The archives were huge. Enormous. Ships departed every day and the place contained centuries of records. I had high hopes that I could find Almond's na in so ledger. In several of them, actually. But we had to rely on the Archivist's mory and abilities to find the scrolls I needed. He didn't live in Mountain View, after all.
The damage from the blight was ticking. 23 every second, seven hundred per minute. Forty-two thousand in an hour but I'd be long dead. Without any recourse, I shifted into my hybrid form without undressing. I wasn't going to fight but I needed the regeneration. To my surprise, it was faster than the blight damage.
If the archivist noticed I was now a were-jaguar, he didn't let know.
Hours went by. Since I was absorbing so energy from the blight damage and Nenandil to give water, It was enough to keep nourished. The archivist continued in his sedated pace. I slept, woke up, practiced so Skill that didn't need space, like ditation and yoga.
You gained the ditation (rare) Skill. After a few minutes of concentration, you can clear your mind and control your emotions. During the ditative state, you gain an extra Willpower test modified by the Skill level to resist ntal influence and perceiving illusions for what they are.
Your rank in ditation is Apprentice 20.
You gained the Yoga (unique) Skill. Improve Flexibility and motor control of your body by Rank x Endurance x 0.2%.
Your rank in Yoga is Apprentice 20.
I wish I could gain so sort of Blight Resistance but I suspected that the blight generated by the archivist was too weak. I didn't notice but he went to the trapdoor and brought more scrolls to put on the wall. Strange.
But I needed information on Almond. Given how long it took to retrieve information from here, I understand why the queries from the assassin's guild didn't turn up this place. I kept my martial arts training. It was the only thing to keep occupied.
You gained the T'ai chi ch'üan (unique) Skill. Improve body recovery rate, reduce the duration of debuffs, and increase your lifespan by Rank x Willpower x 0,05%.
Your rank in T'ai chi ch'üan is Apprentice 20.
You gained the Karate (unique) Skill. Improve the damage and accuracy of your punches and kicks using humanoid appendages.
Your rank in Karate is Apprentice 20.
You gained the Judo (unique) Skill. Improve damage and accuracy for grappling and throwing maneuvers.
Your rank in Judo is Apprentice 20.
You gained the Aikido (unique) Skill. Improve dodge chance, the accuracy of counterattacks, and mobility in combat.
Your rank in Aikido is Apprentice 20.
Just like the {Disease Vector} and the - ridiculous - abiasis debuff, the System is plucking stuff out of my mories and adding the Skills on the fly. I dabbled in those martial arts as a kid, never staying too long on any of them. The rarity never was an indicator of power. Just how many people have the sa Skill. I think so of them are locked but the whole approach is a ss. The ones I got are considered unique because I'm the only one that has them. Maybe with ti, soone will be randomly assigned one of them.
I tried other things to stave boredom and after a long ti, the archivist ca back with a few scrolls.
"I've found what you need. Here, there's a record of one slave nad Almond that matches your description. He was assigned as a rower on the Dawn Skimr, a rchant galley. He did several trips between here and Port Whitecastle to the south. But records about the Dawn Skimr stopped two years ago. I can't tell what happened to the ship, but nobody listed as a mber of the crew appeared anywhere else after that."
My heart sank. Shipwreck, piracy, desertion, a myriad of things could've happened. But now I had a tifra, a route, and a ship to look for. I could chase after my brother's trail.
"Thank you, archivist. I'll be on my way now."
The zombie sailor stops. "Not so fast, jaguar miss. You need to fulfill your part of the bargain first."
Now cos the creepypasta part. Feed the beast. "And what is it? A bite of my flesh?"
He lacked the ability to make elaborate facial expressions but I could swear I saw disgust. "No. Set free. Grant the final death. I can sense the essence of silver in your blood. You can kill ."
Most undead was weak to silver. But I needed one more piece of information before I went. "How did you beco the archivist here? Any curse involved?"
I warned Nenandil to stay alert. We planned to freeze the archivist in a block of ice and run for the trapdoor.
"Udiphine, the Goddess of Sea and Storms, she is a capricious mistress. My father was once a captain of a rchant's vessel and I an officer under his command. We were attacked by pirates and he prayed in desperation. She answered his prayers but demanded he sacrificed . To save his vessel, my father didn't hesitate to pierce my heart with his sword. Resentnt brought back from the void in this wretched existence.
"But the Goddess wasn't done with yet. Once I woke in the depths, I ca here to get my revenge. My father was old and retired from sailing to beco the wharfmaster. Udiphine warned him and he prepared a trap. I chased him to this basent where a sorcerer set a spell to bind and force to work for the wharfmaster. Once more under his command, my father ordered to organize and catalog the ledgers. He never ca to see again.
