Despite my protests, I was excluded from watch duty even though sleep wasn’t at all forthcoming. The soft, plush fabric of the bedroll clung to me as I lay staring up at the faded, crumbling fresco in the ceiling above. It depicted some legendary battle from the distant past, of heroes and deeds now forgotten.

  Out there, my [Shadow Fingers] roamed the still corridors of the level we had cleared, searching for whatever janitor monsters or entities that might appear to perform the reset.

  Yes, it’s just another convoluted way of putting off sleep.

  “Liege, you still up?” Justin asked, the flames dancing with shadows over his face.

  He had drawn first watch and was tending to the fire while the others were in their own bedrolls, laid out like side-by-side logs. Loud snoring rose from the cocooned forms of Gorian and Zadina nearby.

  I guess part of being an adventurer is being able to fall into deep sleep on a dime.

  “Justin, what was life like for you growing up?” My voice was tinged with an edge of envy.

  I’d always thought of Steve as a snarky, mischievous troublemaker, just like how I imagined Justin as a kid. Whether those memories were true or just wishful thinking was hard to tell now.

  “Me?” Justin shrugged, throwing a piece of lint into the fire. “Nothing special, pretty awful actually, in a boring way. Was the middle of five kids. Pa was a tailor, so not gonna inherit shit.”

  He tugged at the brown cloak that was draped over his jacket, pulling away more lint. “Got sold as a blacksmith apprentice, made a mistake at the forge and got embers all over me. Was how they figured I had fire affinity, and got my ticket to the Tower.”

  Justin flicked more of the lint into fire. “But yeah, growing up was a lot of sweat, work, dirt, iron, and then flames. Not much to think back on, you know?”

  “Oh…” I reminded myself that I was lucky.

  This life that I’ve been given is better than what I had, and certainly softer than any out here.

  Justin raised his head and looked up at the ceiling.

  “Well, my days at the tower were light in comparison. Us students pulled all sorts of pranks. Once, we superheated our instructor’s kettle so that it was all steam inside…”

  School… even though I did a few apprenticeships, Joan never went to school. It was not a background option in the game. I only had a year’s time anyway, and then it was war.

  Steve’s memories of school were just tattered bits and pieces. All I remembered was running about and laughter from kids with blank faces, just like the face I had lost.

  Perhaps the Academy will be different. Ben is really looking forward to it…

  Justin’s voice hummed on, gently drifting with the smoke up to the lost tales in the ceiling above.

  —

  When I awoke the next morning, the same faded figures in the dark ceiling stared down at me.

  Lingering aches from forgotten wounds flared up as I shifted my body.

  My mind tingled with memories of the previous day, a familiar sensation. I opened my stats.

  While not fully recovered, my HP and Mana had come back up a bit over night.

  More importantly, [Toughness] and [Intellect] had both gained a point, most likely due to damage I had taken and my scouting and planning for the party.

  But why did [Charisma] increase? Was it my talk with Tomas or Zadina? Or could it be [Seduce]...?

  Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

  The implications were certainly interesting.

  Otherwise, my stats had increased in line with my attributes, and I’d gained a few more Soul Points, the implications of that were still unknown.

  My XP, which I had been obsessively tracking, had gone up by around 550 points. I was now on the cusp of reaching level 4.

  I made simple scrambled eggs with cheese for breakfast, and Serina paired them with lighter, more floral tea. For Polly, I took out the leftover sausage from the stew and he instantly gobbled it up.

  Descending the stairs to the third level, we stepped into a hallway lined by the same rough-hewn stone blocks as the level above.

  An icy chill hung in the still air.

  I rubbed my arms. Both my sword and my shadowy robe had dissipated over sleep, and I felt exposed without them.

  My mind focused on [Shadow Shroud]. Dark tendrils twisted up from my feet, weaving into the writhing black fabric that crept up my legs, over my chest, to my neck. The fabric wrapped around my head, forming the hood.

  The spectacle drew everyone’s attention.

  “That’s… really creepy… Liege,” Justin breathed out beside me.

  I raised my arm and the dark, flowing fabric followed. “Just a precaution. I don’t want to be caught unprepared.”

  Like the sword, the shroud cost no mana to maintain. Plus, they had all seen it already. Thinking about it that way, I wasn’t sure why any of them would look so shocked.

  The robe, however, did little to stop the bone-chilling cold.

  “Is this supposed to be a winter level?”

  Serina finally tore her eyes from me and glanced warily about.

  “No, it should be just like the previous level, just with more goblins.” She pulled out her bow. “Be on alert. Previous parties had reported feeling a chill before encountering strange monsters.”

  I chained [Shadow Fingers] down the maze of hallways, and found empty, silent rooms.

  It was when my fingers searched lower that I found them: corpses of monsters, goblins mostly, lying on the ground, seemingly frozen mid-death. Their arms reached up, fingers curled, faces contorted mid-scream, jaws hanging open. They looked frozen, yet no frost or ice coated their skin.

  Something had petrified them.

  My [Shadow Fingers] scoured all over the ceilings, the corners, even the crevices in the walls, but I could not find the cause.

