The Rite Thing

The first step to my plan that would lead to the final assault on the cafeteria was to successfully cast the pseudoportal spell. Every tier increased the spellcasting difficulty by a massive margin, and as a tier 3 spell it was already really stretching my ability to visualize the sigil and even memorizing the verbal component took me a measurable amount of time. Sure, twelve syllables wasn't that much, but none of them made up any coherent words, and so I had to entirely voice them out in abstraction.

I sat on the floor by a low table cross-legged and focused as hard as I could, slipping into a near-meditative state, but keeping my mind focused on the sigil and the words. I failed several times- both the visualization and that chanting took significant focus, but the real trick was in doing the both of them at the same time. I was sure there was no way I could have done it before raising my mind attributes as significantly as I had. On the fifth try it finally worked.

I focused on the monster that had killed Brad and Clara as the target and I cast the spell. A tear appeared in reality, nothing as concrete or tidy as the tiny, perfect pseudoportals from the frost dimension that my icicles came from, but a rough, uneven rip in a roughly square shape. When I saw the creature on the other side I froze in terror. Just like my Journal had said I would have a 50% chance of doing, I couldn't move, couldn't think, couldn't speak. If I had frozen like this in front of the actual creature I would be dead, but since I had four or five minutes to get used to it, I snapped out of it after a few dozen seconds, and, in a cold sweat, could go over the details of the monster.

It was still vaguely humanoid, at least insofar as the arrangement of two legs, two arms and a head went, but it had changed and grown even more grotesque. It had grown in girth and height to a massive, trollish size, with the spikes growing metallic, rusted and massive, bulging out of infected pustules of its skin. While shape-wise it had grown in ways that could be described as corpulent, the lumpy, irregular patches of flesh underneath the skin where its belly would be were too tumorous to be fat. And as the body went up to the head, less and less of the skin was visible, covered by both bony and metallic protrusions, by the time I saw its head, it was entirely covered in needles of bone and rusted metal. Its hands were also covered in spikes, but it could still grasp things with them, and at this moment it was holding a cleaver, larger than I would expect to find in a school cafeteria.

The cafeteria had changed also. Gone was the near-sterile, newly formed room reminiscent of a school, to be replaced by a mix of an abattoir and the laboratory of Dr. Frankenstein. Lumps of flesh were moving on the floor, growing and tumbling towards the corners, growing out new spikes and forming slowly into the forms of the juvenile spike gremlins. Aside from the living flesh of the spike gremlins there was also meat in the cafeteria. Most cuts hanging on the hooks could not be identified as belonging to any creature, and some were even mercifully cuts clearly made out of some of the more animalistic monsters of the Tower, from cousins to the dire boar that we had fought with Hannah and Artemis, to a saltwater crocodile hung from the ceiling, dripping blood onto the floor. The decapitated goblin bodies were grotesque, sure. But, as much as I attempted to disbelieve, the chopped up corpses of human beings were among the cut up remains in that room.

As I watched, the giant creature lumbered up to a pile of meat, reached into it and rummaged around. It finally found what it was looking for and pulled it out- it was an opaque, oblong object, roughly the size of an adult human, red, fleshy and pulsing with magical light. It called out- I assume, I couldn't hear it, but that's what it looked like- and the juvenile versions of the species scurried into a swarm towards it. It placed the sac atop their spines, and while it looked like it should have burst like a balloon, it stayed whole, as the swarm of spike gremlin juveniles carried it away from my line of sight.

So, yeah, I freaked out for a minute, I really don't think I was overreacting.

At least this made the next step of my plan easier to carry out. It was easy to set aside my own concerns about casting from my hitpoints, or cursing the monster in a way that could lead to some unexpected consequences when this was what it had been doing. Fear is a powerful motivator, but if you leverage it right, anger can overwhelm it. I would start with the curse spell that I had found on Kalax's body. It didn't have the most specific of effects, but the main reason I hadn't used it before was its on-set time. Now I had a way to apply it ahead of time.

Curse of Misfortune, Tier 1, Rank 1 Below is the sigil for the Curse spell Curse of Misfortune. This spell allows you to bestow a curse upon an enemy that you can see. The spell will take effect after one hour after casting. The target will then suffer ill fortune for Arcana x 1 hours. Effects that include randomized damage or healing will always randomize twice, applying the worse result. The spell may have additional effects based on Misfortune. Cast using the standard casting procedure. The incantation is Hex-Te-Nil

Requirements to upgrade the spell to Rank 2: Curse then defeat 0/3 enemies

So I visualized the thorned circle that was its sigil and I chanted the incantation and I felt the spell leave my mind. For a moment I thought that the effect on me would be negligible. Then, the invisible green energy hit the pseudoportal and my organs exploded.

