As the creature moved toward me I chuckled and turned to study my companions. They were watching the cell-like creature with amusement. All three of them stared at the advancing, fairly large critter with smug grins on their face.
When the critter reached me it stopped in front of me and began to bob happily. I patted the thing, chuckling as I felt its acidic “skin”. I was utterly immune to hazards like acid so the creature’s “skin” didn’t bother me in the slightest and I felt only a slight tickle.
“You’re a little cutie aren’t you?” I asked, warmly as I gazed at the thing. The creature was shaped almost like a slug, though one of almost unbelievable size. It was large enough that it was actually larger than I was in my current form.
It was more like a pokemon, perhaps a gastrodon, than any sort of animal that actually existed on Earth. The creature bobbed faster now that I was actively patting it. I had a powerful awareness of my surroundings thanks to the litany of cosmic energies that flowed through me, and as the creature touched me I sensed it beginning to absorb the energy I was radiating.
As I messed with the ooze I began to utilize the potent powers of one of the more diverse, and active essences; the essence of the polymath.
In the depths of my mind a large table appeared the second that I activated the potent essence. The table was a big, rectangular thing that listed out all sorts of skills that I possessed, areas of trivia, and at the bottom a vast list of fictional professions. It also had a huge number displayed at its very top. That number was a large and easily noticeable twenty.
I studied the table and memorized it with a thoughtful look. I then considered how to best utilize this particular essence.
The key gimmicks with this essence made it a bit trickier than most. It granted its imbiber twenty charges, and for most consumers this was a hard cap but thankfully I had drunk essences that uncapped this number and made it so that I only needed to train this diminutive number up, that the essence user could apply to any skill, hobby, or area of interest of theirs.
Each skill, hobby, or area of interest could only get a maximum of five charges but once all five charges were placed on a singular thing the essence user became a conceptually skilled, knowledgeable, or otherwise a savant at whatever they had put five charges in. If someone put five charges in hiding they’d be able to hide from seemingly omnipresent beings.
The trick with this essence was knowing how much of any one charge you needed for something, and keeping in mind how many free charges you had left. If you put one charge in something you became a skilled professional at it, with two you became a respected master at it, and at three you reach the top of the world as far as skill went.
At four charges you gained supernatural skills with something, and at five charges your skill and mastery could link up with other maxed out things. If I put five charges into medicine I became the world’s best doctor, and could fuse that with five charges in recovering magic to effortlessly gain superpowers related to the intersection of healing and magic, such as a regenerative aura that’d persist until I removed one of the charges.
For now I quietly put three charges in monster taming, and studied the other listed items. Due to my essences the list was truly vast, which meant that if I wanted to maximize the potent potential of this particular essence I’d certainly be putting my training boosters to work. In some cases the items listed before me were directly related to the essences I possessed, such as one of the listed items explicitly talking about the mighty adaptive-evolution I had.
I could see things as specific as “Heartless power”, thanks to an essence I had drank, and as mundane as “Paperwork management” from my experiences as a man who went from job to job. It was amusing to actually see the somewhat sad state of affairs of my life while also seeing a codified list of my new powers and knowledge. It was also amusing to think that I could easily manipulate my own parameters using this list.
This was one of several essences that was purely internal that I knew I would need to devote an active stream-of-thought to. I did that with ease, creating a wholly new voice in the vast sea that was my mind that would just watch over this particular essence and would freely swap charges where they’d be the most effective depending on the exact context of what I was up to.
I cast a spell with a flick of my wand and made my clothing acid-proof. I then motioned for the awakened ooze to follow my companions and I. We made our way south, led by me and my meta-knowledge of this particular setting.
We stepped into a short tunnel that led us directly south. We were silent as we traveled, and none of us produced any noise as we moved either, allowing us to operate like a group of stealthy assassins. As we stepped towards our destination I felt my new companion bonding with me. The creature was honestly just excited to be here, and every inch it oozed was one it took while on an adventurer.
By fusing the essence of the monster master and my charge-enhanced skill at monster-taming even my very presence was soothing to the acidic monster. It refused to leave my side as we walked deeper and deeper into the beginning of the challenges the place would have in place for the lot of us.
We eventually came out of the narrow tunnel into an area where the ceiling of the place rose into the air, a crisp thirty feet above us. The tunnel widened as well, giving all of us time to breathe. When we stepped out of the narrow tunnel it felt good to just breathe again.
The area we stood in was like some sort of central meeting point as several tunnels opened into this odd chamber. All it really had, aside from tunnels leading to other places in the cave, of cultural significance were the drawings on the walls that surrounded the meeting place.
