∼ Day 22 ∼

Urgh, what the hell...

My body feels all kinds of wrong, did somebody hit me with a truck?

...

Why do I suddenly feel such an onset of deja vu?

...

Urgh- this headache is killing me... and for god's sake, what is this smell?!

Trying to desperately sort out my hazy mind, I manage to crack open a dreary eye. But what I saw, only raised even more questions for my sleep-addled and weary mind to process. Wet and moist, grey stone bricks stacked on each other surrounded me on all sides. Which is also what seemed to be the perpetrator of the damp and humid smell invading my nostrils.

Twisting my sore neck from side to side, for a better view, I managed to figure out that I was apparently laying on the cold and wet ground of a stone cell. There was no bedding, no furniture, no windows, the only irregularity being a metal-framed wooden door situated in one of the walls of my rectangular prison of stone.

Propping my back up against the closest wall of the cell, I cringed as the wet and moist moss covering the wall rubbed against my back. Looking down, I see two big metal shackles encapsulating my hands and wrists. In a flood of clarity, everything came back to me.

Right... I was captured...

Once my mind grazed the thought of Mia, my heart raced in worry as I touched upon the connection between us. But to my great relief, my worries were unfounded. Feeling the connection deep within me, I knew that she was completely fine and was currently very, very far away. It would seem that my decisive decision was the correct one.

Pulling up my status, I check for any damage done to my body.

-Appraisal!-

Status

Information Attributes

Traits. Titles. and Skills -Name- "???" STR 12 Skills 22 -Race- Azde (Blood Fiend) VIT 30 Traits 6 -Sex- Male AGI 50 Titles 2 -Rank- F+ DEX 22 Skillpoints 17 -Level- 16/35 INT 24 Resistances

Health 108/120 CHR 7 Physical Resistance 12 Stamina 49/52 WILL 27 Magical Resistance 7 Mana 5/22 MAG 30 Mental Resistance 12

Looking all around to spot any injuries, I soon realize a heavyweight on my back which had gone unnoticed. It was first now that I actually paid attention to my body I noticed it. Barely able to get a glance at my back with this greater field of vision that I so conveniently have, I notice thick metal bands around the base of both my wings. They effectively tied them together and promised that no flying would be preformed in foreseeable future.

Okay, other than that annoyance, it would seem that my body is pretty much all okay. It's just that my head from the injury inflicted by that lumbering ogre was still affecting my groggy mind.

With a grunt of exertion, I got to my feet. I was mostly worried that might've suffered some brain damage, so I made sure to test out my limbs and senses by walking around a bit. Luckily there seemed to be no permanent or serious injury; I was just very tired. Inspecting the metal-framed door, I immediately noticed just how thick the door was. It was shut very tightly, barely leaving any cracks for me to peek through.

Other than that, I could easily figure out that with that metal frame and the thickness of the wood, I had no opportunity to break it open with my current level of bodily power. Not mentioning that I'm also still cuffed in some heavy metal shackles. Feeling the onset of another headache assaulting my mind, I remember to use healing surge to top myself off.

Oh- yeah, I've got three advancements that I never managed to get completed.

Pulling up the appropriate prompts, I slumped down one of the cell walls with my back propped against it so I could start with advancing healing surge.

-Skill advancement - Healing Surge!-

Skill advancement - Healing Surge Choose one advancement -Greater Healing Surge- Uses a gland to release a potent healing compound within your body. Greatly increased healing effectivity and stored amount of the healing compound. -Replenishing Surge- Uses a gland to release a potent replenishing compound within your body that both heals and replenishes mana. -Membrum Mending- Uses a gland to release a potent healing compound within your body. Greatly increased healing effectivity towards mending organs and limbs. -Mana Mending- Uses a gland to release a potent healing compound within your body. Can use mana to greatly enhance the effect of the healing compound.

These are some fucking winner advancements. Of course, we have the standard greater version of the skill, which is usually never a bad choice. But other than that, the others really have some potential. The only problem is, what am I gonna pick?

Replenishing Surge is certainly a great choice as I would have access to more mana, which is some I always seem to be in desperate need of.

As for Membrum Mending, while it would definitely help if I ever lost some limbs or had some organs destroyed, although I'm not sure it's up to part with the others. Mostly due to my crazy defenses already protecting my limbs to quite a scary degree already. I hadn't yet had to worry about losing limbs even since turning into an Azde.

Lastly, we have Mana Mending, a perfect skill for my current set of abilities and traits. We can rule out Membrum Mending and Greater Healing Surge as they're not up to par with the remaining two.

And between Mana Mending and Replenishing Surge, I think I have to go with Mana Mending. My reasoning for this being one crucial problem with Replenishing Surge.

As I keep growing stronger, the more mana I will come to possess. In the far future, I'm worried that Replenishing Surge wouldn't be able to keep up with the vast amount of mana I would be saturating my mana poll, it might even only be a drop in a bucket compared to my mana at the time.

With Mana Mending, it should be able to scale indefinitely. Making it's potential much more obvious. As such, I chose Mana Mending.

-Mana Mending!-

[Skill - Healing Surge has been advanced to Mana Mending!]

[For advancing a skill you receive 2 skill points!]

