Healer Book 6 -- Recap

(It's a little delayed because of the Divine Fusionist audiobook release, but here's the beginning of Healer Book 6! I have Chapter 1 posting right after the recap)

Recap

Thaden was ripped away from Earth by the Assimilation System, but on his way to some sort of “Training Program”, something went wrong.  His bodily disposal went horrifically wrong, and he was burned, torn apart, and even eaten by monsters before his head ended up in a dungeon.  In the end, the only fortunate part of it all was that his body fully reconstituted itself automatically.  That was poor recompense for what he went through, though, especially when he discovered that he had been saddled with the Support Class of Assistant Healer – which had virtually no offensive ability.

However, he quickly discovered that his spells used absolutely none of his Mana.  The only caveat was that he couldn’t cast something that had a Mana cost greater than his overall Mana pool.  Using a Weak Repulsion Field to escape the Vogmite Tunnels Dungeon, killing everything inside, he eventually made his way to Ashcleft, a nearby town filled with Charee, an odd race with orange skin, a third eye on their forehead, and one less finger on their hands, which he quickly learned were one of many different races tasked to prepare the world of Tarth for the arrival of Contenders…

…a group to which Thaden technically belonged, even though he hadn’t participated in the Training that everyone else had.

After being told that the rest of the Contenders from Earth would arrive in approximately three months, the Assistant Healer joined the Adventurer Coalition in an attempt to find a way to increase his Level, and he ended up traveling to an Undead dungeon on a SPECIAL Quest, with the intent of joining a party of other Adventurers.  Sadly for him, the only Adventurers he saw were killed before he could join them, which resulted in him tackling the dungeon alone.

Successful because his healing spells were able to damage the Undead, he learned that he couldn’t advance past Level 21 without a new Class.  The only way to get a new Class was from a Support Representative, none of whom were available until the rest of the Contenders arrived.  Forced to wait, he accumulated the maximum amount of reserved PICK (Progressive Internal Combat Knowledge) through the completion of multiple Quests, and he was able to earn more gold than he could easily spend. 

When the Contenders finally arrived, his Level was unexpectedly reduced back down to 1 – but he still maintained all of his stat increases from previous Levels and Achievements.  With his reserve PICK, Thaden was able to raise his Level back up to 21 and acquired a new Class, Lifewarden, an Epic class that allowed him to cast up to Major strength spells.

On his way to test out his new Class, Thaden was followed by a group of new Contenders who wanted his help as a healer, but they ended up dying to the Undead, who were much too powerful for their low Level.  The new Lifewarden resurrected them and invited them to participate in a run through the Maximal difficulty of the Mausoleum of Despair, where Thaden barely succeeded in defeating the Boss, a powerful, vampire-like monster who was 40 Levels higher than his own.  Along the way, he learned from the Contenders with him how to Extract loot from his kills, which was then stored in his Inventory, something he wished he had known about earlier.

Back at the Adventurer Coalition, Thaden was able to help many of the Contenders who were considered “broken”: those with a mental trauma that prevented them from functioning properly.  This, of course, garnered a lot of attention, but he passed himself off as simply a helpful non-Contender, so as not to engender too much animosity among the other Contenders. 

Unfortunately, an unexpected message from the Assimilation System to all Contenders a week after their arrival outed Thaden, revealing the truth that he was actually a Contender – and that he was already Level 45.  This put him at the top of multiple leaderboard Rankings, something he wasn’t even aware of until that point.

With a target on his back, as after Level 21 he was able to be killed by other Contenders, the new Lifewarden had to run.  Escaping from Ashcleft through the intercession of the Town Guard, Virlo, Thaden left the town that had witnessed the first steps on his journey as a Contender.  Heading to parts unknown, he changed his visible name and Level to blend in with everyone else, but he ended up avoiding most towns along the way, as their residents became suspicious of someone traveling alone.

