Deacon stood motionless, the world still for a heartbeat that became two before a System Notification appeared in front of him.
Revival of the Witch of the Cursed Forest:
Description: With her remaining strength waning, Moriah seeks a vessel. After sacrificing most of her power to rebind the Sisters of Fate, she stands at Death's Door. Your survival provides an opportunity for her rebirth, escape from the Tower, and vengeance upon the god she holds responsible. Her aim: to use your body as a Vessel.
Task Objective:
▸ Kill Moriah before the spell she cast upon you takes over your body completely. ✔
Reward:
Partial Map of Floor Three
Another notification blinked into his vision, overlapping the first:
*Your Class has reached Lv 7 – Points allocated, +1 Free Point*
*Your Race has reached Lv 7 – Points allocated, +1 Free Point*
*Your Class has reached Lv 8 – Points allocated, +1 Free Point*
His knees gave out.
Deacon hit the dirt with a heavy thud, his limbs trembling from exhaustion. The axe slipped from his grip, its edge sizzling as the last embers of Flame Armament fizzled out with a faint hiss. His hands slackened, and he felt the tendrils of Mycelian Grasp withdraw from the axe's handle, retreating into the folds of his gauntlet.
He exhaled slowly.
Ash floated through the air where Moriah's body had been, glowing faintly like fireflies.
Deacon glanced down at his chest. The burn mark where her hex had struck was still there, angry, darkened skin flaking slightly from the seared wound, but the pain had dulled. Or maybe he was just too numb to care.
"… Damn," he muttered, wiping soot and blood from his mouth with the back of a trembling hand. I need to apply the burn paste before it sets in. Deacon groaned as he reached into his pouches and pulled out a metal flask and a sealed metal container.
Deacon's hands trembled as he sluggishly unscrewed the cap of the metal flask that held his water. A tired grunt escaped his throat as he tipped it forward and let the lukewarm water it contained pour down his chest.
The water struck the burn with a sting that made his teeth grit, washing away blackened flakes of dead skin and bits of singed leather clinging to the wound.
He blinked against the burning in his eyes, not from the sting of the water on his burn, but from the smoke still hanging in the air, and tucked the flask away again with a slow, shaky movement.
He then popped open the lid of the container with a flick of his thumb and dipped two fingers, Gauntlets off, of course, into the pale red paste stored inside. The burn cream had a sickly herbal scent, and its texture felt like cold tree sap.
With a low hiss that escaped his lips, he smeared it across the burn on his chest. The moment it touched raw flesh, it ignited a fresh, sharp wave of pain, but his fingers didn't stop.
He spread it evenly and carefully.
The grinding of his teeth was stopped as the salve began to cool and numb the burned area of his chest.
Once done, he sealed the container and shoved it back into his pouch.
A moment later, his arms dropped to his sides, his eyes could no longer remain open, and then the world tilted.
Darkness folded over his vision like a shroud as he slumped sideways, the scent of burned earth and warm air filling his lungs.
His body had given out entirely.
And Deacon passed out in the center of the cursed forest, surrounded by smoldering corpses and ash.
***
"Ugh, should have remembered rule number two when meeting a Goth Mommy, don't assume they are on your side, they are always bad for your heart," Deacon chuckled to himself as he stared at the dried burn salve on his chest while he sat cross-legged near the campfire he created a couple hours ago while sharpening his dual short swords and coming to terms that his leather chestpiece was ruined and the Self-Repair enchantment imbued within it reached its limits.
Looking down at his hands, he gave the parchments within them another glance.
The first was thicker and much cleaner, marked with clean inked lines. His new and most recent Status Page.
Deacon Surtr Hayes
Race: Jötunn Lv 7
Class: Warrior Lv 8
Health: 440/440
Mana: 200/200
Stamina: 310/310
Stats:
Vitality: 44
Strength: 43
Endurance: 31
Agility: 19
Intelligence: 15
Wisdom: 20
Willpower: 25
Perception: 11
Free Points: 4
Racial Traits:
General Skills: Identify (Initiate), Meditation (Initiate)
Class Skills: Basic One-Handed Weapon Mastery (Common), Light Shield Mastery (Initiate), Academy of Beginnings Sword Style (Uncommon)
Spell Masteries: Fire [Spark (Initiate), Ignis (Common), Flame Armament (Common)], Water [Water Ball (Initiate)], Earth [Gouge Ground (Initiate)]
Affinity: Fire (High) – Innate skill: Undying Flame
Achievements: Finder of the Hidden I [+5 All Stats]
"Ugh," Deacon let out as he took notice of no skills upgrading.
He set the page down beside him and reached for the second parchment that was much thinner, rougher, and partially charred around the edges. The Partial Map of Floor Three, his reward for killing Moriah.
Black ink showed jagged chunks of topography with faded text labels. Most of the terrain was grayed out, blank, and burnt, but a few key locations were circled and labeled:
Abandoned Dungeon – (Requires Key to pass through)
Waning Grove – Contains Key
Emberblood Pool – Resources aplenty
Ruins of Elarin – Abundance of Treasure
Grave of the Forgotten – Undead & Spectral beings dwell within
Deacon's brow furrowed. "Key, huh…" His finger hovered over the ink marking the Waning Grove. "I guess I'll head there first."
