Short summary of the last chapter:

Spoiler :

Voice and co found their way into a dwarven city. Voice got a reward, but found out EDI had to leave right after. We learned a bit about how Heather views Voice, and learned a bit about her personally. We also learned what DI has been doing, and what their ultimate plans are.

Also, let me know if anything is wrong with the chapter! Be sure to comment! I added a donate button

I looked at the books I just fed my compendium. There were ten new books in total. ‘Dwarven Translator’ was my favorite. Who wouldn’t love to learn an extra language? That was the first one I put in. The next nine books were in gibberish. I put them in without thinking.

After putting all ten books into my compendium, I began to walk around the city. I had no real reason to walk around, it just felt good to let myself get lost in the crowd. I was contemplating why EDI would just leave like that.

It was true that she had no real obligations to stay, but I didn’t think it was fair of her to suddenly leave like that. While walking, I decided to make a guild without her. By the time she came back in I would be so amazing she’d have no choice but to fall in love with me.

Now wait a minute. Why the hell am I pining after this girl? Ugh, I need to fix this. I cannot have weaknesses. I WILL not have weaknesses. I needed a distraction. This was quickly starting reminding me of my first college crush.

I changed my body to look like a quarter dwarf, and three quarters human. I made my face more rugged, and grew more hair on my body. I changed my body quite a bit. I had a bit of problems getting adjusted to my body.

I had to explain to Lily about my disguise ability. She seemed very keen on learning it. I ‘promised’ her I’d teach her if she earned it. I changed my title to Demon Wolves’ Bane. I used deceptive aura to change my aura to one of earth. I was in full disguise mode.

As I walked through the city, I asked the dwarves for directions. Most of the dwarves didn’t speak Human, or any language I knew, but some did. A few dwarves seemed to understand me though. I was asking around to find out where the temple of Gnome was. The few dwarves that understood me, pointed in the direction of a very tall, broad statue.

The dwarves were mostly gruff, but seemed nicer to me than to some of the other non-dwarfs in the area. That fact actually netted me a few looks from the foreigners. While talking to female dwarves I used my pheromone ability. I made sure to make them want to give me information.

It didn’t work as well as I hoped, but it still had a positive impact. Using the directions I was given, I slowly made my way to the giant stone statue.

Many players were shouting out items they had crafted, and ores they had mined. None of the players seemed to be going hunting. I guess it is hard if you don’t have a flying mount, and the only way out is through a sealed dungeon.

The thing that surprised me the most the number of dwarves that seemed to be mages. I had never actually seen another player choose to be a mage. Maybe they chose it because they had to wait here anyway.

Being a mage did have a bit of a rough start, unless you added in your own physical fighting style that is. That’s why I wasn’t pure mage. Pure mages could never solo enemies. Several of the player mages had miniature golems out. They looked like they could tank pretty well.

While I was walking down the main street I noticed something. The funniest thing about the city was the fact that it seemed to be broken into two sides. On one side were dwarves that worked with metal, and some had a symbol I figured was to worship the metal god. On the other side were dwarves that seemed to be using stone for various things. They had a symbol that looked a lot like gnome did.

The statue depicted what I assumed to be Gnome. The statue showed a ten foot tall heavily armored dwarf. The dwarf was blocking invisible attacks, using a tower shield. He was attacking with a overly large battle axe. I was pretty sure both the shield and the axe each weighed more than him.

Beside the statue was a long short building. The building had a sign hanging above the door. This sign said something in dwarvish, and had a picture of the statue. Probably the chapel.

I sent Heather out to explore. She always seemed to be bored during these types of situations. I had Lily accompany her. I figured I still had to take care of Lily, or else EDI would be upset. I didn’t have to personally watch her though.

The chapel doors were just large enough to fit a grown human. I quickly decided the persona I was going to adopt. I made sure to show off my heavy armor. My staff was turned into the two swords.

I strode through the doors with an arrogant gait. I quickly scanned the area. It was full of weak ass looking priests. They were small and fat. Religion seems to be the same as Catholicism in the medieval era.

I found a worthwhile target. One of the priests was 60% frantic. Fixing problems was always a knack of mine. I walked casually to the dwarf. I heard him mumbling ‘thought I’d help you out. I thought I’d help…’

I didn’t wait when I made it to him. I tapped his shoulder, and started talking immediately. “I need an earth fairy summoned. I am going to go on a journey to become more in tuned with Gnome, the great god of Earth.

