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[adwarf]

Our character couldn't tell what was going on, because our shadow self was so fast

[fergus]

Basically, what actually happened just then? Where did our shadow self come from? Who was talking? Why should we trust them? Where exactly was that?

[adwarf]

I can tell you part of that, but the rest is important to the story.

Basically, what actually happened just then?

You got your ass-handed to you by your shadow-self. It is some form of corruption you got though your life, but you don't no when, and you weren't aware of it until now.

Where did our shadow self come from?

Your shadow self is inside of you, its a curse/corruption that is a part of you. It is basically the physical manifestation of all the vileness inside of you, and it thrives on 'bad feelings' (Anger, Fear, Sadness, Pain, etc.) those feelings can cause it to grow. If it grows strong enough it will take over your body, and force you to kill everyone you care about, and anyone near you. If it takes over the main character becomes nothing more than a mere monster, though that path will give them power to rival the Gods if the main character turns into that monster then there is no return.

The rest of your questions are plot tied sorry.

[fergus]

But we did fall unconscious at the end of the fight, right?

[adwarf]

But we did fall unconscious at the end of the fight, right?

Yeah after the demon with chained wings picked you up.

[adwarf]

Chapter 2: The Exams

The darkness you had seen for, so long begins to fade as a light fills your vision. You roll over to go back to sleep, but fall off of whatever you were sleeping on. The floor creaks, and the room is filled with a dull thud as you land on wooden floorboards, you cringe in wait of the pain you knew was coming, but after several minutes you feel no pain. You open your eyes expecting scars, bruises, and broken bones, but find yourself in perfect condition, except for a large streak of dried blood on your right arm. "So that really did happen." you mumble to yourself, and try to pick yourself off of the ground, but halfway up your arms collapse under your weight, and you fall back onto the floor.

In the distance you can hear footsteps coming in your direction, and you hear someone breathing nearby, but you can't see anything except the wall in front of your face. You lay there for a couple of minutes before the door opens, and you hear someone exclaim, "Oh my! Your awake?" The sound of running comes your way, then you feel somebody pick you up, and place you back into the bed. The person is a woman, she seems to be in her late twenties, and is a bit stunning with her golden hair, and hazel colored eyes. She starts to speak "Hi how ...", but is cut off as a window above your head slams open, and a flash of movement passes over you. You follow it, and find Alexander sitting in the chair at the foot of your bed. You hear him mumble, "She woke up ..." before the woman continues "As I was saying, How are you feeling?"

You try to reply, but your throat feels like sandpaper when you open your mouth. Seeing this the woman garbs a cup of liquid beside your bed, and places it in your hand. Without any nudging you quickly drink the entire glass, and as the last drops fall down your throat you feel an intense burning begin to grow on your back. You try to hold it in, but you let out a small whimper, as you do Alexander abruptly stands up, and knocks over the chair in his haste. He walks over to you, and places his hand on your back which instantly relieves the burning, which he seems to realize, because he returns to his previous spot to fix the chair.

You look in the mirror on the other side of your bed, and find you look different then you used to. Before your hair was brown, and your eyes were green, but now both your hair, and eyes were a bright red color. Alexander looks over, and see you staring at the mirror before saying, "It was an after-effect of the ritual I performed to save your life. I trust it isn't to much of a price to pay for your life." His voice is filled with sarcasm, and you resist the urge to throw the mirror at him. You decide now would be the best time to ask him any questions you want to as he seems to be expecting you to.

Spoiler: Book of Truth (click to show/hide)

Personal Status
Health: Perfect
Stamina: Tired
Mana: Abundance

Inventory:

- Academy Uniform
- Bag of Gold (£758)
- Battered Short-sword
- Book of Truth

Stats:

Magic
Power: ☑☑☑☑☐☐☐
Control: ☑☑☑☑☑☐☐
Connection: ☑☑☑☑☐☐

Body
Strength ☑☑☑☐☐

Endurance ☑☑☑☑☑☐☐

Agility: ☑☑☑☐☐

Mind
Intelligence: ☑☑☑☐☐

Willpower: ☑☑☑☑☑☐☐

Cunning: ☑☑☐☐

Soul
Divinity: ☐☐☐

Aura: ☐☐☐

Size: ☐☐☐

Spells:
Basic Spells
Mana Arrow
Flame Toss
Ice Shard
Mana Wall
Conjure Light

Nature Spells
Lesser Gift of Life
Druid's Guard

Summoning Spells
Call of the Lost King
Summon Elemental

Body Reinforcement
Song of Pain

_{If you want to know what a spell does just ask.}

[fergus]

Who are you, exactly?

