Sworded Affair

Chapter 23: Magic Mushrooms

[Emma Knight - Level 5 Revenant

Race: Undead {LOCKED}

Alignment: True Neutral

Anima: 300

EXP: 625/840

Select one of the following three choices:

1) Ability - Hand of Aeons (Cost: X Anima/second): Anything your hand touches whilst this is active ages X years every second. Potency varies according to the amount of Anima invested.

2) Ability - Oversoul: Become intangible and possess the body of a living target. Only works on those with a lower level than the user, with effectiveness varying based on willpower.

3) Ability - Consumption: Ingest living brain matter to gain the victim’s recent memories, along with increased EXP for their death.]

“Is it just me, or have the options gotten weirder ever since I doubled down on being undead?” Emma asked as she examined the abilities on offer; deciding that the empty entrance to the Dungeon was as good a place as any to make her decision.

[Yes.]

“Thanks.” Emma deadpanned, annoyed but not surprised by the unhelpful answer; the System had proven forthcoming about a great many things, but it still preferred to keep its own inner workings close to the chest.

Looking at her three options, Emma discarded Consumption as an choice immediately, despite the utility and potential fast leveling it offered. There were quite a few problems with the consumption of living brains; from the personal disgust at the thought of doing so, to the practical considerations such as the difficulty of securing the brain without killing the target first, and finally the significant social implications if her acts of cannibalism were ever discovered, as people of all stripes didn’t tend to like that sort of thing. That left only two real choices to consider for her fifth level up.

Of the two, Emma was immediately drawn towards Hand of Aeons, largely at first due to the name. Thankfully she didn’t select it on an impulse, because after taking some time to think it through, Emma realized that it didn’t actually offer her much beyond her current skill set. It was a deadly skill for sure at melee range; but she’d already not had much trouble taking apart anything that was both within arm’s length and tangible. The requirement for making contact meant it would have not helped against The Colony, whilst Amal had helpfully shown that there were ways to enhance her toolkit by using items instead of relying solely on skills. Meanwhile, the high cost in Anima made the skill prohibitive at her current level, unless it targeted something that would trigger her self-healing; it wouldn’t have saved her had the manor fallen over her head, not when she’d exhaust her anima long before she could dig her way out of all the rubble.

In the end, despite seeming the least powerful at first glance, Oversoul actually offered Emma the most right now. It solved her transportation problem, as even a single glance overhead spotted no shortage of birds flying overhead, any of which she could commandeer for some airborne travel at anywhere between fifty and a hundred miles an hour, far surpassing what she could manage even at a dead sprint. It would also allow her to enjoy the benefits of humanity again, without sacrificing the power she’d already gained in her current class. Finally, there were the obvious benefits of possession when it came to stealth and infiltration, which were sure to come in handy sooner or later.

[Ability - Oversoul selected!]

Her choice made, Emma was really tempted to take flight immediately; after all, who hadn’t dreamed of flying through the air at least once as a little kid? Deciding she’d best speak with Felix first though, Emma smothered that temptation and headed through the glowing golden gate into the Dungeon proper.

[Select Fast Travel location:

Bedroom

Theater

Dungeon Core]

That’s new, Emma raised an eyebrow. Convenient though!

Selecting the Dungeon Core, Emma found herself back in a familiar black desert, her brother sitting there exactly the same as last time; indeed, for all she knew his avatar hadn’t moved an inch in the intervening hours.

“Back already?” Felix frowned. “Alone as well; I take it you haven’t found dad yet?”

“We got our wires crossed, I think,” Emma groused. “I spent the time heading towards his office, whilst a local said he was spotted in his car heading homeward. I don’t suppose he’s gotten in touch with you in the meantime?”

“Still nothing,” Felix shook his head. “Whatever dad is doing, it’s not connected him to the weave the same way we are, so magical communication is out. Meanwhile, there’s still no signs of satellite signals or the internet coming back; believe me, I’ve checked.”

“I did find something else of interest though,” Emma mentioned. “Met an old man who knew a lot more than he let on at first. Very helpful, when we finally got to dad's office to check with his coworkers where they thought he was headed…”

Taking a seat in the warm desert sand, Emma began to regale her brother with her recent magical adventure.

—

“What a mess,” Amalgam sighed as he raised his hand, launching yet another sphere of red and incinerating the latest chunk of rubble, ten square feet across.

He’d been at it for well over an hour now, not even taking into account the hastily erected illusion to keep the rest of the village away from the incident. As far as they’d know; a gas explosion was the cause of the manor's collapse, and emergency services were already attending to the scene.

“On the one hand, maybe I shouldn’t have been growing troops of Manastorm Mushrooms in the building’s basement,” Amalgam considered. “But on the other hand? How was I supposed to know we’d get such a massive surge of mana, sending them all into a frenzy? Nothing like this has been recorded in centuries; hell, this particular troop wasn’t even meant to mature for another twenty years!”

Another three blasts cleared fifty square feet more, the three sequential detonations erasing any trace of his misdeeds where they landed.

“At least I managed to convince the young lady to leave, before she realized what was going on. Thankfully she wasn’t a herbalist herself; oh, that would have been dreadfully embarrassing! I’m supposed to be her wise senior alchemist, dispensing kindness and words of wisdom. I do not make these kinds of rookie mistakes. Bah!”

If there was one silver lining for this entire fiasco, it was that Amalgam had plenty of targets with which to work out his frustration; he’d cleared five hundred square feet of rubble so far, which still left well over four thousand to go.