After a relatively unremarkable journey, the Lifewarden eventually arrived in a massive city carved into a mountain, named Forgestone.  There he hoped to blend into the larger Contender population while he searched for some dungeons to delve through by himself.  At one of the Adventurer Coalition branches in the city, he met Veronia, the Vice-Leader of the Coalition for that branch, and he was able to upgrade his Badge to Silver, netting himself a posh “Silver”-ranked room to stay in.  After availing himself of the facilities, Thaden decided to tackle the Magma dungeon located below the city, as it was close by and right within his Level range.

Unfortunately, after defeating the Boss of the Magma dungeon, the Lifewarden learned that it was something called an “Anchor” dungeon, and clearing it on Minimal difficulty triggered “Developmental Phase 2” – and all hell broke loose.  In this case, hell was unleashing Level 55 Magma Worms upon the city, killing Contenders and citizens alike while the city was destroyed.  Thaden managed to kill the Magma Worms, nearly dying in the process, but by that point, the city was essentially lost.

Angry at the high-Level Guards and the Vice-Leader of the Coalition for not protecting at least the people of the city, his outburst upon confronting Veronia caused her to attack him, which forfeited her life in the eyes of the Assimilation System – killing the Level 100 before his eyes.  Having learned that the Charee, or anyone else placed there beforehand by the System, would not help in any serious confrontation with the monsters of Tarth, Thaden knew that if he didn’t want the same thing to happen again, it would have to be him that addressed the two other Anchor dungeons that were part of a SPECIAL Quest assigned to everyone in the Region due to Developmental Phase 2. 

Why?

Because he was the only one with a high-enough Level to complete those dungeons before time ran out.

But before he could tackle them, Thaden needed to visit another city to evolve his Class once again.  Journeying to Rageharbor, a city near a turbulent sea, the Lifewarden completed The Den Dungeon along the way, testing himself against the strongest monsters he’d fought up until that point – and adding to the PICK he’d been accumulating as he hit the Level limit of 63 before Class Evolution.

Near Rageharbor, Thaden discovered that the conflict among Contenders, especially those who had reached Level 21, was worse than he feared, as he came across what he later learned was a Guild, which had slaughtered three women just because they refused to join them.  After resurrecting those women while hiding his identity, the Lifewarden entered Rageharbor and attempted to evolve his Class with the Support Class Representative, only to learn that he needed to complete a Minimal- and a Medial-difficulty dungeon with a full party of 5 as part of his Support Class Evolution Assignment.

After finding a desperate group of Level 20s who needed money to join a Guild – so that they wouldn’t be slaughtered immediately upon obtaining Level 21 – he convinced them to complete both difficulties of the Crestline Gorge dungeon a relatively short distance away from the city.  Unfortunately for them, their actions were noticed by the Execution Guild in particular, which ended up not boding well for everyone involved.

Thankfully, completing his Evolution Assignment allowed Thaden to obtain the Solitary Shaman Class, a Legendary evolution that made him more suited to a solitary role.  Along with upgrading all of his spells in strength and allowing him to learn Superior-strength spells, it eliminated all of his channeled spells, gave bonuses to spells cast on himself, and also made all of his Single Cast spells able to target himself.  On the other hand, it also penalized spells cast on allies and reduced the amount of PICK earned from killing monsters or through Quests or Achievements for himself and allies by a significant amount.

Leaving the city of Rageharbor with the intention of visiting The Devil’s Nail dungeon to see if he could obtain Support-Class loot from there, Thaden learned that the Execution Guild had taken some of his “friends” hostage, and that if he didn’t show up and reveal his abilities, they would be killed.  He decided that he was done playing around with people and headed to the meeting place to confront them.  When he arrived, he discovered that the group that he’d partied with to complete the Crestline Gorge dungeon, as well as the three women he’d resurrected a few days before, were all dead, without any possibility of being resurrected.

It was at that point that a message from the Assimilation System informed everyone that a month had passed since the Contenders had arrived, updating the Rankings – but also changing something significant about the way the “PvP” system worked.  For those who had killed another Contender, they would be marked with a black aura around them that would last for 72 hours, allowing them to be killed without a penalty; in addition, for those who were attacked by someone who was a lower Level than them, they would be able to fight back.  The only caveat was that if they killed their attacker, they would receive a temporary black aura, but that consequence was better than allowing themselves to be killed without being able to defend themselves.

