Kaius hurried after his class guide, weaving through the tables that littered the Dusty Stables common room. His guide smiled at him, standing beside the door at the rear of the room — a door that Kaius knew for certain didn’t exist in real life.
"Nice to see you’re so eager," he said as Kaius skidded to a halt beside him.
"Who wouldn’t be? Almost no one makes it to the second tier."
"I suppose that’s true — in your society, at least. Regardless, I’ve always enjoyed people being excited for the moment. It is truly momentous, and the culmination of a great deal of effort. Let us be off."
Kaius followed his guide through the door and seamlessly found himself somewhere else entirely. It was another place he knew, but not one he had expected to be led to. He was back in the Depths — or at least a recreation of it — atop a carved stone plateau surrounded by a sea of intricately carved statues. The peak of the dwarven city that sat in the Great Warren biome, where he had slain his first Guardian, instigated the phase change of the integration, and, in a sense, seized his destiny by the throat.
It was almost identical, down to the shattered plinths and cracked flagstones from the ogre’s great mace — though, of the creature itself, he saw no sign. The cavern was the same, as was the gargantuan crystal sun that hung from above on chains with links thicker than he was.
Similarly, the plateau was surrounded by the same shimmering wall of energy that he remembered popping into existence the second they’d challenged the ogre in its domain.
There was one major difference: the statues that had once been lovingly rendered depictions of dwarven warriors; artisans; painters, and engineers had been replaced. In their place were equally masterful carvings of… something. Shadows. His eyes seemed to slide off each one, and he could never quite capture their details at the edges of his vision.
His potential choices, he assumed.
There must have been hundreds. He could see why his guide had always emphasised filtering the number down to something manageable.
Just like his first class selection, the air was heavy and charged — yet unlike then, he could recognise the feeling of gravitas. The weight. It was the familiar one: an all-encompassing Authority — and a tingling charge of something that almost felt like essence.
Kaius cocked a brow at his guide.
"What? I thought it was appropriate. Is this not a monument that you enshrine with pride in your mind?"
"Of course it is. I just thought it was a little unsubtle."
"Bah!" his guide flicked his hand like he was casting away something disgraceful. "Bullshit. What place does subtlety have in a moment such as this? Regardless, you said you were interested in looking at Heroic spellsword classes focused on glyph-binding, and all those that had some capacity for conceptual magic. That leaves us with… five to look at."
"Oh," Kaius replied. That was more than he expected.
His guide nodded. "It is not such a surprising thing. One benefit of having taken a class that is attached to an established order is that it generally makes it a little easier to receive options tied to its existence — specialisations and the like. A sort of natural progression. That said, two of what we will look at I expect to be more curios than things you will truly, deeply consider. They do relate to either spellswording or glyphbinding, in conjunction with conceptual magic, though. Do you want to look at them now or at the end?"
Kaius pondered for a moment. He supposed there was a reason he had requested to see all classes available for conceptual magic. He assumed it was a broad category, and in an Ascendant’s own words, it was rare for somebody in his tier to have seized it. Any inclination of how it could be used — and what it might influence — was valuable to him. Even if he didn’t intend to take such a class or use his own abilities in that way, it would at least broaden his horizons.
To that end, it seemed reasonable to him to look at them first — just in case what he learnt influenced his decision-making on what the system considered as real choices.
His guide shot him a grin, a weathered thing that showed off some teeth. "Follow me then."
He stalked off into the field of statues, and Kaius followed behind him.
As they trudged deeper into the field, Authority wrapped around him like a blanket of lightning and iron — energising and heavy all at the same time. He felt his heart pump as its metaphysical pressure caused his own Aspects to flare in response, stabilising him so that he could breathe easy.
The details of the potential classes he passed blurred entirely, like ink drops in water.
Yet eventually they slowed, stopping at a pair of statues standing next to each other. Their details were visible — almost hyper-clear, as if he could taste the impression they left in the magic around him.
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In the first, his bared throat and chest peeked out from behind heavy robes covered in glyphs. His eyes were bright and his smile wide, while his hand swept out as if he were addressing a beaming crowd that hung on his every word. The depiction commanded Kaius’s attention.
He could almost feel the way opinion and thought were influenced in the very same breath as reality itself.
Kaius winced, turning away from the statue. He already had a feeling that he wouldn’t like that class much at all.
His guide laughed. "Yeah, I thought you’d react like that. The next one’s a bit more interesting though."
Kaius focused on it. It was bare-chested, wearing only thin and threadbare pants, lacking even shoes. Utterly gearless apart from the masterful rendition of A Father’s Gift in the statue’s hand. His eyes were bright, and the very world seemed to warp around his sword. There was aggression there — a nearly fatalistic determination.
In the microfine grooves of his muscles and grip, Kaius could see a true mastery of the blade. Yet he could not see a glyph. Not even one.
"Not a spellsword?" he asked, frowning slightly in confusion.
"Oh no, it is. In the broader sense, it could even be considered a glyph-binding one, but… it is non-standard to the extreme, and I expect not exactly what you were hoping to get out of a spellsword class."
"Then let’s take a look at the two of them and see for yourself."
Kaius nodded and focused. His authority hammered at his mind, reverberating through his being as two system descriptions popped into his eye.
