—————————Estella—————————
Estella was naturally in tune with the magic around her, she could feel Michael had a well of power that didn't match his classification ranking of quarts or maybe a light iron? They had spent almost an hour walking in the tunnel, they were creepy enough before the spiders came but now Estella was having a hard time focusing on anything other than the disgusting creatures around her, so she welcomed the invasive thought about Michael. "Michael what are you?"
He looked to her take a back by the question, "Human I think, I'm not sure how things work here." He said to himself more than her. "Human." He answered again confidently.
She shrugged, "you don't have to lie to me, I'm Drow, we aren't so liked here."
He gave a sheepish chagrin, "Oh well I was being honest, I've been called human and look human but I really don't know."
Estella pouted, "I see, that's rather odd. What's your class?"
"I'm an Elementalist and Enchanter." He responded.
She paused for a moment, "Liar, I can only sense one mark on you so you could only have one class."
Michael winced, he'd never met someone with such fine tuned control over their mana sense, "keep your voice down." He whispered. She shut her lips into a devious smile, "Look you won't let this go right?"
"Not even if you killed me."
"I'll tell you if you tell me how to hide it."
"Can buy covers for them in almost any magic shop."
He sighed, he looked around, they weren't alone but the dirt tunnel absorbed the sound and had enough room to allow 4 people to walk side by side so the two of them weren't in the direct vicinity of anyone, "I'm not from this world, I'm a human from a world called earth and this mark is how I'm allowed to be here."
She nodded, "Like a summoned hero? What god summoned you?"
Michael stopped, "other people have been summoned here?"
"Yes?" She answered a bit confused.
"Gods directly influence the people here?"
"Yes? I'd call you stupid but you did say you're a summoned hero and summoned heroes start out notoriously dumb." She saw him cringe and realized her joke didn't land the way she wanted… "just cause they don't know about this world, things even a child would know you wouldn't."
He smirked, "try me."
"Oka-" she stopped as she saw the light at the end of the tunnel, "it's not much further keep your voices down." She could hear shouting and the sounds of steel clashing with steel. She ran to the clearing to find the guards in the basement trying to get out but the doors to the exits seemed to have their handles removed, vanished like the doors were never made with them. The guards hadn't noticed them yet so they sent in many spider and slaves to let out the slaves furthest away from the guards.
Charli took a step towards the guards letting out her class spell, "Sleep!" The guards began feeling drowsy but used on so many people
At once it failed to actually put any of them to sleep.
She began forming a large mana orb, morb for short, filled with ice mana. Michael saw what she was doing and put his hand on her shoulder, "haven't tried ice yet." He put his hand up to her orb and it suddenly doubled in size as wind and water mana were being molded together before her very eyes. She nodded still looking at it amazed and launched it down the hall at the group of guards freezing them in place. They freed the remaineder if the prisoners sending them back down the tunnel but Michael didn't follow them, the blonde noble girl he had come with, Charli ran up to his side, "If you want to go in and help with the real action I'm game."
Before he could answer yes or no Quentin had sliced the locks on the door with his arcane blade, "let's go!" They pushed it open showing them a room from one of its sides, it seemed like a maelstrom of violent sex and beatings, but at the top Michael could see a man with a visible gold aura raining down attacks on a boy. Activating mana sight he could see the boy's aura was unusually thick… but still bronze. "find and finish off any more guards and rescue any more slaves you find, I'll help the kid-"
"Atlas." Estella corrected.
"I'll help Atlas." He corrected with a forced smile.
—————————Shuichi—————————
He stalked the prone cloaked figure but having seen and felt him fight he knew this man wasn't so easily beaten. He began running electricity through his blade as he ran a little bit through his body, it burned and tingled but he felt faster and sharper. He ran at the man covering a 20 meter distance in a half second, it felt like running into a wall going from zero to nearly 50 meters a second in an instant. The man shot up blocking Shuichi's slash with a metal wrist guard, and although his blade was enhanced through electricity the wrist guards appeared enchanted. His blade bounced off but the speed and force of the swing had sent the man dealing back. The man jumped to his feet as Shuichi rushed him again, this time kicking him back. The man slide across the floor down the hall. Shuichi knew that his opponent was more experienced than him so a head to head confrontation was a bad idea, not to mention he didn't have a physical class but by keeping his opponent down and confused he'd never be able to take advantage of what to him wouldn't even look like a disadvantage. Shuichi went to do it again but the man caught his ankle. Shuichi released silver electrical mana from his foot in an electrical explosion of raw mana blasting the figure down the hall, "I'm going to kill you for all the stress you've put on us!"
"I have a family!" The man shouted.
Without skipping a beat, "I did too, don't care."
