We spent a few days resupplying in Houston before we set out.

“So, what's the plan?” Martin asked as he followed me onboard.

“First I need to pick up some new abilities.”

He looked at me in confusion, “Uh, why didn’t you do that in the bazaar?”

“Why pay, when I can get them for free?” I said with a wink.

“Part of your new class?”

I nodded.

“Well, this oughta be interesting.”

Ska and Fiona greeted us in the kitchen as I went over the plan.

“First we take out these contracts for the Marshall. Try to keep as many alive as possible, I want to try my skill on all of them to see what comes up. I figure with our speed and ability to track these men we can probably finish in a few days. Then we head for the Jackal pit.”

Ska gave a toothy grin and growled happily at this news.

I set out two rings I had purchased with that destination in mind. “These are mind barrier rings. They should be able to protect us for six hours, enough time to clear that dungeon. If my theory is correct and I gain the skill I’m looking for there, we can head to one last dungeon.”

I wanted to hit up Suburbia again to get the abilities that Kragor the Champion possessed. This was all assuming I could get abilities from monsters. The Jackal pit would give me that answer.

We found the first group of outlaws, camped out in a shallow swell, deep in the Texas countryside. They would have been nearly impossible to locate without the Reaper title. There were around a dozen of them, ranging from level eight to level fourteen. We descended on them in the dark and they had little time to put up a defense before we mowed through the guards.

I also learned that my new ability Sunder Skill affected anyone that attacked me. Knowing this I used Beacon on the four survivors before we finished them off. They were a capable lot of outlaws, they would have to have been, considering they had survived for so long but they couldn’t keep up with our skills and enchanted gear.

“That’s the last of them,” Martin said, recalling his summoned creature.

“Good, you guys loot, I need to see what skills I gained.”

I looked over the four new skills.

Acidic Coating: Coat your blade with a potent acid, does not affect the weapon. Cost 10 mana 10 stamina, Cooldown 2 min

Escape: A short-range teleport that allows you to shift up to 20 feet. Cannot be used to close in on target. Cost 10 mana 30 stamina, Cooldown 1 hour

Puncture: Adds penetrating power to your attacks, allowing you to negate up to five armor points. Cost 5 mana 15 stamina, Cooldown 1 min

Double Strike: Causes your next attack to deal double the weapon damage. Cost 10 mana 15 stamina, Cooldown 1 min

The skills I captured were not really anything spectacular. It was weird seeing a stamina cost, I had never had the stat on my page before, probably because it would have been useless information, considering my abilities all used mana but there it was now. A new bar appeared under my mana bar. It looked like it took base strength times base endurance as a calculation but it also added in my boost.

Stamina: 340 (380)

It was a small amount and it made me realize this was probably why non-magic classes didn’t use as many abilities as magic classes did. That being said, they could outlast a caster, considering the stamina regen was based on the Strength modifier times Endurance modifier.

Stamina Regen(M): 819

At my level, I recovered almost fourteen stamina a second. That was more than enough for me to spam abilities until I got bored or my target died. Although, I can’t imagine most people that relied on stamina, stuck a bunch of points in Intelligence. There wouldn’t be any point seeing as even with a base-ten Intelligence they could easily get above 300 mana. That would be more than enough to feed these abilities.

I decided to hold onto Double Strike. I would have held onto Acidic Coating but it didn’t activate on my staff, it only worked when I pulled out Fiona’s old sword. I decided to use Void Lottery on Escape and Puncture to see what I got.

The sensation of skills getting ripped away was… unpleasant to say the least. In its place, a new skill was shoved into my soul.

Reflect: Reflect the damage of an attack to the attacker. Must be used within two seconds of the attack. Cost 20 mana 25 stamina, Cooldown 10 min

It was better than what I gave up but it meant I actually had to take the damage, which kind of sucked.

We wrapped up here and moved onto the next target.

***

We cleared out the remaining three groups of outlaws. I didn’t get any noteworthy abilities from them and used Void Lottery to try and get something better.

