Fifteen years of work undone in a matter of weeks, by one little living toy.

  No, she finally decided; it wasn’t good enough. She wouldn’t let it end here. Sooner or later she would be summoned once more, sooner or later the lot would fall to the daemon who had once been Anise Layd’i. And then she would work tirelessly to get free, work until she was in a spot again to return to Cylvania, or whatever its descendants or conquerors called it. And then she would have her vengeance, on the golem, or the brat, or whoever else was around.

  Because now? Now it was personal. Even for something that prided itself on being an eternal force of entropy, there were limits.

  The summons came sooner than Arusheluxem expected, and if she’d had lips in this form she would’ve smiled. So soon? Oh, this was perfect! All she had to do was deal with a mortal summoner, likely some desperate, sex-starved cultist, and then she could be off, finding her way back to Cylvania to strike them when they were weakened. All it would take was one slip, one flaw in the language of the pact, one of the traps that the progenitor daemons had seeded throughout mortal knowledge, and then she’d be able to turn everything around-

  -Arusheluxem blinked, as she faded into the mortal body she’d been provided.

  She wasn’t in front of some scruffy, half-mad man in a black sheet. Nor was she in some dusty basement, or even a proper cave.

  She was on a simple, flat metal table, covered with a mirrored glass case. Grilles in the side permitted the sound of the chant to pass through. There were multiple voices intoning this one, and her eyes widened. To do that, every Cultist there had to be level twenty, at least.

  “Hello?” She asked, as she tested the pact in her mind. The usual backdoors, the treacherous areas of thought that were usually left open, were shut.

  The chant finished, was replaced by silence.

  “Hello? Please,” she said, looking around. “I only want to serve you. Masters.” Except no, no she didn’t, because service wasn’t part of the pact. That had been omitted.

  Why?

  The table shuddered under her, and the glass slid up, replaced by metal. Some mechanism churned below her. And she realized that she wasn’t in a case, she was in a tube. She snapped her hands up, tried to stop the table from sliding, and nearly lost a finger. She yanked back her bloody hands before anything significant could got chopped off, and howled in frustration.

  Level one again! I could have punched my way out of here easily if I still had…

  Everything spun, and she hung on to the table below her for dear life. Then with a WHUMP, she landed, tilted somehow. The ceiling above her was now the ceiling in front of her, and she was standing on more metal.

  Then the tube opened.

  “Hello?”

  No response. After a moment, the darkness in front of her lit up with glowstones. She followed the trail, down a short hall that ended in a grilled metal door. Next to it sat a chair, and a small desk, with a book, an inkwell, and a quill pen.

  Hissing behind her, and Arusheluxem turned, to see the doors of the tube she’d arrived through seal up, steam puffing out around them.

  “Can you hear me?” a bored voice said from outside the door. It was muffled, blurred. She couldn’t tell the species, or even the gender of the speaker.

  “Yes,” she replied.

  “State the time of your last summoning.”

  “I couldn’t say-it was fifteen years, six months, and three days ago.” She slapped her hand to her mouth.

  She hadn’t meant to say that. She’d had a number of prevarications lined up for precisely that question. Hastily she muttered the commands that let her review the pact… and found clauses woven in there, with such skill that she hadn’t noticed them at first. She couldn’t NOT answer. She couldn’t lie, or even omit information.

  A creeping dread started to build in her gut. Who WERE these people?

  “State the general location of your last summoning,” continued her mysterious interrogator.

  “Inside the altered dungeon located within the country of Cylvania.”

  “Cylvania?” Now the voice sounded interested. “Get back into the lift for archiving.”

  “What is this?” She asked. “Who are you?”

  “That is none of your concern.”

  “Please. I’m…” She searched her mind for memories…

  …and found it blank.

  She’d been given a brain that had no memories, beyond basic speech in whatever language she was speaking now, a rough knowledge of the date in about five different calendars, and a preference for orange as a favorite color. It felt… raw, around the edges. Someone had done this to her sacrificed host, for no other reason than to prevent her from knowing about her summoners.