The man released a bright visible silver aura. It was suffocating, "No listen… I'm only doing this to work off enough money to buy my sister out of slavery, I trade you or I just trade your friend in and I'll be off the hook with a free sister. It's not personal and I don't even need to take you, you're smart and powerful, we'll give you treasures if you just walk away kid."
Shuichi stopped, the suffocating aura was nothing to the boy who'd been through more in just a few days than most in their lives. It was just a bit uncomfortable, he summoned a massive vampire spider princess, "I'm sorry." He shrugged before firing a ball of death and poison magic at him. The man stood and his body was cloaked in shadows, he blurred out of the way cutting off a spider leg in the process. She was balanced well so she didn't fall over but with him so close it was hard for the spider princess to pin the man down. Shuichi summoned his baby dragon and sent it to trail the man. No matter how fast the man moved the lightning dragon could follow. Shuichi began to meditate while the man took off spider legs and evaded and blocked bolts of lightning but he couldn't forever, eventually a bolt landed and threw him back and Shuichi took it a step further creating a lightning cage around him, "you're a great fighter, you worked hard, but a summoner doesn't lose, I'd have been a guild mate if I didn't get a class as powerful as this one." He hopped off the giant spider and filled her with death mana healing her before 5 guards fell out of the ceiling and crashed hard into the floor. It took them a while but they began to stir and wake, before they could Shuichi used the remainder of his mana on a chain lightning bolt, it jumped between all 5 of them cooking them slightly in their armor while stunning them. "I never got your name." He pat his pet spider princess.
She turned to him with what he assumed was a spider like smile, "Allisora!"
"We'll Allisora… watch them."
————————— Atlas —————————
Absorbing different types of magic at once or magic that was just too fast was harmful to him, he had mangled his arm trying to absorb an ice, lightning, and fire spell and it had only partially worked as he couldn't sort through the mana fast enough. He was now down an arm and was running low on his silver and bronze mana. Suddenly one of the attacks coming for him vanished and in its place was a young man. He had dark hair and was wearing torn up and old adventurers gear. "Atlas?"
"You are?" Atlas was shocked there was someone strong near by willing to help, but if he was gonna be fighting with him he needed to understand who he was going to risk his life with.
"A friend of Estalla, what's the deal with those tiles, I'm seeing fire, necrotic, lightning, ice, what I'm guessing is life, and pure mana tiles. Find out what they do? I'm assuming this ice was you?" The Slave Master fired a bolt of flame at them and Atlas stood to absorb it. "Interesting. Michael."
Atlas rolled his eyes, "Better than Shuichi first was at least."
"Return and fight for me!" All the Frozen slavers began to melt as the tiles under them downstairs turned red. They melted free of their icy prisons and began clambering up the steps. Atlas covered the steps in ice causing a few to slip and slide. Michael was quick on the up take and launched gusts of magical wind at them to push them causing them all to slip and fall back into the burning tiles.
The Slave Master grew furious, "Both of you kill each other." His frustration and desperation dripping from his words. Suddenly their ire had turned towards each other.
Atlas activated improved reflexes as Michael's body became electric like the living embodiment of a spark. Atlas barely saw Michael draw his blade before attempting to plunge it into him, Atlas punched his blade out of the way deflecting it with blade fist. Like before Atlas found some leeway in his command he lunged forward tackling the man but it was like leaping into a stone wall. It hurt but it wasn't the worst he had felt, he gripped him and began sifting through the mana writhing finding that distinctly foreign mana within and pulling on it. He absorbed some before Michael's muscles bulged with power and volume. He flexed snapping Atlas's grip like a string. Michael kicked Atlas back before taking a deep breath. Even with the leeway, he still had to attack, Atlas fired a war casted Rain of Icicles. Michael deflected them before smirking, "thanks for the idea, both of them." He ran to a fire tile quickly hopping off on to a healing tile getting between Atlas and Slave master forcing him to change the path of the rest of the storm. Michael again leaped away to another health tile, causing the slave master to to be forced to defend himself. He created a massive ball of flame to melt them but regardless they detonated the ball sending him back. He landed on a flame tile but he some how changed the tile to a blue one. "He's recharging his mana!" Michael shouted.
Atlas sat sifting through the mana within him to absorb it completely and then stood after taking in the scene, the tiles near by were decayed cracked and frozen, while the slave master sat in a field that seemed to perpetually fill his mana, "so he can change them at will too…" he narrowed his eyes, his body hot and in pain, Atlas began to form his ice ring explosion around the man but he couldn't control the coldness, it was more dead than cold, if anything it was hot. Seeing a blue ring form the man cast a fire curtain spell all round him to protect him from the ice, but ice was now far from his mind, "Burn." With his frustration made tangible Atlas war casted a ring of destruction around the man and the flames engulfed him destroying the tiles around him. Out of the smoke and flames jumped the charred slave master on to a life tile healing himself but with nearly all other tiles destroyed he had no other options but to face the boys head on.
