It was eerie how similar the two buildings were. Just through the main door was a large chamber which was overgrown. There were the remains of stone seats which surrounded a raised dais in the center of the room. Off to one side of the room was another doorway which held a set of stairs that led down.

  “Do you think this is the same place as that other temple we found?” Adriana asked.

  “No doubt. The layout is the same. The stone cutting is the same. The only real difference is how the plants have grown over the last probably several thousand years. Other than that it is almost a carbon copy.”

  “What does carbon copy mean?” Adriana asked in a small voice.

  Bjorn was about to snap at her when he realized that when he had said the word ‘carbon’ he had used the English word for it. So there was no translation into common for carbon. He briefly wondered if there were translations for the other elements. “It means that this building is exactly the same as the other one. If I didn’t know that we were probably over a thousand miles away then I would think we were standing in the same building.”

  “Oh. Well shall we head down the stairs? After all that was the only place where something useless was held last time.”

  “Lets.” Bjorn said before slowly picking his way through the underbrush.

  They made their way through the large chamber and over to the stairs. It was a wide spiral staircase leading deeper into the earth once again, just like last time. Casting Simple Light Bjorn led the way deeper into the earth.

  Just like last time there were several hundred stairs leading downwards. At the bottom there was a small landing and another doorway. Through the doorway was another large chamber. This one too was almost another carbon copy of the last one. The only main difference was that there were more alcoves around the outside of the room.

  They briefly exchanged glances before they made their way to the center of the room and the bowl on a pedestal. As they walked they looked around and saw that there were a total of 9 alcoves. 3 of which held crumbled pillars.

  The first of the alcoves held a tile mural on the back wall which depicted a woman sitting in the middle of the forest. She was surrounded by flowers and small animals. The colors were vibrant, she was an elf.

  The 2nd and 3rd alcoves both contained weapons. One was an ornately carved bow. It was made out of dark brown, almost black wood. Its construction looked ostentatious, almost like something you would find in Skyrim. It was hard to describe but there seemed to be something shimmering as it rose off of the wood. The second weapon was a simple 3 foot long blade made out of a metal the color of dried blood. There was a scarlet sheen that covered and shimmered as it slowly pulsed across the blade.

  Even though he wasn’t able to use his identify ability on the weapons they radiated a powerful aura. He could feel the power of the weapon even though it was covered in the shield that stopped him from touching it and identifying the weapons.

  The 4th and 5th alcoves contained books. With his previous experience he was pretty sure they both were skill books. One of the books had a half closed eye symbol on the cover, likely it was a skill book of stealth. The other book had a symbol that Bjorn didn’t recognize. It was a hand hovering over an item, there seemed to be some kind of power that was either transferring into the item or it was sucking the power from the item.

  As for the 6th and final alcove it wasn’t filled with a single pillar. There were two identical pedestals right next to each other. The platform where items normally sat were sitting at a 45 degree angle and each had a hand print carved into the stone. There was a single stalactite hanging down from the ceiling that came to a stop almost level with Bjorn’s forehead.

  On the back wall there was a mural that contained an elf that was resting its forehead on the stalactite. There were two halves to the mural that were divided by the elf. The left side of the mural was made out of materials that were greens, browns, and greys. The greens were the same shade of green as his earth magic. It depicted a tranquil meadow with a single floating boulder in the middle of the clearing.

  The other half was made of blacks, greys, and different shades of black. The wall was somehow filled with shapes, and figures of different shades of black. The figures were hard to identify in the mural and one moment he could clearly see it. He would then blink and the figure was indistinguishable from the other shades of black surrounding it.

  Finally the stalactite was made out of grey and brown stone. Engraved on the stone were pictures of insects, shapes, and horrors of the deep. Somehow it managed to convey the thought that whatever it was that was in the stalactite was being given to the person.

  “I don’t know about you.” Bjorn said to Adriana once he was done taking in the surroundings. “But I really hope that if we get another boon from this place that one of us doesn’t get that alcove.” He finished his statement by pointing at the alcove with the elf mural.

  Adriana shivered. “Agreed. I find creatures with more than 4 legs creepy.”

