The morning came shockingly quick, Andius being thrust into consciousness with no warning whatsoever. He felt both amazing and terrible at the same time; he hadn’t needed to deal with the monster in his dreams, but the effects of whatever Amira had given him made his body heavy and unresponsive. With weak muscles Andius forced himself into a sitting position and looked around, the landscape was unchanged from last night but the pulsing grass was much dimmer now.

Amira and Raizus had already gotten up and were looking over the scroll near of of their bedrolls. “It’s actually not very far from here, maybe an hour walk or two out of our way.” Amira said, sounding more and more excited about these ruins as time went on. Andius achingly walked closer and looked down at the scroll: it was a portion of a map that had been cut out, a circle drawn with red paint over a small part of the parchment.

“Sounds good to me, we should probably start heading out?” Andius offered while rubbing his eyes. Whatever Amira had given his was like sleeping-aids on steroids because this grogginess just wouldn’t leave him alone. Amira nodded with an excited smile and packed up her scroll and furs with more speed than he had ever seen her use.

Raizus walked over and bumped into Andius’ side, causing the smaller man to nearly stumble over. “You alright now man? You seemed pretty spooked before.” Raizus’ words brought back that dread Andius had been trying his best to ignore. He had to face the facts, there was something stalking him in his dreams, and it had just taken a part of him.

Andius just gave his friend a weak smile, “Yeah man, I’m fine. Just been having some bad dreams, you know?” Raizus frowned down at his friend but seemed to think better of prying further and just shrugged, walking off to his things and starting to pack up. Andius went to do the same, the heavy feeling from the conversation stuck to him now as he thought over his options. He was missing part of his soul, so that made him a member of the undead technically. He was sure that he could use such a thing to his advantage, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to.

He could probably get help from the arch-mage ion Arcanis, but he would have to get there first and he couldn’t do that until they searched the ruins. It seemed like his only option was to press ahead with everything he had, so he set his mind to the task and hefted his now fully packed bag.

The group began their journey to the ruins without much conversation, leaving the strangely transformed land after a few moments. the sight of the shrine’s tree and transformed landscape was still gorgeous to Andius, and he was a bit saddened that he had to leave it behind to continue his adventure. Andius realized he hadn’t used his most recent level ups, so he pulled open his Status screen while they traveled, what he saw making his eyes widen in shock.

——————

Name:Andius

Title: Reborn

Level: 8

EXP:228/800

Specialization: Shadow-Caller

HP:160/160

Stamina:260/260

Mana:500/500

Strength:11

Dexterity:27

Constitution:16

Intelligence:25

Charisma:25

Wisdom:11

——————

When had his mana gotten so massive? In an almost panic Andius began searching through notifications and status screens trying to find the reason for his sudden surge in magical prowes. He finally pulled up a page he hadn’t noticed before in his spell list marked ‘mana-system’ that showed his internal mana-flow.

There were gates all over his body that were open but with chain wrapped around them, two of them completely open and transferring mana back and forth. Beneath the image there was a small message. ‘While Mana-Gates do far more than just increase your overall mana it is it’s most notable effect. Mana is calculated as so: (10*X(2))*Y(25) Where X is the number of mana gates open and Y is your intelligence.

Andius stared at his display dumbfounded even as he followed the group; mana gates were incredibly useful, no wonder Charla had freaked out so much when she found out about his. He shook his head a few times and looked back to his stats, he had 10 points to allocate into them and plenty of time to think about it.

His dexterity was still his highest stat from when he couldn’t use magic but he was still tempted to increase it since it meant he would be able to participate in fights himself and not reply on his minions for everything. Constitution was also within range of leveling up if he used most of his points on it, but he wasn’t a tank and his points were becoming more and more sparse as time went on. Mana regeneration was becoming more of a problem since his pool was getting so large, so Andius slapped five of his points in there and another five in his Charisma since it was his main damage stat.

