Bloodlines Online

The mage gave a broad smile and motioned to the different rooms they passed where people of all ages and different races studied like some kind of school.

"The registry is so mages across the country can be safely known, it also protects the various mage towers, magical academies and even training grounds like this from criminal mages."

"How does it do that?"

"Well you see, when a mage is registered they put their mana signature into the registry as well as their identification."

They eventually arrived at a room that looked more like a front desk of some building.

"If a mage is convicted of a criminal act then they cannot abuse the vast knowledge contained within these places of study, now go ahead and give her your hand."

The registration was actually a lot like when he registered his wares at the auction house.

After the mage he was with gave the receptionist woman some papers that he had been writing on the whole of the test, she made him place his hand on a small crystal ball.

To receive his identification he would need to pay a fee but it was only ten coppers.

Now that he knew what the large tower was he decided that it would always be there later but he still had to catch up to his peers.

Before leaving though he asked the mage one more question.

"Sir the dungeon that we have outside of the city, can you tell me more about it?"

"Dungeon? Oh! Those pocket dimensions the gods made for you."

"Pocket dimensions?" Ezekiel was shocked but then after some thought he realized that technically they would qualify as pocket dimensions.

"Yes you otherworlders can enter but we cannot as the gods made them for your growth and yours alone."

"Oh. Well then was Diana Raylock not a real person?"

When he said this the mage halted in his tracks.

"How did you learn this name?"

He was caught off guard by this response and before he could answer, the mage dragged him into a separate room.

"Tell me how you learned of her name boy."

~

Outside of the city War God aka Layla was looking through the vast list of friend requests she had been getting for the last few days she had been here.

She would have to wait for her brother to get back to help her find out which players would be the best options for running the dungeon again.

She had been an avid fan of mmorpgs for almost her whole life and even played the more retro games that her father had played on as a teenager.

She knew that what she needed most for this dungeon was a healer.

She had met a few players who were healers but because of their reliance of mana potions it was completely useless to train them.

What she really wanted was the way the devil player Belial had managed to apparently become so powerful that he had no mana issues unlike the rest of the playerbase.

Many players she spoke to would have the rare instance if gaining a skill through what they considered luck but she felt like there was more to it.

In her real life experiences she was a member of the track team so she had naturally moved in the game the way she would move in her real body.

After a certain amount of time she had gained two skills that she couldn\'t help but feel came from her natural skills as a runner.

These skills were marathon runner and sprinter.

One would reduce her stamina consumption when she was running and the other let her consume more stamina to increase her base sprinting speed.

Maybe there existed a way to gain skills that reduced mana consumption from spells or increased the mana supply?

She would have to find Belial to ask.

~

Cornered in the room like a rat, Ezekiel was wondering where he went so wrong.

"Why do you know her name, tell me now before I go to the guards."

"She\'s the boss of the dungeon ok?! Calm down!"

He looked confused and motioned for Ezekiel to sit.

"Explain."

So Ezekiel did.

He described how the entrance of the dungeon was a cave that descended deep under the ground in a sloping path full of skeletons that had to be killed until it reached a door with some kind of crest.

The mage looked away deep in thought before pulling out a book.

He opened to a page and showed him, on ot was the same crest as the mausoleum door before the players would fight Diana.

"This crest?"

"Yeah exactly that one, after beating all the skeletons and reaching the mausoleum door you find a stone coffin."

He looked the mage back in the eye not understanding why any of this was a problem.

"So you\'re saying the otherworlders have to fight through the undead to reach Diana\'s resting place?"

He seemed to be growing worried.

"Yeah? I mean how else would you get to the necromancer? Once you touch the coffin the demilich Diana Raylock is awakened and she is the last enemy we have to fight before we can leave the dungeon."

When he spoke the words demilich the mage went silent, even after be paused it was so quiet a skittering bug would have been audible.

"Diana became a demilich?...."

The mage put his head down in his hands and collapsed against a wall.

"Who was Diana? Im confused."

It toom him a moment to answer but when he did it really did not help Ezekiel.

"Diana was a very promising young life mage, a high elf who was going to join the church of light apparently even if everyone told her it was a terrible idea."

He put his hands back down and looked up at the ceiling of the room.

"Turns out she was planning an assassination... she tried to entice the pope with her beauty and skills as a healer but he somehow knew something that no one else did."

The mage looked Ezekiel in the eye and scowled like he was disgusted as he spoke these next words.

"He figured out that the freak was a shadow mage, so he killed her."