The Runic Artist

Kiri eyed the small fort, because that was the only way to describe it. Bloody System shenanigans is what it was. She hadn’t seen a single tree so far in this Dungeon, but somehow there was a small wooden fort that housed the goblin’s and their Hyelashes. The moon was out and much to her chagrin, it was a full one. The Shadowskin rune would be the only way to conceal herself going in, and going in was her intention.

There was no way she could fight them in a direct battle. But sneaking in and killing a few while they slept? That she could manage. She just had to be quick. Quick and silent. The little wooden fort had a single watchtower and she had seen that there were two goblins in it. How did she know that? Because the two little bastards had laughed their heads off after flinging down, what she was pretty sure was shit, at one of the other goblins. By the Gods she was going to force Frick to take a new shape when she got out of here.

So, she had waited. And waited. And waited. Finally, the noises of revelry and other things she preferred not to think of were petering out. Silence had slowly slid over the goblin fort. Perhaps even the lookouts, though she wasn’t going to take any chances. Activating the Shadowskin rune Nate made for her, she slipped up to the wall of the fort and carefully climbed over it. The stupid thing wasn’t even that tall. Two metres at best and with easy footholds, she was over in a flash and creeping between small and dirty abodes. These at least looked more fitting, with grass roofs and what might’ve been bundled grass walls. Unfortunately, they smelled as bad as she expected.

At first her intention had just been to kill a couple of goblins and flee, but seeing all this dried grass ready to go up in flames, it was hard not to consider setting fire to the place when she invariably fled. Well, there was time yet to decide whether that was the best plan. She avoided getting close to the centre of the goblins camp. She had achievements for killing things above her level already, thanks to assistance from her Father. There was no need to take on those risks here and now.

All she needed was a clean kill and the mana it provided to propel her into her new Class. On the outer edge of the little houses, she found one she could peak inside of. A lone goblin lay sprawled out on its back. The inside of the house smelled even worse than the outside and she couldn’t be certain, but she was pretty confident this was the goblin that had been shit on.

Slinking inside of the little grass house, she drew her daggers in a reverse grip and let what little mana she had flow into them activating her Shadow Aligned Dual Daggers skill. It improved her ambidexterity but more importantly, flooded the daggers with shadow affinity mana that made them both hard to see and sharper. Preparing herself for the barest of moments, she aimed one blade at its throat and the other its heart. She didn’t hesitate to follow through, stabbing down.

Blackish blood splattered over her Shadowskin, blending in with it as the goblin thrashed quietly for a moment before stilling. The condensed mana flowed into her a second later and the moment she had been waiting for finally occurred as the system message flowed in front of her eyes. This wasn’t the best place to do it but if she was going to kill a few more goblins before fleeing, she wanted the extra stats and skills to assist her. Sitting down and trying to ignore the smell, she began quickly reading her options.

Congratulations! You have gained enough mana to undergo Class Selection.

Options curated based on achievements. Choose carefully.

Walk your Path. Reach your Goal. Become One with Mana.

Offered Class: Reborn Soul Sniper (Legendary)

The Reborn Soul Sniper has tasted death, their soul partially vanished into the Spiritual Realm. With their mastery of the bow and soul magic, their targets can never escape them for the lingering threads of spirit will ever be an anchor, tying them to their fate at the hands of Reborn Soul Sniper.

Stats/Level: +2 Dexterity, +1 Agility, +1 Intellect, +2 Willpower, +2 Perception,

+2 Mana Reserve, +5 Free Stats

Offered Class: Reborn Soulshade (Legendary)

The Reborn Soulshade has tasted death firsthand and now delivers it to their enemies. One foot in the Spiritual Realm and one in the Physical Realm, they tread between the two as needed, hunting their prey and delivering to them release back into the cycle of reincarnation. The arbiter of an eternal cycle.

Stats/Level: +1 Dexterity, +2 Agility, +3 Willpower, +2 Perception, +1 Magic Control,

+1 Mana Reserve, +5 Free Stats

Offered Class: Reborn Arcane Archer (Epic)

The Reborn Arcane Archer has skills in magic and due to their high Soul Affinity, the ability to thread advanced energies into their arrows as they rain down the will of the Spiritual Realm on all who threaten them. Shoot true and pierce the soul.