[Nirur Torir]

I'm curious about Alexander's true form. I vote we tell him about our near-death experiences, and ask if he can tell us anything about the darkness we carry.

1.) What was your favorite part of this chapter?
It's hard to say from a fairly short chapter.
2.) Do you think I have improved since starting this?
I'm not skilled enough to notice significant change after two or three weeks.
3.) Are you finding this to be fun?
Yes, of course.

Since you seem to be asking for criticism:
I'm slightly concerned about how the power increase is paced (I'm not worried about you making us too powerful in relation to whatever's trying to kill us).
Our stats are around level 5 after a few months of training. Katrin is currently able to set up a barrage of over 100 spells and release them simultaneously. Regardless of them being low powered, we could easily wreck havoc on a small town and run off before being noticed.
Around level 20, we should be able to throw enough low level, low powered spells around to utterly annihilate that same small town, or throw large amounts of more powerful spells, either for much less mana cost than we could now.
Assume two such level 20 wizards feel the need to have a duel to the death in a town. Even if both consider themselves to be Good Protectors of Humanity, there will be heavy collateral damage.
I've little doubt that we'll eventually fight eldritch abominations, of whatever sort, who have no regard for human life. As one would be a threat to a level 20 magi, (s)he would be foolish to hold back. The town cease to be a town.
A full battle involving even a single level 50 magi would leave me fearing for the inhabitability of a large area.
Continuing this line, the Circle of Magi, at the peak of their power, should each be able to casually destroy huge sections of the planet. If they get together and have an all-out battle against the gods on this planet, it will be rendered uninhabitable at the least. I'd worry over the stability of whatever dimension the battle took place in.

Humans are right to fear magi. You've implied that many are evil. How do regular humans stand against them, let alone hunt them down?

[adwarf]

Magi may be strong, but the more spells they use at once the higher the chance that it will backlash at them, and cause serious harm. As for that those that go rogue are either around level 20, or on the rare occasions when they appear level 50 (This is about the level of the Circle, above that is getting up into where your power rivals gods (60 is the lowest god stats). Those humans who do hunt them are unique in some way, usually priests of some lesser gods, or cultists of an unknown god who can use some form of their God's power at will. The rest are very skilled magi-hunters, and use really rifles, and other bits of technology to neutralize the Magi's ability.


The mana arrow barrage from last time only worked, because of Song of Pain without that we would have had maybe the mana for 12 arrows instead. Even at around 20 our base mana will be able to generate maybe 30 arrows before being wiped out, and mana arrow is about the only spell a magi can truly use in a barrage that doesn't take several minutes of preparation.

As for battles with the Gods those would have taken place in a different realm (There are special gates scattered around the world leading to various other realms. Some peaceful, and some deadly to any Magi, or Human who enters) So all damage would be contained to the God's Realm which could be easily repaired by the Gods themselves.

[EveryZig]

Questions for demonguy:
- Did the ritual have any other side effects?
- The Lost King mentioned you were the Third. What are you the Third of?
- Was that you who helped me in the vision I just had involving a shadow version of myself?
- What did you use to track me through the vine wall? I need to do something about vulnerabilities like that.

(About the thing with the limits of mages, the thing with extreme destructive power still applies to mad/possessed varieties of evil mages, as they would use Song of Pain or the like to wreck massive destruction, though the self-harm involved would limit how long they could rampage for. I think the number of cursed wastelands or radioactive craters lying around would depend largely on the response time of the superpowered community to rampaging mages, and the frequency of axe-crazy rogue mages as opposed to more low key schemer or local ruler types.)

