About midmorning, Margrethe showed up at the graveyard. She asked him to come to the infirmary with her. It was about time for a break in the class anyway, so Serenity told them they could keep practicing if they wanted to and headed away with her.

They went in to see Moira, who was now visibly showing signs of zombification. Serenity could still smell the skeleton cores on her, but it was much weaker.

“This is - she ate more than I can really handle. So I’m going to try something. Please tell me if this hurts. Or, well, whatever you feel. This may be a really bad idea, but - if you can take it for a bit - maybe I can clear it out of you later. Please - uh, please sit down.” Margrethe gestured at a chair not far from Moira, then walked over to the woman.

As Margrethe got close to Moira, Moira looked at her and said “Graar?” as she started to stand.

“Moira. Sit while Margrethe treats you.” Serenity snapped. It looked like Moira was going to attack, and if she did that - she’d have to die.

Serenity walked to the chair and sat while Moira looked at him confusedly. After a moment, she said “Lord..?” and sat back down.

Margrethe turned to Serenity. “What just happened?”

“She offered fealty. Night before last. I accepted. I’m not going to let her get herself killed if I can avoid it.”

Margrethe had a troubled expression. “I see.”

Margrethe touched Moira’s forehead and grimaced. It looked like she was concentrating on something unpleasant. After a moment, she reached out and took Serenity’s hand. “Remember, tell me how it feels.”

Serenity didn’t feel anything for a moment, then the Death-attuned essence started flowing into him. “Oh~ uh, it feels, mmm, nice~.” Serenity closed his mouth before he embarrassed himself any further. He couldn’t suppress the smile, but at least he could keep quiet.

He wasn’t sure how long it lasted. It seemed like forever and no time at all before Margrethe was done.

[Pleasure Resistance increased]

When they finished, Margrethe insisted on checking him again for corruption, and seemed displeased when she didn’t find any.

Moira seemed to be in better shape, at least. Margrethe told Serenity that she’d call him if she needed him, but she hoped to manage without his assistance.

By the time they were done, Serenity had to hurry to make it to lunch before the Trial escorts were to start. They were much the same as the previous day. Serenity knew it wasn’t quite fair to the people he was escorting, but he was impatient and couldn’t wait to get to his mid-afternoon plans.

Echo and Lancaster had offered to help, but Serenity wanted to handle this set alone. He’d decided to go sword-and-shield as a safe weapons loadout for the day (though he did still have the pair of knives he wore as walking-around equipment). Between that and the armor he’d borrowed, he was pretty sure he’d be fine.

He’d decided to forgo throwing weapons; they felt like a cheat, somehow. He wasn’t sure why armor didn’t feel like cheating.

The first solo dungeon of the day was orcs. It was also the first dungeon with nonmagical ranged attacks.

Which were easier to avoid than the magical ones had been. The orcs were not very good archers. Serenity was pretty sure that was just because it was a dungeon - if any of the dungeon monsters were this inept in the wild, they’d quickly be fodder for other monsters.

The orcs were tougher than any of the previous enemies other than the drakes - and they had a four-orc boss encounter - two archers, one melee, and a melee boss.

Serenity found that he could just about walk through the boss encounter. Well, maybe not walk. Dive out of the way of the first two arrows, kill an archer, dodge the melee guy, hamstring the boss, kill the other archer. Take the melee orc’s attack on his shield, cut his throat, stab the boss.

It was an intense couple of minutes, but that was all. He’d never considered his melee skill all that good once he transitioned to magic … but he’d been a melee fighter at first, and after that he’d been comparing it against specialists of more or less his Tier. He was probably almost as good as a trained fighter from Earth before the integration - and his stats were simply better than the dungeon had been designed for. They could be equaled by a moderate level Pathed melee specialist, maybe even low level if they’d gotten stats instead of Identify for the level 10 skill, but the dungeon had been designed for people who didn’t have a Path yet.

There was only one disappointing thing about the dungeon - none of the orcs, even the boss, had a core. Serenity didn’t even have to cut them open to find out; he could tell.

Which meant there was a good chance the humans wouldn’t either.

Orc Dungeon 0.6 Complete

1 Participant

Rewards increased for reduced party size.

Monster extermination: 1,000 XP

Boss Killed: 1000 XP

Total Extermination Bonus: 300 XP, 300 Ev

Dungeon Cleared: 250 XP, 250 Ev

Moments after Serenity stepped out of the dungeon portal, an arrow smashed into the side of his head. He hadn’t been expecting anything, and wasn’t on guard.

He fell to the ground like a puppet whose strings had been cut. He felt healing energy rush to the area, and knew the arrow had to come out, but for some reason he couldn’t move. There was shouting and running, but all he could do was lay there. He was glad he was still breathing, at least; that meant he had more time. He suspected that part of the reason the previous time had been so bad was that he’d been unable to breathe, and his energy had needed to keep his body alive without oxygen.