You look competent enough, so I’ll let you do it.” The dwarf turned after a second of confusion. “Hurry up! I don’t have all day.”

The dwarf was offended by my attitude. In a gruff voice he barked, “Who do you think you are!? You think you can order around one of Gnome’s chosen priests!?”

The dwarf went to shove me out of the way, but my inspect showed me exactly where he would push. I easily sidestepped. Without the resistance he was expecting, the dwarf fell forward. Stumbling, and almost landing face first on the floor.

I waved a hand in the air. “Fine, I’ll find someone else to do it. I thought I’d help you out, but now I see I was wasting my time.” The dwarf looked confused for a moment. Then looked around frantically. I had figured the phrase he kept repeating was some sort of code, but I didn’t think it would actually work.

He leaned toward me, and whispered. “You were the one Lord Balin sent? I’m sorry, I was expecting someone more…”

I smirked in a sort of pedantic way. “What? More dwarvish? Do you think Lord Balin would be stupid enough to send someone so easily discovered?” I looked affronted. I gave a look that said, ‘The mere thought of Lord Balin doing something obvious!’ Whoever the fuck Balin is.

I might not know who Lord Balin was, but this seemed like a good opportunity to gather some information to blackmail him with.

The dwarf started to stutter, while trying to wave away the accusation. “NO!” He almost screamed. A few other priests looked at him, but soon ignored him.

In a more hushed tone he continued. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think it was you since you didn’t say the code phrase right away.”

The dwarf seemed to speak fluent human. That was pretty nice. Otherwise this would not have gone smoothly. I shook my head. “Lord Balin’s aid told me to not use it first thing. Otherwise the spies might catch on.”

The dwarf’s face paled slightly. “He said there were spies around here?” I solemnly nodded my head.

“His, Ahem, friend has decided to be more watchful as of late. I was told to tell you ‘Only trust the first.’ Lord Balin’s aid told me you would understand that phrase when the time comes.” I was obviously hoping that the priest was stupid enough to believe I was the real representative. At least he didn’t seem to know who was truly supposed to be coming.

The priest nodded quickly. “Well come this way then. We might as well actually summon you an Earth Fairy so we have a some time to talk about the plan. I am surprised you don’t have one, but it’s a good excuse to be alone.”

I followed the pries into a back room. On the floor were several tools I knew were used to create the circle. There was an ornate stone pedestal. On the pedestal was an orb of stone. The priest reached into the stone, and picked up a large purple book. I looked at intently.

The priest laughed slightly after noticing my gaze. “This is the Complete Summoning Book. I won it in a game of chance from a priest from a Temple of The Elder Gods.” He seemed awfully proud of that, so I looked wide eyed at him.

He continued to boast. “Only I can actually access it. The stone is enchanted, it lets only my hand pass through it. If any harmful magic is casted at it, or any weapon is drawn around it, the pedestal quickly sends the book into my inventory. I don’t want to carry it around all the time though.”

I dared to ask, “What if someone could directly affect earth mana, couldn’t they disable the stone orb?” The priest laughed at that.

“Sure! But if they could do that then they would be a higher class of mage than any known mage in generations. Besides, not many people are becoming mages anymore. Not when it takes to so long to actually learn how to properly cast magic.”

He seemed proud while saying that. I guess priests of Gnome were considered mages. I gave him another impressed look. It finally made sense why I had never run into other mages though. They really would have to train harder to use spells as effectively as a warrior does swords.

“Now,” his expression turned serious. “Let’s get on with summoning. If we take too long it will look suspicious.”

He quickly created the tier one earth circle in his book, and had me channel my mana and blood into the circle.

I sent all five hundred points in at a steady rate. Dust started gathering in the center of the circle. The dust started to condense, finally becoming a ball of loose dirt.

The dirt was getting bigger, and denser. As the ball became dense, it slowly turned into a ball of stone. When all five hundred were consumed a bright blue light burst in front of me.

Where the ball had been a tiny stone golem stood. It stood about knee high, and for all intents and purposes looked like a child.

It staggered its way over towards me. When it touched me I felt the connection establish. In a deep voice, much deeper than any child could have, the golem spoke. The voice sounded gravel. “Maaaaster. By Gnome’s wiiiil I seeeerve.” It talked annoyingly slow, but I just petted its head.

I made a note to ask it to show me its powers later. “So about the plan…” I left the question open ended. If I gave away that I didn’t know anything it would turn into a bad situation for me.

