I had never seen that before.
I mean — he looked like a mere commoner from the farms. In appearance, in posture, in the name he had given without a noble surname or even a relevant one, without title, without anything that communicated origin beyond anonymity. I had no problem with that — of course, it was something distasteful and bizarre but I knew how to disguise it well. What mattered was power, and power was what he had just demonstrated in two ways I was still processing simultaneously.
Summoning and healing.
The two rarest powers I knew. In the same Lord. A newcomer. From the farms.
Impossible.
But it wasn't.
I stayed still for a moment longer than I should have. It wasn't numbness — I didn't allow myself that, because that was the state of someone who had stopped thinking, and I never stopped. It was calculation. It was the time needed to align what I had seen with what I knew about how the Oasis worked, and accept that the only possible conclusion was also the most absurd. The heroes a Lord integrated defined almost everything — the collective personality, combat efficiency, and above all the kind of ability the Lord could access. Summoning and healing at the same time wasn't just rare. It was the kind of thing that appeared in theoretical texts written by scholars who had never actually encountered it. The kind of possibility that existed on paper because the Oasis's mathematics allowed it, but that in practice had never been verifiably recorded.
But it was standing in front of me.
With him at my side, the mission I had been actively trying to conquer — but that had seemed impossible for too long to keep waiting — might no longer be. I would use that farm commoner to the best of my ability.
I breathed deeply. Recomposed my face. And went to him.
"I'm sorry." — I said, returning with two potions in hand. — "We needed to be certain. I, Cindra Wolf, on behalf not only of this group but of my family, would like to give these additional potions as thanks for your presence — and apologize for our behavior and our suspicion."
I needed to win that commoner over. He couldn't be allowed to slip away. We were all low level — but he was already stronger than any level ten Lord I had known, with abilities that even the leader of my guild had never considered a real possibility. It wasn't just a question of rarity — a rare hero wouldn't give that. A common epic wouldn't either. To have summoning and healing at the same time, at the levels he had demonstrated, the integrated heroes needed to be epics of the highest category.
"Don't worry." — he said with the specific calm of someone who hadn't been offended and wasn't pretending he hadn't been. — "I'm not here to argue. As I said — it's my first time. I'm here to show my worth and earn items. That's all."
There was something disconcerting about that calm. It wasn't the calm of someone resigned or passive — it was the calm of someone who had assessed the situation and simply hadn't found reason for irritation. Rational. Almost clinical. The kind of posture I recognized because it was my own, and finding it in a commoner left me instinctively more alert.
"Of course…" — I paused. — "Wait. You said you don't know what your primordial power is."
"Ci, forget about his primordial power." — Desmond intervened without ceremony. — "As far as I'm concerned he can have the power to shoot water squirts from his fingers. I don't care."
I understood what Desmond was trying to say. Deep down, it didn't matter. But I still needed to say it — because winning that commoner over meant making him want to come back, and that started now. Not in the words I chose to seem generous, but in the actions that showed I was treating him as an equal, not as a tool.
"Of course. But it's our obligation to teach those entering for the first time."
"What do I need to do?"
"The primordial power is something you will feel the moment you set foot in the selected mission." — I said with the patience of an explanation I had given many times, to many people, with many different levels of comprehension. — "If it's something direct like my fire power, you'll know immediately. If it's something more complex, you'll have to discover it through trial and error. The good news is that I'd say 80% of humans feel it when they enter their first mission."
"So the power comes as a discovery." — he paused. — "But one reason to get going soon, right."
"Of course, sorry — I'll get the mission and be right back. Give me a moment."
I pulled my group aside — out of his earshot, but not out of his line of sight. It was deliberate. I wanted him to see that there was a conversation. But I didn't want him to think we were doing anything wrong. The difference was small, but it was real, and people like him — calculated, observant — noticed those differences.
✦
"Are you out of your mind?"
The question came from Sabina before I opened my mouth to explain. She had a low voice, but the tone wasn't exactly discreet for someone who had known her as long as I had.
"Friend, I understand he's strong." — Sabina spoke with the care of someone trying to be reasonable without being dismissed. — "But he's inexperienced and from the farms. I don't know if I'd have the courage."
It was a valid argument. Sabina wasn't a coward — far from it. She was, perhaps, the most technically competent person in our group, with reflexes that compensated for the absence of offensive primordial power. But she was also the most averse to poorly calculated risk, and I understood why. We had already suffered in missions due to variables we couldn't control.
"Ci…" — Desmond paused, and the tone he used was the tone he reserved for when he wanted me to know he was being serious. — "My love, I have to agree with Sabina. If he fails, we die. You understand that."