  Bjorn looked over at her. “Why?”

  “I can’t explain it. Something about more than 4 legs just feels unnatural.”

  There were many creatures both hostile and nonhostile in this world that had more than 4 legs. It wasn’t an uncommon occurrence for a deer to have 6 or even 8 legs. Of course they weren’t truly deer, but similar enough that parallels weren’t stretches.

  “Okay, anyways. In the last temple we had to interact with the center bowl to test our worthiness. Shall we see if that is the case again?”

  “Sure,”

  They walked over to the bowl. As they drew near the bowl Bjorn could just barely make out a faint whispering off in the distance. It was as if 100 voices talked in the softest whispers they could all at once. More a soft breeze than a sound, he for sure wasn’t able to make out what was being said.

  As they drew nearer the bowl the whispers grew louder and more defined, yet somehow still he was unable to make out a single word. They both took their place on either side of the bowl. Adriana looked up at Bjorn, giving him a look that made it clear that she too was hearing the voices, before returning her gaze to the fluid inside the bowl.

  With a nod Bjorn slowly reached out his hand to touch the liquid. When his fingers were just barely an inch away from the surface a voice sounded out. It was as if all 100 voices came together to form one single voice. It was filled with high pitched and low pitched voices at all once. They spoke in unison with no variation in cadence or inflection.

  “The Trail of Sakara welcomes the worthy. You have traveled long and far to achieve your goal. What can we do for the worthy? Are you here to follow the next steps on your path to ascension?"

  This was unexpected. No trial this time? Maybe? “We are here to take our next steps on our ascension. What does that mean? What do we have to do?”

  The flat emotionless voices answered. “Your souls have already been tested and have been proven worthy and are now on your pilgrimage. There is no trial and nothing you have to do. Simply wait a moment while we determine what would help you the most.”

  As soon as the voices finished speaking, two beams of light shot down from a crystal set high up in the ceiling and slammed into Bjorn and Adriana. They slammed directly into their foreheads. Bjorn’s memories of his life since he came to the Eld flashed before his eyes. All of the good, and all of the bad. He saw not only the future he found himself in but the futures that could have been as well.

  When his beam was finished he found himself crying, crying for the man that he had been. For the loss of his innocence. For the loss of his loved ones, his family. For all that he could be, for all that he could have been. For the man he had been who first cried at killing a rabbit, and how foolish he had been when he came to the Eld. How he had wasted his time, how he could have been more productive, he could have put more effort into gaining more strength and power. For all of the time he had wasted trying to gain power and forsaken those who were close to him and those who mattered to him.

  It all hit him at once. When his emotions stabilized he found that Adriana had already recovered and was kneeling next to Bjorn. He was laying on his back looking up at the ceiling. Just as suddenly as the emotions and memories came and flashed through his mind they left. The emotions, the memories, they all faded into his subconscious and all the pain that came with them faded as well.

  He sat up once he was able to. “What the fuck was that?” He asked no one in particular. It was more of a rhetorical question than a legitimate one.

  “We were determining which of the boons housed here would benefit you the greatest. Which of these boons would help you reach the end of your pilgrimage and ascend."

  “What do you mean ascend? What is the purpose of these trials?” Adriana asked.

  “The Trails of Sakara are designed to help find those who are capable of leading the grove elves empire through the next generation. Its purpose is to find those amongst our people who are best suited to lead.”

  Bjorn and Adriana exchanged glances. “You do realize that we aren’t grove elves right? We are both human.”

  “That is not for us to decide. You have been tested and you have been found worthy. You must complete the trials or our empire will fall to ruin.”

  Adriana’s voice was thick with compassion. “I don’t know if you are aware, but the grove elf empire hasn’t existed for thousands of years. Your temple is a ruin in the middle of the Summergate Woods. We just so happened to stumble across the first temple.”

  The voices didn’t respond right away, it was silent for several minutes as it processed this new bit of information. “No matter. We have a task to do. We have to find those who are worthy to lead and give them the tools needed to lead, to protect, and to help the grove elf empire grow. Maybe because of these powers the grove elf empire will rise again.”