Stats/Level: +1 Dexterity, +1 Agility, +2 Willpower, +1 Perception, +1 Magic Power, +1 Magic Control, +1 Mana Reserve, +4 Free Stats

Offered Class: Lone Dungeoneer (Rare)

Dungeons are both a gift and a task set forth by The System. The Lone Dungeoneer seeks out dungeons to defeat alone, trusting in The System to see their sacrifice and reward them.

Stats/Level: +1 Strength, +1 Agility, +1 Endurance, +1 Constitution, +1 Willpower, +1 Perception, +3 Free Stats

Offered Class: Reborn Ranger (Rare)

A Ranger wanders the forests of their world. Often alone they know what it takes to survive in a place where they are not the apex predator. Their awareness and guile let them thrive where others would die. The Reborn Ranger uses their Soul Magic to bind with the creatures of the forest.

Stats/Level: +1 Agility, +1 Endurance, +1 Constitution, +2 Willpower, +1 Perception, +3 Free Stats

Which Class would you like to accept as your Primary Class?

She couldn’t stop the smile she wore that stretched from ear to ear. Not one, but two Legendary options. Unsurprisingly, she’d gotten quite a few archer based options. A decent number of her achievements had been specific to the bow and she could never escape that. But she had a chance, finally, to pursue the weapon she’d always wanted to wield. Daggers. She could read through all the options but she was never going to choose anything but a Legendary Class, and she was not going to continue to try and be an archer. That made the choice easy as she selected Reborn Soulshade as her Primary Class. A new series of notifications showed up before her.

Congratulations on gaining the Primary Class: Reborn Soulshade (Legendary)

Accrued Mana applied to Primary Class.

Level up…

Level up…

Stats adjusted: +2 Dexterity, +4 Agility, +6 Willpower, +4 Perception, +2 Magic Control,

+2 Mana Reserve, +10 Free Stats

Skills Available! Please Select 3* Skills.

Class Skill Options:

One Soul, One Body (Epic)

As a Soulshade battles, they are not immune to harm but they have a tool that few others possess. Soul Magic is a form of healing and using soul energy, a Soulshade can restore their body. Amount of soul energy consumed is based on Skill Level and Willpower. Speed of healing is based on Skill Level and Magic Power. Mana cost is based on Skill Level and Magic Control.

Soul Engraving (Rare)

Those who utilise Soul Magic understand that the soul and the body are inextricably linked. This Skill utilises that fact to engrave spells, powers or skills onto the soul. Enhancing them beyond the norm or allowing them to utilise abilities from other paths. Number of Engravings a soul can support is equal to the number of Classes unlocked. The Soulshade can support one additional engraving per ten Skill Levels. Mana cost varies based on Engraving. Engraving lasts for a number of Days equal to Willpower / 3.

Soul Shift (Legendary)

The Soulshade has one toe dipped into the Spirit Realm. This fact allows them to utilise the Spirit Realm for movement. By moving a portion of their soul energy outside their body they may shift through the Spiritual Realm instantly arriving at their separated soul energy. Mana cost based on Skill Level and Magic Control. Soul energy cost is based on Skill Level and Willpower. Distance is based on Skill Level * five metres.

Soul Drain (Epic)

Soul energy is a resource that exists in all sentient beings, though few Classes are capable of making use of it. The Soulshade is one such Class and as such, requires more soul energy than the average being to accomplish their tasks. This Skill allows the user to drain soul energy from the dead and dying, storing it within themselves for later use. Increases the users Willpower by 5%. Increases by 0.5% per Skill Level.

The Size of a Soul (Rare)

A being can only contain so much soul energy, for no container is infinite. This skill extends the ability for the user's body to contain soul energy, increasing the volume they can store for their Skills and Rituals. The size of the user's Soul Storage increases by 10% per Skill Level.

The Skills were perfect, as far as she was concerned. She picked Soul Shift without even reading the others. She had a plan to guarantee Mythic. A risky plan. But if it failed, she needed a fallback, and a Legendary to Mythic skill evolution was that fallback. The fact that it gave her what was effectively a form of teleportation was just amazing on top of that. She would’ve taken it if the Skill had read ‘care for the plants in your Mother’s garden’.