"But you saw that creature." — I said quietly, with the intensity of someone who had calculated and was presenting the result, not asking for an opinion. — "Even if he only sends the summoning, he wins. We would just need to hold on long enough. The prize is a thousand medium quality Nectar Stones — not counting the loot for breaking the winning streak, and above all the prize the guild will give to whoever manages to win the inter-race combat mission. We will definitely rise not just in level, but in reputation as well. And you know what that means."
Silence.
I knew them well enough to recognize the specific silence that preceded capitulation. It was different from the silence of disagreement — slower, heavier, loaded with the weight of a calculation being recalculated against the will of the one calculating.
Greed shone in my group's eyes — I knew that expression. It was the expression that appeared when the mathematics of opportunity finally surpassed the mathematics of risk. I had seen it before. I had exploited it before. And I knew exactly how to feed it.
"Do you think he wins before we can't hold on anymore?" Sabina finally asked, her guard already lowered.
"Of course. We're going to make it." — I said. — "And we're going to split a fortune using that guy as a springboard. This was the opportunity we were waiting for — we just didn't know it would come from a human, let alone one from the farms. Trust me."
A pause.
"Alright."
"Fine."
"I think we can hold on."
"Perfect." — I turned. — "Let's go destroy those sons of bitches."
✦
While waiting for the group to regroup, I looked for details that might have gone unnoticed in the excitement of the last few minutes.
Beyond the mission board, there was a small table protected by the same dome that protected newcomers' territories — and on it, five transparent jars. One for each group member.
I knew what they were.
The Oasis called that personal experience — a bluish liquid that filled the jar gradually after each mission, based on the quality of the mission and the challenger's performance. The harder the mission and the better the execution, the more liquid. When the jar reached the top, the Lord could drink it and receive Status points they could distribute as they saw fit. It was the reason Lords and former Lords kept coming back even when easy missions yielded little in direct loot — because all accumulated liquid, sooner or later, became evolution. An invisible economy that operated in parallel with conventional spoils, and that rewarded consistency as much as bravery.
Another thing I noticed was that that group wasn't random. The only randomness there was me — and as a newcomer, I wouldn't participate in choosing the mission. I watched the group advance to the board and pull out a scroll more yellowish than the others. Older, perhaps. More specific. There was something in the way Cindra handled it — with care that wasn't exactly reverence, but was more than indifference — that told me that scroll had been kept. Waited for. It wasn't a mission chosen in the moment; it was a mission chosen long ago, waiting for the right variable to make it viable.
I was the variable.
The group's jars in front of me were half full — equal among themselves, which indicated a group that had been doing missions together for a long time. Many low-risk missions. Consistency without aggression. Experienced enough to survive. Not enough to thrive.
Until now.
"Boy."
The touch on the shoulder came along with Cindra's voice. She had the habit of announcing her own presence with physical contact before speaking — probably a leadership reflex, a way of ensuring attention without needing to compete with the environment.
"Sorry — I was distracted."
I wasn't, but it was the simplest answer.
"Don't worry. The first time I was the same as you." — she said with the smile of someone who had been through that and had come out the other side. It was a genuine smile, but also calculated — the kind one learns when leading people long enough to understand that trust is built with expression, not just with competence. — "We've already chosen the mission. Are you ready?"
"Of course."
I was still nervous. But I felt significantly more prepared than when I had entered — before I had no magic potion to recover power after using both abilities, and now I had two with me. I had done the calculation: the Codex explained that each magic point meant an average of five to ten casts, if the ability was active. The problem was that the Codex worked with averages — and I was at the opposite extreme. Extremely powerful abilities consumed proportionally more, which left me with two casts before running out of magic entirely. Perhaps three, if I focused only on healing. The potions received from Cindra were therefore extremely welcome — they would give me additional margin for situations that Zaetar couldn't resolve alone.
It wasn't comfort. It was a controllable variable.
"Everyone, let's regroup and prepare."
I advanced toward the group — but not before taking from the ring of the noble Zaetar had killed my already damaged shield and the retractable bronze sword. The Blood Magic ritual could be necessary at any moment — and it was a disadvantage I had calculated before entering. I would need a few seconds standing still to execute it, and seconds standing still in combat was an open invitation. But with Zaetar available to absorb the enemy's attention, I would manage the ritual with sufficient margin not to be interrupted. As long as Zaetar had space. As long as I knew what was coming. Two variables that depended on each other. Chained risk.
Calculable.
✦
"Everyone, as you know, our mission will be an inter-race combat." — Cindra spoke with the briefing tone she had used many times before. There was rhythm to it — the cadence of someone who had rehearsed without meaning to, from repeating it so often. — "Our objective is to protect the temple while we destroy theirs. There will be three routes. Desmond and I will go through the south route. Sabina and Rondon through the north route."
She turned to me.
"Leonidas — you'll take the central route. Since you have summoning, you don't mind going alone, right?"
