Random Portals

What a dumb name, was Steven’s first thought. Also, why does the shard name change? Was it because of Gideon, or was it just normal? Pushing those thoughts aside, he told Fidah to stay back while he got a handle on his new shard, he then walked over to an opening away from his camp to try out his new ability. He could feel how to create a root cluster, but wasn’t sure how to control it exactly. But that’s what practice was for. First thing Steven did was focus on a spot he wanted to create the root cluster.

It was similar to creating a portal, except he didn’t need to focus on a second location. No sooner than he chose the spot he wanted the ability activated. Steven stumble back as a cluster of five thick black roots appeared on the ground. Steven imagined to most it would look like it just burst from the ground. He felt a huge drain on his mana, but paid that no mind at the moment.

The roots themselves looked more like tentacles than anything else. They were at least as thick as his thigh at the base, and at the tip they were barely the same size as two of his fingers together.

Simply willing a root to move, it did so without delay. It was nearly as simple as moving his arm, except he had to focus on moving it around. It was obvious the ability would take some getting use to. He couldn’t just stand there and focus on moving a root around while getting attacked.The roots were only about six feet long, but looked sturdy. He also had the feeling they could stretch a bit.

He had a single root tentacle move in every which way he could imagine, and the root moved without delay. A wide smile grew on Steven’s face. Though it faded when he tried to move more than one root at a time. He quickly realized it would take more getting used to then being in his spider form. Suddenly, an idea popped into his mind. He couldn’t activate a shard while in spider form, but if his root shard was already active, then.

He was preparing to turn into his spider form when he felt his mana start to rapidly drain away. He canceled the ability, but it was too late. Steven had not paid any attention to how long he kept the ability running. His eyes tunneled, and he slowly lost consciousness.

When he woke up Steven didn’t open his eyes. Instead, he just lay there with his eyes closed. He felt like a complete idiot. He was so excited about his new ability that he didn’t pay attention to how much time had passed or even the mana cost of his new ability. His head was pounding, and he was fixing to open up his stat page and place everything into Spirit. Now that he thought about it, he hadn’t looked at his stats since he absorbed the shard.

“I know you're awake. Come on, get up, we need to talk.” Silvia said.

Steven groaned, “please, not so loud. My head is killing me.”

“It’s your fault you should have waited for me. Which shard did you use?”

Refusing to open his eyes, he spoke. “Roots of the dark forest.”

“Thats a dumb name,” Silvia said. “Okay, what does it do?”

“Not right now. I need rest.” Steven said while realizing the dungeon floor was insanely soft. Slowly opening his eyes, the only light came from Silvia.

“Stop being an idiot and take a mana potion. You have several, do you not?”

“Oh, you’re a genius.” Steven said as he pulled out a mana potion from his inventory and chugged it. As his mana recovered, his pounding migraine quickly faded. “Oh, that’s much better! I keep forgetting I have those now.”

“Just open your stat page so I can look over your new shard ability.”

Steven did as she asked. He too was curious about what how much the shard boosted his stats. And she should be able to switch between them if it was opened.

{Stats*} {Equipment} {Shards} {Inventory}

Level- 31

Available Attribute ~9

Essence- 332

Essence required for next level 19,156

HP ~ 389

Stamina ~ 101

Mana ~ 717

Poise ~ 0 +35

Vitality ~ 19

Endurance ~ 16

Strength ~ 16

Dexterity ~ 23

Resistance ~ 17 +50

Spirit ~ 34

Talent-

Basic Stealth - 15% less likely to be noticed while in stealth.

15% noise reduction while in stealth.

20% more damage when attacking in stealth.

This was what Steven had been waiting for now. He could use his attribute points in the best places. It seemed his best move would be to place six of his stats into spirit so he could reach forty and get the boost from reaching the tens mark, one into vitality and hit twenty, that would leave two points left he had no idea what to do with. Hitting tens was the best thing to do. Deciding it was best to save the last two and wait for Silvia to finish looking over his stats, he just minimized it for now, knowing the wisp could still see it. He then slowly began placing his points. He knew better than to place them all at once again. He looked around. He couldn’t see far, as his dark vision potion had run out. But he would have to deal with it for a bit since he just drank a mana potion, and he didn’t like the sick feeling it gave him from drinking too many potions, not to mention it could cause some real problems down the road. Silvia was here and lit up his immediate surroundings, which was when he realized he was on his bed. Steven looked over towards Fidah, who was most likely the person who carried him to his bed. “Thanks, I would rather not lay on the dungeon floor.”

