Zonal Evocation Mage

Level 10 - Magesight - Advanced Sight Skill that combines Mana Sight, Basic Sense Raw Mana, Essence Sight, and Vital Sight into a single improved Skill. Passively view all forms of magic. Observe how they affect each other and can transform from one to another. When used actively, additional details can be observed such as Affinities and faint traces of spell residue.

A combined Skill that took it to “Advanced”? Serenity hadn’t expected that yet. It didn’t look like it gave him any more tools than he already had, but it would probably make dealing with all of the different inputs easier.

On second thought, it did change one thing; it was a significant upgrade to Basic Sense Raw Mana. Serenity was fairly confident he’d been working on that without realizing it, since ley lines were raw mana.

Level 25 - Fireball - Place a ball of Plasma where you want it within your sight range. Maximum expansion size varies with mana used.

Somewhat disappointingly, the Skill was far less flexible than the spell; it was limited to a single Affinity and Serenity rather strongly suspected that the temperature would vary across the “fireball”.

Fireball was still a classic; it was a good starting point.

Level 50 - Cone of Lightning - Emit Energy starting from your hands in a cone shape. Spread in height and width may be controlled by hand position; maximum length depends on mana used and height and width selected.

Serenity hadn’t expected the Path to follow his examples quite so literally, but a cone starting at his location was also a very useful spell. After all, he tended to get into melee range; he could come up with all sorts of situations where it would be good to hit everyone in front of himself and no one to his sides, cases where a ball would simply be too dangerous.

Level 75 - Spot Nullification - Use Nihility to destroy what you can see. Roughly shapeable. Potentially explosive.

Serenity had controlled the explosive possibilities with his spell; he hadn’t expected them to make it into the Skill. On the other hand, he’d also expected it to be the capstone; after all, it was shapeable and that was usually a Path capstone. The “roughly” modifier was probably why it wasn’t a capstone; he’d have to leave several feet of space around an ally if he wanted to not hit them. It was going to be a very expensive Skill; Nihility always was, since it was true destruction.

Level 100 - Death Field - As Death’s Incarnate, you radiate Death through your aura. You may choose creatures to include or exclude at any time. Toggleable, Easily Detectable.

Now Serenity knew why Spot Nullification hadn’t grabbed the capstone spot; Death Field was far more powerful but also more dangerous. It seemed to lean into his Death Affinity, but was that really any worse than burning something to death? He didn’t want to be the man he was in the original timeline, but he also needed to avoid leaving tools unused that would make things easier.

The Path wasn’t quite what he’d expected from the name; he’d expected something a bit more freeform, where he could infuse whatever Affinity he wanted into whatever shape he wanted. That was probably a bit much to ask from the first Path of its type, though, and he was overall happy with the Path he’d gotten. It was a very straightforward Path, with spells that were easily Tier Three in their flexibility.

Arrin watched the flyer recede into the distance with glee. He finally had his chance!

The father was gone. Arrin had followed them to the planetary portal node himself, and knew that they’d headed back to Lowpeak the previous day. It was unfortunate that he wouldn’t be collecting the higher payout for killing the man, but at least he was gone.

If only he hadn’t left his daughter behind.

Even worse, he’d left behind the strange man who could somehow see through True Invisibility. He’d foiled the first attempt and made Arrin take over the contract; Arrin had been cautious ever since.

Arrin’s caution had finally paid off, he knew the man’s schedule now. He’d be at the Palace all morning. With the father gone, that meant the daughter was unguarded. Not only that, but the place would be nearly empty. It should be easy to take care of her.

Arrin snuck into the house and headed to Andarit’s rooms.

They were empty.

As was the rest of the house. In fact, it looked like the house had been settled into place to be empty for only a few days; several of the rooms, including the Duke’s and his son’s, were covered to protect the furniture but most of the house wasn’t. The kitchen, however, had been cleaned out. The only supplies in it were things that would last for a long time.

All of which told Arrin that he’d watched his target leave and not even realized it because of the distance he had to keep to avoid being seen by that man. How annoying.

At least he had a place to start. The Palace.

Arrin barely had to try to find out where they’d gone; apparently the fact that two people who weren’t royalty, knights, or part of the Royal Guard entering the Palace Dungeon was big news.

Of course, the discussion wasn’t as simple as simply saying they’d been allowed into the dungeon; instead, the Palace staff were taking bets on whether or not the pair would survive and how far they’d make it before they ran. Arrin didn’t want to follow them into a dungeon, especially not one where quite a few people were betting against the survival of two others, but he didn’t have a choice. Several of the bets were that they’d survive for a tenday or more, and none of the “death” bets would be counted until it’d been a month.

He didn’t have a month. He didn’t even have a tenday if he wanted to actually get the contract paid out. He had four days.

It had seemed like such an easy contract, too. Make sure no Lowpeaks were in Zenith on a particular date; dead was preferable but not required. Since the date was after the end of the Prince’s festivities, it seemed like a simple enough request. Even if the strike failed, it should send them back to Lowpeak.