The rest of the Skills however, deserved her full attention. Reading through them slowly she analysed each. The first, One Soul, One Body sounded like a regeneration Skill that would let her utilise soul energy to heal herself. That one was going on her most likely list. Moving on, she read over Soul Engraving which sounded like she could carve things into her very soul to give her access to new powers or further enhance existing ones. The problem was, she had nothing to work with and no idea how to accomplish it. It did give her a very interesting idea but she didn’t think it was going to make her shortlist. She’d take it at level five or ten, depending on what else she got offered.

The next Skill was Soul Drain and it highlighted an issue she hadn’t considered. How did one get more soul energy? Apparently the Soul didn’t just regenerate itself and it wasn’t like soul energy was floating freely in the air for anyone to take advantage of like mana. The solution apparently was taking it from the dead or dying. That was pretty dark but at the same time, would she have hesitated to use it on a goblin? Not for a second. She’d have ripped it free and spent it to heal or enhance herself. Soul Drain was added to the short list and she moved on to her final Skill.

The Size of a Soul highlighted the second issue she hadn’t considered. The amount of mana you could hold was tied to a Stat, your Mana Reserve. That was something you could naturally advance with levels. However, soul energy seemed to be tied to sentient beings, whatever that meant, and apparently sentient beings had a maximum amount of soul energy they could store. Which meant she couldn’t just Soul Drain all these goblins and save the resulting energy for a rainy day. Unfortunately for Soul Engraving, it just got bumped to level ten as she was definitely taking The Size of a Soul at level five.

Locking in her final two choices, she picked Soul Drain and One Soul, One Body. It was interesting to her how some of the Skills had flowery names and some seemed quite explicit. She’d asked Nate about it later. Maybe he or Frick would know because she sure as fuck didn’t.

With her Skills handled, she had noted that they mostly scaled off of Willpower. In addition, her Class did not give much in the way of defensive physical Stats, focusing on speed. She was loath to put too much into Willpower when the Class already gave three per level, but it was early days and she needed her skills to function as powerfully as they could. With that in mind she put six in Willpower and the other four in Agility.

Bringing up her status sheet she quickly looked over it to make sure she was happy with it.

Stats

Physical

Mental

Magic

Strength

16 (3)

Intellect

14

Magic Power

13

Dexterity

19

Charisma

16

Magic Control

16

Agility

27 (3)

Creativity

13

Channelling Speed

12

Endurance

17 (3)

Willpower

29

Mana Reserve

16

Constitution

14

Perception

18

Mana Absorption

18 (6)

Classes

Primary Class - Level 2

Secondary Class - Level

Tertiary Class

Reborn Soulshade (L)

…

…

Skills

Shadow Aligned Dual Daggers (U) Lvl 8

Soul Shift (L) Lvl 1 - (10 metres teleport range)

One Soul, One Body (E) Lvl 1

Soul Drain (E) Lvl 1 - (+5.5% Willpower)

Spells

...

Status Effects

…

She still had the various magic items that she had bought or her Father got for her over the years. The boots which improved her Endurance by three, a belt for her Agility, gloves for her Strength and two rings that somehow improved Mana Absorption by three each. After seeing Nate’s work, she suspected they were some variation on Mana Gathering Enchantments. All in all, she was happy with her new state of being. Leaning over the goblin, she activated Soul Drain only to find whatever soul energy that had once been contained in the goblin had since fled.

She took a couple of minutes to test her other two Skills, healing a minor abrasion from climbing over the wooden wall of the fort with One Soul, One Body. The soul energy to do so seemed minimal, but then so was the wound. The drain from using Soul Shift however was noticeable and she doubted she could do it many times before running out of soul energy. Something she had a strong feeling would result in her death. More Willpower and soul energy was a must.

With that thought firmly in mind, she set off for the next hovel. Finding another goblin sleeping alone she killed it as quickly and cleanly as the first. Ignoring the wash of condensed mana and the notification that came with it, she activated Soul Drain. Where the first time nothing had come of it, this time she felt the wisps of soul trying to flee through…something. She couldn’t tell what. Whatever it was it was no match for her Skill which drew the energy inside of her. Instantly she felt better, more alive, more vibrant. The night was far from over and she was finally prepared for the challenges ahead.