Another deep breath.
He leaned back on one hand, letting the fire warm his side while the other gripped the map loosely. "Looks like Floor Three is a big one if this is just a piece of the full map."
Finding nothing else interesting about the map, Deacon pushed himself up from the ground with a grunt and stuffed both parchments into a pouch, trying not to make any sharp movements with the burn salve on his chest. Well, worst case, if this burn scars, it would be funny to say, a Goth Mommy tried to go after my heart and I had no choice but to burn away my own flesh… Deacon thought to himself before a wave of embarrassment washed over him. "Thank whoever, I didn't say that out loud, that was cringe as fuck…"
His eyes settled on the axe, the same one he'd used to sever Moriah's head from her shoulders. It lay beside the dying embers, soot still clinging to its blade. He stepped over, picked it up, and without a word, turned toward the massive corpse from which he'd claimed it.
The dead axe and tower shield-wielding flesh golem, now bloated and pale, lay sprawled in the underbrush. Deacon grabbed it by the shoulder and heaved, flipping the heavy corpse over with a sickening squelch.
He knelt beside the body and found the leather axe loop strapped to its side. The thick belt creaked slightly as he unbuckled it and pulled it free. Sliding the pouches on the right side of his belt to the left, Deacon made enough room to secure the loop around his own belt and slid the axe into its holster on his hip.
"Not the greatest of axes, but it's usable," he muttered.
Next, he turned toward the pair of short swords lying beside the bloated corpse, where he'd dropped them earlier to grab the axe.
He picked up each one, giving them a once-over. Their edges had become dulled from all the hacking he'd done with them, which meant that at the moment, they were no different than thin, metal clubs. As such, he reached into one of his pouches and pulled out a whetstone and began to sharpen each blade.
Sparks danced briefly with each drag.
Once satisfied, he sheathed them both on his back and made his way toward the second corpse, the other flesh golem that was molded in the image of Liam. Along the way, he picked up his daggers that lay haphazardly within the heart of the forest.
His jaw tightened as he looked down at it. Something about the sight scraped at the inside of his chest. He knelt, hands moving automatically. He unbuckled the leather chest piece and peeled it off. It was well-made, though the flesh golem's bulk had warped its fit somewhat.
Deacon slipped it on over his own torso. The fit was snug, but workable. A faint green glow pulsed from a rune etched near the collar, the Self-Repair enchantment quietly active.
"No additive stats, no defensive enchantments," he noted under his breath. "Looks like the System just left the Self-Repair enchantment on it."
Standing again, he turned to the corpse's back and picked the bow from off the ground, along with the quiver around his shoulders, still filled with black-fletched arrows.
"Won't hurt to have one on hand," he said, slinging it across his back anyway. "Especially so, considering that Floor Three is looking to be a large one."
He jogged lightly to where the archer he'd killed earlier lay slumped near a tree, their bow shattered by him. Without hesitation, Deacon yanked the intact arrows from their quiver and added them to his own, filling it out.
Once done, he gave the clearing a final glance, eyes lingering on the corpse of the flesh golem that copied Liam's meat suit and skills. Snapping his fingers, casting Ignis, a fireball hovered beside him before darting toward the corpse and setting it alight.
Then he turned his back to it and started walking, heading toward the path that would lead him to Floor Two's Waystone.
***
Deacon moved carefully, boots crunching lightly on moss and twigs, following the knowledge given to him by the System on where to find the Waystone leading to Floor Three. As he walked down the trail, Deacon noticed the lack of thick fog around him, which was a massive improvement compared to before, where he couldn't even see more than a couple of feet in front of him due to it.
"Okay, so was the fog meant to obscure the fates, or what?" Deacon asked himself as he walked down the trail to the Waystone. "Because if so, then where the hell is it now? Did me killing Moriah revert everything I've done?"
To either side of the narrow trail he was following towards the Waystone, he could see beasts and monsters of all types now slumbering within the forest, uncaring of each other.
"Could be some residual backlash from Moriah's binding on the forest," he considered under his breath. "Man if she was this much of a pain in the ass to kill when she was weakened to high hell… She must have been a terror to face when she was at her peak."
Eventually, he came to a glade where the air felt older… much denser in mana. "This would be a good place to practice some magic," Deacon mused to himself as he took notice of a massive tree that stood at the center of the glade with a massive stone pillar attached to its base.
Deacon ducked beneath the branches around him as he began to approach the now visible Waystone of Floor Two, which looked just like the Waystones of Floor Zero and One, with only one glaring difference, it was the color of obsidian.
"Huh, that's a bit weird," Deacon muttered to himself as he made his way toward the Waystone, while carefully stepping over and in between the sleeping forms of the many beasts and monsters in his path, as he was unsure if whatever it was that going on in the forest that was making them sleep would shatter if accidentally stepped on one of their faces and cause a chain reaction and have him running away from everything in the forest.
It was only after a few tense minutes of navigating through the sea of sleeping bodies that he was able to make it to where the Waystone rested and press his palm atop it.
As he did, a System Notification slid into his vision:
[SYSTEM NOTICE]
You are eligible to enter Floor Three.
Confirm transfer?
[YES] [NO]
"Yes."