Chapter 2: SIN: II
"Allow me… to judge you, Sinner." Covenel hissed.
I watched with mixed feelings of curiosity and horror. Why was I deemed a sinner? What did I even do? And… when the demon had said I'd lose a part of myself every time I died, what did that mean? And every time? Did that mean I couldn't really die here? Though, I think that had been made apparent, I just couldn't… accept it.
And then, Covenel brought the scale to his chest, below his head, and black liquid began to pour out from his eyes and mouth, flowing down his grinning face and then dribbling into the small bowl in the shoulder of the limb. In an instant, the bowl overflowed with black liquid, and it tilted in a quick motion before it tipped all the way over, falling to the ground and rolling to a stop as the black liquid spilled across the floor.
"Well, I cannot say I've ever seen this before. So many sins, and hardly any good deeds to make up for it." The black liquid slowly dripped down from the demon's face, "It will be quite difficult for you to tip these scales back in your favor, boy. Now… come here."
The demon suddenly vanished, then, in an instant, it reappeared standing beside me, towering over me. From a distance, I hadn't quite realized just how large the demon was.
On instinct, I yelped and backed away, but Covenel grabbed my arm, his grip firm and unyielding. His talons dug into my skin as he pulled me close. He then took his thumb and began carving into my skin, drawing the image of a scale, in which it was tilted all the way to the right side. Blood flowed down my arm as I winced in pain.
Covenel released my arm and I backed away, clutching my wound. The demon leaned down, bringing his face close to mine.
"Keep your eye on that, Sinner. It will keep track of your sins versus your good deeds." Covenel backed away. "Now then. To continue, I must teach you how to fight in this tower of Heaven and Hell."
"Fight..?" I asked.
"Yes, of course. What, did you think you wouldn't have to fight during your time ascending or descending? You need to defeat gods, demons and sinners alike."
"How… am I supposed to fight demons or gods..? I'm human.." I said.
"Human? Hah. Sure." The demon hissed.
"What do you mean by that..? Am I not..?"
"That is for me to know and you to find out." Covenel spoke. "Now then." The demon waved it's hand and, before it, appeared a table of stone. The table was more like a large solid block that rose from the ground up to my waist in height.
Covenel reattached his arm, then, he sat down, cross legged, at the edge of the table. Another stone rose from the ground before me.
"Sit, I implore you." The demon hissed.
"What is this..?" I asked.
"A stone table." Covenel answered simply.
"I can see that, I mean what is it for?" I spoke, sitting down cautiously.
"I'm going to give you a simple idea of how combat in this tower works. Now then, every being has a nature. Natures fall under different categories called elements. Fire, nature, water, earth, wind, metal, thunder, dark, light, and neutral. When I engraved your arm, I could also see your nature. Every being has, at least, two natures. You have three."
"Wait, are you saying that.. i can use magic?" I asked.
"Well, yes. But it is based on your spells. That comes in a bit. First off, I want to show you how this works in general. Take these." Covenel waved his finger.
Before me on the table appeared eight small slabs of stone. I picked them up and looked at them. Each of them had a different symbol, each depicting some kind of element.
"These cards shall be your spells. Now then. Every magic user can hold up to eight spells total. As you traverse through this accursed tower, you will gain more and more." Cards appeared in Covenel's hand then. "Now, I want you to pick two cards, then place them face down. I suggest picking metal and thunder, thunder first, then metal."
I decided it was better not to ask questions, and that it would be best to just observe and pay attention. I looked through the cards and found one that was thunder, it had an image of a lightning bolt across it, and the metal card had the image of a sword on it. I placed the thunder card face down first, then the metal beside it.
Covenel placed his two cards face down across from my own.
"Now, when I say," Covenel spoke, placing a finger on one card, "flip the first card over."
I reached forward and placed my fingers on the thunder card.
"Now."
I flipped it over. Across from it, Covenel had used a water card.
"Now, every element has elements that it is weak to. A spell is cancelled out by these elements. So, water is weak to thunder. This means that my spell is countered, and you take no damage. But I do. Since my spell was countered, your spell also does increased damage." A die appeared in Covenel's palm. It went up to twenty, and it just dropped down to ten from the spell.
"Now, flip the second card."
I did as he said, flipping the metal spell up. Covenel played a wind spell.
"Neither of these spells are weak to each other. It is a draw. Now we take the highest damage card, yours with ten, and subtract the lowest damage from it, mine, five. We now both take five damage." Covenel spoke.
His die rolled down to five, while another rolled across the table to my side, landing on fifteen.
"Now, here is where it gets more complicated. Spells can be empowered by other spells. Metal is empowered by thunder. Water is empowered by wind. The powers of the spells change drastically. When metal is empowered by thunder, it becomes a conductor, for example, a spike of electric metal. It doubles, sometimes triples your power. But, you must cast the spells in the proper order. You casted the thunder spell first, but thunder is not empowered by metal, so, you do not get the bonus of the empower. But I casted my water spell before wind, meaning I do get the empower bonus."
Covenel took his water spell and placed it on top of the wind card. "When wind is casted on water, the water becomes ice, and, well…"
Covenel raised his hand. Droplets of water began to form around his body, moving about him and clumping together in waves. The next moment, a cold gust of wind rushed through the chamber and spikes of ice exploded outwards, stopping just short of my face. Covenel sat across from me, grinning as he stared through the ice.
My die then rolled, falling off the table and bouncing across the ground before rolling to a stop. It landed on zero.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
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