  The creeping dread in Arusheluxem’s gut grew into shaking fear. She looked down at her nude, unremarkable form, and realized that this would NOT be a standard summoning.

  “Send me back. Please,” she whispered.

  “No. Not until you’ve given us a thorough accounting of everything you’ve experienced over… hm, what was the duration of your summoning?”

  “Fifteen years, six months, and three days.”

  Silence for a bit. A muffled sound, voices talking.

  “Well. No logbook for you, then.” said the voice. “You’re going directly to the inquisitors. Congratulations, you’re now Intelligence Asset number three-hundred and sixty-two. We’ve been wanting information about that area for quite a long time. And you’re going to tell us everything you know.”

  “And then you’ll send me back?”

  “Oh three-sixty-two,” the voice sounded very amused, “how long have you been doing this? We make no promises.”

  “Just… tell me one thing.” Arusheluxem begged, in a tone she hadn’t used in a very long time. “Tell me that you mean them harm. That you’ll hurt them. Conquer them, destroy them, I don’t care,” she knew she was being irrational, giving away too much, but she couldn’t stop herself. She was level one again, and her willpower was a frail shadow of what it had been. “Just make them suffer.”

  “I don’t owe you that answer. And I don’t need to give it to you. But I’ll tell you this much,” her unseen interrogator chuckled. “I don’t see any way that you telling us all about them will help them.”

  The doors to the tube hissed open again, and head held high, trying to salvage some dignity, Arusheluxem walked back into the metal-lined chamber. The doors sealed, and it rumbled, carrying her down, into darkness….

  Behind the Scenes Interlude I

  Hello there! As requested by a few fans, I’ve decided to show you Celia’s character sheet.

  Bear in mind, she’s had a bit of a sheltered upbringing. If she weren’t being raised in isolation by Caradon, she’d have a few more classes, higher levels, way better charisma, and a few other stats would be more developed. That said, she’s had a good education, and is pretty smart for an 11 year old.

  Her skills in her classes are a little uneven. (except for Scout, which she just learned so everything’s underlevelled there,) and this is mostly due to her not getting into enough situations where the combat skills and more boring stuff would be useful. A lot of this will change as she has to deal with harder life experiences, and starts discovering her own style of adventuring, survival, and life in general.

  Currently she has no magic items.

  Name: Cecelia Ragandor-Gearhart Age: 11

  Jobs: Animator 6 Human 4 Scout 2

  Attributes: Strength: 48 Constitution: 52 (62) Hit Points: 150(160) Armor: 13 Intelligence: 82 Wisdom: 54 Sanity: 125 Mental Fortitude: 12 Dexterity: 78 Agility: 50(55) Stamina: 153(158) Endurance: 10 Charisma: 43(46) Willpower: 66 Moxie: 134(137) Cool: 12(15) Perception: 58 Luck: 56 Fortune: 139 Fate: 6

  Generic Skills Brawling - Level 4 Climb - Level 3 Clubs and Maces - Level 1 Dagger - Level 15 Dodge - Level 6 Stealth - Level 8 Swim - Level 12 Thrown Weapons - Level 6

  Human Skills Human Flexibility - Level N/A Man’s Drive to Achieve - Level N/A

  Animator Skills Animus - Level 23 Animus Blade - Level 11 Arm Creation - Level 1 Command Animus - Level 4 Creator’s Guardians - Level 9 Dollseye - Level 5 Eye for Detail - Level 6 Mend - Level 16

  Scout Skills Camouflage - Level 1 Firestarter - Level 1 Keen Eye - Level 1 Sturdy Back - Level 1 Wind’s Whisper - Level 1

  Equipment A Sensible Dress - (+3 CHA, +3 Armor, +3 Cool) A Sturdy Coat - (+5 CON, +5 Armor) Sturdy Moccasins - (+5 AGL, +5 CON) Finely-Made Daggers (Level 5 Dagger)

  Quests None at present

  Celia has a few jobs that we haven’t seen up to this point in the story. Namely, the Human and Animator Jobs.

