Sentinel Wizard

I think something blanked out or re-booted in my brain too. The sudden, jarring return to normalcy was so unnatural to my mind that my body just started acting like normal, while my brain was stuck in a sort of a white noise buzz. I walked over to the kitchen, found a tin of instant coffee- presumably for the lunch lads and ladies- and set the kettle on boil. I sat on a chair and looked ahead blankly. I could feel the pain, of course, but I could barely register it at the time, and I certainly didn't have the wherewithal to look for a space to activate my healing ability. I stood over the oven, waiting for the water to boil. It did, eventually, and I poured the hot water over the coffee. I only snapped out of the fugue somewhat by the time I went to open the fridge. That was very wrong.

Fridges in this place had had a two-in-three unspeakable horror ratio inside the Tower, so when I put my hand on the handle, a thought managed to break through into my brain. But I was very tired and hungry, and I didn't see any reason why there should be anything dangerous in the fridge that would be less dangerous if I didn't check it out, and so I opened the door. There was a massive block of cheese taking up the whole top shelf, a bunch of milk, and a few sad vegetables. I wiped my knife off against the remnants of my pants, remembered where it had been, and went to the sink to wash it. The water was hot and normal, and so I cleaned the knife the best I could, went back to the fridge and cut out a fist-sized chunk of cheese. I also took some milk and poured into my coffee, sat down and started eating.

I was fine, probably. After I sat down, I realized I couldn't stand back up. Or, well, at least that I would have a hard time standing up- the signals to my limbs from my brain seemed to take a long time and ran into pain before reaching my extremities.

Artemis had seen me kill it. That was good. She wouldn't think I was dead or in danger, none of them would, and so they wouldn't charge in with a half thought out plan to rescue me. Although, it was possible that the classrooms that had been overtaken by the flesh abominations wouldn't be dangerous just at the moment, so maybe they could make it here without that much bad stuff happening. I bit into the solid block of cheese in my hand and it felt like dense and salty cow fat. It was almost as unbelievably delicious as the coffee, in other words.

Something like triumph managed to ignite under my chest only then. I had done it. The monster was dead. Brad and Clara were avenged. I mean, shit, I know we weren't close, but I had gotten them killed, the least I could do was kill the thing back. I kept eating the cheese too quickly, washing it down with near-boiling coffee. I had done it, and the next step was the reward. I could almost physically feel the drip of dopamine hit my receptors, as I reached for my Journal.

Log:

Cafeteria #2435 Cleared. The ownership of the cafeteria transferred to Alex Vorhal. Reward: Cafeteria repaired and restored to its original use. Bone Abomination (Elite) killed. Level up! Level 10. Experience to level 11 750/7500 Trait "Trauma" resolved- Willpower increased by 1. Trait gained: Vengeance (Trauma) Title Changed: Helpful to Sentinel Class Changed: Coward to Wizard Achievement gained: The Correct Choice Penalty Class (Coward) Changed: Special Trait choice available Level 10 reached, Wizard ability choice pending Level 10 reached, attribute point choice pending Level 10 reached, stat point choice pending Hid in the Darkness in the Walls, Coward experience gained Extremely lesser eldritch horror killed, experience gained

Well shit and fuck. This was so much more than I had dared hope for. Or, I suppose, that was more or less what I knew what would happen from the information given to me by Chum and the Journal, but seeing it all written out like that felt like getting a PlayStation on Christmas at age 12.

So then, what exactly did this all mean. I went down the list starting with the stuff I was least excited about, working up.

Achievements

The Correct Choice: You have chosen the Wizard class. Reward: Wizardry is its own reward.

Title

Sentinel: During the first challenge of the Tower you were a protector, a scout and a troubleshooter. You have saved at least 50 lives, killed an elite monster and learned protective magic. You gain bonus experience when protecting others, or killing creatures that pose threat to others. Your abjuration spells are 1 tier harder to dispel. You may choose a party member to share any damage you would take from damage transfer from your spells. Every 10 levels after earning this title, you may choose another party member. The damage is split evenly.

That's… cool, I guess. It didn't feel like it was being nearly as snarky as with all the useless coward shit at least, though I didn't know how I felt about it making me into a protector and monster hunter. I didn't love the idea of having to live up to it. But I guess that was the downside of not being Useless anymore.

