As Maiz walked out of the stone temple, he felt comfort and an odd sense of loss as he surveyed his surroundings. Gone were the lush greenery and cool breeze of the strange world he had just left. His feet were clothed in the boots he had worn to the temple, the enchanted boots from the trial having disappeared. With each step, his feet shifted the sand caked onto the stone. It had rained last night--which was rare this close to the desert-- and the streets had been messy with wet sand, prompting Maiz to wear boots as he ventured out. Now, the blazing sun had already dried the roads back to their usual dusty state, and there were few people out. It was almost midday, and most people either slept or worked inside during this time. The mostly deserted streets let Maiz appreciated the squat, tan stone buildings around him, mostly homes with the occasional shop or inn. Maiz rounded a corner and glanced at a small, finely decorated wooden shack, with text indicating that it was the entrance to a bathhouse. This part of the city was rich enough that its residents had a special bathhouse more expensive than the public ones in other parts, but not enough that they could afford to take baths in their own homes. Almost nobody was that wealthy.

In the shadowy, relatively cool confines of the temple, Maiz hadn’t realized all of the differences--he had also been focused on making sure Father Gavrel was not suspicious in any way of his title. Of course, he hadn’t been. No one could show another person a false title, so the priest had instantly believed that Maiz was a Spellsword, despite telling Maiz that he had never seen a title like his. The priest had shown a brief moment of interest as he read the description of Maiz’s title--he had asked Maiz to share his Title Sheet--but he had apparently decided that it wasn’t very exceptional. After that, he had ignored Maiz just as much as he always had.

Father Gavrel was one of the more popular priests in the city, with Nomenadon being widely worshipped as the prime deity in most of Caelos, and he had a large congregation. Despite Maiz having attended his sermons since he was a child, the Preacher had never spoken to Maiz until a week before his sixteenth birthday, when Maiz had scheduled the Naming ritual. He hadn’t spared much attention for Maiz beyond following the basic procedure for the ceremony. After affirming that Maiz had a combat title, the priest had disinterestedly informed him that he would have to report to the city gates the next morning and ride with a supply wagon to the military training grounds.

Maiz was glad that he didn’t have to wait too long before he could finally leave.

As he continued to walk, Maiz noticed something… off. He felt somehow clumsier than he was used to. He almost swayed a little in the street as he considered it. What’s going on? It took him only a few seconds to realize what had happened: the Dexterity he’d gained during the trial had vanished. He was feeling as clumsy as he’d always been before the trial. I probably should have expected that. If dying in the trial would have sent him back to this plane, then it made sense that any changes he’d made to his body hadn’t stuck.

Even as Maiz had the thought, he entered a mostly industrial street, filled with specialty shops and manufacturers. Passing a smith-enchanter’s workshop, he entered a nondescript, one-story stone hall. Opening the double doors, he entered a small carpeted room where he brushed himself off, then took a door to the right. Three turns later, he entered a small office with three desks placed side by side. The two men seated in the left and center desks glanced up at Maiz but otherwise did not speak, not commenting on his absence or asking any other questions. They quickly returned to work, and Maiz, sighing internally, sat down to do the same. There was a stack of instructions and source material alongside a one of blank sheets on his desk. Maiz picked up the first paper, what looked like a set of manufacturing instructions, and set to copying.

***********

Maiz had become incredibly adept at the duties of a scribe. This office worked solely on large scale copying and clarification jobs, not letter-writing or other individual requests and Maiz had quickly learned how to copy poorly written or sketched pieces of material into neat, legible print and copy such print over and over. He had worked for several hours, finishing the requested 25 copies of the manufacturing instructions, as well as completing similar jobs on a roster of some kind and some kind of companion to an enchanting manual. Maiz paid some attention to that one, hoping that he could somehow pick up an enchanting skill from reading the book, but he was quickly disappointed. It seemed that he would need to learn skills more directly. Or perhaps there was something he was missing about the way that enchanter titles worked. However, near the end of his workday, Maiz noticed a flashing purple V, stylized and somehow shadowy, in the corner of his vision. As Maiz focused on it, text appeared in his vision, and he could barely hide a grin.

You have learned the skill Printing (rank 10)!

The ability The Mask has triggered.

Maiz had already seen this happen when he had examined his Flaming Strike skill after the trial. Do I have time? He needed to complete as much of the work before him as possible, or risk a beating. Of course, at this point he was quite adept at his job, and he could usually finish the massive orders laid before him each day. What the hells, I’ll be quick. He focused on the prompt for the Mask ability, and looked over the new text in his field of view.

