Consequences

In the furthest depths of the catacombs were a group of men; surrounded by more than a dozen wretches who, with eyes closed, were faced towards their masters. These men huddled around a complex pentagram-array whose every point contained a body that was slowly and surely adding more blood to the array.

These seven men were all dressed in the same clothes discussing quietly the recent activity happening outside the room.

"Mick and Rory are not responding to our messages master."

"I've lost connection with all the undead we stationed near the entrance."

"It can't be the guards, we've overpaid on the bounty to continue our activities here."

"Adventurers!"

"I've lost connections with the wretches we sent with Daren."

"He's not responding either."

"We have intruders who seem to be very capable."

"It must be a large group to have defeated our pawns."

"Yes, a large group. We must do something, or all our plans are ruined!"

One of the men who had silently been staring at the ground during the entire discussion finally looked up. A mask of a blue horned demon sat across his face, preventing the others from seeing his features. Instantly the group quieted down, eagerly leaning forward in order to hear the wise words of their leader.

In a raspy voice the man said, "We cannot allow the efforts and sacrifices we have made to be in vain. For too long the nobility have trampled upon the poor in this city, treating us like garbage. Our champion and future ruler, Driblark, is willing to send a messenger to this city to cleanse it of all filth."

"We cannot let these intruders stop us from summoning him. Send all the undead to meet the intruders, they will stall them long enough for us to complete the ritual."

One of the men spoke up, "Cleric Hrefner, what about the Undead Amulets? They might have stolen them from Mick and Rory!"

"We shall destroy the spell holding the amulets together. There is no more need for any of us to have the undead protection, as we are about to be under the protection of a much mightier messenger."

With a nod each man took out their amulets and began chanting, mana quickly gathering around the group as in synchronicity they crushed the amulets they held. The mana quickly condensed and a ripple was sent in all directions.

"Urey, step forward."

One of the men stepped forward and knelt on one knee.

"We thank you for your sacrifice." Cleric Hrefner looked down, placed his hand on his chest and clasped his left elbow.

"We thank you for your sacrifice." Repeated the men in unison, replicating Cleric Hrefners actions.

Spreading his arms wide and looking up with bloodshot eyes, the man exploded in a mist of blood. The blood hung in the air before it appeared to be sucked dry by the blood pentagram underneath. With this the pentagram began to glow a little darker red, and the men all returned to chanting their invocations.

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"Mom! How are you doing that?" Exclaimed Jessy as her jaw hung loose upon seeing her mom consecutively cast fireball after fireball without any pause at the training dummy.

Beth smiled proudly upon seeing her daughter awestruck at her new achievement. "It's rather simple cutiepie! It's just like how when you meditate you can feel the energy of the universe, I just go into that same state of mind and I can feel the energy of this universe which I then command to do this!" She then shot another five fireballs, spiraling around each other until they crashed into the metal dummy down range.

Jessy couldn't figure out how her mom did it, "Mom…. Now you're just showing off…" she muttered as the fireballs exploded and left huge dents in the training dummy the guild had set up for her.

"I've tried teaching you before sweetie, but you never seemed interested… Now maybe you'll start doing yoga with me in the mornings?" Beth was rather hopeful that she finally got Jessy interested in joining her for her early morning exercises.

Beth had always been an avid fanatic of yoga and meditation; a love she tried instilling in her children but was never able to. After listening to the instructions of the Magic Instructor at the Adventurers Guild, she found that it was very similar to how she felt while meditating and so she gave it a try. After about a minute she obtained the skill mana sense, and an hour later she received mana manipulation.

"This game is actually easier than I thought it would be, I can't wait to tell your Dad that I'm almost all the way to master in mana manipulation! I wonder what he's up to?" Beth began pondering at how awestruck her husband would be when he found out she was having a good time playing this game and was actually pretty good at it.

"You think Dad will take us out to level our classes after dinner tonight?" Jessy asked her mom.

"He'd better!" Beth snorted. "I really want to see what fun kind of magic I can unlock with this class at higher levels!"

After Beth and the kids had gone through the introduction to the different classes they could choose, they all had decided on different classes. Beth had chosen to go with a sorcerer, she loved the idea of being able to deal an enormous amount of damage while standing there. She figured she'd be with her husband most of the time anyway and could have him protect her while she cast her spells.

Clark had chosen a berserker class while Bryan had chosen to be a hunter. Jessy wanted to be a summoner because the summoner instructor had a cute albino fox curled around her neck.

In – Might, Magic, Mayhem – Users could choose from the typical classes of fighter, mage, rogue, ranger, and healer. In addition to these, the other main classes included thief, sorcerer, druids, paladins, summoners, and berserkers. There were also hidden, unique, and legacy classes throughout Socrathia that the players could find and level up through.

"You think dad can help me get a cute little fox like the instructors?" Jessy asked with hope in her eyes.

As Beth looked over at the other training areas to see Clark and Bryan training with their individual class instructors, Beth shrugged her shoulders "I don't see why not." She then saw Jessy's hopeful face and smiled while patting her on the head, "I'm sure he'll get you the cutest fox out there!"

Beth turned her attention back towards her training dummy, "I should be able to master mana manipulation before I log off to make us all dinner…" She then began thinking of all the possible twists and variations she could give the fireball spell.

She had shrunk it into a tiny bullet, added spin, twisted it into a horizontal mini tornado, enlarged it, sent multiple at the same time, and many more variations. Even her instructor would give her suggestions on new variations to try that she quickly got the hang of.

With each successful attempt, The System would notify her of a new skill she had obtained; quickly growing her list of spells she knew. Along with a new skill, a large increase in proficiency would be added to her mana manipulation and new fire manipulation skills.

She giggled again at the thought of finally being better at a game than her husband is.

Unbeknownst to her, an individual in the far corner was staring at her and watching her complex spells attack her target. A hint of hunger flashed through the eyes as they greedily ate up the image of the beautiful sorcerer.

-----

As Jason began running down the hallway, he felt a large wave of mana pulse throughout the cave. In the next instant, the two medallions he got off the cultists shattered in his pocket.

"F*ck!"

Jason's protection against the undead had just been taken from him, and the easy-going experience run had come to an end. Jason assumed the cultists ahead knew he had gotten past their ambushes and destroyed the connections to the medallions in case he had been carrying them; which he of course had been.

Jason assumed that all pretenses were off by this point and they knew that their ambushes had failed. He would have to hurry in case they did something to increase the speed of the summoning.

Jason began moving much faster down the hallway at a speed that was only a jog for him due to his high dexterity but could be comparable to an Olympic athlete's sprint.

'These boots aren't too bad. It's really a shame there's no active skill accompanying them.'

Jason turned the corner up ahead and was startled to see rows upon rows of skeletal warriors marching down the hallway towards him.

Frowning he knew this was an attempt to slow him down which would inevitably give the cultists the time needed to accomplish their goals.

With a sigh he held up his shield and began charging forwards, there was no way around this and he knew that he would just have to force his way through. He activated flame-throw as he came within range and continued sprinting forward, ducking and weaving through the crowd as he forced his way through. Bones flew in the air, skeletons turned to ash, and a never ending sea of bones seemed to be in front of him with the intent to swallow him whole.