Michael looked to Atlas, "How fast can you move?"
Atlas looked back, "Not very?"
Michael chuckled, "You're lying to your self, you made a literal explosive symphony and think a rocket is above your pay grade?"
"A rocket?"
Michael sighed, "try using contained explosions directed opposite of where you want to go."
And it clicked, he could blast himself around with this new fire power… but he wasn't exactly sure how he did it, "I don't know if I can control it as well as other magic?"
The slave master fired a storm of ice and rock at Atlas forcing him to make an Icy barrier. "He's just going to keep attacking and his man is greater than ours, I can see it. To create fire focus on your pain and body heat, fire is passion."
Atlas narrowed his eyes as he lowered the barrier, "Okay I think I can do that…"
"Okay on my signal we'll rush in at the same time." Michael commanded as he turned back to face the slave master running to one of the far ends of the room and Atlas unsure of what to do to prepare did the same running to the opposite end, Michael smiled, "Now!" Atlas focused his heat, gold mana, and pain to his soles before blasting off at the man like a tactical missile, preparing to swing his blade to bisect the man while Michael flashed over as well preparing to decapitate the slave master. Atlas layered his arm in gold mana strengthening it as much as he could.
That slave master's eyes widened as he screamed in fear, "Stop!" Even though his words took hold they were already in motion, they didn't cut him to ribbons but with both their arms extended they double lariat charged him flipping him from the force of the blows. Atlas swore he heard many cracks in the man's torso and face but he ignored the crunching.
After the rapid flips stopped and the man fell Michael turned to the slave master and went to plunge his sword into the slave master but Atlas gripped his shoulder, "we're not killers…"
"You don't know that." Michael pulled away but also put his blade away. "Well what's your plan?"
—————————Tai Lung—————————
He and the other guards were lined up with him at the front. The two boys he had tried to capture were deliberating with a third older boy and two he recognized as dungeon lords of some sort. The one he had heard called Shuichi had turned to him, "so my friends here have a very generous offer. Become the Dungeon Master for this dungeon, we'll let you enslave the dungeon master and he will become your dungeon boss. As your slave he will be forced to tell you where your sister is and how to get her. You won't be able to leave the dungeon if you accept but… your minions and monsters can go, and we can go if need be. Just let us know when." The boy sighed but Tai Lung's mind blanked. He had honestly been expecting to be executed with the other guards but they had man y chances to kill them and hadn't, maybe the rest would all get similar offers… we're they trying to turn a slave house into a dungeon?
"I'll accept under one condition, no matter what happens one of you have to go save her with some monsters. You're as strong as us guards but that can't be enough to stop them, they aren't a remote auction house, their the real deal, organized crime."
Shuichi gave him a look that told him that wasn't going to happen but the boy still turned back to deliberate with his Allies. He turned back, "nope."
"That's not what, we said." His friend he recognized as Atlas shouted over him.
Shuichi slumped his shoulders, "Okay, one of us will go… but not immediately we have to atleast register for classes, then we can go find and rescue her. Why was she taken anyway?"
"Her power she was born in a tower like the great emperor, this is typically impossible as the tower usually causes miscarriages with the sheer potency of the mana being too much for the babies to handle. My mother was poor and couldn't afford another child so she pairs the cheeper price of entering a tower. The baby survived however and was given a unique class upon exiting. One like his." He pointed to Atlas's Siphoner Mark.
Atlas narrowed his eyes, "when was she taken?"
"She had just ranked up to Gold at the age of 12 when she was taken. That was 4 years ago. She wasn't much of a fighter or killer so she went peacefully."
Atlas looked off into space before words seemed to absent mindedly escape his lips, "A gold siphoner… how? She ranked up?" Atlas was perplexed. "How could she get gold in such a short time and early age without killing?"
"Not all classes rank up the same and outside of these back water towns the norm is Gold. You'd be considered magically deficient if you weren't at least a gold cause in the real world they have tools and elixirs to enhance the powers of nobles, adventurers, inquisitors and knights."
Atlas came to an aha moment, "No wonder Zena made it sound like gold wasn't all that much, for someone who's seen that kind of world I guess it wouldn't be."
"Color rankings aren't everything though." He looked over to Michael, "he's a quartz and he seems like he'd be able to take anyone here in single combat."
Shuichi rolled his eyes, "What ever you say, Sui send over the prompt."
A transparent blue screen appeared before Tai Lung, "Accept role or Primary dungeon master, Yes | No?"
He accepted.