Battle notifications:

You have slain Dark Nosferatu Lord lvl 26

You have slain Greater Possessing Shadow lvl 50

You have slain Lesser Vampire Soldier x 42

You have assisted in slaying Lesser Vampire Soldier x 30

Solar sphere increased 1 -> 30

Level up x6

Name: Sean O’Carrol

Age: 32

Titles:

Escaped Slave

Chosen of Ariana (hidden)

Blessed by Lokir (hidden)

Otherwordly traveler (hidden)

Summoned Hero (hidden)

Attributes:

STR – 6

AGI – 5

DEX – 7

INT – 27 (+3)

WIS – 28 (+3)

CON – 8

END – 10

Health: 90/90

Mana: 350/600

Health regen: 0.057/min

Mana regen: 9.45/min

Class: celestial sorcerer (1,350/10,000)

Available classes: slave

Photomancer

Secondary class: Aeromancer (1/1,000)

Profession: none

Available professions: none

Secondary profession: none

Level: 17/25

Exp to next level: 85%

Class Level Achievement!

For passing 1,000 levels in Celestial Sorcerer, you have earned a bonus. Your mana regeneration is increased by 4.17 and your total mana is increased by 250. Unequipping Celestial Sorcerer from your class will remove this bonus.

“Oooooh.” I groaned in pleasure after receiving the increased mana regeneration. It was like every inhale cool water was flowing through my body.

“Are you alright master?” Elendria asked, freezing in the middle of her massage.

“Just fine Elendria. I just earned my first bonus from a class, and nearly doubled my mana regen.” I explained, and I felt the tension flow out of her body.

“I’ve been meaning to talk to you about your skills and classes. Please remind me when we are on our way again, it will help pass the time in the wagon.”

“Sure thing.” I said, stretching my back as I sat up to look around. “Hey Carrigan, do we need to bring back any proof of death for the two nosferatu?”

“Bribis has already collected the fangs, those are proof enough.” He said.

“What about a Greater Possessing Shadow? Any proof of that?” Carrigan shrugged, but Bribis dropped a small tool he was using to fiddle with something on the back of the black throne.

“Where did you hear about those?” Bribis asked slowly.

“Got a battle notification about it. Right after one for killing the Dark Nosferatu Lord. You know anything about them?”

“The humans have likely forgotten, but the gnomes and other long lived races remember. I won’t say any more here, in its lair.” After that he completely clammed up, but his face was incredibly pale. He also abandoned the black throne entirely, focusing completely on the bone throne. Testing every crevice with his tool. I walked over and squatted down a few feet away, waiting for him to get to a point where he could talk.

“What?” He grumbled.

“If you tell me what you are looking for, I could help out.”

“Oh? Do you have a skill to detect voids or something?” He asked, full of sarcasm.

“Kind of? I have mana exploration. If you agree that running mana over everything won’t set off any traps, I can map out every curve and corner of that throne in a fraction of the time. If I find a button or a lock of some sort, I can try and use telekinesis to try and pick it or press the button. That call will be up to you.”

He sat back on his heels and stared at me for an uncomfortable few seconds, before shaking his head. “Damned summoned heroes and their damned unlimited tricks.” Grumbling, he moved away. “Map it out first, but don’t press anything. I’ll have to see if it is set up with a trap.”

“You got it.” I nodded, moving closer to the back of the throne. I was forced to move slowly through the throne, as they had two layers of bones applied and I didn’t want to miss anything. The outer layer was the larger, more impressive bones while the inner layer was made of all the tiny finger and toe bones. To say it was an annoyance would be a small thing.

“I think I found a button.” I mumbled after fifteen minutes of searching. In that time, I had scanned a path nearly two hand widths wide on the back of the chair, moving from the floor to just under the left armrest. At the rate I was going, it was looking like the throne would require at least two hours to scan just the back.

“Are there any wires leading off of the bottom of the button?” Bribis asked, shifting so he was near me.

“Yes. Give me a second to follow it. It’s running toward the middle of the back.” My eyes widened when I got there. “Holy crap, there’s eight wires that are all connected to a switch.”

“Listen closely, this will be very important. Do the wires all touch the same place? Or do they go to different parts of the switch?”

