Marcus awoke slowly in the now dark cavern. During his impromptu rest, he hadn’t been able to maintain his trusty Mage Light spells, so it was pitch black in the room. Although, a dim glow still radiated from his spear, it wasn’t enough to provide true vision. For having slept on the ground he felt relatively well rested, if not sore, and figured that now would be as good a time as any to start his day. Taking a couple of minutes to stretch taunt muscles was an excellent way to reset mind for what a day that would undoubtedly be difficult. Marcus was determined to either finish this advanced dungeon soon or die trying – he didn’t have the luxury to take it methodically. Typically, the human body can go for several days without food and water, but that’s also assuming you don’t undertake vigorous activities; what he had been undertaking thoroughly qualified.

The of the last chores Marcus needed to desperately address were the numerous notifications that he'd swear were yelling in his ear for attention. The status screen inundated him with an avalanche of information, as per usual, the notifications contained a little bit of everything, from skill increases, to level ups, and even one new ability.

[Level Up + 1]

[(U)Mana Manipulation +3]

[(U)Elemental Manipulation +3]

[(U)Stone Shape +3]

[©Mage Light +2]

New ability learned - (U) Elemental Sight – Level. 1 | Allows the user to see mana in their environment and body. Works by imbuing the optical nerve with a thin sheath of mana.

Marcus chose to ignore the next notification for a moment, might as well save the bad news for last. With his new level he couldn’t help but raise his intelligence the last three points to reach an even 50; causing another message to block in his vision.

Intelligence can represent many things, to a scholar it’s a measure of knowledge, while to others it may represent emotional sensitivity and control. As most commitments, they often lead to further growth and opportunities. New Mana Pool multiplier: 1.2x

Obtaining bonuses for breakpoints in attributes hadn’t been something Marcus had seen coming. It was a revelation that would change his attribute distributions from this point forward - with that in mind he added his remaining points to wisdom, bringing it closer to the assumed bonus. As an aside, he began speculating if the same method worked for spells and abilities.

“Well, they always say that it’s better to take bad medicine quickly...” With that last thought he opened the final message.

You have been infected by an unknown material that is crystalline in nature. Effects are unpredictable on native life forms and more data is required. Further study has uncovered several new symptoms that are listed below:

Prevents normal regeneration from coming into effect. Duration: Unknown Biological framework of host is unstable – blood, tissue, and bone are currently undergoing total replacement. Effect: Unknown Brain and nervous system have now been compromised; infection present, but no mutation has begun Complex lattice structure present in brain cavity – Appears inorganic in makeup; absorbs and purifies hostile mana. Further effects: Unknown Percentage of organism effected: 50%

The stress had been eating away at him after he had made his decision regarding the Crystal Lord path and seeing that message helped just little. While from the outside it presented many unknowns, and it was clearly changing Marcus, he couldn’t really say if it was for good or bad. For now, he’d let his path points gain interest - remaining just a little cautious. Standing, he brushed himself off and took one last look at his complete status. Finding it somewhat overwhelming, he attempted to rearrange parts of it with limited success.

Name: Marcus Diamandis Level - 5

Class - None Health: 480/480 Regeneration 4.8/Minute 1.0 x Multiplier

Stamina: 380/380 Regeneration 57/Minute 1.0 x Multiplier

Mana: 564/564 Regeneration 42/Minute 1.2 x Multiplier

Free Attributes: 0 Path Points: 20 Damage Multipliers: 0% Basic Statistics Total Strength 18 Constitution

39 Agility

12 Perception

41 Intelligence

50 Wisdom 42 Charisma

9

Luck

6

Mana Skills: Elemental Manipulation – 21, Mana Manipulation – 21

Physical Skills: None

Miscellaneous Skills: Field Medicine – 1, Geology - 1

Spells: Inorganic Fabrication – 6, Mage Light – 3, Mineral Synthesis – 1, Pyrrhic Cleansing – 1, Scorching Ray - 4, Stone Shape - 4, Tendrils of Earth – 3

