Tower of Souls

”You ok?”

Eron rolled his eyes at the question, his exposed skin red and blistered in places and his clothes singed and blackened- normal clothes just didn’t hold up well in a fight, even the odd conjured clothes that came with him when he was created. ”You could just check the combat log; We should probably get used to using it.”

For a second, Cam wondered why he even asked his snarky clone; Not only were they the same person with the same thoughts, but -apparently- their sarcasm was coming out more and more as the two of them got used to the changes in their lives- his life, even if he did kind of treat his clone like another person sometimes. ”Yeah, we probably should. Just... instinct, I guess, to check on a person after they get hurt.”

Shaking his head at the odd dissonance of treating his clone like a person- even if it made sense to him, and felt right-, Cam’s eyes shifted to open the Combat Log that all Classers got while climbing the Tower, his eyes quickly scanning up to the section that mattered.

Kobold Miner took 2 damage.

That, Cam could guess, was the point where his clone slammed the miner into the wall; While using the environment against the monsters was, in his opinion, grossly underutilized by many Classers, it was a portion of their training that he had paid plenty of attention to- even if it was only a small part of one day’s lecture.

Clone(Eron) stabbed Kobold Miner for 6 damage(critical).

Rusty Iron Dagger of Bleeding inflicted Bleed condition on Kobold Miner.

Kobold Miner took 1 damage(Physical) from Bleed effect.

Cam didn’t know what to think. To them, the fight had been a life and death struggle, filled with tension and danger... But, somehow, the Combat Log took that intense struggle and parsed it down to a few bare lines of words. Eron’s first attack, stabbing the Kobold in the neck for a critical, and the dagger’s special effect causing additional damage over time... All summed up so simply that it seemed almost unreal.

”I know what you’re thinking, and it’s kinda strange to me, too...” Eron cut into his wandering thoughts. ”But you need to hurry up, man! Those souls are going to fade soon, and you still need to grab an Ability- that fire one looked like it would be good, but we still don’t know what the other Shaman had.”

Cam shook his head, knowing his clone was right. There was plenty of time to study the log later; For now, he needed to hurry up and figure out which Ability he wanted... Which is about when his eyes landed on the lines in the log that actually mattered for that decision.

Kobold Shaman’s ’Fan the Flames’ burned Clone(Eron) for 10 damage(Fire).

Fan the Flames inflicted Burn condition on Clone(Eron).

Clone(Eron) took 2 damage(Fire) from Burn effect.

Kobold Shaman’s ’Fan the Flames’ burned Kobold Miner for 10 damage(Fire).

Cam’s breath nearly caught in his throat. ’Fan the Flames’ was a known Ability, and a pretty solid one for it’s low level. Simply put, it was an Ability that allowed its caster to throw out fire in a fan shape, covering a small area- usually enough to hit two or three people, depending on how tightly they were clustered. While it had a very short range of only around five feet, the fact that it could hit multiple targets made up for some of the risk from a Mage getting that close... And, as an added bonus, the Ability had a small chance to inflict the burn condition, causing damage over time for a few seconds.

To say nothing of the fact that just the first cast took away ten of Eron’s HP- without factoring in the extra burn, which did a total of ten more damage. 20 damage from one Ability... and Cam only had a 100 HP total. Eron had 75... Suddenly, he was glad that they had surprised the Kobolds, and that he had targeted the fire slinger first.

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Of course, the fact that the Ability could also harm allies- as clearly shown by the charred miner- was a bit of a downside, but one that could be dealt with if they were careful... Not that he had many allies to worry about hitting, as it was just him and his clone- and, while hitting Eron with it wouldn’t be quite as bad, he didn’t want his clone to suffer needlessly because of him being stupid... to say nothing of the fact that he would retain the memories of being burned when he Subsumed his clone.

”It was ’Fan the Flames’.”

Eron let out a low whistle at that; While there were a number of fire type Abilities, even at lower level, that was a pretty good one- other than it’s short range. ”I would say grab it, but we still don’t know what the other Shaman had. I’m betting it wasn’t offensive, or he would have used it on me when the first one attacked.”

”Yeah, probably.” Cam nodded in agreement as he closed the log- he had already seen what he wanted, and there was time to check it out more after he grabbed an Ability.

Shifting over to the corpse of the second Shaman, he focused on the soul for a second and waited for the prompt.

Harvest Ability(Stone Skin)?

”It had ’Stone Skin’. Surprised it didn’t use it.”

”Not like I gave it much of a chance once I tackled the fucker.” Eron snarked as he levered himself up from the floor, already mostly recovered from the beating he had taken. ”Still, that’s pretty good defensive Ability at this level.”

Cam nodded in agreement. ’Stone Skin’ was an Ability that many guardians, or ’tanks’- though he had no idea where that particular name came from-, and a few support mages, had access to at low levels. It was a fairly basic Ability, granting the person you cast it on increased armor for a short time, and thus reducing the amount of physical damage they took...

”If all we were dealing with was the miners, I would take it in a heartbeat...” Cam said as he slowly glanced between the two souls. ”But, as we just saw, some of the Shamans have offensive magic; ’Stone Skin’ doesn’t help with that...”

”They do say that ’offense is the best defense’; The enemy can’t kill you if you kill them first... Plus, having a defensive Ability works best when you have a team behind you; Healers to keep you alive, and damage dealers to actually kill whatever is hurting you...”

”And it’s just us in here.” Cam finished for his clone, already shifting over to the other soul. ”Though, if we’re lucky we’ll find some healing and defensive Abilities going forward. Be our own tank, healer, and damage.”

”A one man team? Yeah, that would be pretty awesome.” His clone chuckled, nodding appreciatively at the thought. ”Now grab the damn Ability so we can keep moving!”

”You know you’re kind of an asshole, right?”

”...You just called yourself an asshole.”

”I mean... it’s true, I guess; Feels kind of good to be an asshole after being treated like shit for so long...”

”Just as long as we don’t turn into those assholes; A little banter and messing around is fine, but I don’t want to hurt innocent people...”

”We’re the same person.” It was Cam’s turn to roll his eyes. ”So of course I feel the same.”

”Asshole.” Eron snorted in amusement. ”Just do the thing already.”

Suppressing a smile at the banter- even if it was just bantering with himself-, Cam stared deeply at the soul, waiting for the prompt once more...

Harvest Ability(Fan the Flames)?

As the ghostly sickle once more formed in his hand, snagging the piece of the fragmented soul- he still had no idea why the souls of these Tower monsters looked like jigsaw puzzles- Cam couldn’t help but grin.

He had a couple weapon drops, and now an offensive Ability; If he could get some armor, he would be in good shape for pushing forward... Assuming the Tower was kind enough to drop him some armor.

And he couldn’t forget the other big bonus: he had leveled up!