Next was the skills tab, in which he could apply six of his newly attained points. He didn’t even hesitate to put one of his points into climbing, it was a ritual by now and he knew the skill would become useful for positioning. The remaining five skill points were a tough decision, he had a lot of skills but was focusing pretty hard into summoning lately, so it would make the most sense to spec more into that. Even with that thought in mind, Andius couldn’t help but feel like that was a waste of points, that they would be better spent in diversifying his build more. With a groan Andius decided to follow his instincts and invest his five points into the dodge skill, it would be worth while to have no matter how he played.

——————

Dodge Level: 17

You can wear armor or use a shield to take less damage, or you can avoid it all together, which is better? While others may think heavy armor protects them, you know it’s simply in the way of your true potential. True masters of this skill can stand in a hail of arrows and never take a single blow!

X(17)+Y(13)% dodging speed while in combat, where X is the level of this skill and Y is half your dexterity. 0.Y(0.27)*X(17)% chance to dodge an attack automatically, where x is the level of this skill and where Y is your dexterity.

——————

He looked over his updated skill panel with a bit of satisfaction even as he walked with his companions, only have focusing on both tasks at the same time. Another notification came to him informing him that he had earn an additional 2 specialization points with leveling up. As much as he wanted to get deeper into his summoning tree, right now wasn’t the time to be sucked into his skill tree and lose all sense of his surroundings

That done, Andius confirmed all of the changes and grinned at his new statistics, he had already come such a long way from where he first started, if he continued at this rate he might actually end up being competitive in the late game.

The group continued walking for a while, chatting about various things for before they found themselves right in the center of a valley that they somehow hadn’t noticed until they were deep in it. The trees and underbrush looked completely different here, as if they had just been transported into a jungle area rather than fields; even the forests in the area didn’t look like this. Andius grabbed one of the many vines that were hanging from the trees and looked at his companions, “Uhh, when did we walk into a Forest?” He asked, caught off guard by the sudden change in scenery.

“I don’t know.” Amira said, looking around cautiously and gripping her staff a bit tighter. “It was sudden though, even the air here feels different…” She walked back to where they had come from, but after walking about thirty feet, she walked back to the group and shook her head. “No use, we really must have just lost track of where we were.”

Andius frowned and looked over to Raizus, who’s eyes were locked to something in the distance. “You alright man?” He asked, concern for his friend rising as he turned to see what he was looking at. His jaw dropped as his eyes landed on what looked like a structure from a Sci-Fi movie.

The structure was built like an arrow with a large door at it’s front, the metal plating segmented in a way that reminded Andius of Scale male with the way they were layered on top of one another. The entire structure was massive and made with such precision that it definitely seemed out of place in the fantasy setting this game seemed to take place in, especially since it wasn’t showing any signs of decay. “That…. doesn’t seem right, did we high jack into another game or something?” Amira asked, getting a confused look from Raizus.

“I think these are the ruins she mentioned,” Raizus said, sounding far too sure of himself for the situation, “What if this is how all ‘magic’ ruins are, and whoever built them were just really advanced?” He let off an excited gasp and gave a wide eyed look that might cause one to mistake him for a child, “What if they’re from Aliens!?”

Andius was actually agreeing with Raizus until that last part, which was so ridiculous that he stopped in his tracks and squinted at him. “Raizus, this is a fantasy game. It’s way more likely that there was a more advanced race or something in the past.” Amira just shook her head and kept walking towards the large structure, far more interested in it than the two blathering idiots next to her.

The forest felt heavy, humidity in the air making all of their clothes stick to them and become weighted down with moisture. Andius was the first to notice, “Uhh… Don’t jungles usually have birds and stuff Amira?” He asked, sounding much more on guard than he had just seconds ago.

“Of course they do you idio-”

Andius cut her off and pointed up at the treetops, “Then why can’t we hear them?” Now that he had pointed it out, the entire group realized that there was not a single sound in this strange jungle save for them. It was so eerily quiet that they could hear one another’s breathing.

Without needing to communicate, the group sprang forward into a dead sprint for the ruins, and the forest exploded to life along with them. Monkeys howled and screamed as they jumped from branch to branch chasing them, the sound deafening and horrifying. Something hard hit Andius on the back of the head and he would have fallen if it weren’t for Raizus pulling on his armor, “Keep going!” He said, not waiting for Andius to recover before shoving him forward.

