Claire furrowed her brow as the heavens gave way to a dark and gloomy cave. The only source of light was the catalyst embedded in her chest. It was a dim, soft glow, barely enough to illuminate the tips of her fingers.

Log Entry 1673
Your ascension is complete. You have become a Frostblight Lyrkress.

Your eyesight has been greatly enhanced.

The efficiency of your ability scores has been increased.

Your Base Health has increased from 50 to 1000.

Your Base Mana has increased from 100 to 1500.

Your Base Health Regeneration has increased from 0 to 10.

Your Base Mana Regeneration has increased from 0 to 25.

All ability scores have been increased by 50. Agility and Conjuring have been further increased by 100.

The goddess’ voice rang throughout her mind as the blurry mess suddenly sharpened. Everything was bursting with vivid detail. She could see the tiny cracks in each rock, the pores in her skin, and the layers in her scales, all working together to overload her senses. Even the ground added to her malaise. It was too far away. It felt like she was in the air even though she could feel the hardened rock against her freshly hooved feet.

The effects of Frostblight have been partially negated. It will no longer actively damage you, but all healing effects have been halved.

You have acquired the following skills:
- Ice Manipulation
- Lyrkrian Shapeshifting
- Thermodynamic Regulation

The Basic Fire Resistance skill has been assimilated into Thermodynamic Regulation.

The Lashing Tailstrike and Quadrupedal Bloodrush skills have been assimilated into Unarmed Combat Mastery.

Unarmed Combat Mastery has failed to evolve into Lyrkrian Martial Arts. Not all requirements were met.

Log Entry 1674
Achievement Unlocked - Ascension

You have taken the first step to godhood. Do not dawdle or grow complacent. Five more await.

None of the abilities were unexpected. The class’ description had highlighted all three as notable traits. If there was anything that caught her off guard, it was the lack of change. The bards had claimed that she would be filled with boundless strength. But she didn’t feel anything of the sort.

Furrowing her brow, she turned her eyes to her glowing box and looked over her new skills.

Thermodynamic Regulation
Some individuals are well-learned and capable of reciting complicated systems with little beyond their memories to aid them. You, on the other hand, find it difficult to recall if a lit match is hotter than a ball of snow. This lack of understanding stems in part from your lacklustre mental faculties and in part because neither will bring you any discomfort. Your body has adapted such that it is unaffected by changes in temperature, so long as they do not fall within the realm of the extreme.

This skill also provides the ability to influence your surroundings by radiating a warm or frigid aura.

The ability was more versatile than expected, albeit not in a way that seemed even the slightest bit useful. She didn’t see a point in transforming herself into a portable fireplace or ice room.

Ice Manipulation
Some individuals are destined for greatness. Others are destined to become portable ice rooms. Accept your fate. There is no changing it.

“Shut up, Box, stop reading my mind,” said Claire. “And at least tell me what the stupid skill does.” The text warped with her demand, soon shifting again into a line of legible prose.

You are able to exert some control over the element of ice.

You have acquired the ability to cast the Icebolt and Freeze Toilet.

The spell list left the halfbreed blinking in confusion. She tried rubbing her eyes, massaging her temples, and cleaning out her ears, but it refused to change; Icebolt and Freeze Toilet remained the only two spells available, and neither was even remotely close to impressive. Bolt spells were rudimentary hexes with barebones effects, and Freeze Toilet was hardly any more interesting. Its description revealed that it was a short-range spell that would allow her to target and freeze any toilets and objects adjacent.

Lyrkrian Shapeshifting
The transformation of one’s body is typically a process that requires a momentous amount of effort. You have, time and time again, demonstrated that you do not understand the concept of effort. Under normal circumstances, your lethargy would be conducive to failure, but as a lyrkress, it matters very little. You are capable of altering your body as you see fit.

The skill’s description provided no guides to its use, but she didn’t need one. It was an intuitive behaviour—transforming had already become another one of her body’s standard functions.

It was only as she thought of changing her shape that she decided to inspect it again. She started by spinning around and looking toward the end of her elongated frame. Her tail’s tip was surprisingly fluffy, covered in a mix of scale and feather-like fur. It was pleasant to the touch, with both the appendage and her hand finding themselves delighted. Equally as satisfying was the peculiar sensation of her lower half against the ground. It felt sort of like she was crawling without her limbs doing any of the work—not that her snakier bits had any real limbs to work with. Technically, she had a pair of flippers situated as would a pair of rear legs, but the marine mobility tools were useless on land. They were only about as long as her forearms and less than half as muscular.