“Of course, Master.”

Steven didn’t like how Fidah called him master. Nev doing so was fine, but not Fidah. He just didn’t know what to do about it. He had already mentioned it to her. Ordering her to call him Steven just felt wrong somehow.

“Okay, that seems like a good ability,” Silvia eventually said.

“Thanks, Gid…” Steven froze as a sharp pain shot through his mind before leaving just as quickly. He knew better than to say Gideon’s name aloud. He wasn’t sure why, but the why didn’t exactly matter.

“My angel friend stopped by and did something to it. He also said I was the chosen of Chaos, whatever that means. I was going to ask…”

Steven stopped speaking as Jabriel appeared next to him. “My brother was here? When? And did you say you were the chosen of Chaos?”

Steven was surprised at Jabriel’s interest. The bound angel seemed to be evasive about everything.

“Yes, that’s what he said. Is it a big deal or something?”

Jabriel bowed to Steven. “Forgive my lack of corporation so far. I was not aware you were the chosen of Chaos.”

Steven looked between the bound angel and the wisp. “Will one of you tell me what this even means? And what he was doing to my shard?”

“It means we have a bright future, as long as you don’t get killed first.” Silvia said.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Odling, but I can not. If my brother did not tell you, I feel it would go against Chaos's wishes to tell you.”

“Well, I’m not under any restrictions,” Silvia said. “Although I don’t know a lot on the subject, I do know the Chosen of any God, small or great, gets certain perks. Like tampering with the shards, as you witnessed. As for what they do, I’m not completely sure. It doesn’t make it more powerful per se, but it does change it according to your soul and raises the rarity of the shard.”

“So you’re saying my soul wanted to become a giant spider, and that I wanted to control these inky black tentacle roots?”

“I’m unsure. Like I said, I know little about this sort of thing. There is one more thing the Chosen are meant to do.”

“And what is that?”

Silvia’s light flickered, “Well, it’s not something that happens often but sometimes the Gods use there chosen to fight other chosen to settle conflicts between Gods.”

“Oh great! Just what I wanted to become, the pawn of some god,” Steven said.

“Most Gods would punish their Chosen for such words. Though Chaos is a bit different, he prefers to not change the personality of his Chosen. If I’m not mistaken, you are the first Chosen in…” Jabriel stopped talking and grabbed at his head at the same times. The pale light from his bonds brightened and the bound Angel looked to be in pain.

After a moment, he spoke up. “Sorry, it seems I can not speak of such things,” Jabriel said, his bonds still glowing a bright white, “let me know if your are in need of my services chosen of Chaos.” Jabriel bowed before vanishing into a portal.

Steven was surprised at how respectful Jabriel was being now, but he didn’t have time to think about it before Silvia spoke up.

“Okay, now that is out of the way. Let’s get you practicing on your new ability. It seems like one that will take some skill to get the full use out of it. But first you should get your spirit to forty.”

The next several hours passed with little progress. Most of the time Steven spent trying to recover his mana. He could only practice his ability for a short time before Silvia told him to cancel it. The only thing that had changed was he could now move around two of the tentacles, although it took his complete concentration and he didn’t understand how he was supposed to be able to control all five, let alone two of the root clusters but Silvia promised him he would get there. He wanted to pull out an undead, but Silvia said he wasn’t ready for that yet and he needed more practice.

At some point Nev showed up and watched a bit but quickly left, saying she still had another mimic to eat and make drones with. Steven just told her good job, they could use all the help they could get.

The next floor was going to be difficult with all the demons. Not to mention right after the fight with the Elder demon, Sorin would try to finish them off before they had a chance to recover. Silvia said his undead knights were the biggest threat, as they were nearly impossible to kill. But as long as they were undead, it didn’t matter much to Steven.

He didn’t get long to rest before Silvia had him back at it. It felt like days before Silvia told him that was enough and it was time for a break. Silvia helped Fidah with absorbing her shard. At first she tried to protest, but Steven found another shard and it was part of their bet.

When Steven asked about the Elder Wisp, Silvia would change the subject, so he just gave up on asking for now.