This timely change allowed Thaden to absolutely destroy the Execution Guild members who were trying to force him to submit, as they all had black auras, as well as some of the higher-ups from the Guild who came later to investigate.  Thaden now discovered that looting the corpses of those he killed was possible, and he thought this development would make killing those with a black aura even more tempting than before – and cause a whole bunch more chaos in the process. 

Regardless, it wasn’t his problem anymore, so he continued his journey to The Devil’s Nail to the north.  As he stopped for the night in a forest, Thaden learned that his new Support Class Evolution Assignment for Level 189 was going to force him to join something called a “Raid Party” consisting of at least 100 people, and to complete an “Intermediate” dungeon at Level 160+ with no casualties.

While this threw a wrench in his plan to continue soloing through the world of Tarth, such a development was something to worry about later.  After all, he had two time-dependent SPECIAL Quests to worry about completing.  Of course, he had to find the Anchor dungeons first, but that was of secondary importance to him at the moment.

Because it was time to get some better equipment.

Visiting the Devil’s Nail dungeon, which supposedly had high drop rates for Support-Class gear, he was surprised to find that the Maximal difficulty was filled with angels and other types of angelic beings – all of whom were a much higher Level than him.  After managing to work his way through the dungeon by himself, he was nearly killed by the Dungeon Boss through its incredible Level Compression.  Somehow surviving, Thaden acquired amazing rewards, though most of them would have to wait until he was a higher-Level in order to take advantage of them. 

Staying at Level 70, so that he could benefit from the PICK he would receive from the dungeons he would be visiting in his search for the Anchor dungeons, the Solitary Shaman made his way through the entire Region, completing a total of 21 dungeons without success in his Quest.  Along the way, he also acquired some training on how to apply his Personality stat to talking to people and warning them of potential attacks once he completed the Anchor dungeons, and he even unlocked a Psychic Resiliency Competency from a fellow Contender named Muriel, a Lesser Succubus Class. 

With his failure to find the Anchor dungeons, his last hope was a contact with the Guilded Glory Guild, which was a Guild dedicated to gathering information and making money, but they unfortunately weren’t able to locate the Anchor dungeons, either.  Dejected and disappointed in his inability to complete the SPECIAL Quests, Thaden decided to start Leveling-up a little, but his accumulation of PICK had reached a breaking point, since he hadn’t used any of it since he started his search.  When he acquired another Achievement that led to additional PICK, the Assimilation System and his own body became overloaded with PICK, causing it all to be spent at once, inflicting incredible pain as it shot his Level all the way up to 189.

Unlocking a total of 30 new spells in his Support, Defensive, and Spiritual categories, as well as increasing his stats by leaps and bounds, Thaden was now incredibly powerful.  Able to wear the Legendary Healthful Protection set that he’d acquired at The Devil’s Nail dungeon, he no longer wished to disguise his name or Level, as he found that it had only caused trouble for him.  Unfortunately, as a result of his Level increase, his Personality stat had hit rock-bottom, so he ventured to Darkwood Vale to find crafters who not only could create equipment that would boost his Personality, but would also be able to upgrade his belt.

While there, he visited the Adventurer Coalition and discovered that he could finally upgrade his badge to Diamond Rank.  Unfortunately, the Region Leader who could do that turned out to be the father of Veronia, one of the Vice-Leaders who died back in Forgestone, and he had lost his mind.  His despair led to the summoning of a monster originating from the Adversary, which Thaden was unable to kill as it was a much higher Level than him.  An imbalance of power between the Adversarial monster and the Region Leader led to an explosion that blew up the Coalition building and killed many Contenders, but it also gave Thaden the credit for the monster’s demise.  After nearly dying, he was shocked to find that the Assimilation System reverted the exploded section of the city back to normal, bringing everyone back to life and wiping the minds of everyone but Thaden.  The Region Leader had changed, allowing Thaden to finally acquire a Diamond-Ranked badge, as well as a cushy room that went with it.