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Okay, that probably didn't happen. It sure as shit felt like it, when everything inside me lurched in pain as I coughed up and sneezed out blood at the same time.

Then I threw up.

That too was blood.

So, what I learned was that casting from your hitpoints was not a healthy or efficient way to go about things.

I didn't have a way to check my health stats or anything, but I felt awful. And that had only been a first rank spell. I didn't want to imagine what casting more powerful magic through the pseudoportal would have done to me. The conversion of health to mana must be truly abysmal and potentially deadly. As soon as I'd thought that, I heard a scratching from my log.

Log Arcane Theory skill increased to level 3 Attacked an enemy through a pseudoportal. Experience gained. Additional Coward experience gained. Experience to level 8 718/1000

The skill was going up really quickly. Maybe because I had already been practicing magic for a while now and had several skills related to the practical magic already advanced to higher levels. Or maybe the Journal was being a dick to me, giving me skills along with realizations. I couldn't be sure. I slumped at a bookshelf, and my pain didn't go away. Out in the open, with creatures aware of me I would only heal as quickly as a normal human, and I didn't think that was a smart thing to do with what felt and looked like massive organ damage. I had wanted to cast the mind worm at the monster through the portal too, but there was no way I was risking a second rank spell, not even if I was at full health.

But I was just about as ready as I would get. Before going after the spike monster I still only had two goals to complete- Chum had said that I needed to cast ten spells to get the wizard class. I had cast eight different spells so far, and knew nine. There would be no difficulty in casting the fog spell whenever I wasn't injured and, presumably, mana drained, but I still needed one more.

I also needed at least two more levels. By level nine I would have all of my Mind attributes maxed, but I wasn't sure if I would need to get those attributes maxed out before killing the spike gremlin, or as a result of doing so. Seeing as how my mental attributes didn't increase automatically by leveling up, I wasn't willing to bet on the latter, so I was going to have to actually be level nine and then, hopefully, gain the wizard class along with level 10.

So I needed scrolls and levels. I had more than ten hours total to get them, but it would be best if I could fight the monster in the four hours beginning an hour from now to take the best advantage of its cursed state. Since the hallways had started clearing out, I only had one reliable way to gain both experience and loot, and that was by going into classrooms.

I stood to do just that, and felt a tearing pain in my… everything in my chest and belly. Right. That was the second thing to do. First I had to find a nice, comfortable deep black hole where nobody could see me. It took a painful while to find a closed wardrobe in the library, but I fell into it along with a bunch of moth-bitten coats and let out a breath of relief as I waited for the healing magic to start working.

I shook myself before I fell unconscious. Damn, that was close. If I had fallen asleep in the wardrobe, at best I couldn't take advantage of the curse on the gremlin and at worst I could end up sleeping through most of the remaining ten-ish hours of this second day in the Tower and not have enough time to resolve all the necessary prerequisites for the wizard class.

But just like it always did, the brief meditation in the wardrobe had repaired all the damage I had done to my body. The pain was gone and I was ready and rearing to go. When I left the wardrobe I could no longer find the devil anywhere, but I could feel the curse burning inside me.

I wanted to do one last thing before going out. I took out my Journal and opened it up to the Chat page. It had already been populated all the way to the top, and I was coming into a page of text that I had no context for. Artemis and Chimo were talking tactics and strategy, while Zack was butting in with questions about the sorts of bands that Chimo liked. Apparently, the guitarist had admitted that he found some metal music actually quite creative, and Zack had filled most of the top of the page with a single, unbroken paragraph about Wintersun.

Chat

Hey, everybody, still alive. There are some other groups of people here, but I've only found corpses so far. I have to kill this one monster and grind some levels. -Alex

We're pretty busy, but I can come by to help, if you need it. -Hannah

I kind of get a feeling that I should do this on my own. It could be pretty dangerous, but I have a few tricks up my sleeve. -Alex

Forget about it and come back. We absolutely cannot lose you, our second best spellcaster is Chimo, and it's not the same. -Artemis

My magic is both cool and useful, Alex's is just useful. -Chimo

Good afternoon, Alex. I would like to second Ms. Artemis suggestion that we should reconvene at the earliest possible opportunity. Your security is surely paramount regardless of other commitments or "class build" related activities. Best regards, Clarence.

I have a few ways to run if I have to. I am planning for the long term, not throwing my life away. If I succeed at this, my future levels will be a lot more valuable. It's something I planned with Chum. -Alex

I guess I literally cannot physically stop you, which is why you get to do what you want. -Hannah.

Then Artemis drew an arrow towards Hannah's line and underlined ditto.

I'm really lucky to have met you all, don't worry, I'll be back in no time. -Alex

If you give me another fucking death flag line, I will find a necromancy scroll, then your corpse and turn you into a mindless zombie. -Hannah

I smiled, put the journal away, and went out monster hunting.

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