Silvia told him it would take a while to create the ritual for Fidah and then for her to absorb the shard and that he should get some rest. Steven lay in the bed for a bit, but he couldn’t sleep. He had a few things he wanted to try now that Silvia wasn’t there telling him what to do. His new shard ability also drained mana from those it was in contact with, and he had several undead. If he could use them as a battery, then he could use the ability longer, meaning he could get some more practice in. Not only that if he could send things to inventory through his roots, then that could be quite useful. The last thing he wanted to test was if he could control the roots while in his spider form.

Hours passed while Steven tested out things with his new shared ability, and he wasn’t disappointed. It turned out he could indeed use the undead as a battery of sorts. That’s when he learned some undead had a lot more mana than others, the abominations had twice as much mana as the knights, another thing he learned was that when an undead ran out of mana they would turn to dust and he would gain essence from them, which had Steven jumping for joy. He no longer had to stab an undead repeatedly while sending them to inventory he could just hold them inside his roots and drain their mana till they ceased to exist.

However, he couldn’t pull enough mana from the undead fast enough to keep the ability active. He would have to send the stronger undead back to inventory till he had enough mana to use the ability again. His mana did slowly refill when leaching it from the undead. It just couldn’t keep up with the three hundred and eighty per minute. That, however, didn’t apply while in spider form. All his attributes were increased by three hundred and thirty-three percent. Giving him a much larger mana pool to play with. And it turned out. As long as he already had the ability active when he turned in to a spider, then he could still control the roots. In fact, he could control all the roots with his spider form, that included both clusters of roots. Steven was confused when he found out it didn’t cost any more mana to have both clusters active, but he wasn’t about to complain.

Steven was enjoying his new shard ability. It was quite versatile, especially since he could activate the ability on the other side of the cavern.

Even though it wasn’t a fireball or lightning bolt, he felt quite satisfied with his new ability. Sitting down on his bed, he took off his amulet and pulled out his water pipe. He deserved a break; he had been at it for a while now. After a few long drags, he suddenly had a fantastic idea and jumped up immediately to go test it out.

Silvia was slowing floating back towards Steven. She was exhausted. It wasn’t only from creating the ritual for the Elf but, from fighting with the Elder Wisp. She had every advantage inside Steven’s inventory, but was still only able to pull a single attribute point from the Elder Wisp. She had thought it was going to be easy, but things weren't so simple.

The Elder wisp was entirely too strong, and Silvia was worried that the Elder wisp’s master would pose a tremendous threat.

Although with Steven being the chosen of Chaos, maybe that could get them out of this mess. They really didn’t need a being that could have a bonded Elder Wisp out to get them. If they had time, Steven would become strong enough to deal with it. They also had that scheming arachnid to deal with. Silvia’s light fluttered as she tried to clear her mind. “One problem at a time.”

They needed to deal with Sorin and take his domain, then they could worry about other problems.

Silvia froze upon reaching the makeshift camp. At first, she was unsure what she was looking at. A huge black spider with nearly a dozen tentacles growing from its back was tearing into an abomination with its mandibles as it held another abomination in its tentacles. Her first thought was Steven had found the unformed core and used it to upgrade his spider shard. But on closer inspection, she realized he had found a way to use his root shard and his spider shard at the same time.

She had to say she was impressed. If she was honest, she expected him to be smoking, not working on his abilities. Silvia cringed slightly when she saw him rip out the black heart and eat it. He then threw the other abomination down with his roots with enough force to crack the dungeon floor.

Her light flickered as she realized the roots must be getting the attribute boost from his spider form. She nearly interrupted, wanting to ask how he was able to use both shards, but she waited. He needed all the essence he could get.

She had every one of his shards memorized and she knew for a fact he lost all other shard abilities along with his equipment slots while in that form, not to mention some of his human reasoning. Then she realized it. All he had to do was activate the roots before changing forms, she was amazed that he could still control them though. But that didn’t explain how he got them on his back.

Silvia didn’t have to wait long before Steven finished. Even in his spider form, he had limited mana.

Although she had to admit, he had a lot of mana for his level. Most didn’t start reaching a thousand mana till around level fifty and that was pure mage builds that prioritized mana above all else.

She watched as his spider body melted away, leaving nothing but Steven laying on the dungeon floor in the fetal position. He quickly got up and spotted her.

“Hey, how did Fidah’s shard absorption go?”

She quickly noticed he wasn’t wearing the amulet, and she almost said something about it, but he had figured out a new way to use his abilities. Maybe he wasn’t lying when he said that stuff helped him concentrate.

