Alith shared the message with Sofia before even reading it.
[Mark of Aphenoreth] :
A mark left on your soul and life essence by the third Lord, Aphenoreth the inquisitor.
The Lords are beings ill understood.
The Lords' plane is currently out of system range. No connection has been established, though numerous scribes have been lost.
The intent in leaving this mark is unknown.
This mark cannot be undone.
This mark cannot be easily noticed except by the system, classes hyper-specialized in soul tempering, and in all likelihood, by the Lords.
No adverse effects from the mark have been recorded.
Four functions of the mark have been discovered :
- Soul protection. Due to the irremovable nature of the mark, your soul is now similarly impossible to erase. Please note that this does not prevent death.
-Any external attempt at tampering with your soul may result in severe backlash toward the source.
(System driven upgrades and progression are considered internal tempering)
- As a side effect of the soul protection, you are now much more resilient to planar drag, also known as ‘summoning sickness’.
- The leveling process of Saintess Sofia’s [Blessing of the Deep] has been changed to unknown conditions. It will still affect you and all of their summoned heroes.
There is a fifth function (95% certainty), that could not be deciphered, it shows patterns of danger sensing algorithms.
There are no other bearers of this mark under the system besides your party.
The system recommends never mentioning this mark to anyone. For your safety, all such attempts will be dispelled. Good luck.
“Good luck… Does this mark us as his property or something like that? This doesn’t look so bad, if you forget the ominous system comments and where it came from,” Alith commented.
“I’m not even going to question anything. If some dark god that can even hide from the system decides that we’re like his adoptive daughters, or like, pets? What are we going to do about it? Besides, the Deep has only been helpful so far. As long as it’s not restricting me in any way then I don’t mind,” Sofia said. She returned to what they were doing previously, “Should be clean enough, let me do the thing.”
Sofia summoned blood directly into the grooves of the ritual circle. She was attempting some slight modifications of the ritual, she had altered the circle in some parts, and thrown in a pair of her sliced off bone wings. She wasn’t very optimistic about the success, but there was no reason she couldn’t at least try. Worst case I draw another circle.
The circle lit up with mana as usual. The bones flew up, rearranging themselves into a coherent skeleton. At least the base ritual worked. But the wings were still on the floor. Oh well. I’ll do better next time.
Pareth was finally a human skeleton again. His eyes lit up, the usual bright halo appeared above his head. Facing Sofia, he bowed.
Okay, this is very much not a dumb chicken now.
She wasn’t that shocked about it, after all Pareth had died because he disobeyed her to protect her more. If he was capable of that much, it was about time that she accepted Pareth wasn’t a mindless pile of bones anymore.
I wonder how much health he has now, with the blessing and all…
Name : Pareth Level : 119
Health : 15000 / 15000
Stamina : 12950 / 12950
Mana : 11900 / 11900
Alright WHAT?! He had like six thousand health and stamina as a chicken. The difference is huge… We need to find him a troll skeleton or something like that!
“Alith, you know how Pareth had more health than us as a chicken? Look how much he’s got now.”
“Ay that’s a huge guy, could probably take a hit or two from the squids and still be able to fight. Too bad they exploded.”
“Whatever, monsters to kill aren’t hard to find. We’ll hit 120 before we know it. Let’s quickly loot the castle and get the hell out of this place already.”
The duo stormed through the castle, picking up things to store in Sofia’s new ring. The first places to fall victim to their greed were the hero’s wife and daughter’s rooms. Beds, clothes, accessories, jewelry, anything they felt they could use ended up stacked up inside the ring, and that only took up a corner of the space. The hero’s luxurious desk, his collection of quills, any expensive looking memorabilia, all the books they could find. They stacked a lot in there, so much that Sofia was running out of mana to transfer things inside. Usually the cost was so low it was barely noticeable but the quantity and weight of all she took added up to a lot.
Overall, what they took was only a small dent in all the furniture and random stuff the castle had to offer, but most of it wasn’t very valuable or interesting. It felt very much like they were robbing the place. That’s technically all ours now though. No point leaving it here to rot.
They stopped when the ring was half full. Better to keep some free space in case of an emergency. They already took much more than they could ever use anyway, and finding buyers for all this old stuff would probably be a pain. They would still try to at least cash in the paintings and sculptures. Free money is free.
Sofia was especially happy that she now had a huge collection of books to read. Two of them in particular had piqued her interest : a rather innocuous ‘Introduction to written Elvish’, and a very old and worn one named ‘Advanced mana circuits’ that was hidden under a pillow.
The only disappointing thing was that there wasn’t a treasury of any kind in the castle. Explains why there’s so much money in the ring. That actually made a lot of sense, why wouldn’t you keep all your money on you if you’re strong enough to protect it. That’s the worrying part. Don’t feel all that strong yet… Hopefully this ring with the password and all is more secure, don’t want some high level Vampires to be looking in there.
