Outworlder Guardian

by FallenDispair

A twist on He Who Fights With Monsters where Jason is a bit more a mature having served in the ADF(Austrailian Defense Force). Armed with military training, combat experience and personal guidance by a legendary gunman Jason will be better able to handle the harsh nature of the magical world he's found himself in. Having faced killing before and death in general, he'll be less him.

1. Chapter 1

Outworlder Guardian

This is a He Who Fights With Monsters A/U where the MC, Jason Asano, went and enlisted with the Australian Defense Force (ADF). Eventually getting dragged along by US Colonel Lancelot Grey -the ANZUS Treaty created close security ties with the Australia, New Zealand, and the United States, including the US having access to all major ADF training areas- to be trained by him as his disciple and taken into war zones. He won't be overly different, just not too Jason like. He'll be more mature and capable with military training. A typical incident of running into the military to flee heartbreak. Jason will have already killed and dealt with those type of horrors before arriving in Pallimustus. He won't be so naïve about death and real-world implications of his actions.

Doing something a bit different with his powers, some might get it right away.

I don't own or Shirtaloon's works or ideas, nor do I profit off of it.

Edit: 8/18/22 Just a slight change to Jason's racial ability: Mysterious Gunslinger; works mostly the same, just takes up an ability slot and requires an awakening stone.

Edit: 7/4/23 Grammer & corrections.

---

Chapter 1: Naked, Exposed, and Surrounded by Cannibals

Jason woke up naked, face down in the grass. That was not how he expected to wake up, since he had gone to sleep in his own bed and his own boxer shorts. From the feel of the cool grass on his groin, he had been removed from his bed and underwear both. The last thing he remembers doing was playing video games until he got tired and then crawling into bed.

The grass he woke up on was weirdly comfortable, a dense bed of lush green softness. It wasn't like any grass he had encountered before, which was a little unusual. He's spent many a night passed out on just about every type of terrain in the world. One part military deployment, second part drunken sad sack running into every bottle he could find.

On that thought, waking up naked with no idea where he was or how he got there was nothing new for Jason. Well, at least for several years. He honestly thought he'd gotten past that pathetic phase of his life with no small help from his sister, AA and sheer force of will. He'd been on the wagon for nearly fourteen months, earning his one-year chip.

Jason rolled himself over and sat up. He was feeling odd, beyond the ever-familiar sensation of a hangover. In fact, it felt nothing like a hangover that he's ever experienced before. It wasn't the horrid sensation storm of nausea, head splitting agony, and light sensitivity usually tied to excessive drinking or being knocked unconscious. It was more like waking up after a really long sleep. There was the lingering spoor, but also a feeling of refreshed energy. He ran a hand over his head, only to be startled when he realized his hair was missing.

"Uh..."

He felt about his head with both hands, but his head was balloon smooth. Which was odd for even when he was shaved bald once enlisting with the Australian Defense Force (ADF) he still had stubble on top. It wasn't until after receiving his military cut that he found out it didn't have to be that short. Apparently, mouthing off first thing at boot to your drill instructor comes with negative outcomes. But in his defense, he had just gotten his heart ripped out by the love of his life and was lashing out in pain. Plus, Jason now knows that he wanted the physical pain he had repeatedly invoked to try and drown out the emotional agony. He could be self-destructive like that at times.

He made a quick check with his eyes and hands, realizing there was no hair anywhere on his body. No eyebrows, nothing on his chest, or arms, or... other places.

"I thought it was meant to look bigger when you trimmed."

He pushed himself to his feet and started assessing his environment. Casting his gaze to the sky, he saw that the sun was high, and the air was warm. The sky was unbroken blue, the blazing orb burning away so much as the merest hint of cloud. Sunburn, more than cold, was likely to threaten his exposed extremities. He became intimately familiar with what exposure to sunlight can do when he was (unofficially) deployed in the Middle East. Jason's not really looking forward to his junk getting sunburnt and the requisite peeling of skin that will follow.

Looking around, he saw that he was boxed in between two long, tall hedges. Glancing up and down the dead-straight lane, side-junctions headed off at sharp right angles in either direction. The lane itself was wide and grassy, with plenty of room for unconscious sprawling. The hedge walls were meticulously trimmed, professionally so in fact. His father was a landscape architect, and Jason had grown up learning more about it than he ever wanted to know. Mostly because it was the only escape from his mother's Japanese lessons.

After an unhappy glance down at his bald, naked body, he noticed something very wrong. Most his scars were gone, just the ones that held the deepest emotional trauma attached to them remained -the bullet wound that shredded his spleen, the gash running from above his right eye down to his right cheek, the cigar burns on his genitals and the flayed skin on his chin, left upper arm, left shin and right foot- most of which happened during the single most horrifying time of his life. Though, all his tattoos were gone. More disconcerting were the three toes that he'd lost during an accident surrounding a grenade had apparently regrown themselves. Four years of active combat and his previous desire to be hurt had left numerous marks on his well sculpted body -more like forcefully conditioned by the sadistic drill sergeant that Jason just had to poke at for fun and giggles. Yup. He was a real gluten for punishment, but at least it turned his thin scrawny body into a mass of compact and near-perfectly sculpted muscle. It really helped his game. Though, he was not as toned as he once was with his long stent as a blackout drunk, but he'd gotten back in shape as he sobered up. Now if only his face wasn't so overly sharp, and more like his supposedly handsome older brother's. After all, Kaito did win over his childhood sweetheart. So, his face must be lacking in some way.

"What the fuck? Did I fall off the wagon?"

No. He's definitely not hungover, so he didn't go on a bender. He was actually in a really good place as of late. He's sober, repaired a few relationships with his family, absolutely loves babysitting his little niece, and has recovered some of his old self. There was no reason for him to go crawling back into a bottle of numbing juice. It'd been over six months since the last time he was "triggered" into a dissociative event...maybe he was having another?

Shaking off his doubts, Jason set off at random to explore. He quickly discovered he was in a hedge maze, the living walls cultivated to almost twice his height. Jason's first thought was to climb one to get a better sense of his location, but a closer examination of the hedges changed his mind. Instead of the usual boxwood, the hedges were something very prickly, and he was very naked. He'd rather put off scrapping his tender bits for as long as he can. He looked up and down the path he was on, with neither direction looking any better than the other.

"What the bloody hell is going on?"

As if in response to his question, something appeared in front of him. It looked like a touch screen, floating in the air, disembodied. He reached out to touch it with an experimental finger, the screen shimmering as his finger passed straight through.

"Hologram?"

He looked at the ground and the nearby hedges for some kind of projector, but as he started moving, the screen followed. There was text on the screen, which he read.

New Quest: [Stranger in a Strange Land]

You have awoken in a place you do not know. Explore the area to discover more.

Objectives: Explore the hedge maze 0/1.
Reward: Simple pants.

"Huh."

He looked around suspiciously. He carefully probed the pointy foliage of the hedge walls, looking for hidden cameras. Looking up at the sky, he didn't spot any camera drones. What he did notice was the moon, pale and easy to overlook in the daylight. Then he noticed another moon.

"That can't be right."

Jason looked down at the floating screen, then back up at the sky. Still two moons.

"Great. I've finally gone full blown nuts."

Jason sat down on the grass, unsure what to do. He kept glancing up at the sky and the extra moon. In front of him, the screen still waited patiently.

"This is crazy. I mean, a quest? I'm not a level one sorcerer."

Another screen appeared next to the first.

Jason Asano

Race: Outworlder

Current rank: normal

Progression to iron rank: 0% (0/4 essences)

Attributes:
[Power] (no essence): normal

[Speed] (no essence): normal

[Spirit] (no essence): normal

[Recovery] (no essence): normal

Racial Abilities (Outworlder)

[Interface]
[Quest System]
[Inventory]
[Map]
[Astral Affinity]
[Mysterious Gunslinger]

Essences (0/4)

No Essence [No Attribute] (0/4)

No Essence [No Attribute] (0/4)

No Essence [No Attribute] (0/4)

No Essence [No Attribute] (0/4)

"Is this a character sheet? Am I meant to understand any of this?"

He shook his head in bewilderment. "Couldn't my insanity have at least gone with a game system I know."

He looked over the screen again and read, "Map," latching onto something familiar. "I know what maps are. How do I see the map?"

A new screen obligingly appeared, but as it was the third screen, the space in front of him was getting crowded. He absently thought it would be convenient for the other screens to close, which they immediately did.

"Well...at least my craziness is being considerate."

Things were getting harder to explain away, even ignoring the extra moon. Some kind of voice-command hologram was implausible, but not impossible. Mental command holograms were something else entirely.

"I'm becoming increasingly convinced that my shell has finally cracked off the nut. Also, I'm talking to myself a lot. I'm sure that's fine and definitely not my delusional attempt at denial."

Hoping it wouldn't work, he started experimenting. He was able to open and close any of the windows with a simple thought.

"Maybe you're unconscious," he reassured himself. "Maybe you have a brain tumor and you're in a hospital somewhere. Or passed out on the floor. Hallucinating in an asylum. A nice one, with a big garden. But no hedge maze." He closed his eyes with a groan. "How is any of that comforting?"

Jason took a deep breath, letting it out slowly before opening his eyes again. The screens were still there, waiting.

"Just roll with the punches," he told himself. "Reserve judgment until more information is available. That's the rational approach."

He turned his gaze back to the map floating in front of him. It looked like a map from any video game, complete with a location listing.

Zone: Vane Estate (Hedge Maze)

Also like a video game map, it was mostly obscured. The only unveiled portion was the small section of the hedge maze he had already explored. He tried moving the map with mental commands, finding he could zoom it in and out as easily as he could open and close the disembodied screens.

Zooming all the way out he reached a world map that looked both familiar and unfamiliar. Although the details were obscured, he could decipher the outline of the continents. Disturbingly, they weren't quite the same as the ones he knew. South East Asia was a singular landmass, pushing Australia south and east where it looked to have consumed New Zealand. The Iberian and Arabian peninsulas were missing entirely, leaving Africa wholly disconnected from Europe and Asia. Sri Lanka was further south and several times larger, making for a huge land mass in the middle of the Indian Ocean. North Ameria was completely separated from South America, forming a small sea between the two.

"Well, that's not what the world looks like. Inaccurate cartography? An older map from earlier explorations of the world?"

According to the map, Jason was in south-west Africa, somewhere around inland Namibia. He looked at the rich, green hedges boxing him in. The lush grass felt cool under his feet. He felt the hot, but not dry, air on his skin.

"This doesn't feel like the Kalahari Desert. Unless I'm in some Prince's private estate. That'd explain the greenery, but not the climate."

He sighed, closing the map. "This is all sorts of strange." He pulled up the character sheet again.

Racial Abilities (Outworlder)

[Interface]
[Quest System]
[Inventory]
[Map]
[Astral Affinity]
[Mysterious Gunslinger]

"Shouldn't my race be human? What's an Outworlder?" Jason half expected another screen to appear, but nothing did, so he looked down the list.

"Interface seems obvious. Quest systems too, I guess. Inventory?"

A window appeared, dominated by an almost empty grid of icon slots. There were five spaces down and eight across, for a total of forty. There was also what looked like a currency counter at the bottom, depicting six different coins. Each coin had a counter that read zero.

"Well, that's certainly a classic inventory," Jason said. "Can I really put stuff in here?"

There was one item in the inventory, occupying the first slot. It was some kind of red icon, presumably representing an actual item.

"Alright, Jason. Time to see how deep down the rabbit hole you really are. How do I get this thing out?"

After some quick trial and error, he discovered it was as simple as plucking the icon straight out of the screen. The icon vanished and the item appeared magically in his hand. It was a medallion the size of his palm. It looked and felt like polished red marble with gold engravings on both sides. It was pleasantly warm to the touch. On one side the engraving was a picture of a fire bird, while the other had symbols reading 'Authority of the World Phoenix.'

"Well, that just magically appeared out of thin air," Jason said. "That's definitely not possible. Wait, why can I read this? I might have learned several languages at the Colonel's orders, purposely avoiding Japanese, but I can't tell what language this is. How can I read a language I've never even seen before?"

Jason's father, Ken Asano, was born in Japan, but raised in Australia from a very young age. Proving there is no zealot like a convert, Ken was all about the Australian lifestyle, from pub rock to footy matches and weekend barbecues. He fell right in with the family of his wife, Cheryl, which was as Australian as he could ask for. Miners and farmers, tracing their bloodline back through bushrangers, convicts, and Indigenous Australians. Ironically, Cheryl was the one fascinated with Japan, trying to engage her children with their father's cultural heritage. Despite strong support from her mother-in-law, results were mixed.

Jason tried putting the red tablet back into the inventory. His first attempt was to shove it into the screen, which surprisingly worked. It vanished from his hands and reappeared as an icon.

"That was disconcerting."

Jason's grip on reality was feeling increasingly tenuous. The screens were odd, but could conceivably, if implausibly, be the product of hidden hologram projectors. It was when they started responding to his thoughts that he started to get worried, and now he was pulling objects out of thin air. Not to forget his blemish free, hairless and whole body. He closed the inventory and pulled up his character sheet again. Next down the ability list was the map, which he'd already looked at, then astral affinity.

Ability: [Astral Affinity]

Increased resistance to dimension effects and astral forces. Dimension abilities have increased effect and transcendent damage is increased.

"No idea what that means. Next up is..."

Ability: [Mysterious Gunslinger]

Language adaptation.
Essence, awakening stone and skill-book absorption.
Immunity to identification and tracking effects.

Your soul has been marked by your mastery, reverence of firearms and experiences.

Guaranteed conjured gun ability from an essence ability by offering the awakening stone to the racial ability instead of absorbing it normally.
Gun will be affected by the essence ability it is conjured from.
Only one conjured gun ability for each essence.

"Still not entirely sure what essences are, but I really could use a gun right about now. So, I should see about getting one of those essences as soon as I can." Jason shrugged off the meaning of essences, not entirely believing that any of this was real.

"Language adaptation? Is that how I read the weird writing on the tablet?" He took the tablet out again. "What is this thing?"

Item: [World-Phoenix Token] (transcendent rank, legendary)

?. (consumable, ?)

Effect: ?
Effect: ?

Uses remaining: 1/1

"Question marks. That's enlightening. Do I have to pay a wizard to identify items?" He put the tablet back into his inventory.

He closes all the open windows except for the map. "Alright then," he said, looking up and down the pathway he was on. Neither offered anything to recommend it over the other. "It's no yellow wood," he told himself, "but I guess it's time to Robert Frost this thing."

He picked a direction at random and set off. "I really wish I had some pants."

---

Jason was walking through the maze, the map open in front of him. It was being unveiled as he walked. His current plan was to reveal enough that he could plot a way out. He froze when he heard a rustle in the hedges, then quickly spun towards the sound. His highly trained and experienced instincts flared out. Something was out there.

"Who's there?" he demanded, his body shifting into his basic combat stance while trying not to think about how exposed his genitals were. He started panning his eyes around as he strained his ears for any sound of life, like a snapping twig or rustling of leaves.

There wasn't any response.

Jason was starting to shift into his combat readiness state that he developed when he was still an active ADF solider on deployment. United States Colonel Lancelot Grey, his mentor and the man that taught him everything he knows about combat, guns, and being a soldier pounded that state into him.

Colonel Lancelot Grey was considered to be the world's greatest solider and universally feared by rival nations. There wasn't a modern weapon that he didn't master and couldn't use with surgical precision. He had seen the Colonel shoot the wings off a fly with a shotgun, birdshot, not buckshot. Jason had just finished basic training when he saw Colonel Grey for the first time, and for whatever reason, the legend chose to train him of all people. He was just some private that happened to be a solid shot and had too loud a mouth for his own good.