  Bjorn opened his mouth to reply but before he could the voices cut him off. “Take your boons, and then continue your pilgrimage. Find the 7 remaining temples and ascend." Towards the end of the voice's speech it started to fade. The last sentence was just barely above a whisper. A notification appeared in front of his vision.

  Would you like to accept: Path to ascension or to exile? Yes/No?

  The first official quest that he was given by whatever this system was. Seeing how there was literally no downside to accepting he obviously clicked “yes.” When he did one of his icons started to slowly blink. Mentally he opened that menu and a new section appeared labeled “Quests.” That was where he was able to keep track of all of his current quests, such as his profession quests as well.

  “Did you just get that quest offer?” Adriana asked.

  “Yep.”

  “Did you take it?”

  “Yep.”

  With that done and out of the way Bjorn returned his attention to their surroundings. The voices didn’t tell him which alcove housed his boon, his reward. However there was a small part of himself that felt that he knew where his boon was. His stomach sank when he realized that something in the room was pulling him towards the mural with the elf. He didn’t want that one. But it seemed like he didn’t have much of a choice.

  He was filled with trepidation as he slowly walked over to the alcove. He was keeping an eye on Adriana as he walked and she was walking over to the first alcove, with the mural of the woman surrounded by forest creatures and plants.

  When he got to the exterior of the alcove he paused briefly. When exploring as soon as he would break the threshold and enter the alcove a barrier would appear stopping him from going any further. This time, when he was about to cross the line nothing sprung up to block his path. This was without a doubt his boon.

  He had a brief desire to not accept this boon. He wondered what it would do to him. The last time he got a boon from one of these temples he actually started to be consumed by the spriggan. Even with his fear he couldn’t deny the power that came from it. There were several times since he got the spriggan where either its natural defense helped save him, or the use of 2 hands helped him. It was like he carried with him a wooden shield that he could still use as a hand. It was a double edged sword.

  He thought about it and the reward of the spriggan was greater than the downsides of it. At least for now, who knows what his opinion would be as the spriggan drew closer and closer to fully consuming his body. No the boon was worth it, and even though he didn’t like the imagery of the mural this too would most likely be worth it.

  Finally he made up his mind, he was going to accept whatever this was. He fully stepped into the alcove and readied himself for whatever was about to happen. Stepping up to the stalactite he placed his forehead against the stone, and nothing happened. Next he tried just putting both his hands on the obvious recesses where his hand was supposed to go, and nothing happened. Finally with a sigh he combined the two.

  As soon as his head and hands were in place a powerful sucking force pulled against both of his palms and his forehead, locking them in place. He briefly struggled to free himself but it was useless. As he stood there helpless his mana began to drain.

  His left hand began to glow the vibrant green color of earth mana. At first it felt like the mana was just starting to pool in his hand. It must have met some sort of threshold because once enough mana built up it began to dissipate into the pillar. The mana that had been concentrated in his hand soon flowed out of his body, while it did so it started to pull the mana from further up in his body. In moments his entire left arm was encased in the green glow of earth mana.

  At the exact same time his right hand had the exact same thing happen to it. The only difference was that it was the pitch black of darkness mana.

  While the two manas were being drained from his body he started to feel an immense sense of loss. Not knowing what exactly was going on he pulled up his character sheet and was alarmed to see both his earth magic and dark magic starting to lose levels. That was when he really started to struggle to free himself.

  Even with him fighting to free himself his attempts were futile. All he could do was stand there and watch as years of progress in those two skills, those two magics were stripped away from him. A deep sense of helplessness as well as over 30 skill levels were drained away from his being. 19 from earth magic and 11 from dark.

  When they each reached the minor threshold of 10 he had to watch as the perk from reaching level 10 was stripped away from him. On top of that he watched as his resistance to both of those damage types were also removed.

  The real piece de resistance was when he reached skill level 5 in earth magic. The first spell and how to cast it was removed from his mind. That was the worst part of this entire experience, feeling as the memory, the knowledge, the instinctual part of his mind that was bark skin was stripped away. One moment he knew how to and could easily cast bark skin, the next it was completely gone.

