Both Vivian and the winged horror disappeared into the trees. He was sure that the monster would be able to take care of her, or at the very least would be able to distract her for the time being. At least long enough that he could deal with Vincent and Sonia.

  “Stay back.” Vincent tried to sound authoritative. It didn’t land however. His voice filled with more fear than it was commanded.

  Bjorn disregarded it and continued to walk forward. As he drew his sword he began casting a new spell with his other hand. He didn’t rush as he walked, he took his time. As he walked he could see the fear in Vincent and Sonia’s eyes build. Each step he took closer they took one back trying to keep the same 30 foot distance between the two of them.

  In an attempt to keep Bjorn back Sonia brought her crossbow up and loosed a bolt at Bjorn. In response he brought his right arm up and caught the bolt in the wood of the spriggan. The shot didn’t do any damage to Bjorn. He lowered his arm and kept casting.

  As he was casting his spell the abyssal attuned mana condensed on his hand. His entire hand began to get coated, then as he walked small condensed drops dripped off his hand and fell onto the ground. His hand looked like it was coated in a thick layer of a black/brown liquid.

  When he finished the 4 second casting the rest of the liquid fell off his hand landing onto the ground where it was rapidly absorbed. There was a split second where it seemed like nothing happened and the spell had no effect. That was all it lasted, a split second.

  After the second the ground under Vincent’s feet opened up in a 5 foot radius around him. It was an almost perfect hole that was large enough that he wouldn't be able to reach out and grasp the lip. He fell 4 feet downwards and landed on his feet. Due to Sonia’s proximity to Vincent she also fell into the hole. As soon as his feet hit the bottom of the hole the ground closed just as rapidly as it opened.

  When it closed it did fast enough that the ground rushing in should have done some damage, however he remained completely unharmed. The speed at which the ground consumed the pair that was trying to escape was astonishing. Vincent just barely had enough time to understand what happened to him before he and Sonia were immobilized.

  The terror that was on Vincent’s face and the vitriol that was on Sonia’s was almost palpabul. “What farmer?” He asked again.

  “What do I do Bjorn? Do I go after Vivian?”

  “No, she is too dangerous. Don’t go after her, I don’t want you to go missing. Stay here and keep watch, make sure that I am not about to get an arrow in my back. The winged horror should keep her busy while its still here. If what I expect to be true she is already on her way back to their home to try and get help. It won’t come in time.”

  “Can do. Remember, don’t go too far. I am with you til the end. I don’t want to see you destroy yourself to get vengeance."

  Bjorn only had a single thought to himself. “It’s too late.”

  “Say something damn you!” Vincent screamed at Bjorn who had seemed to be standing there doing nothing.

  His brief conversation with Adriana wasted 8 seconds of the 10 second duration of the bind spell. He immediately began casting another spell. The base cost of the spell would be enough to wipe out the rest of Bjorn’s mana but it should solve the issue.

  The 6 second cast time was more than enough time for Sonia and Vincent to free themselves. When the 10 second duration finished the ground just sort of pushed the two bandits back to the ground level. It only took a second and they were free again. They hesitated for a second trying to decide what to do. As if something broke the two turned in unison and began running.

  They didn’t make it far because an arrow came streaking through the woods and slammed into the ground directly in front of their path. Arguably their best chance to run away would be to keep running. However when the arrow landed at their feet it spooked them enough to cause them to falter in their steps.

  This gave Bjorn enough time to finish the casting of his spell. A portal to the water dimension opened in the air and a water elemental fell through the hole in reality. Bjorn felt the hint of strain as his mind established its control over the elemental.

  “What is that?” Sonia half asked, half screeched at the sight of the water elemental’s form. It took on the look of a roiling bubbling mass of water that undulated as it sat there on the ground.

  “Restrain them.” Bjorn commanded.

  The water elemental flattened out on the ground and quickly spread across the soil. It looked like a puddle of some sort of goo that was oozing across the ground at an astonishing speed for goo. It collected around their feet and quickly made its way up the bodies and ended surrounding their midsections.

  Almost immediately began struggling against the water elemental. Vincent had some luck but it was still a struggle. Sonia found herself completely restrained and attached to Vincent by the hip.

