The entire complex was a winding maze of corridors and rooms, jammed together to create as much burial space as possible. Not every coffin contained weapons for me to steal, and not all of those weapons came with affixes either. It was a long, boring and arduous process. The only materiel left to survive through the ravages of age were the weapons. There was little else to be learned from what was left behind.

I decided to take a few of the smaller weapons with me for Medalie to inspect. She would surely be interested about their construction and the metal used to forge them. Though if this civilization was as advanced as I thought, it would be unlikely that she could emulate them any time soon. If all else failed, they would make for a unique souvenir to take home with us – and perhaps a collector would be interested in purchasing them from me for a high price.

A rough count as we cleared out the final chamber was forty affixes, which was obscene to say the least. I could only hope that their affect was as powerful as their quantity. Tahar was very eager to get out of the tomb before a curse struck us, so I slid the last coffin back into place and retraced our steps back out into the sunlight.

I clapped my hands together only to see Cali slump over in disappointment, “See, no problem.”

Tahar wasn’t going to relax until we were back home unmolested. The fear was unfounded. We hadn’t been cursed (according to Cali, anyway) and nobody from the village was keeping an active watch for graverobbers. I didn’t have much love for small, wet, enclosed spaces anyway. It was probably why I spawned into the world as a fully formed child, basket and all…

“I think you’re going to like some of these affixes, Master.”

“Don’t try to hype me up,” I muttered angrily. Stigma’s speech always rode that fine line between sincerity and sarcasm. I would only know for sure when I checked out what we’d gathered back at the camp. We parted ways with Tahar with a promise of another visit soon, the rest of the day was about preparing to take on the monster.

Medalie had made herself at home on the beach too. The half-size woman inspecting a broken shovel inside her own tent. Cali and I dipped under the flaps and took a seat on the wooden bench placed inside.

“Hey Medalie, haven’t talked in a while.”

“Ren! Good to see ya’ again. Had me bloody hands full on that boat. Everyone needed something doing!”

I chuckled, “Passed in a daze for me. Cali loved it.”

“I did not.”

Medalie sighed and placed the snapped tool down onto the table. “What in god’s bloody name did he do to this thing? Never seen nothin’ like it.” She dipped into a small chest of supplies and returned with a small hand-axe. “What’s the occasion anyway?”

“Just wanted to get out of eyesight of Benadora, she’s been getting onto my case about that monster.”

“She’s payin’ a lot of money for this little holiday. She wants results.”

“I’m going to get her results, but her badgering me about everything I do isn’t going to make it go any faster.” Standing from my seat, I reached into my bag and unloaded the pilfered blades onto the table next to the spade. Medalie’s eyes widened.

She pointed to the ancient weapons in disbelief, “Hold on a minute, what’s this?”

“We went shopping. Thought it’d make a nice change from fixing digging implements.”

Medalie’s hands were all over them. She ran the tip of her finger up and down the white alloy that comprised the sharp end of the shortsword. “I’ve never seen anything like this. What kind of metal makes this colour?” After stroking it a few times, she finally mustered up the courage to take it into her palms and feel the weight, “It’s light too.”

“Have a good look, I’m just going to check over some things over here.”

I left her to it and reclaimed my spot on the bench next to Cali. Now that I’d successfully taken forty plus affixes from the weapons of the dead, I needed to sort through them and find out what was actually going to be helpful. Stigma’s spirit appeared before me and spoke, “I can assist you, if you’d like.”

“Why? Do you already know what we have?”

“I may have read their uses while you were busy digging through those coffins. I was not speaking in jest when I said that you would like some of the things you found.”

“We’re looking for explosive, fast damage, so anything defensive or magic based isn’t getting a slot.”

“That leaves twenty.”

The berserk affix that the tribe member had given me boosted my damage by twenty percent when I was below forty percent of my max HP. The strength of the effect depended on how risky it was to use it, but for a man with an abnormally high HP pool like myself – it became even more powerful. I could safely lower my HP to the required level without putting myself at the same level of risk.

Suppose I could find a way to artificially lower my HP before I even entered battle. A task I could give to Stigma. She had some level of control over my body, so intentionally harming me didn’t seem like too big an ask. I could trigger berserker manually, on command.

“What’s first?”

“Adrenaline, five percent damage boost for one minute after taking damage. Any damage.”

Twenty-five percent boost, not bad.

“Anything else?” I opened an inspect window on Stigma and navigated to the affix submenu. From the testimony of others, it served little purpose other than offering an extended description of each ability. Stigma was different. The list was so long that I could scroll down it using my mind. Three random affixes were highlighted and selected in the top places. Stigma moved the Adrenaline affix into the first spot and replaced the previous one.