I still didn't know how the missions worked in practice — the Codex talked about the construction and its functions, but the internal dynamics were another matter. The Codex was a map; the field was terrain. They rarely coincided perfectly.
"Of course. But I'd like to better understand what I'll need to do."
"Bina — pass me a scroll and a quill."
Sabina quickly produced a small piece of scroll already scribbled on one side, a quill, and a vial of black ink. I was pleased that Cindra was willing to spend time explaining — I was a newcomer, and she didn't need to do that. But she needed me to be effective, and that required me to understand. Pragmatism and courtesy, coinciding.
"Right then." — she began drawing as she spoke, the steady stroke of someone who had explained that floor plan more than once. — "Inter-race combat is one of the many missions available in the Colosseum — this specific one is one that allows us to stay together against a group enemy. I don't know which race we'll face, and of course you should know that the number of races in the Oasis exceeds thousands."
Hundreds of thousands, actually. But I didn't interrupt. It wasn't the moment, and correcting numbers added nothing to the conversation.
"The location we'll be sent to will have three narrow paths we must advance through until we find the enemy. The path is direct — whoever defeats the enemy while advancing to reach the opposing temple wins. If you touch their temple, you win. If the enemy touches our temple—"
"Extermination."
Dead silence.
I went still for a second. I didn't remember that low-level missions involved extermination. In fact, extermination was extremely uncommon — it implied that even if only one person failed, the entire group died. It was an extremely cruel Colosseum modality because it depended entirely on the group's collective capability, not the individual's. The Codex I had read had most likely been outdated, or had simply omitted details that made it less appealing on paper. Perhaps the Colosseum was exactly what they said: a place of many treasures and much terror, in proportions that were neither fair nor kind.
Or perhaps the yellowish scroll was more specific than I had imagined. Missions with extermination tended to have proportional rewards — and Cindra knew what she had chosen.
"Don't worry." — Cindra said before I verbalized anything. She had read my expression, or had anticipated the reaction of any newcomer faced with that word. — "The group is divided with five on each side. But we have six, and I'll say more — honestly your summoning most likely counts for much more than just one or two of us."
It made numerical sense. And it was clear that Cindra had understood that Zaetar wasn't a common summoning — which didn't concern me. If a riskier mission came accompanied by a proportionally larger prize, I would accept it gladly. Calculated risk remained controllable risk.
But while I was processing the mission's structure, while Cindra's rough map took shape on the scroll and the paths gained depth in my mind, another strategy crossed my mind.
"But what if we choose to send three through one route while two hold another?"
"Good question." — she paused, and there was something in her tone that told me it wasn't the first time someone had arrived at that conclusion. — "The Oasis allows certain strategies. But the terrain punishes those who try them."
"What do you mean punishes?"
This time it was Desmond who answered. He crossed his arms with the naturalness of someone citing a rule learned in the most inconvenient way possible.
"If you try to game the rules, the terrain stretches, closes off, or crosses over. The truth is it's not worth it — unless you're certain that those on the edges will hold out, otherwise it's just madness."
Interesting. The Oasis didn't just create missions — it actively regulated them, responded to strategies, adjusted the environment in real time to maintain balance. It wasn't just a combat space. It was a living system, or something that functioned as though it were.
"I understand." — I processed. — "So whoever goes in the middle needs to be the strongest. Or the one with the greatest advantage."
"Exactly." — Sabina corrected with the precision of someone who had kept that distinction because it mattered. — "You have something quite rare. It's a golden opportunity for this type of mission."
It made sense. Despite seeming like a complex mission, the essence was simple: advance and destroy whatever was in my path.
"I think I understand now. Can we go?"
"Perfect."
As we gathered at the portal, I watched Cindra produce the yellowish rectangular scroll — the same kind that was posted on the mission board. When she tore the scroll in half, the movement was quick and deliberate, without hesitation. The kind of gesture that communicated she had done it before, that the tearing was ritual, that there was a small and conscious pleasure in destroying something that had already served its purpose.
The portal changed color.
From white to blue. Blue to purple. Purple to orange.
The orange pulsed once, twice, then stabilized. The heat emanating from it wasn't uncomfortable — it was the heat of something in motion, of a mechanism in operation.
"Let's go, everyone. And don't forget — timing is everything."
"Hurrah!"
"Hurrah!"
"Hurrah!"
I hadn't planned to shout along. But my chest filled before I decided, and the word came out on its own — not because I was moved by the same collective energy as the others, but because there was something in the moment, in the imminence of what was coming, that demanded expression.
"Hurrah."
We advanced.
✦
When I opened my eyes, I was in a temple of blue marble.