  “Why won’t you speak damn you!” Vincent yelled at the top of his lungs.

  During this entire ordeal Bjorn wasn’t stationary. He pulled a mana potion from his bag of holding and drank it. He would recover 214 mana over the next two minutes. Once Vincent and Sonia were restrained he started to walk over to them. He began by patting them both down and removing several weapons that he found hidden on their bodies.

  “Answer him!” Sonia screamed.

  Bjorn ignored both of them and kept working. As he searched he actually found a small pouch on both of their hips, after a look inside he found coins in both bags, he didn’t do a full search but he saw plenty of them and in all different colors, silvers, golds, and coppers. He tucked them into his bag of holding. What did catch his eye however when he looked inside was a small number of gemstones. Most were small but there were two that were the size of Bjorn’s pinky nail. One was blue and one was a rich pink hue.

  “Don’t you touch those. Those are ours! You son of a bitch.”

  Once he finished disarming them he grabbed Vincent by his arm that he managed to get free. His other arm was still hanging uselessly. He then began to slowly drag the pair over to a nearby tree.

  After a few different commands he managed to get the water elemental to move Sonia’s arms behind her back where he restrained them first by a pair of shackles he had made while in Blackrock Bay, and then with rope to further make sure she wasn’t able to free herself. He then finished off with her by tying her legs together and tying her to the tree by her elbows. He then ordered his water elemental to leave Sonia and just focus on Vincent.

  With all of its focus on only one of the bandits the elemental had a better time restraining Vincent. It only took half the time to get Vincent in the same situation as what Sonia was in.

  “You better let us go. Vivian will be back to save us.”

  The notion made Bjorn laugh, he actually laughed in this situation. “Fat chance of that. She is actually on her way back to your little village to try and get help. She abandoned you in your moment of need. How does it feel knowing the one person you counted on the most abandoned you? I bet that stinks.”

  “You lie.” Sonia spat.

  “No, I wouldn’t lie. Not to you. Not when it would provide you with some despair, like you did to me.”

  “What are you talking about?” Vincent asked with anger hot in his voice.

  “Its obvious that you don’t remember me. I think it is time to remind you.” Bjorn pulled a small fallen rotten log over from the forest and took a seat on it, his elbows on his knees looking back and forth between these two. He paused for a few minutes, he knew what he wanted to say but he enjoyed watching these pieces of shit suffer.

  “Spit it out already.” Vincent spat.

  “13 months, 15 days, and 31 hours ago you and your little band of misfits decided it was your right to invade my farm. You and the rest of your group, Sonia, Vincent, Vivian, Tslla, Gnack, Ramsey, Luna, Theon, Zain, Brog, Killian, Kairon, and of course Jarred. Do you remember that day? Do you remember when you killed my wife?”

  Sonia’s eyes grew wide in remembrance, Vincent of course didn’t. “No I don’t.”

  “Well let me remind you.” Bjorn said. When he finished speaking he threw a small needle/dart like weapon that he had pulled from his bag of holding and threw it at Vincent. It wasn’t coated in anything deadly, just a concoction of herbs that amplified all senses for a short while. This was especially useful in his case because it also amplified the pain one would feel. “Of some of the pain you caused me.”

  “How? How are you the same man?” Sonia asked.

  “Where are you talking about?”

  “You remember how Jarred fancied that el-”

  The rock that Bjorn threw shut her up. It smacked her in the lower jaw, whipping her head back and into the tree. It didn’t have enough force to really do any damage, just enough to get a point across. “I will be the one to tell the story, thank you.”

  The anger that had been burning hot in Vincent’s eyes turned cold. A look Bjorn was intimately aware of, he saw it staring back at himself time and time again. “I don’t know who you are but when Kairon finds you you will suffer pain the likes of which you have never felt before.”

  “I seriously doubt that. He already tore my heart out of me once, I doubt he can do it again. Anyways I was talking here before I was so rudely interupted.” He shot Sonia a glare, but she didn’t notice, she was still dazed from the rock that struck her.