  An overwhelming sense of wrongness squeezed my chest. More of my [Shadow Fingers] fanned out, searching every nook and cranny for the culprit that must be lurking in the darkness.

  The pop-up message gave me only a momentary pause. I noted the drop-off in bonuses, but that sense of wrongness was growing. My fingers could now feel temperature, and the chill in the air was intensifying.

  A presence was out there, waiting for us with bated breath.

  “You see something?” Serina’s words were a softly whispered hiss. She sensed it too.

  “No, but I can feel it.” I gestured to a side exit, and we entered a large room with a pillar in the center. Corpses of goblins and wolves littered the floor: statues of flesh, captured mid-agony in the throes of death.

  “Ok, this is even more creepy.” Justin prodded a raised arm, and it swung like a stiff stick from side to side.

  Leather groaned as Gorian tightened the grip on his greatsword. “Keep your eyes peeled. I can feel it too.”

  Zadina crouched over a fallen goblin and peeled back an eyelid, showing the dried-out whites of its eyes. “It has been drained.” She surged to her feet and hefted her hammer. “Watch for spectral type undead.” Her eyes shot over to Justin. “Burn the corpses, we don’t want them rising.”

  Serina pushed her arm out over Justin’s raised hand. “Loot them first!”

  It was surprising how strong the materialistic side of adventurers was.

  Most of them are commoners. The thought gave me pause. It wasn’t so long ago that I was a commoner. Had I lost touch that quickly?

  We left a room reeking of the smoldering scent of burnt hair and flesh. My nose wrinkled at the smell, conjuring up memories from the campaign trail, and of course, from the end of each lifetime.

  I knew it too well.

  Nothing came out to confront us, and with each room we inspected and burnt, our diligence slacked. The grips on our hilts loosened and weapons were lowered.

  My [Shadow Fingers] were ranging far and wide, but still found frustratingly, nothing.

  “Can’t believe we’re getting no stones,” Justin grumbled as he trudged beside me.

  “They’ve been drained, so no spirit left,” Kamuel said, glancing behind us. “Keep your head up, they could jump on us at any moment.”

  “Who’s they? It’s obvious they’re done with this place and left. We are almost to the end of the level already.”

  “Then why hasn’t the level reset already?” Gorian asked grimly with his sword still raised.

  The only answer was our footsteps echoing back from the darkness out beyond the edge of yellow torchlight.

  We turned a corner and the stone block walls collapsed, giving way to the naturally undulating contours of a rocky cave. It opened up into a massive cavern, the edges of which swallowed the light.

  A large pile of rocks sat in the middle of the cavern, or at least I thought it was rocks when I explored here with my [Shadow Fingers]. But as we approached, it became clear that it was actually a giant humanoid figure. Its lumpy body and grey skin reminded me of the war elephants I’d faced.

  I was about to ask what it was, when Justin thrust a trembling finger at it. “An ogre! What’s that doing here?”

  “Doesn’t matter. It’s dead. Burn it.” Zadina pointed her hammer at it.

  Justin approached the towering figure on wobbly legs. He raised a hand, and waves of magic converged in his palm, forming a ball of flames.

  “Muuaahhhh!”

  The pile of rocks moaned, and the massive ogre staggered onto its feet. It swung a massive club down upon Justin.

  “Out of the way!”

  Clang!

  Zadina shouldered Justin aside and grunted as the club crashed down upon her raised shield.

  All around us, the dead began rising off the ground.

  “Zombies!” Gorian shouted and swung his sword in a wide arc, beheading two undead goblins that were getting up beside him.

  [Shadow Sword]!

  I grabbed the hilt of the sword rising out of the shadow, and cut down two human zombies shambling toward me. They were wearing leather armor and it occurred to me that these might be dead adventurers, but I didn’t have time to dwell on it.

  A fireball exploded against the ogre, charring it, but its blackened skin quickly faded back to grey.

  “By Lumus’s might!”

  Zadina’s hammer smashed into the ogre’s arm, leaving an angry black bruise. But that began to fade as well. A closer look revealed that the bruise wasn’t a bruise at all, but a patch of dark, writhing shadow covering its skin. Just like my [Shadow Shroud], it had its own shadow armor.

  Zadina seemed to have realized as well.

  “Holy Smite!”

  She shouted, and her hammer glowed white hot. She swung it at the ogre, and obliterated half its face. A dark shadowy helmet reformed over the missing face section.

  I recognized that pitch-black helmet instantly. It belonged to one of the Donkey Master’s guards: a Wraith Knight.

  The Wraith Knight Ogre raised its massive hands and roared, “Arise!”

  Polly hopped back from a human zombie whose head he had just hacked off. Black miasma seeped out of the corpses on the ground and pooled to form ghastly figures with clawed hands and ghostly faces.

  “Ghosts?” Justin stepped back beside me.

  He fired a streak of flames at one of the figures, but it darted instantly out of the way.

  “Wraiths.” At least that was what they were called in the other game. “Much faster, I think.”

