10 years had been a long time to be stuck on a level but with a class like mine, gaining enough experience to level up was incredibly difficult. I had found that I gained the most experience from putting souls to rest, however it was still only miniscule amount, fighting the shades and the undead had given me the most amount of experience I’d seen in over 7 years. I was looking forward to picking a new ability and I was hoping that it wouldn’t be one that we limited by my class restriction Reaper’s Purpose. I opened up the Class abilities I could choose from and held my breath.
Class Abilities
Level 11 only grants the option of 1 class ability point and 1 skill point. Points cannot be saved and if the notification is closed without spending the points, they will be lost forever.
Ability: The Right Perspective
Cooldown: Active
Description: While active this ability allows the Reaper to see how long a person has left to live.
Restrictions: None
Ability: The Right Tool for the Job
Cooldown: 10 years
Description: Soulbinds a weapon to allow for it to be summoned to you from any distance for a varying mana cost. Additionally since the weapon is an extension of you, you will never be harmed by the weapon. Should the weapon be destroyed it can be resummoned for a large mana cost.
Restrictions: None.
Ability: The Right Magic for the Job
Cooldown: None
Description: The Reaper must not only use their strength but also their magic to complete the job. With this Ability any spells cast, while fighting class approved opponents, have the benefit of costing 50% less mana to cast and have a reduced cooldown time of 50%. Any spells used against opponents unapproved by Class have their mana cost increased by 50% and their cooldown time increased by 50%.
Restrictions: Reaper's Purpose.
I beamed out while looking at the abilities, 2 of them did not have the hated restriction of Reaper’s Purpose. The Right Perspective was completely out, I did not want to know that information and never would want to know, I valued the time I had with my friends and I didn't want to create a mental barrier knowing when they'd die. Also the name was a bit ominous, all my abilities had gained new effects over time and The Right Perspective made it sound like eventually it’d alter my perspective which I didn’t want. The Right Magic for the Job was interesting. I did have quite a few spells and only two of them were offensive magic however the wording for the ability was extremely ambiguous. If I used my Identification spell against an non-class approved opponent would that incur the increased mana cost? I had no real way of finding out unless I picked the ability. The Right Tool for the Job looked just as good as The Right Magic for the Job. Having a soulbound weapon I could summon to me, would mean that I wouldn't have to constantly use mage mage hand to retrieve my scythe. While it wasn’t common for me to be separated from my scythe, the last 2 fights being the outliers, making it impossible to harm me and being able to resummon it after being destroyed was pushing it towards being the meat choice. The 10 year cooldown was long but then again I liked my scythe and it had been a long time since I’d changed my weapon entirely.
I deliberated for a while and made my decision, adding The Right Tool for the Job to my ability list was easy and as I picked it I felt like a fountain of knowledge bloomed in my brain. I screamed in pain and grabbed my head as new pathways were forcefully created in my brain, knowledge I had no way of knowing forced its way into me leaving me a mess for a few minutes. When the knowledge finally settled into place and my brain stopped burning I looked at my scythe. It had been a custom job that had cost me no small amount of gold, I had to have an artificer design it, a smith forge it and then an enchanter set up the magic.
The artificer had changed quite a lot from the original farming tool, it now resembled more of a boa staff with a blade on the end. They had designed it with the idea that I would be constantly spinning it and the blade would only be a quick rotation away from striking again. It had proved a better design that what I had originally sketched out but then again I was not a high level artificer. When I had approached the blacksmith about creating the weapon he looked at the design and smiled, at the time I’d thought it was due to the challenge creating the weapon would pose, instead it was actually because of how much money he was going to charge. The smith had used Moonstone and Dark Steel to create a very durable but extremely light metal staff and then had used more Dark Steel coated in a thin layer of Mithril to create the blade. I almost baulked at the price when I went to pick it up but after watching the smith carve off a piece of their metal anvil with minimal effort, I knew that I would be satisfied. The enchanter had cost the most but had been worth every gold coin. They added 3 enchantments, the first was adding extra durability to make sure that magical attacks did less damage to it and the second was to make it even lighter so I could spin it faster. The final enchantment was the most important one though, it was the enchantment that let me conjure or dissolve the blade at will so I could pass it off as being a staff rather than a scythe. This had let me keep the scythe with me while walking around areas that didn’t allow people to carry weapons. Over time my scythe hadn’t changed much, the only real difference was that it had a few nicks and dents from fights and that my Soul Lantern ability had manifested the Soul Lantern on the bottom of it.