He was terrified of this. The blow out of nowhere that gave him no chance, and left him dead or unable to do anything about it. He never wanted this to happen again.

As he thought that, he felt the skin all over his body start to tingle. He wasn’t sure what was happening but all he could think was be careful what you wish for. He wanted to stay human - no, that wasn’t it. He wanted to be able to pass as human. He already wasn’t human, and the more time he spent with his new body, the more he liked it.

The tingle in his skin increased, then seemed to concentrate into a deep itch on both sides of his neck and his temples. It increased in intensity until he was pretty sure he’d have been screaming if he’d been able to move. He slowly realized that what he was feeling wasn’t pain at all. In fact, it was positively enjoyable as he started to get used to the intensity.

As the intensity faded, he realized that the tingling in the rest of his skin hadn’t gone away, it had just been overwhelmed. After a while, even the tingling started to fade, and Serenity became aware of the message waiting for him to notice it.

[Current condition: Traumatic Brain Injury]

[Unable to heal brain injury with embedded object. Reject object?]

There was a way he could remove whatever had hit him so he could heal? YES!

Serenity’s consciousness dissolved into a world of pain as his flesh, skull, and brain flexed in ways they were not meant to - ways that normally they would not be able to. Parts of his head around the injury shifted into a muscle that gripped the invading arrowhead, then tightened, cutting into itself but also shifting the arrowhead backwards. After what felt like an eternity of blinding pain, the arrowhead fell and Serenity’s healing took over, restoring the injury. The damage was extensive, especially the additional damage caused by ejecting the arrowhead, but it did heal and Serenity was able to move.

Serenity ached. It was a nonspecific pain, just everything hurt. He sat up and looked around. The only person he saw was Echo.

“They all thought you were dead. Well, everyone except Lancaster and me. Lancaster can run faster than I can, so he’s headed to get a healer. Even if you’re healed, we should get you checked out. Everyone else is chasing your killer. I’m here to make sure no one else goes after you.”

Echo offered Serenity a hand to help him get up. He felt a little silly about accepting, but every inch of his skin ached, and it hurt even more as he moved.

“So, should I ask?”

Serenity looked at Echo in puzzlement. “Ask what?”

“Your new tattoos. Side of the neck, think I saw one on your head, too? Wasn’t there, then it seemed to fade in. It’s nifty looking, complex shape and lots of colors.” Echo walked up to Serenity and seemed to be inspecting his neck. “Can I touch it? Them?”

Serenity reached up and touched the spot on the other side of his neck where he’d felt the intense sensation. It just felt like skin. “Sure. I think they’re to prevent this from happening again? I’m not sure?”

Echo ran her hand along his neck, then rubbed his temple. “Aww. Just feels like skin. Was hoping it’d have ridges or something. So you get powers by having bad stuff happen to you? That kinda sucks.”

Serenity hadn’t thought of it that way. Now that she put it in that light, though … that was pretty much how all of the changes had happened. The big ones, the ones that made him feel less human. “Yeah, it kinda does.” He didn’t say the rest of his thought - but it’s also kinda awesome.

So far he felt lucky about this one. Tattoos weren’t something to be afraid of, and if they were just really complex runes they were even something he could explain if they activated. More or less.

Serenity was still absently rubbing the side of his neck when he saw two people running towards them. He started to get ready to fight until he realized that the person in front was Lancaster. He was running full out, but the other person seemed to be jogging. Echo waved, and the second person started running faster, passing Lancaster.

Serenity hadn’t met the new person yet. He was dressed as an instructor, at least. Must be the healer Lancaster had run off to get.

He was also looking at Serenity in something that approached horror. “How the blazes are you walking? Sit down before you fall down!”

Serenity wasn’t sure what the problem was, but he supposed he didn’t really have to be standing, so he carefully sat down.

Moving still hurt. It wasn’t just his skin, though that did hurt.

The healer reached Serenity, and put his hand over the now-healed injury. Serenity felt warmth and pain relief spread from his hand.

It tugged a little on Serenity’s Life affinity, but he knew it wasn’t Life. It was the more straightforward Healing affinity, channeled through a proper spell. Healing affinity might be considered lower-grade than Life, but in its area it was better - just like most affinities. Serenity let his Life affinity follow the spell; it wouldn’t hurt anything, and he might learn something.

The healer seemed startled, and the spell stopped for a moment before resuming. The spell concentrated on Serenity’s head, before dissipating. “You have a very good self-heal, but it’s not up to brain damage this extensive yet. At least, not this quickly. I’ve given it a bit of a boost, but I need to have you rest as much as possible for the rest of the night and check you in the morning before I can clear you for anything.”