Traits

Vengeance (Trauma): Well I'll be fucked. You have somehow resolved your trauma trait by destroying the thing that caused it. Whenever you would gain the Trauma trait in the future, you instead gain the Vengeance trait targeting the source of your trauma. If you defeat it within 7 days, you gain bonus experience and do not gain trauma.

There's the snark. But apparently the Journal was pleased with what I had done. I mean, I was on to it, so I could have guessed. I had caused pain and violence, and felt good about the reward I got from it.

Class

Choose one Coward Legacy trait :

Experienced Runner: Lose your Run Screaming ability along with all upgrades. Increase your movement speed by 25% permanently.

Connoisseur of Fear: When causing fear by magical or mundane means, the effect triggers twice, and if the target fails to resist either time, they are afraid.

Stealthy: Lose your Run and Hide ability. Instead, your Stealth skill increases by 5 and you increase it 25% faster

And that was just the amuse-bouche? It wasn't an easy choice, exactly, but I liked the idea of sneaking around and setting up ambushes. I didn't actually have any fear-causing spells, so that seemed like a waste. The running ability was probably over-all higher utility, but the Stealthy ability would shoot Stealth up to my highest skill- higher even than Spreadsheet Management, and would let me learn faster in the future. I didn't know what was coming, but I picked it. There was the strange sensation of a skill entering both my literal and muscle-memory, as I became more observant of my surroundings and aware of my position relative to the light sources in the room.

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Wizard You have taken the first steps on the road of wizardry. The greatest and most correct choice in the Tower as in life is to pursue arcane mastery. You gain the following abilities:

Unshackled Mind: You may increase your Mind-based attributes 1 point above your Mind Magic Journal: You have unlocked a new page in your Journal, detailing magical attributes and details Arcane Tool Use: When using staves, wands, or rods to store spells, you may store one additional spell Specialized Spellcasting: You may choose a specialization in spellcasting. Specializations available to you are currently: Abjuration, Conjuration, Necromancy, Curse. You may change your specialization once every 5 levels. Specialization grants you a unique spell, reduction in syllables needed for incantation and slightly reduces the mana cost of all spells in the specialization. Abjuration Specialization: Invisible Armor Conjuration Specialization: Conjure Object Necromancy Specialization: Raise Undead Curse Specialization: Curse of Enervation

I would have preferred more details in the description, but it was hardly an easy choice. Or, well, it was an easy choice between Abjuration or Conjuration, the vast majority of my spells coming from those two schools. Ultimately, Conjuration just had a wild variance of how useful it could be- Conjuring Objects could be either the best spell in the Tower, or nearly useless, while the armor spell was sure to come in handy. Then we got to the meat of the matter.

Level 10 Wizard Abilities available:

A Flame in Darkness: When you cast a spell you may choose to have the sigil appear glowing mid-air, illuminating any natural or unnatural darkness, fog, or other obscurations short of blindness in sufficient range to choose a target of your spell.

Malconvoker: When summoning demons, devils, or evil fae, you may draw a circle to contain them. You gain immunity to mind magic from any creature summoned this way permanently. The creature cannot leave the circle without your permission.

Blood Mage: You are much more efficient when casting from hit-points. The damage you take from casting spells when out of mana is effectively reduced by 66%

Those choices were a lot more basic and practical than I had expected, though certainly useful. The first option was obviously situational, and, just as obviously, it could have saved my life less than 10 minutes ago. On the other hand, it could have fucked me by drawing a target on my location just as well. I really liked both other options- I still wanted to get Chum back at some point, and I was pretty sure that my experience with conjuration spells would eventually lead me to conjuring creatures. On the other hand, I couldn't do it now, while casting from hit-points was becoming a more and more common pass-time of mine. So I picked the Blood Mage ability, hoping I would never use it.

The choice for stats and attributes wasn't really all that obvious either. The Journal had already boosted my Willpower to my current maximum of 4, and I thought I could feel it. But I still had a point to spend in both an attribute and a stat. On the one hand Mind made the most sense for the stat point, as I had already reached the cap, but on the other, my new wizard ability meant that I could keep pushing more attributes in there for four more levels before actually running out of space, meaning that even if I wanted to put as many of my attribute points as possible from the next four levels in Knowledge, Arcana and Enlightenment, I'd only be losing out on two points before the next stat point came. I also didn't feel that my spellcasting ability and my mind attributes were really my problem right now.