By contrast, her tail was absolutely massive, making up well over two-thirds of her body by weight. The whole appendage was wrapped in a thick coat of scale, more rigid and durable than the lamella that had covered bits and pieces of her body. The larger scales intruding on her cheeks were the only ones whose size they failed to exceed.

At the front of her frame stood a pair of unfamiliar legs. They were roughly the same width as her old ones but somehow felt more robust. She thought it a bit strange that her toes had been replaced by hooves and fins, but the sensation only lasted until she took her first hesitant step forward. The body—her body—responded in a way that was equal parts natural and not. The forelimbs helped her with her balance, but she had no trouble remaining stable even when she reared them. Her snake half kept her anchored in place.

With her more monster-like parts fully inspected, Claire moved on to checking her upper body. She was taller and her face a little more mature, but it was otherwise almost completely unchanged. Her chest was still pitifully flat, and her scale count was still the same. The part where her waist met her lower chest was surprisingly well integrated. It wasn’t exactly seamless, as there was certainly a point where her bestial features suddenly took over, but neither was it egregious. The transition was smooth enough to remain easy on the eyes.

The only problem was the shard still stuck in her chest. Its base was located right where her arms would intersect were she to cross them. Though she still found it somewhat of an annoyance, the halfbreed recognized that the ascension had turned the so-called power source into a part of her body. She didn’t know exactly how it worked, but she could feel when something was touching it, and she could even channel her mana through it even more efficiently than she could an arm or a leg.

Shrugging off her dissatisfaction, the lyrkress put her shapeshifting skill to work. The first thing she did was grow her fins out. With a little bit of straining, she was able to turn them into fully functional legs, capable of lifting her rear off the ground. Once that was confirmed, she quickly moved on to testing the opposite and sucked both sets of legs back into her body. To her surprise, she was able to turn herself into what was effectively a true lamia with only a bit of effort; a casual thought and a moment of concentration was all she needed to outright disable every horsier feature she had.

It was like she had a pair of levers in her head, one for the expression of her cervitaurian traits, and another for her lamian ones. She could tweak them without much difficulty, but keeping them in their altered positions was exhausting. It was like she was being made to hold a series of weighted objects; the longer she kept it up, the more difficult it became.

The changes available to her were so drastic that she could even take on the humanoid form she had possessed as a halfbreed, albeit for no more than a few minutes at a time.

Log Entry 1675
Lyrkrian Shapeshifting has reached level 2.

After a bit of playing around, the lyrkress reverted her appearance to its default. She liked the shapeshifting skill, but there wasn’t enough space in the underground compartment for her to run any real experiments. Mastering all the different variations was a mind-numbing chore, but the trickery would surely allow her to overload her foes’ minds in a fight.

Thinking of combat quickly reminded her that she had abandoned a battle in order to ascend. The process hadn’t exactly been instantaneous, given all her deliberation and testing, but hardly an hour had passed. There was no doubt that the borroks would still be around, and she had every intention of jumping back into the fray.

Plan in mind, Claire summoned Shoulderhorse, who had for some odd reason been dismissed during the evolutionary process, and ordered it to consume the boulder cutting her off from the world above. It didn’t look like she was going to be able to make her way back up the hole with her newfound size, but a quick application of lyrkrian shapeshifting solved the problem in a heartbeat. She slithered right up the hole in her lamian form, retaining only her ears for the purpose of maintaining her aesthetic.

After making it halfway up, she found a pair of corrupted wolves sitting by the entrance. They started barking and howling as she neared, but she didn’t mind. She had wanted them to sound the alarm.

The rogue extended her fingers and ramped up her speed as she burst through the ice. Returning to her true form, she reached for the puppers and seized their necks. Her intention had been to choke the furry duo, but upon squeezing, she soon found their spines easily snapped in her hands.

Log Entry 1676
You have slain a level 24 Corrupted Frost Wolf.

Log Entry 1677
You have slain a level 27 Corrupted Frost Wolf.