The priest shook his head. He put the book away into the orb, and began to speak. “Alright! You were tasked with killing Labin. I managed to bribe two of Labin’s guards to let you through. You must be there in an hour or they will change shifts.” Really? Balin and Labin? If they are brother’s I’m so fucking done.

I shook my head. “I don’t know a quick enough path for that.”

The priest nodded understandingly. “I figured that would be the case.” He brought out a map. For an idiot this guy was prepared. “I marked this map with an underground passage. It should let you be there in half an hour if you hurry.” I gratefully excepted the map.

My compendium eagerly absorbed it. Thinking back on it, I never added the last room to my crude stone map. I would do that after the priest left.

He continued. “You are to get a map of the interior from the two guardsmen. When they give it to you, you will only have a few minutes to actually assassinate Labin. Make sure when you are caught to drink this.” He handed me a small vial of black liquid.

Inspecting the contents gave me:

Concentrated Toxic PoisonMaterial QualityUncommonWork QualityExpertBase Damage1000This high level poison was designed for a quick death. It has a foul odor, and is easily identified.

Press for more details…

“Thank you, I will need a moment to send a message to Lord Balin.” I nodded to the door. The priest hurried to exit.

“Oh! Yes of course. I hope your report is good!” He left after asking me to talk him up in front of Balin.

I called the golem into my body. The first thing I did was finish the map. I changed the last bit to resemble the room the slime had been in.

You have completed the map of Dwarven Hall. You have gained the skill Map Making.

2-D Map Making

Current Level: Novice Level 1 Exp 0.00%

By creating your first map you have gained this skill.

Maps are now easier to create. You now create maps at an increased speed.

To level this skill you must create more maps. More complicate maps give more experience.

You can create maps using Earth Mana manipulation if you have a slab of earth.

This skill can currently be fused to Automated.

I could fuse Map Making into a group skill, but I didn’t want to pass up a skill fusion. I fused it to Automated.

Automatic 2-D Map Making

Current Level: Novice Level 1 Exp 0.00%

This skill will automatically create maps of the areas you are in.

Maps are now easier to create. You now create maps at an increased speed.

To level this skill you must create more maps. More complicate maps give more experience.

You can create maps using Earth Mana manipulation if you have a slab of earth.

This skill will automatically create maps if you have ‘Quill and ink’ and paper, or a ‘Stone Tablet’ and mana to create it.

Levels in this skill increase the accuracy of the automatic maps. Ranks in this skill decrease the time it takes to automatically create maps.

This skill takes 5 minutes for every ten feet of map.

I fused both skills to the Group skill Survival. After that it only took 1 minute and 45 seconds for every ten feet of map created. That was a nice decrease. Although now it would be even harder to level the skill up.

I obviously created a few stone tables by using the earth mana around me. I was starting to think there was a trick to leveling skills up past adept. None of them seemed to be able to gain experience. I put it in the back of my mind. Now was not the time for that.

Now was the time for getting a super cool summoning book. I concentrated on the mana held within the stone orb. I could feel several different types, so I focused on only the stone mana.

It seemed like the stone mana acted as a sort of trigger. I deactivated the stone mana. I didn’t understand how all of the mana types worked together, so I just disabled the trigger.

The stone dissolved into the air. I grabbed for the book. To my surprise it didn’t disappear. I smiled a mischievous smile as I added it to the long list of books my Compendium was consuming.

I quickly re-created the stone orb. Although honestly it lacked the other types of mana. It was just a stone orb. When the priest went to check on his book he would notice it was gone.

I opened the door. Standing right outside was the priest. He stole a quick glance at the stone orb. Seeing it unharmed he sighed in relief. “Sorry, I just get paranoid sometimes. Better safe than sorry right?” I smiled and nodded. Too bad you were safe AND sorry loser.

He led me to a place a bit further from the chapel. We were walking between stone houses. In a particular alleyway he stopped. He pressed a button I didn’t notice before, and a small trap door opened up. He motioned me in.

Without waiting I got on the ground, and started climbing down the ladder that was inside the trap door.

While climbing down the long ladder, I checked the earth golem’s stats.

Stats WindowNameEliyahuRaceEarth FairyHealth840Mana840Stamina840RankNoviceCurrent TitleN/AHealth Regen/Sec10.2Mana Regen/Sec10.2Stamina Regen/Sec.1Strength1Agility1Wisdom102Intelligence84Endurance84Dexterity1Luck10Vitality102Fame0Eliyahu is an earth fairy. The abilities of a fairy are based on the element they are made of. Earth fairies start with all stats but endurance, vitality, wisdom, and intelligence at 1.

