall seemed very nearly a perfect circle, and the central spire of steps rose in a tight spiral. There was no handrail, and the gap between the steps and the outer wall was several feet, meaning that a tumble off the steps would be pretty devastating. Still, Morgan and Issa made steady progress, Morgan in the lead with his left hand tracing along the central column, his right hand gripping his spear. Issa held her spear and a lantern.

Every 20 feet or so, another lantern burned, and the steps went on this way for a long time, and, soon, Morgan realized they had to be hundreds of feet above the bottom landing. “Just how deep is this fucking place?”

“No one really knows. No one knows where the Crucible actually is. People always travel to and from here through System portals,” Issa’s voice was barely louder than a whisper, and Morgan realized she was, rightly, worried about alerting potential enemies to their presence. He looked back at her and nodded, continuing the climb in silence.

A good fifteen minutes later, he became aware of a change in the ambient light. Looking out and up, he could see that there was a lot more light up ahead than they’d grown accustomed to. He looked back at Issa and motioned for her to follow a bit further back, and then he started to climb as quietly as he could. He felt he knew how to place his feet just right not to make any noise, and he seemed to naturally move within the shadows cast by the central stairway spire. He figured it was his new Stealthy Maneuvers skill at work. After just a few minutes of quietly climbing, Morgan found himself looking up at the end of the stairway. It ended at a landing that opened into another circular room, much like the one at the bottom of the stairs. He crept up slowly and silently but soon could see that the entire room was empty, other than having four lanterns spaced around the outer wall. A solid-looking wooden door was placed in the wall opposite the top of the stairway. He crouched there at the top of the stairs, waiting for Issa.

Her whisper came up from behind him, “Nothing here?”

“Doesn’t look like it. There’s a door, though.” Morgan nodded toward the door and then started to pad his way over to it quietly. He was halfway across the room to the door when it slammed open. A huge, hulking figure stalked into the room.

“Some little piggies for Rotger?” It had the voice of a drill sergeant gargling gravel. Morgan froze in place, taking in the sight of Rotger. He was at least seven feet tall, with maroon-colored skin and bristling black fur covering most of his body. He was clad in leather straps and bits of cured leather and held the haft of an axe in one hand while slapping the heavy axe head into his other. “I been wanting some meat!”

“Filthy Urghat!” Issa hissed, sidestepping around to Rotger’s flank, keeping her spear pointed at him.

Rotger licked his lips, running his tongue along yellow teeth and tusks, “I’m gonna enjoy you, little blueberry.” He lowered his body into a crouch and made a wet, snorting bark sound, then chortled obscenely.

“So, I take it we can’t just all go our own way?” Morgan also started to sidestep, in the opposite direction of Issa, trying to ensure that one of them would have the beastman’s flank.

“Haha, little piggy wants to go his own way? Don’t worry, piggy. You’ll be going your way into my cookfire,” Rotger chortled, continuing to slap his axe into his big, meaty palm. While Morgan fixated on the axe, Rotger leaped with ferocious, explosive energy at him. Morgan was so startled by the sudden movement that he didn’t even get his spear up to intervene. His arm started the motion to jab the spear forward, but the next thing he knew, he was crashing into the stone wall.

It was so disorienting that, for a second, he thought his mind was playing tricks on him. Then he realized his left arm didn’t work, and blood was quickly pooling on the stone around him. He glanced at his left arm and saw that it was bloodied and crooked, and as he struggled to get his breath, his ribs screamed in protest. Blood was flowing freely from a massive gash in his side. Rotger looked at him from about ten feet away, brandishing the bloody axe and laughing in that sick, wet, gravelly chortle. Morgan struggled to breathe while using his spear to pull himself up into a standing position. Rutger took one step toward him, and that’s when Issa struck.

Morgan wasn’t sure if it was the injury, the lighting, or what, but it seemed that Issa was lurking in the shadow by the stairwell one second, and the next instant, she was screaming and jamming her spear deep into Rotger’s back. Rotger roared, spinning so fast that he ripped Issa’s spear from her hands. He swung his axe at her, but she dodged back, escaping by a hair’s breadth. Before she could recover her balance, though, Rotger stomped forward and kicked her. She flew backward, crashing into the wall above the stairway and falling out of sight.