Yet, a man built like a tank with the looks of a goddamn supermodel, and the most amazing mustache he's ever seen, chose Jason to pass down his legendary skills as a gunman. Even though he was just a Colonel, an American one at that, he had enough pull and respect to get even the Australian military to do whatever he wanted. Including, pulling some no name private from his unit and attached to him for personal training.

Training that made Jason miss the ever-sadistic drill Sergeant Gunderson's torturous training, as if it was a relaxing spa retreat. Honestly, that's the real reason why his body was so compact and solid. Though, he had wished he'd gave into the stereotype of his Japanese heritage by learning karate or jujitsu. It would have saved him so much pain and agony during the Colonel's nightmare training regimen.

Totally worth it.

He might still shiver in horror when remembering everything the Colonel put him through, but he was now unmatched in accuracy with every type of gun you can imagine. He's lethal barehanded, more so with a knife, and an absolute killing machine with a gun in hand. Jason may be naked and unarmed, but he was in no way helpless. The Colonel made sure of it. He had even been dumped in the middle of hostile territory by the legendary gunman, just as exposed as he was now -well, he'd at least leave Jason with his skivvies... and hair.

Hell, if it wasn't for the fact that Colonel Lancelot Grey died nearly two years ago, Jason would have sworn that this was another one of his insane tests.

"You must be able drop all aspects of yourself that will hinder your ability to fight and kill as a soldier. Death is never convenient nor timely, but nonetheless, you are expected to meet it all the same."

The Colonel would make him repeat that phrase until he vomited it out on command and enter a combat state of mind just as quickly. Which proved its worth when a new window appeared.

New Quest: [No Shirt, No Shoes, No Service]

For unknown reasons, your immediate area has become infested with lesser monsters.

Objective: Discover the reason lesser monsters have infested the area 0/1.
Reward: Simple shirt.

Bonus Objective: Defeat ten lesser monsters 0/10.
Reward: Simple footwear.

"Monsters? That doesn't sound plausible, but the Colonel always said to be prepared for anything and everything. Even the absurd."

Jason was continuing to hold a ready stance while focusing on panning his head around when something small came hurtling from the bottom of a hedge. His hands shot out and latched around a mass of furry, snarling buck teeth snapping at him. It looked like a rabid hamster the size of his head. After being slightly put back from the sudden attack by an oversized hamster, Jason proceeded to jerk its head in one direction and its body in another. A resounding snap was heard before it went limp.

You have defeated [Potent Hamster]
Defeated lesser monsters 1/10

Jason released the creature, dropping its corpse to the ground before spanning around for another attack. After a few moments passed without a sound and no perceived movements, he relaxed. Turning back to the dead lump of the head-sized hamster, he got down on his hunches to get a better look at it.

"What the hell is happening? How could a hamster get that big? And why attack me? Are hamster's omnivores?"

Jason looked over the creature, its head now twist into an odd angle. According to the window that popped up it was a lesser monster called a Potent Hamster. Extending his index finger, he poked at it.

Would you like to loot [Potent Hamster]?

Jason yanked back his hand, fearing it might trigger some sort of trap. "What the bloody hell is going on?"

Reading the screen again, and after standing back up to take a step back, uncertainly said, "Yes?"

The body of the dead creature made a fizzing sound, like a rapid chemical reaction. The body started melting rapidly, first the flesh, then even the skeleton, all dissolving into rainbow-colored smoke. It seemed pretty until it hit Jason with a stench thick as cheese, like burned hair and rotting flesh. He scrambled back while pinching his nose to escape the rancid smell, hacking out coughs. It was by far the worst thing he's ever smelled in his life, and he's smelled burning human flesh and rotten corpses before. Looking back down, he saw the creature's body had vanished, as if it never existed at all. He ignored the window that popped up, dropping back down to haunches.

"Fuck, this sucks," he told the spot where the hamster used to be. "Monster hamsters attacking out of nowhere, naked in what must be a newish body, I have no idea where I am, and said monster just puffs out of existence. I can't think of any better explanation for what's happening than I've lost my bloody mind. I think I miss PTSD induced blackouts. This weirder than shit hallucination crap is for the birds."

He straightened up with a groan and read the screen waiting for him.

[Monster Core (Lesser)] has been added to your inventory.

[Healing Unguent (Iron)] has been added to your inventory.

10 [Lesser Spirit Coins] have been added to your inventory.

"Oh, straight into the inventory. That place that lets me make things appear and disappear. I've definitely gone insane."

Now familiar with opening and closing the screens, the inventory window appeared with a simple thought. Two more of the forty grids were now occupied with little icons, while the currency counter now had the number ten listed over the first of the six coin symbols.

Jason took out the item labelled healing unguent. It was small, round tin reminding Jason of the nasty rubbing medicine his nanna would put on scrapes when he was a kid. At least this tin wasn't rusty, like the one that had been under Nanna's laundry sink longer than Jason has been alive. Nanna was his maternal grandmother, while his father's mother was strictly Grandmother. She was a retired otorhinolaryngologist and had no truck with rusty tins of ointment.

He took a closer look at the tin in his hand.

Item: [Healing Unguent (Iron)] (iron rank, common)

Topical healing ointment. Inexpensive concoction ideal for superficial injures (consumable, healing).

Effect: Apply directly to injuries to heal. Effect reduced on bronze-rank or higher individual.

Uses remaining: 5/5.

Unlike the tablet, the magic screens had no problem identifying the tin. Jason pulled off the lid to discover it really did look and smell like the ointment under Nanna's laundry sink. There was a sharp, medicinal smell that cut through even the lingering stench of the dead creature. As for the contents, was an oily substance that looked like butterscotch sauce made from dubiously sourced ingredients.

"How did I get ointment from a hamster? And how did it come in a tin?"

After getting silence as an answer, Jason just let out a defeated sigh and sealed the lid back on to the tin. Hopefully he won't need it, but experience has taught him how having medical supplies on hand was essential to surviving the unknown. A shiver of the past, unprompted training exercises by Colonel Grey had him begging for anything to help ease his wounds at the time. Magical or otherwise, he'll take whatever he can get.

Jason placed the tin back in his inventory and pulled out the other icon. What appeared in his hand was a small, red-brown gem, in the shape of a teardrop.

Item: [Monster Core (Lesser)]
(iron rank, common)

The magic core of a lesser monster (crafting material, magic core).

Effect: Common component for ritual magic and magic item creation.

"Oh, it's for magic rituals. I'm apparently in a video game, now, so of course magic is a thing." Jason sighed as he put the monster core back in his inventory. "Maybe I've had an aneurysm and this is just my dying brain trying to sort things out as it shuts down."

He thought about that for a moment. His sister would be the one to find his body. She'd have her little girl in tow, coming to see Uncle Jason.

"Great. Now I'm actually hoping this whole, insane experience is real. That's the way, Jason. Indulge the delusion."

Jason looked at the coin counter in his inventory, "How do I take that?" He tried tapping on the number.

You have 10 [Lesser Spirit Coins]. How many would you like to withdraw?

"Um. One," he stretched out in uncertainty.

A coin appeared in Jason's hand. It was a washed-out blue color, with a metallic sheen but felt more like glass to the touch.

Item: [Lesser Spirit Coin] (iron rank, common)

An impure distillation of raw magic. (currency, crafting material).

Effect: Used to fuel lesser-ranked magic items or as a ritual component.

Jason peered at the figure embossed on the coin. Looking closer, he realized it was an image of Jason himself, giving a thumbs up.

"What? My chin isn't that big."

He turned the coin to look at the other side, which was engraved with text.

PRODUCT OF JASON

G'DAY, MATE!

He ran a hand over his face. Somehow the coin itself was more ridiculous than the fact that he had pulled it out of thin air. "I've definitely gone insane."

---

When the slippery creature latched its teeth onto his inner thigh, Jason yelled more out of panic than pain. He still had no pants and that was much too close to his tender bits. He grabbed the long, slippery eel by its head and pressed his thumbs down until he heard a crunch. His thumbs cracked through its skull and sunk into it brain, all the way past his second knuckles.

You have defeated [Flying Eel]
Defeat lesser monsters 9/10.

Jason carefully unhinged the eel's jaw from his thigh and tossed it to the side. Dropping to the ground, he pulled out a tin of healing unguent and started rubbing it on the wound, ignoring the blood coming out of it.

"Why can an eel fly?"

He looked down at the wound, high up the inside of his thigh. The eel had left some rather deep teeth indentations, so the stinging lingered as the wound slowly closed. Even so, the ability to watch an injury vanish in front of his eyes was amazing.

You have used [Healing Unguent (iron)]

Uses remaining: 1/5.

After nine encounters with different creatures, Jason only had to use one of the tins of healing unguent he's gotten. It wasn't until his fight against something called a malicious hedgehog that he even needed to use it, the previous three uses in fact. Apparently, fighting a mass of spiky barbs naked and barehanded was highly ill-advised. He really wished he'd at least had a knife, or better yet, a gun.

The strict gun control laws of Australia make gun ownership for private citizen's illegal. Having to relinquish all his guns was the hardest part about his discharge from the ADF. He would have given his left nut for just his side arm and one magazine right now.

One pleasant discovery was that he didn't have to stand in the stinking smoke that came off them after they were looted. So long as he touched the creature he could back away before accepting. Even if he was far away from the dissolving creature, the loot went straight into his inventory. The only problem was that any of the creature's blood that got on him would dissolve away as well, giving Jason a full dose of the stink.

Every creature Jason looted gave out one lesser monster core and exactly 10 spirit coins. Most also produced additional, often nonsensical rewards. Tins of healing ointment were mercifully common, but mostly he received animal parts. That would have been understandable enough, given that he was killing creatures, but they arrived in his inventory already cut and packaged. The bundle of spines he received from the malicious hedgehog was bound with string, while the meat of the tyrannical pheasant came neatly wrapped in deli paper. The animal parts were listed as crafting materials, some of which seemed to be for cooking. While he did enjoy trying new food, Jason wasn't quite ready to put monster meat on his plate.

While he waited for the newest wound to heal, he checked the map again. He had a decent-sized chunk of the hedge maze mapped out now, but it was quite large, and he'd met a lot of dead ends. He plotted out his next pathway and set out again.

There was a flower growing in the middle of the pathway, around a foot and half tall. With thick, gnarled stalk and ugly brown petals on a flower head looking like a fist full of knuckles. Everywhere else Jason had been, there was only uniform hedges and neatly cut grass. He watched it from a safe distance, but to all observation it was just a plant. Jason moved forwards cautiously; eyes glued to the flower. He gave it as wide a berth as he could, keeping at least three feet from it. Just when he thought he had passed without incident, the flower twitched, spraying spores all over him.

He got dizzy and fell to the ground, then felt a weight on his leg. A vine with a bulbous head had grown out of the ground near the flower stem and was now winding its way around his leg. His head was swimming, but he clenched his teeth, fighting through the haze. This wasn't the first time he's been dosed by some form of tranquilizer and made to fight. He grabbed the vine as it moved up past his leg with both hands, the bulbous head opened up, clamping down onto his hand like a lamprey.

Ignoring the pain, Jason started hauling on it. The ground under the flower bulged, soil spilling away as a grotesque shape emerged from the earth. It looked like a root vegetable but was the size and shape of a baby. The vine was attached to its stomach like an umbilical cord, while the flower grew out of its head. Getting up to his feet, he proceeded to yank on the vine and twist, so the creature slammed into the hedge. After it bounced off the hedge and hit the ground, Jason ran over and with a scream of anger, he stomped down on its head. With a sickening squelch, the plant monster's head broke apart like a potato that had been dropped off a building and hit concrete.

You have defeated [Carnivorous Mandrake]

Quest: [No Shirt, No Shoes, No Service]

Bonus objective complete: Defeat ten lesser monsters 10/10.

[Simple Footwear] has been added to your inventory.

Primary quest objective still available.

Jason just stood there for a few seconds, taking deep breaths to calm his anger. A baby plant monster just got the drop on him. Colonel Grey's disciple! That's insulting! He knows he's better than that. Sure, he's naked and unarmed but the Colonel would never have accepted that as an excuse. And neither will Jason. He's clean and sober, possibly insane, but still sharp. No more mistakes. Real or not, he's not letting his guard down again.

"Come on Jason. Get it together."

Taking the footwear out of his inventory he discovered it was a pair of sandals. Although the thick grass was pleasant underfoot, Jason still put them on. The scene from Diehard where John McClane had to run through glass barefooted to dodge a hellfire of bullets flashed through his mind.

"Better to have them and not need them, than need them not have them. Like a condom."

Looking down at his otherwise naked self, he sighed out, "I'd still prefer some pants... I think I might hate this place."

---

Jason frowned at the object in his hand. The carnivorous mandrake proved to be the most generous monster thus far with its loot, producing not only healing unguent, but also something new.

Item: [Trowel of the Blood Cult] (iron rank, uncommon)

A gardening implement enchanted to affect certain kinds of plants. (tool).

Effect: Improves health of carnivorous plants.

The trowel looked sinister, made out of some kind of black metal with a red sheen. It carried the wear marks of having been used as a planting tool, but also had a razor edge that seemed wholly unnecessary for gardening purposes.

"Blood cult?" Jason read unhappily from the item description. "Great. Trapped in a cult's hedge maze, butt-ass naked, and they seem to be centered around blood. Nothing bad can come of that." His sarcasm coming off overly thick.

"On the bright side, I at least have a weapon... sort of. But it'll do."

Jason kept the sharp trowel in hand, on the lookout for more monsters, and more concerning, blood cultists. After checking his map again, he set off clutching his weapon. Still naked aside from a pair of sandals, he was very careful about where he held it.

Jason looked at the well. It was a circle of bricks, the mortar aged and crumbling. There was a wooden bucket and crank, both weathered with age. It was the kind of rustically picturesque feature he could imagine someone putting at the center of their hedge maze.

Quest: [Stranger in a Strange Land]

Objective complete: Explore the hedge maze 1/1.
[Simple Pants] have been added to your inventory.

Quest complete.
100 [Iron Spirit Coins] have been added to your inventory.

Jason gave a fist pump and took the pants out of his inventory. They were made of plain white linen, with billowy legs and a very low crotch fit, held up by a drawstring.

"It's like a Mennonite made some hammer pants. Did I wake up in 1991 rural Pennsylvania?"

Putting aside fashion concerns, Jason slipped the pants on, walking around experimentally. They were sufficiently roomy that it didn't feel much different to walking around without them.

"I don't suppose I can get a quest for some boxers?" He waited for a few moments, but no window appeared. "Worth a try."

The wounds he suffered from the hedgehog and the flying eel left a wound on his thigh, calf, and arms, though they had been healed. The pants immediately had two stains of red and unguent-yellow, the one on his thigh could be misconstrued with an accident involving his bladder.

With his nudity concern ameliorated, Jason was able to turn his thoughts to other aspects of his situation. He sat down on the edge of the well to think over his next move.

The things he was experiencing were clearly impossible, which broadly placed him in one of two situations. One, his faculties were significantly compromised and his understanding of what he was doing was massively detached from reality. Brain trauma, hallucinogens, some kind of severe mental break -more possible than he wants to admit. His knowledge was too shallow, and his observation point too subjective to make any definitive assessment. To the best of his understanding none of those options made sense. He was too lucid, too capable of critical thinking. His consciousness wasn't skipping around, glossing over the inconsistencies of a compromised mental state. Even his dissociative events were never this clear and he'd forget what happened. Usually, he'd be left with blank spots in his memories, and he hasn't had a major one in over a year.

The big point going for the mental-impairment hypothesis was that the alternative scenario required Jason's most fundamental understanding of reality to be somewhere between woefully incomplete and breathtakingly wrong.