[adwarf]

Song of Pain is an Extremely high level spell, strictly speaking you wouldn't have got such a spell until your last year of apprenticeship, nut you rolled two 10's in a row. So few of the insane nutcase Wizards actually know such a spell, and if they do its, because they are the scheming type, the true crazy ones are killed by mana eating beasts usually (Those beings that feed of mana can sense it the more you cast a spell, so that is another limitation on your spell usage.)

[adwarf]

Chapter 2: Answers

"Who the heck are you?" You ask him, and you can tell from the smirk on his face he finds that entertaining in someway, you wish you could knock the guy out, but doubt you could in your condition. He takes a moment to reply as he lets out a deep sigh, "As you know my name already I will just jump straight to the point, or what you really want to know. I am the Third Knight of the Inferno, one of the generals of the Demon King himself. I have come as a favor to the Council, and the Headmaster to combat the group of rogue demons, and monsters that are waging war against the Magi." With that done he reaches into his pocket, and pulls out a small golden key.

He draws a simply looking lock out of mana in the air, and quickly uses the key on it. A burst of air pulses through the room, and you see a small red bird flapping around where the keyhole was. It flaps over to you, and sits on your shoulder before beginning to mess with its feathers. You then spend about half an hour telling the story of that shadow version of you, and Alexander sits silently listening through the whole thing, he even listens while you rail of your questions to him.

With your story over, and questions ask Alexander replies, "First off, the ritual I performed have quite a few effects on you, but you needn't concern yourself over them as they most likely won't effect you. Secondly, that was most definitely not me in your dream realm. I have no clue who it was, but I will try, and find out, so until I do be careful not to lose control of that corruption inside of you. I am afraid my seal, and ritual, though it may have saved your life, has caused the corruption to grow much faster then it should have. Also I could sense you, because you were the one who summoned me to this world. Anyway I will be taking my leave from here for a while. I have much to investigate, so I won't be back for some time, but in my stead I will leave you with Pochi. Now, I need to go."

As the words slowly register in your mind Alexander flashes back out of the window, and takes a seat on the edge of the overhang out there as he takes a moment to collect himself. He calls back to you, "Be wary of the seal I gave you if it starts to burn again Pochi can deal with it, but if he isn't around something very bad will happen, so keep him near." With that you hear another bit of movement, and you feel his presence growing farther away, when he left you could have swore he said something under his breath, but you can't figure out what. As he leaves the woman looks at you with a sad smile, and says "You have the day off, so you can do what you want. I am sorry, but I also need to get going." With that she left, and you were left alone thinking 'What am I going to do?'

Spoiler: Book of Truth (click to show/hide)

Personal Status
Health: Perfect
Stamina: Tired
Mana: Abundance

Inventory:

- Academy Uniform
- Bag of Gold (£758)
- Battered Short-sword
- Book of Truth

Stats:

Magic
Power: ☑☑☑☑☐☐☐
Control: ☑☑☑☑☑☐☐
Connection: ☑☑☑☑☐☐

Body
Strength ☑☑☑☐☐

Endurance ☑☑☑☑☑☐☐

Agility: ☑☑☑☐☐

Mind
Intelligence: ☑☑☑☐☐

Willpower: ☑☑☑☑☑☐☐

Cunning: ☑☑☐☐

Soul
Divinity: ☐☐☐

Aura: ☐☐☐

Size: ☐☐☐

Spells:
Basic Spells
Mana Arrow
Flame Toss
Ice Shard
Mana Wall
Conjure Light

Nature Spells
Lesser Gift of Life
Druid's Guard

Summoning Spells
Call of the Lost King
Summon Elemental

Body Reinforcement
Song of Pain

_{If you want to know what a spell does just ask.}

[/quote]

[fergus]

> Go to a library.

[EveryZig]

I would kind of like us to do some research on how summoning spells work. I am curious as whether Call Of The Lost King summons the LK from some kind of demon afterlife or whether he is actually off doing stuff when we are not summoning him.

[Elvisdogs]

It would be interesting to know about the various dimensions of the world since our ultimate goal in fact is to become the a trans-spiritual being that is neither alive nor dead. Wait... are we trying to become a master of quantum physics?