  The next to go was encroaching dark, then it was blind. The final spell to be removed from his mind was cast stone. That was the worst one by far to lose. It was the first spell he had ever learned. It was the only spell he had learned the hard way. He could see clearly all of the practice and instruction that Medera had given him on how to cast the spell. He had to watch as those memories were slowly stripped away one by one.

  After he lost cast stone the stones finished their cruel work and sucked away his last skill level in earth magic. He had completely lost the ability to cast earth and dark magics. This type of wound was different, almost even worse than any of the physical wounds he had ever taken. This wound couldn’t be healed by magic, or even time, it was as if he had a part of him ripped away. For the second time that day tears began to freely roll down his cheeks.

  He was soon distracted from the pain however as the pedestals his hands were sitting on began to change. He hadn’t really noticed during the process but all his mana had been drained away from him as well leaving him at 0. All of the mana, skill levels, spells, and the knowledge was being stored in the stone. As more and more of it was being stored in the stone they each began to change. They began to take on their respective color. The earth pedestal began to take on a dirt and clay look. The dark pillar began to take on the look of a shadow more, an absence of light.

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  When the process of stripped his power was finished the power stored in the stone began to leech into the ground. There were channels that had been built into the stone that Bjorn hadn’t noticed at first glance. The raw magic of his magics began to feed into these channels and run along them. The channels ran along the ground and up into the back wall.

  The raw magics began to run up the wall and leech into the mural. As it moved up the wall the murals began to change, to become more alive. The earth side of the mural started to move, like a wind was blowing through the trees, little flecks of dirt whizzed past. He could start to make out individual blades of grass as the wind cut through the meadow and buffet itself against the stone. The stone began to slowly bob up and down as it was energized.

  On the opposite side the simmering darkness came alive. Before where he could barely pick out individuals in the black mass he now could see many figures moving through the dark. The darkness somehow flowed, ebbed, and pulsated.

  The power rose through the two sides as it coalesced on the stalactite in the mural. It showed the two halves of the same power combining in the stone and the insects started to come alive. They started to slowly ungulate at first. Then they started to crawl around, finally they started to fight one another. The more power that fed into the mural the more violent the incents got.

  He could just barely see that an energy began to feed down the stalactite his forehead was resting against, as he was too close. He felt it draw nearer to himself more than saw. Eventually the energy fed its way all the way down and against Bjorn’s forehead.

  He couldn’t do anything as he felt a foreign power invade his body. It was cold, uncaring, and powerful. He felt it as it started to settle into the spot where his earth and darkness magics used to be. It never truly could fit into the spot as one could never replace the two. It sat more in the middle carving out its own place.

  As he felt more and more of the power leech into his core he watched his character sheet. A new type of magic appeared on his character sheet. It was Abyssal magic. He felt the power of the abyss calling to him, begging him to give in, to take that leap. The sense almost overwhelmed him, but he managed to hold on as it grew stronger and stronger.

  Level after level appeared on his character sheet, and time after time he minimized his notifications as soon as they appeared. The number kept climbing upwards. It only stopped its growth when the power that had been stripped from him, then combined, and finally shoved back into his body was depleted.

  As the sense of the abyss finally subsided he felt, no, he knew. He had gained more than just a few levels in abyssal magic, the power had also granted him spells. 4 spells to be exact, the same number that were stripped away from him. Finally he closed his character sheet and paid the notifications the attention they deserved.

  You have had a skill level in the magic: Earth, forcibly stripped away from you. This has left your magic matrix damaged; it will be twice as difficult to gain the skill level back. You are now skill level 18 in Earth magic.

  …

  You have had a skill level in the magic: Earth, forcibly stripped away from you. This has left your magic matrix damaged; it will be twice as difficult to gain the skill level back. You are now skill level 0 in Earth magic.

  You have lost the ability to cast earth magic as such the skill has been removed from your character sheet. Until your magical matrix has been repaired you will be unable to regain the ability to cast earth magic.

  Due to your Earth magic being stripped away from your soul you have lost the level 10 earth magic perk.

