The Stubborn Light of a Dying Flame [Isekai - LitRPG]

Brittsha didn't even try to choke down the breakfast provided by the System. It was likely a half-baked attempt to get on the humans' good side. They had been provided with enough rations to last a month, but after trying one, she quickly relegated them to the 'only-eat-if-starving' category of her supplies—right next to the pickled leeryfruit that tasted like rotten fish. Lav had brought them from his hometown and no matter how vehemently Brittsha had refused, he wouldn't take no for an answer.

Lav… Brittsha pulled out the small metal communications disk, pressing her finger against the rune that should call Lav. As it had with her last several attempts, the device glowed red, signaling an inability to connect. She tried the one that should call Vira and was met with the same failure. Just to be sure that the device wasn't defective, she pulled out her spare and tried calling them again.

When she called pressed the rune that indicated her own devices, her spare lit up, vibrating to notify her of the call. She sighed, returning the devices to her Inventory. They were both operational, which meant it wasn't item failure that kept her from calling her party members. Her current theory was that it had something to do with the wards surrounding the tutorial area. If they were designed to block communications as well, it would explain the lack of connection.

It was also, admittedly, the only explanation that Brittsha was willing to entertain at this time. If this theory was incorrect, there were few other options to choose from.

They were blocked by the wards, hadn't made it to Ember in the first place or…

…or they hadn't survived the trip.

Brittsha pulled the mission briefing out of her Inventory, determined to distract herself from the alarming thoughts. She had no way to prove or disprove her theories, so lingering on them would only increase her anxiety.

There had to be something in her instructions that would tell her what to do if she was separated from her team. She scanned the table of contents—just about the only section she understood—for anything that sounded relevant.

"In Case of Contact… Capture… Hostile Encounters…" she mumbled as she ran down the list. Nothing really fit her current situation. Neither the Administrator nor the Benefactor had shown themselves to be hostile. Inept, perhaps; confused, certainly, but they didn't directly attack Brittsha or intentionally cause her harm. This was both a contact and a capture, but there was no one with which to communicate…

Brittsha turned to the section anyway, hoping they would have something related to alien species. She only succeeded in giving herself a headache trying to read the overly formal text.

Brittsha returned the book to her Inventory and laid down on her bed with a heavy sigh. She should have known better. How would the people in charge of the mission have guessed that she would encounter someone other than Lerians or Corvi. They had never seen even a hint that there were other species in the universe. How the System came up with this plan in the first place was beyond her.

It would help if the Benefactor had thought to explain anything in detail, but from the looks of it, he had set his subroutines and washed his hands of them.

That was both a good thing and a bad thing. Good, because it meant he was unlikely to interfere with Brittsha's investigation. Bad, because it meant he was unlikely to fix bugs in his code either. He hadn't put many safeguards against Essence exposure, nor had he thought to create a Miasmic pool from which to cast magic. Brittsha was on her own in that regard.

There was Miasma in the air, but barely enough to sustain Brittsha, let alone allow her to use magic. She was fairly sure that the amount in her room was the little bit produced by herself, which meant she would need to find an alternate source, or it would be a rough tutorial, especially if this amount of Essence was normal on Ember.

Brittsha pulled the healing salve from her Inventory, turning it over in her hands. She had been desperate enough to use it the night before, but now, it occurred to her to wonder what the ingredients were. It calmed the sting and prevented scarring, but it didn't prevent Essence burns. Brittsha could think of a few people in the Academy who wouldn't have fared nearly as well as she had with a direct Essence teleportation. Brittsha's Essence resistance was one of the highest that a Corvi could hope for. If she could find a way to reinforce her magical pathways, she might even be able to use Essence with only minor damage, but others…?

Some might not have lived long enough to apply the salve to their burns.

A notification appeared, asking Brittsha to move downstairs for the first trial. She wanted to ignore it, but she couldn't pass up the opportunity to gather intelligence. She did, however, take the time to pull out a rune-enhanced cloak—the one that blocked residual Essence in the air—and put it on. She was only supposed to pull it out in emergencies, as the Miasmic runes would give away her identity in the presence of Lerians, but besides Rayna, there were no Lerians here, so she decided to risk it and save herself a little discomfort.

She stepped into the hallway, joining the flow of sleep-deprived and nervous humans on their way to the main courtyard. She hadn't gone even a few steps before a notification popped up in front of her.

Your presence has been noted in the mind of a player. The success rate for the quest Hide has been reduced by -0.5%

What?! What were they noticing? She was just walking!

