Completing the sidequest, I headed back to the village. Since the status of the members of the Poran remained uncertain, I activated again. After it ran out on the battlefield, death suffused the entire area, making it a bit useless at my skill level. Practice helped make things clearer, but I'd been a little busy at the moment to really focus on it.

I breezed through the fighting, but my Stamina depleted gradually over the course of the day, and the opportunities to recover were few. In response to that, I kept my pace back rather gentle. No need to rush.

Instead, I tried to ‘dwell within’ to determine my fourth level stat distribution. Without one of those status windows, a lot of recall and math needed to be done to estimate things. Abilities only grew more interconnected at higher levels, so now was the best time to get a feel for things. I think due to my quick movements I actually acquired a point in Agility that level, but I couldn't say for certain. By then, through casting and taking damage I could gauge Stamina, Mana, and Hitpoints to within about 5 points if all my calculations were correct. I'll continue to reference them as percentages for ease of understanding, but at that point they were around 100, 240, and 160 respectively.

Large numbers relatively, small numbers objectively. The lack of spells was really putting a crimp in how well mana could be utilized, so even if it did increase, I wasn't getting a whole lot out of it. Compound spell casting perks weren't available until Level 100, at least. After reporting back to the village, I'd head right out to practice {Negative Energy}.

Speaking of accumulating things I couldn't utilize at the moment, {Soul Control} started picking up tons of Soul Power from the goblins. Quantity prevailed over quality, and I could feel a mass similar to the icy blue seen with . A not insignificant amount, an undead could probably be leveled up a few times with it. I needed to repeatedly experiment before getting a real feel for it though.

All that could be saved for later, as the late afternoon light penetrated the trees and the ramshackle shacks of the village came into view. Looking around, people went about their daily business. Fishing, fishing, preparing fish, fishing; nothing out of the ordinary. Walking through once, twice, I caught a fleeting glance of the white robes of a ‘Disciple’. Greeting a few of the villagers passed, I made way to Samuel and Henrietta’s hut.

I guess it can be considered a house, it had been offered to the Disciples because of its quality. There were even five whole rooms, how luxurious. The process of warping set in on some of the timber though.

Knocking nonchalantly, I scuffed the dirt with my feet. Footsteps neared the door, but it remained closed. Waiting, I rapped on the door again. I am the one who knocks. Now open up so we can have a discussion.

“You aren't exactly being all that stealthy y’know.” Letting out a yawn, more shuffling came from behind the door. “The only reason the door is still up is because you don't actually live here. Why don't you come out, and we can talk about...hrkk!”

The feeling of [Crippled-Moderate:Foreign Body], an 11% drop in health, and an arrow sticking out of my back appeared. Turning around, an archer ducked back into the long grasses by the road.

I can’t believe it, grass. You’ve betra—

Hinges shrieked and a dagger came down at me as I reminisced over the good times I had with the long grass. The noise tipped me off, but the jab managed to take off 17% health and cause [Bleeding]. Turns out Tyra and the others were better at stabbing than diplomacy, no wonder we never got anywhere.

Both only amounted to 28% of my health, so there wasn't any real danger yet, considering they'd lost the element of surprise. Besides, so far only my melee attacks amounted to anything. Tyra and I stood in the doorway, and she tried wrenching the dagger around. Well, actually that was successful, but damaged bits are already damaged; you aren't trying to break a piece of armor.

Only 5% more damage. With a I struck at the back her knee, and then went on to further trip and shove her onto the ground. Lightly forcing my foot down a few times on her chest, she started coughing and struggling to breath. I wasn't aiming for a fatality, so I avoided the arteries and veins while cutting bits of the...arm lifty muscle. The pectoralis major. Probably.

With Tyra quickly subdued, I turned to the archer. He didn't look familiar, but given that he shot me, I wasn't really doubting he was with the Poran. Beautiful amber grasses swayed in the wind, and there were no strange movements among their waves. He was probably waiting for a chance to launch another arrow, or perhaps pop out with a melee weapon if I approached.

“” Sucker. Interesting fact, bows can also gain red death aura. “”

Rattling off the spell, I skipped the gestures at the cost of a little mana, letting an expensive barrage of ethereal bolts into the foliage. Some grunts of pain were suppressed, and the bow started to move. However, by the time my mana started running low, he dropped the weapon and stumbled away.