Back on track after those events, the materials needed to craft a belt suitable for him were only available in the Darkwood, a massive forest near Darkwood Vale, and he entered it to find some Arachne.  While deep inside the forest, he stumbled across a group being attacked by the higher-Level monsters, and he saved them – only to find that they were part of a SPECIAL Quest to save one of their party members from the Arachne.  Thaden joined them on the Quest, which turned out to lead to the first of the Anchor dungeons he was looking for.

Completing the Quest and saving their party member turned out to be contrary to the System’s plans, however, as an issue came up when the catalyst to have the Arachne rise up and attack Darkwood Vale was never activated.  As a workaround, the System wiped the minds of his temporary party and completed the SPECIAL Anchor Quest without an attack on the city, but it also sped up the time limit on the remaining SPECIAL Quest.

Deducing that the last Anchor dungeon was located inside the Ragewater Sea, the Solitary Shaman rushed there with all haste, applying the full extent of his new Celerity stat to arrive before time ran out.  Before long, he had figured out how to enter the Coral Tower of the Departed underneath the Sea, and he made his way down to the bottom, where he learned that he had just unleashed the might of the Samudran armies upon the city of Rageharbor. 

In his haste to escape the trembling tower, he exited through the designated portal – only to find that the Assimilation System had finally caught up to him.  Managing to survive the ordeal of being nearly crushed by the incredible weight of the deep Sea above him, Thaden was trapped in a bubble at the bottom of the Sea for months as the world went on without him.  When he was finally released, he discovered that many events occurred while he was gone, including the successful repelling of the Samudran armies against Rageharbor, as well as the start of Developmental Phase 3, which he learned was centered around Intermediate dungeons and large Raid Parties.

But Thaden was more prepared for that than ever; he had acquired many new Achievements and rewards for his actions in completing the final SPECIAL Quest, as well as during his confinement under the Sea.  Apart from that, he also learned that a full year had passed since the Contenders officially arrived on Tarth.  The announcement to that effect was accompanied by the revelation of new information available about the Contenders within the Rankings, along with prizes for their placement on those Rankings.

Thaden managed to snag first place in 6 different categories and #89 in a seventh category, granting him a variety of items, as well as an upgradeable Achievement.  The “Mystery” boxes he received for getting first place were incredible and better than he could’ve ever imagined as prizes – but even he wasn’t aware of how they would eventually change everything.

With his stressful ordeal finally over, it was time for Thaden to integrate himself back into the world and finally complete his Evolution Assignment, so that he could evolve his Class and get back to being the strongest Contender on Tarth.  Now that the other Contenders had somewhat caught up to him in Levels and would be capable of tackling Intermediate dungeons on Minimal difficulty with a Level of 160+, he thought that it should be easy enough for him to knock the Assignment out within a few days.  

Unfortunately, Thaden hadn’t factored in the changes the System had undergone while he was absent.  The most prominent of those changes was the rise of the Contender Guilds, which had previously been a simple social construct organized among Contenders; after the System embraced the idea behind Guilds, however, Thaden’s prospects for finding a party to help him achieve his Evolution Assignment fell to virtually zero.  Because in addition to the Contender Guilds rising to prominence, basic information about Contender Classes became common knowledge, and with his Class’s detrimental PICK accumulation while in a Party, no one wanted him in their Guild.

After experimenting and discovering that he could complete an Intermediate dungeon on Minimal difficulty by himself, the Solitary Shaman was surprised when his reward from the yearly Rankings – Adaptable Mimicry Plates – suddenly created for him a “companion”, though not one that he wanted to deal with in its original form.  Instead of a seductive succubus that was inclined to call him “Master,” he decided to turn Sadia into a giant squirrel.  In addition to changing her appearance, once Sadia fully connected with his memories and understood what had happened to him in Tarth, her personality changed, and she became a friend and a true companion to him, offering him advice and helping him fight in the dungeons.

At her suggestion, he offered a contracted opportunity to the business-focused Guilded Glory Guild and its leader, Rachel, to become a subsidiary of the Guild.  In return for helping to essentially power-Level members of the Guild in Raid Parties, including a particular Lieutenant of the Guild named Corinna who had taken a fancy to him, they would help him complete his Evolution Assignment so that he could finally move past Level 189. 