I put a point in both power and intensity, and suddenly felt like I wanted to charge out into the halls screaming, until I got used to my new-found strength and confidence. I reeled myself in, remembering that I was still less powerful and intense than an average Earth human, but the change was immediate and noticeable. Honestly, I was just hoping that Intensity would add some punch to my spells, while hoping that raising my Power cap would make sure that I wouldn't waste any potential free attribute points from traits and abilities later.

I breathed out and stood back up. Yup, still hurt. I finished off the last of my cheese and coffee and went to the sinewy, bloody chest in the middle of the cafeteria and opened it. Just like before, despite the massive skull-and-bones lock on front of it, it split apart and exploded into loot rather than opening like a normal chest. This one did fucking blow up into chunks of meat though, which, I thought, a reward shouldn't do.

It was a pretty cool assortment of stuff. There were two more six-packs of potions- one blue, one red. I quickly checked my journal to make sure, and once I knew they were mana and health potions respectively, I drank a health potion and felt much better almost instantly. The smaller wounds knit together rightaway and the big ones stopped bleeding so much and started itching instead.

There was also a sack of what appeared to be diamonds- not a big one, roughly the size of a tangerine- and another, slightly larger bag of golden coins. We still hadn't found any use for money in the Tower aside from that one strange occasion with the fae merchant, but I still scooped it into a pocket. And then there was the good stuff. A book, just about the size of my spellbook and a staff that appeared to be made out of clear crystal. The staff had a tip carved into an intricate, spiralling pattern, while the book was covered in scales and eyes.

Well, what the hell,

Items

Drakewrought Spellbook: This spellbook functions like a normal spellbook with the following changes: when the owner of the spellbook (designated automatically as the transcriber of the spells into the book) speaks the command word 'Fus', the book opens at a page designated by the owner and floats fifteen inches below their nose, allowing for hand-free use of the book.

Staff of Spellwards: This staff reduces the required number of syllables to cast abjuration spells by 2. You may store two spells up to rank 2 in this staff, and the first abjuration spell stored in the staff does not count towards this limit. You may use this feature every day and every time you heal using an ability

I was swimming in new toys. The book seemed particularly cool, but since it didn't have any spells in it, I would have to painstakingly transcribe all of my spells from my old spell-book into the new one before it would be of any use. I pumped three uses of the invisible wall spell into the staff barely thinking about it. If I recalled correctly, I only had one more new toy to examine, so I checked the section of my Journal titled Spells. It was odd, as I already knew the incantation and the sigil automatically from learning a spell from the Journal, but I still didn't know what it did.

Spells

Invisible Armor (Abjuration) Tier [special 1], Rank 1

When you cast this spell, you conjure a suit of perfectly fitted, comfortable suit of armor on to your body. The suit of armor appears as if donned properly. You may choose to have the suit appear completely invisible, as a lightly glowing barrier, or as a suit of glass armor. At Rank 1, the armor is as tough as steel plate, though more brittle. Every time you choose Abjuration as your specialization, the quality of the abjurative barriers that make up the armor improves.

Requirements to upgrade the spell to Rank 2: Choose Abjuration at level 15

I could see no reason to wait. This was the Tower. Danger was nearly literally lurking around every corner. I almost didn't feel the armor as it materialized around me. It seemed to float a few inches away from my body, as if padded by compressed air. When I rapped my knuckles against my chest, I could hear a somewhat crystalline noise.

Finally, for the last update of my new class I checked the new page in my Journal.

Magic

Mana: 11/80 Hit Points: 13/20 Max Rank known: 3 Max learnable Rank: 4 Mana use efficiency: 22%

That was pretty short, but extremely useful. Knowing my total mana pool I could easily find out what restored it, how much mana did each spell cast use and how big the boost to my abjuration efficiency was. I guess the Journal also thought that my Hit Point maximum should also be given, so that I would know how much blood I had left for blood magic. With my mana being nearly four times as large as my HP, I wasn't surprised how horribly drained I felt from even a single spell cast from hit-points. I had a few theories about how stats, level and attributes affected my mana, hitpoints, and the spell ranks I could learn, but I couldn't really know without trying.

Alright, with all of that bookkeeping done, I turned to Chat and wrote

I lived. -Alex

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