Closing his sheet, Marcus began the process of Stone Shaping the tunnel back open after spreading a couple of Mage Lights around the room. Idly, he became curious about how much time had passed since the plane had gone down. Based off of the moon, which had been at its apex, he assumed the crash happened sometime around midnight. Furthermore, by the time he had arrived inside the mine, it had still been dark outside; unfortunately, the subsequent time spent underground passed as a blur, as without the sun it was difficult to track the passage of days. Adding it all together, by approximating how long he had slept, an educated approximation would put it somewhere in the afternoon; give or take a couple of hours. Marcus’s thoughts while shaping were a disorganized mess, but he kept pondering one question primarily – what was happening on surface?

After reopening the passage, he steeled his mind and took off at a brisk jog. Many mines are more than three kilometers underground, so it wasn’t too surprising that it was just now that the narrow corridors began to open into a more cavernous state. What did surprise Marcus was that the height continued to increase much faster than it really it should. A sharp bend in the passage ahead prompted him to slow down and proceed with caution. Glancing around the corner he was surprised to find the tunnel drop sharply, angling down at a 30-degree incline. Further down the slope, about 150 meters, a collection of buildings stood, surrounded by unmanned walls. Much of this area was illuminated by an unseen source causing a light glow to suffuse the surroundings. The fortification looked to be six meters tall, formed of a dark grey stone, and it stood blocking the entirety of the wide passageway. Furthermore, a pair of huge doors could be seen over the walls at the back of the structure, but from his location not much else could be perceived. Nothing had seen him yet, or at least if they had, an alarm hadn’t been raised. Below the walls perhaps a dozen or two creatures scampered around outside the gates, some of which he hadn’t seen before.

Crystal-Infested Kobolds made up a bulk of the guards, while the new creatures were in the minority. Marcus happened to be too far away to glean specific information on the new hostiles - at least without revealing his presence. For now, he designated them as being Kobold elites as their stature heavily resembled the smaller specimens. The elites stood a head taller than their lesser brethren, but more importantly were almost entirely covered in crystal growths. Marcus was seriously regretting his choice of weapon right now, as blunt weapons would be devastating versus the crystal shell covering the elites; with that said, a spear was much, much easier to handle.

Observing them had been confusing at first, as he had believed - with good reason - that the infection robbed the kobolds of all priorities; outside of violence that is. The system clearly hadn’t communicated everything, as over a couple of minutes he was able to realize a simple hierarchy existed between the elites and the smaller runts. Their intelligence had still undoubtedly taken a nosedive, otherwise it wouldn’t make any sense for them to dig at the walls without tools. Speaking of digging, Marcus couldn’t tell what they were searching for from his vantage, but he really wanted to find out. Intermittently, a kobold would find something, stop digging, and rush to bring it to an elite. The elite would then bring that same something back to the gatehouse, at which point, who knew?

Five kobolds had almost been enough to kill him the first time, as such, quadruple the number was tantamount to suicide in a direct confrontation. Marcus was now much stronger than during that first scuffle, he now possessed a weapon with reach, and most importantly, much higher attributes. The expectation was that those factors would bridge the gap in numbers; not to mention they lacked weapons of their own, or any large amount of intelligence.

Preparation would make or break this engagement. Marcus needed to either lure a couple at a time, or in some way delay the bulk of the kobolds from rushing him all at once. He retreated around the corner and began to Stone Shape the floor – thankfully it was both silent and scaled quickly with level making this process much faster. It took a couple of minutes, but he had managed to create a small pit about a meter deep, and half meter wide. During the excavation he had discovered a small vein of what he believed was iron. Harvesting the iron hadn’t been that difficult using a combination of Stone Shape and Inorganic Fabrication – using the latter, he molded portions of the metal into spiked tips. Contrary to stone, iron was much more difficult to work with; likely the issue had something to do with the density of the material.