Nightwalker: You are 30% harder to see in the dark, duration 30min. Cost 40 mana 10 stamina. Cooldown 1 hour

Summon Clay Pot: You can summon an inert clay pot that can hold one gallon. Cost 2 mana. Cooldown 5 min

Arcane Bolt: Fire a bolt of arcane energy that deals INT x .15 modifier damage to one target within 20m. Cost 50 mana. Cooldown 2 min

Wall of Thorns: Conjure a five-foot-high, ten-foot-long wall of sharp thorns. Thorns deal five damage a second and reduce agility by two for anything caught in the spell. Cost 75 mana. Cooldown 40 min

After sacrificing the other skills, this is what I was left with. Not everything was a winner but I would need to wait another day to try again. This left me with six open skill slots, technically seven if I included the one I had from clearing the underground horde dungeon. I decided to hold off on using Reclaim for the moment. I could use it mid-battle if I needed to free up a slot. But I was leveling quicker than I could fill the slots.

That was another advantage of dealing with higher-level enemies. I was now level eight in my second class. Fiona had finally hit level seventeen, catching up to Martin. It wasn’t surprising, considering he had spent a month playing negotiator while we had fought off a massive amount of creatures.

I didn’t begrudge the man his time off. It seemed to have settled him and given him the time he needed to grieve over his sister’s death. I knew once we finished off the Black Dragon he would bow out again to continue his work with the Marshall. I was ok with that.

We landed back in Houston and Martin dropped off the bounties. I picked up my finished commission from the Bazaar and we left. All in all, we hadn’t been back more than two hours. With our goal in sight, it was too important to get there quickly as possible. The only detours allowed were to hit those two dungeons. I needed at least one of those skills to even the playing field with Randy Cotton.

The flight south of the Spine was quiet and uneventful. Using a telescope, I was able to see our entrance into the dwarven stronghold was still visible. There were no signs that anyone had been there since we last came through.

We flew over that unnamed coastal town where the Cartel had taken over. Nobody below noticed us as we passed overhead, the cloak rendering us invisible to the eyes below. I did track Kurt as we flew past, I wanted to get a better feel for that title and how accurate it was. Turns out, pretty accurate. I watched the man through the remote viewer until we were out of sight. It seemed the city hadn’t changed much since we came through.

We passed over the barren rocky wasteland beyond the plateau of the town, heading northwest. Our trip was much faster this time around as I set the fortress down half a mile from the entrance.

As soon as the outer door opened the unmistakable scent of sulfur washed over me.

My endurance was high enough that I didn’t bother covering my nose this time. Ska wasn’t so lucky and he pushed a gnomish rebreather into his nostrils. Martin just used a nose plug as we hurried toward the entrance.

As we grew closer we could already hear the maddening laughter of the jackals. I didn’t have to signal the others as we each activated the rings. I donned my armor and staff and we rushed toward the entrance that had been cleared of debris.

The first skill I got was Sneak Attack. This proved my theory, I could only gain skills from sentient enemies. I caught a group of five jackals in my Wall of Thorns while the others tore them apart. I gained another skill called Underhanded Blow. I would have to look at them later as the fighting grew more intense.

It wasn’t until our fourth encounter that I finally got the skill I had been aiming for.

Maddening Laugh: Inflicts Madness debuff on all enemies within hearing range. Bypasses any attempt to negate sound. This insidious spell pierces the mind of its foe, unseen until noticed. Intelligence and wisdom are lowered by one point for each stack. Lasts one hour or becomes permanent if stats reach 0. Cost 200 mana. Cooldown 10 min.

I was glad I had chosen to go with an item that defended the mind rather than simply blocking out the sound. If I had thought myself safe from the effects, I might not have even noticed until it was too late this time. With my mission accomplished, we dove into the creatures with a fury born of past frustrations.