Good, let's get on with the other two. Since these two are very similar and seem to be of the same strand of skills, I pulled their advancements up simultaneously

-Skill advancement - Lesser Enhanced Exoskeleton, Lesser Enhanced Organs!-

Skill advancement - Lesser Enhanced Exoskeleton Choose one advancement -Greater Enhanced Exoskeleton- Enhances the resistance and toughness of your exoskeleton. Greatly enhanced effects -Lesser Mana-Infused Exoskeleton- Enhances the resistance and toughness of your exoskeleton. Can reserve mana to increase all effects. -Lesser Adaptive Exoskeleton- Enhances the resistance and toughness of your exoskeleton. Allows for the organs to adapt to gain certain qualities over longer periods of exposure to the origin of the qualities. -Lesser Temporal Exoskeleton- Enhances the resistance and toughness of your exoskeleton. Allows the organs to absorb damage and extend it over a certain span of time. Skill advancement - Lesser Enhanced Organs Choose one advancement -Greater Enhanced Organs- Enhances the resistance, toughness, and improves the effectiveness of your organs. Greatly enhanced effects and applies to all organs -Lesser Mana-Infused Organs- Enhances the resistance, toughness, and slightly improves the effectiveness of your inner organs. Can reserve mana to increase all effects. -Lesser Adaptive Organs- Enhances the resistance, toughness, and slightly improves the effectiveness of your inner organs. Allows for the organs to adapt to gain certain qualities over longer periods of exposure to the origin of the qualities. -Lesser Temporal Organs- Enhances the resistance, toughness, and slightly improves the effectiveness of your inner organs. Allows the organs to absorb damage and extend it over a prolonged span of time.

Wow, those or some interesting advancements...

Hmm, I wonder if the skill advancement options are given in accordance with my strengths and weaknesses... While I couldn't exactly be sure as to why the system did certain things, I don't think it's far-fetched to guess that it did so with the advancement options.

Looking through the options, it became quite obvious as to which one suited me the best.

First of all, while the greater version for the exoskeleton skill was just like other normal greater versions without much change, the greater version for the organ skill became quite valuable. The reason being that the enhancement effected now all organs. Currently, it only affects my inner organs, like my heart, lungs, liver, and so on. But the greater version would extend the enhancement to things like my senses, for example, my eyes.

Although that was all fine and dandy, it still wasn't enough for me to pick it.

Then we have the lesser temporal versions of the skills. While they could definitely save me if I have received a lethal blow to my exoskeleton and organs, I would probably be dead anyway if mana mending wasn't available to heal me at the time.

The lesser adaptive versions were the most interesting ones. I had no idea how such a skill would actually work, or if it would beneficial at all. So with the limited information, choosing this would just be a shot in the dark.

Lastly, we have the Lesser Mana-Infused Exoskeleton, and the Lesser Mana-Infused Organs. As the previous advancement with Mana Mending, this was clearly the ones with the most potential hiding in them. Or at least for the direction that my power was headed in.

So without any further ado, I chose them both.

-Lesser Mana-Infused Exoskeleton, Lesser Mana-Infused Organs!-

[Skill - Lesser Enhanced Exoskeleton has been advanced to Lesser Mana-Infused Exoskeleton!]

[For advancing a skill you receive 2 skill points!]

[Skill - Lesser Enhanced Organs has been advanced to Lesser Mana-Infused Organs!]

[For advancing a skill you receive 2 skill points!]

With that done, I got back to my feet. I began inspecting the dark cell that I had found myself in. As there was no light entering the cell from outside, I had no measure of time to rely on. For all I knew, I had been out for multiple days. I had no idea for how long I might be trapped in here, I don't even know if there's anybody in the vicinity as my presence seems to just hit flat against the stone walls of the cell and the metal-framed wooden door.

Coming up with nothing after a while of searching for any information that might be of use, I slumped against one of the cell walls once again. Pulling up my status, I just stared idly at it with nothing better to do.

Oh- yeah! I have a lot of skill points just laying around. I have about -uhm let's see here, 23 skill points! That's quite an amount, let's see what I can get for it.

I was just about to open the skill shop when something interrupted me. Faintly, I heard the sound of light footsteps approaching the door. Getting up facing the door, I readied myself by taking a stance as I had no better option. With a loud thump of what sounded like some kind of lock being unlocked, the door slowly opened accompanied by the creaking noise of the door's hinges.

With the faint glow of yellow torchlight spilling into the dark cell, my eyes caught the outline of a tall and thin figure. His skin was pale-grey and his muscles were thin and wiry. But those qualities were even more off-putting as I believed this guy was an orc.

By instinct I appraised him.

-Appraisal!-

Appraisal - Felendren

Information Attributes

Traits. Titles. and Skills -Name- "Felendren" STR 15 Skills ??? -Race- Orc VIT ??? Traits ??? -Sex- Male AGI 75 Titles ??? -Rank- E+ DEX 65 Resistances

-Level- 35/35 INT ??? Health 212/212 CHR ??? Physical Resistance ??? Stamina 52/52 WILL ??? Magical Resistance ??? Mana 0/0 MAG ??? Mental Resistance ???

Damn, this guy is dangerous...

Not letting my guard down, I locked eyes with this rather abnormal orc. As soon as he spoke, I couldn't help but cringe at the scratchiness and harsh nature of his raspy voice.

"Stop with your posturing boy and follow me..." - Felendren

Without waiting for any response from me, he simply turned on his heels and began walking down what looked to be a stone corridor.

I was unsure if I should follow or not. But when the orc, Felendren, didn't hear me follow him he turned around with a snarl on that gaunt and pale face of his. Letting a bit of his vile aura seep into his raspy voice he spoke in a commanding tone.

"I wasn't asking - boy. The Mistress awaits." - Felendren