Chapter 18

Chapter 18

Hakim waved his hand at the carnage around them. “I must admit, I was surprised to see you using magic like that. I wasn’t sure if my eyes were playing tricks on me at first, but this is a strange situation we find ourselves in. I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised.”

“Well, you saw it right.” Riven nodded in acknowledgment, then cocked his head—and sent Hakim a request to join his party by purely his will to do so. “It indeed was magic.”

[You have invited Hakim to join your party.]

[Hakim has joined your tutorial party—two out of ten spots filled. You are now able to share gained XP, divided among the group with the majority of XP going to those who get the final kill or put in the most effective effort.]

The bigger man grinned, and then bowed his head in appreciation yet again. “Thank you for the invitation.”

“Do you have anyone else with you?”

“No. I am alone, or I was until now.”

Riven nodded absent-mindedly. There were three minutes left, and Riven was surprised to find the teenage boy now picking himself up to stumble over to where his sister and mother were. The boy sported a shallow cut where a fist had clipped his forehead, and he shot Riven and Hakim a wary glance. Then he paled when he saw all the death around him, eyes becoming wide while he tried to maintain his balance after being knocked out for a short time. Still, his focus was primarily on his badly beaten mother, and a look of concern was evident as his sister frantically tried to wake their mom. The older woman’s breathing was shallow, and her eyes were swollen; bruises were evident on her neck where she’d been roughly choked, and frankly, it didn’t look good.

Riven sighed and pulled his backpack around, finding what he was looking for only a moment later. Wiping the blood off the two glass bottles containing both the potion he’d received and the one he’d looted off the cultist at the end of the Chalgathi trials, he identified them and smiled at being right with his initial assumption.

[Minor Healing Potion: use this item by drinking it or pouring it over wounds for a small healing boost.]

The two vials of strawberry-colored fluid were exactly the same, and he gave Hakim a hesitant look before starting over toward the family of three. As he approached with Hakim on his heels, leaving his spider to do her thing, Riven came to a slow stop when the freckled, redheaded son whirled on him with nearly a hiss and held up a hand to stop him from coming any closer. His lips quivered and his green eyes were shedding a steady stream of tears while he put himself between Riven and his family in a stance of defiance.

“Go away,” the young man said with a shaky voice. “Please, just go away.”

Hakim frowned. Meanwhile, Riven moved over to the right and got a good look at the young woman’s mother. Her breathing was worsening by the moment, and she lay on her back on the grass.

In a flash of power, they were taken from the sunny field and into a large, well-lit cave with torches at regular intervals along the walls. The cave looked hand-carved, with smooth and polished rock all around the perimeter and numerous skylight holes dug through the stone in the roof. Each of these skylights showed twinkling stars high above them, with occasional sound of crickets somewhere up above and outside their cave. There were also six different stations sporting large tables and various types of equipment at each of them. Farther down the cave was a single iron door, barred shut, and right beside them was a clear pool of water with a series of ordinary wooden cups and flat plates of food.

As for the food? There were grapes, cuts of smoked meat, carrots, and freshly baked loaves of bread. It smelled utterly amazing, and Riven’s stomach immediately rumbled as he stared down upon the food in bewilderment. “We get snacks?”

His Blood Weaver was more enthusiastic. “SNACKKKKSSSSS!”

The demon hopped off his back where she’d parked her head on his right shoulder and scurried over to start devouring a slab of meat, unsettling Tanya and Julie by the way she moved so rapidly as they gave the blood-covered demon an uneasy set of looks.

[Tutorial part one of two: Crafting has now begun. This tutorial is only a small taste of the options you’ll find out there in Elysium.

Here in this tutorial we have prepared a randomized sampling of six different crafting pathways with basic supplies and needed tools. Each table will have a small crafting book that describes the fundamentals of each, though you will be unable to take these books with you when you leave the tutorial. Experimenting upon the given knowledge will also bring about potential boons.

Here, for your individual tutorial group, we have prepared the following crafts:

—Smithing

—Cooking

—Clothes Making

—Mapmaking

—Totem Making

—Prophecy

You have seventy-two hours from now to learn and create as much as you can. It is suggested that you concentrate on things that would benefit you in a fight or a trek through the dungeon, though that is up to you in the end. After seventy-two hours, part two of the tutorial, Battle, will commence. The iron door at the end of the cave will open and you will begin your descent into the tutorial dungeon—or you may stay here and starve.]