Brittsha opened her mind to the people around her and got a distinct image: an elf, her long travel cloak billowing in the wind, swirls climbing the fabric as she stared ahead with her bow slung across her back.

Brittsha fought to control her expression. They noticed her because they thought she looked cool?!

She ducked back into her room, swapping her cloak for a tunic that she could tuck into her trousers to hide the rune-lined hem. It wouldn't provide as much protection, but it was better than being found out her first day on Ember. She checked her quest.

Hide — Weekly Success Rate 90%

Zero point five percent per person…that meant that no less than twenty people had noted her existence. She didn't care about the quest rewards, but this would be a handy tool in making sure she could fade into the background. Brittsha sighed, fixing her hair before rejoining the flow of traffic. She was almost to the stairs when the Lerian and her friend entered the hallway.

Brittsha tried opening her mind to just Emma, but the hallway was too crowded to focus on one person. She slammed her senses closed against the barrage of curiosity and worry before spreading a wide shallow net again. The humans seemed to expect some kind of combat from the first trial, but judging by her knowledge of Earth, this wasn't something they would be prepared for.

It wasn't part of Brittsha's mission to help them through the tutorial—she wasn't even sure what they were up against—but she couldn't just do nothing. She had actual training, unlike most of the people there. For now, she would observe the challenge and only help where it was possible to do so without taking an active role. Anything that would lead to her discovery or the discovery of the other Corvi was strictly forbidden.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

The courtyard was almost bare. Stone tiles covered the ground and the walls were too tall to see over. The sun sat low on the horizon, making it sometime mid-morning, but there were no other indications of what time it was.

At the far edge of the courtyard, ten large portals stood in a row with racks of weapons arranged between them; it seemed the humans were right to expect combat. Brittsha scanned the weapons, honing in on a plain wooden staff near the center portal.

That would be her choice. Unmarked wood was easier to manipulate than metal, and if Brittsha was going to enhance her weapon with what little Miasma she could gather from the air, she would need to simplify the rest of the process to minimize the chance of failure.

She had other weapons in her Inventory, but she didn't want to use them yet. Doing so in front of the humans would arouse suspicion and she wasn't sure if the System was monitoring her or not. Just because the Administrator couldn't read her mind, it didn't mean he didn't know what she was doing; better safe than sorry.

Once the humans had all gathered, they received a System prompt.

The first trial is simple: Choose a weapon and enter one of the portals. The enemies inside are randomized from a group consisting of three species between level 1 and level 5.

Kill the monster that appears and return through the portal. Failure to do so within 1 hour will result in forced expulsion from the trial space and a penalty title until the end of next trial. Injuries judged to be life-threatening will also result in failure and expulsion from the trial space.

Rewards will be calculated based on the strength of the monster and the performance of the trial taker. The trial will not be considered complete until all players have made an attempt.

Players who do not successfully complete the trial can reattempt it up to three times, but each subsequent failure will result in a separate penalty title.

All penalty titles will be removed upon successful completion of the first trial.

If the first trial is not completed within one week, the portals will automatically close and anyone who has not attempted the trial by this point will be issued a penalty title until the end of the tutorial period.

The levels of the monsters were low enough, but the prompt didn't tell Brittsha what type of monsters they would be facing. Anyone with even a cursory knowledge of monster mechanics knew that there was a huge difference between a Level 1 Robi and a Level 1 Leviathan. Size, speed, constitution; everything varied from species to species.

"Emma, what's a penalty title?" Rayna asked, her question almost echoing in the suffocating silence that followed the System prompt.

Brittsha moved closer, tuning in to the conversation as the crowd erupted in nervous whispering. She hadn't encountered penalty titles either.

"You have a title, don't you?" Emma asked. "Volunteer, or something. I remember it had a really good stat boost."—That was interesting. What was considered a good stat boost, Brittsha wondered—"Penalty titles are like that, but instead of giving you stats, they take some away. They're usually temporary and can be removed either with a quest or after the timer runs out."

Brittsha's jaw dropped. The System was messing with players' stats?! She thought it was just supposed to quantify progression to make it easier and safer. Why, in heaven's name, would the Lerians give it so much power over them? Had this feature been developed in the last six months, or was the System always this powerful?

Brittsha had no way of knowing for sure, so she mentally added this to the list of questions she needed to answer before finding her way back home.

"Great," Rayna said. "So, if I fail the trial, my already terrible Endurance might get even worse."

Brittsha closed her mouth, forcing her face into a neutral expression as she lost another percent from the success rate of her quest. Did Lerians have terrible starting Endurance? They had always seemed quite sturdy from the few she had met, as well as the descriptions she had heard from others. They were prone to bleeding, but quick to heal if you could stop the HP drain. Maybe this was a consequence of being an evolving race; slow growth, but high potential.