For being an earth fairy Eliyahu’s wisdom and intelligence stats equal half of the users stats. Eliyahu’s Health and Health regen equal to its Mana and Mana regen respectively. Eliyahu’s endurance equals its intelligence. Eliyahu’s vitality equals its wisdom.

For using the maximum amount of mana in the summoning ritual you have maximum intimacy with Eliyahu.

Eliyahu has benefited from the piety of the summoner. Eliyahu has gained 9 luck.

If fairies die while in combat they return to the Ether Realm, and must be summoned.

Eliyahu was pretty powerful. It would be a good tank in place of EDI. It had more than 8 times my health. The mana wasn’t something to sneeze at either. Eliyahu couldn’t cast as many spells as Tear or Sol, but still. In terms of physical battle, Eliyahu was far superior to both of them.

When I got to the bottom of the bottom of the ladder I looked around. There was only a long, dark hallway.

I quickly re-inspected the poison. By pressing the more details button, I found that it was made with Common Weed, and Deril Root. I looked in my compendium for Deril Root. It was commonly found near dead animal carcasses. It required a lot of blood to grow. It sounded useful.

I called out Tear, Sol, and Eliyahu. I was certain that fairy was a loose term. The only one to actually look like a fairy was Sol. Sol started bombarding Eli with questions. “So, what do you think about master? How long ago were you summoned? What are you going to do for the group.” Sol didn’t give Eli the time to answer in between the rapid paced questions.

When Sol finally took a breath, Eli began to speak. “IIIII willllllll serrrrvve massster.” Eli’s slow paced talking was refreshing. The only one to really talk was Sol.

Sol conversed with Eli while we walked. Even though Eli rarely got the chance to talk, I managed to gain a bit of info about the life of an earth fairy.

Earth fairies were most suited to tanking for their summoner. That got me thinking. Light fairies would be mainly for healers. Since light fairies heal that meant the fairies merely added to the power of the caster.

Since Eli was built for heavy defense, earth magic must have been mostly for shields and such. That would mean water magic was mostly used for hindering enemies. I guess a fire fairy would just cast lots of fire every where.

You have come to understand how fairies link to their element. You have gained 2 intelligence.

While that was nice, at this point 2 int didn’t do a lot. 20 mana could only go so far. I mostly used the mana in the environment anyway.

That reminded me. My new class could send mana into other people or objects. I closed my eyes while we walked. It was a straight hallway, and Eli was in front, so I didn’t mind.

I drew my two swords out of the staff position. I concentrated on forcing fire mana into my sword. I wanted it to be able to melt things with a sing slice. I had to shield my eyes, as my sword suddenly burst into flames.

Even though my body instinctively shied away from the sudden light, I still saw the effects. My sword was bathed in what seemed to be a deep red. The sword itself seemed to dance in the savage light created by the flames.

Holy fuck balls! This would have been so fucking cool to know earlier!

While walking through the long tunnel I practiced moving magic into my swords, and into myself. I realized if I moved the mana in increments of ten percent. I realized something when I put 80% light and 20% wind.

My body began moving more quickly. Not as quickly as I was moving while possessed, but still it was a large increase over my normal speed. My reaction time didn’t increase though. While I moved everything was blurry.

I was only going about twice as fast, but that could prove life saving. After all, when you are running from a lion you don’t need to out run the lion, you need to out run your friend.

During the twenty minutes I was in the tunnels I practiced enforcing myself, and my swords and armor, with mana. Mana seems to willing become whatever best suits the thing it is fused to.

I decided to wrap the mana around myself instead of putting it into myself. When I fused 80% light and 20% earth I gained a defense buff. When I fused 80% light and 20% fire I gained an undead ward. When I fuse the same amount to my sword, the mana gained the ability to purify undead.

The biggest part of the ‘spell’ was how much of each mana type went into it, but without a clear goal in mind, the mana took the simplest form.

I didn’t exactly master the new mana manipulation I obtained while I was walking through the tunnels, but I did at least begin to unravel the mysteries. No wonder the Ancient Elves gave this ability to the lesser races. It was fucking awesome!

The things I learned where pretty nice. 80% of light plus 20% of something else gave a buff. If I used darkness instead of light, I created a debuff. I don’t know how powerful the debuff was, but I would test it out on the first enemy I found.