I thought about the process I needed to go through to soul bind my scythe and winced as my brain still hurt a bit. I pricked my finger on the blade and drew a set of runes in my own blood on the snath, after each one I felt a painful pulse in my finger and a pressure build inside my chest. It’s hard to describe what the runes looked like, there were a lot of flicks and dots but none of them made any sense outside of the context of the soul binding process. When the last one was completed I spoke the ritual words to complete the process.
"You are me and I am you. We commit ourselves to one purpose and strike down those in our way. Nothing shall pass between us on our path forwards."
I felt something deep inside my core shift and snap into place, there was a great rushing sensation as my mana and stamina emptied out of my body and the runes that I had drawn in blood began glowing a bright red before they slowly faded into the scythe. I was suddenly aware of every part of my scythe. Each dent and scrape, the magic that the Soul Lantern was using to attach itself to the end of the scythe as well as the blade that was proudly on display. I dismissed the blade so that it was in the form of just the staff and I could feel the magic that had hidden the blade. Well hiding it was the wrong word, it was more like the blade had been shifted to the Etheric Plane and waited to be called back into existence. It was pretty cool but I also needed to test out the recall function. I spent a few minutes throwing my scythe like a javelin and recalling it before it hit the wall, after only a short time of testing I had worked out the following. The recall only took a second however if my scythe was 5 feet away from me it took 10 mana to recall it but if it was 10 feet from me it took 11 mana to recall it. I was tempted to try testing however I still had my characteristic points and skill point to allocate before I could move on.
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For the 5 characteristic points I continued with my previous planned progression, by that meant I dumped all 5 in constitution. I had taken a few beatings in my life and the kick by the skeletal minotaur was not the only time I had come close to dying, instead it was another instance in a long line. I needed to get a bit more health so that I wouldn’t be killed outright from a big hit, even if it wasn’t meant to hit me. I watched as my health increased by 500 points and I didn’t notice any changes in my body, however an increase of 5 points was not a major change, if it had been 10 or more than I'd likely feel the changes occurring.
The last thing to look at was my 1 skill point. Unassigned skill points were hard to gain and because they could be placed in skill they were extremely valuable, I needed to take my time in considering what to put it into. Looking through my list of skills there were only 4 skills that I considered putting the point into. My Wood Carving skill had been stuck at the Master rank for a few years and while I had been working to push it into Grand Master it had stubbornly refused to increase. Staff Combat and Mana Sense were both poised to move into the Master rank, Staff Combat would directly increase my combat ability as well as my survivability if I ran into a tricky situation whereas Mana Sense would let me find, track and analyse mana a lot easier. I had heard that there was a hidden benefit for getting Mana Sense into the Master rank but I hadn’t managed to find out what that benefit was. The last skill I had taken note of was Mana Manipulation, it was set to move into the Greater ranks which would make altering, overcharging or just using my mana without a spell that much easier. I dismissed Staff Combat, I could train the skill to reach the Master rank, the same could be said for Mana Sense as well and Taylor had a very comprehensive training regiment for the skill that I could join them for. Mana manipulation and Wood Carving were the only 2 real options. I sat there and meditated on the 2 options before deciding to go with the skill that I enjoyed the most.
Your skill Wood Carving has increased to Grand Master level 1..
I beamed as I finally managed to get a skill to reach Grand Master, I was going to look forward to telling Taylor about it, they had been trying to find a Grands Master of a skill to study the effects the change in skill level had on the skill being used as well as the mana that the skilled used. It had been a side project of theirs that they had been hoping to write a research paper on. Now that I had a skill at that level I would be able to help them start the paper, sure they had been hoping to find someone with a magic based skill but last time I spoke to them, they just wanted to find anyone with a Grand Master skill who would let them observe them using it. I smiled at the thought of helping my friend start their research paper.
I looked at the black doorway that had appeared just after the podium had stopped growing, it stood at the side of the forge like a Trap Wyrm waiting for an unsuspecting traveller to walk into its range. I frowned and decided to look over my status before finding out what the next challenge was.