The archer didn't get far before dropping, and I approached, keeping my senses alert. It looked like neither one of them died, though the bowman was there only one really in any danger of that. There were numerous punctures, but none looked too serious; bandaging myself up, I stopped his bleeding as well. Then, I dragged the two beside each other, waiting for one to regain consciousness.

The matter went by quickly, and lacked the excessively loud clashing of metal, but we were in the small village. Some people naturally came over to investigate.

“Alric!” Pan shouted, throwing worried glances between myself and the two.

“Don’t worry, I confirmed they aren't Disciples; they're from the Poran after a monster core. Sorry I dragged this back here.” Apologizing, I lowered my head. Really, it was my fault the villagers were bled every morning. I'd taken some responsibility to keep it from going too far, but it still occurred. They wouldn't hold it over my head, but it wasn't the greatest to mess up like that.

“Ah, er, no...you’re…” Pan stammered a bit before taking a deep breath. “You have an arrow sticking out of your back.”

Oops. So much for trying to be somewhat normal.

“Forgot about that.” The Crippling effect had only prevented Stamina regeneration and imposed a multiplier on Stamina costs; it didn't affect such a quick battle. Conjuring , I wiggled the arrow a tiny bit. Trying to feel where the pain came from, I compared it to knowledge of my anatomy. From the way it poked around, it lacked barbs, so I went ahead and pulled it out. Minor [Bleeding] started but was soon stopped.

“You seem to have this handled, and consider the village.” Pan spoke, looking at Tyra and Bowman. “But recall that not many can handle events as you do.”

“Ah, got it. Don't worry, nothing too bad will happen.” Given the era and themes in the world so far, the Poran’s lives were probably forfeit, but I felt the need to say something. They weren't being dragged away to be tortured to death or anything.

“I don't have any doubts. Please do what you must to keep the situation from becoming more entangled.”

We weren't the only ones in front of the house anymore, and the few villagers were beginning to congregate. Mostly there was confusion among them, along with worry. Pan’s presence was composed, and that kept the situation from escalating to an emergency.

Haa~ you're so reliable Pan. How envious, I'm just a drifter.

Pan kept the crowd from herding around the scene and began to explain what he knew. I put a criminal over each shoulder and moved back to the woods again.

“Don’t worry, I'll make sure they don't bother us. Just leave it to me!” Calling back I hoped to ease their worries a bit.

Not too far into the woods, I threw the two down like sacks of potatoes. Never having handled a sack of potatoes, the simile required a measure of good faith. Did potatoes even still come in sacks? Well, they probably did in Derriad.

Propping them against two trees, I alternated nudging them with my foot. No wake spells, no revitalization spells, and using a proper healing potion would be a waste. While waiting, there was finally downtime to practice with {Negative Energy}.

With a superfluous snap of the fingers, grey wisps formed over my palm. Flickering between two and three inches, the shadowy flame was about as thick as three pencils. It looked quite weak, but to be fair, it hadn't had any upgrades yet. In light of that, perhaps its inefficiencies could be overlooked...hah!

I made the spout of negative energy vanish quickly after creating it. For just two seconds, 20 mana had swiftly vaporized. 10 mana a second? Even if there was some frustration with not having spells that fully utilized my mana, this was just ironic sadism on the part of the universe!

There were more questions than about if my magic was being modified on the fly by malevolent entities though. Again, I shall explain a few things for those who don't play Underworld of Armok. If you do, well I’m just going over Class Abilities, Necromancers in particular for obvious reasons.

The reason {Negative Energy} is differentiated from spells like , is because it is not a spell but a Class Ability. All classes have around 5-9 primary class abilities; each one is the foundation of a long skill tree of upgrades for it. The branches intertwine to different extents, for example, {Negative Energy} and {Fear Aura} have the ability [Harm Aura].

These abilities are unlocked by spending unlabeled, but unofficially dubbed minor perk points. These are acquired every ten levels, and the average serious player will have 100-120 of them(ignoring the rare instances where bonus perk points are acquired). That’s a seemingly large number, if you don't play Underworld that is.