"Well," a man said, his voice carrying over the crowd's anxious conversations. "Waiting isn't going to make the monsters any weaker."

He walked up to one of the racks and grabbed a mid-sized sword that Brittsha didn't have a name for, swinging it to test the balance. A second sword appeared to replace the first one. Brittsha breathed a sigh of relief. She wouldn't be racing anyone to get the staff she wanted.

"Devon, are you nuts?!" a woman snapped. "What if you get a Level 5?"

Devon shrugged. "Or I could get a Level 1. The way I see it, that curly-haired bastard is putting all of this effort into getting us ready, I might as well participate." He saluted the crowd with his sword. "If I die in there, make sure that Ember remembers my name."

Brittsha didn't need to open her senses completely to know that the man was hiding his terror behind a brave face. He had come to the conclusion that if no one moved, they would all end up being too scared to start. He'd offered himself up as a sacrificial lamb of sorts, though he had no intention of failing.

Concern for his safety was a common emotion in the group. A few secretly harbored hopes that he had his ass handed to him just to teach him a lesson, as well. Brittsha made a note of who these people were so she could avoid them. They were not the kind of people that she wanted to be friends with.

One woman in particular gave Brittsha the creeps.

[Kelsey Lawrence — Level 1]

She was perfectly innocent looking as she pretended to be afraid, but her excitement gave her away. Brittsha focused in on her, hoping to get something more concrete but her mind was like a stone fortress. Only the most basic images of an ideal life and a perfect childhood flowed into Brittsha's perceptions. She retracted her senses and cast her wide net again. If Kelsey Lawrence didn't want Brittsha to know something, then she couldn't just force the information out of the woman's mind.

Morph-based telepathy was an odd power. It allowed one to blend in with the creatures they were emulating, to react as they would, but it didn't give you access to peoples personal thoughts or secrets. Intentions—particularly strong intentions or ones directed toward the Corvi—could be interpreted, but if someone wanted to keep something hidden, there would be nothing the Corvi could do to tease the information out of them without first making them willing to share it.

This usually wasn't a problem, since most species didn't have anything that they collectively wanted to keep secret, but it might hinder Brittsha's intelligence gathering.

Emma must have noticed the effect that Devon had on the crowd, because she decided to double down, dragging Rayna over to give her a quick pep-talk and instructions on how to pick a weapon. Her ideas were good, from what Brittsha could hear; Ranged weapons, keep monsters at a distance, heal when you get hurt, not when you're desperate, and so on.

The last part of her instructions made Brittsha pause.

"The System said it will teleport you out if you sustain life-threatening injuries, but you can't count on that," Emma said in an urgent whisper. "Fight like there is no escape, understood?"

Was the System really that unreliable or were humans just paranoid? Brittsha felt the sentiment echoed by several in the group. It wasn't that they thought the System would purposely leave them out to dry, they just didn't trust technology with something as precious as their lives.

These people would probably get along better with the Corvi than the Lerians.

Emma entered a portal and Rayna moved to examine the weapons. Other initiates moved to follow her example and Brittsha made a beeline for her staff. She was almost to the edge of the crowd when she realized that the other humans were taking their time choosing a weapon. She forced herself to meander a bit, making it look like she was unsure what to choose.

When she was certain that no one was paying any attention to her, Brittsha grabbed the staff, weighing it in her hands. It was nice and sturdy, which would make it great for spellcasting. She would just need to improve it a bit with runes. Wood hardening, magic channeling, maybe even magic storage; she could make the staff a serviceable all around tool.

A System prompt appeared.

You have chosen a wooden staff created by the Weaponsmith Larsi. Please proceed to the trial.

Brittsha noticed another staff nearby that she thought might be a better fit for her height, but when she tried to grab it, another prompt appeared.

You have already chosen a wooden staff. Weapon choices are final. Please proceed to the trial. Failure to do so within 5 minutes will lead to disqualification and a penalty title.

Brittsha glared at her screen. An earlier warning or a confirmation message when choosing her weapon would have been nice.

She considered her options for the portals, trying to feel some difference between them. They all had varying levels of Miasma floating near them, which might prove useful when it came to the fight. Higher Miasma meant a higher chance that Brittsha would be able to use her spells.

She dismissed the first portal, which didn't have any Miasma at all, and compared the other portals. Devon's portal had the strongest magical signature, so she headed for that one, hoping her suspicions were correct.