Shades First Rule

(These summaries have been taken from the author's website with permission]

# Shade's First Rule - Summary

Sixteen-year-old Ruwen goes to Uru’s Temple for his Ascension ceremony, where he will be granted one of six base classes (Fighter, Mage, Merchant, Worker, Order, Observer) and will, after the ceremony, revive anytime he dies. His high Intelligence makes Ascending as a Mage guaranteed. He goes to the temple alone, as his parents have been missing for a year.

The High Priest in charge of Ruwen’s Ascension believes Ruwen’s parents stole a massive shipment of precious terium and are murderers and thieves. He takes his anger out on Ruwen and instead of assigning him the Mage Class during Ascension, assigns him the Worker Class.

During Ruwen’s Ascension process he briefly meets the Goddess Uru, who asks him a few cryptic questions before throwing him off a cliff.

Ruwen wakes up from his first revival devastated at becoming Uru’s most common Class. Workers are a utility Class and his dreams of being a Mage are over. The Priestess in charge of his post-revival care, Hamma, helps Ruwen escape the temple.

Ruwen’s first quest leads him to the Worker Bliz, who convinces Ruwen he should take a Void Band. Void Bands are dimensional storage with 100% weight reduction and a flexible opening all controlled with his Energy pool. While a tremendous Inventory advantage, if Ruwen’s Energy drops to zero with the Void Band open, it kills him.

Ruwen figures out he has access to a second Class, one that he can pick himself. He immediately chooses Mage. While using his Mage magic for the first time, he causes an explosion, killing a man that had been following him.

The explosion reveals a group of assassins from the God Naktos who are trying to kill Ruwen. He flees only to get cornered by the library, where his mentor and friend, the Head Librarian Tremine, stabs Ruwen through the eye and kills him.

As Ruwen revives, the Goddess Uru speaks with him again. He learns Uru has chosen him as her Champion. This gives him the ability to choose a different second Class every time he revives but will make him the target of all the other gods.

When Ruwen revives at the temple, the Priestess Hamma helps him escape again, and they go to a nearby bar. While at the bar Kysandra joins them, a mysterious woman who fights off a Naktos assassin, allowing Ruwen to escape.

Ruwen’s flees to his room in the library where Tremine arrives and explains why he killed Ruwen earlier. Kysandra arrives as well and assures Ruwen that Hamma is safe. Ruwen learns Tremine and Kysandra have a long history, and they agree the only safe place for Ruwen is at Kysandra’s base of operations, the top floors of place called the Black Pyramid.

Ruwen goes through a Rune Gate for the first time and arrives at the Black Pyramid where he meets seventeen-year-old Sift. Sift is an expert in unarmed combat, and Kysandra assigns Sift the job of leveling Ruwen to level five. Kysandra tells Ruwen his only chance at surviving is to assign his second Class choice to Observer and use the spells and abilities of that Class to hide himself from the Naktos assassins.

Ruwen is overwhelmed by the physical combat and hampered by the debuffs to all his stats that the previous death caused. He struggles to survive in the Black Pyramid, forced to use his high Intelligence not to cast Mage spells, but to find clever ways to use his Worker and Observer capabilities to stay alive.

In the Black Pyramid, Ruwen meets Blapy, a seven-year-old girl with blond pigtails and a love of centipedes. He learns this “girl” is actually the creator of the Black Pyramid, and a being of enormous power.

Ruwen meets Sift’s parents, who agree to let Sift teach Ruwen the Bamboo Viper Clan Step forms. They also help Ruwen with a meditation issue which triggers an unexpected capability inside Ruwen. He discovers he can pull energy from his surroundings into his body, something only Cultivators should be capable of, and impossible for someone who had Ascended.

Ruwen makes it to level five and takes the Observer spells and abilities necessary to hide his identity. Sift is allowed to leave the Black Pyramid and travel with Ruwen back to his home. They meet up with Hamma and as the three of them travel to the Worker’s Lodge. On the way there, the three of them get ambushed and Sift is critically wounded.