It took a little over an hour to clear the warrens and tunnels of the dungeon. There were a few simple traps that would collapse areas or cause you to trip and fall into a spit of deadly poisoned spikes but our attributes were high enough that it allowed us to avoid these simple traps. The only victim was Martin’s summon. It had been crushed when it set off one of the rockfall traps, too stupid to avoid it. Martin had decided not to resummon anything as it was more a hindrance than a help at that point.

The boss Jackal turned out to be some sort of demonic half-breed shaman. With its enhanced musculature and size, it resembled more a pure werewolf than its lesser brethren. Despite its vaunted size and a higher level of nineteen, it couldn’t take on the four of us. The fight didn’t last long as the three of us distracted it, pulling its malevolent magic as Fiona circled around behind the creature and stabbed it through the head. With these creatures cleared out, the dungeon would return to its natural denizens, no longer spawning the Jackals.

It was a similar situation to the goblin dungeon I had run across. They had cleared out the normal monsters and taken up residence. So long as the boss remained, the dungeon would respawn any losses. This only worked for borderline monsters though, humans or fully sentient creatures couldn’t take advantage of this effect. Even Ska’s people were considered too sentient for this to work unless they reverted to a feral state. Goblins, while sentient, were considered nothing more than a monster, same with the undead. The rules of the System were often confusing and in flux, so things tended to change from time to time.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to ponder the complexities of the System and dungeons. The boss was dead and I had earned a new ability from him.

Orb of Darkness: If this orb hits its target it will be inflicted with a random curse. Curse lasts for 24 hours. Spell cannot be recast until the curse is broken. Cost 100 mana. Cooldown 24 hours or when curse broken

Curse of Weakness: -3 Strength

Curse of Apathy: -3 Endurance

Curse of Sloth: - 3 Agility

Curse of Myopia: -3 Perception

Curse of Feeblemind: -3 Intelligence

Curse of Infirmity: -3 Wisdom

Curse of Leprosy: -3 Charisma

Curse of the Fool: -3 Luck

It was one hell of a spell and I was glad the boss hadn’t had a chance to use it on any of us. I checked out the other abilities as well, seeing as I hadn’t gotten any others after getting Maddening Laugh. It seems if I claimed the same skill I just wouldn’t get it. And like Ska’s people, they didn’t have a large range of abilities.

Sneak Attack: If you can ambush your opponent your attack deals 3x damage. Cost 5 mana 25 stamina. Cooldown 1 min

Underhanded Blow: Aiming for sensitive areas enhances your agility by 2 for that attack. Cost 5 mana 5 stamina. Cooldown 10 sec

Sneak Attack was pretty useless for the way I fought, but Underhanded Blow might come in handy until I found something better. I wasn’t a stranger to striking an opponent's weak spots or fighting dirty. Clearing the dungeon netted some credits but at this point, I stopped counting. I had more than I could spend, even after the item that I commissioned in the Bazaar. If I needed more money, I would just create some magic weapons. It was no wonder the Enchanting Guild had become so powerful and influential.

The last bonus we got from the dungeon, was a title.

Iron Mind: You are 25% less susceptible to mind-affecting magic

My second class had hit level nine early on in the dungeon and I was looking forward to the additional points for level ten. Looting the bodies was left to Ska, I didn’t see anything these creatures had that I wanted. He got a stack of spears some poison vials and a cursed staff. We decided to leave the cursed staff behind. It was more wizard stick than beating stick so I had no use for it. Martin could use it but he opted not to take it. Can’t say I blamed him there.

I used Void Lottery on Sneak Attack and Summon Clay Pot and got a spell called Gangrenous Discharge in return.

Gangrenous Discharge: Pustules cover your body, growing until they explode, delivering a foul bath of bodily fluids on anyone within five feet. Contact with this substance causes the affected target or targets to contract the disease debuff and take 10hp/s damage. They also grow these pustules as well. Spell keeps going as long as new targets are within range.

Just the description of the spell made me gag. I would not be trying this one out, I didn’t care how good it might be.