Evolution of a Healer

This was not the tunnel to the sinkhole. They must have passed it at some point, and instead they were now heading into the much narrower infested tunnel. The name was still apt, based on the Harvesters trying to stop Hex and Scott. The party did not discuss it, but seemed to have silently agreed the Harvesters, who now only really qualified as annoying, were preferable to the still hidden web flingers and possible Spitters in the open cavern.

Cyn used Restoration on herself only briefly, trying to keep her health low to continue to take advantage of the large mana regeneration boost she was getting from her boots. Dangerous for her, but it allowed for generous use of Restoration on everyone else while the party fought their way into the mouth of the infested tunnel. It was more terrible than she remembered it being, but that's probably because they had not gotten close last time.

By the time there was enough room for them all to fit inside, the front line of the party was having to push and kick corpses back towards the entrance cavern in order to have enough room to maneuver and kill the steady wave of approaching Harvesters. The tunnel was only wide enough for two of them to fight safely side by side, unlike the previous tunnel where the backline could contribute easily through a gap, and in this instance it was mostly Hex doing the fighting, with Scott just knocking the attackers away with his shield. Once Sam was there, the last to enter the smaller tunnel, he started piling them against the webbed entrance to block the web-throwing arachnids from continuing to attack them or follow. It also served to trap the party inside of this tunnel, but if that was a problem it would have to be dealt with later.

Around the fighting in front of her, Cyn could see the number of large Harvesters approaching them dwindling. Further down, she was able to confirm her previous suspicions that there were baby Illuminant's and eggs lining the walls and ground. They did not seem hostile, or at least did not charge forward with the larger Harvesters, but at least some of them would have to be taken care of before anyone could rest. The idea of having an army of tiny spiders ambush her was somehow more terrifying than the large ones. Cyn was not a fan of spiders on a good day, and the time they had spent here definitely only made her opinion of them worse.

It did not take too long for the tide of enemies to stop, leaving Hex, Scott and Cyn all winded. Looking around and seeing no further threats, the Rogue dropped to the ground and lay flat on his back. His voice sounded genuine as he chuckled, “Well, that was fun.” Cyn was the only one that seemed to agree, unable to help herself she burst into loud laughter before sitting down hard and committing the mana needed to actually heal her wounds with Restoration and get her health back to a reasonable level. She felt the loss of mana regen hard as her health rose, and ultimately decided to leave her health at about half and let the rest regenerate naturally while she milked just a little more mana out of her boots buff.

Although Dana had participated a great deal in the fight in the entrance cavern, it had been mostly shooting down projectiles and she had avoided getting hit for the most part, leaving her still feeling fairly fresh. Sam seemed to have not lost much during the fights before, at least not after being healed, so he too was feeling fine. With half of them needing to rest, though, the two energized party members set up to keep watch both on the blocked off entrance cavern and the baby spiders further down the tunnel.

“Let me know once one of you is feeling well enough to take over for a bit, we hit level five and I need to make a skill selection.” Cyn had been messing with her ruined tunic, the back of it having been burned away with the Spitters acid, when the Archer spoke. Since she was still pretty well covered, her leather satchel strap having survived the attack and holding the tunic mostly in place, Cyn quickly opened her menu to look at her notifications. After dismissing all of the expected kill notifications, she was left with just the important ones.

Overload (Uncommon)(Passive) - You have learned to increase the amount of mana skills consume, increasing power at reduced efficiency.

So once again she was able to brute force a new skill on accident. She kind of thought that what she had done with Restoration was just a part of her Freeform Mana Casting, but apparently not. What’s more, this skill was only Uncommon, not Unique like her other one. She took that to mean it was probably a standard skill Mages would learn, just maybe not quite as early as she did. If Cyn had not been successful with Freeform Mana Casting, she likely would not have even tried to empower her other skills like that.

Class level up! [Mage] is now level 4

+1 Vitality, +3 Mind, +3 Will, +1 Strength, +1 Agility, +1 Luck

+3 free points

Profession level up! [Creature Handler] is now level 6

+3 Vitality, +1 Mind, +2 Will, +1 Strength, +2 Agility, +1 Luck

+3 free points

Class level up! [Mage] is now level 5

+1 Vitality, +3 Mind, +3 Will, +1 Strength, +1 Agility, +1 Luck

+3 free points

Skill selection available for [Mage]. View options now?

[View][Wait]

Wait, she had gotten a profession level up? How? From getting her ass kicked by a giant spider? Maybe from cutting through the webs, but she found it hard to believe that that would have given her a whole level, not when she had barely made level five before they left Cogtopia. Perhaps it was from interacting with new creatures, meaning it was from getting her ass kicked. She would have to try and see if she leveled up more while the party fought new things, assuming they were not stuck fighting arachnids forever. Moving on to what she was really looking for, Cyn accepted the prompt to view her skill selection options and was thrilled to find five waiting for her.

Mana Barrier (Weak) - Use mana to create a protective barrier above the skin.

Barrier is temporary and weak.

This skill can only be used on self.

Well, that sucked. It kind of felt like the System was trying to tell Cyn she was getting hurt too much, but since the quality of the skill was bad, and the description sounded bad, she really did not want to take this. She might even be able to do this with Freeform Mana Casting at some point. The only possible redeeming quality she saw was that there might be potential to increase the skills quality and specialize it, like had happened with Inspect. But that was just a theory, and with four more options surely there was something better available.

Purify (Common) - Use mana in an attempt to purge simple poisons and toxins from the body.

Can be used on self or others.