The first thing I registered was the light — there was no sun, but the environment was lit in a diffuse way, as though the stone were slightly phosphorescent. The second thing was the smell: wet stone and something metallic, almost mineral, the kind of air that exists in places that have never been exposed to natural wind. The third was the silence. Not the silence of an empty place — the silence of a place that was waiting.
Beside me, all four seemed to regain consciousness at the same time — the kind of simultaneous arrival that communicated the system had transported us as a unit, not as individuals. There was no disorientation on their faces, which told me it wasn't their first time. For me, there was a fraction of a second of strangeness — the muscle memory of my body searching for the position it had been in immediately before the transition and not finding it.
I looked around.
I was standing in what appeared to be a temple that bore an incredible resemblance to the Hero's Temple I had built — even the half-open door we had passed through seemed like the same one I was required to open when summoning a hero. The same architecture. The same marble of blue-grey tonality that absorbed light instead of reflecting it. The difference was in the size: what I had built was four times smaller. There was something unsettling about recognizing every detail and at the same time feeling that I didn't belong there.
The temple stood above an enormous stone plain with three paths cut into deep grooves — something between three and five meters in width and depth each, sinking into the rock like dry channels. On the other side, far enough to make details difficult to distinguish but close enough to understand the lines drawn, was another temple. Same material. Same height. Same position relative to the field — just on the opposite side.
The mirror of our objective.
I looked at the grooves. From the distance I was at, the depth seemed smaller than it was — I had learned, over time, that depth was the dimension vision most easily distorted. Those grooves would swallow anything that wasn't careful descending into them. Anything that didn't pay attention to where it stepped.
The silence of contemplation was interrupted by a thick, robotic voice — different from Zeus, but with the same note cadence, the same quality of something that hadn't been designed to sound human but was pretending to be. There was an intentional discrepancy in that timbre — a voice built to be heard, not to be comforting.
[ Welcome, challengers. Kill or be killed. ] [ Humans vs. Skavens ]
The message disappeared as abruptly as it had appeared.
"Skavens… What race is that?"
The question came from Rondon, but there was a question mark on everyone's face in the group.
"Who the hell knows. We just need to screw these Skavens before they screw us."
Everyone seemed confused.
I wasn't.
I went through the catalogue I had been mentally building over months of reading. Skaven. There was a specific entry — not long, because the original text was sparse in details, written with the indifference of someone documenting creatures considered minor. But I had read it carefully enough for the important information to survive.
"Skaven." — I said. — "Rank 993. Half-men, half-giant rats. Their strength lies in the venom they use on their weapons — they are physically weak, but cunning. They set traps like no other race. They will never fight face to face. Watch out for the venom."
The silence that followed was different from the previous one.
"You know this race, Leonidas?"
"I've never seen them. But I've read about them." — I paused. — "I have a good memory."
Cindra seemed shocked — it wasn't the first time my memory had caused that reaction, and it probably wouldn't be the last. There was something curious about how people responded to it: it wasn't immediate admiration, it was the interval before admiration, the moment when they tried to find an alternative explanation and failed. I let that interval exist. Correcting others' expectations, especially a noble's, was a waste of both our time.
It didn't matter. Knowing who the enemy was didn't eliminate the danger. It only changed the type of preparation needed. Traps. Venom. Absence of direct confrontation. That meant the corridor ahead of me wouldn't just be a corridor — it would be a space with memory, with intent, with modifications made by calculating minds that had had time to work while we were talking up here.
Every second we spent standing still was a second they had to prepare what I was going to have to cross.
"I'm heading down." — I said. — "Every second we waste here is a second they're setting up traps."
The group was still finalizing strategies when I began descending the temple steps. It wasn't rudeness — it was calculation. I would be going alone through the central route. I depended only on myself. And depended, therefore, on starting.
The stairway was longer than it appeared from above. Each step had an irregular height — not from carelessness, but by design, the kind of irregularity that forced attention to the ground and pulled the gaze away from the destination. As I descended, the stone plain disappeared — not because it vanished, but because the angles closed in, the rock walls grew on the sides, and the open field that had seemed wide was turning into a corridor.
"Almost ten meters deep. From above it looks smaller — but I think it's an illusion."
It was. The field was deliberately built so that depth would be underestimated by distance. A small piece of information, but relevant: it meant the environment had been designed to distort perception. That wasn't an accident. It was intent.
When I finally reached the ground, the plain had completely disappeared. The groove had transformed into a labyrinth with a single path forward — five meters wide, walls that didn't end in sight, and the kind of silence that isn't an absence of sound but the presence of something waiting to make sound. Claustrophobic and sinister to a worrying degree. There was moisture in that air that hadn't been in the temple above — not enough to drip, but enough to be felt on the skin, to remind the body that it was in a different place, governed by different rules.
I knew what Skavens did with silence and time.
I didn't stop.
I advanced.