The difference was absurd. She had only gained fifty points of strength, but she was more than twice as strong. Throwing a wolf into a borrok was enough to cause a bloody explosion and kicking a warrior nearly triggered another. The borrok’s ribs were completely obliterated by the attack. Its chest was sunken in, unable to support any of its weight, and its insides were leaking from the gaps in its pelt. If not for its absurd vitality, the monster would have died in a heartbeat—not that it made a difference. A second attack, a flipper slap, smashed its head and enforced its end.

Log Entry 1679
You have slain a level 43 Borrok Warrior.

It was easy. Too easy. She had been able to take down warriors quickly even before her ascension, but with her racial class empowered, it was a cakewalk—almost like the difficulty she had previously experienced was nothing but a lie.

Claire was proud of her progress, but also a bit annoyed. Fortunately, the lyrkress had a thousand punching bags lined up in front of her. Perfect for venting all her undue stress.

* * *

The lyrkress’s attempt to turn Borrok Peak into a stress toy ended in abject failure. Recognizing the change in her power level, her enemies quickly transitioned their blind advance into a swift retreat. Fighters of all shapes and sizes turned tail and ran, scattering to the winds like fickle autumn leaves. The lyrkress had managed to run a few of them down before they left the prison’s halls, but they dispersed so effectively upon returning to the surface that she had no choice but to give up on the pursuit.

Glancing at her status, she noted that she had barely gained any experience since her ascension. There was not a single level between any of her classes; even Vector Mage had failed to reach its next milestone. It irked her to no end, but such were the system’s rules.

Her ascension had drastically raised her overall strength, and the half-insects were no longer a threat, even as a seemingly infinite horde. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t annoyed. The combination of the borroks’ newfound fragility, their sudden flight, and the lack of any notable experience left the halfbreed grinding her teeth and thwacking her tail against the ground.

The irritation only lasted until she recognized that her body was already responding to her emotions. The dysphoria that had stemmed from the change in her form had stopped plaguing her by the end of her bloody rampage. There was still some unfamiliarity—she wasn’t quite used to using all of her newest parts—but the light exercise had certainly helped.

Though short a few racial skills, the halfbreed was happy with the way her ascension had turned out. She didn’t have any peers to compare with, but she remained confident that she had made a fair choice; the difference between a lyrkress and a halfbreed was far greater than the difference between a rotblood and a warrior.

She turned her eyes to the final landmark as she washed her hands of the borroks’ blood. The massive triangular building was only a hop, a skip, and a jump away from the arena. Given that there were still over sixty hours left on the clock, Claire decided to leisurely stroll her way over. She doubted that killing another rotblood would require any measurable amount of time—not that she was expecting just one. Alfred had only tasked her with killing ‘The Sentinel’ and ‘The Lifegiver,’ but there were clearly others, with the basement-dwelling spell-caster serving as a prominent example.

The halfbreed’s walk went uninterrupted. The locals that spotted her turned tail and ran without even the slightest semblance of aggression. Even the pyramid’s guards—a group of warriors and mages—fled on sight. Half of them ran inside, while the rest made a mad dash for their surroundings. One particularly confused individual even ran right past her. It was practically begging to be slain, but Claire cared too little to deliver.

Slowly raising her head, the snake-moose cast her gaze upon the massive triangular structure. It was, in a word, unfitting. Unlike the bland, uninspired arena, the pyramid didn’t look like it belonged. It was too complex, too finely crafted for it to be the work of the incompetent architects that had put the rest of the city together. For one, the walls were smooth, thick, and opaque. The materials used were perfectly straight with no visible defects regardless of where she looked. Even the door was seamless. It was a rectangular opening with a frame devoid of the blemishes that should have come with its construction.

Inscribed near the top of the triangular tower was an epitaph of a horned whale glowing in an icy blue. The only decoration on an otherwise empty canvas.

Looking inside the doorway, the rogue found that the building was empty, completely devoid of both fittings and life. Primitive murals aside, it featured nothing but a flight of spiral stairs. Claire gazed upon the drawings as her hooves echoed throughout the hall. They featured depictions of beasts and battles, etched right into the structure’s walls. The blood-iron stains were almost like a sort of taint, a malady that the otherwise pure blue barriers were forced to suffer.

They extended far past the ground level, crawling up the sides of the pyramid like a cluster of vines. Each thread was its own story with its unique details, but they all followed the same structure. They began with a man casting a spell to create a borrok. That borrok went on to accomplish many great things before evolving into a rotblood after a series of tough battles. But no matter how heroic each protagonist seemed, there would always come a wall they could not surmount. Every tale was met with the same ending, an untimely death in a burst of yellowed blood.