  You have had a skill level in the magic: Dark, forcibly stripped away from you. This has left your magic matrix damaged; it will be twice as difficult to gain the skill level back. You are now skill level 10 in Dark magic.

  …

  You have had a skill level in the magic: Dark, forcibly stripped away from you. This has left your magic matrix damaged; it will be twice as difficult to gain the skill level back. You are now skill level 0 in Dark magic.

  You have lost the ability to cast Dark magic as such the skill has been removed from your character sheet. Until your magical matrix has been repaired you will be unable to regain the ability to cast Dark magic.

  The process of having abyssal magic forced upon you cannot begin until your magical matrix has been repaired.

  A portion of the power that had been stripped from you has been dedicated and used to repair your magical matrix. The repair was not complete, you will be able to gain the ability to cast earth and dark magics if you have the skill level to do so. However it will still be twice as hard to progress until you return back to your previous heights.

  Congratulations you have learned the school of magic: Abyss. Abyssal magic is often misunderstood. It is the combination between earth and dark magic. Unlike other kinds of combination magic the ability to learn abyss magic requires the caster to have had skill levels in both dark and earth magic. To unlock the ability to cast abyss magic also requires the caster to lose both of those schools of magic. For one to peer into the abyss something must be given up or they will be consumed.

  You have advanced your skill level in abyss magic. reaching skill level 2. You have unlocked the ability to learn higher level spells.

  …

  You have advanced your skill level in abyss magic. reaching skill level 14. You have unlocked the ability to learn higher level spells.

  You have passed a minor threshold in the magic: abyss. You have gained 10% resistance to abyss type creatures and manipulations, as this power is a combination between earth and dark you also gain 5% resistance to those damage types respectively.

  Congratulations you have advanced from a novice abyssal magic to an apprentice abyssal mage. You have gained a perk. Every 10 skill levels you achieve in abyssal magic you will gain a new spell.

  This first spell had the same name, level requirement, mana cost, and cast time as the one that he lost from his dark magic. Though in this case the power of the spell was almost doubled. He briefly wondered if the spell was stronger due to it coming from a combination magic or if abyss magic was just a stronger form of dark magic. Besides it made sense that there would be overlap between spell schools. This just happened to be the first spell he came across that was essentially the same spell just in a different school. He doubted this would be the last he came across.

  A nice utility spell which makes everything else in his arsenal land. This will without a doubt come in handy

  Again another utility spell, though this one is more in lines with buffing rather than debuffing. Currently it only will help Adriana, but it will make their night time activities more useful.

  Know this! Because of the unique way you gained this spell you will gain absolute control over this abyssal creature. Its will will be crushed and it will lose all ability to fight back against your wishes, completely subjugating this creature for the duration.

  This spell, this spell is exactly what he was expecting to get from something called “Abyss magic.” The crushing its will and subjugating the creature is exactly what he would expect. He wasn’t entirely sure what abyss magic meant. There are two main thought processes when it comes to the abyss.

  The first one in the void, the emptyness. There is a reason why sometimes the vastness of space is called the great abyss. The second one is deep, underground, vast, alien. He had no idea which one it meant but he was fairly sure it was the second. The main reason for that had more to do with the spell bind and from the summon horror. Both spells interact with or reference the earth.

  He wasn’t sure how he felt about crushing a living being's will, it felt like it bordered closer towards slavery than it did anything moral. But he didn’t care about morality in this case, the creatures had little to no intelligence and to top it off he wanted to know how powerful of a creature could be summoned.

  Now was not to time to run tests, that would be later, for now he needed to pull himself up off the ground and check on Adriana. But first he had 1 final notification.

  The environment you are in is steeped in abyssal attuned mana. As a side effect of that attunement all abyssal based spells, magics, or skills will gain an additional 25% power boost. Be wary as the Abyss is not something to take lightly.

  Something to be dealt with later, for now however the boost was just nice. When he returned to the present he hadn’t realized how much time had passed, it had been several hours since he started the process to grant him his second combination magic. More than that he was exhausted both mentally, and physically. Like to an extreme degree. He tried to stand up and immediately got a headache and had to sit back down. This earned him his final notification for the day.