Either way, his only real option was to get on with it. If it was all in his head, then it didn't matter what he did. Someone from the outside would deal with it, most likely his sister. God, he hopes he doesn't hurt her. They'll institutionalize and medicate him, eventually bringing him back to reality. Inversely, if it was real, and he ran around acting like it wasn't, he'd die. He took a deep breath, calming his nerves and slipping back into his combat state of mind. A place he desperately tried to leave behind as he readjusted to civilian life.

"Alright, soldier," he said, steeling himself. "What's next?"

Sooner or later, he would need to find his way out of the maze, but the fact that his quest ended on reaching the well implied there was something special about it. He started by examining the wooden frame which had a simple crank and rope to lower a bucket, along with a little wooden roof to shield the mechanism from the weather. It only seemed to have worked to a degree, with a rope and bucket both looking worse for wear. The brickwork was likewise dilapidated, with mortar crumbling at his touch. He stuck his head over the well to look down. To his surprise, iron rungs had been affixed to the inside of the well, leading into the darkness below.

Next Quest: [Secrets of the Well]

You have discovered a ladder descending into the well. Do you have the courage to explore the depths?

Objective: Explore the well 0/1.

Reward: Awakening stone.

Bonus objective: Don't die 0/1.

Reward: Essence.

"Don't die? What kind of bonus objective is don't die? That's kind of the main objective to living." He shook his head, "Bugger that. I've had enough of those type of experiences to last a lifetime."

Reject quest [Secrets of the Well]?

Jason was thinking over the quest when he heard voices coming from somewhere close within the hedge maze.

"I tracked the aura of the mandrake that took my trowel," a gravelly male voice said. "Someone had already killed it and my trowel was nowhere to be found."

"Someone with those adventurers we caught?" another man asked.

"I don't care who they're with," the first voice replied. "I'm going to kill 'em, cook 'em and eat 'em."

"I wanted to try some of that elf girl, but the mistress said we're keeping them all for the sacrifice. Bloody waste, if you ask me."

"Nah, elves ain't good eating. Not much meat on them, and what's there is all stringy. That human girl, she's the one you want. Lean and tender."

"I don't know, Dougall; she looked pretty tough to me. And we always have humans. I just want a little variety, is all."

"Well, this lot is all spoken for, regardless."

Ducked down behind the well, Jason didn't let out a breath until the voices faded into the distance. He ignored the fact that they were talking about elves in the face of their casual discussion on the pros and cons of eating people. Cannibals. Guess he now knows what the Blood Cult was all about. All things considered; cannibals aren't too far out the realm of what's believable. Compared to real monsters, magic, and apparently elves existing, cannibalistic cults were nothing too odd. Horrible, but realistic and historically proven. He considered it some more as he started climbing down into the well.

"Fan-fucking-tastic. This place just keeps getting better and better."

Jason wasn't exactly thrilled about his options. A quest with the explicit objective of 'don't die' wasn't great, but wandering a maze filled with cannibals seemed like the worse option. Sure, he could kill the two men easily enough, so long as they aren't armed with something better than a knife, but it could be worse. Killing cult members before knowing where he was, how many allies they have, and if there was a way to escape without killing anyone. He'd prefer not to have kill anymore, he will if he must, and he'd rather not make enemies with an entire cult that could have power and influence over whatever country he was currently in.

The best option was to hope that he can find some sort of sewer system or underground tunnel leading away from this Blood Cult. The less anyone knows he was here, the better.

The well was quite deep, judging from the diminishing light coming from above. He kept a careful grip on the cold metal rungs, not only did several rungs shift as he went, but the interior of the wall also became dank, the sides slick and wet.

"At least it isn't actual shite on these walls. Don't want to do that again."

The light did not penetrate far down the narrow well, and Jason was soon moving entirely by feel. He descended cautiously, each foot carefully seeking out the next rung down. He would occasionally glance up at the shrinking blue circle that was all he could see of the sky, reassuring himself it was still there. He discovered he had reached the bottom when his foot met water instead of the next rung. Some experimental probing revealed it was ankle deep, enough to submerge his sandals in the icy cold. The bottom of the well was flat but, as it turned out, just as slippery as the walls. He slipped, catching the rungs to right of himself and avoided falling into what he hoped was water.

Unfortunately, Jason did not find an exit tunnel. Though, with some patting around and his eyes adjusting to the dark, he found a hole, large enough to crawl through. He didn't know if it was the source of the well's water or some kind of drainage tunnel.

Jason looked up again at the bright circle of the sky, then the dark circle of the tunnel. "Uh. Nothing like crawling down a tight, dank tunnel towards nowhere. Like old times," he groaned out. "At least this time it's not a sewage line."

Jason slowly crawled his way into the dank tunnel, a circular pipe of wet and slimy brickwork. It was wide enough to push himself along, but tight enough that he was pressed against the clammy sides. He almost wishesd he was still scrawny like he was before enlisting... almost. The darkness engulfed him as he moved away from the meager light that reached the bottom of the well. Edging down the tunnel, touch was the only sense with which he could navigate. With the ubiquitous smell of wet rot, he wished his noise was as useless as his eyes, but it wasn't the worst stink he's ever had to deal with for extended periods of time.

"This had better lead to somewhere."

If it turned out to be a dead end, he would be forced to shimmy backwards, the tunnel far too tight to turn around. The gloom of the well had seemed stifling, but the dark of the tunnel was much deeper. Jason's done similar tunnel crawling before, usually as apart of Colonel Grey's special training and the few black op missions he got assigned by the legendary gunman -not always with the ADF's permission. Thus, he has long since gotten used to the claustrophobic vibe of tunnels like this one. But that doesn't make the experience any more pleasant.

He let out a breath of relief when his hand came down on slimy, wet wood instead of brick. There was no light, so he probed with his hands. He had reached the end of the tunnel but had no idea what kind of space it opened into. He sensed open space, but in complete darkness it could well have been his imagination.

His hands felt out some kind of platform made of wooden planks. It was wet and a little slimy, although it felt reliably solid under Jason's hands. The surface of the wood was rough, like sandpaper. Some kind of long-enduring adhesive had been used to apply sand or something similar, improving friction on the wet planks. Jason had seen something similar on bush-walking tracks. Feeling around as he crawled free of the tunnel, he felt the planks were lined up to make a walkway, a meter and half wide.

It felt like there was enough room above to stand, but even with the sand coating he didn't trust the slick wooden path in the dark. He continued forwards as he had in the tunnel, hands exploring in place of his eyes. Just a short way down the path he found a vertical metal rod sticking out of the walkway, at the edge to his left. His hands traced the shaft upwards to a hooked end, from which was hanging some kind of metal box with a loop on top.

Item: [Crude Magic Lamp] (iron rank, common)

A simple lightened device fueled by low-level magic. (tool).

Effect: Cast light.

Current charge: 00%. Requires a [Lesser Spirit Coin] to replenish.

Jason tried using the glowing hologram window as a light source, but even pressed up against the lamp it failed to produce so much as a murky outline. Jason fumbled about to unhook the lamp from the pole.

You have acquired [Crude Magic Lamp]

Current charge: 00%. Requires a [Lesser Spirit Coin] to activate.

Expend 1 [Lesser Spirit Coin] Y/N?

"Please and thank you."

When the lamp lit up, Jason discovered the hard way that he had been holding the front of it pointed directly into his face. He grunted out in annoyed irritation as he slammed his eyes shut and waited for the storm of light behind his lids to fade. Having turned the lamp away from his face, he slowly blinked his eyes open, giving his lids a rub with his fingers before fully opening them.

Holding the lamp up and out of his face, he recognized that he was in a natural cavern. It didn't have the conveniently smooth floors of a video game cave, which was presumably why someone had put in the walkway, raised on thick wooden posts. The walkway was about an arm's length above the cave floor.

Jason examined the lamp, careful not to blind himself again. As the name suggested, the crude magic lamp was a simple affair, looking rather like a miner's tin lamp. It had three boxy, metal sides, a glass front and a loop handle on the top. Inside, the light came from what looked like a round stone, glowing like a light bulb. He held up the lamp to get a better look at the cave; it had plenty of dark crevices and ominous shadows.

Since the beam of the lamp light lit up the cave like a lighthouse on a dark night, there was no point in being overly stealthy. He'd still stay as quiet as he can, the overly sharp trowel in his left hand and the lamp in his right, prepared for a potential attack. Hopefully the monsters that might be living down in this dark cavern will have eyesight developed for it and will be dazed by the sudden light. That'd give him an opening to cut them down with the trowel. If it turns out to be a cannibal cultist, he'll turn out the lamp and try to silently slit their throat from the shadows. It wouldn't be the first time he's snuck around in the dark to kill an unsuspecting individual.

He started following the walkway, taking careful steps to avoid making noise and keeping an ear open for anything that might be out there. Also, the sand coating had worn away in a lot of places, leaving patches of the wood slick and frictionless from years in the bleak, damp cavern. The cave turned out to be something of a natural tunnel, roughly speaking, through which the walkway followed.

He made his way slowly and carefully until it came to an end at a brick wall, set into the side of the cave. In the middle of the wall was a hefty metal door with a big wheel set into it, like a bulkhead door on a submarine. Both door and wheel were rusty and didn't look to have been opened in some time.

"Now were getting somewhere."

Setting down the lamp, Jason grabbed the wheel with both hands and twisted counterclockwise. It didn't budge. He adjusted his angle, putting his full might into the twist, and his feet firmly planted on the ground for leverage.

"Come on you rusted piece of junk."

He felt a little give, then a little more, each accompanied by an unwilling metal groan. Finally, the wheel jerked loose, and Jason was able to turn the reluctant mechanism. He proceeded to pull open the now unlocked door, but just like the wheel, it resisted. Having to put his shoulders into it, he was able to finally open the door with a shriek of rusted metal. His arms and shoulder felt a little sore, and had rust caked into his palms, but he was otherwise fine.

Quest: [Secrets of the Well]

Objective complete: Explore the well 1/1.
[Awakening Stone of the Stars] has been added to your inventory.

Bonus quest objective (don't die) still available.

"Awakening stone of the stars? Does it give me magic star powers or something?"

He retrieved the lamp from where he had set it down, pulling the new object from his inventory. It looked like a fist-sized marble, black, but containing what looked like tiny stars.

Item: [Awakening Stone of the Stars] (unranked, epic)

An awakening stone that unlocks the power of the stars. (consumable, awakening stone).

Requirements: Unawakened essence ability.

Effect: Awakens an essence ability.

You have 0 unawakened essence abilities.

You do not meet the requirements to use this item.

That seemed more complicated than Jason wanted to get into when there was a door right in front of him with the promise of (hopefully non-cannibal) civilization. He'd even take an exit leading far away from the cannibals. The interior on the other side of the door was dark, so he stepped inside and started panning the light beam of the lamp. It was a room, thankfully, not just more cave. It was just like a large parlor from a stately home, but after a tornado passed through. Furniture was upended, tapestries and paintings ripped down from the walls. Bookshelves had been toppled; their contents tossed around the room. There was an ornate chandelier that had crashed down from the ceiling, scattering shattered crystal across the polished floor.

Searching through the mess by the light of the lamp, he found an overturned couch in the middle of the room. Under it was an unconscious man. Heaving the couch off of him revealed that he was sprawled in the middle of an elaborate pentagram, set into the floor in brass or copper. The man was youngish, maybe thirty, clean shaven with an olive complexion and a handsome face. To Jason's eyes he looked rather Mediterranean, the good-looking kind with the dark wavy hair. Oddly, he was wearing what looked like honest-to-God wizard robes.

Jason set down the lamp to examine the man. He had a strong pulse and regular breathing but was showing early signs of extensive bruising and his body temperature felt way too high. As Jason was examining the stranger, his eyes flickered open.

"G'day mate," Jason greeted. "Looks like you took a nasty spill. Need any help?"

Jason offered his hand and helped the wizard-looking man to his feet. Despite having a slender frame, the wizard was surprisingly heavy for his size. Standing unsteadily on his feet, the wizard looked around at the room in disarray, then at Jason, his expression confused.

"Who are you?" the wizard asked. "How did you get here?"

"I'm Jason, and I have no idea. I went to bed at what I think was last night and woke up in some kind of alternate universe."

The wizard narrowed his eyes as he peered at Jason. "There's something off about your aura," the wizard said. "You're not human."

"I was before getting here. Wait, auras are really a thing?"

"You said something about an alternate universe?" the wizard asked.

"That's just a guess," Jason said. "I mean, the continents are different. Could be a crazy-far, time travel thing. Do you know anything about continental drift?"

The wizard's gaze moved to the magic circle on the floor, then back at Jason.

"It was you," he said angrily. "You're what went wrong with the summoning."

"Yeah, well, at least you did summon something. Do you have any idea how much your summoning messed me up? I have no idea where I am, what's going on, and what was done to my body. It feels off. So, I have a lot more to be grouchy about."

The wizard had a combined look of confused and angry, but as he was about to retort he went pale and stumbled in place.

"Crap, hold on," Jason said, moving to support him.

"GET OFF ME!"

The wizard staggered in the direction of a heavy writing desk. It seemed to have escaped major displacement by being the heaviest piece of furniture in the room. He almost tripped, still weak from whatever happened prior to Jason's arrival. The wizard opened a drawer, took out a small bottle and drained the contents.

"I'm rather tempted myself to down a stiff drink, but I'm not sure this the right time to get inebriated," Jason commented.

"It was a recovery potion, fool," the wizard snapped, then winced with pain. "It seems the backlash will take more than a potion to fix."

He gave Jason a smile that Jason was, unfortunately, very familiar with, having been on its receiving end far too many times for his liking. "Don't do it mate. It'll be the last mistake you ever make," Jason's voice turned to ice as his face hardened.

The wizard flinched but proceeded to pull a knife out of the drawer, "Since I can't recover mana right now, I'll have to do things the old-fashioned way. I've never tasted an outworlder before."

Jason's eyes narrowed as he subconsciously shifted his stance for what was to come, "I'd prefer not to kill you. So, put down the knife and we can just talk this-"

The wizard cut Jason off as he lunged at him, raging on in fury, "You kill ME! A normal nobody from nowhere! Don't make me laugh."

In one smooth motion, Jason grabbed the wizard's knife wielding arm with his left, reversing the blades momentum. Then with his right, Jason grabbed the wizard by the back of his head and pulled him forward. The wizard's own blade punctured his own throat, severing his spine, a look of utter shock filling his eyes as they peered into Jason's cold, empty ones.

As the wizard jerked slightly with a blood-soaked cough, Jason coldly said, "I told you. It'd be the last mistake you ever made."

With one last jerking motion, digging the knife a little bit deeper, Jason let the wizard go. He fell to the ground like a puppet whose strings have been cut and gargled out his last dying breath.

You have defeated [Vroshir Acolyte]

Jason just stood there, looking over at the wizard's body, the beam of light from his lamp landing on him and the knife still in his throat. This was hardly the first man Jason's ever killed, but he was hoping that he'd be able to go the rest of his life without taking another. Life was never so considerate as to give us what we want. So, he just stood there for a few minutes, staring down at yet another corpse he had made. Another life snuffed out by his hands, bring the total to somewhere over a thousand. He stopped keeping count after a hundred, and it was a number that just kept growing as he went into war zones; killing terrorists, mercenaries, cell leaders, and black-market merchants and warlords -those were usually specialized missions given to him by the Colonel.

The hardest part of heading back into civilian life for Jason was dealing with all he'd done and how he couldn't really just talk to his family about it. There were countless times his sister would beg him to just talk to her, but she didn't really want to know. No one does. Killing in the name of freedom, your country, and a greater cause makes it all sound so dignified and grand. But it's not. Killing was a horrible, if not sometimes a necessary act that left him feeling hollow inside. It was easier to push it to the side when he was surrounded by hostile enemies aiming to take his life. But afterwards, when things quieted down and he had time to think, it tore into Jason like a jagged knife.