Available title options:

The Nameless

Skills-The Mask

Spellsword

Skills-Flaming Strike

Scholar

Skills-Printing

Current Displayed Title(Hidden): Spellsword

Select New Title?

Maiz didn’t change his title, but he was surprised to see that the Printing skill was a Scholar ability, and that he somehow already had the skill at rank ten. He supposed that it made sense, considering that he had been doing nothing else every day for the past two years. However, the revelation made Maiz shoot subtle gances at the two scribes in the seats next to him. They were both working with their normal, superhuman efficiency, producing perfectly legible sheets of paper in fractions of the time it took Maiz.

Both were mousy, balding, and hunched over their desks. Neither had said a word to Maiz in these two years, despite seeing him every day. At first, Maiz had tried speaking to them, lonely and afraid as he was, but both had ignored him. He hadn’t realized that these men were Scholars, the same title that Maiz had almost been stuck with. Suddenly he was intensely grateful that he hadn’t settled for that title.

He would never be like those two weak bastards.

************

“I’m impressed! Maiz, was it?” That oily voice made Maiz’s fists clench involuntary, but he kept them hidden behind his back. “I didn’t think such worthless stock could ever produce anything remotely useful, but you’ve proved me wrong!”

Maiz was standing in front of a dark wooden desk, a piece that Maiz had once considered fine and exotic. In comparison to a single plank of that dark room where he had met a god, the desk barely one step up from kindling. The floor was carpeted with rugs of various muted, earthy colors. Maiz kept his eyes down on the branch pattern woven into the one at his feet. He didn’t think he could stand the sight of the man sitting behind the desk for long.

“Thank you, sir.” He wanted to spit the words out, but that would ruin everything. He would be beaten, like he had the first few weeks. He had never learned this man’s name, despite having seen him once a month for his evaluations. This man had been the first person Maiz had seen after his father had signed away both of their lives, taking the quicker death for himself. The monster had told Maiz in his oily voice that Maiz’s father had deserved his fate, and that Maiz deserved no better.

“Now then, you were told that you are going into military training, yes?”

“Yes sir.” He didn’t want to call this bastard ‘sir,’ but that had been the cause of his first beatings. Maiz had sworn that he would never call a worm like him by any honorific. He had recanted after a few lashings. After that, the primary cause of his beatings had been his inability to meet the ridiculous quotas for scribing the Sharir imposed on him.

“Well, you understand that you will be trained for service to the Sharir, yes?” His voice held a note of satisfaction. Maiz looked up, into the face of the balding, beady-eyed man in front of him. He was not short, but to Maiz he looked somehow stooped, seated with his hands touching in front of him. His robes hung off his frame, slipping down his arms to reveal thin hairy forearms. His black eyes were set deep into his face, giving him the appearance of a skeleton as he stared at Maiz.

Maiz nodded. The personnel which made up the military of the city, and the kingdom as a whole, were not all employed by the state. Rather, every house retained their own soldiers who were subject to levy by the king at any time.

“I will pay for your training, boy. Nothing too extravagant, but you will be able to return to us when you are a Journeyman in your title.” The oily voice had a certain businesslike edge now, but then he flashed a smile at Maiz. The expression stretched his face strangely, as if it was the first time he had made it. “Speaking of which, I have never heard of this… Spellsword. It sounds rather strange, but I hope that you will make use of it to serve your family well.”

By ‘family’ he means ‘masters.’ It made sense that he was pleased to send Maiz out to train for combat. Combat titles, which had directly offensive skills and often gained more useful attribute bonuses per rank, were quite rare in the general population, though they were more common among certain families which bred for combat aptitudes. Noble houses and the government held a monopoly on combat titled people, using them to maintain their hold on society, and that made even the most common combatant more valuable than the majority of non-combat titled people.

Of course, many of the more powerful nobles were also some of the strongest combatants in the kingdom. After all, if you couldn’t personally kill your subordinates, what was to stop them from killing you? Nothing.

The man continued giving Maiz empty instructions, before informing him that Sharir training clothes had been left on his bed, and telling him to prepare to leave the next day. Maiz, gritting his teeth, bowed to the bastard before leaving swiftly.