“But - “

“No. It’s mostly healed, but it’s still fragile. You want to give it a chance to heal properly. Healing wrong would be a very bad thing.”

The healer had a point. There went Serenity’s plans for getting the rest of the dungeons today. He knew he could ignore the healer’s advice, but it was probably a good idea to follow it, and it wasn’t that urgent. Probably. Not urgent enough to be worth possible long-term issues, at least.

“Uh … I will have a bunch of mandatory Trials tomorrow, I … don’t think I can get out of them.”

The healer looked at Serenity for a moment, then said “Bunch of … oh. You must be Serenity.” He sighed audibly. “Fine. You’re going to bed immediately, your friends can bring you dinner. You will come see me in the morning and I’ll monitor you between Trials.”

Once Serenity was back in his room, the healer - whose name Serenity still hadn’t gotten - gave him a clean bill of health for the night, and everyone left. Serenity wasn’t quite sure how to feel about that; he still didn’t know who had attacked him, or why, or how. Ranged weapons were still locked up, after all, so this had to be an instructor.

Twice in three days. Both times he should have been killed - would have, if he’d been even a bit more human. It felt like someone was out to get him.

It took Serenity a while to calm his racing thoughts. For all that he had the Final Reaper’s memories, this made it very clear to him that he wasn’t the Final Reaper. That being had reached the point where attempts on his life no longer upset his emotional state.

Serenity wanted to never get to that point.

Serenity’s door opened and in walked the blonde-haired bubbly woman he knew as Nightwitch.

Only she didn’t look bubbly. She looked angry.

She was carrying a tray with what was obviously his dinner, which she set on the table next to his bed, before collapsing into the chair Lancaster had been in only a day or so before. She pointed a finger at Serenity. “You - YOU need to stop getting injured.”

“I didn’t ask to be shot!”

Nightwitch signed and seemed to deflate a little. “I know. But .. you have no idea how crazy it is out there right now. The students are going nuts because somehow they heard that Blaze - that’s the healer - is going to have to clear you before you can do Trials tomorrow. Even though that’s not true. We’re just lucky no one has said that you should be dead yet. Even though you should be, I saw the arrow. AND! The instructors are going nuts because one of them tried to kill a student and they don’t know who. So everyone’s running around looking daggers at everyone else. There have been fights over nothing. Plus SOMEHOW the five of us have been designated as YOUR posse and keep having to answer QUESTIONS!”

Nightwitch was brimming with indignation, no longer relaxed at all.

“Augh. I need to calm down, can’t be taking those idiots out on you. You were the one that got shot, not the one doing the shooting. Anyway. Echo sent me in here, said I needed to know why you were the one we needed as the front man, but that you’d have to explain it. So. Explain.”

Serenity looked at his meal, then at the surprisingly angry woman. “Uh .. can I eat while I talk?”

Nightwitch snorted. “I heard about you and food. Yeah. Eat and talk.”

Serenity took a few bites while he considered what to say. His dual status as a student and an instructor would probably answer most of her questions - that and the fact that he’d be in more than one Tutorial. That plus some idea of what would happen to Earth once they left the Tutorial - what was technically already happening - would probably be enough. They needed someone with the status to bring people together.

They were still talking when Lancaster and Doyle arrived an hour later with beer. It was a surprisingly useful discussion; Nightwitch had some good ideas about how to do what he had to, while having other people handle the stuff Serenity wasn’t good at.

The discussion would probably have lasted much of the night, except that there was only enough beer for two each, and when Lancaster finished his second he suggested that Serenity needed sleep, so they should all get out of his room. There was some grumbling, but even so Serenity was alone not long after.

He decided to drop in a few more stat points, then get some sleep. He’d need it.

Name: Serenity

Species: Human (Altered Template)

Path: Paths Available

Level: 69 (98/700)

Tier: 0, 0/69 Spent

Path History: None

Condition: Healthy

Healing Available: Low

Mana: 250/250

Stamina: 320/320

Might: 20

Agility: 24

Phys: 22

Understanding: 13

Will: 20

Mind: 15

Perception: 23

Luck: 14 - 120%

Ev: 5412

Resistances

Pain: 1032 (32 active)

Sleep: 1

Pleasure: 2

Unknown

Affinities

Death: 100.01%

Life: 8%

Mind: 30%

Arcane: 50%

Plasma: 40%

Liquid: 5%

Vapor: 10%

Solid: 15%

Energy: 40%

Void: 60%

Time: 15%

Space: 5%

Concepts

Death

Mind 15%

Time: 5%

Unknown

Aspects: Unknown

Titles

Previous Supreme Existence

Altered Template

Named

Ghost in the System