Ding! Level Up

Over and over turned out to be three times.

As the quiet silence of the mountain settled again, you blinked as popups flashed, trying to overlay over top of each other until finally they seemed to settle into a priority.

You... you leveled up. Three times!

Never in your entire existence, since the world of the Shards of Arkus was born, had you leveled up. You knew it was possible. You had seen the occasional monster that had achieved it. Every time you had gotten close in the past, you were inevitably killed in some horrible, sadly mundane way by an adventurer.

Your world was changed forever. The top popup was your Character Sheet.

Level 8 Bugbear Exile
Monster, Bugbear, Explicit
Experience to level up – 800
Attributes
| Strength 20 > 24 | Dexterity 25 > 31 | Endurance 20 > 23 |
| Charisma 32 > 42 | Manipulation 32 > 42 | Appearance 32 > 36 |
| Perception 30 > 34 | Intelligence 27 > 32 | Wits 28 > 32 |
Skills
Brawling 15 > 19
Athleticism 15 > 18
Presence 25 > 31
Lore 25 > 26
Occult 30 > 37
Stealth 13 > 20
Dodge 13 > 18
Crafting (Stoneworking) 5
Crafting (Carpentry) 5
Feats
Arcane Blood, Enhanced – Can access magic as a Tier II Sorcerer. Spellcasting statistic is Occult.
* Choose a Sorcerer Specialization
Bugbear Dominance –
Monstrous Appearance –
Sorcerer Tier I – May cast three spells per day from the following options:
* Fixate
* Purify Food and Drink
* Thunderclap
* Choose two more Tier I spells
Sorcerer Tier II - May cast two spells per day from the following options:
* Choose two more Tier II spells
Wisdom of the Ages –
You have 15 attribute points and 30 skill points available

Holy shit. There was... it was a lot. Goats be damned, this was the biggest day of your life. Your lives? Your existence.

You took a breath, trying to figure out where to start. Your attributes had shot up, and you had more points to spend. You also got to choose new spells. That was big. Where to start? The obvious places were either with your attribute points or with the Sorcerer Specialty. As you focused on the words 'Choose a Sorcerer Specialization' another popup took priority over the Character Sheet.

Choose a Sorcerer Specialization
* Abjuration
* Conjuration
* Divination
* Enchantment
* Evocation
* Illusion
* Necromancy
*Transmutation
* War

There were no options for detailed explanations, and when you focused on one of the specialties a 'Are you sure?' popup tried to confirm your choice. Some of the words you recognized, but others like 'evocation' made no damn sense at all to you. You quickly decided ignore the ones you didn't understand rather than fret over them. Necromancy sounded like it was asking for adventurers to come looking for you, and Illusion sounded dull. War didn't sound very useful considering you didn't have an army to make war with.

Your list was certainly narrow. Enchantment caught your eye though. If you could learn how to enchant magic items, you could protect yourself and replenish anything adventurers could steal off of you. Maybe you could even trade magic items to other monsters to make alliances!

Are you sure?

"Yes," you said quietly. You were still lying flat on the ground. The last thing you needed was some some manticore or drakeling to spot you while you were managing your popups.

The Specialization popup dropped, and your Character Sheet changed, giving you an explanation of what you had unlocked.

* Sorcerer Specialization: Enchantment - You are a master at manipulating minds, able to entrance and beguile other creatures with ease. Whenever you cast an Enchantment spell, you may double the number of targets that spell can effect as well as the duration of the spell.

That was not what you had been hoping for. This sounded like... this was exactly what you didn't want. It was a buff to fucking Fixate!

"Fucking... fucking fuckfuckfuck," you groaned. You had said yes to the 'Are you sure?.' You had made the choice and now you couldn't change it.

You took a moment to hate yourself and beat your fist on the mountain stone beneath you, then finally settled down. There were still popup menus waiting for your attention. The next obvious choice, now that you had committed to becoming an Enchanter, which apparently isn't enchanting magic items!, was to pick spells.