Morgan knew he had seconds to act, so he shut the agony of his left side out of his mind, lifted his spear in an overhead strike, and lunged. He just knew that if he hit Rotger to the right side of his spine, a few inches down from his shoulder, he’d rupture a vital organ and cripple him. His aim was true, and his spear tore through Rotger’s flesh and muscle. The spear moved deep into Rotger’s chest cavity, coming to a stop when it hit the underside of his sternum. Rotger screamed hoarsely, stumbling forward, and Morgan kept the pressure on, pushing on the spear until Rotger fell to his knees, coughing up huge gouts of blood.

As he stood over him, Morgan could feel the Energy start to coalesce around Rotger, getting ready to leave his dying form. Morgan leaned forward and placed his hand on the back of Rotger’s neck. He could feel the Energy coursing under his hand. It was the simplest thing to just pull on it. Rotger squealed hoarsely, thrashing weakly, as a torrent of Energy entered Morgan’s hand, and he pulled it up along his arm and down into his Core. As he pulled more and more Energy from Rotger, some flowed around his Core and over to his wounded left side and arm. He could feel the wounds partially mending. Soon the flow halted, and Morgan could see that Rotger was a drained husk - clearly dead and strangely washed out in color.

“Did you pull his Energy out while he was still alive?” Issa asked in a shaky voice from the stairwell. Morgan looked over his shoulder and saw her standing there, staring at him warily.

“He was dying, and I held him down with the spear. I could feel his Energy, so I reached out for it. Are you okay?” Morgan straightened and looked around. Nothing else seemed to be coming from the doorway, and he couldn’t hear anything.

“That’s not something I’ve seen before, Morgan. It must have something to do with your Vortex Core. Please never do something like that to me. It looked horrific.”

Morgan frowned, “I wouldn’t! Why would I hurt you at all? Please don’t think of me like that.”

Issa sighed and shook her head, “I’m sorry, Morgan. You’re right. You’ve done nothing but help me. I just… I just haven’t met someone like you before, and in this world, people are suspicious because many Energy users are looking for a path to power regardless of the cost.”

Morgan nodded and pointed at the body, “What the fuck is this guy? He swatted me across the room like I was a fly.” He flexed his left arm, shaking it out. It was still very sore and black and blue, but the bone seemed to have knitted together. His ribs, while stiff, seemed to have mostly healed also.

“That is an Urghat. My people have been at war with them for as long as anyone remembers. They eat us. Filthy, disgusting creatures. At least the Yeksa are little more than animals, but the Urghat have speech, and still, they choose to be such savages.” Issa walked over to the Urghat and pulled her spear out. It was bent near the middle with cracks and splinters along the shaft. “Damn. Broken!”

“Why don’t you take his axe? You'll need to use two hands, but at least it has a metal head. Sharp too, let me tell you.” Morgan grinned sheepishly, rubbing the scab over his ribs. Issa nodded and hefted the Urghat’s hatchet in two hands, resting the haft on her right shoulder. Morgan pulled his own spear out of the corpse and pushed it over with his foot, looking at its gear. The leather straps didn’t seem to offer much protection, and they were filthy. Of course, so was he, but at least it was his filth. The Urghat did wear a wide girdle-like belt. A thick leather satchel was attached to the girdle hanging off a decorative, gilt-metal hook. “Well, that’s something,” he said as he bent to unfasten the belt and pull it out from under the creature’s back.

The belt truly was a girdle when he put it on, covering most of his abdomen and lower back. He had to pull the clasp’s teeth through the very last set of holes, making the girdle nearly wrap double around his waist, but it fit. The satchel, when Morgan lifted the top flap, seemed to be empty, just a dark space inside. Morgan frowned and reached his hand into it, feeling nothing but air as he waved his hand around. “What the fuck?”

“It’s a dimensional container,” Issa said matter-of-factly.

“What do you mean, ‘dimensional container’?”

“Energy users that have an Artificer type class can create items like this. It’s a bag that opens onto another dimensional space, larger than the inside of the bag would be.”

