Aeres Academy - Chapter 10 preview

You might be wondering, why I chose to risk life and limb in a never-ending quest for, well, an unknown prize. Sure, there was that urge, an unconscious desire to head for the core. Everyone on this planet had it, that urge to soak in the core. Not everyone chose to listen.

Truth was, there were a few reasons why I was willing to risk it all. The first was hard to understand if you had never had a chronic illness or injury. The closest for most people would be a bad toothache, one that had yet to be dealt with. It hurt and hurt and hurt, such that you could think of nothing else. Even if it faded away, most of the time, it still was there in the background. 

That was what the mental block on my memories were like. A constant, never-ending ache in my soul. Perhaps for someone else, someone who knew their mind and body and soul less, who had not spent decades of their time before dying meditating upon themselves and their own being, the burr and rough path job would have been easy to miss. If I had never noticed the way they had twisted me up, I might never have cared.

Once I did, I could not stop prodding at it. Could not stop trying to make my way through. And with all things Tioneth, the solution lay in the core. 

The second reason was much simpler. I had my regular, steady life. Had a stable career, raised a large and happy family, did some good. Did a lot of good, if truth could be told and I was not looking to be modest about it. Had, as they said, a good life. Did all the right things, played it safe. Fought, but only as an amateur even if I had the gift to be more because you didn’t take those risks, right? Not when you had a family to feed, parents to care for when you’re older.

It was not safe, it was not smart. So I squashed the dreams, led a good, solid, successful life.

One without excitement.

I spiced it up, as best as I could. Martial arts, extreme sports, even worked as a prison guard on my off-time and later, a bouncer. When I got too old to be active in that way, I started teaching more seriously. 

Failed, mostly.

Wandering through the fourth floor, thinking, feeling, I edged up on it. My transfer, the ~pain~, the moment when I ~agony~ such that everything was gone. No sight, no sound, no taste, just blistering agony. Until I pulled away.

The cavern wall I leaned against was cold, hard and rough against my skin. I touched my eyes, my lips, my ears, expecting blood. Found naught. It was always that way. The agony emerging from the soul rather than the physical. 

All so it hurt more.

“Get your head in the game, Lin.” I swore softly at myself, hoped I hadn’t lost too much time. Knew it mattered little, because it was time for me to push on. To get down to the fourth level – the last one that anyone with sense went to.

Fourth floor aspirants were the worse kind and made up the third group. We made up the ambitious, the gifted, the lucky. Also, like those on the first floor, we were also desperate. For one reason or another, even with the advantages that we had, we had chosen not to join another more prestigious academy. Chosen to avoid the guild farm schools, to try our hands at the only academy who offered a degree of freedom – from debt, from guild expectations, from company deals. 

Those on the fourth floor came from a variety of paths, some were alumni of the academy, others well trained rich scions who broke away. Even the few who just woke up with a skill that exceeded any common sense.

Luck of the draw, really, what kind of skill – or skills – you received. One of the major problems with this world, though at the same time, there was a balance. Most skills, the narrower they were in scope, the deeper they could become. Problem was, you had to push, hard as you could to deepen your skill, to manipulate the core of yours skills concept.

Conserve – what? 

Leech – who? When?

Copy – exactly what kind?

Light – in what range?

There were a dozen variations, dozens of reasons why skills – even the ones that seemed good – could fail a user. Most of it came down to user error, as will drove change and change depeened skill. In the end, like with any other life, you could only play the hand that you were dealt.

For me, down there in the dark, it was a chance to try another life, a way to fulfil myself like I’d never done before. When I could honor the warrior in me. 

And yes, that was cheesy. No less true.

Pushing away down the walls, I moved carefully along the entrance cavern. I spotted the bodies to the side, the dead that were already rotting piles of meat and bones. A smell that had me wrinkling my nose a little, especially with the sheer number of insects and creepy crawlies consuming their flesh. 

The knockers who made up the fourth floor were smarter and stronger than the previous couple of floor residents, but taking them on had a few advantages for me. To start with, they were humanoid - and while I had studied and practiced and modified what I knew to work to utilize against non-humanoid bodies, my base and comfort level would always be humanoids.

Secondly, they - obviously - had bigger and better shards. If I was really lucky, I might even find a creature with an actual core down here, though that was extremely uncommon. It was possible though, which was the reason the academy denoted their tuition in full cores. It was an unspoken rule that those who returned with full cores received better treatment.

Lastly, and rather importantly, just like everyone else who chose to come to this floor, I was not going for just 'passing'. If I wanted that, I could have stayed on the third floor with the hopefuls. No, I was down here to excel, to acquire enough shards and cores to fund the rest of the semester. After all, it would take time to get down here again.

Today was the one and only chance I would have to make up a significant shortfall in income I would have over the next year, no matter how many guided trips there might be. 

If I did particularly well, there were the prizes for being in the top three.

Not that I expected to get that, but still…

Well, I would worry about that when it comes to pass.

Of course, the fourth floor was also when additional difficulties arose. Traps - crude, simplistic and easy to spot if one paid attention - began to appear. I studied the documents provided to any aspirants as thoroughly as possible, but it was one thing to see a crude drawing of a pitfall trap with pikes at the bottom and another to spot them in real life. Especially in the shadowy, twilight world of the dungeon.

It's why I was careful where I stepped, careful to use the chalk I brought to make my markings along the wall as I made my turns. While I had a map memorized, the fourth floor was also when the dungeon creatures - knockers in this case - started adjusting the terrain.

Like the rockfall that blocked my preferred route. There was an opening at the top, just about big enough for a knocker - whose about five feet tall and thin - to crawl through. Maybe, if I squeezed, I could have made my way through.

Problem was, what lay on the other end?

Decisions, decisions, decisions.