Truth be told, Elody wasn’t entirely sure why she had decided to join Dave. Sure, she had given him some reasons that were entirely true now, but they weren’t from the start. There had been something different about that strange man the moment she had met him that had caught her insight eyes’ attention. Reality rippled around him in a way she had only seen a few times before. Her mentor was one of such people and she knew from experience what kind of changes came in his wake. And that alone called for further research.

  It helped that the Triox had already been sniffing around the archives. She had known her days were numbered there, which meant that Dave also presented another path to pursue. The fact that he had somehow become connected to Melhelm, Sanquar, and Rabyn seemed to only further reinforce her initial feelings on meeting the man. There was a greater hand in play here, and she was determined to learn just what it was.

  Had any of them even learned about Rabyn’s background? She considered whether she should check with Pryte about that or not. It seemed unlikely the gnome hadn’t dug that out. It wasn’t exactly a secret, even if not a commonly known story. Speaking of Pryte, he was another one that made this even more interesting. Would any other clerk have been so willing to buy Dave the time he had needed, especially one quite so experienced with the inner workings of the Spire?

  She wondered how surprised Mel had been when she offered her help. He certainly hadn’t been expecting it based on his reaction, but he gladly took it. Managing to file that much paperwork in such a short time had nearly overwhelmed her, but in the end, it had paid off. The judge had granted all of her petitions, even if not exactly the way they had initially intended. She was now officially a member of a virtually unknown faction in a universe that had just started on the path of integration. This was not a path she had expected her life to take, but the chance to learn from Sanquar directly was one of the many things that made this all worth it.

  All these thoughts flashed through Elody’s head as she waited in her own chamber for the floor to officially begin. She laughed to herself. She was Arena climbing, a thing she had long ago sworn never to do. So much knowledge was lost here, and the time wasted in the pursuit of the table scraps the bigger factions tossed to the fighters was a disgrace to everything she considered sacred. But then she wasn’t here for table scraps. She was here to secure the future of her friends and, in doing so, safeguard knowledge that had long seemed lost. She supposed she could handle the annoyance of the Arena, given what she was gaining. When had she started to consider them friends? That was something else she’d need to consider.

  The door in front of her slammed shut, and the passage behind her opened. She read the sign and stored the dragon egg while pulling out another book. She flicked through it and began to read. “As Elody read a gleaming silvery sword appeared in her right hand, while a spectral dog appeared on the ground in front of her, ready to scout the path for any dangers ahead.”

  Both of these things occurred at the moment she read them, causing her to smile at her own success. It was risky to try a double effect from her reading, but with no apparent immediate danger, she had decided to give it a try and was glad to see that the Arena wasn’t negatively influencing her abilities, at least as far as she could tell. That was another reason, one she was less likely to share with others, for why she had avoided Arena climbing. The way her class functioned could be influenced by outside forces differently than most, and she was sure there would be floors that would take great advantage of that.

  She followed the dog down the path in front of her, carefully examining every nook and cranny for signs of secrets, both dangerous and useful. He was a cute little dog, and his existence forced home another realization: she was no longer at the archives, and from what she had heard, Earth was full of dogs. She could adopt her own. Once she had a proper place to live, that was. She would never force a dog into the cramped conditions she currently suffered under. What other pet animals did the humans of Dave’s planet keep? She would need to look into that. There was a whole branch of her class that had gone virtually unexplored as she just didn’t have the time for any pets while she was overseeing the archives, but now, perhaps it was time for that to change.

  She smiled as she stepped into the new room, hearing the alert of her scout before she did, giving her time to duck under the swing of a large club soaring across the room. Instead of it crashing into her head as it had no doubt been intended for, it instead ricocheted off the wall with a loud crunching sound as both it and the wall looked worse for the blow. She spun around, driving her sword into the flesh under the arm that was holding the club, deep into the monster’s side. Some sort of cyclops, she thought, but it was oddly colored for any she had seen before.

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  The silence and lack of screaming for its life made her further doubt her initial observations, though perhaps, as Rabyn had thought, none of these were truly alive. That would make the most sense of any of the possibilities she could think of she concluded, jabbing her sword through its eye, ending the threat. After all, if the System was just able to create hyperrealistic constructs, that would save the difficulty in needing to breed these monsters. And considering how many people are climbing the Arena daily, it seemed improbable for it to be anything else.

  “Woof!” the spectral dog barked as it started down the exit from the chamber. Before Elody followed she first took the club and placed it in her System storage, and on second thought, leaned down and popped the remains of its eye out as well. She would check if these things remained the same once she left the floor. She was very curious if both of them would hold the expected properties of objects they mimicked or would revert to some base material that was being used. With that out of the way, she followed the dog down the next path.

  This time, instead of a monster fight, she found a giant pit blocking her path. No doubt somewhere below the fall were spikes ready to impale her and remove her from the floor. “Sorry little guy, going to have to change somethings up,” she said before dismissing both the dog and her sword before producing a green mana orb from her storage. She socked it into her core, removing a red one as she did so. Hopefully, she wouldn’t need the life orb during this run.

  She waited briefly for the newly socketed orb to attune to her core, and then felt the stored mana skills within it flare to life. The pain always surprised her. No matter how many times she had done it before, the experience of wings growing rapidly from her back shot waves of agony across her body. Despite that, she had yet to regret her choice in specializing a body-modification orb down a path of mutation. Most people would likely assume someone of her status would instead specialize in the mind, but she had plenty of intelligence already. What she didn’t have was a body capable of flight.

  Minutes later, and thanks to a set of wings covered in snowy white feathers that had protruded from two slits in the back of her armor, she was airborne, gliding across the pitfall. These were the moments when the pain was worth it. The freedom of soaring through free of the ground was one of her favorite pleasures if only she could risk always keeping the orb socketed, but healing tended to be far more in need than her love of flight. Perhaps it was time for her to start exploring ways to replicate Dave’s own experiment. Sure they didn’t have any access to that level of energy that had been needed, but she also didn’t need six sockets. She would settle for a single extra artificial one.

  Or maybe two. A knowledge orb would be an interesting addition to her build. She had considered it before and only passed it up due to the limitations it offered in the field. It was something to consider now, with her life having taken such a dramatic turn. She landed gracefully on the other side of the pit as these thoughts played out in her head. She really was in this for the long term, wasn’t she? Making plans for the future? A home? Pets? What would her younger self think of her now if she had heard these fantasies?

  With a disappointed sigh, she swapped back to her life orb, having spotted the gleam of light reflecting off a scale of some creature further down. “Pulling forth her book again, Elody read from it as her sword appeared in her hand, ready to slay whatever beasts lay in wait,” she said after retrieving the same book she had earlier. She would need to make a new class book soon, too many new options had opened up on her path as of late, and this one was lagging behind, but it would be adequate for now.

  She charged down the path ready to fight the monster, not because she wanted it dead, no, she would much prefer finding it a nice home where it could live its life in peace, but she wasn’t even sure the monster was truly alive to begin with, and more importantly, it stood in her path to the exit, so vanquish it she must. There was of course, also the thought of what interesting parts she might be able to retrieve from this creature’s corpse.

  Those who start on specializing in mutations from a basic body-modification orb often find themselves hunting down a more specialized version of the mana orb, focused only on such changes. Once you’ve grown beyond the demands the lesser mutations offered it is one of the only ways to continue on the path. Beware, though, as the path is not painless, nor is it remotely safe. A mutation mana orb demands much but offers more.

  Mutations, a Primer by Henjen Klank

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