Only it didn’t. Not only did they stay, they somehow ended up with a better protector than anyone Arrin had ever seen. They only went out when he was around, and whenever Arrin came close, he could see the man’s eyes on him. It was infuriating!

He had to finish this now. It was the last of the contracts due in four days, and as long as they died in the dungeon, the father wouldn’t return in time. Sure, Arrin might have to deal with that man, but he seemed to be dangerous mostly because of his perception. All Arrin had to do was time things right.

Arrin snuck into the passageway leading to the dungeon. It was easy enough to find; it came up repeatedly while the guards were boasting about their bets. He didn’t have directions, but it was still quite simple to follow the most-used trail. He couldn’t distinguish Andarit’s traces from those of the guardsmen and he’d never been able to track that man at all for some reason, but the path was easy to follow.

As he reached the end of the path, he could tell that Andarit had gone through the last door recently; she’d touched it, and it still retained a hint of her signature. Arrin made certain that none of the guards were paying attention before he ducked in himself.

[Field Dungeon: The Nights of Shadows]

[The Nights of Shadows is the name given to a dark period in the history of Zon]

[Status: Active]

[Current participants: 1]

[Join Assault?]

Only one participant was excellent news; it meant that either one of the two had already died or only Andarit had entered. All he had to do was find out who was in there, kill Andarit if it was her, then leave. Finally something was going his way!

Arrin agreed to join, then found himself in a corridor with two doors on the right, one on the left, and one straight ahead. He followed Andarit’s traces to the far door, ignoring the side doors she obviously wasn’t in, and was about to open it when he suddenly became aware of something on the other side of the door.

Something utterly terrifying.

Arrin couldn’t tell what it was, but he knew that it was death brought to the real world. It wouldn’t care if it killed him, but it didn’t have to care to kill him. It simply was, and what it was was anathema to life.

He froze.

A long moment later, the feeling was completely gone.

No wonder the Palace staff were betting on whether or not people would live in the dungeon! Anything like that could simply decide it wanted to kill the delvers and it would all be over. Arrin sat there shivering for a while, giving whatever it was time to move on.

Eventually he opened the door and moved forward. He had to; he had to know if his target was still alive or not. If she wasn’t, he was leaving immediately. Sure, dungeons were lucrative; that was why they were owned by nobles and Courts, but after this experience he wasn’t certain he wanted to delve into the Night Sky Court’s dungeons, and he’d completed all of them before!

The next room was strange. Bodies looked like they’d been torn apart then partly cooked, other than some places where they were simply missing parts. Even the stone floor looked scoured clean in spots, possibly partly removed. It was clearly the result of whatever monster had that terrifying presence, but the monster was long gone.

Arrin picked his way across the room, following Andarit’s traces as best he could. They were at the exit and even on the exit door, so she was still alive. At least that meant that he didn’t have to be quite so careful; if she was alive, then that man must have died in the fight that left all those bodies behind. Andarit wouldn’t see him unless he was careless.

Once again, Andarit opened the door to the next room. Fortunately, this time it did not open onto a massacre. Instead, the door led into an empty stone room, even larger than the gymnasium. Serenity could see several possible exits; three were open hallways, while another four were stairs leading either up or down.

Andarit looked around, lost. “What is this place?”

Serenity wasn’t certain. “Let’s look around. Maybe there will be a map or another clue?”

Serenity went left while Andarit went right. He’d just reached a booth that said TICKETING when Andarit exclaimed. “This thing on the wall has descriptions, I even see Station Node 37. I think it’s a map!”

Serenity headed over to join her. When he saw the map he understood her confusion; it was a collection of colored lines that went in odd directions and met at circles that were labeled Station Nodes. It looked just like a subway map, except that the subway had clearly been dug by someone with more budget than sense.

Unless.

Unless the map wasn’t simply two-dimensional. What if the dashes next to each line indicated depth? All of the lines that converged on a node always had the same number of dashes. Serenity made sure to get a good image of the map, which let him enlarge it and look at pieces more easily.

“To get to Station Node 37, it looks like we need the gold line or the … is that red? Let’s call it red. It looks like we’re at Station Node 2 right now, so we’ll need to take the yellow line, change to the green line at Station Node 14, then change to the … what the heck is that color? Aquamarine? There’s another blue. No, wait, there are four other blues. Argh. Well, the blueish line at Station Node 56. From there we can catch the red line. Or we could go the other way and try to catch the gold line. It looks more direct, but there are more station changes. I’m thinking we start with yellow.”

Andarit shrugged at Serenity. “If you know how to read it, I’m happy to follow you. We’ll get there eventually no matter what.”

Serenity nodded. “Yeah, the dungeon does seem to be giving a guiding hand. Especially with that, keep an eye out; I don’t think it will be a peaceful trip or it would be simpler.”