Andius looked behind him as he ran and regretted it immediately. These things looked like monkeys and were about the size of a human, but they were covered in a tribal looking body paint and wore what looked like Tiki Masks. There were hundreds of them, he had no idea how they hadn’t noticed them before but he knew that if even one of them caught up they would all be sent back to respawn.

The group made it to the ruins and dove inside, but it was just a shallow entrance no more than 10 feet deep with a door on the inside and nothing stopping the monkeys from chasing them in. Oddly the first of the group made it to the precipice and skidded to a halt, flailing it’s arms so as not to go inside. The rest of the creatures came to a stop there as well and screamed at the three adventurers, leaving them all looking back and forth at one another.

“What the hell was that?” Andius asked, getting an anxious shrug from Raizus and a shake of the head from Amira. “Should we like… chase them off or something?” Andius had no idea what to do in this situation, they clearly didn’t want to enter this place, but they definitely wanted to kill them.

Amira shook her head and turned around to look at the door, speaking absently while she examined the strange architecture. “No need if they can’t get in here, I’d rather not kill and indigenous species if I don’t have to.” Even in her somewhat distracted state she managed to make her words sting without seeming rude. She froze a second later making Andius worry she had been hit by a trap or something, but when he saw the smile on her face he was even more concerned. That smile she had on could make any antagonist look like a mini-boss, it was downright creepy. “There are words written on the walls. Written in Latin.”

Raizus groaned and shook his head, “Well that sucks, guess we’re gonna have to figure out a way through the monkeys then huh? Shame about all the gold you spent.” Raizus said apologetically, drawing his sword and getting ready for a fight.

“You idiot, how do you think I knew it was Latin?” Amira jabbed, smile vanishing in favor of an irritated scowl.

Raizus shrugged, “I ‘unno, is it distinct or something?” He said, making Andius snicker off to the side and have to look away thanks to the glare he got from Amira.

She shook her head and turned back to the words, looking them over carefully. “It’s because I understand them. I speak Latin.” Andius and Raizus looked at one another, they weren’t sure why they were surprised but they definitely were. She followed the words with her finger while speaking them aloud, “Immortalis sal- bo fregi. Tempus excitationis veniat.” The words sounded strange to Andius, but this crushing weight came over him with every word and grew stronger and Amira continued. When she finished speaking the door ahead of them suddenly slid upwards at startling speeds and Amira collapsed to the ground.

Andius knew exactly what that feeling was, those words held incredibly powerful magic to them. He wasn’t sure he he hadn’t collapsed himself, it had felt like his head was in a hydraulic press at the bottom of the ocean and the release from the sudden magic made him so light headed he had to lean against the wall. Only Raizus was unaffected by the entire ordeal, and was just standing there looking confused. “Uhhh…. You guys alright?”

Amira stirred on the ground and looked over at Raizus with murder in her eyes, “No we’re not alright you idiot, get us inside!” Her voice was dry and raspy like she had just chugged a gallon of sand, so Raizus thought better of saying anything else and picked up the grouchy woman. He went to grab Andius as well but he just waved him off and staggered inside as well.

Once they entered the next room, the door behind them slammed shut leaving them trapped. Blue lights erupted to life on the walls, little jars just above head height holding what looked light lightening in them illuminating their path. They were in a short corridor made entirely of metal that was segmented and plated in a way that made the cracks look like circuitry. The more Andius looked at it, the more he realized that might be exactly what they are. “Uhm… Guys, I think this while place is some kind of computer.”

Amira scrunched her brows at Andius, “Don’t be ridiculous, you said it yourself this is a fantasy game!” Her face fell however when he pointed to the ground and walls, all made of that same silvery metal. “Oh.” She whispered, completely at a loss for once.

The corridor went on for a little while, and had two paths on each side, a larger door dead ahead of them with four glass globes surrounding it. “Think we found ourselves a Dungeon guys, hope you’re ready for puzzles.” Andius was excited, he was great at this part.