  “Yeah, no shit.” Justin grunted as another of his flame spells streaked past a shifting wraith.

  Gorian caught one with his sword, but it reformed after the blade sliced through it. “Physical damage not working.”

  “Neither is my smite,” Zadina growled as her glowing hammer knocked away another section of flesh from the ogre’s chest, only to reveal more black shadowy armor. “Not well at least.”

  “Mundline, banish the undead! Begone!” Kamuel shouted and planted his staff down into the ground. The ring of wraiths that circled us expanded as they backed away, but that only lasted a mere instant, and they converged on us again.

  One of them shot past Kamuel, grazing his shoulder with a black claw. He fell clutching his shoulder, and Serina ran over to him. His face looked pale with sweat beading over his head.

  Justin threw up a wall of flames and that seemed to hold a few of them back.

  I stepped in front of an oncoming wraith and sliced, but my shadow sword passed through it without even deforming it. The wraith swiped at me and its claw went right through my robe.

  We are both made of shadows.

  I fired a maxed [Mana Bolt] and a bolt of distorted haze caught the wraith just as it was flying past. The wraith exploded into bits of black which dissolved into the air. The damage from my 235 points of [Magic] was no joke.

  Another wraith flew at me and an exploding arrow caught it in the back. I nodded over at Serina, who had fired from her position beside Kamuel.

  We just need to hit these things!

  I called once more upon [Divine Guidance]. “Dieu, guide-nous!”

  “Fire your spells!” I shouted at Justin, and two fireballs engulfed two wraiths, vaporizing them.

  Serina’s volley of glowing arrows caught a few wraiths, slowing them, and two more of my [Mana Bolt]s annihilated another two wraiths.

  Zadina’s hammer struck home, but accuracy wasn’t the problem. Her strikes were rending the flesh, but did nothing to the wraith itself.

  Wraith Knights were cursed undead, resistant to holy magic, but they should still be weaker to it than physical and magic attacks—against which they were essentially immune. I remembered my [Heaven’s Lance] sending them back to their master, but judging from the ineffectiveness of Zadina’s smite, something was different.

  Could it be that the holiness of a certain god was required? It would explain why Kamuel’s attempt at turning the undead failed so miserably.

  The Wraith Knight, now combined with an ogre’s strength, swept Zadina aside with its club. She tumbled away and was swarmed by smaller wraiths. It turned its attention to me. I fired a [Mana Bolt], and as expected, the bolt of magical energy bounced off of the shadows that converged and solidified over its chest.

  I slipped past the club coming down at me and placed my hand upon its side, my fingers touching its rough, cold skin.

  [Drain Touch]

  The spell was part of [Void Mastery], so maybe the damage it dealt was void type and not magic. Just like how shadow spells dealt shadow damage.

  “Arrrgghhh!”

  The ogre grunted. Something trickled in from my hand, but it wasn’t warmth. Instead, a river of ice gushed in. It rippled inside me, spreading like frost over a fallow field. Chills seized my body. I collapsed, curling up into a ball on the ground, my body convulsing as my sword clattered beside me.

  A giant club came down at me, but was stopped mid-air by two hatchets. Metal bit into hard wood.

  Thunck! Thunck!

  Polly stood over me, the muscles of his back bulging as he strained to hold back the massive weight.

  Squelch!

  A black, blood-smeared spike burst out of Polly’s back with a wet, tearing sound. He went limp, his body convulsing just like mine as it dangled upon the spike that had impaled him.

  He fell, slipping off the spike in slow, bloody motion, his lifeless body landing beside mine.

  A tear rolled down my face.

  No… came the silent scream from within as my shivering hand cupped his cheek.

  Another one gone. And again, the cycle repeats. To lose and be lost, over and over again.

  My despair and the sickening cold seeped into the very depths of me, and in return came a hollow laughter.

  This is nothing. At the core I am something even colder. Emptier.

  A connection formed.

  Here laid an edge that burned with ice. Here lurked true darkness. Here resided the true understanding of the void.

  The spike came down toward me, and I pulled my hand from Polly’s cheek, forming a void within my open palm.

  The void touched the spike, annihilating it up to the ogre’s hand where the spike had sprouted out of. The ogre jerked its arm back and found its hand reduced to a blackened stub.

  I rose to my knees and formed the void in my palm once more. Placing my sword across my lap, I slowly spread the void over the blade with a hovering hand. The ravenous emptiness gleamed along its sharp edges.

  When I stood up a wraith came at me. I swung my sword and the body of the wraith disintegrated as my blade carved through it. There was nothing left when I passed.

  The cold spreading out to my extremities had ceased to matter.

  I am after all a sword. A sword of destruction to burn away the soul.

  I knew now why the [Demon Soulfire Blade] and I were fated to be one… we both desire only the end.

  To another Joan,

  I’m sorry I hadn’t reached out in so long. I should have. I took for granted that you’d always be there on the other end. But time moves on regardless.

  Thank you for inspiring me to love the written word, and to cherish my own voice. Thank you for being my teacher, Ms. O’Leary.

  Always, your student.