Inside of the pits he began to form a series of stone spikes, which he would then embed the iron tips into. One trap undoubtedly wasn’t enough; over the next half-hour, while taking frequent breaks to make sure the kobolds hadn’t discovered him, Marcus formed a staggered series of six pits. Everything was ready to go, Marcus couldn’t afford to use any more time to prepare, he had wanted to produce more traps, but his thirst was already causing him to be dizzy and drained of energy. Fortunately, the next part was simple - try to lure the fewest possible towards him at a time.

The Mage Light spell formed as a semi-solid ball in his hand, setting the sphere down, he gently shoved it down the incline where it quickly began to accelerate quickly. Not waiting to see if this worked or not, Marcus booked it, and within a handful of seconds arrived behind his prepared traps. Picking up the spear he had left behind, which otherwise would have weighed him down, he waited and listed.

A familiar scrapping noise soon filled the air, the ragged breathing of multiple kobolds became audible, and with it a sense of foreboding. Marcus began casting a pair of Scorching Rays, delaying the launch of each attack as long as possible, he nearly lost control of the mana, but to his relief the first of his prey rounded the corner just in time. Releasing the stored energy, rays of fire screamed across distance, making impact on the chests of two kobolds. Marcus had estimated that the spell would simply become absorbed by the crystals, but no, he forgotten something very simple. In the time since he had last tried this spell, not only had he gained levels in it, his intelligence had also more than doubled. So contrary to expectations the ray didn’t stop, but instead penetrated not only the two original targets, but also an additional pair behind them. The four kobolds immediately collapsed like puppets without strings, skidding along the floor for a short distance; not only did Marcus freeze for a second, the other dozen kobolds did as well.

Peace didn’t last very long as both sides quickly recovered, the battle resuming where it had left off. The dozen remaining kobolds became eight when several of their cohort fell into traps, impaling themselves upon the spikes. The final eight safely navigated around the pits but took another casualty when a final ray shot out. Marcus couldn’t finish the cast of his next spell in time before the final seven enemies were upon him.

Keeping his distance with his enhanced attributes, he began to lay into the kobolds with extreme prejudice. Marcus swung his spear in a wide arc landing a blow across the midsection of the lead creature, he followed up the swing with a quick jab to the throat dispatching it before repositioning. The kobolds were constantly trying to get into his blind stops, namely his back and sides, but he was able to prevent them from capitalizing on their attempts. Unfortunately, all good things must come to end an, one of the kobolds managed to get through his guard and slashed at him. The blow had been aimed for his neck, but a quick reaction and subsequent dodge had it instead graze his arm. Shallow cuts appeared in the wake of the attack – followed by a brief flash of disappointment when his increased constitution hadn’t made him immune to the kobolds. The wild attack had made the counterattack relatively simple, leading to him jamming his weapon deeply through the armpit of the creature.

Evidently, he had hit something vital causing it to collapse, reacting on instinct, as several attacks began to close in, he raised his leg, kicking the dead kobold off the weapon. During the fight he had looped back around to the area with unfilled pits, the intended reason for this was just to add an extra hazard for his adversaries to pay attention to, but something much better happened. An unintended side effect of the kick was mildly comedic, because not only did the corpse fly off much faster than he expected, it also contained enough force to slam into another kobold, carrying the pair into the trap.

With only four enemies left their swarm tactics became ineffective and they couldn’t close the distance without taking lethal amounts of damage. It didn’t take long for one of them to charge, earning a thrust to its orbital socket for its efforts. After that it was just a matter of a couple jabs and slashes for all of them to be dead.

“That was surprisingly easy for how many of them there were, but how could I have known that Scorching Ray would be so brutally effective? I’m fortunate none of the elites followed that horde otherwise it may not have been so simple.”

Taking stock of the situation, Marcus was surprised that to find only half of his mana was gone, but most of his stamina had been spent in that brief fight. The first action he took was to make sure all the kobolds that had fallen in the pits were dead, and indeed they were. Briefly resting he stood and walked towards the ramp – it was time to finish this.