  ABOUT HUMANS

  Human skills are pretty simple; Human flexibility means they suffer no experience penalty when general experience is split among their jobs. It’s a fairly small things at the lower levels, when it doesn’t cost too much to level up but over the long-run it means that humans can afford to split their focus as they please. Man’s Drive to achieve also means that they gain a little extra experience from quests and exploration.

  The downside is that their stats are average all around, and they only have a lifespan of about a hundred years at most. But since most don’t die of old age, it’s not really a big limiter.

  Humans cap out at 7 adventuring jobs and 3 crafting jobs. A pretty good number for their age limit.

  REGARDING ANIMATORS

  Animators are one of the four Tier 1 Creator classes. Like the others, it focuses on calling up minions and living vicariously through them. It also allows a premium amount of flexibility, as its minions can come from any sort of any inanimate objects. However, it has its limitations.

  Animus, the basic spark of life skill, works best when an object has limbs to move around with. Also, the strength and resource cost of the animation scales according to size. Animating a doll is easy and costs few sanity points. Animating a statue is hard and costs more sanity. Animating a mountain probably isn’t doable until your sanity pool reaches the thousands… and even then the mountain won’t be going anywhere. It might be able to bend over slowly and fall on someone, which is pretty impressive when you think about it, but it can’t follow you around. Objects animated through “Animus” do nothing but defend themself until their creator invites them into their party. Once in, they can take simple directions from the caster’s thoughts. Animus is temporary, however, lasting about ten minutes per animator level.

  Animus Blade not only animates an edged weapon, but makes it behave as if an invisible wielder is moving it around and attacking with it. Like most other animi it has to be invited into the party and then orbits the animator, defending them as needed or following simple directions. Its attack skill is tied to the caster’s dexterity. It lasts about as long as animus.

  Arm Creation allows the animator to equip his animi with nonmagical weapons. They wield those with skill proportionate to their animator’s dexterity. Celia rarely bothers with this one because her stuffed toys are weak and easily knocked out. It’s easier to save the daggers to animate as blades after her first wave of toys gets KO’d and enemies start coming toward her. At least, that’s the tactic she read in a book once, and it sounds good.

  Command Animus lets a caster verbally order one of their animated objects to do something without having to invite the object into their party, first. It also works on other animator’s uninvited objects, so it can be a rude surprise for careless enemy animators. Command animus costs sanity for every order so it’s a little draining to depend on it in the long-run.

  Creator’s Guardians is a passive buff, that increases the strength and competency of their animated objects while said objects are within their party. It scales with the animator’s will and level.

  Dollseye allows the animator to see from the perspective of one of their animated objects. It’s a useful one for scouting, particularly in conjunction with command animus.

  Eye for Detail allows animators to attempt to check status on animated objects and golems and other constructs. It can fail, depending on the level, resistance, and willpower of the target. It also works on inanimate objects, telling the animator how suitable they’d be for animation, and what some of their strengths and weaknesses would be.

  Mend simply repairs a single animated object or golem or other construct for a small amount of healing, scaling by the animator’s intelligence and level.

  Later skills deal with repairing, enhancing, and destroying animated objects. It’s got a good amount of buffs in it, some weird utility tricks, and ways of getting the most out of your “pets”

  Animators get +3 to Dex, Int, and Will with every level up.

  The big weakness of animators is that unlike most of the other creator classes, they don’t get any sanity pool multipliers. An animator has to either keep a lot of restoratives on hand, or find the balance between points invested into animated objects and points kept back to heal and buff his minions. Or minion, as some animators tend to travel with one large animated object, keeping their focus on buffing and backpacking it with repair spells.

  The other weakness is that unlike the other creator classes, animators rely on having objects around that are suitable to animate and useful enough to keep them alive. This is why crafting jobs end up being crucial to a lot of animators… often, it’s easier to build minions of the type you want to work with rather than rely on finding them lying around.

  Animator opens up a fair number of Tier 2 classes, with the right mixes and achievements.