The Tier I list that came up was relatively short and included a dozen or so different spells to choose from, the ones already on your list greyed out. After a couple minutes of browsing, you settled on a spell called 'Ray of Frost' that seemed like it would be useful when fighting a single opponent, and then had to sigh as you picked the spell Friends. It was highlighted, denoting it as an Enchantment spell. It sounded better than Fixate at least.

* Friends - Any two sentient creatures which are not actively hostile towards you are **** to your suggestions. Certain suggestions or hostile behaviors may break the spell on the targets. You may concentrate on this spell for up to 2 minutes. When the spell ends, the creatures know they were influenced by magic and become hostile towards you.
* Ray of Frost - Project a frigid beam at a creature, dealing half occult damage on a successful hit. It's speed is reduced by half for 10 seconds.

The Tier I list disappeared, and you brought up the Tier II list. Three levels at once was somehow feeling more overwhelming as you kept needing to make choices. The Tier II list was actually longer, and it took a while for you to get a grasp on all of the possibilities. In the end you chose based on trying to split between things to fight with and things that could benefit your specialty.

* Charm Person - You attempt to Charm two creatures that can see and hear you. If the creatures fail to resist, they view you as a very friendly acquaintance and act accordingly. Hostile activity towards a Charmed creature can break the spell. The spell lasts for 2 hours.

* Mage Armor - You raise the defenses of one target creature that is not wearing armor for 8 hours.

* Sleep - You induce magical sleep in all creatures within Occult feet. You effect creatures based on their Endurance starting closest to you, up to a maximum of Occult x 10 Endurance. Creatures that fall asleep can be woken up with appropriate jostling. They remain asleep for 2 minutes.

There were other spells on the list, like 'Burning Hands' and 'Witch Bolt' that sounded a lot more useful in combat, but if you were going to just accept and commit to being an Enchanter then you wanted to be getting in as little fair fights as possible. Really, that had been true of your life up until now anyways. Huh, maybe Enchanter was a smart choice after all.

That last portion of leveling up, now that you had made all of your choices, was back on the Character Sheet with you Attribute and Skill points. You quickly split the Attribute points between Endurance, Charisma and Manipulation, hoping to play on your new specialty more, and then had to pause on the Skill Points. Occult was the obvious choice since many of your spells were still based on it, but the list was varied and some skills you didn't even have points in yet. You ended up deciding on a fairly heavy split, but put a little more specialization into Occult and Presence. Thirty points at once went a long way, but splitting them like that also felt like you were wasting their potential.

Before you could rethink your choice, you decided to go with your gut and locked in the upgrades.

Few, finally done. You closed out the Character Sheet to find yet another popup behind it, this one entitled.

Fame: 25
Recent Activity:
Defeated a hero +25 (expanded)
You defeated a level 22 hero! +22
One-shot a hero higher level than you! +5
You didn't have a name! -1
You didn't have a lair! -1

Fame Options:
Evolve Form: 500 fame; Prerequisite: Level 10
Arcane Liegelord 0/10 (Class Ability): 10 fame
Goblinoid Liegelord 0/10 (Race Ability): 10 fame
????
????

The option list went on, scrolling down, but it was all question marks. You really had no clue what 'Evolve Form' meant, but it was well out of reach. More importantly, with 25 fame, you actually had options to spend on. However, when you tried to select 'Arcane Liegelord' it didn't highlight or let you select it. Neither did 'Goblinoid Liegelord.' Eventually you spotted the small red text at the bottom of the menu. 'Option Unavailable. Prerequisite: Monster Lair.'

Closing out the Fame menu for now, you sighed when you finally had a clear view of the cliff edge. It was closing in on midday, and the sun was high in the sky. And you were level 8! You resisted the urge to crow out a celebratory shout. What were you going to do with this new power?

After a quick think, you decided on a fairly easy set of steps. First, the goat. No matter what level you were, you still needed to eat. Next, you had to make the trip down to the bottom of the cliff. If you were fast, you could make it there before those two Adventurers were able to walk all the way out to Imporne and for the first time in a long time you could loot an Adventurer. Then, back to the your cave to try and figure out how to make it a 'monster lair' instead of just home.

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