  “So I have spent the last 13 and a half months hunting all of you down. I have had some success so far. Tslla and Zain I killed back in Blackrock Bay. Tslla was a little bitch, barely put up a fight. But he was nothing compared to Zain. That little bitch is actually how I have found the rest of you. It didn’t take much for him to surrender to the pain and tell me exactly where I could find you. I was actually starting to doubt him. I was starting to think that he led me astray until I stumbled upon the group of you.”

  “I bet you are glad now that I saved you from those Goblins, aren’t you? Just a few more minutes of life that you get to know that your death and what is coming to you is your own fault. I digress, Of course I killed Killian when he took my hand. He wanted to stay around to torture me some more, but by that point I was already a broken man, there wasn’t really much more pain he could cause me. I think he looked better with nails pinning him to a wooden post.”

  “Actually I almost caught your pretty little lover back in Blackrock Bay, if it wasn’t for that freakshow Gnack we would have had her then. But that's alright, I will get to see the pain in your eyes as you start to understand your own fate. I am almost halfway done with my bandit bingo card. Although I guess you aren’t really bandits are you? Your group is more like eco terrorists, or an anti-government organization who hates the world, actually you're more like the Mafia.”

  “What are you talking about?” Sonia asked, her voice was almost dreamy.

  “Huh, I would have thought that common would have a word for Mafia. Anyways, the next two I caught were Luna and Ramsey.”

  When he said their names Vincent’s eyes went wide.

  “Ah I see you haven’t heard the news yet. Yeah they are dead. I killed them both. I actually drained the life out of both of them, well not both, just Luna. Actually Ramsey choked on his own cock just like he made my wife do.”

  Finally he saw recognition on Vincent’s face.

  “Ah ha, now you understand, don’t you? All of this that has happened to you was all because those two rapists Jarred and Ramsey just had to rape my wife. Well it is about time you and your little group learned that there are consequences to your actions. It was honestly only a matter of time before someone taught you a lesson. I am just glad that it got to be me.”

  “But how? When we first came across you, you were a basic nondescript farmer. How have you amassed such power in such a short amount of time?”

  “How? There are a number of reasons as to how. The most basic of which was that my wife and I weren’t always farmers. Sonia, you spent some time in Blackrock Bay. Did you hear stories about Bjorn, Alaric, Rickie, Meira, and Tayla?”

  “Yeah I did, but they were stories, more a myth than reality.”

  “That is where you are wrong. Not stories, not Myths. Those stories were the truth. My party and I ended up being the ones who helped Blackrock Bay get rid of the snatcher spider infestation. Ironically enough it's the answer to one of your other questions about the golem. Just in a round about way. But that doesn’t matter, at least not to your story.”

  “What do you want? What are you going to do?” Vincent said a slight tone of defeat in his voice.

  “I want you to stop fucking interupting me.” Bjorn sat there looking between the pair daring them to speak. When they didn’t he continued. “We weren’t always farmers. We used to be someones. Unfortunately for you we really were someones, someones who allowed me to regain some of the strength I lost, and then some. Now I am going to use it to finish tearing down the rest of your group. It’s only a matter of time. I have a plan for all of you.”

  “Now I have a simple question for you. Out of everyone that I listed earlier, how many of them are in this village?”

  Silence filled the riverbed.

  Bjorn sighed. “You may answer now.”

  “All the rest of them.” Sonia said.

  Vincent said something in a language that Bjorn didn’t know. This angered him. He grabbed a knife from his belt and with a flick of his wrist sent it into Vincent's body. It pierced his calf, pinning it to the tree.

  “Speak in common you piece of shit.”

  “Vicent no!” Sonia said in a half screech half cry.

  “You zip it shit for brains. Do you understand me?”

  Sonia’s audible sobs quickly disappeared, being replaced by quiet tears that streaked down her cheeks.

  Bjorn got up from where he was sitting and got up in Vincent’s face. “I said, speak common. Do you understand me?”

  Vincent looked back with a look that was equal parts defiance as well as defeat. “Yes, I understand you.”

  Bjorn pulled out his map he had borrowed back from Adriana for this engagement, and zoomed in on their location. If what was on the map and how it worked surprised the half elf half orc he didn’t show it on his face. “Now, where exactly in the village from here? Tell me and I will make your death as painless as I am willing to do so.”

  “How can I point? You have my hands tied behind my back?”