Despot of the Gilded Tongue:
Class - Tier II
Heroic
Relevant Feats:
Has grasped conceptual magic in the first tier; has used conceptual magic to alter a being’s perception; has used conceptual magic to alter a being’s thoughts and behaviour; has encouraged others to undergo lethal risks; has earned more than four honours in the first tier; has allowed another to take lethal blows that they could have survived on a regular basis; has capped all General Skills before class selection; has capped at least three Class Skills before class selection; has at least 1000 Willpower; has at least 800 Intelligence; has glyphbinding capabilities; has used glyphbinding to manipulate the mind of another being on multiple occasions; has encouraged others to fight battles beyond their abilities, and led them to victory on regular occasion.
Tyranny is a brutal thing. Invariably, lives are shifted like game pieces to the furtherment of the aims of the powerful. In some, this is achieved by strength of arm and the threat of violence — those of the Gilded Tongue see such methods as blunt and inefficient. While not incapable in their own right, you will rarely see one personally act. Why would they, when they can substantiate their will with but a gesture?
A Despot of the Gilded Tongue is amongst the most dangerous of opponents. While they possess all manner of potent and often lethal magics, they rarely need to act so directly. Their glyphs are potent — hiding them in plain sight, inciting fury in their opponents, and delving deep into psionic powers. Well moulded, their allies fight with ceaseless desperation, while enemies face a maddened death that creeps out of the depths of their own minds. Communion with deeper truths brings the very world in line with their vision, shifting everything from terrain to luck in their favour.
All Mind, Influence, and Reality affinity skills are improved by 40%
All Glyph Binding and Oratory type skills are improved by 120%
Stats:
+1 Constitution, +2 Vitality, +6 Intelligence, +8 Willpower, +5 Free Stats per level.
Skill Resonance:
Resonance Amplification - Strong
Tonal Weaving - Strong
Uncanny Dodge - Strong
Brotherhood of Ichor and Animus - Strong
…
Clearmind Blade-ascetic:
Class - Tier II
Heroic
Relevant Feats:
Has a growth-type sword; has awakened a growth type sword to a rarity of at least Heroic; Has enhanced a growth-type sword with a material attuned to the concept of Severance; has slain at least 2000 entities of a higher level with blade-type abilities; has slain a crucible guardian; has slain a Guardian that is at least 70 levels higher than their own; has grasped conceptual magic; has primarily used conceptual magic for violence; has slain a Guardian with conceptual magic; has gained at least 7 combat honours in the first tier; has capped all general skills before class selection; has capped two blade-type Class Skills before class selection; has at least 1000 Constitution and Willpower; has fought with a true conviction of death; has experienced death at least thrice and continued to push on.
‘Fear the one who has mastered a single cut’ is what my master used to say. I never really understood it. Blademasters are a copper a piece, and I’d never met one that seemed dangerous enough to warrant that sort of epithet. Then I met the Ascetic. They walked, and you paid attention. You had to: the world itself did. It was like they had mantled the very idea of the blade. Their sword was sheathed the whole time, and they killed twelve of my best men with nothing but a fucking wooden spoon.
The Clearmind Blade-ascetic is a warrior of simplicity. To them, there is only the Self and the Sword — and nothing else. Their bound blades are enhanced by a mastery of technique, and their cutting edge is steeped in the concept of Severance, Separation, Distance, and the Motion that Cleaves. Swordarts flow like water, usable even empty handed due to the depth of their connection. Deep in attunement, they see mysteries others would crumble before — enduring only through the superiority of their conditioned minds and bodies.
All Martial affinity skills are improved by 120%
All Sword and Armament Enhancement type skills are improved by 180%
Stats:
+5 Constitution, +2 Vitality, +3 strength, +3 Dexterity, +2 Intelligence, +7 Willpower per level.
Skill Resonance:
Truesight - Strong
Uncanny Dodge - Strong
Tempered by Dissonance - Strong
Liturgical Bladeform: Primus Ordo - Strong
Lesser Regeneration - Moderate
Explorer’s Toolkit - Moderate
Resonance Amplification - Moderate
Regardless, our first classes! I know some of y'all are vocal about this kinda thing being fluff, but A: alternatives were my favourite bit of class selection as a reader, and B: guys I wrote two 300k dungeon delves in three books, you should know what you're in for by now.
Anyhoo, the blade-ascetic came about from thinking of what kaius might have been like if he leaned all in on his introspection and moments of contemplation, and had only been obsessed with the blade. Sort of an analogue to a sword cultivator.
The gilded tongue was just like, what if kaius was a massive manipulative asshole.
Tomorrow, we get all three of the real options to weigh up -- hence why I cut the chapter here. Each of these 5 class descriptions took me hours to write, I basically only got 3 chapters written the week I did them.
Prewarning I'll do more prominently in the future, that burnt backlog means the first 4-6 weeks of book 4 will be 5ch/week. After that i'm moving to 6/week semi-permanently, since I nearly burnt out juggling b1 final edits, writing this section of b3, and taking a 5 day trip all in the same 3 week span.
Want to steam ahead? Patreon has it all!
https://discord.gg/NjsqGKHHaY