“Different parts.” I answered immediately.

“Are there any ratchet gears near the switch?”

“Yes, there are eight of them.”

“Alright, looks like it is a combination requirement. I need you to start with the closest knob to a ratchet, and follow that wire back to a button.” I did as he asked, finding myself looping toward the front left armrest. It was hidden in an eye socket. “Press it with your telekinesis.” I did as instructed, and felt the inner switch swing just enough with the pulled wire to clip into the ratchet and secure itself.

“Done.” I said.

“Excellent. If it secured itself, find the next one and follow it.” This one was to the very top of the throne, and as I pressed the button it again clicked into place. The initial switch portion that was locked in place didn’t rotate, and I saw what was going to happen. Each new button turned a bit of the switch in the back of the throne, and the rotations would eventually turn the rotated switch into a key. Get them out of order, and you would push a button but the wrong portion would rotate, and there wouldn’t be enough movement to lock that knob into place.

“I think I’ve got it.” I said, swiftly moving forward now. Everything fell into place swiftly, and I felt the mechanism give a shift now that it was free to move with gravity. Opening my eyes, I saw a slightly open panel on the back of the throne. “Wait a second.” I lightly grabbed Bribis’ hand as he was reaching for it. “Do you think they are incredibly paranoid? Let me use mana exploration one more time.”

I was glad I did. There was a series of spring loaded blades ready to impale whatever hand opened the panel all the way. I grabbed an unassuming rib on the back left side of the panel, and turned it clockwise until it ratcheted into another lock and securing the blades. “Poisoned blades.” I pointed out as I slowly opened the panel, getting a nod of thanks from Bribis. Inside were five books bound in some form of leather.

“By the gods, no!” Bribis hissed in horror, recoiling as he saw the books. Each was branded with a sun motif. The left one was empty, while each successive one had a new quadrant filled in with black ink with the final sun being completely black.

“What is it?” I asked, though I kept my hands away.

“We’ll talk later, but tell no one of this. Just know that each of those books is bound in the skin of a sapient species. Gnomes, dwarves, elves, humans, and the last one is demon.” He pulled a bag from inside his shirt, and slipped it over the top of each book, taking care not to touch them. Pulling them back slightly, they disappeared inside what must have been a bag of holding.

“Much as I hate it, I have to trust you.” He said, turning to me before grabbing the last book. “Please keep the bag of holding a secret, and if I die you have to take it to my people. We live at the southern end of the Morninglow Mountains. Tell the guards at the city gate that glee will die with the black sun’s ascent. Promise me. PROMISE ME!”

“Alright already! I promise.” I hissed back. This was too weird. An hour ago and he was acting like I was his worst enemy, and now he’s acting like what I just promised was the end of the world? Talking in passcodes, books bound in skin? Yeah, this had all the hallmarks of some ancient prophesy bullshit that I just wasn’t ready to deal with. Too many of those have the hero dying gloriously for some bullshit reason. I was only interested if this quest had a portal back to Earth I could jump into.

“That’s all the voids in this throne, want me to check the black one?”

“No time. We need to hurry.” He stood up, and started walking around. “I want two guards to run ahead and prep the wagons for departure. We leave as soon as we can. The rest of us are going to search for survivors, let’s move.”

Two of the guards took off at a fast jog, while the rest of us moved back up through the complex. As we went, Carrigan dropped back to talk with me. “So. I figured it would take Bribis several days to get over his anger at you. Care to tell me how you managed to get him to grudging acceptance in record time?”

“Not rightly sure.” I said. “We found some stuff, he got paranoid, made me promise to head over to the gnome city.”

“Damn.”

“What?” I asked, confused.

“Gnomes take care who they bring to their city. With as upset as he was earlier, I would think it would take an act of Lokir himself to get you an invite.”

“Ugh, you may be more right than you know.” I muttered, shaking my head. “Come on, they’re gonna leave us behind if we don’t speed up.” We hustled to catch up to the gnome and his guards, and started heading down each side branch. It seemed there was a torture chamber for each dungeon, though they were thankfully empty. Our third trip we hit paydirt, finding cells that were filled with a mix of elves and humans. Emaciated and covered in dirt, they were nearly catatonic.