I changed my aura to metal. I was betting on Labin being a worshiper of the metal god. I walked for a bit more, before realizing I hadn’t talked to Ancestor since the battle. Ancestor? Are you there? I got no response. ANCESTOR! Still nothing.

I frantically started calling out for Ancestor. Both with my mind and mouth. Ancestor didn’t answer. MOTHER FUCKER! Not only does EDI leave me! Ancestor leaves too!? BULLSHIT!

It really wasn’t fair for so many of my tools friends to leave at once. I tried contacting Ancestor again, but came up empty handed.

I gave Ancestor a warning. If you don’t answer me, I will make fucking sure the Ancient Elves go down in history. FOR BEING THE WORST RACE EVER! Ancestor still didn’t answer.

Labin’s true assassin was killed by the priest you tricked. For making the priest believe you are the assassin you may accept his quest.

Wow. Sucks to be that guy. Glad I could pick up another quest though. I decided to accept. I could just forfeit the quest later.

You have accepted this quest.

Success: Killing Labin.

Difficulty: Moderate

Failure: Failing to kill Labin, dying, or being discovered.

Reward: Payment has been issued to the Assassin’s Guild.

Failure results in the Assassin’s Guild declaring your current persona a KOS target.

Success results in the Assassin’s Guild trying to recruit you to their cuase.

While I was trying to accept I tripped. I wasn’t paying attention to my surroundings.

There was a cramped staircase ahead. I recalled all of my fairies. The stairs seemed to be almost decrepit. I reinforced them with my mana as I walked up them. At the top of the stairs there was a small latched wooden door.

I sighed and went up it. There was no reason to fret over people leaving me. It was nothing new after all. I picked myself up, and looked at the wooden door.

I unlatched it, and opened it. The door seemed to jam, but I pushed through it. I quickly rose, and shut the door. The door had been hidden behind a large tree, and was nestled beneath a thick thorn bush.

Looking past the plants, I noticed I was in a large courtyard. It seemed as though I was in some sort of metallic castle. There is no way something like this could withstand its own weight. Not unless the god of metal was helping.

The area was dimly lit by a puddle of lava outside the castle, and a single large crystal on top of the castle. The faint blue glow of the crystal casted an almost eerie atmosphere.

A quick glance out of the cave told me it was night time. No doubt the area looked different in the daytime, but at night my darkness mana could help me a lot.

I noticed a few guards patrolling the area. There was only one group of two. I looked around, and made my way to them as stealthily as possible. I covered myself in darkness mana, and quietly walked to them.

The guards all seemed to be walking very slowly. It was almost as if they were expecting an attack LOL. All of the guards had a similar tattoo on their left arm. Strike that. It was identical. It showed John Smith, the metal god, anointing a dwarf as king.

I planned my way to the group of two. I caught up to the group of two in only a minute.

“Follow us to the entrance.” One of the guards whispered. I thought I was being sneaky, but it turns out the guards could easily hear me approach. At least other guardsmen didn’t seem to notice me. That meant my dark mana cloak did the trick.

The guards continued walking, until finally stopping in front of a door. They seemed to stand guard at that door, and motioned for me to enter it. As I passed one of them put a roll of paper into my inventory.

I opened the door only slightly to gain entrance. After entering the castle I looked around. I was in a kitchen, but luckily no one was there. There was an odd chest in one corner, so I looted it. It had a large amount of salt, and quite a bit of different types of food.

I cooked myself one of the four steaks while I did recon. Applying mana to objects seemed to work even if the object was in my inventory. I peaked outside of the kitchen as I munched on the steak Labin had provided me.

It had been heavily salted, but it still tasted good. Must have been the chef’s ability. Outside of the kitchen was a small hallway. At both ends was a door. The hallway was dimly lit by two torches. Darkness mana tendrils clawed at the walls. I made another small earth tablet, and wrote on it.

I decided to go left for no reason. When I got close to the door, I used wind mana. I created a draft from the inside of the room ahead of the door, to my ears. The wind acted as a very crude listening device. It took the sound from inside the room, brought it below the door, and amplified it for me.

“…to be an attack tonight. We were told to be especially on guard for any attempts to get close to Lord Labin. If anyone tries to approach Lord Labin for any reason, execute them. For house Stonewall!” A chorus of ‘for house stonewall!’ followed. I almost laughed.

I had basically figured out the jist of what was happening. Labin probably followed the metal god, while Balin followed the stone god. There was probably some minor fight going on between the two faiths. My god could beat up your god and all that.