“Uh, Silvia, are you there?”

“Yes, sorry. The ritual went fine. She is currently getting the hang of her new ability. It seems you have figured out something new as well.”

“That’s great! I’ll go check on her in a few. And yeah, I’ve been testing all sorts of things. I’m really liking this root ability. Although I’m not nearly as good at manipulating them while in human form. I do think I’ve gained some insight from my spider form, though. I’ll check it out when my mana fills back up.”

“How did you get the roots on your back?” Silvia asked.

“Oh that. That was actually simple. I just had a root cluster form on both of my shoulders like this.”

The next moment, a cluster of roots formed onto Steven’s shoulders. Making him look like some sort of Eldritch horror from the void. Silvia was just about to say how that could be a great form to take when fighting, when Steven collapsed to the ground. After a quick glance at his health and mana bar, she realized he had just drained every drop of his mana. Silvia sighed internally and flew off back towards Fidah.

How was he the chosen of Chaos? It really made no sense.

Steven woke up with a pounding migraine once again. However, this time, he was lying on the cold, hard floor of the dungeon. Getting up, he pulled out his water pipe and took several long drags before chugging a mana potion and immediately regretted it. He had forgotten he used a dark vision potion not long ago. And if he remembered right, he was supposed to wait seven hours between potions. But it wasn’t terrible, only a strange ache in his stomach, though he could use that as an excuse to not go to the tenth floor yet.

Steven was doing his best to think about anything but the next floor. He knew he had only made it this far because of his inventory ability, and he supposed the oddly named Angelic death as it had saved his life several times. But his inventory ability wouldn’t work on demons. Steven took a few deep breaths to clear his mind, followed by several hits from the water pipe. He then quickly sent it back to his inventory. He really didn’t need to be smoking this much right now. What if the demons sent someone after him like the undead did? He needed to stay focused.

Steven went to his designated area to practice. When he arrived, he sent a mental nudged to his mana bar, and it instantly appeared. It didn’t have numbers, but he could tell when it would be getting low. He then summoned both root clusters on his shoulders. Steven’s goal was to learn to fight with them in human form.

Close quarters combat was not something he was any good at and he needed to have options. Summoning ten tentacle roots on his back would surely cause most to think twice before attacking him. If not, then they each had the same strength as him. Steven may not be overly strong, but ten of his arms would do some damage. Especially when he was finally out of this godforsaken dungeon. He also imagined them each holding a weapon.

He only had a couple minutes before he had to cancel the ability, so he got to practicing. He was able to move around five now after all the practice with Silvia, but this was the first time he had both clusters active aside from his spider form. At first, Steven just practiced moving the roots all at once. It took him several hours to do so. He took many smoke breaks in between, but he was making great processes. On his fifth smoke break, he was struck by an idea.

He used two roots from each cluster as legs to walk around, although it was slow and sluggish. At some point, he noticed he had an audience but was too deeply focused in walking like Dr. Octavius to pay them any mind. Once he canceled the ability, he went over to talk to his audience, which was his vassals and Sirus, along with a couple Naga.

Sirus was the first to speak up. “I just came to see when you thought you would be ready for the next floor. The clan is eager to get out of the dungeon. There has been an increase in missing Naga lately.” Sirus looked over at Nev, who pretended to not notice.

“I need to practice my new ability a bit more. The next floor is the last floor and I don’t want to rush in prematurely. I’ll see if I can’t deal with whatever is causing your people to go missing. We should be relatively safe in here.”

“I understand. Take all the time you need. It is better to be prepared than to rush in, after all. If you fail, we all die.” Sirus then bowed, “I will go inform the Elders. It will be a few more days.”

“Thats a lot of of pressure man, I mean you're the one that brought me into this dungeon in the first place, not that I’m blaming you.”

Sirus opened his mouth to say something, but closed it and bowed before leaving.

Steven rolled his eyes. Sirus was now treating him like he treated the Elders. He would have to have a talk with him.

“I see you are making great progress.” Nev said.

“I am. It’s just slow going. I’m much better at it in spider form. I think I should practice it some more. Maybe I can get some more incite.”

Nev’s eyes lit up. “I think that would be a fantastic idea. Let me join you. You can practice restraining me with your tentacles.”

“There actually roots, but yea sure, I think that could help.”

“Roots?” Nev asked.

“Yep, but I can see why you would think they are tentacles.”