“You have to hit the crystal. You’re close, and I know you’ve mentioned that you were good at basketball,” Reina said, with a smirk.

  Rook frowned at her. “Wow, thanks for the pep talk,” he said between breaths. “How come I didn’t think of that? I was going to just hit around the crystal like a game of horseshoes.”

  “How does a horse’s shoes have to do with this puzzle?”

  He sighed. “You’re a horse’s shoe.”

  Rook grit his teeth and tightened his magical grip on another projectile. Waiting for the arcane crystal to light, he sent the projectile into the base of the arcane crystal, shattering the pulsing stone with a crash. A portion of the wall collapsed with a grind of rock against rock. Grimacing, Rook plugged his ears as agonizing ripples of sound tore through the cavern. How did I get here? That’s right, we came for the sake of becoming a Sentinel.

  Damn, come on. Within the chamber, a hauntingly beautiful noise resonated like a woman singing. A gentle shake at his shoulder broke him free from the trance.

  “Did you hear that?” Rook asked her.

  Reina shook her head and urged him forward. He slicked the sweaty stray strands of black hair back behind his ears. Doing his best to exude bravery, he walked into the chamber. It was dark, by every meaning of the word. Visibility was nearly zero; he couldn’t even see his hand in front of his face…

  Reina and Mara sidled next to him, pressing him deeper into the gloom. He couldn’t help but think of his unit, well old unit motto. Fuck it all. He rubbed at his temples. Well, it wasn’t the official motto, just what his squad said when they had to do something they really didn’t want to do. Pulling the rune lantern from his inventory, the room lit with a blue hue.

  He jerked his head towards a noise within the chamber. Weird, I thought I heard something. Taking another step, Rook stumbled as the stone tile below him grinded, depressing just like the door puzzle.

  “Uh Oh!” Rook stepped off the tile, letting it reset with a click.

  The entrance doors behind him began shifting closed. Rook whirled around. “You guys better get ready!”

  They squeezed in next to him in a huddled mass. A hiss deep within the walls rang out all around him. A noise like gears turning flooded the chamber, until an eventual click echoed as the room was engulfed in suffocating darkness once again.

  “What happened to my lantern?” Rook asked, slapping the side of the magic device. He resisted the urge to toss the damned thing away. So he placed it back into the inventory.

  “Is everyone unharmed?” Reina’s voice carried in the dark.

  “Yeah, I’m good,” Rook answered.

  “I’m unharmed for now.” Mara snorted.

  Rook jerked his head up to a new sound filling the chamber, a sound of ripping paper. Torches above lit all at once, revealing the totality, bathing the place in bright orange light. He walked around, waiting for something to jump out at them.

  “I think we’re in the tomb,” Reina said, as they entered the antechamber.

  This chamber’s majority was taken up by formations of natural rock that stabbed out of the stone tiles, carved into serving as bookshelves. Each of the neat four-by-four rows was covered in thick, brown, neglected spiderwebs, drooping and swaying over the many scrolls and moldy books lining the shelves. Rook swiped at a cobweb, inhaled, and puffed a breath at the dust on a tome. There may be a skill book here. The text working its way up the spine read Noarmire Yerothon. All of the texts around were written in a language that was hard to read.

  Reina moved around the room inspecting the shelves, opening books, and unrolling scrolls like a little kid in a candy store. “This is unbelievable! Look at this place, there’s history that’s not been uncovered for hundreds of years. Can ya’ll believe this?!” She nearly piled into a small work desk, then abruptly stopped. “Wow.”

  She unrolled another scroll and blew the dust off. Seeing nothing of consequence, she continued searching the shelves. “I am categorizing the area and cataloging what I can identify for the historical society. She rounded the corner of a far bookshelf, and her footsteps came to a skidding halt.

  “You good back there?” Rook asked, catching up.

  She stood at a shelf where a single scroll was placed in a pristine glass case. “What in the Maker’s wisdom is this?”

  The piece was untouched by time, seemingly new in the otherwise derelict library. She touched the case and threw her hand back. The glass case was nearly spotless, as if meticulously cleaned.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  “This is old, very old,” Mara said, coming up to the case. “I’d wager my horns that it’s existed since the dungeon’s beginning.

  The enhancer reached towards the case. “It shocked me!” Reina hissed.

  “Shocked?” Al sidled next to her. “That’s elvish; it can only be opened through one of my people.” He opened and fiddled with the case.

  With a click, the glass top popped open, and the smell of fresh paper caught Rook’s attention. “What kind of scroll is that?” He asked.

  “I don’t know yet,” Reina said, with a strong tone of disappointment.

  Rook shrugged, what harm could come from trying. He grabbed the scroll and felt the red wax seal. Reina told him that there’s no point and placed her hands on her hips. At his touch, the scroll rolled open, and he gave her a shit eating grin.

  “What does it say?” Al asked, taking a step towards him.

  Rook shrugged, then gazed at the contents. There were no words on the scroll; twisted symbols marked the totality, written in an ink that shimmered in the firelight like obsidian. Rook felt the foreign presence pushing the thoughts and feelings he had aside to show him a memory. He was seeing out of someone else’s eyes. What the hell is this?

  Quest updated: Find the Sacred Cipher Objective added

  Read the vision scroll and survive the exposure.