Looking down the incline, a pair of elites stared back up at him, as if either waiting for the others to return or maybe for himself. It was much too late to duck back around, so instead he stepped out - intent on taking advantage of the high ground. Scorching Ray after its level ups had a range somewhere around 75 meters, and in that distance, depending on the speed of his adversary of course, he could cast five of them.

Instead of spreading his focus he was going to hammer one of these elites to a pulp... maybe. At the edge of his range Marcus released his spells, sending them careening towards their target, on making contact the kobold was briefly staggered, but otherwise unharmed. No, something had happened, the crystals on its body had begun to glow brightly - seeing his opportunity he fired off his next three rays. After each subsequent hit, the crystals would grow brighter and brighter until they reached a blinding luminescence right as the third made contact. Instead of sloughing off as expected, the elite simply popped, exploding in a bluish yellow nova. The concussive blast not only took Marcus off his feet at more than 20 meters, it also heavily injured the other elite kobold. Getting up slowly, he was finally close to enough to inspect them.

Evolved Crystal-Infested Kobold – Level 10 | Type: Humanoid/Lizard | Part of the leading caste, Evolved Kobolds typically fall into several predefined roles such as warriors, mages, and shamans. Unfortunately, this individual is in the presumed late stages of an infected presumed to be a type of living crystal that alters the bodies of its victims. Different from its lesser kin, slightly more of its intellectual capacity remains.

Marcus had been somewhat close in his naming for this variant, but for now he was just happy this one was nearly dead. Frighteningly, the kobold was twice his level, and unlike the Psionic Illusionist he had seen before, this one could still move to fight back.

The crystals that had been facing his dead compatriot were cracked and, in many places, shattered. In particular, its left leg had been maimed, and if this monster still possessed higher functions would have unquestionably been incapacitated. Marcus began to circle to his left, making sure to keep the injured leg between himself and the creature – taking a stab he made contact, but the blade simply skipped off the cracked section on which the blow had landed.

Meanwhile, the kobold moved faster than he expected as it advanced before taking a deceptively swift swipe towards Marcus’s midsection. He was able to narrowly dodge the attack but was able feel the pressure wave that followed the limb by simply getting close. Before he had been trying to dodge of course, but now Marcus refused to let anything touch him; there was little doubt in his mind it would only take one good hit to put him out of the fight.

Dancing around several strikes he attempted numerous counterattacks towards the kobold, this time at its exposed leg. Several of them connected doing minor damage, that was until the crystal tip spear sliced through thick flesh eventually encountering a solid object, presumably bone, before being torn out again eviscerating muscle in the process. The aforementioned left leg could no longer support the kobolds weight and combined with the steep incline led to it collapsing; beginning a long tumble down the ramp. Marcus followed the kobold, unsure if the fall would be enough to kill it. At the bottom of the ramp the monster laid still, many of its limbs even more mangled than before, but surprisingly it continued to breathe. Several precise cuts later and it was over. Thankfully no further sounds came from the structures; the explosion had been anything but subtle. Seeing as he wasn’t being mobbed down by hundreds of angry kobolds, Marcus sat down to recover.

After several minutes, he began the process of removing every single crystal from the Evolved Kobold as he could manage. Explosives had always been a fascination for Marcus, and any good engineer would be lying if they didn’t occasionally consider how they’d go about destroying their own creations. Perhaps labeling him as a pyromaniac would be apt, but magical explosives just had a ring to it.

Once he was done effectively skinning a kobold, Marcus used his Inorganic Fabrication to scan its body for any more traces, and to his bewilderment found nothing. Just to be sure he cracked open one of its bones and tried again – still nothing. Marcus had finally found a clue that the infection was affecting him differently than the kobolds. Unlike them, the crystals were instead infused inside of his body, passively changing its structure, whereas the kobold version was more akin to a tumor that grew over their scales. He finished collecting all the scraps and shoved them inside the miraculously surviving backpack, ready to move on.

With newfound purpose he marched towards the gatehouse, hoping to find an easy way through the walls. Those very same walls likely contained Marcus’s salvation, but he couldn’t shake the premonition that something was very off about the place.