Blessings by the obelisk

Their nest-trap was in pieces, and a crying Suri huddled up together with the tree pad when they got back. “Why did you take so long?” She said in an almost crying voice. “I thought I would die when they tried bringing down every tree around those parts.”

“Well, it held on, didn’t it?” Theo shrugged. “Anyway, your premonition saved me from a bothersome setback. Thank you.”

“You killed the orc chief?” She sat up.

“More or less… Yes.” Theo laughed as Hamon jumped up to tell her all about what happened.

They relaxed on the last day of the week. Theo stressed the importance of taking some time to chill out when you could, it could save your life in ways you wouldn’t expect.

At the dawn of the new week, a huge pillar of light appeared in the distance at the forest’s edge. The imp’s voice echoed on everyone’s mind. Hello, humans still alive! Follow the light pillar, or you will regret later. That’s it, bye!

Suri woke up startled. “Did you guys hear that?”

Hamon rubbed his eyes, “I guess so,” and yawned. “The imp’s voice? Yes.” He looked towards Theo, who was already preparing himself to leave. “I guess we go.”

The closer they got to the pillar of light, the dimmer it became. Suri was really worried about the flaming wall at the forest’s edge, but that seemed to have disappeared. When they finally got there, the light was all but gone. In place, there was a five meters tall white obelisk full of inscriptions glowing in dim blue light.

Three people were already there talking excitedly, one of them with ice shards growing from his hands. Hamon quickly ran up to it. “Neat.”

The imp who was flying around greeted the three of them when they got close. “This obelisk marks the arrival of your group. It will last for a week.” It motioned towards it. “Just touch it and choose your rewards. You will need it.” It left them with a smile.

Theo led the group towards it, admired the demon language inscribed, and touched it.

You survived, thus proved yourself worthy to enter the abyss.

Achievements:

I‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎Follow orders:‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‎‏‏‎ ‎‏Survive

I ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎Free spirit:‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‎‏‏‎‎‏‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‎‏‏‎‎‏Flee the goblin camp

I ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎No mercy:‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‎‏‏‎Eradicate the goblin settlement

I ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎Fighter:‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‎‏‏‎‎‏‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‎‏‏‎Kill an orc

II ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏Brave warrior:‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‎‏‏‎Reach level 1

IV‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‎‏‏‎ ‎‏One of a kind:‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‎‏‏‎ ‎‏Kill the matriarch

Choose your blessings, you have 10 favor with the gods.

That… that changes it all. The amount of favor he got from killing the matriarch was much higher than he expected. Every time before entering a new depth in the abyss, your achievements were recognized by the world. It didn’t matter where you started, the achievement types were always the same. Only what you had to do to get it differed. To get the ‘One of a kind,’ some people might have to free a vampire count’s grasp, slay an underwater monster or kill an orc matriarch.

The hard part of getting achievements was that, for it to count, you had to impact the depth you were on a wide scale. The more they advanced, the harder it became to do so. Thus, humanity kept getting weaker. Many insane individuals appeared trying to find out what triggered or not achievements. Complete massacres and huge nonsensical offerings to the gods were not that far fetched. All that just to see if it would give more favor; it didn’t.

The place they were in was also called ‘Depth of survival,’ a trial of sorts before being freed into the ‘Depth of kingdoms.’ It was smaller; every little action you did, impacted it as a whole. There were some achievements he knew of but weren’t feasible for him. For example, Lucas didn’t reach five favor by being a ‘Brave warrior,’ but by getting ‘United we stand,’ the prerequisite was that all newcomers survive the trial. Ulysses didn’t even fight, he just got some mind-boggling achievement titled ‘Chosen by the gods’ for having a one in a million encounter with a rare spirit.

Blessings were divided into innate, common, rare, and unique. Innate being those like his ‘prompt recollection.’ Theo excitedly opened the unique list.

I‎‏‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‎‏‏‎‎‏‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‎‏‏‎‎‏‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‎‏‏‎‎‏‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‎‏‏‎‎‏‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‎‏‏‎- Common

III‎‏‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‎‏‏‎‎‏‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‎‏‏‎- Rare

V‎‏‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‎‏‏‎‎‏‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‎‏‏‎‎‏‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‎‏‏‎‎‏‎‏‏‎- Unique

Eye domain

Shifting phaser

Totem of salvation

Plane dominance

Guiding light

Eternal space

…

The list went on and on. Once a blessing from the unique list was chosen, no one could get it anymore. He planned for getting blessings of mixed rarities, but that needed to be rethought. Here was a chance of getting two unique blessings with the biggest synergy. Theo needed to choose with care. If, as he said to Hamon before, attributes were just a clutch imposed to help them and mattered less and less later, blessings were the complete opposite. They would be the line that decided the ones leading humanity and the ones following.

After much debating Theo decided to go with his old plan at least in part. As much as he wanted two synergistic blessings, it would be a loss too great not to choose his old blessing. It was the one he was most proficient with, after all. That decided, choosing the next one was a child’s dream coming true since he had always envied that blessing when he came to know about it.

Theo chose two of the still open blessings after committing the whole list to memory: ‘Mind Rites’ and ‘Artificer of Maladum.’ ‘Mind Rites’ was his old blessing which led him to the depth of colossus, it enabled him to see the materialization of blessings and magical effects as rituals. Theo always thought those rituals were unnecessarily complex and full of nonsensical runes and geometries enclosed by a circle he never came to a head about. He could observe other people using their blessings and commit those rituals to mind to be used later. It wasn’t as flexible as a real blessing, but he could amp up the strength a lot with the help of a few other people. ‘Artificer of Maladum’ were new grounds, he had only heard rumors about it, but in theory, it should enable him to tweak with the manipulation phase of magical items and possibly also his rituals. He had great expectations for using those two blessings together.