  Known combinations on record in Cylvania University’s Hall of Knowledge include the following;

  The Pygmalion, which combines Model with Animator to allow the Pygmalion to animate mannequin duplicates of themselves and work as a party of one. The Steam Knight, which combines the Tinker craft job with Knight and Animitor, to create a piloted suit of clockwork armor. The Golemist, which combines Enchanter with Animator to create potent, insanely tough, magic resistant minions. And finally, the CLASSIFIED BY ORDER OF THE KING which combines Animator with Cultist to YOU HAVE COMMITTED TREASON REPORT FOR SUMMARY EXECUTION

  Behind the Scenes Interlude II

  Let’s talk about classes and jobs.

  Recently, a fan asked me for a list of jobs. While I can’t give a complete one, I can certainly give a list of the most basic jobs, explain what each one does, and why classes are a thing.

  There are three types of known jobs; Racial, Adventuring, and Crafting. Racial jobs are the hardest to get… you have to be born into that species, or be permanently transformed into a species of that type to gain a racial job. Or you have to have something weird going on with you, like being made as a sentient golem who looks like a bear. In which case you get both the golem job and the job of the race you look like. Ain’t you lucky! Well no, not really, but to see proof of that read the rest of this story.

  Racial jobs also determine how many adventuring jobs you can have. A human has a cap of seven adventuring jobs. Dragons, depending on their type, have a cap of one or two. Toy Golems, those poor bastards, are an unknown quanitity as yet.

  Crafting jobs are passed down from people who know the job, or can be learned by working on basic level projects in that field of expertise. Sew something together, you can be a tailor. Hammer a piece of metal in a forge, you can be a smith. Like adventuring jobs, your race caps your crafting jobs. Humans can have 3, dwarves can have 4, etc, and so on.

  Adventuring jobs are where the meat of things are, and where things get a little complicated.

  So, classes are broad categories. They describe, in the broadest possible terms, what the jobs that fall under them DO. There are a grand total of seven classes, and each one has four Tier 1 jobs.

  Tiers, I should probably explain tiers. I’ll get to that later. For now understand that the jobs listed below are Tier 1 jobs.

  THE CLASSES AND THEIR TIER 1 JOBS

  The classes, and their four associated jobs, are as follows;

  CREATORS

  Creators cover most of the “pet” jobs. They are generally mage types that use magical minions to adventure. Each of them has a hefty dose of utility spells and effects, but at the cost of being fairly squishy. 1. Animators are the first Creator job. They animate objects, whether prepared or on the fly. Such objects are called animi, and, well, they’re pretty simple. 2. Conjurors are the second Creator job. They summon outsiders to do their bidding, and create objects from nothing. Anvils are a pretty fun mid-level conjure, usually summoned a few hundred feet up. 3. Elementalists can summon elementals of their favored element, and manipulate and create their element. Elementals are pretty powerful, but hard to control. 4. Necromancers turn corpses and souls into undead, and get some stuff for mucking around with the dead. They’re not illegal, but usually shunned by polite society.

  DIVA

  Divas are all about getting and using people’s attention. Think of them as social-focused types with a weird trick or three, and you’re generally right. 1. Bards use music to do all sorts of things, and are jacks-of-all trades. They can literally learn skills from other jobs. Just a few, but it can come in handy. 2. Models are all about looking awesome, and building their body to the way they want it to be. 3. Rulers like being in charge, because they can hand out awesome buffs for their subjects, and decrees, which get them to do things for the ruler. 4. Sensates… hm, cross an artist with an illusionist and you’re not wrong. They’re about creating art, and messing with the senses.

  PRIEST

  Priests are holy folk, who are empowered by the gods and other forces for the benefit of themselves and/or their communities. 1. Clerics are messengers of a specific god, and get a good amount of healing and blessings to help convert people to the faith. 2. Cultists worship or command dark powers, gaining the ability to decieve others, curse people, and cut bargains with foul creatures. 3. Oracles are recipients of wild divine power, holy men and women who bear primal magic and future sight. 4. Shamans are the appointed guardians of nature, using their affinity for plants, beasts, and wild forces to keep things in balance.