“That’s it, we’re leaving. Finally. Now the question is do we go back with the same ring, or do we try the other one, see where we land?” Sofia asked, presenting a ring in each hand to Alith.
“Might as well see where this one goes, right? I’m going alone to scout. I’ll be right back,” Alith said as she grabbed the brand-new key-ring.
She traced the ritual circles on the floor and disappeared.
Fuck, she actually can’t even use her ghost form if I’m not here, why did I just accept… What if it’s dangerous?
She worried for nothing as her black haired companion reappeared soon after, unscathed.
“What’s up with the relieved expression? Do you have so little faith in me?”
“I mean, what if it dropped you in an active volcano or something like that?”
Alith shrugged, “I’d probably be fine even if it sent me directly into the sun. Heat immunity, remember? I have the slow fall ring if it drops me high in the sky, and I don’t need to breathe so I’d be good underwater. Really unless it dropped me right in the face of a level three hundred monster I don’t see what could have gone wrong.”
“I still see a lot of ways it could go wrong but sure… So what was it?”
“Well, you’re never gonna believe it! It was… Plains.”
“That’s it?”
“Nothing else in sight. Greenish plains, a few trees in the distance. Some weird herd of four-legged animals far away. That’s it. Beautiful day, not a cloud in the sky. Fresh wind. Yeah, plains.”
“No real reason to go there instead of the desert then. Unless the worm’s still there.”
“Are you kidding? It’s been like at least two months, right? No way this huge thing would have been waiting for three insects like us for this long.”
“Right… I just can’t stop being paranoid about everything now. This whole thing about a soul parasite really…”
“It’s fine. And we’re like double immune to shit like that now with the blessing AND the mark. Don’t worry about it too much. Rather we should be worried about the assholes at the Church summoning you, it’s been a while since then.”
“Yeah… We need to get back to civilization and buy stuff against space magic and [Identify] as soon as possible.”
“Drakron again?” Alith was getting impatient, playing with the rings.
“We’ll see. Depends on where we are, if we find another capital city or one of the magic academies that could work too. And if someone high-level tries to screw with us we can always pull out the Vampire card. Might be enough to dissuade them.”
Sofia and Pareth entered the circle, and they finally escaped the locked city.
“Didn’t you say it was sunny?”
They were back to where they had escaped from the giant worm, it wasn't anywhere to be seen, but it was the middle of the night.
Alith shared the message with Sofia before even reading it.
[Mark of Aphenoreth] :
A mark left on your soul and life essence by the third Lord, Aphenoreth the inquisitor.
The Lords are beings ill understood.
The Lords' plane is currently out of system range. No connection has been established, though numerous scribes have been lost.
The intent in leaving this mark is unknown.
This mark cannot be undone.
This mark cannot be easily noticed except by the system, classes hyper-specialized in soul tempering, and in all likelihood, by the Lords.
No adverse effects from the mark have been recorded.
Four functions of the mark have been discovered :
- Soul protection. Due to the irremovable nature of the mark, your soul is now similarly impossible to erase. Please note that this does not prevent death.
-Any external attempt at tampering with your soul may result in severe backlash toward the source.
(System driven upgrades and progression are considered internal tempering)
- As a side effect of the soul protection, you are now much more resilient to planar drag, also known as ‘summoning sickness’.
- The leveling process of Saintess Sofia’s [Blessing of the Deep] has been changed to unknown conditions. It will still affect you and all of their summoned heroes.
There is a fifth function (95% certainty), that could not be deciphered, it shows patterns of danger sensing algorithms.
There are no other bearers of this mark under the system besides your party.
The system recommends never mentioning this mark to anyone. For your safety, all such attempts will be dispelled. Good luck.
“Good luck… Does this mark us as his property or something like that? This doesn’t look so bad, if you forget the ominous system comments and where it came from,” Alith commented.
“I’m not even going to question anything. If some dark god that can even hide from the system decides that we’re like his adoptive daughters, or like, pets? What are we going to do about it? Besides, the Deep has only been helpful so far. As long as it’s not restricting me in any way then I don’t mind,” Sofia said. She returned to what they were doing previously, “Should be clean enough, let me do the thing.”
Sofia summoned blood directly into the grooves of the ritual circle. She was attempting some slight modifications of the ritual, she had altered the circle in some parts, and thrown in a pair of her sliced off bone wings. She wasn’t very optimistic about the success, but there was no reason she couldn’t at least try. Worst case I draw another circle.
The circle lit up with mana as usual. The bones flew up, rearranging themselves into a coherent skeleton. At least the base ritual worked. But the wings were still on the floor. Oh well. I’ll do better next time.
Pareth was finally a human skeleton again. His eyes lit up, the usual bright halo appeared above his head. Facing Sofia, he bowed.