Jason was a bloody wreck before he even entered the military and all the shit he'd went through during his service left him broken. It took the never-ending support and love from his older sister, his niece and a lot of therapy to piece himself back together. This won't break him, but it was never easy taking a person's life.

The wizard cannibal was trying to kill and eat him, so he has no guilt about killing him. Jason just wished he'd have listened and not forced his hand. Honestly, Jason's more agitated at having not just subdued the weakened wizard. The scrawny man had no technique and just blindly jabbed at him with a knife, so he should have been able to easily disarm and subdue him. But the moment he touched the wizard's wrist, he felt an abnormal amount of strength and danger in the man that just didn't fit his appearance. He can't really explain it, but Jason had the feeling that if he had held back and let the man live, he'd be the one dead on the floor.

Maybe has something to do with him being a wizard. Magic powers could probably have just turned Jason into a stain on the floor. The wizard did mutter something about mana recovery and backlash. Did accidently summoning Jason leave the wizard powerless?

Shaking off the unanswered questions, ones he won't get now from a corpse. "Bullocks. He might have known how to send me home," Jason sighed out in annoyance. "Smooth move dumbass. You killed your way home."

He walked over the wizard's body, blood pooling around him, and pulled the knife out his throat.

Item: [Seal Knife] (bronze rank, common)

A dagger with the Vane family seal on the pommel. (weapon, tool).

Requirements: Bronze rank [Speed], bronze rank [Spirit]

Effect: When used to imprint a wax seal on a letter, the letter will be destroyed if opened by anyone other than the addressee.

Jason stared at the bloody knife in his equally bloody hand. After a few moments there was an unusual tingling, slowly rising to become pain. He tightened his grip until the pain became too much and the dagger clattered to the floor.

You do not meet the requirements to use this item.

He was starting to contemplate what happened when a new sound captured his attention. The sound came from above, a metal ventilation pipe in the ceiling. There was a hollow, echoing timbre to the sound, and it took Jason a moment to recognize it as a hissing noise. It was coming from the hole.

He watched the hole cautiously while walking backwards to the trowel he left by the magic lamp. Either poisonous gas was going to start pouring out of that pipe, which he'd need to run out back into the cave. Or some kind of snake or wild animal was coming to the wizard's aid. In that case, having a sharp blade-like instrument in hand would be wise. His gaze sharpened when something came out of the hole in the ceiling as he gripped the trowel in hand. It was an enormous, pitch-black snake, head barely small enough to pass through the aperture.

Jason and the snake looked at each other, frozen for a moment. Jason could sense intelligence in its eyes, although he may well have been imagining it. Then the snake hissed at Jason and continued emerging from the vent shaft, body dangling down from the ceiling. Jason sprinted for the door back to the cave, reversing the trowel into a downward grip in his right hand.

New Quest: [Time to Run]

The familiar of the Vorshir Acolyte sensed its master's death and has come to investigate.

Objective: Escape [Umbral Mountain Snake] 0/1.

Reward: Iron-rank (rare) magical dagger.

Jason almost stumbled as the window popped up, having to will it closed. He bolted through the metal door and grabbed onto the wheeled handle, pushing the door closed, the rusty hinges groaned, leaving a gap. He left just enough room that his leg could squeeze through but keep the left side of his body pressed up against the thick metal door, waiting for the snake. He has a plan, and it has nothing to do with escaping.

Jason listened, hearing the increasing sound of hissing and scales scrapping against the ground. Just as the snake's head popped out of the gap, Jason full bodily slammed into the door, pinning the snake between the door and the frame. It immediately started hissing, thrashing, and snapping its jaws at him.

He could already feel the monstrous strength of the snake pushing through the gap. Not wasting anytime, Jason rammed the trowel's point down into the snake's head, aiming for its eyes as best he could in the dark. Its screeching increased as he felt the trowel dig into flesh, sometimes scrapping across scales as he continuously stabbed down with his right hand. He was desperately putting all his weight into the door as he just kept on stabbing into the black snake head over and over again.

One overly powerful slam by the snake caused the door to ram into his left shoulder with a sickening snap. Jason screamed in pain as he forcefully pushed through what must have been a shattered clavicle and dislocated shoulder to keep the snake from escaping the doorway. Every passing second as the snake struggled against the door, worming its way out, it felt like searing pain was shooting through his entire left side, but he never stopped stabbing.

It wasn't until he was finally able to hit it right in the eye that the trowel finally felt like it did any real damage. A squelch sound and pained hiss was the last sound the snake made as the trowel punctured its brain. Then it went limp, ending Jason's struggle against the heavy metal door. With a sigh of release, he slid down the door until he was seated on the floor. His shattered left shoulder and clavicle screamed even with the lack of the slamming pressure of holding down a snake that could have eaten a tiger.

You have defeated [Umbral Mountain Snake]

Would you like to loot [Umbral Mountain Snake]?

"Sure," he said wearily while pulling the trowel from the dead snake's eye socket, then froze. Belatedly, he remembered that monsters dissolved into stinking smoke when they were looted. To his relief and surprise, that didn't happen. All he felt was the snake shift a little against the door. He looked over the list of items he got from the snake.

[Night-Scale Leather] has been added to your inventory.

30 [Dark Quintessence Gems (Iron) have been added to your inventory.

10 [Bronze Spirit Coins] have been added to your inventory.

100 [Iron Spirit Coins] have been added to your inventory.

Unlike every other monster Jason killed, the snake didn't turn into a stench cloud and didn't produce a monster core.

"I need to learn the rules of this crazy-ass place."

He took a look at the next screen.

Quest: [Time to Run]

Hidden objective discovered: Kill [Umbral Mountain Snake] 0/1.
Hidden objective complete: Kill [Umbral Mountain Snake] 1/1.
Main objective reward increased from rare magical dagger to epic magical dagger.

Objective complete: Escape [Umbral Mountain Snake] 1/1.
[Night Fang] has been added to your inventory.

Quest complete.
100 [Bronze Spirit Coins] have been added to your inventory.
1000 [Iron Spirit Coins] have been added to your inventory.

"Hidden objective? I was planning on killing it the whole time. There was no way I'd outrun a giant snake through a tight tunnel in the dark. This quest system crap doesn't make much sense."

Another window popped up.

Quest: [Secrets of the Well]

Bonus objective complete: Don't die 1/1.
[Dark Essence] has been added to your inventory.

Quest complete.
100 [Bronze Spirit Coins] have been added to your inventory.
1000 [Iron Spirit Coins] have been added to your inventory.

"Well, if you're going to complete one bonus quest objective, 'don't die' is a definite must."

There were new items in his inventory, but his only interest was in something that could fix his broken bones. Looking over the icons in his inventory, nothing stood out that might help. Suddenly Jason remembered the wizard drinking what he called a recovery potion. With a grunt of pain, he placed the trowel back into his inventory and forced himself up off the ground. He held his left arm to his body with his right, seeing as every tiny movement of his arm cause pain to fire clean across his chest. Even breathing agitated his broken clavicle, making breathing difficult.

Leaning against the doors frame while standing on the dead snake, Jason leveraged the door all the way open with just his right arm. That unfortunately meant releasing his left arm, causing agony to fire through him the whole time. But it was a familiar pain that he once used to motivate him to survive dire situations, like the one he currently found himself in.

Not sparing more than a moment on the dead snake and his pain, he made his way to the desk he had seen the wizard get the potion from. It wasn't hard to find, being one of the few pieces of furniture not overturned. Jason's eyes briefly panned over the body still on the floor as he navigated the debris of the trashed room. The drawer was still open, and inside was a small rack for vials like the one he had seen the wizard drink. Only two vials remained, and Jason carefully picked one up.

Item: [Recovery Potion (bronze)] (bronze rank, rare)

Potent potion with strong healing and mana recovery effects (consumable, healing).

Effect: Recovers health. Effect reduced on silver-rank or higher individuals.

Uses remaining 1/1.

The vial was small, about the size of a rifle cartridge. Jason pulled out the stopper and tipped it back in a gulp. It tasted remarkably like strawberry schnapps and Jason's unruly stomach, having been churning in discomfort since his clavicle broke, settled the instant the potion arrived.

"Ah. That's better."

The stinging sensation Jason now associated with magical healing started seeping into him, especially his clavicle and injured shoulder. It was worse than what he had experienced before, whether because of the nature of the injures or the potency of the potion. It didn't bother him; compared to the pain he was already in this was nothing more than a tickle.

You have used a recovery potion, restoring health, stamina, and mana.

Until the remnant magic fully dissipates, consuming further health, stamina or mana potions will result in toxic side-effects.

By using a potion above your current rank, the effect is increased, but residual magic will take longer to dissipate.

Jason returned to the floor, leaning his back against the desk as his bones mended and his shoulder popped back into to place with an audible pop. The pain was gone, and mobility was restored, but his entire left shoulder felt delicate and weak. In the periphery of his vision was a trio of small icons slowly shading over. When he focused on them, they grew larger for him to examine. They were all squares with a picture of a potion on each, one red, one yellow, and one blue. They were mostly greyed-out, but the grey was slowly dropping off as a timer underneath each counted down, with just under ten minutes remaining.

"Cooldown timers. That's handy."

He pushed himself to his feet, much easier now that he wasn't in agony with every movement.

"Alright," he told himself. "Still a bit raw, but back in fighting shape. So, what's next?"

After pocketing the last recovery potion, he went and picked up the magic lamp. He shone the light around until he found the dead body of the wizard and walked over to look closer. There was an eerie stillness to it that only came from death. An overly familiar stillness.

"You chose this pal, not me," he told it. "I warned you, but you didn't listen. Besides, you're a cannibal. You had it coming."

He knelt down and felt that the corpse was still warm, "Too soon to close his eyes," he sighed out. "I hate looking into dead eyes."

Would you like to loot [Vorshir Acolyte]?

"What's a Vorshir Acolyte?"

He thought this place was filled with cannibal blood cultists. Maybe there are multiple cults in this... compound? Man, he is too uninformed for his liking and really doesn't want to end up as some cultists next meal. He thought about the snake by the door, its long -now skinless- body still partially in the room.

"It won't skin him, will it?"

He took a step back.

"Alright," he said. "Loot the body."

[Landemere Vane's Key Ring] has been added to your inventory.

[Robes of the Astral Verdict] have been added to your inventory.

[Awakening Stone of the Fist] has been added to your inventory.

6 [Golden Spirit Coins] have been added to your inventory.

26 [Silver Spirit Coins] have been added to your inventory.

158 [Bronze Spirit Coins] have been added to your inventory.

537 [Iron Spirit Coins] have been added to your inventory.

328 [Lesser Spirit Coins] have been added to your inventory.

"Where were you carrying all that? That's about a thousand coins."

The robes the wizard was wearing had vanished, although he had been wearing a full set of clothes underneath. Jason pulled the robes back out of his inventory and held them up to examine. They were dark blue but covered in the blood of their former owner.

Item: [Robes of the Astral Verdict] (bronze rank, rare)

Robes designed for summoning. (armor, cloth).

Effect: Increases the damage dealt by dimension spells.

Effect: Summoned creatures have increased damage reduction.

Effect: Damage reduction against disruptive-force damage.

Requirements: Must be bronze-rank or above to equip robes.

You do not meet the requirements to use this item.

Jason was a bit disappointed that he couldn't wear the robes. Not that he looked forward to wearing blood-soaked clothing, but he still doesn't have a shirt and could have used the robes as a disguise. It'd be easier to sneak around if people thought he belonged to their cult. He returned the robes to his inventory and started searching the room. He needed to find anything he could to aid his escape from this place and its cannibalistic inhabitants.

He started by examining the magic circle in the middle of the room. It was large, around three meters across, the metal set directly into the floor. The lines were intricate and complex, like someone had started with a pentagram and gotten severely carried away. It was also damaged. Some of the metal had been pried up, other sections warped as if by great heat, although there was no indication of burning anywhere.

The circle wasn't useful to him, so he started going through the rest of the room. He started with the big desk the potions had been in. There were no more potions, but there were a few tins of healing unguent, which he took. Unlike the plain tins he got from monsters, these tins were branded with some kind of logo.

"Greenstone Alchemy Association," Jason read from the bottom of the tin. "I guess alchemy is real too. Maybe I can pick up a crafting skill."

The rest of the drawers contained piles of notes and diagrams that seemed related to the magic circle. Oddly, Jason could read the individual words despite never having seen the language before, but they didn't make any sense to him as a whole. From what he could gather they were on some set of magical principles, as arcane to him as high-end theoretical physics. During his brief stint in university he studied political science. Regular science never caught his appeal.

He moved on, searching through toppled bookshelves and overturned tables. There was a variety of what looked like curios and display pieces, mostly tossed to the floor and broken, but nothing useful. He picked up a few of the books, flipping through the pages. There were a lot of them scattered around the room, their bookcases knocked over or even smashed. They seemed to be written in a variety of languages, but Jason had no problems reading any of them. Each new and unfamiliar text came as easy as if he'd been reading it his whole life.

"That's a little disconcerting, but useful. It'd be a real pain in the ass to have to learn how to read all these new languages."

Although he could read the words, that wasn't the same as understanding it. Every book he picked up seemed to be about magic theory, making them as impenetrable as any advanced textbook from a field he knew nothing about. Even so, they might hold the key to how to get home, thus, he tossed them all in his inventory.

Moving a large, overturned table from where it had been tossed against the wall, Jason discovered a display cabinet with a glass door. Despite the table that had crashed into it, the cabinet was wholly unaffected, the glass remaining clear and without a single crack. Inside were four books, each on its own small easel stand. Compared to the other books Jason found, these looked more impressive, with intricately embossed leather covers.

Trying to open the cabinet, he found it was locked shut. After a few attempts to break the surprisingly sturdy glass, he remembered the key ring he had looted from the dead body. Pulling it out of his inventory, Jason discovered it was like a dungeon keeper's key ring from an old movie, a huge array of keys dangling from a large metal hoop.

Item: [Landemere Vane's Key Ring] (normal rank, common)

The keys for various locks throughout the Vane Manor, as well as personal keys for Landemere Vane's possessions. A mixture of ordinary keys and magical keys. (tool).

Effect: Open specific locks.

Jason looked over at the corpse laying on the floor. "Was that your name? Landemere Vane?" he sighed. "What am I doing? It's never good to learn too much about the people you kill. Sometimes, not even their name."

He looked away from the corpse and focused on the task at hand. The keyhole on the cabinet door was quite small, so he tried the more delicate-looking keys until the lock clicked open. The cabinet wasn't very large but there were only four books in the entire case, set out for display rather than efficiency. The embossed leather didn't have titles, instead bearing patterns like the magic circle on the floor. Jason took out one of the books at random.

Item: [Astral Magic II] (bronze rank, uncommon)

A magical book that can impart the knowledge of intermediate level astral magic. (consumable, skill book).

Requirements: Bronze rank, ability to use skill books, basic ritual magic theory, intermediate ritual magic theory, basic astral magic theory.

Effect: Imparts intermediate astral magic theory.

You do not meet the requirements to use this item.

Jason was familiar with skill books from video games that instantly gave out spells or special abilities. He couldn't try this one because he didn't meet the sizeable list of requirements.

"Does that mean I can be a wizard if I find the right book?"

Jason started checking the remaining books. From the descriptions, it seemed the four books covered two different fields of magic, with one book at basic and intermediate level for each subject. Of the four books, Jason could only use one.

Item: [Ritual Magic I] (iron rank, common)

A magical book that can impart the fundamentals of performing magic rituals. (consumable, skill book).

Requirements: Ability to use skill books.

Effect: Imparts basic ritual magic theory.

You are able to use skill book [Ritual Magic I].

Use Y/N?

Reading the description, he lingered on the requirement of being able to use skill books, which he met. Remembering his character sheet, he pulled it up and started looking through the listings under racial abilities.