Only halfway up the pyramid did the last thread run dry—not that the lyrkress took note. Her mind was elsewhere, in part because she had no interest in borrokian history, and in part because she was occupied with something of greater importance.

Her surroundings were flooded with conflicting vectors. The space around her felt like it was warped, distorted by a greater power. Gravity was pulling on her, both from above and from below. Something was manipulating her position, but she couldn’t quite put a finger on what, even though it was making her feel like she was in three different places, all at once. 

The environment outside was revealed to her as the walls rapidly thinned, as the icy layers lost the ability to obscure the beholder’s gaze. In one eye, she saw what she expected, a snowy mountain, illuminated by moonlight. But in the other, there was a clear blue sky, lit by a distant sun.

Log Entry 1753
Detect Vector Magic has reached level 13.

Looking down, she found both the icy city and a rectangular plot floating within an endless sky. The muddy shape was attached to the massive horn that curved directly beneath her feet. It was Mirewood Meadow—she was seeing the dungeon’s floor from the construct that loomed beyond.

Looking more carefully, she spotted a series of birds, flapping their wings as they flew around within the brighter dimension. The further she climbed, the clearer they became. Some even flew over to the horn’s exterior and stared at her from beyond the walls, with one particularly annoying raven even ramming itself into the ice.

An additional layer of peculiarity was added to the mess of realms and forces as Claire neared the top of the staircase. Phantoms started to appear in her peripherals, vague centaurian outlines whose shapes grew more vivid and defined as she continued to rise. The first to form was Durham, watching over her with his lecherous but fiercely protective glare.

Next was Sir Rydland, judging and cynical as always. He stood before the manor’s guard detail, the trained warriors whose names she couldn’t be bothered to recite. They were followed by their apprentices, young lads and lasses whose hopeful gazes knew not of the horrors of war. She had seen many of them change over the years. Some embraced the Cadrian way and became veterans in their own right, while others retired to their hometowns, unable to cope with the losses of their friends.

The servants started appearing before her as she closed in on the summit. They emerged exactly as she remembered them, but deteriorated with every step. Their skin was cut, their fur was shredded, and their limbs were broken. Mariabelle even lost half her lower body. Claire tried to avert her gaze, but the phantom followed. It stared at her with its dominant arm in a sling, its eyes hollow, and a bloody bandage covering half its face.

It was a magical attack on her psyche. She knew. It was obvious. But her awareness did nothing to shut it out. The servants’ voices called her name, one after another, their ghastly whispers spoken with raspy, broken throats.

It took a long pause for the halfbreed to steady her quickened breath. She had seen and inflicted countless injuries over the past week, many far more brutal than the ones that the projections depicted. But they changed everything. She had to close her eyes. If the injuries were real, they would have been her fault. The ritual was one meant to plague an entire army; the backlash that resulted from its premature dissolution was sure to be just as widespread and unconstrained.

Gritting her teeth, Claire forced her eyes open and resumed her journey up the stairwell. The ghosts continued to haunt her as she advanced, but she ignored them. She pushed their manifestations away with magic and cast their comments aside as she steeled her heart. Like she had on the day she had run away.

She continued to endure as she reached the room at the end of the climb. It was both the pyramid’s tip and the open space that was the horn’s furthest extremity. Mirewood Meadow was the more dominant of the two domains. The pyramid’s icy walls were faint, barely visible beneath the brightly lit backdrop. At the far end of the horn, the very tip, there was another hexstone.

With a former Bloodwinged Darkhorn standing in front of it.

She knew it was fake, that it wasn’t him.

But that didn’t stop her from trembling, falling to her knees, or gasping for air.

The four-meter tall, white-furred behemoth was Cadria’s most fearsome man. Both in his enemies’ eyes. And in his daughter’s.

She tried to force herself to her feet, to move as he approached, but she couldn’t. The only part of her that accelerated was her heart.

She could feel it threatening to burst from her chest.

He terrified her. More than any of her recent near-death experiences. More than a celestial that was obviously trying to manipulate her. More than the god of curses, showing up unannounced.

Even though he was just a projection, an obvious, illusory copy of the man that had dictated all sixteen of her years.