“Can we get them out of here?” I asked.

“Oh, an adventurer group. More tags for the bag.” One of the prisoners said in a sing-song voice.

Don’t trust your light, brave adventurers ho!

Daring the depths, where others won’t go!

Secure in your faith, lay down to sleep,

Teeth in the night, your soul to keep!

Several others joined in, rocking back and forth as they shuddered in horror. I’ll admit, their song sent shivers up my back as well. “You don’t have to worry, the nosferatu is dead.” Bribis tried calming them. “We’ll open the door, just come with us. We can save you!”

“Heard that one before, just before the clacking of fangs. The black fangs reach deepest, injecting their cold as the others laugh.” The elf replied.

“Do you mean these fangs?” Bribis asked, pulling out a matching set of black fangs.

“HAAAAAAAAA!!! GET AWAY! GETAWAYGETAWAYGETAWAYYYYYYYY!!!!!!” The elves all shrieked, backing toward the edge of the cell, panic in their voices.

“They need some sun.” I muttered, before creating a solar sphere. I didn’t add in the heat, though I did condense it into a gentle yellowish white glow. It took a few minutes, but the gentle glow started to break through their terror. “Now. Pay attention. Those who want to live, come up here and walk out of the cage with us. We’ve already killed all the nosferatu, and are on a time limit. Those that want to stay here and die, well. That’s your choice. Stay here and die alone, in the dark, or come with us to the nearest city. It’ll take about a month of travel, and we should have just enough food to make it.”

The group started shuffling forward, and Carrigan went and simply melted the lock off. The door opened with the shriek of rusted hinges, and we started moving forward once again. I left the sun orb above the group, and they huddled beneath it like it was their only way out. We didn’t bother sending the whole group down the three remaining side passages, Bribis and his guards went to do a quick check. It was a pity that this group was the only survivors, but it was still more than what we expected.

“Here sir.” One of the elves walked up and handed me a bag that clinked like it was full of coins. “They took the plates of adventurers and added them to the bag, then tried to turn them. There’s a standing award at the adventurer’s guild.”

Damnit. Damnit, damnit, damnit! I didn’t want to deal with this! I already had a group of slaves that I had to unload somewhere, I was not about to take on responsibility for a group of traumatized elves and humans! “Look.” I grumbled, rubbing the bridge of my nose. “Why don’t you keep it, and turn it in yourselves. Use that money to get everyone back on their feet.”

“But how are we going to pay you? You’ve saved us!” He was practically begging, something that just annoyed me with the mood I was already in.

“Tell you what, I’ll hold on to it for you for a few days, and we can talk about this later. I just don’t have time to deal with it right now.” I grabbed the bag and slipped it into my storage ring when the elf wasn’t looking. “Bribis better hurry up.”

“I’m sure he’s moving as fast as possible master.” Elendria said, smiling at me. I had noticed she was getting a little handsier lately, something I needed to talk to her about. Though that massage was fantastic.

The rest of our escape went smoothly. I made sure that the sun orb was refreshed before it went out, and we made it past the ghoul house as the sun was breaking.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to burn it down?” Carrigan asked Bribis, who shook his head.

“It’ll take too long, and there’s a chance they will escape. Besides, if the fire spreads we could be dealing with a grassfire. Just have Elendria refresh the ice, and they’ll die eventually.”

I nodded to Elendria, who went ahead and doubled the thickness of the ice encasing the cabin. That would hopefully hold for long enough, though we would be sending back a guard patrol from the nearest town to make sure. Ghouls weren’t as dangerous as vampires, but they could do some serious damage if left unchecked.

When we got back to the campsite, almost everything was packed up and ready to go. Bribis took charge, I think he was more than happy to have something normal to do. “Cooks, fire up another batch of the porridge. Give what’s already cooked to the new arrivals. We will have to split them up evenly among the wagons. We won’t make anyone ride with the slaves, but a few are going to have to fit into a slave wagon. I’m sorry, but we just won’t have room otherwise. We will try and rotate who is in there daily, and one person inside will have a key so you aren’t trapped. Let’s go!” The camp erupted into life, and it was only an hour later that we were on the road.