The drawings on the walls that made up the boundaries of the cave were beautiful, artistic renditions of the place’s ancient history. As we approached them and my companions stopped to peer at them I myself studied them for a moment.
“A long time ago dwarves and gnomes used to live here in harmony. They worked alongside human wizards as part of a three-part alliance.” I began, even as I walked over to one of the walls that had some of the drawings on it. I placed a single hand on the thing and felt the… memories for lack of a better term, of the wall flow into me. My mind filled with images of dwarves, humans, and gnomes collaborating.
“There was a long period during which the dwarves who lived here as this place’s original inhabitants, collaborated with nomadic gnomish tribes and scholarly humans who lived in the town that would become known as Phandalin. During these peaceful times the dwarves, humans, and gnomes built something they stored deeper in the cave.” I explained as my eyes followed the images created by the last of the dwarves to flee this place, centuries ago.
My companions listened to my story, following my eyes and keeping track of what I was saying while I created a story to tell from a mixture of the actual images and the memories I had stored, safely, away in the part of my mind-palace that was for alien memories. All three of the women listened eagerly as I explained this place’s history, which made me feel good even though I knew they were only listening because of the alterations to my voice that my essences were responsible for.
My voice was deep, naturally authoritative, and attention-grabbing. Those who heard it were affected by the full weight of my powerful charisma. I could easily use my voice alone to exert my will over those who were lesser than me as far as power and influence went. I also knew, on an objective level, that it would be a significant weapon for me to use against the fairer sex, since it was buffed by numerous lewd and charisma-based essences.
As I spoke, though, my powerful voice didn’t just earn me the attention of my lovely allies and wife. High above my companions and I there was a rather unpleasant series of creatures who were waking up.
The creatures that had been lurking along the ceiling of the cavern were called stirges. They were thoroughly annoying monsters that were some sort of monstrous mosquitoes, but far bigger and far more fearsome than any ordinary mosquito could ever be.
They had been clinging to the ceiling of the cavern, blending into the darkness above us and the reason why my voice had awoken them was that we had been traveling so silently that us entering the cavern had not been enough to awaken them. Now that I was speaking, however, they could hear the low rumble of my voice.
They gazed at us, though they did not begin to hurl themselves uselessly at us. I knew that that was in part because of things like the essence of the nomad and the essence of the beastmaster, which did a good job at making wild, untamed creatures of any sort not very likely to attack me first. That, coupled with Almalexia’s saintly personage and the power of the dragons caused wild animals to view us with more than a bit of trepidation.
I gazed upwards and sighed at the creatures who had been awoken by my oratory skills. I studied them for a few moments before I rose my hand in their direction and began to concentrate.
I took a deep breath and visualized a ball of scarlet fire appearing just beyond my hand. I felt my divine power flowing out of me and into the air just above my fingertips, a split second before the air began to distort and I got to watch the flaming sphere come into being.
My companions watched the ball and when I moved it slightly they all visually followed it. Internally I let out a quiet chuckle, while I aimed my orb carefully.
I hadn’t killed any creatures just yet, but I knew that as a divinity of death and as an essence-empowered entity when I killed something a lot of fun stuff happened. I suspected that because this was a simulation, and everything in it aside from my allies and myself was fully simulated that if I killed something here I’d be able to learn something important if I took a life here.
I knew that in this sort of situation I was probably supposed to feel something other than a largely scientific curiosity, but I was a divinity of death. That had an effect on my psyche. As did the fact that what I was killing was a simulation and not an actual living creature. I could stomach the thought of killing the group of stirges without any sort of moral qualm.
I carefully aimed the fireball and when I was sure it would strike true I didn’t hesitate. I lobbed the orb of fire at the group of horrific monsters and when they reacted to my incoming attack by screeching I effortlessly targeted all of them with telekinesis and kept them from flying away. The creatures screeched even louder when they realized that they couldn’t try to fly out of the way of the orange orb hurtling towards them.
When the orb hit the wall where they were perched it exploded against it and spread out across their home at a dizzying speed. My divinity had supercharged the fireball, and had increased the thing’s explosive power, allowing the orb’s fire to spread across the wall almost instantaneously.
Within seconds the fire was burning every single one of the pests that had been waiting to ambush some unlucky victim or victims. As they burned they began to quiet down, the flames burning the life out of them almost instantly since even though they were enormous compared to mosquitos they were still not large beings.
When their lives began to come to immensely painful ends I felt their power flowing into me, and I heard something surprising; the voice of my benefactor!