Okay, this is very much not a dumb chicken now.
She wasn’t that shocked about it, after all Pareth had died because he disobeyed her to protect her more. If he was capable of that much, it was about time that she accepted Pareth wasn’t a mindless pile of bones anymore.
I wonder how much health he has now, with the blessing and all…
Name : Pareth Level : 119
Health : 15000 / 15000
Stamina : 12950 / 12950
Mana : 11900 / 11900
Alright WHAT?! He had like six thousand health and stamina as a chicken. The difference is huge… We need to find him a troll skeleton or something like that!
“Alith, you know how Pareth had more health than us as a chicken? Look how much he’s got now.”
“Ay that’s a huge guy, could probably take a hit or two from the squids and still be able to fight. Too bad they exploded.”
“Whatever, monsters to kill aren’t hard to find. We’ll hit 120 before we know it. Let’s quickly loot the castle and get the hell out of this place already.”
The duo stormed through the castle, picking up things to store in Sofia’s new ring. The first places to fall victim to their greed were the hero’s wife and daughter’s rooms. Beds, clothes, accessories, jewelry, anything they felt they could use ended up stacked up inside the ring, and that only took up a corner of the space. The hero’s luxurious desk, his collection of quills, any expensive looking memorabilia, all the books they could find. They stacked a lot in there, so much that Sofia was running out of mana to transfer things inside. Usually the cost was so low it was barely noticeable but the quantity and weight of all she took added up to a lot.
Overall, what they took was only a small dent in all the furniture and random stuff the castle had to offer, but most of it wasn’t very valuable or interesting. It felt very much like they were robbing the place. That’s technically all ours now though. No point leaving it here to rot.
They stopped when the ring was half full. Better to keep some free space in case of an emergency. They already took much more than they could ever use anyway, and finding buyers for all this old stuff would probably be a pain. They would still try to at least cash in the paintings and sculptures. Free money is free.
Sofia was especially happy that she now had a huge collection of books to read. Two of them in particular had piqued her interest : a rather innocuous ‘Introduction to written Elvish’, and a very old and worn one named ‘Advanced mana circuits’ that was hidden under a pillow.
The only disappointing thing was that there wasn’t a treasury of any kind in the castle. Explains why there’s so much money in the ring. That actually made a lot of sense, why wouldn’t you keep all your money on you if you’re strong enough to protect it. That’s the worrying part. Don’t feel all that strong yet… Hopefully this ring with the password and all is more secure, don’t want some high level Vampires to be looking in there.
“That’s it, we’re leaving. Finally. Now the question is do we go back with the same ring, or do we try the other one, see where we land?” Sofia asked, presenting a ring in each hand to Alith.
“Might as well see where this one goes, right? I’m going alone to scout. I’ll be right back,” Alith said as she grabbed the brand-new key-ring.
She traced the ritual circles on the floor and disappeared.
Fuck, she actually can’t even use her ghost form if I’m not here, why did I just accept… What if it’s dangerous?
She worried for nothing as her black haired companion reappeared soon after, unscathed.
“What’s up with the relieved expression? Do you have so little faith in me?”
“I mean, what if it dropped you in an active volcano or something like that?”
Alith shrugged, “I’d probably be fine even if it sent me directly into the sun. Heat immunity, remember? I have the slow fall ring if it drops me high in the sky, and I don’t need to breathe so I’d be good underwater. Really unless it dropped me right in the face of a level three hundred monster I don’t see what could have gone wrong.”
“I still see a lot of ways it could go wrong but sure… So what was it?”
“Well, you’re never gonna believe it! It was… Plains.”
“That’s it?”
“Nothing else in sight. Greenish plains, a few trees in the distance. Some weird herd of four-legged animals far away. That’s it. Beautiful day, not a cloud in the sky. Fresh wind. Yeah, plains.”
“No real reason to go there instead of the desert then. Unless the worm’s still there.”
“Are you kidding? It’s been like at least two months, right? No way this huge thing would have been waiting for three insects like us for this long.”
“Right… I just can’t stop being paranoid about everything now. This whole thing about a soul parasite really…”
“It’s fine. And we’re like double immune to shit like that now with the blessing AND the mark. Don’t worry about it too much. Rather we should be worried about the assholes at the Church summoning you, it’s been a while since then.”
“Yeah… We need to get back to civilization and buy stuff against space magic and [Identify] as soon as possible.”
“Drakron again?” Alith was getting impatient, playing with the rings.
“We’ll see. Depends on where we are, if we find another capital city or one of the magic academies that could work too. And if someone high-level tries to screw with us we can always pull out the Vampire card. Might be enough to dissuade them.”
Sofia and Pareth entered the circle, and they finally escaped the locked city.
“Didn’t you say it was sunny?”
They were back to where they had escaped from the giant worm, it wasn't anywhere to be seen, but it was the middle of the night.