  “Oh ho, we have another dumb fuck. Tell me where it is by directing my finger you retard.”

  It took a little doing but after half a minute of direction Bjorn’s finger was hovering over a place on the map to the north east of where they were. That was where Vincent said that the village was located.

  You have become aware of a new landmark. Would you like to add the village abyss to your map? Yes/No?

  Bjorn mentally clicked yes. When he did so a new icon appeared on the map. It was a small house. Satisfied with the answer, even if it was wrong it would still be another location to check out. It was worth looking into, even if Vincent lied it would still hopefully narrow down the amount of ground that he and Adriana would have to cover.

  “Good. Now one final question. How many of your people do I have to contend with?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well I know for a fact that your organization were kidnapping people from Blackrock Bay, people with skills that would be useful in building a new village. How many of your people are there that keep the villagers in line?”

  “83.” Sonia said.

  Shit. That was considerably more than he and Adriana would be able to deal with. Well at least for now, maybe there was a chance that they could sneak in and slowly pick them off. But that would be difficult as he doubted that Vivian, Brog, and Theon were the only professed fighters that Kairon had at his disposal. On top of that he also would have to deal with Gnack and Kairon.

  “I am nothing if not a man of my word. I will make your deaths as quickly and painlessly as I am willing for it to be. Unfortunately for you that doesn’t mean that it will be quick and painless. However in your deaths you both will learn one of my secrets. So in a way you will learn as to how I have been able to progress back to this level relatively quickly.”

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Bjorn reached into his bag of holding and pulled out two of the gemstones that were in the bags that he pulled off of Vincent and Sonia. They were the biggest and the clearest gemstones. W.A.I.L.A. said that one was a saphire, while the other was a Firestone.

  Bjorn began casting a spell he hadn’t used in a long while. Create soul stone. He cast it on both of the two stones. With his mana regeneration and the mana potion he had drank a few minutes ago he had just enough mana needed for him to cast the spell twice. To finish his goal he needed just a little bit more mana. So he took out one of the weakest mana potions he had which restored 59 mana over 5 minutes and drank it.

  While the gemstones continued their transformation into soul stones he whispered something before he kept talking to the pair. “I sure hope these are big enough. Where was I? Oh yeah. I have thought long and hard about how to make you pay. How I was going to make you feel the same helplessness and pain that I felt right before you died. I wasn’t able to settle on a good answer. You see I thought about doing the same to you that I did to Ramsey and Luna, but that didn’t feel right. After all, you didn’t lay your hand on my wife. No but you both mocked me for different reasons.”

  “Vincent, you mocked me about my son's death. You made fun of me and Alaric. You laughed and mocked as Theon dismembered my son's corpse. Unfortunately I don’t have a way to dismember your son, if you even have one, seeing how he isn’t here. No, so I was thinking about how to make you suffer as I have suffered. I think you'll have to deal with knowing what happens to your wife? Girlfriend? Fuck Buddy? It's all on your head.”

  “As for you Sonia, you mocked me and taunted me as Meira was choking to death. You then mocked my pain as she died. Then you mocked me and how I reacted to my soul mate being ripped out of my life. I thought for you I would do the same, but fortinately for you I am no rapist, I will not rape anyone here, besides to get payback Vincent would have to get raped to death. I won’t let that happen, so you’ll have to settle on knowing that you won't ever get eternal rest.”

  While he spoke the gemstones that were getting turned into soul stones slowly transformed. As they first turned transparent and then eventually took on an amber hue they grew. Going from pinky nail sized to the size of his thumb over the course of several minutes. As it grew it also changed shape. It finally ended on a 6 sided crystal that ended in points at both ends of the crystal.

  “Now just so you know what is going to happen to both of you I am going to start with Vincent”

  He walked over to the half orc half elf and placed his hand on his chest. There was a faint glow from the red lines running through his right arm as it began draining away the lifeforce of Vincent. He drained for a few seconds. During that time the taught skin of youth began to grow thin and wrinkled with age. When Bjorn stopped the drain Vincent looked to have aged 10 years in 3 seconds.

  He looked over at Sonia and she was sitting there with her eyes wide with fear. “Is that going to happen to me?”

  Bjorn just smiled. “Yes, and I am going to drain all of the life essence out of you first.”