  Reward

  200 experience

  +1 core attribute

  Past life proficiency x1

  Skill bonus

  * * *

  His eyes peeled open into the rays of intense sunlight. He was high off the ground and looking down a nose that was a darker skin tone than his. I’m in a different body! Men sat on armored horses that were covered in scales. More lizards than mares. They wore hard faces beneath scarred armor, each looking for guidance. I must be the leader. Each of his companions carried a brutal-looking weapon that he knew they were proficient with. They entered the precipice of what looked to be a marsh. The sun glinted off shimmering swamp water and bogs as far as the eye could see. Rook knew on an instinctive level that these bogs had serpents and other nasty critters that he didn’t want to fight. Rook was unfamiliar with the sporadic steel trees that lined the canals of black water, but this man gave a sigh as if he knew what was to come.

  “Dismount!” His voice barked as he swung a leg over his mount and landed in the soft earth.

  “By my troth, Demarcus. You become nefarious each time we enter the deadlands.”

  “I hate Thrakkamar, Jinx. The whole place reeks, and if I see another Orc tribe, I’m going to lose my mind. No offense, Nalkmor,” the man turned towards a companion with tusked teeth jutting from two swollen green lips.

  “None taken. Not a fan of full bloods myself.”

  Rook’s gaze carried to the man on his right. A gnome in boiled purple leather armor, marked with enchantments that buff his mana pool and regeneration. He could tell that Demarcus, or whoever he was, felt this gnome was his closest friend.

  “If we don’t finish this quickly, Centrulia’s good as dead,” his avatar, Demarcus, said. “I just want to get back home. If that’s even possible.” Demarcus said the words with a double meaning. Only a handful of this crowd knew he was a Conjured.

  He thought of the three kids he left sitting on a stoop in the neighborhood he was working to get out of before he became a conjured. Rook felt guilty looking into the fleeting images from this man’s memories. These kids, whoever they were, are very important to this man. Rook’s heart twisted with sadness, and he had to choke down the tears. The man, Demarcus, tilted down his visor, changing the vision to a mere slit.

  “Let’s kill a wannabe god.”

  * * *

  The vision abruptly ended, and Rook’s thoughts and feelings rushed back into focus. “Take it!” He cried out as the symbols tore at his very eyes and gave him an intense migraine. “I. Can’t. Look. Away.”

  Reina surged forward and snatched the scroll away, rolling it and placing it into her pack. “Are you alright? What did you see?” She paused, as if to let Rook compose himself, then quickly continued. “A vision scroll is amongst the rarest of documents in existence.”

  Rook rubbed at his temples; his mind was searing from having two sets of thoughts. He crouched down, staring at the floor as a wave of sadness washed over him. All my friends died that day, didn’t they? Al’s sandled feet came into Rook’s vision. He held his open palm towards Rook. What is he doing?

  Objective Complete: Read the vision scroll

  Reward 200 experience gained

  Past life proficiency.

  +1 Core attribute

  Skill added: Battlefield analysis.

  457 of 950 experience until level 17

  Another Army termed skill…

  He added the point to his dexterity, bringing it up to five.

  Samuel Rook Merrell

  Level 16

  Rank (Bronze)

  Strength level 17

  Dexterity level 5

  Arcane Wisdom level 9 + 5 (Sentinel Ring)

  Charisma level 10

  Constitution level 3 +5 (Sentinel Ring)

  “Let the Dawn renew you, refresh and energize your aching body and mind. Mend the injuries that you’ve sustained through your journey.”

  The sadness, the agony in his head, and the minor aches he felt all gave way to relief. He shot up, feeling like he had slept a full night’s sleep.

  “Thanks, Al.”

  The elf nodded in response. “You’ve just become more valuable, human. These scrolls are even rarer to the Dawndrasil, and our seers are the only ones who can read them.

  Reina stormed up to Al. “You’re a healer!?”

  Al nodded. “I know a few basics of mending magic. The Dawn allows me to heal the minor wounds and ailments of others up until a certain point of injury. I cannot reattach a limb or heal eyesight.” He felt his eyes with a ginger touch. “Those affected by curse magic are also out of my capabilities.”

  Rook let out a low whistle. “I thought we wouldn’t see a healer for a long time.” He started forward. “As much as I enjoy reading, I feel like that scroll almost made me go insane.”

  He opened his skills menu, interested in the past life proficiency.

  Battlefield analysis

  When in battle, draw upon past life experience to defeat foes in battle.

  Past life proficiencies

  Demarcus- Class Lightning Knight (Shock Touch)

  Talk about OP. If I can use the skills that Demarcus learned, then things are going to get lethal real quick. Rook’s mind raced with the different possibilities of what Demarcus could do. He didn’t see Lightning Knight in the class list in the beginning selection. Shock touch had to be good, all in all, Rook was excited.

  “So.” Reina let her words hang in the air. “Did you get anything from the scroll?”

  Rook glanced around at the interested party. “I got a skill called past life proficiency.” He shared the skill with the party, then patiently waited for Reina and Mara to read the description.

  “Shock touch,” Mara said the skill out loud. “Sounds useful.”

  “I’ll say,” Reina agreed. “For now, let’s find a way out of here.”

  They searched around the library, Al giving Rook the silent treatment. No doubt he was jealous that Rook didn’t share the secret with him. He wasn’t one of the party yet, so he didn’t get the perks. Rook noticed at the corner of the room, the frame of a small door illuminated, bringing a hue of white.