For the metal god’s follower to be called Stonewall was hilarious. The people in the room in front of me started to disperse. The doorknob started turning. I threw myself against the wall, and forced the metal mana in the area to surround me.

I left the top open, but the metal came up above my head. It sounded like two people came out of the room. They were talking human. Wait, why are all of the dwarves speaking human? That doesn’t sound right.

I checked my languages. I had somehow learned to speak dwarven without noticing! My compendium was definitely proving its worth. They were speaking about the possible assassination attempt.

After the two left, I sensed light mana around me. There were two mana signatures. They were standing on the other side of the door.

I made released the metal mana, and created an earth orb around each of the signatures. They instantly started pounding on the earth domes to break them. I snuck through the door, all the while enforcing the mana I was using on the orbs.

I decided to try out one of my debuffs I had thought of. If I concentrated pure light mana into my eyes I could increase my field of vision. In layman’s terms anyway. 100% light mana was healing. I had to think of it in a different way to get it to work.

Assume every 10% mana equals a building block. You could stack ten blocks together to make a large tower. That tower would be ten block high. However, if you started the base with two blocks instead of one, the tower goes down to nine blocks high.

The different heights of the blocks gave different results. So fusing 20% light to 80% was different than using 100% light. Furthermore, you could increase the size of each block.

If you used 100 mana, the buff/debuff wouldn’t be as powerful, or last as long, as if you used 1000 mana. That much was obvious. What wasn’t obvious was the fact that I could adjust the dimensions of each ‘block’. Basically by tweaking just a small detail on my mana I could increase the power of the effect, in exchange for limited duration.

I understood that 80% light equaled a buff. So using that idea as a base, I thought of debuffs. If 20% light gave effected vision, then what would happen if I used 80% darkness to make a debuff, and 20% light for vision effect?

The answer was satisfying. I used 100 mana to cast the debuff.

You have created a common darkness spell: Blind.

Blind

The caster takes away the targets sight. This duration of this spell is (10 + (darkness affinity/10) * Aura) seconds.

The base spell cost for this spell is 100 mana per second.

This spell causes 100% blindness to one target.

I grinned as I read the spell description. I had so many plans for debuffs. I might be a squishy mage (breaks fourth wall by looking at the readers….) but at least I would be able to level the playing field a bit. I still needed a way to up my own power.

The defense buff from the earth/light combo would eventually be a great help. If I could lower my opponents attack enough, and raise my own defense enough, I could take on someone with a much higher level.

Still that 100 health was bugging me. I really needed a way to bring it up. If I could at least bring it up by 10 points per level I’d be happy. ShortDwarf could probably step on me and kill me.

I used the darkness mana from where the torches didn’t reach, and the light mana coming from the dwarves bodies. I sustained the blindness with their own mana!

The mana drain on me dropped to only 20/second. It was still a lot considering I only guided the mana into position. Sol did help a little in forcing the light mana to bend to my will more easily.

I was betting that I could negate the cost of the spell if I had a darkness fairy. Although to get upgrade one past basic, I’d have to free Davros.

That wasn’t something I was willing to do. At least not yet. I needed to perfect a new deal that was weighted in my favor. I also had to make sure not to let Davros act against me or Mar. If he did it would be known that I freed him.

I didn’t kill the two guards for one simple reason. Some might think it was because I respected all life, even virtual life. Some might say I was squeamish. The real reason was that I wanted to everything to seem planned out. I had concocted a plan as soon as I stepped into the castle.

It was an ingenious plan if I say so myself. Once the guards realized they could still scream, they did. The sound they made was enormous.

Many other guards started running towards their position. I made sure to watch it all. Oddly enough no guards came from the hallway I was in.

I ran down the empty hallway, that didn’t have doors. The hallway turned and split many times. I ran through the castle for at least half an hour. I want to say it was thrilling running from the guards, but it wasn’t.

I could basically see the hallways by the metal mana they gave off. I primarily searched for light mana, but I did pay as much attention as possible watching the metal mana. It was a little disorienting walking with my eyes closed, but I managed.

I had several close encounters with guards, but since I could see them a dozen yards before their eyes could see me, I managed to deftly avoid each one. It felt almost anti-climactic. I made a scarily good ninja.

It helped that I used my air mana shoes to walk on the air. While walking on the air platforms, I didn’t make any sounds. I guess anyone could be a decent assassin with the right items and abilities. It did occur to me that the two guards outside didn’t give me a map. It didn’t really matter though, I was still auto-mapping the area. When my auto-mapping was too slow, I just adjusted the earth mana on the tablet to show the route.