  Vincent shook his head behind Bjorn. “No, don't, drain me first. I can’t stand to watch it happen to Sonia.”

  Bjorn looked back at Vincent with glee. “What a lover you picked here Sonia. When it comes down to it he would rather have you watch him die than have to watch you die. A real high quality man you have.” He made a tisking noise.

  Sonia just hung her head. “I know I picked a weak man, but I still love him with all my heart. Do your worst.”

  Before he started draining Sonia he turned back to Vincent. The piteous man didn’t deserve any mercy, even if he could see the man's eyes begging for it. Instead of mercy Bjorn forced his head back and poured a healing potion down the man’s throat. It began working right away.

  Bjorn turned back to Sonia and walked over to her. She was level 10 so she likely had less life essence in her so Bjorn began by casting soul trap on her.

  “What spell was that?” She asked in a panic.

  “Soul trap.”

  This was the first time she outwardly showed panic since the start of this. She actively fought against her bonds. “No. No! Not that! You can’t trap my soul! You don’t understand what happens for a celestial being. Nooo!”

  But her begging fell on deaf ears. Bjorn didn’t care. He started draining Sonia. What started happening to Sonia was a surprise. Instead of growing older like Bjorn expected she started to grow more and more attractive. Her skin which had just a few blemishes was soon smooth and flawless. It seemed as if she was getting younger. On top of that his essence draining just kept going.

  This had never happened before. Each other time he triggered his essence drain it lasted no longer than 15 or 20 seconds before the life essence inside the target ran out and the creature died. He drained until the full 1 minute duration of the soul trap spell elapsed and he stopped the drain in fear that something would have triggered to kill the girl.

  “What the fuck?” Bjorn said to no one in particular.

  At the same time Vincent did nothing but stare at Sonia in wonder. To him whatever Bjorn had just done to age him had made his lover more attractive.

  “It won’t work. Whatever you are doing to kill me won’t work. It has to do with my celestial parentage. I don’t know exactly what you are doing but I feel you trying to force age into my body. As celestials age they grow stronger, all you are doing is spelling your doom.”

  Not believing her he used W.A.I.L.A. on Sonia.

  Reading through her character sheet he noticed something that it didn’t before. The part of eventually dying of old age. This wasn’t something that was futile, instead it was something that would eventually lead to her death. Until that point he would feast.

  A smile crossed his face at this unexpected windfall. He needed to find some sort of celestial to drain, infinite xp glitch here we go.

  “Actually no, I am not pushing time into your body, I am draining away your life essence. And unless I miss my mark you will eventually get to the point where you will age and die just like the rest of us. It is only a matter of time until I tap out your well.”

  With a sadistic smile Bjorn began draining once again. First, 30 seconds passed. Then a minute, then two. As the time went on she slowly became closer and closer to the ideal of perfect. She was already impossibly beautiful. Another check said that she was already level 30. If she put all of her attribute points into strength she could probably free herself. Luckily for him while the drain was occurring she seemed to be locked in place and unable to move or do anything. Just a silent scream of pain that was permanently locked on her face.

  Eventually he must have gotten over the hump, the small hill, whatever it was. It was like a switch flipped and instead of continuing to become the most perfect and beautiful being he had ever seen she started to age. Rapidly, in a second she went from looking 25 and in her prime to 60.

  Her thick platinum blonde hair became thin and stringy. Large clumps fell out of her head and tumbled to the ground. Her skin began to get liver spots and grow thin rapidly. Her veins grew large under her thin skin and began to bulge out from under her skin. The clothes which were starting to get tight as her womanly curves and muscles were filling out almost immediately grew loose and just barely stayed on her frail frame.

  “No, please don’t do this. You are torturing her, put her out of her misery." Vincent’s continued begging finally cut through the ecstasy of drinking in so much of the life essence.

  “Don’t worry it will be all over soon.” Bjorn said simply before he cast his soul trap spell again. As soon as he finished casting the spell he continued his essence drain.

  It only took another second and a half of drain before Sonia’s body was completely tapped out and dry. The rictus of pain on her face was plastered there permanently as her body began to wither away, slowly turning to dust to be blown away in the wind. It started at her feet and slowly made its way upwards. When it got to her skull the dust must have gotten too heavy for the wind to carry away, as it crumbled and fell to the ground.