Ability: [Mysterious Gunslinger]
Language adaptation, Essence, awakening stone and skill-book absorption.

Immunity to identification and tracking effects.

"Language adaption. That must be why I can read everything."

The ability seemed to give him the power to use skill books, along with whatever essences and awakening stones were. He looked at the book in his hand. According to its description it would give him knowledge. That meant it would alter his brain, but didn't his ability to read weird languages mean it was already affected? Was it already affecting his decision-making processes?

For the time being, Jason stowed the books in his inventory. He could always look at them later. There didn't seem to be anything else he could make use of, so he decided to take stock. He found an undamaged chair and table, setting them up as far from the body as he could. There were a lot of tables for one room, although it was a large room.

After sitting down, he started pulling out the items he had picked up but not looked at yet, placing them all on the table. He began with the items he looted from the snake. Mercifully, the night-scale leather wasn't as drippy as the snake had been after it was skinned.

Item: [Night-Scale Leather] (bronze rank, uncommon)

The skin of an umbral mountain snake. (crafting material, leather).

Effect: Crafting material for clothing, armor and accessories.

It was dark and matte, thick and cool to the touch. It was also surprisingly flexible. Like the snake, the leather was much longer than it was wide, coming out of his inventory rolled up like a traditional bolt of cloth and bound by a length of thick cord.

"Did I loot the string from the snake too? That's weird, but no weirder than everything else that's happened to me lately."

The snakeskin was listed as a crafting material, as was the dark quintessence, which turned out to be small black gems.

Item: [Dark Quintessence] (iron rank, common)

Manifested essence of darkness. (crafting material, essence).

Effect: Crafting material for items with darkness attributes.

They had the look of uncut gemstones, but the shine of polished onyx. They even came with a pouch to hold them.

"This is conveniently weird."

The rest of the items he received as quest rewards, mostly from quests he completed by killing the umbral mountain snake. He thought the night fang would be crafting material like the others he had taken from monsters, but it turned out to be a wicked-looking dagger. It came in a sheath made of the same night-scale leather, which was also used for the dagger's grip. It was curved in the shape of a fang, and when drawn from the sheath, turned out to be made of bone. It had a wickedly sharp edge, tapering to a point.

Item: [Night Fang] (iron rank, epic)

A dagger made from the fang of an umbral mountain snake. The magic of the blade allows it to retain the power of the snake's poison (weapon, knife).

Effect: Inflicts [Umbral Snake Venom]

Effect: Attacks ignore bronze rank damage reduction and poison resistance.

[Umbral Snake Venom] (damage-over-time, poison, stacking): Inflicts ongoing necrotic damage until poison is cleansed. Additional instances have a cumulative effect.

The knife even came with a belt of the same leather but there were no loops for it on Jason's drawstring pants. He put it back in his inventory, along with the dark quintessence gems and the roll of snakeskin.

The remaining items were both quest rewards for exploring the well. The awakening stone of the stars was a smooth, rounded stone about the size of a fist. There were tiny speckles in the stone that seemed to move as he stared at it, although the effect was slight enough that it may have been his imagination.

Item: [Awakening Stone of the Stars] (unranked, epic)

An awakening stone that unlocks the power of the stars. (consumable, awakening stone).

Requirements: Unawakened essence ability.

Effect: Awakens an essence ability.

You have 0 unawakened essence abilities.

You do not meet the requirements to use this item.

"Essence abilities," Jason read. "Is that like magic powers? If I'm going to be dealing with cannibal wizards, I could use some magic powers. And if I remember right, I have a racial ability that will guarantee that I get a conjured gun from it."

The second awakening stone was next, and he'd have to decide which one of the two to give up for the conjured gun. The other would be used for gaining an ability.

Item: [Awakening Stone of the Fist] (unranked, common)

An awakening stone that unlocks the power of the fist (consumable, awakening stone).

Requiremnets: Unawakened essence ability.

Effect: Awakens an essence ability.

You have 0 unawakened essence abilities.

You do not meet the requirements to use this item.

The last item was the dark essence. It was a cube about 15cm to a side, with a glossy sheen like a polished jet. It seemed to be made of the same material as the dark quintessence, and given the names, he assumed they were related objects. He picked it up.

Item: [Dark Essence] (unranked, uncommon)

Manifested essence of darkness (consumable, essence).

Requirements: Less than 4 absorbed essences.

Effect: Imbues 1 awakened dark essence ability and 4 unawakened dark essence abilities.

You have absorbed 0/4 essences. Once absorbed, an essence cannot be relinquished or replaced.

You are able to absorb [Dark Essence]

Absorb Y/N?

"Are you what I need to get those magic powers?"

Jason frowned at the description of the black cube in his hands, "Dark essence abilities. Sounds a bit sinister. How does that work, exactly?"

Help: Essence Abilities

Essence abilities are personal supernatural abilities. They come in a variety of forms, including passive abilities, special attacks and spells.

Compared to time-consuming and preparation-intensive ritualized magic, most essence abilities can be used spontaneously.

"Wait, there's been a help function this whole time? Can you help me get out of here without getting eaten by cannibals?"

You are able to absorb [Dark Essence]

Absorb Y/N?

"Is that an answer or are you just too simple to properly respond?"

When nothing happened, Jason just sighed in defeat. It was too much to hope that there was some sort of sentience to this crazy ass quest system thing. Then again, it was probably for the best that there isn't some intelligent entity messing with him. Looking closer, he noticed that the question about absorbing the dark essence only appeared when he looked at the essence while holding it. Putting it down would cause the prompt to disappear. While looking away or thinking about something else when holding the essence would cause the window to shrink to the side.

He looked at the dark cube he was holding in his hands. Despite the slickly smooth surface it had no sheen, not reflecting the lamp light at all. If anything, it almost seemed to be absorbing the light. Jason picked up the lamp and panned it around the room. The magic circle, the dead body, the double doors leading into the inevitably perilous unknown. His whole reason for searching the room was to find any advantage before he went through those doors. His gaze drifted back to the cube.

"Why not?" he said. "What's the point of going to a magical alternate universe if you don't get a few magic powers?"

He stood up, took a couple of deep breaths, then picked up the cube.

You are able to absorb [Dark Essence]

Absorb Y/N?

"Well, here goes nothing. Yes, absorb the essence,"

The cube suddenly turned sizzling-hot in his hands, and he dropped it to the floor.

"What the..?"

Dark smoke started rising up off the cube and Jason backed away. The smoke coming off the cube was rising up in narrow streaks, like black streamers. They twisted in the air, heading in Jason's direction. He took another uncertain step back, second guessing himself, but stopped and steeled his resolve. He nearly got taken out by an oversized snake and considering how poisonous the blade made from its fang is, it would have taken just one bite to kill him.

"Man up, Jason. You'll need more than a knife to make it out of this."

Jason felt the smoke reach him with the same scalding heat he had felt from the cube. He screamed as the black steam forced its way over his face, invading his mouth, nose and eyes. At some point he passed out from the pain, it felt like someone poured liquid fire down every orifice on his head. His next sensation was waking up on the floor.

Sitting up, he probed his face with his hands. The sensation of pain was completely gone, and nothing was sensitive to the touch. His eyes seemed fine, and he realized he could see the room as if it weren't dark at all. The colors were a little washed out, but he could clearly see into the parts of the room previously cast in shadow.

You have absorbed [Dark Essence].

You have absorbed 1 of 4 essences.

Progress to iron rank: 25% (1/4 essences).

[Dark Essence] has bonded to your [Speed] attribute, changing your [Speed] from normal to [Iron 0]. Master all dark essence abilities to increase your [Speed] attribute.

You have awakened the dark essence ability [Midnight Eyes].

You have awakened 1 of 5 dark essence abilities.

There was a mirror on one of the walls. It was huge, double the size of even full-length mirrors Jason had seen. There was a spiderweb crack coming up from the bottom, but mostly it was fine. He moved over to it, checking his face for burn marks. It was a little hard to tell, under the tunnel grime, but he appeared unmarked. His eyes weren't even bloodshot. The rest of him was just as dirty as his face, his sculpted frame of compact muscle smeared with filth. The quest reward pants, originally white, were stained to the point that they looked like camouflage.

It was the first time he'd gotten a look at himself since arriving. He looked somewhat grubby and ragged, the skin visible under the filth pale and taut. His Japanese facial features, inherited by his father, were even sharper than usual, making his face look gaunt. His bald head, mangled chin and absent eyebrows made him look manic and unhinged. At least his nicely toned body and scars flattered the muck on it, looking one part action-movie hero and one part refugee.

He sighed, thinking about how unfair it was that his brother got the squared, handsome face. No amount of training and physical conditioning can improve his face. A one-night stand once told him that it looked like someone photo-shopped his face on someone else's gorgeous body.

"Alright, let's take a look at my shiny new magic power."

Ability: [Midnight Eyes] (Dark)

Special ability (perception)
Base cost: None.
Cooldown: None.

Current rank: Iron 0 (00%)

Effect (Iron): See through darkness.

"Hm. It's like night-vision goggles without the goggles and everything looking greenish."

He looked around the room some more, the shadows no longer hiding anything from him. It wasn't like a low-light filter; the lamp didn't interfere with his sight at all. Its light was more like a beam that brought things into full color, compared to the muted look of the areas covered in shadow.

"That's cool, I guess," he said. "A little disappointing for a magic power. It'd work better with a gun in hand, but I guess I'm not getting magic fireballs from a dark essence."

He looked over at the table and the round stone still where he left it. The magic stone of stars or something would apparently give him another power, so he walked over and picked it up.

You have 4 unawakened essence abilities.

You are able to absorb [Awakening Stone of the Stars]

Absorb Y/N?

He thought about the excruciating pain that came from absorbing the essence. On the other hand, there didn't seem to be any after-effects, and he did get a magic power out of it. Before he used it, he made some preparations. One of the chairs he had seen scattered around the room was a deep, comfortable-looking armchair. It was extremely heavy, but he managed to drag it out from under a fallen bookshelf and flip it back upright. It was a huge wooden affair with plush, stitched-in cushioning. He has a long history of waking up from the floor, and honestly, he was sick of it.

Before he could choose to absorb the stone, another prompt appeared.

Do you wish to use your racial ability [Mysterious Gunslinger] to consume awakening stone instead to gift you with conjured gun ability.

Y/N?

Jason sat in the chair, the awakening stone in hand. Thinking about it, this stone was rarer and sounded like it'd give him something better than a stone of the fist. He denied the second prompt. "Absorb."

Rather than turn hot and dissolve into smoke, the awakening stone grew cold before growing soft and melting in his hand like ice cream. It seeped into his hand, filling his arm with a bone deep chill that once again left him yelling out in pain. It was not on the same scale as the essence. He was able to bite down the scream and kept control of his faculties while shaking the arm that felt like it had been plunged into ice water. Eventually the bone-deep chill receded, and the pain passed, leaving him sprawled in the chair, getting his breathing under control.

You have awakened the dark essence ability [Cloak of Night].
You have awakened 2 of 5 dark essence abilities.

Jason could feel a change within himself. It was something new, yet weirdly familiar, like when he was reading a language he'd never seen before. The power was inside him, as if it had always been there, waiting to be awoken. He knew the power instinctively. It was poised and ready, eager to be used.

He stood up and moved back to the mirror before using his new power. It responded immediately, as easy and natural as breathing. Dark energy suddenly engulfed his body, hiding his visage in the mirror. It wasn't disturbing at all but felt cool and refreshing. The energy coalesced into the form of a voluminous cloak, enshrouding his body and hiding his head within a deep, impenetrable hood. The cloak seemed more like an object of living darkness than fabric, dotted with tiny points of light. They shifted and twinkled, tiny stars in the night sky of the shadowy garb.

Jason could feel the cloak, not like a piece of clothing, but like one of his limbs. He could feel its power. With a thought, the stars grew brighter to the point that they outshone the lamp. Then they dimmed until he couldn't even see himself in the mirror, disappearing into shadows.

Ability: [Cloak of Night] (Dark)

Conjuration (darkness, light, dimension).
Base cost: Moderate mana to conjure.
Cooldown: None.

Current rank: Iron 0 (00%)

Effect (iron): Conjures a magical cloak that can alter the wearer. Offers limited physical protection. Can generate light, or blend into shadows. Cloak can reduce the weight of the wearer for a low mana-per-second cost, allowing reduced falling speed and water walking. Cannot be given or taken away, although effects can be extended to others in very close proximity.

"Water walking," Jason read. "Now that's a magic power." He looked around the room. "That I can't try out right now."

He instinctively understood how to use the weight reducing aspect of the ability and hopped lightly into the air. He went up much higher than he normally would and dropped back down slower.

"It's like being on the moon."

He bounced around the room with a goofy grin on his face until he remembered the situation he was in. "Not the time to be having fun," he scolded himself.

He experimented further with the magic cloak. He could see through it as if it wasn't there, so even with his head covered it didn't obstruct his vision. He could make any or all of it lose physical substance, so if he wanted to grab it, he could, or his hand could pass through, unobstructed.

"Neat."

He could make it vanish with a thought and pull it out again, which he tried several times. After the third attempt he suddenly felt woozy and had to sit down. He went back to the armchair and fell into it.

Your mana is low.

"I'm out of mana already? Also, I have mana? Is there a mana bar or something?"

Two horizontal bars appeared at the periphery of his vision. One was blue, but mostly empty, while the other was orange and about three-fifths full. Next to them was a silhouette of a person that was mostly green, but the left arm and shoulder, spreading just a bit into the chest, were yellow.

"Alright, so the blue bar is mana, the little body is health, and the yellow bar is... something?"

Current stamina: 67%

"Okay, stamina. I think I'm getting a handle on this. I don't seem to have a lot of mana, though."

Help: Mana

Mana is a resource required for many essence abilities. Low mana will lead to mental exhaustion.

Maximum mana is based on the [Spirit] attribute. Bind an essence to the [Spirit] attribute to increase maximum mana.

Mana recovery is based on the [Recovery] attribute. Bind an essence to the [Recovery] attribute to increase mana recovery rate.

Jason let out a yawn. He had gone through a lot and his time unconscious was hardly restful. But he still had one more thing to do, but before he could open his inventory, he remembered something very important. Pulling out the awakening stone of the fist, the same two windows popped up but this time he agreed to the second window.

You have awakened the dark ability essence ability [Malfeasance Revolver].

You have awakened 3 of 5 dark essence abilities.

Ability: [Malfeasance Revolver] (Dark)

Conjuration (weapon, projectile)
Base cost: Moderate mana to conjure.
Cooldown: None

Current rank: Iron 0 (00%)

Effect (iron): Conjures a magical revolver (weapon). Fires mana bullets (iron-rank) carrying aspects of the [Dark Essence] at a cost of low mana per shot. Reduced damage to bronze rank and above enemies.

Effect: Explosive Shadow

[Explosive Shadow] (stacking, explosive): Shoots tainted slugs that burrow into the enemy. Stacking enough slugs causes them all to explode.

Effect: Inflicts [Bleeding].

[Bleeding] (damage-over-time, stacking): Inflicts ongoing bleeding damage until healed. Additional instances have a cumulative effect.

"Malfeasance Revolver. A magic gun. Now that's more like it."

Just like with the cloak, Jason can feel a change within himself. He knew the power instinctively. So, with a raised hand energy filled it, condensing and forming into a dark, twisted revolver with creepy, ghost-like green-shadowy energy swirling inside the openish barrel. It feels like solid darkness with a look of obsidian with moving pale green ghost lines going throughout it. {It looks exactly like Destiny's Malfeasance with the Aim to Misbehave ornament.}

Jason gave the revolver a full examination, checking the sight, barrel, and cylinder. The cylinder couldn't be removed for cleaning, repair, or even pulled out for reload. There were bullets in the cylinder, but it was colored like one of the iron spirit coins in his inventory with a shadowy-green tint to them.