I came to a peculiar hallway at one point. There were no guards patrolling it. I knew that was a trap though.

This hallway might lead to Labin then. Why else would the guards hiding in all of the rooms stay there?

There were at least two light mana signatures behind each door. They seemed to be waiting for a cue to jump out. I did not want to be in the middle of that.

I used my special wind shoes, to walk through the halls. Technically I wasn’t actually walking on the metal floor at that point. I was instead walking on air. As such there were no squeaks or footsteps to be heard.

I went to the door on the far left. The reason I did was that door was the only one with three people behind it.

I opened the door. The room had a luxurious bed, and a nice writing desk. The room was about 40x40 feet. It was overly large for so little items in it.

As soon as I opened the door, two iron golem looking things put halberds to my neck. What the fuck!? There was only three light mana signatures… It dawned on me that the metal god might used metal golems. Fucking hell. I should have thought this through better.

There were three dwarves in the room. Two of them had their swords drawn, the last was sitting in a chair directly opposite the door I just entered.

The dwarf in the chair began to speak. I basically ignored everything he said after he introduced himself as Labin.

Your Long Distance Inspection is higher than the target’s disguise skill.

Kremel Level 46

Body DoubleHealth:550/550Stamina:110/110

I quickly took out all of the fire mana in the poison I was given. The poison quickly froze over. I shook my head in the middle of his speech. Whatever he was saying was cut off. “I need to talk to the actual Labin. Balin has renegade on our payment. I’ve come here to negotiate the terms of the new deal.” The guards and ‘Labin’ looked confused.

I gave an exaggerated sigh. “Listen. I know who you are. Your real name is Kremel, you are a body double for Labin. I came here because that is where you wanted me to attempt to kill Labin. I have a poison in my pocket that Balin specifically wanted me to use. I wouldn’t just waltz in here if I wasn’t planning on letting Labin live.”

One of the guards stepped forward. In a gruff voice he barked a laugh. “HA! You failed to assassinate our Lord, and now you try to make a plea bargain!? HA! I say! You assassin types are all the same. None of you have ever managed to kill Lord Labin. You might have gotten the furthest, but there is no way we are letting you go free! Now! Prepare to die!”

The dwarf strode forward, even as the two metal golems backed away. It seemed he thought I couldn’t fight one on one.

Shini Level 64

Body Double’s GuardHealth:1360/1360Stamina:500/500

I started off by creating and throwing a blast of dark/water mana at the warrior. I smirked as the two golems didn’t retaliate. The dwarf was able to maintain his composure. Quite an impressive feat actually.

“At least the earth dwarves would give me a chance to fight back.” I gave a scornful look. The dwarf seemed to take quite a bit of offense at that.

“Fine! Pull out your damndable weapon. Let’s see how you fare against a true warrior!” Wow dwarves are easy to bait.

I pulled out my staff. The it was the dwarf’s turn to smirk. The smirk quickly faded as I unsheathed the swords the staff held.

“Let’s not keep the real Lord Labin waiting…” I taunted the dwarf. With an angry snarl, he charged me. I blasted him back with a large barrage of wind. He resisted it, but after a moment I changed the trajectory. I tightened the wind, narrowing it to the thickness of my staff. I angled all of the wind under the dwarf, and managed to lift him up.

I threw him against a wall, and instantly used the blinding effect. “CHEATER!” He yelled. He must have forgotten to mention magic wasn’t allowed. I decided to use his own god’s power against him. He stood up, but didn’t move. It was like he was waiting to hear my movements.

While he was blinded, I forced the metal on the floor to form six spikes. Every spike was aimed at his neck, and stopped only inches away.

I ended the blinding effect, and allowed the dwarf to see his predicament. He looked aghast at the situation. “You said to give you an opportunity to fight! I did but you used trickery to beat me!? You dare!?” He snapped his fingers, and both iron golems attacked me.

The golems grabbed me, and forced me to my knees. One was about to slice off my head. Unfortunately I had dealt with something similar earlier that day. While forcing the mana in the room to form spikes, I notice that the golems were powered entirely by mana.

They had some central mana source in the middle of their chests. All I did was take away the metal mana in each of their chests, and use it to buff my swords.

With 80% light, and 20% metal I made my swords a nice bit better. Each sword had an effect added. The effect was ‘Precision Strike’.