"That was a hundred years ago. The wharfmasters forgot the enchantnt. They only know I am here, not what I can do."
Nice story but one thing doesn't match. "How did you beco level seventy-five if you were a young officer?"
Note to self. When facing an undead with a level higher than mine, do not confront his lies.
The archivist changed. His face twisted and cracked, his eyes glowed with a blue light. "I WILL have my freedom!"
The water rose from nowhere around and splashed all around in heavy waves. Seconds later, a blast of cold froze the water in place, trapping the archivist as I ran for the trapdoor.
The archivist was cackling madly, "It only opens from the outside, stupid kitten!" He taunted.
I raised my hands. The fairy summoned her ice shards and fired them at the undead revenant. It accomplished nothing.
Stolen from , this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
The fairy cried.
Damn. Sothing must work. He can't be invulnerable. I doubt he's really vulnerable to silver. The ice cracked around the archivist.
There must be sothing in here that keeps him invincible. So sort of ritual, diagram, fetish, phylactery, runes, or a focus. I ran between the shelves of scrolls, looking for sothing. The place was huge. But not infinite. There was nothing, only the shelves. And scrolls.
An explosion and the sound of ice breaking told my enemy broke free. I heard him shouting and moaning as he ran after . I could swear I had run at least two laps around the archives already.
"I will walk the earth once again!" He threatened.
An idea ran through my mind. Maybe if I could find the source of the blight. A quick glance at the notifications showed that that wasn't going to happen. The damage was a steady value anywhere I stayed.
I was getting winded when I saw sothing. I was running past one of the older sections of the archives. Nenandil fired more ice shards at the monster. And as the shards hit, so scrolls crumbled into ashes without burning.
Worth a try. I fished inside my backpack for my flint. No steel, we used a zinc-copper-tin alloy heavy on the zinc.
I waited for him to almost reach on a corner of the massive room and dashed as fast as I could to the far corner. There I dropped a bunch of scrolls on the ground and fired the sparks at the scrolls. The dry parchnt quickly caught on fire. I stowed my tools in a pocket and picked two burning scrolls to spread the fire along the shelves.
The archivist's reaction was imdiate. He reached the burning scrolls and stomped to stop the fire. Like kindling, the scrolls eagerly burned and I had set a quarter of the room on fire when I noticed one little tidbit.
We were deep underground and airflow was a bygone concept. The air that entered the room ca from the trapdoor. I coughed and felt my lungs burn.
I needed so privacy to shift and get dressed. I wasn't shy and had no problem doing that in front of people but I had no wish to give him eye candy. I ignored his pleas.
I prepared myself and also cleaned Salvatore's blood from my clothes. When I was ready, I walked around and sat on the ground in front of him.
"Please don't kill !" He begged.
"You know, Sullivan, you had the right idea. After trapping in that hole with a deranged revenant, the best course of action was to run away as fast as you could. But you took too long," I said to him in a taunting tone.
"Hey, look--" He stopped when I put a finger on my lips.
"You don't negotiate. You don't plea. You're worth a million and a half Exp for . A drop in the bucket for . I do the talking, you do the answering. Understood?"
"Loud and clear, Your Highness."
"My kingtal coin. Where is it?"
"In my pouch."
"How long was I trapped down there?"
"Four months."
It was hard to tell here in this rocky terrain, but we were in sumr.
"What did you tell people?"
"I sold the news about your demise to so interested parties. There were so bounties on your head."
"Did you collect?"
"Yes."
"In the pouch?"
"Yes."
"Get it for ."
"You mangled and froze in ice, I can't."
"Right. Well, let's strip you bare."
Getting soone out of their clothes is easy when you have a cutting implent and no regard for that person's wellbeing. Sullivan scread as I shredded his clothes and found the hidden pouches with the money and so strips of parchnt with carefully written information in small letters. The bastard had a lot of money on him. Two platinum coins, a few dozen gold.
"I am sure your head holds information more valuable than these coins. If I had the ti, I would take you to the Master so he could pick your thoughts. However, I'm in a hurry. I got a lead on my brother and I won't lose much ti. I probably need to kill an undead monster on my way out or I won't have a port to sail from. Would you be a sweetheart and {Appraise} once more?"
I turned on my title display. The face of surprise Sullivan made was priceless.
"You're the demon-slayer {Hero} too. Curse my luck."
I walked around him and drew my dagger. I would make it fast and the least painful. "Goodbye, Sullivan. You should've asured your odds better."
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