Jason really wanted to give it a few practice shots to get a better feel for the weapon. See if there was any delay before he can fire another shot, like the bullet forms after firing the first round. But that'd cause far too much noise... maybe? Do magic guns make just as much noise as real guns? Well, the bullet is made from mana with the dark essence, but it was still a projectile that should fire roughly 4 times faster than the speed of sound, breaking the sound barrier. That'll make noise no matter what the bullet is made of. Unless the physics of this... world was vastly different from his own.

Just like with his cloak, he banishes the handgun with just a thought but can't conjure it back up do to the returned low mana screen. Right, his mana hasn't grown or recovered much yet, and his stamina fell by about 15%. A fresh batch of wooziness takes him, stifling yet another yawn. He could really use some coffee right about now.

"One last thing," he said, pulling one of the skill books out of his inventory. He leaned back a bit in the comfy chair.

Item: [Ritual Magic I] (iron rank, common)

A magical book that can impart the fundamentals of performing magic rituals. (consumable, skill book).

Requirements: Ability to use skill books.
Effect: Imparts basic ritual magic theory.

You are able to use skill book [Ritual Magic I].

Use Y/N?

"Yes."

The book floated out of his hand and into the air. The cover flung itself open and the writing on it started removing itself from the page, changing from black to gold as the disembodied text floated into the air. The pages started turning, faster and faster, gold text pouring into the air. Turning pages flicked over in a rush as the golden text formed a corona around the floating book. Then the flutter of pages started slowing, until the last page turned, and the book fell to the ground, every page blank.

The cloud of golden text swarmed over Jason like angry fireflies, disappearing into his body as it landed on his flesh with stinging bites. His mind was bombarded with information too quickly to process, leaving it lost and adrift. The pain and disorientation finally passed, leaving him in general control of his faculties, but dizzy and confused. He had no idea if seconds or hours had passed. He was weary to the bone, limbs as heavy as his eyelids.

Your stamina has been exhausted.

Unable to keep his head up, he slumped over in the chair, fast asleep. His dreams were filled with his first live combat mission in some little town, if it could even be called that, in Syria. He was tasked with hunting down and killing a priority target, a terrorist cell leader that had been leading raids on nearby villages, taking their children hostage to force capitulation. Things went sideways fast, and he found himself pinned down as a dozen insurgents pounded rounds into his meager cover.

Stone chipped away with each shot, wood splintering and the smell of gunpowder choking the air. Then an RPG was fired into the room he had ducked into. The world turned into a swirling mass of fire, debris, and a ringing noise that drowned out everything as he was flung out the window he was trying to escape through. The ground was the last thing he saw before everything went dark.

Jason woke with a start, nearly jumping out of the chair, only for his head to hit something with crushing force. As the ringing from his dream became reality, Jason saw through blurry eyes a man standing over him with a shovel in his hands. Was that blood? His blood? Did this prick just bash his head in with a fucking shovel?

Just as rage was starting to burn up in him, the shovel came down a second time and everything returned to black.

---

The circumstances in which Jason regained consciousness were unpleasant. He was cramped up in some kind of tight space, forced into a fetal position. His head was spinning; there seemed to be a little man inside it, trying to pickaxe his way out. His nose was congested with what felt like a fistful of bees, and to top it off, he had an urge to vomit. It took considerable effort and prior experience in this arena to keep it down, but he still ended up vomiting a little bit into his own mouth. With great, nauseating effort he swallowed it back down. Fuck, he didn't miss that experience from his hammered days of pub crawling. As he tried scrapping the taste from his tongue with his teeth, he noticed the head section of his health silhouette was now a warning orange.

"Great, I have a concussion and possibly a fractured skull. Ah. Too much like old times."

He heard a male voice, "He's woken up."

Jason's eyes swam into focus, although they felt puffy and didn't seem to open properly. He was in what looked like a dog cage, too small to stretch out his limbs. His new ability to see in the dark was intact, allowing him to make out that his cage was on a dirt floor in some kind of cellar. The roof and walls were rough timber, and there was a pervasive smell of damp earth. There were four more cages in the cellar with him, each containing a person. One had a black guy, two had white girls. The last cage was bigger than the others, with thicker bars. Inside was an enormous, impossibly hairy man.

"A Wookiee?" Jason asked deliriously.

"What's a Wookiee?" the hairy man growled.

"Hey," the black guy called out to him. "Did they put a collar on you?"

"Wha...?" Jason's thoughts refused to walk in a straight line.

"Try and focus," the man said. "Looks like you were hit rather hard."

Jason ran his fingers over his face, feeling the dried blood thickly caked onto it. He grimaced in pain as his fingers brushed against what turned out to be his very delicate nose.

"Did they put a collar on you?" the man asked again.

Confused, Jason reached up and patted his neck. "No," he croaked. "Why would they put a collar on me?"

"To suppress your essence abilities. You can still use them?"

Jason nodded, which annoyed the man in his head who went on a pickaxe frenzy. "Ow. Yeah, I can use them, technically I only have three."

"Can they get you out of that cage?"

"One of them just might, but the ricochet could hurt me in this enclosed space. Plus, it'd make a really loud bang, attracting a lot of attention."

"Trust when I tell you it's worth the risk. You don't want to stay these people's prisoner. Unless you're looking forward to becoming their next meal."

"Good point. Give me a moment."

Jason tried conjuring his mana revolver so he could shoot open the lock, hopefully not wounding himself in the process. Yet, just as he tried a window appeared.

Your mana has been exhausted.

Your stamina has been exhausted.

"Oh, come on. Stamina exhaust-" that was as far as Jason went as a stabbing pain in his head knocked him out cold.

---

Jason swam at the edge of consciousness, hearing two people talk.

"He was in the underground ritual chamber?" a woman said, in a controlled, elegant voice.

"Yes, milady," a gruff male voice replied.

"You left him in quite a state."

"Actually, milady, that's not much worse than how we found him."

"You didn't put a collar on him?" she asked.

"Mr. Caruthers only procured the four, milady. For the ones we were warned about."

"It doesn't matter," said the woman. "Feel how weak his aura is. I doubt he has more than two or three abilities at most. Do you really think he's the one that killed Landemere?"

"That would be my guess, milady. He had more blood on him than wounds to produce it. He was also locked in the room with the young master's body."

"How could he even do it?" the woman asked. "He's so weak."

"It seems the young master had mostly done himself in, milady. Summoning spell gone awry, from the looks of it."

"Is that why all those little monsters are running around?"

"It would seem so, milady."

Quest: [No, Shirt, No Shoes, No Service]

Objective complete: Discover the reason lesser monsters have infested the area 1/1. [Simple Shirt] has been added to your inventory.

Quest complete.
100 [Iron Spirit Coins] have been added to your inventory.

Jason stifled a yelp and forced himself to stay still. He had been pretending to be unconscious when a bright blue screen appeared in front of him and his whole body went tense. The pair continued talking as if nothing had happened.

"So, whoever this is got lucky and killed my son when he was at his most vulnerable?"

"Not that lucky, milady. He met me."

Jason wanted to argue that it wasn't all that impressive to bash in a sleeping man's head, but now was not the time. Plus, he shouldn't have used that skill book and fell unconscious. That was his fault.

"Just so, Dougall," she acknowledged. "Do we know what Landemere was trying to summon?"

"I had a bit of a potter through his notes, milady. It was one of them entities from beyond the void."

Jason heard the woman sigh.

"Astral beings," she muttered unhappily. "I told that boy it would be the death of him. We're a nice, traditional blood cult family. This nonsense about ineffable ancients from outside reality was never going to work out. What did you do with Landemere's body?"

"Mulch, milady."

"You mulched my son?"

"Well, he won't be mulched yet, milady. Composting isn't a quick process. I can fetch him out from the pile if you like, but milord won't be happy. He was quite specific as to the dispensing of the body."

"I don't care what my stupid husband thinks; he married into the family. This is my manor, my family, and we do things the traditional way. Goodness knows what poor Landemere will taste like after having gone in the mulch pile."

"I'll give him a good and proper wash before I bring him into the kitchen, milady."

"Thank you, Dougall. Excellent work, as always. Now, do we know where this man came from?"

"No idea, milady. As you said, he's too weak to be an adventurer and he wasn't exactly well-equipped. Besides the filthy clothes we found him in, he had nothing on his person. He apparently killed the young lord with his own knife."

"You don't think he's with them?"

"I wouldn't think so, milady. He wasn't up to much."

"Did he say anything?"

"I didn't give him the chance, milady, he walked into my shovel as he woke."

"Why did you take his shirt?"

"He didn't have one, milady. Didn't have the chance to ask why, on account of his walking into my shovel again. Do you want me to send him to the kitchen as well?"

"No. If he really did kill my son, I don't want him trotting off to death with his soul intact. Put him with the others for the blood feast."

"Yes milady, although that will be one too many."

"I don't think the extra blood will be a problem."

"I was thinking about the high priest, milady. You know how he gets."

"Yes, quite right, Dougall. Very well. Pick one of the others you like and keep it for yourself."

"Very generous, milady. I'll take the elf, if milady had no objections."

"Are you sure, Dougall? Elves are quite stringy."

"Derrick was keen to try one, milady. I warned him, of course, but you know how young ones are."

"Oh, yes," she said. "They never believe you until they suffer the consequences for themselves. Just look where it got Landemere, and my daughter isn't much better. If it wasn't for the cult, I swear I never would have had children. Go fetch my idiot son's body before you take the elf. I don't want him picking up any more flavor than he already has."

"Of course, milady."

The pair left and Jason let out a long breath. He got a lot of useful information from those two cannibal cultists. Like the fact that the lady of the manor and blood cult was the mother of the man he killed, which won't end well for him. His instincts scream danger from that woman, too similar to the Colonel's for his liking. And now they plan on killing him so that his soul would be destroyed or something. Jason never believed in god or the afterlife, but he'd rather not risk his soul's destruction, real or not. He needed to get the hell out. He maneuvered about for leverage and tried to force the door open with his legs, but it wouldn't budge no matter how much strength he put into it.

"That's not going to work," the black guy told him.

"Have you got a name?" Jason asked. "I'm Jason, and just thinking of you as the black guy seems rude to me."

"Rufus," the man responded.

"G'day," Jason said. "If you've got a better idea, I'm all ears. My mana's too low right now for conjuring my weapon. Sorry."

"That's a shame, but nothing you should apologize for and I'm afraid not," Rufus replied. "Unless you've got some spirit coins tucked into those pants, you won't get the cage open that way."

"Spirit coins?" Jason asked. "Sure, I've got some, but how will that help? Do you want me to try and bribe that Dougall guy to let us out?"

"This guy's an idiot," one of the women said.

"Not helping," Rufus said through gritted teeth. "Jason, you don't happen to have a silver or gold ranked coin, do you?"

"Hang on a sec," Jason said, checking his inventory. There were 26 silver coins and 6 gold ones, all looted from Landemere Vane's body. He took out one of the silver ones.

Item: [Silver Spirit Coin] (silver rank, common)

A distilled quantity of raw magic. (crafting material, currency).

Effect: Used to fuel silver-rank magic items or as a ritual component.

Effect: Consume to briefly increase all attributes to silver rank.

"Oh," Jason dragged out in understanding. He had previously examined the lesser spirit coins, which didn't have an option to increase attributes. He vaguely remembers there was a strength attribute or something.

"So, I consume this to increase my attributes?" Jason asked. "Consume, as in, eat?"

"Yes, Jason, it's very easy," Rufus answered simply. "You just put the coin in your mouth. Once you do, you'll only have a few moments to force open the cage."

"So these attributes," Jason replied, "I assume one of them is strength?"

"The power attribute increases strength," Rufus explained. "The coin will increase them all, but only for a very short time."

Jason placed the coin uncertainly on his tongue, where it dissolved like a soluble tablet. His body was immediately flooded with a tingling sensation, and he felt an immense sense of power. His senses sharpened. Eyes, already able to see in the dark, suddenly took in everything as if seeing it for the first time. His ears picked up ambient sounds he had previously missed. He could taste the blood, sweat and dirt on the air. It was amazing but a complete sensory overload that made him hesitate. It only lasted a fleeting moment before the world went back to normal, suddenly seeming dull and plain.

"Uh Jason?" Rufus asked.

"Yes Rufus?" Jason replied absent mindedly. He'd never felt such things before, and it was discombobulating to his senses.

"Did you use the coin?"

"I did, yes," Jason's voice came out in awe.

"I don't want to pressure you, but did you, perchance, forget to open the cage?"

"Sorry. My senses were pushed to an extreme I've never experienced before, and it left me a bit overwhelmed."

"This is who you're relying on to save us?" the woman's voice spoke up again in exasperated disgust.

"Still not helping, Anisa," Rufus told her in an admonishing tone.

Jason took out a second silver-ranked coin and put it in his mouth. This time, as the sensation of power came over him, he placed his feet against the cage door, easily bracing himself in the tight confines. His feet pushed out with the temporary surge of strength, the hinges on the cage door warping. He pushed harder and the door fell away just as the strength drained out of him again.

He crawled out of the cage and stood up. Waves of dizziness washed over him, and he had to grip the cage to stay upright. His body felt weaker than it had when he woke up in the cage.

"Are there side effects to those coins?" Jason asked.

"You used a coin with more power than your body could handle," Rufus explained. "It will recover. A little more slowly, though, since you used two of them in quick succession."

Jason looked over at the other cages, and a screen popped up.

New Quest: [Escape!]

You have been trapped in the cellar of the blood cult and you need to get away.

Objective: Leave the grounds of Vane Estate without being caught 0/1.

Reward: Essence.

Optional objective: Rescue your fellow prisoners 0/4.

Reward: Awakening stone.

"Good job," Rufus encouraged. "Now you need to find something to get the rest of us out. Giving us some silver coins would work, if you have more. That won't be enough for Gary's cage, though. You shouldn't use more coins yourself until you've recovered."

Jason pulled out the big key ring, "I'm hoping this does the job. Couldn't reach the lock from inside the cage."

"Even better," Rufus replied. "I'd rather not have to fight our way out of here suffering the after-effects of using a coin."

Rufus pointed to the large, hairy man in the oversized cage, "Him first."

Jason went over to the big cage, getting a better look at its occupant. His body was the size and shape of a professional wrestler and the parts not covered by his clothes were covered in fur. His head looked like a lion, complete with a glorious mane. It reminded Jason of Ron Perlman from the old Beauty and the Beast TV show from the 80s that his sister tried getting him interested in.

"So, you're Gary?" Jason asked as he crouched down and started trying keys on the lock.

"That's right," the big man said. His voice had a deep, growling timbre.

"I'm Jason," he greeted. "You look like you can do some real damage even without magic powers. Definitely my first draft pick for escape buddy."

"That's true. I'm good at destroying things." Gary joyfully responded with a grin.

"I'd say good to meet you," Jason replied as he continued trying keys, "but the circumstances aren't terrific."

"Thanks for not just running off," Gary spoke out in a grateful tone.

"No thanks necessary, Gary. It's the right thing to do. Besides, I'm going to need you lot to help me get out of wherever it is we are."

"We're in a storage cellar."

"I can see that much," Jason replied dryly. "I meant this whole place. I have no idea where we are."

"You don't know?" Gary asked incredulously. "Did they kidnap you?"

"I'm not entirely sure," Jason admitted. "I think I might have been summoned by accident by a cannibal wizard. Woke up hairless and naked in the hedge maze."

Gary the lion-man's voice seemed to be growly as a default, seeing as he seemed to growl in thought.

"Look out!" Rufus called out and Jason whirled around to where he heard a door open, returning the key ring to his inventory.

There was a doorway that seemed to lead into another section of the cellar, through which the man Dougall had returned, shovel in hand.

"Cheeky little sod," Dougall sneered.