Each sword had a 20% chance to ignore enemy armor up to a certain amount. Each sword also did an additional 5 damage minimum and maximum.

The dwarf seemed awestruck that his toys could so easily be dealt with. I got up and lightly dusted myself off. I shook my head. “Well at least I didn’t need to use any toys to get the job done.” I smirked at the now lifeless golems.

I might have to start specializing in magical opponents. They are way too easy to kill.

I released the spikes imprisoning the dwarf. “Never mind. I’ll just be going. There is no need to contact Labin. I just received word from HQ to retreat. Hope Labin lives past the next assassination!” I turned to go, knowing this would bait an attack from the dwarf.

I began using Inspect to tell me where I should step and block from. I pivoted on my left foot, while bringing both my blades up in an x formation.

A dagger had been flying at me. The dagger perfectly struck the center of the x. I turned toward the fake Labin. Labin held two more daggers.

“Well that was kind of rude.” I gave a displeased look.

The dwarf scoffed. “I may disagree with Shini on a lot of things, but he is right about this. You must die!” The dwarf threw another dagger at me. At the same time the two guards attacked. I used a speed buff on myself.

I managed to ward off the attacks, but just barely. Higher level warriors were no joke. I had to spend 100 mana a second just to keep up with them in speed. With my current mana regen rate, I would only last 20 seconds.

I had to think up an idea. I took out the solidified cube of poison. Blocking became impossible with only one hand. I had to dodge instead.

I pumped as much fire mana as I could into the cube. The cube quickly evaporated into the air. I was holding my breath the entire time.

The other three noticed what I was doing, and redoubled their attacks. Unfortunately for them it didn’t really help. With the help of Inspect, I was able to dodge every attack.

That skill was the ultimate defense. Almost instantly after the cube melted, the three dwarves had a visible change.

‘Labin’ began coughing uncontrollably, while the two guards seemed to be trying to power through it. The thousand damage seemed to be distributed between the three people.

I sent a blast of wind to throw the two dwarves attacking me. I stopped the buff, and created a small ball of wind and light around my mouth. I would hopefully purge the poison from the air in front of me. Either way I could only hold my breath for so long.

As the two dwarves hit the metal walls, they fell and their bodies slumped. Only the fake Labin and I were left. I sighed. If EDI ever found out I killed three NPCs she probably wouldn’t want to join me anymore.

You know what!? Fuck what she wants.

I didn’t care anymore. She had chosen to leave me. Still I could probably learn quite a bit by interrogating these three men.

“Sol.” The fairy flew out of my chest. “I need you to make sure these live.” I pointed to the dwarves with disdain. I called out Tear and Eli. “Tear, make some water. I want you to let Sol make your water Holy water. I want you two to make sure the dwarves don’t die. Eli, you’re on lookout. I’m going to make these guys nice and comfortable. Heh.”

Spoiler :

Stats WindowNameVoice0fReasonClassMana EnchanterLevel 35Health: 100Mana: 1700Stamina: 350Current Title: Demon Wolves’ BaneHealth Regen: 1/sMana Regen: 20.4(15.4)/sStamina Regen: 5.1/sStrength41Agility34Wisdom204Intelligence170Endurance51Dexterity44Luck0Vitality35Charisma35Compassion95Leadership66Logic22Piety89Unused Stat Points0Fame860

Skills WindowAutomated Novice Level 9 Exp 25.00%

Speed Reading Novice Level 9 Exp 00.00%

Auto Read Novice Level 20 Exp 50.00%Group Skill: Key to Self-Sustained Alchemy Novice Level 24 Exp 10.46%

Group Skill: Long Distance Inspection Adept Level 50 Exp 00.00%

Group Skill: Automatic Nursing Novice Level 12 Exp 50.00%

Group Skill: Con Artist Novice Level 17 Exp 90.16%

Group Skill: Magical Mastery Apprentice Level 37 Exp 00.00%

Group Skill: Skill Mastery Adept Level 50 Exp 21.23%

Group Skill: Tactical Survival Adept Level 50 Exp 00.00%

Group Skill: Tactical Combat Training Adept Level 50 Exp 00.00%

Group Skill: Breakdown Novice Level 12 Exp 46.64%

Group Skill: Harvesting Mastery Novice Level 3 Exp 11.11%

Group Skill: Crafting Mastery Novice Level 4 Exp 60%

Affinities WindowLight70%Water60%Wind25%Nature55%Metal25%Earth45%Fire25%Darkness100%