****************

When Maiz finally entered the cramped room where he slept, he quietly lay down in his pallet beside two gaunt, older men. It was warm enough outside that he didn’t miss his blanket, which someone had apparently stolen, but he had to move a dark bundle of what he assumed were his new clothes. He moved those by his head as he settled into the pallet, trying to avoid waking anyone up. There were eight other people in the pallets laid out in two two rows on the stone floor. This building was filled with bonded workers of the Sharir, though the majority were laborers and much older than Maiz. He was lucky that he rarely saw them before they were all asleep. As he lay there, attempting to find a comfortable position to sleep in, he opened his Name Sheet to check what he’d gained over the course of the--extremely long--day.

Maiz-Spellsword (Rank 1)

Title Status-Hidden (Default)

Bonus Titles-

God-Chosen of Viselys (Hidden)

Title Options Available

Health-80/80

Mana-140/140 (+ 1.1 pts/second)

Stamina: 60/60 (+ .7 pts/seconds)

Attributes (4 Unspent Attribute Points):

Age

16

Constitution

8

Intelligence

14

Wisdom

11

Strength

6

Dexterity

7

Agility

12

Charisma

9

Luck

8

Skills:

The Mask

Printing

Spells:

Flaming Strike

At first, all Maiz felt was a slight disappointment at not having retained any of the skills he’d learned during the trial. Keeping the icebolt spell would have been especially useful, but he supposed that it hadn’t stayed for the same reason that his attributes had reverted to their original state after the test was over.

After a few moments, however, he noticed something else which softened the blow. I have four new attribute points to spend! Maiz supposed that made sense, considering that he’d also had four attributes available in his first rank of Seeker. But where should he spend them? In the trial, he’d put three of his four points into Charisma and Luck in order to have a better shot at convincing Riala to help him. In hindsight, his clumsy attempt probably would have worked even if he hadn’t done so: Riala was setting him up to try and lie to her from the moment they met. He’d just done what she wanted the entire time.

Stop thinking about that. It had been easy, during the long hours of copying documents, to avoid thinking about Riala and what she’d done. Even after he’d learned the Printing skill, he apparently still had to concentrate on the work in order to avoid making mistakes. He was convinced that there were other, more useful skills in the Scholar title which made tasks like that easier. Maiz wasn’t particularly interested in learning them.

Now, for the attributes. Maiz was heading off to military training the next day, and he would need to do his best there in order to grow as much as possible. He would be relying mainly on the abilities of the Spellsword title, as the military would be researching skills of that title and training him in them. Riala had said that Spellswords suffered early on from a lack of fighting ability to complement their close-combat skills--or was she lying about that too? No, that was ridiculous, Maiz could see clearly enough that the title offered no bonuses to melee combat. By opening a prompt in his Title Sheet, he was able to review the actual title description for Spellsword:

Spellsword- Spellswords use their mana to augment their martial prowess, focusing on channeling elemental effects through their weapons and armor. They are especially suited to small-scale combat and breaking enemy lines on the battlefield.

+1 to Intelligence, Wisdom, Constitution, and Attribute of Choice per rank.

So the title didn’t offer any bonus to Strength or Dexterity, both of which were absolutely essential for close-quarters fighting. Maiz already had much more Intelligence and Wisdom than average, so it stood to reason he should invest his points into Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution. He put one point into Strength, and another into Constitution, then, after a moment’s consideration, put the two remaining points into Dexterity. He had a sense, from his fight with the bear, that Constitution didn’t matter much if you weren’t hit. Also, his only combat skill, Flaming Strike, provided a relatively large damage boost for his rank. He didn’t need to invest much in Strength to hurt his enemies.

Hurt my enemies. After the 'conversation’ with that gods-damned snake, Maiz liked the sound of that.

****************

Tarangil’al’Hankor landed on a tall, but otherwise nondescript dune in the middle of the desert. The endless sea of sand around him was cast in shades of red as the sun set far on the horizon. This section of the desert was featureless except for the hills and valleys of sand, looking like frozen waves, which created the landscape of the Waste. Tarangil had been to the ocean once a decade ago. It had been a long flight with many hazards, but he had already been a Journeyman then, and curious about the mythical wonder said to lie to the west of the Waste. The waves had indeed looked like the desert in motion, though he hadn’t cared much for the smell. He hadn’t liked the sight of so much water, just sitting there, undrinkable,, either. Water was precious. Tarangil had decided that he was a creature of the desert, and that he would leave the ocean to the blue dragons from then on. Then why did I decided to leave again?

He had returned to the Ruined City, the Dungeon that he and the other Masters had left from a short while ago. They had decided not to risk entry from the center of the Golden Nest, for fear of even worse retaliation. Tarangil felt his stomach drop at the thought of the other two Masters he had left with. He hadn’t even brought their corpses back to the Nest.