Jason had nearly fell over from dizziness just from whirling around on Dougall, the coin's after-effects proving to be more of an impediment than he feared. Knowing that there'd be no way to fight the shovel wielding moron, he put everything he had left in conjuring his Malfeasance. His mana bar fell to just a trickle as the low mana warning window popped up again.

Jason willed the window away as Dougall's eyes widened in shocked horror. The obsidian, other worldly gun in Jason's hands pointing at the fuzzy man. He can feel his mind dimming as exhaustion was starting to overtake him.

"What the-" was all Dougall got off before pale-green bullets with shadowy black wisps dug into his chest with resounding bangs.

The sonic booms following each shot was deafening to everyone, getting them to cover their ears in pain at the unfamiliar sounds. Only Jason wasn't affected by the noise, long since being used to it, though, he really wished he had his military issue ear buds to dampen the sound. Even with his blurring vision and ringing ears, Jason was able to accurately hit Dougall's center mass with four shots.

It was right when the fourth round burrowed into the cannibal's chest that four tiny explosions of shadowy pale-green energy went off in his body. Blood and gore burst out of the man's chest, shredding his entire chest cavity open, splattering everything in front of Dougall in blood and chunks of flesh. Including Jason's face and the side of Gary's cage.

"That was... disturbingly awesome," Jason huffed out as mana exhaustion flared through him. He fell to one knee as his revolver -though, from the recoil and damage, it is more like a handcannon- dissolved into wisps of darkness.

You have defeated [Blood Cultist Gardner].

"Hurrah for me," Jason sputtered out between breaths and wiping off a chunk of heart from his cheek. "I beat a gardener."

Do you want to loot [Blood Cultist Gardner]? Y/N?

"Yeah...what? Wait a-" that was all a confused Jason was able to utter out before windows popped up.

[Gardening Shovel] has been added to your inventory.

[Gardener's robes] have been added to your inventory.

[Gardener's gloves] have been added to your inventory.

12 [Iron Spirit Coins] have been added to your inventory.

30 [Lesser Spirit Coins] have been added to your inventory.

Jason closed the windows before forcing himself up to his feet, using Gary's cage as support. The cannibal gardener was now left in only a pair of underwear and his shovel missing.

Knowing that someone, somewhere heard the gunshots, Jason tried moving as fast as he could to release Gary but was stopped by a chillingly elegant voice. "Seems the little mouse has some bite to it."

Jason had enough time to turn around in the direction of the door before a hand lifted him into the air by the neck, in a one-handed vice-like grip. The mother of the wizard he killed stared at him with distain, her eyes holding a cold fury. Her beautifully elegant, and much too young for a mother of an adult child, Mediterranean features were in no way lessened by her soul searing gaze.

As he chocked and struggled pointlessly, she sneered, "You're trying my patience, filth. First you kill my son, and now one of my servants. Your disrespect to the Vane family is deserving of the most gruesomely painful death imaginable, but a simple death is far too good for someone like you. Your soul will be sacrificed for a greater purpose that'll strengthen my family and its place in the Blood Cult. I'll take satisfaction from knowing that your soul will be torn apart in death. Never receiving the peace of the afterlife."

A very twisted, maniacal grin split her face to such a degree that even her oddly supermodel beauty faded to resemble an ugly monster.

Jason gasped out, "Suck... my... balls...bitch," a bloody grin on his own face.

Her face twisted into fury just before a fist collided with his jaw, pain shoot through him as bone crunched and darkness, thankfully, overtook him.

---

Jason was jerked back into consciousness as his body choked out blood caked vomit, causing agony to flare from his broken jaw. His throat seared as his empty stomach tried to cast out what wasn't there, almost gagging him. His head was filled with stabbing pain, nowhere as bad as his jaw, and when he opened his eyes, everything blurred like he was under water. The only clear thing was the little silhouette showing his health, the head now a glaring red. His thoughts skittered about like a roach, dashing out of reach as he tried to pin them down.

Slowly, he came to something approximating his senses. There was a light source somewhere up ahead, but the light it put out was blood red. Otherwise, the tunnel was dark, but his new power allowed him to see through it. He was once again in a cage, but bigger than the last. It was the same kind of heavy cage the lion-man had been in, thick, heavy bars. Apparently, they didn't want him kicking the door open again.

His cage was being rolled down a wide, stone tunnel, on some kind of moving platform. It was more like a train tunnel than a cave, with an arched roof and flat floors. There was even a rail, like for a mining cart, with his platform being pushed along it. Three more cages were being pushed the same way, one ahead and two behind.

The people pushing wore bright red robes and ugly demon masks. More of them led the way up front, carrying lanterns with stained glass that produced the ominous red light.

Jason wasn't thinking about what to do, so much as desperately getting the pain in his shattered jaw under control. Every jostle of the cage and movement on his part caused pain to storm through his entire head. He was concentrating on his breathing when a screen appeared.

Quest: [Escape!]

Objective failed: Leave the grounds of Vane Manor without being caught.
Quest failed.

New Quest: [The Blood Feast]

You have been captured and are set to be sacrificed by a blood cult. You need to avoid becoming a sacrifice.

Objective: Avoid being sacrificed 0/1.

Reward: Essence.

Optional objective: Save the other designated sacrifices 0/3.

Reward: Awakening stone.

As the group continued down the tunnel, Jason looked around to see if anyone was watching him. Once the cost was clear, he discreetly pulled the last recovery potion from his inventory, downed the vial painfully, and returned the empty vial back into his inventory. He ignored the window that popped up explaining its effects and after-effects to enjoy the feeling of his jaw fixing itself, and the relief as the pain subsided. He was able to disguise the sigh of relief as a grunt of agony. That got a few vicious grins and chuckles from the sadistic cultists.

The long tunnel ended in a pair of enormous stone doors into which impressive but grotesque images had been carved, depicting some kind of cannibalistic orgy. Four cultists stepped forward, two to a door, grabbing the handles and pulling back until the doors swung ponderously open. When they did, red light flooded the tunnel, accompanied by an incredible heat and a bitter smell. It washed through the doors and over the group like a wave, carrying with it a coppery taste that lay thick on the tongue.

Jason just continued to stay bunched up in his cage, only slightly roomer than the small one from before, letting out an occasional groan of pain. The smell reminded him of the burning town filled with corpses he fought his way through years ago. It was a nightmare come to life and his rude awakening to taking life and the cruel nature of mankind. Whatever awaited him behind those are doors won't be good.

Just as he let out another faked groan, a fist landed hard on the side of the cage, "Quiet," a harsh voice barked.

Beyond the doors was a vast, circular chamber, like a great cylinder carved straight out of solid rock. Some twenty-five meters across and at least twice as high, it was enough to boggle Jason's mind. The walls were black, like some long-dormant magma chamber, but even starting from a natural cavern it would have been a monumental labor to bring it to its current state. Flat stone slabs, carved out of the same black stone, had been inserted into the walls like pegs. They made a punishingly steep set of stairs that wound their way up to the higher parts of the chamber.

Dominating the room was a red pool of roiling, bubbling liquid, taking up almost all the floor space. It was the source of the light, along with the heat and coppery stench of blood. The center of the pool churned, as if on the point of boiling. The sound of thick, sloshing liquid echoed up through the chamber. The red light shone from deep within the pool, washing the whole chamber in red as if everything was coated in blood.

"That isn't good." Jason heard from one of the other caged people. It sounded like Rufus. The lion-man, Gary, was there in his own big cage, along with one of the two women. The other was nowhere to be seen. One of the robed cultists bashed on the side of Rufus's cage.

"I said quiet."

"Or what?" Gary grumbled. "You'll sacrifice us in your creepy ritual pit?"

The other prisoners were also dirty and ragged, but nothing like Jason. He had no shirt, no hair, and there was blood crusted all over him. His face was coated in blood from his, now healed, broken nose and cracked skull, along with flecks of vomit.

The rail that had carried the cages on platforms through the tunnel ended at the door. The cultists lifted the cages off, two people to each small cage, and four to the large ones. They carried them up the steep stairs, audibly straining at the effort. The lion-man's cage was the most troublesome, even with four people lugging it. The stairs wound up and around the circular wall, the group pausing after a quarter turn. They had reached a platform, set into the wall like the stairs, but much larger. It extended well over the blood pit below.

"Leave the big one first," one of the cultists said. "No point carrying the heaviest one all the way to the top."

Jason recognized the voice of the woman he had heard in the cellar and who had shattered his jaw, recapturing him.

"Thank you, milady," one of the cultists said gratefully. Jason did not recognize the voice. Probably the prick with a shovel's, replacement.

The cage carrying the big lion-man was left against the wall. Unknown cultist one and another faceless crony walked over to the edge of the platform and took up a waiting position, facing out over the pool below. The rest continued on. The stairs continued to wind upwards beyond the platform, making another quarter-turn around the room before reaching a second platform.

"Leave the other big cage," the woman ordered.

"Isn't he the one that killed the young master?" one of the cultists asked. Not wasting their breath on mentioning Dougall, he was just a servant and a low ranking cultist member. "You don't want to save that one for last?"

"I'm not going to make you haul that thing all the way up for my own satisfaction."

"Thank you, milady."

The four cultists roughly dropped Jason's cage up against the wall. He made sure to make an even louder groan of agony that time. Appearances are important after all. As at the first platform, two cultists took up positions at the platform's edge while the rest of the cultists with the remaining two cages resumed the climb. Jason watched as they made another quarter-turn ascent to the next platform, which hid them from sight.

Jason took a look around. The platform he was on looked like rough-hewn obsidian, shiny and dark. He had no idea how the massive stone platform had been shoved into the wall like a six-ton peg. His best guess would be on magic because... well, it's magic.

Examining the cage, he found that the bars were much thicker than the last one he had been in. Looking closer, Jason realized there even seemed to be faint traces of magical engravings on them. Oddly, Jason recognized them as reinforcing magic. The knowledge from the skill book was making itself known. It was an odd sensation, remembering something he had never learned. He was certain the silver spirit coin he used before wouldn't be enough to break out, and he couldn't reach the lock through the narrow bars to try his key ring.

After pulling out one of the gold spirit coins, he turned it over in his hand. Unlike the ones he got from looting monsters, this one was embossed with the profile of a somber man on one side and some kind of crest on the other, along with the engraved word 'Greenstone'. His hope was that the gold coin would be powerful enough.

He looked up at the two people standing at the edge of the platform. He couldn't tell if they were men or women in their hooded robes, but neither were paying attention to him. Instead, they were at the edge of the platform looking out. If he could escape the cage quickly enough, there was a chance to rush at least one of them right off the edge and could finish the other one off with his revolver.

He took a deep breath, focusing on the coin in his hand. He placed it on his tongue. He had thought the silver coin had flooded him with strength, but that had been a meager trickle compared to the gold. It was like having a hurricane inside him and he lashed out with his feet, hoping it was enough to burst open the cage door.

Instead of opening, the door shot off its hinges like it was fired from a cannon, metal screeching as the whole front of the cage was warped. The door moved almost too fast to see, barely deflecting as it slammed into one of the cultists, sending them flipping off the edge of the platform. They didn't even scream, dead the moment the cage door crushed the top half of their body.

You have defeated [Blood Cultist]

Though surprised, Jason wasted no time, having long since learned to quickly adapt to sudden changes, and conjured his magic revolver, Malfeasance while exiting the cage to his feet. The other cultist had charged Jason and covered the distance just as his revolver formed. Not having time to make a shot, Jason punched with his left fist with the lingering strength of the coin. To his surprised shock, his fist buried itself in the cultist's chest cavity. The cultist let out a gurgling sound and died, dropping off Jason's fist as the strength from the coin left him. Jason looked in shock at his own bloody fist.

You have defeated [Blood Cultist]

It wasn't just his newfound strength that left him as the power of the coin faded. The strain of the coin's power left him feeling enervated, barely staying on his feet. His eyes were drooping, his body sluggish and tired, but he has fought in similar conditions before. Thus, he was able to push aside the feeling through sheer force of will.

That, and the roaring voice, "THEY'RE COMING FOR YOU!"

Jason's head snapped up and saw multiple cultists running back down the stairs. Looking around, the pair from below were coming up as well. Peering over the edge, he spotted the door below, on the far side of the blood-red pool. He had a terrible idea.

"This had better work or I'm going for a dip in a boiling pool of blood. Don't let me down magic."

As he backed up, the starlight cloak formed around his body, shrouding him in light-speckled darkness. After a steeling breath, he ran to the edge, leaping out as he urged the cloak's power to reduce his weight. He sailed through the air, shadow cloak sweeping out behind him like a trail of stars. While in midair, at the apex of the flight, Jason turned around to face the cultists running down the stairs after him.

Only the two that had been heading up had to stop and readjust before turning to head back down. It was in that moment that Jason fired four rapid shots, utilizing the Colorado Shot he was taught by Colonel Grey, to drill two bullets each into the momentarily stationary cultists' chests. Testing a hypothesis about the stacking effect of Malfeasance, he aimed them to strike each other once piercing their flesh. They exploded immediately upon making contact, instead of needing four bullets inside a person first. It seems the stacking effect can be literal too. The two cultists' chest burst open with pale-green tinted wisps of darkness flowing along with the blood and gore.

As he floated over the bloody pool, the remaining cultists stopped in shocked fear, but only for a moment. They obviously feared the Blood Cult leadership more than Jason, rushing past the two corpses on the stairs to continue their pursuit of him. Jason could understand that fear, that woman leader that shattered his jaw was one frightening cannibal.

He drilled a few more rounds into the cultists that ran down the stairs after him, catching a few in their legs, toppling and slowly them down, and killing two more with rounds through their throats. He landed almost perfectly in front of the open stone doors, his back still facing it as he fired his revolver. Turning to face the opening, he ran through the doors and into the tunnel, then stopped.

There were just a few red crystal light sources along the dark tunnel walls, creating an eerie atmosphere fill with blood red light and a lot of shadows. Jason remembered that his cloak can also blend into shadows, which could level the playing field. There were four cultists to each large cage and two for each small cage, plus the four that opened the door and the two hooded ones that seemed to lead the whole group. That makes roughly 18 total cultists, the leaders obviously didn't pursue, probably too important for such menial tasks, and he killed 6 already. That means ten more cultists remain outside the two leaders, but he counted only seven left pursuing him.

That means there are around three more waiting inside with the two leaders. That'll have to be a concern for later. Right now, he needs to kill seven cultists out here before rescuing the other prisoners. Never leave an enemy at your back. It was one of the most important lessons Colonel Grey hammered into him. So, instead of running down the tunnels for a retreating gun fight he ducked behind one of the heavy stone doors, which the cultists had not opened fully due to their enormous weight. He pressed himself between the wall and the door and waited, removing the umbral snake knife from his inventory. The cloak dimmed, going from bright stars to melding Jason into the shadows as he planned for his hunt.

Cultists came rushing through the door, sprinting up the tunnel as fast as their bulky ceremonial robes would allow. A few of the wounded stragglers limping behind the rest. None of them so much as glanced back at Jason's hiding spot. Shortly after the last cultist limped behind, blood trailing after from the bleeding hole in their leg, Jason swiftly and quietly followed behind, his cloak bending him into the shadows as he moved unseen, a poisonous knife in his left and Malfeasance his right hand.

The furthest straggler never even got to scream as the snake tooth blade pierced through the back of his neck, severing his spine and punching out of his neck. One by one, the three wounded stragglers died in the same vein as the first. Now only four remained, as they finally realized that they were missing their fellows and stopped to look behind them.

They started preparing for a fight; one pulled a knife, another conjured a sword made of blood, the third started chanting a spell, and the last one in the back had chains forged around their person.