If not for Shoulderhorse autonomously consuming the spell, she would have remained paralyzed. Even though there was a borrok standing behind the phantom. Slowly approaching with a katar in each hand.

Still panting, she rose to her feet, all her mammalian parts dripping with cold sweat. She raised a hand towards the borrok. The limb was still trembling, shaking as would a teapot in an earthquake, but her magic remained steady. A powerful vector sent him flying into the hexstone to his rear.

Claire nearly tripped as she ran up to him and kicked him, over and over. Each attack was accompanied by a feral scream, a display of the frustration that had come as a result of her own ineptitude. A display of the fear that she couldn’t keep bottled inside.

Only after a dozen strikes did she finally back away. Surprisingly, the horn and the hexstone were both undamaged. The borrok had borne the brunt of the attack. And somehow, it was still alive, even with its skull pulverized by her hooves and its brain leaking out from within.

“It looks like you enjoyed my spell.” He smiled at her with his disgusting broken jaw as he raised a bejewelled blade and summoned another apparition.

Claire felt her stomach lurch, but she didn’t collapse a second time. Digging her fangs into her lips, she charged straight at the projection with every intention of passing through it and attacking the borrok that was its master, only to discover that the spell was one with substance. And it weighed every bit as much as the man it portrayed, barely budging as the two made contact.

The only part of her that tore through the illusion was the glacial spike embedded in her chest. And tear it did. It ripped through the phantom’s lower half as she fell over, destroying the spell outright.

Though confused and disoriented, the halfbreed soon recovered. She pulled the borrok towards her with one hand while swinging her mace with the other. The result was a series of sickening cracks. She broke his spine with her first swing and got its arms with her next two.

A fourth and final hit ended the creature’s life, prompting it to swell and detonate as did all others of its kind.

Throwing it off the side of the horn, Claire sat down and breathed a sigh of relief. She was far from calm. Her heart was still pounding and her breath was failing to return.

She was still annoyed, sick to her stomach.

At him, and at herself.

“So much for being free.” Her fingers trembled and her weapon fell beside her. “I can’t even face him when I know he’s not real.” The lyrkress placed a hand on her face and massaged the bags under her eyes as she fought back a sniffle. “How am I supposed to prove anything like this?”

Log Entry 1754
You have slain a level 63 Borrok Rotblood.

“Maybe he was right.”

Log Entry 1755
You have levelled up. Your health and mana have been restored and all harmful status effects have been cleansed.

Your secondary class, Llystletein Vector Mage, has reached level 41.

You have gained 4 ability points.

“Maybe I really am worthless.”

Log Entry 1756
Makeshift Weapon Mastery has reached level 17.

Rubbing her face with her cloak, Claire turned her gaze to the horizon and allowed the goddess’ words to echo through her mind.

* * *

Claire

Health: 3240/3240
Mana: 4382/4382
Faith: 1/1
Health Regen: 10(20)/minute
Mana Regen: 45/minute
Fatih Regen: 5/hour

Ability Scores - 23 Points Available
- Agility: 454
- Conjuring: 485
- Dexterity: 302
- Spirit: 229
- Strength: 283
- Vitality: 304

Racial Class: Frostblight Lyrkress - Level 50.84
- Ice Manipulation - Level 1.31
- Lyrkrian Shapeshifting - Level 2.73
- Paralyzing Gaze - Level 6.51
- Thermodynamic Regulation - Level 2.50

Primary Class: Llystletein Bloodthief - Level 53.37
- Assassinate - Level 11.36
- Bloodthief - Level 9.74
- Dagger Mastery - Level 11.26
- Phantom Blade - Level 5.79

Secondary Class: Llystletein Vector Mage - Level 41.65
- Basic Vector Manipulation - Level 13.16
- Basic Vector Resistance - Level 3.57
- Detect Vector Magic - Level 13.44

Unclassed Skills
- Axe Mastery - Level 1.04
- Catgirl Fetish - Level 1.00
- Club Mastery - Level 11.32
- Dancing - Level 7.34
- Digging - Level 11.92
- English - Level 25
- Llystletein Authority II - Level 5.24
- Makeshift Weapon Mastery - Level 17.82
- Marish - Level 19.05
- Spear Mastery - Level 5.46
- Sword Mastery - Level 8.38
- Throwing - Level 7.23
- Tracking - Level 9.61
- Unarmed Combat Mastery - Level 13.43