I took a quick look at the list myself, but didn’t find anything of particular interest until Stigma highlighted one of them. They were generic abilities like five percent extra damage with a certain weapon.

“This one is interesting. Rushdown, it offers an escalating damage bonus for successive strikes against the same target up to a maximum of fifteen percent.”

Forty.

“And finally?”

“This. A ten percent bonus applied to enemies afflicted with an ailment.”

“So if Cali uses her spell on the monster, that’s an extra ten percent while it’s stunned.” Fifty. A fifty percent increase in Stigma’s already absurd damage numbers. If this wasn’t enough to kill the damn thing, nothing would be. “Alright. Register that to a set. And take some of the defensive affixes and put them into a combo too. We can switch mid-battle if we need it.”

The three open affix slots on the body of the blade burned a blood red as the new runes emerged. The circular mechanisms underneath rolled on, emblazoning a different set a few inches over. The last piece of the puzzle was learning a sword technique. Trainers weren’t exactly on hand for me to ask, but having one would allow me to diversify my abilities in combat. They could offer benefits like increased damage or armour penetration.

Through all of the drama and changes, I was still only a level six swordsman. My breadth and depth of knowledge was that of a fairly experienced knight. [Power Strike] was my target. I’d considered it a long time ago on the road to Sull, back before I had killed Bell and came here. What could it do? In exchange for some of your body’s energy, increase the damage of a single blow by twenty percent.

If I could learn it somehow before we headed back into the Tall School, that would be a seventy percent total increase on my first attack. If I hit a critical organ like the brain or the heart, and that number could go even higher. Though my foe this time was much wilier than a human soldier in heavy armour, there was no guarantee that he’d sit still for me and let me strike at my leisure.

And his regeneration ability was deeply troubling to me. What if, for all my preparation and effort, he merely healed the wounds dealt to him? I’d have to rely on burning my accumulated life to get a boost of power from Stigma. I worked hard to collect those nine months. I didn’t want to waste them so freely when there was a chance of doing things normally.

“Cali, have you been thinking about what spell to use?”

She polished the tip of her spear with a cloth, “[Thunder II] should suffice if damage is not the primary concern. It will stun the enemy for a minute – stealing control of their nervous system and significantly decreasing their fighting ability, if not knocking them out immediately.”

“In that window, I could power strike its head. Sounds like a good chance of putting it down in one shot.”

My musings were interrupted by Medalie calling for my attention, “I don’t know where you found this, or who made it – but I’ve never seen anything like it. I can’t even identify what this is made from.”

“Why? Are you not high enough level?”

“Nah. There isn’t a bloody name for it at all! Whatever it is, the knowledge on how to make it has died out completely.” Along with the race that created it. Nobody had ‘perceived’ one of these weapons for a very, very long time. Accessing the collective wisdom of the world returned nothing.

“We found it in a nearby tomb. The architecture was very similar to the Tall School, they were probably both made by the same people. If we get into the School, there’s a lot more to be found.”

My mind was in another place. Perhaps someone in Tahar’s village was an experienced warrior? Communicating with them would be challenging, even if there was someone willing to waste their time showing me. There was also a risk that they didn’t know power strike. Different communities and cultures, especially insular ones, had their own techniques and concepts that gave them distinct fighting styles.

“Do you mind if I leave these here?” I asked, pointing down to the spread of precursor weaponry.

Medalie was incensed, “I’ve got enough crap in ere’ already! Just leave one of ‘em you gobshite!”

I acquiesced to her kind request and took the other two from the table. The tent was rammed to the gills with weapons, tools and other items that needed mending. We exited back out into the main area of the camp. I had some thinking to do. Was it worth it to spend another day at the village learning a technique?

From what I saw most of the people there used bows and spears. Things that were easier to make than a sword made from metal. Not that I doubted they had the ingenuity to create something like that – they just had no reason to. If they didn’t have any natural rivals in the area what good would a sword designed to cut through steel and mail do for them?

Benadora spotted us loitering and stormed over in a (drunken) huff, “Ren… please tell me you have something planned. We’re running out of beer!”

“One or two days, and that thing will be dead. Or I’ll die trying.”

Benadora let out a belch that was half groan of despair and half bubbling, churning vomit. I stepped aside as she collapsed down onto her knees and tired to stop herself from evacuating her stomach. When a crew of adventurers has nothing to do, they get drunk. That was as natural as the sandy beach under my feet or the evening sky above.

That was my deadline, because when the booze did run out – there’d be hell to pay.