Jason struck from the shadows, his blade burrowing into the eye shocket of the knife wielding cultist as bullets rained down on the blood sword cultist. Just as the first cultist dropped dead, the third one behind the sword wielder, that was actually deflecting his bullets, launched a fireball into the shadows. The ball of fire missed him by a meter but lit up the shadows to reveal his cloaked form.

The blood blade using cultist didn't hesitate to take advantage of the opening, speeding forward at near inhuman speeds. Jason saw only a blur of motion but having experienced similar in spars with the Colonel and the reflexes he gained from them saved him from being impaled. The crystal-like blood blade scraped across Jason's left ribcage due to him twisting his torso at the last second.

You have been inflicted by [Blood Harvest].

Your stamina, mana, and health are being drained.

Jason could feel himself getting weaker as the cultist's blade started glowing, but that was fine. Jason knew the moment the sword wielding cultist was able to deflect his bullets that he'd have to take a hit to land one. The part about the sword feeding off of him was unexpected, but a moot point. The moment the cultist's blade sliced along his ribcage; Jason gripped the sword person's wrist with his left hand while angling his revolver underneath the cultist's chin.

Jason could see the cultist's eyes widen at realizing that he had waltzed right into his trap. Not giving the individual the chance to react, Jason double tapped the cultist's head with quick bangs of Malfeasance. And once again, due to the shadow explode effect of his bullets stacking, the top of the sword wielder's head exploded upward.

You have defeat [Blood Cultist].

Jason banished the window to the side with the rest with just a though. He didn't have time to worry about them because he wasn't given a reprieve as another fireball came soaring at him. Jason shoved the dead cultist in the way of the fireball as he dashed to the side. As the corpse was consumed in a blast of fire, Jason was slammed into the tunnel walls.

He was able to turn over before being yanked forward by the last cultist's chains, they wrapped around his legs while he was still recovering. Jason felt his back scrapping across the stone tunnel as he was brought closer to the spell chanting cultist, who was forming what looked like a spike of fire over their shoulder.

Seeing that he was being dragged towards an impaling, Jason decided to disappoint them by firing a round through the chanter's head. Unfortunately, the round fell short as it seemed to bounce off an invisible wall.

"Great, they have magic barriers too. Why not? It is magic!" Jason grunted out as he kept drilling rounds into the magic barrier.

Every shot seemed to bounce off, temporarily revealing the shape of its dome surrounding his soon-to-be murderer. Noticing that he was passing the dead cultist's corpse that had his knife in its eye socket, he grabbed it as he slid by. While continuously firing rounds into the barrier, his mana dropping faster than he'd like, he threw the knife with all his might at the chanter. It seemed like his luck was turning around when the barrier shattered just in time for the blade to sink into the cultist's neck.

As the chanter choked out his last moments, clutching at the snake-tooth knife helplessly, Jason used the cloak's ability to lower his weight. With one hard shove behind him, Jason propelled himself off the ground and toward the last standing cultist. Just in time too, sharpened metal points attached to additional chains came down on his pervious location.

The sudden action on Jason's part and the failed attack by the cultists left him open to one last barrage of bullets. Four rounds into the cultist's torso caused the stacking effect to trigger, and four small shadow detonations went off inside the cultist's body. The chains disappeared before the cultist's corpse hit the ground.

Your mana is low.

The window appeared as Jason gently touched down, followed by a splitting headache, and Jason spent a moment dismissing all the windows stating he defeated blood cultists. As he turned around and headed back to the sacrifice chamber to save the others, Jason would give light taps with his foot on the dead cultists to get the loot window to appear, stopping only once to remove his dagger from the chanter's throat and placing it back in his inventory. He looted every corpse he went past as he entered the chamber and up the stairs as quietly as he could, with no living cultists in sight as he reached the first platform.

Even though his mana was painfully low, he kept on the cloak and Malfeasance in hand as he approached the lion man's cage. The cloak still offered some light protection, and he could still force out another round or two before running completely out of mana. The cage had the same heavy bars and large space as Jason's cage, but where Jason had been able to stretch out, the lion-man barely fit. Jason removed his hood and fell to his haunches to get better access to the lock.

"Sorry," Jason said as he fished the key ring from his inventory. "Things have been really hectic today and I've lost consciousness more than once, so I don't remember your name."

"Garry," the lion man said, a low, rumbling growl to his voice. "I didn't think you were coming back."

"I have a bad habit of trying to do the right thing, even at my own expense."

"Instincts of a hero," Gary supplied.

"I hope so, but... there are plenty of moments where I failed to be one." Jason responded while trying more keys.

"I'm not even sure one of these will work," he mumbled out. "I was hoping to do this quietly, but I still have more coins... oh, there we go."

The lock clicked open, and Gary squeezed his enormous frame through the door. Inside the cage, he had looked like a professional wrestler. But now towering over Jason, he looked like he'd eaten a professional wrestler.

"Is there a key for my collar on that thing?" Gary asked. Around his neck was a thick iron choker.

"No idea," Jason admitted.

"Give me a look at that."

Jason handed over the key ring. It had an unhelpful abundance of keys and Gary started looking over them for what he needed. Despite his lion-like head, his hands were fairly human, albeit huge, and hairy. While he went through them, Jason looked around. There didn't seem to be any cultists coming down the stairs, probably believing that their fellow cultists handled him in the tunnel. What he did find was some kind of ceremonial bowl built into the top of the cage. Inside was a round crystal, very dark red in color. He picked it up.

Item: [Awakening Stone of the Feast] (unranked, common)

An awakening stone that unlocks the power of consumption. (consumable, awakening stone).

Requirements: Unawakened essence ability.

Effect: Awakens an essence ability.

You have 2 unawakened essence abilities.

You are able to absorb [Awakening Stone of the Feast]

Absorb Y/N?

He shoved the stone into his inventory.

"None of these are for the suppression collar," Gary said irritably. "They got these collars especially for us, so whoever you took the key from mustn't have been in on it."

"Yeah, I think he was on the outside with his family," Jason explained. "He seemed to have joined up with a different cult. The... uh...Builder Cult, I think. Whatever. What does that collar do exactly?"

"It suppresses all essence abilities," Gary answered. "Some race powers too, but not all of them."

"Does it suppress you from being a huge guy who can kick the crap out of people?"

A grin Jason could only describe as predatory crossed Gary's face, "No, it doesn't."

Gary took the lead as they went up the stairs towards the next platform, which they reached unchallenged. Jason's cage was empty, the bars on the front bent outwards. The dead cultist was still laying on the platform with a fist-sized hole in his chest. While Gary knelt down to examine it, Jason checked the top of his cage. There was another ceremonial bowl, but it had been dislodged. Jason looked around a bit and found another awakening stone of the feast, where it had fallen to the platform when he kicked his way out of the cage. He slipped it into his inventory.

"What happened to this guy?" Gary asked.

Jason held up a blood-stained fist. Gary looked from Jason's hand to the corpse to the blasted-out cage.

"I think at this point," Gary suggested, "they may be wishing they'd just let you go. How did you get mixed up in this, anyway?"

"Not really the time," Jason replied sharply, his gaze fixed at the ascending stairs with a two-handed grip on his revolver, aimed and poised to fire at a moment's notice.

"Right. Good job, though."

"It wasn't the cleanest of kills and made too much noise," Jason replied analytically.

He turned and pointed at the entrance tunnel, "I ended up attracting a lot of attention and nearly died like three different times mopping up after myself. The Colonel would have chewed me a new one for all the mistakes I made. I've gotten rusty."

Gary moved over to him and gave him an encouraging pat on the back, "Don't be so hard on yourself. You got free, killed the bad guys and rescued me. That's a win no matter what anyone says," he must have intended it to be gentle, but it still sent Jason stumbling forward a few steps from the force.

Seeing the flat look Jason sent him for nearly knocking him over the edge, Gary let out a nervous chuckle, "Sorry about that. Look out!" his voice turning fierce.

Jason turned to see three cultists coming down the stairs. Gary stepped forwards to meet them, grabbing the first pair each by the throat. He lifted them up, one dangling from each hand as he walked them over the edge and dropped them into the blood pool below. As Gary walked off, Jason had already raised Malfeasance at the third cultist, still on the stairs and opened fire. With his mana so low, Jason was trying to conserve his mana usage to the bare minimal. Every shot only used a little of mana, but the bar was so low that every little bit chipped away a considerable amount.

The cultist tripped on his way down, most likely from the surprise of a huge lion man snatching up his fellow cultists like they were ragdolls, making it so that Jason's bullet just narrowly missed the cultist's head. Cursing to himself, Jason rushed forward, and pistol whipped the cultist across the face, stunning the individual. A strained groaning came from the mask as Jason lashed out with a second and third strike, before grabbing the cultist by the robes and shoved him right off the side of the stairs.

You have defeated [Blood Cultist]

"That weird weapon of yours makes a painful amount of noise, just for you to use it as a club," Gary whined, wiggling a finger in his ear.

"It's a revolver and well, the bullet breaks the sound barrier when it moves, so it can't be helped. Brightside, they do a crap loud of damage... when they land on target. I don't usually miss," Jason explained defensively. "All the corpses in the tunnel are a testament to that."

"Whatever you say," Gary laughed out as he led the way to the third platform, which was now unattended. Whoever had been manning it had either pursued Jason to their deaths in the tunnel or been thrown to the pit below.

Gary and Jason walked over to the cage, which contained Rufus. Jason now knew the right key to open the cages, which he used promptly. Rufus crawled out the door and stood up, giving Jason his first clear look at him. Rufus had dark skin, a bald head and was stupidly handsome. Roughed up and grimy from his ordeal, he looked like an action hero heading into act three with masculine dirt stains reflecting enemies bested and challenges overcome.

"That's not fair," Jason exclaimed.

"What isn't?" Rufus asked, his voice like dark chocolate.

"It doesn't matter," Jason muttered in defeat. "Let's just go."

"Too bad I don't have a weapon," Rufus commented, and Jason produced the evil trowel. He doesn't trust these new guys enough to give Rufus a poisonous knife. They're helping him now that their goals are aliened, but that could change once they defeat the cannibal cultists.

"It's not much," Jason said, "but it is suspiciously sharp."

"I'll take it," Rufus replied gratefully, looking it over in his hand. "It is suspiciously sharp, isn't it?"

Gary and Rufus lead the way up, Jason pausing to snatch a third awakening stone from the top of Rufus's cage. As they ascended the stairs, a lone cultist walked casually down to obstruct them. The cultist pulled her hood back and took off her mask, revealing long, dark hair and the face of a young woman. She pulled a short sword out from within the folds of her robes.

"I've got this one," Rufus ordered, stepping past Gary. He brandished the trowel in the woman's direction.

"Alicia Vane, I presume?" he asked.

"I was disappointed that I wouldn't get to cross swords with the famous Rufus Remore," she responded with a sneer. "Looks like I'm lucky after all."

Rufus didn't respond, instead lunging forward. What followed was a blaze of movement so fast Jason had, at best, a vague grasp of what was taking place. They bobbed and weaved, both restricted by the width of the stairs. Between them was a blur of motion, sword against trowel. Despite the inferior weapon and the lower ground, Rufus was pushing the cultist back. Jason regrets not giving Rufus the umbral snake dagger, he might have killed the woman by now with a better weapon.

"That's enough, Alicia," a voice came down from above. Jason recognized it as the woman that captured him and broke his jaw.

With a look of reluctance, Alicia disengaged from her fight with Rufus and started backing up the stairs. Rufus lazily tossed the trowel into the air, where Gary smoothly snatched it and launched it out with a flick of his powerful arm. The practiced ease of the pair's teamwork took Alicia by surprise; she failed to react before the trowel lodged itself in her throat.

"You'll die in pain for that, you hairy brute," the woman's voice came fiercely down. As the woman yelled, Alicia dropped her sword, clutching at the trowel buried in her throat as she staggered and fell off the stairs. Now Jason was fine not giving Rufus his knife, he'd have lost it in a pool of boiling blood.

Rufus moved forward, snatching up the dropped sword as he went. He led the way up to the final platform. The last cage, and the woman inside it, were against the wall like all the others. The platform was slightly longer than the one below, with some kind of ritual alter on the end. There were two figures standing in front of it. Rufus and Gary stepped onto the platform first, while behind them Jason pulled a gold spirit coin from his inventory and discreetly palmed it in his left hand.

The final two cultists had both removed their masks and hoods. The woman was just as beautiful and young-looking like Jason remembered her. To his eye's she looked to be in her thirties, no older than her son Landemere. The man next to her, in contrast, was plain. In his ceremonial robes he looked like one of those chartered accountants at a costume party.

Despite his appearance, the man quickly demonstrated his power was not to be dismissed. He threw out his arms and Rufus and Gary were both thrown back, slamming into the wall. Glowing chains emerged from the stone to wrap around their limbs, binding them in place. Jason, now the last one left, looked at the now helpless pair and swallowed the nerves bubbling up.

"You're still causing trouble," the woman spoke out in the iciest tone Jason had ever heard. "First my son, now my daughter? They may have been worthless but weren't for the likes of you to kill."

"Not exactly mother of the year material, are you."

"SILENCE!" the man roared. "You think you can stop what I will do today? You think any of you can stop me?"

Jason had met men like him before; despite the display of power, they are petty and little, feeling like they were never given their due. Every slight against them was personal and they hated to be ignored. Thus, it made it easy to play them, and if his guess about the woman by his side was right, he knows exactly how to play this. The moment Rufus and Gary got captured, fighting became impossible. Classic Jason was just what was needed in this situation.

"Mate," Jason said, "I don't know if anyone told you, but you're very melodramatic."

The man's face flashed with fury, as expected. A little man in a big position.

"You will bow before the magic of Darryl Caruthers, worshipping my name as I-"

"Wait, wait, hold on," Jason interrupted, holding up a hand. "Did you say your name was Darryl Caruthers?"

"You have heard of my greatness!"

"Sorry, mate, no. It's just that Darryl Caruthers isn't exactly a high priest of evil kind of name."

"What?"

Jason gestured at the woman, "I mean, what's your name?"

"I am Lady Cressida Vane," she sneered.

"See, now there's a quality high priest name," Jason enthusiastically stated. "High Priestess Lady Cressida Vane. Just listen to it; you can practically hear the tyranny."

"Stop babbling," Darryl scolded. "This doesn't-"

"Why didn't they put you in charge?" Jason asked Cressida, ignoring Darryl. He gave her a sympathetic look. "They didn't want a woman in charge, did they?"

Darryl's face was starting to redden with anger, and as planned, he exploded in insecurity, "That has nothing to do with-"

"Oh, be quiet, Darryl," Cressida spat out. "You and I both know who should be running things, but they refused to let a woman take a seat at the Red Table. If I was-"

"Stop being hysterical, Cressida," Darryl tried.

"Hysterical? I should-"

Neither had noticed Jason edging closer, maneuvering to Cressida's side, from the moment he started provoking them, nor when he slipped the gold coin in his mouth as they turned on one another. Presenting Cressida's back to him and Darryl across from her. Strength flowed through him, again, but this time joined by pinching, cramping pain. It was too soon since he used the last coin, and his body was paying the price. He fought through it and leveled his revolver at the back of Cressida's neck. She's taller than Darryl, placing his head squarely at her neck-level.

Jason only had enough mana for one last shot, and if it failed, he was dead. A situation he has gone through more times than he'd like to admit, so he was able to steel himself for the all-or-nothing shot.

When Jason pulled the trigger, the air around the barrel exploded, all sound disappeared as his arms felt like they were being torn into pieces from the recoil. At that very same moment, a flash of light blurred through Cressida's neck and Darryl's head, sending her head flying and liquefying his head in an instant. They didn't know they were dead until they found themselves in the next life.

The most astounding part of it all was that when the bullet slammed into the wall opposite him, cratering the wall with fissures going through out, and the entire chamber shook.

You have defeated [Blood Cult Leader]

You have defeated [Blood Cult Leader]