  A thin trail of rainbow light came off of her dead body and traveled around his head doing two loops before the rainbow light shot into one of the two grand level soul stones that Bjorn made. Once the entire trail of rainbow light was fully consumed the soul stone completely changed. It turned from an amber golden look and slowly turned black. Within he could see the trail of rainbow light as it slowly glided around the interior of the soul stone. As he watched a small tendril of the soul within the soul stone slowly slid out of the soul stone and slid into the other soul stone. The same change began to take effect in the other soul stone. It grew jagged and tuned completely black.

  Something changed within Bjorn, he didn’t know what but he felt that he was permanently changed from the experience. Instead of exploring within to find out what changed he turned his attention to his HUD. There was a blinking icon in the corner of his vision but he ignored it for now. He had another soul to capture.

  Bandits left to kill. 7/13.

  When Bjorn turned to look at Vincent he saw a look that was a mix of disgust and horror. He didn’t know what that was about but it was time to put this son of a bitch out of his misery. Well not quite yet, he needed to let his soul trap cooldown elapse.

  His inner pragmatist and alchemist understood something even if his conscious mind didn’t. That dust that blew off of Sonia was probably useful for alchemy. That was the great thing and disgusting part of alchemy. Everything could be used for it, if only you could find a way for the component to be useful.

  For the duration of the cooldown Bjorn spent it collecting the dust from Sonia’s skull in vials. In a perfect world he would be able to collect it all but he didn’t want to contaminate any of the dust he did collect with dirt or grass. So he managed to get a total of 6 vials full with the dust. He did get a 7th vial of the dust that looked the exact same as the other dust, the only difference was that it was unbelievably heavy for the size.

  He had so many questions about this stellar powder but this wasn’t the time to get answers. He still had one bandit left to take care of. Luckily his 5 minute cooldown on his soul trap spell had elapsed. He cast it on Vincent and drained the man.

  Bandits left to kill 6/13

  In comparison to what just happened with Sonia this was actually a bit of a letdown. Vincent barely provided 5 total seconds of drain before his body was a complete husk. His body didn’t produce anything cool, instead he was just a drained body that looked to have recently died and been left out in the suns for a few days. His soul flew through the air and occupied the last of the two grand soul stones.

  Bjorn identified the two soul stones.

  Gawd damn. The hits just keep on coming. He needed to find more Aasimar or other celestial beings to drain, he was liking the benefits he got from them. More important than that he was now over halfway done with his quest for revenge. The end was actually starting to look to be in sight. It would still be a challenge, so far he had only killed the weakest of their party, the weakest of their group. Things would only get harder from here.

  “Hey Adriana, can you keep watch? I need to check my notifications. I feel like there is something in there that will be important.”

  “Yes, but don’t take too long, we are too exposed and we have no idea how far away help is. We shouldn’t linger.”

  “Yes but I think there might be something in my notifications that I don’t want to miss from here.”

  “Be quick.”

  Following her advice he began pulling up his notifications from this engagement.

  Your Winged Horror’s summon timer has elapsed, it has returned to the Abyss.

  Your Water Elemental’s summon timer has elapsed, it has returned to the plane of water.

  You have used essence drain on a celestial being. Celestial beings are old creatures with near infinite potential for growth. Their power is tied directly to their time alive. More so than most other creatures on the Eld. With that being said the lifespan of a celestial being is directly tied to something known as their celestial spark. Aasimar are one of the weakest and shortest lived celestial beings but their growth isn’t something to be understated.

  Because of the nature of celestial beings your essence drain power will drain their life span instead of life essence. As such you must be wary, drain too much and the celestial being will grow strong enough to throw off your drain.

  You have drained 68 years from the Aasimar known as Sonia, you have gained 109,532 xp.

  You have drained 926 years of life from the Aasimar known as Sonia, you have gained 1,492,997 xp.

  Level up!

  …

  Level up!

  You have reached level 31! You have gained +9 to strength, you have 45 free attribute points to distribute.

  You have met the requirements of your synergy: Latent Potential. Would you like to activate Latent Potential? Yes/No?

