Chapter 14: The Akashic Order

Chapter 14: The Akashic Order

The first thing Jack did was make sure he wasn’t losing Health. Satisfied there wasn’t anything of immediate concern, Jack let himself catch up on the notifications as his Stamina and Mana slowly refilled.

*Level up!: Level 3*

+2 unallocated Stat. points

+2 Dex.

+1 Perc.

*Skill gained: Sword Proficiency (Beginner)*

A thousand steps stand between a novice and a master. Welcome to step one.

-Increased control and skill when using a sword

*Skill gained: Imbued Strike (Beginner)*

Through meticulous practice or pure luck, you have started to learn to control the energy within you. At the expense of Stamina and Mana, you can empower a single attack, increasing the destructive nature of the attack.

The level up was a welcome surprise. Jack wanted to immediately throw those two points into Constitution but made himself stop before making a rash decision. It wasn’t easy getting stat point increases and he might need those points elsewhere soon. Jack decided to hold onto them for now.

Jack used his Mend spell to bring himself back up to full Health points once his Mana was refilled. By that time, Jack’s Stamina was mostly full as well, and he had enough strength to stand back up. The fog had disappeared at this point revealing the bodies of the corpses again.

Jack remembered seeing the skeletons crumble as he fought them, but strangely the skeletons appeared whole again like they were before the Trial started. The first thing he did was go around and collect the swords scattered across the ground. He didn’t want to risk having to go through that again. Examining the swords, Every blade he found had a different rune etched into the blade.

“Let’s try this again,” Jack said inspecting the door again. “What is the truest aspect of Fear?” Quickly he glanced around. Not at all trusting the dead bodies anymore, but they remained motionless. Even after several minutes of watching.

Turning back to the door, Jack examined it more closely. The only defining feature that stood out from the runes on the door was the slot placed in it like a keyhole. It was only a few inches long and very thin. Just enough space for one of the swords to fit into, Jack vaguely thought, and they were the only thing in the area that Jack found that might fit.

Each of the swords continued to emit a blue light from the rune etched on the blade. Jack placed each on the ground in front of him so he could look at them at the same time. “Let see,” Jack said going from one sword to the next. “That one is Threat, and I believe that one means Death. I think this one mean Survival. This symbol should mean Unknown and the last one means Nothing.” Jack doubled checked everything again. He only had what the System had put in his head for what these symbols meant, and he wasn’t sure how much he trusted that.

“Threat, Death, Survival, Unknown, and Nothing. That must be it,” Jack muttered. “And I can only pick one. But which one? And what happens if it is the wrong one?”

Jack looked back at the closed door that he came through to get into this room. “Doubt that will open again, so it’s either make a choice and hope for the best or slowly die of thirst in here.” He shivered at the thought. “Alright let look at this.”

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Immediately, Jack put the sword with the Rune ‘Survival’ aside. To him Survival didn’t explain how one could be afraid of things that weren’t real threats. Something he knew was true as he once knew a guy that was terrified of butterflies. “They do say phobias are irrational fears too, so Survival wouldn’t fit right?’ Jack muttered to himself.

“I’m going to put ‘Nothing’ as a maybe.” Jack muttered. He wouldn’t put it past the question to be some kind of trick, but it just didn’t make sense to him. Fear was caused by something, but what was it? “That leaves ‘Threat’, ‘Death’, and Unknown.”

Death appeared to be the obvious and easiest choice. Who wasn’t afraid of dying? But then how did that fit with phobias of things that could never kill you? What about just the fear of embarrassment? Or did that even count? But it had to count; it was a type of fear. Right?

His brain started to hurt. He never went to college, never took a philosophy course. He never had to think about things like this before and he didn’t understand how someone was just supposed to know what the answer to something like this was. How could a regular person know? It was a question that could puzzle a philosopher. It was certainly puzzling him.

Ultimately, he placed the Death rune sword aside with the Survival rune sword. “Okay, Between Threat and Unknown,” he said. Threat would certainly make sense. It was vague enough to mean a lot of different things: Threat of humiliation, threat of harm, threat of death. It could fit or at least it was something he could argue to fit. But was it that simple? Was the truest aspect of Fear just the threat of something?

“Wait,” Jack said an idea dawning on him. “Is that it?” He picked up the Unknown rune sword and, before he could second guess himself, slid it into the door. The truest aspect of fear can’t truly be known. It was subjective to the person and what they knew about the emotion. It may not even be the same from species to species for all he knew, which meant it had to be unknown. Jack was sure of it. At least, he will know soon.

Jack held his breath as he waited for something to happen. The runes from the message grew brighter and brighter before moving and changing into new symbols and pictures. Jack couldn’t translate what it was changing into, and it didn’t stay in any shape for more than a moment before changing into something else. Eventually, it settled into a copy of the symbol that was on the Skeletons armor, of the tree and vortex insider a triangle, before fading away.

There was a grinding, scraping sound as the door in front of him slowly opened revealing another dark hallway behind it.

*Akashic Keeper Trial – Trial of Fear Completed*

*Quest reward: Ability (Rare) – True Sight (Beginner)*

Truth is subjective to many, but not to you. Pierce the veil and see the truth of the world around you. Increasing this skill allows you to understand more and makes it harder for others to hide reality from you.

*Note: This is a defining skill of the Akashic Order. You will be able to recognize and be recognized by others of the Order with this skill.*

*This counts as a Perception based skill – Focus ‘Sight’*

Jack felt a sensation behind his eyes after the message came up. The sensation was gone a moment later, but nothing changed that Jack could tell. With a message like that, Jack expected something to change or appear in front of him, but everything still looked the same. He glanced back at the corpses, but there was nothing new there either.

He tried pulling up the skill in his menu, but that didn’t bring up any more information. He tried focusing on the corpses, activating the skill with a thought like he did with his other skills. Jack felt the sensation come back to his eyes again, like when he was empowering his sword strike, and a figure appeared standing above the corpses. A specter of each man stood above their skeletal corpse staring back at him. The specter was a near perfect translucent image of what he imagined the person would have looked like in life except for the eyes. The eyes glowed with an ethereal silver and gold light.

They stood watching him as Jack stared back. He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do at this point. Would they attack him again? But they only stood there staring until one by one they placed two fingers to their forehead and with a short motion lifted them towards Jack. It felt like a salute or some kind of gesture of acknowledgement. Jack mimicked the motion, placing his front two fingers on his forehead and lifting them towards the specters.

Each in turn gave Jack a small bow, before disappearing. “Weird,” Jack said. “Wonder what that was about?” Before leaving the room, Jack tried to take one of the swords with him, but they had already disappeared and reappeared back again with their Skeletal counterpart. He left them there. Didn’t feel right to disturb them again and he was a little worried they would still come back to life again. Not wanting any more surprises, Jack turned around and started down the new hallway before anything else might happen.