“How do I see what’s in it?” Morgan asked, trying to keep his bewilderment under control. Imagine what the scientists back on the Arkship could do if they got their hands on something like this; think what they could do with drive technology, cargo capacity, or even food storage. He shook his head - it wasn’t really science, was it? Energy seemed more like magic than science to him; would it even be compatible with electricity or microchips?

“Its owner is dead, so you should be able to bond with it. Just trickle a bit of your Energy out and into the bag.”

“Trickle my Energy out?” Morgan thought about it. He’d pulled Energy in, easily enough; could he move it out of himself? He concentrated on his core and willed some of the Energy in there to flow out and up toward his left arm. At first, he felt a burning sensation, and he pulled back, reducing the amount of Energy to a small ‘trickle’ as Issa had said. It moved swiftly out along his arm and down to his fingertip. He touched the satchel, pushing the Energy the last little bit out of his finger and into the leather. He instantly felt a connection in his mind to the satchel, and while he was touching it, he could see in his mind’s eye everything that was inside it.

“How do I take things out?”

“Just put your hand into the opening and think about grabbing the item. You should be able to see what’s in there now, right?”

“Yeah, hang on a sec,” Morgan grunted as he pulled the corpse of a rather large, brightly furred wolf-like creature from the sack and tossed it to the ground. “Jesus, he had three of these things in there.”

Morgan ended up leaving most of Rotger’s possessions on the ground near his corpse: the corpses of three wolf-like creatures that Issa called ‘boyii’ hounds, a pile of mystery meat that he and Issa agreed they would not eat for fear that it was the flesh of sapient beings, a small pile of broken, random masonry and furniture, and a crudely carved effigy of a bipedal bear-like creature that Issa thought might be a religious artifact to the Urghat. What they did keep from the Urghat’s belongings were three paper-wrapped loaves of dry bread and a large tin canteen full of water. Morgan easily stowed the hemp sacks full of herbs and jars from the shaman’s chest in the bag, along with three extra lanterns from the stairwell. When he was finished, he closed up the satchel and made sure to fasten the cords to his girdle securely.

“That girdle looks like it might have some special properties too. Probably the work of an Artificer. Try bonding with it, also,” Issa said, running a finger along some of the strange symbols worked into the leather of the girdle. Morgan did as she suggested, and after trickling a bit of Energy into the girdle, he sensed a strong aura of health and well-being from it.

“Does it make sense that I feel more healthy?” Morgan asked.

“Well, you can check your status to see if it has affected you, and that’s the best we’ll be able to do until we find some way to identify it fully.”

“There are skills to identify items?”

“Yes, you can learn spells and skills that do that. I don’t have any,” Issa replied, shrugging.

“Don’t worry about it. We’ll figure it out sooner or later. Status.”

Status

Name:

Morgan Hall

Race:

Human - Base 1

Class:

—

Level:

4

Core:

Vortex Class - Base 1

Energy Affinity:

9.2

Energy:

202/204

Strength:

10

Vitality:

10 (12)

Dexterity:

8

Agility:

11

Intelligence:

17

Will:

10

Points Available:

0

Titles & Feats:

Human Champion

Skills:

System Language Integration - Not Upgradeable, Spear Mastery - Basic, Stealthy Maneuvers - Basic

It looked like the girdle did, indeed, alter his vitality stat. “Well, that’s cool. I think it’s giving me two more vitality,” he smiled at Issa, “are items like this rare?”

“No, not really. After gaining a few levels, most Energy cultivators manage to acquire a magical item or two, especially low-level dimensional containers like that bag. Artificers learn to make those very early, as they are, obviously, very useful.”

“Um, not to be rude, but why didn’t you come into the Crucible with some items like this?”

“I’m sure you noticed the shift I’m wearing is made from the same material as your shorts? The System doesn’t allow entrants to bring items from the outside. Stepping through the portal strips you of belongings,” Issa replied, gesturing at her blood-stained, knee-length, tunic-like garment.

Morgan nodded, “All right, let's get going. See where this big asshole came from,” he growled as he started advancing on the open doorway, spear leveled in front of him. “I won’t be letting one of them get the jump on me like that again.”