  The process of having your magic stripped from your body and then forced back in has taken a toll on your body. You will be affected by the following debuff for the next 32 hours. -90% to all physical attributes. This process has also taken a toll on the mind, you will have all of your mental attributes reduced by 50% for the same time frame.

  Damn, no wonder he felt so weak. He had just gone from peak strongman strength to that of a teenaged boy. It was difficult to hold his enormous bulk on his low attributes. That was completely excluding the soreness in his muscles. One thing that had been nice about being in the Eld was that his magically enhanced body reduced soreness. At least at first it was just reduced, after his reset to level 1 and his regrowth he hadn’t felt soreness at all. A product of the tough life he had to live.

  Difficult didn’t mean impossible however. It was a struggle and took longer than he wanted to but he slowly pushed himself to his feet. He sort of shuffled/stumbled over to the alcove that Adriana got. There he saw her laying on the ground, her eyes closed. Behind her eyes he could see that her eyeballs were darting around behind her eyelids.

  Whatever she managed to get from this boon she must have gotten the boon, as he was able to walk past the invisible barrier. He first knelt down next to her then put his hand to her neck, her pulse was racing. Not good, but not terrible, it was closer to the rate of a sprinter after a hard run rather than straying into heart attack territory.

  Knowing that her life wasn’t in any kind of danger he placed his hands underneath her armpits and started the slow, painful, and laborious task of dragging her body out of the alcove. Normally a task like this would be easy and he would pick her up without even having to breath hard. However the reduced attributes as well as the soreness really drove his helplessness home. If anyone came along to try and kill them there was nothing that they could do.

  Once she was out of the alcove he drug her over to one of the outer walls, laid out a blanket, and finally wrapped her up in the blanket. He then left her to sleep. The entire process had finally worn out what little stamina he had left. Being reduced to 19 had been a pain in the ass, it didn’t last long and he had to pause several different times to let it regenerate.

  Finally he pulled out another blanket and wrapped himself up in it before joining Adriana in her sleep.

  When he woke up next he was very groggy and out of it. He opened his eyes and looked around looking for some sort of danger, none was there. Finally he picked out Adriana’s body where it lay right next to his. She either woke up and moved or she had rolled there in her sleep as he had laid down to sleep around 10 feet away. Her body heat pressed into his was welcoming and calming.

  The next thing he checked was the clock. It read 12:51 PM, just an hour after he and Adriana had finished getting their boons. But that didn’t feel right, he was groggy but more than 1 hour had to have passed. He was feeling much too rested for only an hour to have passed. Once again he had a notification so he pulled it up.

  The road to recovery is long. Your condition has improved drastically but it still isn’t perfect. For the next 32 hours you have the following debuff. -50% to all physical attributes. Additionally you also have -25% to all mental attributes.

  That made sense, a full day had to have passed. He got annoyed briefly about losing that much time, he still had a long way to go to the rough area of Kairon’s settlement but there is no point in pushing through a bad position. Moving out now would still be a mistake so he lay back down to let himself think and rest.

  His new magic excited him, it sucked losing his earth and dark magic but it wasn’t too big of a loss. For each magic his bark skin spell was a life saver and one that became a staple of his fighting style. When he started a fight he almost immediately cast it on himself. Cast stone, even though it was his first spell and he had an emotional attachment to the spell had served its purpose. It helped him get through situations where he had little course of action he could take. However it still sucked losing his first spell.

  The story was the exact same with his dark magic. Blind and Encroaching Darkness both became a staple of his fighting style. They were great because of their low cooldowns and mana costs. The AOE from Encroaching Darkness saved his ass more than once, distracting multiple foes all at once. As for the Blind spell it had come in handy, but it seems that the higher level monsters he faces the more likely the spell is to misfire and fizzle. More than once he tried to use it to get out of a bind and the spell didn’t take hold, essentially wasting time and putting him in a clutch position. However whenever it did land it had a combat changing effect, helping him either end the fight or give him enough time for him to get into a position to win the fight.