Another beat of his wings and a swipe of his claw brushing away sand revealed a sheet of glass, made opaque by the oblique light of the Sun, set into the ground of the desert. During the day, simply revealing the glass would have been enough to activate the magic, but now there was not enough sunlight to do so. Tarangil activated a simple skill, Sunskin, and his body lit up with an intense brilliance. That had been one of the first skills he’d ever learned. It was supposed to be a simple exercise in controlling Solar Magic, but Tarangil had used it to blind and kill a Sand Cougar when he was barely a dragonling.

The skill was also the easiest way to open the entrance to the Golden Nest’s headquarters, and the ability to do so at night was considered a rite of passage for Tarangil’s kind. As the light emanating from his scales shone upon the glass, the glass began to glow in response. In seconds, the ground trembled and sand flowed inwards as the glass began to incline deeper. Tarangil had always been impressed at how the glass ramp was engineered to prevent too much sand from the surrounding desert from falling in when it was opened.

Stepping down, Tarangil quickly lost sight of the Sun, reddish rock and glass ramp forming a tunnel deep into the earth. After several minutes, the rock opened into a massive open room covered in sand with a glass roof which glowed almost as brightly as the Sun itself. In fact, at first glance it appeared that Tarangil was back in the desert, though he could faintly see the edges of the room in the distance.It was rare for golden dragons to produce a child gifted in enchantment, but those who were could produce unique marvels of Solar Magic. This ceiling had taken a generation to build, and the work of three separate Solar enchanters--the most ever recorded to have lived at the same time. It harvested a portion of energy from large swathes of the desert sands and transported it here. As Tarangil understood it, the process was inefficient in terms of energy, but the desert was so huge that even a small portion of the sands’ energy was enough to keep this place bright indefinitely.

Tarangil was tempted to take flight, to feel the power of his wings beating against the air, but there was no sense in disturbing the sands so much, and he wouldn’t be able to ascend too high before hitting the glass of the ceiling. Instead, he plodded forward, his steps as heavy as his heart. He crested a dune and noted a gathering of four golden-scaled dragons. Each of them had green text floating above their heads, and though they were too far for Tarangil to read them clearly, he knew that each of them would read “Master.” He himself changed his title status to open, displaying his own Master rank.

As he came closer to the group, they looked at him, reptilian faces betraying no emotion. They knew from the lack of Master Ghurat and Master Rhakor that something had gone wrong. Horribly wrong. They were likely gloating behind those masks.

The oldest of the four, slightly larger than the others with some patches of missing scales, flicked a tongue out at Tarangil for a split second. All except Master Shan, that was. He seemed happy just to see Tarangil alive. Tarangil could not share his enthusiasm. Not when his life had come at the cost of two others.

“So you return. Did you run away before the others ventured out?” Master Granor was more than slightly condescending. He had been the most vocal of the Nest in opposing Ghurat. Tarangil hadn’t listened to him.

“No, Master Granor.” Tarangil felt a bit of extra gravel in his voice. Compared to the rumbles of most older dragons, his voice was still quite high. But his sorrow and shame lent him gravity as he continued. “Masters Ghurat and Rhakor are hunting with Massahn. I--”

Tarangil stopped speaking. The feeling of shame was too great. He had broken, not at any torture, but simply at the sight of that monster tearing into the other Masters. He had resisted for a scant moment before giving in to the tyrant’s wishes. He was a coward.

“I have seen the error of my beliefs.” He forced the words out. “The God-Chosen has given me a task for all of the Nest, and we will carry it out.” Or we will be destroyed. Tarangil had never seen any being with the raw focus and power of that creature. He had never appeared less than calm, even as he tore open Master Ghurat’s neck and slaughtered Master Rhakor where he stood. Tarangil didn’t look at the Masters. He couldn't.

“Stand proud, Master Tarangil. None have faced the Dungeon King in battle and lived before.” That voice, like the grinding of huge boulders, gave Tarangil some strength. He looked up and into Master Shan’s deep golden eyes. The ancient dragon flicked his tongue out once more, though Tarangil was not sure if any of the other Masters saw the gesture.

“The Dungeon King has named me lieutenant of the Golden Nest and charged me with organizing an attack. An attack to the north.”

Tarangil said the words boldly, not paying attention to the other Masters’ expressions of confusion and protest. He was still looking into the golden eyes of Master Shan. The dragon who had raised and trained him since his mother and nest-mates were killed. Those eyes never betrayed surprise, but Tarangil thought he could see another expression in them. Hope.