There are seven Necromancer abilities! If I returned to getting around 250, that’s 35 per tree. Plenty? Blasphemy! Each Class Ability has around three upgrades to spend perks on, not including the cross-tree abilities! 12 each then? Naive fool! These upgrades aren't one and done, you can purchase almost all of them multiple times to increase their efficacy! Skip that? Then you miss out on higher tier abilities that require multiple ranks in certain abilities! Not to mention perk points can be spent on bonuses to your regeneration rates, and other base values for your character! Forget 250, even 300, or 500 wouldn't be enough!

Underworld of Armok was a notoriously free game. Thinking certain interactions led to ‘unbalanced’ characters was a foolish notion. A min-maxed character has a min; that is inevitably exploited, just like mono-stat builds. Rounded characters may not be the ultimate powerhouses, but they are the ultimate survivors.

Rant aside, what I'm getting at is there are many incarnations of {Negative Energy}. However, the manner in which it manifested was unlike any from Underworld of Armok. The usages I should be able to access were imbuement, damage(touch range only), and spell enhancement. Grey flames were not the way Negative Energy appeared at my level. Without a clear definition of purpose, I summoned Negative Energy as a...force? particle? without any of the old rules I was used to.

As most of what you read was exposition, hardly any time passed since I brought over the Poran and summoned the Negative Energy. Naturally, as I began to ponder the topic, the two woke up. I knew the world just had to be messing with me.

In a sour mood, due to my arcane research being interrupted, I wanted things to go quickly. Still, I needed to mind my heroism. Even if no one’s watching, that doesn't mean I don't have to worry!

“So how are you two doing?~” In a saccharine voice, I crouched down close to them. “Now please, tell me why the Poran think I have this beast core?” They had know something, otherwise they wouldn't have been able to gather information effectively…

After a thought, hopefully they were only terrible at their jobs.

“Yyy-you…” Bowman tried to stagger up, but was softly pushed back down.

“You can save us both a lot of time and effort if you just tell me. I'm not going to kill either of you after you do, so you might as well spill the beans. Then you can head right back to the *Don* and tell him I don't have it, and don't mess with me anymore.”

“Alric you bastard...you’ll pay for this!” Tyra spoke between coughs, eliciting a sigh. Why bother dallying any longer?

activated, just in case. Other than those two, there were no abnormalities in the area.

“Why was I suspected? My walk through Gel Square? I’m foreign? Ordered by your Disciple backers? A mage? Mistaken identity?” Listing the unlikely scenarios, I didn't get much of a reaction from their faces. “Don't tell me this large group was all to check up on a loose end? I can't believe an organization would waste so much manpower. Hmm, sounds like the monster core might really be valuable…”

Looking thoughtful, it was more a show that I didn't know anything than of my desire. If that was the case, I definitely did want it though. Finally Tyra spoke up again.

“We were supposed to recruit you, forcibly if necessary. Mages are useful and the Boss can make anyone talk, if we couldn't.”

“Ugghh. If you'd just said so, we could have talked things out. Instead you play the role of a crappy spy, and then all this happens. Did you know I participated in a goblin civil war? That’s what that mess in the forest was. And it's all because you people just assumed I had this stupid beast core. Messing up my schedule—gah! You Poran are such a pain.” Yammering on in frustration, it seemed I'd been caught in the fallout of someone else’s plot. I really had nothing to do with it, I wanted to move on to better things. I heaved Bowman up, and did the same to Tyra. They let out a few pained groans in protest before realizing I was just helping them stand.

“Go. Get. Tell your boss not to bother me, unless he has some real evidence that I did something. Now get lost, and stay out of my village.”

With my height, it wasn't hard to literally kick them in their rears, forcing them to get moving. They were muttering and cursing under their breaths, but left with haste. I was so glad that was over.

I was finally starting to feel tired. Time to go make sure Ria had been fed and go to sleep in my usual plot of grass.

A/N: AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

Man, I want to put out more chapters, but I barely wrote anything today and yesterday. Maybe I'll stick with one a day again until we reach next month then BAM! A bunch of chapters to try and snowball my way into the monthly fictions.

Also TV tropes people. Teeee veeee troooopes. Plz. I begin u.