There’s the basic healer dispel she was definitely missing since Hex decided to start licking everything. Simple, to the point. The ‘attempt’ portion of the description was probably just to cover more powerful or complex things the skill might not be able to deal with. A solid choice.

Restoration Aura (Uncommon) - The Mage can reserve a portion of their mana to continuously emit an aura for themselves and allies that passively accelerates natural health regeneration by a small amount.

Aura range is dependent on will stat.

This skill serves as an upgrade to and replacement for [Restoration]

Now that was interesting. If she had any other heal spell, she would pick that up in a heartbeat. The skill did not mention closing wounds though, and checking the description of Restoration made it clear that this would also increase health regen by a smaller amount. Which made sense, since it was an aura that she could just keep active. It also had the problem that it would increase Cyn’s health regeneration too, making it even harder to take advantage of her boots like she had in the last battle. She just did not think that would be a good skill to take right now. Hopefully she would be able to reconsider it in the future.

Melee Mage Expertise (Uncommon)(Passive) - The Mage gains basic knowledge on using melee weapons.

Melee weapons that do non-physical damage will do more damage.

Melee weapons that do physical damage based on the strength stat will use the Mages mind stat instead.

Technically not bad. It definitely brought forth the idea of being a sort of paladin, or arcane warrior. She would much rather have Purify, though.

Magic Missiles (Uncommon) - Condense mana into efficient, unattuned spikes to strike at enemies.

Mana cost is dependent on how many spikes are created.

Magic Missile will not miss its target under normal circumstances.

This skill serves as an upgrade to and replacement for [Mana Ball]

This was literally just what she was doing with Freeform Mana Casting. Hell, that might even be why it showed up as a skill option. Cyn had not thought of her needles as being like a Magic Missile spell, but they definitely fit this description. She would not be taking it, and honestly having two of her five skill options be replacements for skills she already had made her feel a little cheated. At least for the first skill choice of her class. To be fair, though, she also had gotten a few skills through making stubborn assumptions. Feeling only a little dejected, she chose Purify and took a look at her stats.

Name: Cynthia Price

Race: [Human]

Class: [Mage] Level 5

Profession: [Creature Handler] Level 6

Health Points: 151/260

Mana Points: 268/470

Stamina Points: 350/350

Free Points: 12

Vitality: 26

Mind: 24

Will: 35

Strength: 12

Agility: 29

Luck: 17

Racial Skills: [Dimensional Translator][Inspect]

Class Skills: [Freeform Mana Casting][Restoration][Mana Ball][Mage Regeneration][Purify][Overload]

Profession Skills: [Pet][Friendly Aura][Harvesting]

Feats: N/A

It was kind of funny how her stamina points were full. She just did not use much of it, and the few points she might use regenerated nearly instantly when she had low health. With the belief that strength would probably make her at least a little tougher, Cyn put six free points into it, and split the remaining between luck and vitality. Satisfied, she took one last look at her stats before closing the menu.

Health Points: 155/290

Mana Points: 276/470

Stamina Points: 351/380

Free Points: 0

Vitality: 29

Mind: 24

Will: 35

Strength: 18

Agility: 29

Luck: 20

Looking around at her party, she wasn’t really surprised to find Hex blankly looking into the middle distance, clearly still in his menu. He had been taking this the most seriously out of all of them, at least to Cyn’s eyes. And by seriously, she meant like a tryhard gamer. Obviously, he didn’t want to die, but he had also acted in ways that were not just about surviving. You had to be lacking a certain amount of survival instinct to be willing to put clearly poisonous material in your body, without knowing exactly what it would do to you, just for the sake of experience and knowledge. It was admirable, honestly. A bit stupid, but admirable. So the fact he was taking the time to think about his skills seemed on brand for him.

On the opposite end of the seriousness spectrum was Scott. He appeared to be keeping watch alongside Dana while Sam was in his menu, so Cyn assumed he had already made his skill selection. She liked Scott, he was smart and had acted as a good leader in many ways. But his focus was entirely on survival, both his and everyone else's. That might be good for a Guardian, to an extent, but she did not think the older man was considering what his decisions now might mean for him later, once they were out of the dungeon. They had discussed not thinking about the things Kreeble had told them, but Scott might be taking that a little too seriously. He just wanted out of here.

Dana and Sam both fit somewhere between. The Archer was a little more serious, especially when it came to her profession. She was still carrying around a nonfunctional gun prototype, in order to work on it more, even though none of them knew when they would have the chance or resources to do stuff like that again. Since it was intended to be a weapon for her, that also related to taking her class seriously as far as Cyn was concerned. Hopefully the other woman's skill choice had been clear, and she had not messed up by not thinking about it enough.

Sam was hard to read. He stuck to what was familiar to him, taking the Builder profession and choosing to fight with mostly grapples, but it really was working out for the Warrior. It was hard to tell if that was just happenstance, if his previous life giving him a strength boost was simply a huge advantage, or if he also was taking his choices seriously. Maybe for him, serious was just playing to his already established strengths.

Cyn knew she was much closer to Hex in how she was taking their situation than anyone else. After purposefully sticking at low health for an extended period, for the sake of mana regeneration, it was pointless to even try and lie to herself about it. And frankly…as odd as it seemed, she was having fun. She had no desire to go back to her boring office job, and just pretending to be something interesting online. She had a chance to live out those fantasies now, to go on adventures, to see and do fantastical things. To become something fantastical. To learn magic. You would think that nearly getting killed by the mimic so early in their dungeon would have put her off, or at the very least given her nightmares, but it was quite the opposite.

The mimic was just a catalyst, giving her a non-standard skill, and it only served as the first step in her evolution as a healer.

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