After fulfilling the initial requirements of the contract without any issues, things went wrong when the Guild’s leadership Raid Party took him to complete the Descent Into Darkness Dungeon, where it turned out that an extremely powerful Adversarial Elite had taken control of the dungeon, and they were altering the minds of those who ventured inside.  Thaden managed to keep himself free of its influence, but he was chased out of the dungeon by the Elite, unfortunately leaving everyone else behind.

When he returned to Darkwood Vale, his own Raid Party members learned about their fate, and knowing that they were still alive, left Thaden to see if they could be rescued.  While they investigated his claim that they were lost inside the dungeon, Thaden finally evolved his Class – though in a way he wasn’t expecting.  Unknowingly forced into picking a Unique Class called Omenic Drifter, which was similar to his previous Classes but focused a lot more on his Fortuity stat than ever before, he despaired at some of the negative side-effects of the Class, such as a 1% chance that single-target spells and abilities used near him could cause instant death, that would make his position in the Guild even more difficult than before.

Somehow, his Raid Party succeeded in finding the Guild Leadership outside the dungeon, and while Thaden suspected that they were being mind-controlled, he couldn’t find any evidence of Adversary-tampering within them at all.  Giving them the benefit of the doubt, he took on a much harder dungeon that included a Horde Siege Challenge, completing it first solo and then with a Raid Party – which resulted in a huge win for the Guild, catapulting them to the top of the Rankings.

To celebrate the victory, the Guild leadership decided to throw a party, inviting the majority of the Guild’s members to attend.  While dancing with Corinna and preparing to leave with her to find somewhere more private, Thaden was shocked when the Lieutenant and the other members of the Leadership Raid Party that had gone missing suddenly exploded, killing everyone else at the party and launching the Omenic Drifter through the city.  Barely surviving the explosion, Thaden sensed the Level 700+ Adversarial Elite had somehow snuck into the city, and as the only one with even a chance of killing it before its influence spread too far, he made the decision to finally Level up as high as he could, bringing him to Level 294.  Now able to wear his new Lucky Vagabond set of equipment, as his Healthful Protection set and all of his other accessories were destroyed in the explosion, he took on the Adversarial Elite.

But not everything went to plan.  It turned out that the Elite could speak to him, somehow seemingly recognizing Thaden as an ally, and supposedly powerful enough to be a “Director”.  Playing along while he figured out how to kill the powerful, shadowy beast, he was thoroughly confused when the Elite referenced spatial pockets, nexus points, and the unlikely premise that the sucking out of the souls that the Soul Harvester was removing from deceased members of the Guild – making them unable to be resurrected afterwards – was actually helping to save them. 

After the Adversarial being discovered that Thaden wasn’t actually an ally, a fierce battle ensued between Thaden and the Soul Harvester, with the Omenic Drifter barely coming out on top.  While he was exhausted after the battle, the entire area was subjected to intense scrutiny by the Assimilation System, which had been blinded to the Elite’s presence beforehand, while he and other helpers started to Resurrect those inside the destroyed building.

While Thaden managed to find most of his Raid Party members and bring them back, the Guild leadership seemed to have been completely obliterated – including Corinna.  Nearly out of strength and despairing that he’d ever find any trace of the woman he’d been dancing with only hours before, the Omenic Drifter finally looked up – and found an unrecognizable clump of something smeared above his head.

With joy in his heart, Thaden Resurrected Corinna, happy to have found her despite the worry that he was too late.  Unfortunately, even with her back, the recovery of Guilded Glory was a full-time affair with her being the only ranking member of the Guild having been Resurrected.  In addition, his Leveling-up before the battle with the Harvester meant that the Omenic Drifter could no longer lead Guild Raid Parties because he was now more than 50 Levels higher than the rest of the members, so he was forced to go it alone once again. 

Fortunately for Thaden, he still had Sadia to accompany him as he explored Medial difficulty Intermediate Dungeons throughout the Region.  While they certainly held stronger monsters and had unique challenges to them, they weren’t too difficult for him to complete, netting him millions of PICK that he could use in reaching an even higher Level in the future.