  His curiosity was burning and he wished to cast his new summon spell. He wanted to know if this abyss was more the depths of the Eld, or other plane that was essentially endless space. He had the mana, but it probably wouldn’t help his body recover. He was still feeling exhausted and needing rest.

  In the end caution won out. Then he realized he was being a little bitch and he began casting his new spell anyways. It took more effort than it should have for him to push himself upright and settle his back against the wall. He took in a deep breath and let it out. When he did that he began to channel.

  The words that left his mouth as he cast his summon spell sounded alien, guttural, almost like he was chewing on rocks. This was in contrast to almost every other kind of magic he cast, all of the basic spell schools felt crisp, clean, and smooth as he cast. His sonic magic felt more like he was singing the words that he needed to say to cast the spell. Every spell casting language was unrecognizable to him in relation to the other languages he spoke, but this just felt different.

  As he cast he felt the mana in his body begin to coalesce on his palm. This mana felt cold and unforgiving on his body. The mana began to show externally as he cast. The Abyssal attuned mana took on a green and black color, it had the vibrant green of earth mana and the inky black of dark mana. It was a shifting shimmering pattern that ran through as the two colors mixed. Even with the mixing there were still parts of the collected mana that were the same vibrant green, and other parts that were still inky black.

  Over the course of 5 seconds 114 mana drained out of his mana pool. A headache formed as almost 50% of his mana was drained in those 5 seconds. He had to grit his teeth to concentrate on the spell so that he could complete it. He felt the effects of the 25% reduction in mental stats plainly.

  Finally he felt the mana he was channeling solidify with the spell being completed. He marveled at the plum sized ball of mana that had condensed in his palm for a mere moment. Then the ball of mana crumpled just like a ball of oobleck. It seeped out from around his fingers and dripped onto the ground where it then sank into the stone floor they were sitting on.

  A rumble came from the ground roughly 10 feet away from them. A split in the stone appeared and rapidly widened. The same green and black light shone from the hole in the ground. A single long spindly arm reached out of the rift and slammed into the stone. It was soon joined by a second one. With a mighty heave the creature pulled itself up from the rent in the ground. Once it’s body finished clearing the rent in the ground there was a wet slapping sound and the hole closed itself, it left no trace behind that would hint that it had ever been there.

  The creature that stood before him was alien in its appearance. It had 2, 4 foot long arms that it used to hold itself upright as it sat on the ground. The arms ended in hand/feet/claw like abendages that it used to hold itself up. There were thin wing-like membranes that connected the arms to the short torso of the creature. The body of the creature was half as long as the arms. It didn’t have a head or even a neck of any sort, instead the body was basically 100% torso with a gaping maw filled with razor sharp looking teeth. Just above the maw there were two tiny beady jet black eyes that were staring directly at Bjorn. The torso was thin and sickly looking, basically it looked like a rib cage that had too thin of skin stretched over it.

  Well the name of the spell definitely fits the bill. This thing was fucking ugly. He sat there in kind of horror at the creature he summoned for entirely way too long. He drank in every inch of the abomination not sure if he was to be impressed or horrified by what came up from the bowels of the Eld. He used W.A.I.L.A. on the creature.

  “Da fuck did I summon?” Was all that Bjorn said. Of course nothing answered him. The creature with no intelligence just stood there waiting for orders from its master. It was unnerving how a living creature could stand there as motionless as it did. It didn’t even look like it was breathing or blink an eye.

  Eventually Bjorn came to his senses and began giving the horror orders. He found that the creature was surprisingly fast for how small it was and the awkward way it moved around on the ground. He had it do several laps around the room. When he ordered it to go from once side of the room to the other as fast as it could it ran forward before leaping into the air. Its arms splayed out on either side of itself as it started to fly through the air. It was terrifying to behold.

  He kept this up until the duration of the spell elapsed and the creature once again returned to the abyss. The ground opened up under where it stood and swallowed it whole sale before the ground once again slapped closed as it did last time, leaving no trace behind.

  He saw how useful this creature would be in a fight, if not for its combat ability but for the seer shock factor. A faint smile spread across his face as exhaustion overtook him. He had over stretched himself by casting that spell. He closed his eyes and fell back into a deep sleep.