Name: Luca 'Shade Slayer' Piel
Class: Soul Reaper level 11
Xp to next level: 75/2000
Health: 3000/3000
Mana: 27/2600
Stamina: 27/2750
Titles
Shade Salyer
Effect 1: +50% damage against all Shades. Effect 2: +25% damage against all Shade variants. Effect 3: +5% critical chance against all shadow aligned creatures.
Characteristics
Strength: 30
Dexterity: 45
Constitution: 20
Intelligence: 36
Wisdom: .35
Charisma: 25
Abilities
Right Clothes for the Job
Effect 1: conjure a full set a black Reaper robes. Effect 2: caster can become ethereal for a few seconds and negate all incoming damage.
Man on the Job
Effect 1: caster becomes harder to detect physically and magically. Recording/scrying/viewing devices/spells may show distortion where the caster is. Effect 2: caster emits an aura of uncertainty which may cause fear, vomiting, rage, tunnel vision, paralysis and self doubt. Effect 3: Aura ability is able to be turned on or off. Effect 4: if caster attacks all effects are voided and a large taunt is triggered.
Touch of the Reaper Disabled
Effect 1: can see the exact amount of damage the target has caused to sentient creatures. Effect 2: damage from attacks is 2n slashing where n is the exact amount of damage from effect 1. Effect 3: once damage has been used up, no more damage may be dealt to the target.
Final Voyage
Effect 1: when a creature with a soul is slain you must escort their soul to its final resting place. Effect 2: for each soul, their last rites will be made known as the journey begins.
Ethereal Step
Effect 1: caster turns ethereal and moves up to 15 ft from original starting place. Effect 2: leaves an after image that slowly fades after 2 seconds or takes damage
Soul Lantern
Effect 1: The Soul Lantern shelters and holds lost souls safely until a time when they can be put to rest. Effect 2: The Soul Lantern can be attached to the user’s weapon of choice. Effect 3: Souls can be drawn to the Soul Lantern from 500 feet away. New Effect Effect 4: The Soul Lantern can be used to absorb and cleanse corrupted souls.
The Right Tool for the Job
Effect 1: Soulbind a weapon for 10 years. Effect 2: The weapon can be recalled to the Reaper from any distance. Effect 3: The weapon will never cause harm to the Reaper. Effect 4: The weapon can be resummoned even if destroyed.
Restrictions: None.
Restrictions
Reaper's Purpose: A Reaper is a non-combatant to any creature that possesses a soul. Should a Reaper attack all abilities are negated, the Reaper's Abilities become unusable and a powerful taunt is emitted. The only exceptions are towards creatures with stolen souls or have taken souls from their eternal rest.
Skills
Danger Sense (greater) level 9
Long blades (master) level 10 (max)
Polearms level 8
Staff combat (master) level 10 (max)
Combat Grace (greater) level 6
Unarmed combat level 2
Climbing level 5
Swimming level 6
Barter level 4
Hiking level 2
Animal handling level 9
Mana Sense (greater) level 10 (max)
Mana manipulation level 10 (max)
Mana control level 5
Modify spell (greater) level 8
Dual casting level 9
Stealth casting level 2
Silent casting level 1
Danger Sense level 6
Reaping - Wheat level 2
Stealth (master) level 10 (max)
Crafting level 10 (max)
Wood Carving level (grand master) level 1
Bone Carving level 2
Tracking level 2
Acrobatics level 6
Spells
Identification (greater) level 9
Message (greater) level 10 (max)
Mage Hand (greater) level 10 (max)
Death Bolt (greater) level 10 (max)
Invisibility level 10 (max)
Charm Humanoid (greater) level 10 (max)
Detect Life (greater) level 10 (max)
Haste level 8
Mage Shield (minor) level 3
Lesser Regeneration (minor) level 10
Detect Evil (greater) level 9
Light (greater) level 5
Empower Attack level 8
I smiled at the new additions to the status and the growth I had seen, hopefully it would continue and maybe my next level up would not take another 10 years. I was also interested to see what carving the figures would be like with my new Grand Master skill. I doubted I would get to use it while in the Dungeon due to danger lurking at every turn and corner however I was hopeful that I would meet up with the rest of my party and get out of here soon. Nodding, I walked over to the black doorway and realised that it was not a doorway at all but instead a portal, I winced not liking having to use portals to get from challenge to challenge but there was not much else I could do about that. I walked through the portal to the next room of the Dungeon.