That all changed when he encountered a corrupted dungeon called The Ascent, which trapped him inside without his squirrel companion.  Making his way through deadly traps to the top of a mountain, he faced yet another Adversarial entity, this one being a Level 492 Nexus Corrupter.  After learning some more disturbing information from it, he destroyed the Corrupter and escaped the collapsing dungeon, only to emerge back into a situation he wasn’t exactly prepared for.

The Wardens of Tarth, a powerful force of individuals protecting the developmental world, had come to investigate not only the instances of Adversarial entities, but Thaden, as well.

After escaping their reach, the Omenic Drifter increased his Level to 450 because he was starting to reach his PICK reserve limit again.  Once that was done, Thaden decided to challenge a Maximal difficulty Dungeon, but on his way to one he discovered yet another corrupted dungeon named The Badlands.  While inside, the Wardens track him down and enter it to confront him about being a possible agent of the Adversary, only to find themselves way over their heads with the quantity and strength of the monsters inside. 

Following their almost complete slaughter by the monsters, Thaden resurrects and negotiates with the suspicious Level 567 Aelveen Wardens, which ultimately leads to them accompanying them to the dungeon’s exit – where they ware promptly destroyed by a Legion Commander because they insisted on fighting it without him.  After destroying the Commander and resurrecting the chunks of the Wardens that were left behind, the much-subdued Aelveen agreed to work together to clear out the Adversarial corruption. 

But first, Thaden wanted to finally solo a Maximal difficulty dungeon, which he did shortly thereafter in The Mines of Khanordun.  After surviving endless waves of increasingly powerful monsters – with Levels all the way up to 999, in fact – he received some Artifact-rarity equipment with a Growth property on them.  By allocating his PICK absorption to the equipment, he could cause them to grow and become powerful, while also adapting to his fighting style.

As he and the Aelveen Wardens quickly cleared corrupted dungeons, the System issued a Quest to stop a dungeon breakout from The Warpath Dungeon, and Thaden goes alone to fight the Ogres that emerged.  While he was able to clear most of them, he entered into a conflict with the extremely suspicious Charee Wardens as they fought the last group of Ogres, and he was forced to defend himself against them, killing and resurrecting them multiple times before the Aelveen intervened. 

While the Charee Wardens were handled by the Aelveen he’d been working with, Thaden was sent to The Warpath Dungeon to clear it of corruption, where he battled against another Legion Commander.  During his fight with the Commander, it uses a boost to make it even stronger, but it still couldn’t stand up against the Omenic Drifter’s power, and fell shortly thereafter.  Unfortunately, the boost caught the attention of the System, and as he was leaving the dungeon, he was caught and held for a time in a sort of in between place, before finally being let go.  During this time he was held captive, The Citadel Dungeon, which was the essentially the capstone Intermediate Raid Dungeon that needed to be completed to end Developmental Phase 3, had been taken over by the Adversary and began emitting large amounts of dangerous energy.

Too late to stop it completely, Thaden rushed north, only find that the Wardens were fighting a losing battle against the construct-like monsters coming from The Citadel.  After discovering how to fight them and was eventually beginning to push them back, the Omenic Drifter was chased inside by a massive Boss, where he eventually arrives at a lift that brought him to the roof of the massive dungeon. 

There, he was met by the Boss of The Citadel, the Stalwart General.  However, before he could even attempt to fight it, the General exploded as an Adversarial agent named Director Belyssa replaced it – and he immediately knew she was quite powerful.  After she attempted to smother him with Adversarial energy, cutting him off from the Mana that filled the environment, Thaden found that he was actually generating Mana and fought back with the energy that he was essentially composed of.  The ensuing battle of energy caused an explosion that destroyed The Citadel and sent him flying uncontrollably toward the Wildlands.

After waking up after a bout of unconsciousness, Thaden discovered that he was far from Region #1, and that Developmental Phase 3 had been forcibly completed far ahead of when it should’ve been – which was, unfortunately, a common occurrence when it came to Thaden.  Now, with the final Developmental Phase starting, Thaden has to figure out how to salvage the situation he found himself in, even as millions of bestial roars reverberate through the Wildlands as the NESTs around him begin to activate….