  You have stumbled upon one of the few knowledges that can be known in the Eld which is considered taboo. That is how to create special level soul stones. Celestial beings are almost always a force for the betterment of the Eld as a whole. It is rare for a celestial being to be corrupted and stray from that path. By trapping a soul of a celestial being inside a grand level soulstone the celestial nature of their being changes the grand level soul stone. This change will affect every other grand level soul stone within a foot radius. The grand level soul stone will be turned into a special level soul stone. Special level soul stones are able to capture any level soul including enlightened races.

  The Aasimar known as Sonia was one of those corrupted beings. These corrupted celestial beings are a bane on every part of the Eld which they interact with. As such her power was stripped from her at the moment of her corruption and she was forced to restart at level 1 as well as skill level 1 for all of her skills. The knowledge that they have gained over their long lives are also stripped, essentially leaving them as new born babies.

  This taboo knowledge has tainted your soul. It has left its mark. This mark can be felt by not only you but those around you and those who interact with you. You have lost the following: -10 to your charisma. -20% to the effectiveness of your charisma attribute. This -20% effectiveness can never be removed by any means necessary.

  The part you have played in creating the first special level soul stones that have been created in the Eld in the last 100 years you have been granted a new skill: Enchanting.

  Congratulations you have increased your skill level in the skill: Enchanting. You are now level 15. Enchantments you create will be 30% stronger.

  You have advanced from a beginner enchanter to a novice enchanter. You have gained a perk! Soul stones used to add charges to charged enchanted gear will count as twice as strong for the purpose of recharging charges.

  It is a dark day when a being whose whole purpose is to aid the betterment of the Eld dies. Even worse when that being has been corrupted from its original goal. The only true way to rectify this damage is to kill the celestial being in question. By freeing this corrupted celestial being from its bonds you have gained a benefit. The Eld understands the good you have unintentionally done here today and has granted you a two part reward. The first one is that the negative penalty to your Charisma has been softened. This mark on your soul can never be fully removed but the Eld has lessened the damage. You now have a -10% effectiveness to your charisma attribute. The second part of your reward is that one of the vials of Ethereal dust of the Cosmic has been upgraded to a vial of Stellar Dust. Use this reward carefully.

  You have drained 107 hp from level 19 Half orc half elf. You gain 1,070 xp.

  Bjorn’s mind was boggled by the sheer amount of information dump he had just received. He was starting to get the feeling like he probably shouldn’t use his essence drain on a celestial being. He was lucky that the one he had used it on was Sonia, a corrupted celestial being. If he had stopped sooner there was a good chance that Sonia would have been much too powerful and he wouldn’t have been able to kill her. He really dodged a bullet there.

  With everything that he got from using his essence drain on Sonia what he gained from Vincent seemed pathetic in comparison. But what little he gained was better than nothing he guessed. He still had more notifications to go over but now was not the time. Now was the time that he and Adriana made themselves scarce.

  “Adriana, I think it is time we get moving.”

  “Agreed, but first, how come is it that I got a huge chuck of xp and leveled up quite a few times.”

  “All in due time, I still have more notifications to go over but I think we have dallyed here long enough.”

  “Again agreed.” Adriana materialized from the trees and beckoned to Bjorn. “I think we should go this way. It is closeish to where Vivian disappeared from, but far enough away that the likelihood of us running into the enemy is slim.”

  “Sounds good, but first its time to loot.”

  Adriana rolled her eyes but got to work. In a matter of minutes they stripped almost everything that could be considered useful off of both the death bandits and the goblins. They stored everything into Bjorn’s bag of holding. It was starting to seriously get heavy, and that was even taking into account the 9 new points in strength he got.

  With the battlefield completely looted he and Adriana began to disappear into the woods. They both activated stealth, not that it really mattered as Malachi had no concept of stealth. He left a mostly clearly obvious path as he traveled through the forest. Adriana led the way while Bjorn followed up the rear trying his best to hide the signs of their passage.

  “You know. The level gains that I have been getting thanks to this parasitic partner is insane. I can’t even imagine what you are getting from all of this.”

  “I am hopefully getting enough power to kill Kairon, I am having my doubts however. I am still worried about the battle that is to come.”