Malice snarls at her. “Fine! You want to play it that way? Won’t have any problems with the guild if there are no witnesses.”
I turn to Grace again. “You couldn’t just let me and mine handle this while you watched the others?” As I finish saying that the knives resume. This time they are no longer focused on me but everyone. Malice flings a hand forward and an arrow forms of shadow and streaks forward to impact my magic shield, which I am able to swing forward to intercept the attack. I retaliate with a Lightning spell. My attack strikes a shadowy barrier that becomes visible when it blocks the damage. “You think you can help take care of this one with my girls if I get the person on top to quit with the steel rain?”
“Yeah I can do that, But the one up there is going to be around the same level as Malice. Her name is Spite. They always work together and are called The Couple.” She seems nervous and a little concerned for my future. Well I’m no push over either so we shall see what I can do.
“I got this” I tell her as I block a spiked ball of darkness from Malice. The impact is remarkable when it strikes me and I have to take a step back, even though I don’t take any damage. As the magic bursts, I understand why there was so much force. It was a magical barrier like the one surrounding Malice. This one was smaller but mobile, and shaped as a sphere with spikes. “I’ll distract him as you close. Then I’ll be busy, but the others will help.” Done talking, I fling a hand forward and a Flame Wave is cast. Fire rolls out in front of me heading down the alley and even blocking it off completely by the time it reaches Malice. I don’t stop there though. Casting a constant stream of Mana Bolts, I pepper the Barrier the enemy mage has up in an attempt to make him turtle up long enough for Grace to get in striking distance. Grace is experienced. That much is clear as she bolts forward following right behind my fire spell.
When she reaches the mage I turn to the others and shout. “Help her deal with this asshole. I’ll be back.” Without waiting for protests I turn and step through the Folded Space in front of me. As I step forward, I see Grace jab the enemy barrier with her spear and her buckler lights up briefly as it simultaneously deflects another Dark type spell. Then I’m on the roof of the building where the knives were coming from. I quickly cast Folded Space again and send myself to the other side of the roof. Looking around I don’t see anyone. I can hear that the knives have stopped coming down so that is a win, but it also means I’m up here with an invisible enemy.
Knowing the enemy was outnumbered below, and that Grace would likely make it an overwhelming victory, I knew my enemy needed to try and take me out quickly to then assist her partner below. With that insight, I decided to let her take the time she didn’t have. First thing is first. I cast Stone Skin, because my opponent is likely some kind of rogue, before preparing a couple things to make sure continued stealth skills won’t work. Concentrating, I focus on charging two different spells into either hand. When they are charged to the point I can’t risk any more I still haven’t been attacked. I settle in to wait with my back near the edge of the building to prevent a backstab.
When the attack comes it’s from a black dagger that suddenly penetrates my Mana Barrier on the left. The resistance from the barrier and the Magic Armor buff make it so I only get a scratch that stings my side. Lifting the hand on that side I release the Flame wave I altered so it spreads out as much as possible, covering a large portion of the roof in that direction. Already my foe was trying to change position. Only the edge of my spell catches her but it’s still enough to light her on fire making her black covered form visible. She’s a fucking ninja! At least that is what she looks like to me. She has all black clothing and black form fitting armor with a covering over her head that obscures everything but her eyes.
I don’t have time to contemplate the details of her attire since she is quickly patting out smoldering bits of clothing. Not wanting her to disappear once again I follow her run with my hand, running myself to stay in range. The other spell I release is an overcharged Frost. Keeping the spell directed at her I’m able to cover her head to toe in a thin layer of ice that slows her down considerably. My spell finished, I start to back away and fire off Lighting at her. Before she was fast and most likely would have dodged most of my spells but now she is in trouble and she knows it. She obviously understands the danger and turns to face me again. She was at the end of the roof so it was that or jump to try and get away.
My spell stuns her though and she is stuck convulsing slightly on her feet for a second. I use the time to charge another spell. One that is low level and quick to cast. Gust. As soon as she has come out of her paralysis and looks to have her wits back I don’t give her any more time. Releasing the powerful amount of air my overcharged spell creates she has no time to dodge. Unfortunately for me she didn’t even try. With a spin she releases a fan of knives that spread out in a cone toward me. The knives cut through my spell, neither being affected by the other. The knives are mostly at a bad angle and deflect off my Mana Barrier.
Of the two that came in straight at me one gets stuck in my spell briefly and stops. The second is slightly behind and penetrates all the way through. It slows only a little as my Mana Barrier falls. The knife gets lodged in my left upper arm and now I’m down to 70% HP. My spell slams into the ninja and flings her backward. Amazingly, she clears the alley completely, does a back flip and plants her feet on the wall of the building across from this one. Pushing off she comes back at me with another pair of daggers bared.
Not expecting the acrobatic maneuver I wasn’t prepared for it and it cost me. Her foot only landed once as she pushed off the roof, rocketing toward me. She may have been slowed a little by my Frost spell but it didn’t stop her from catching me. I tried to jump back and raised a Mana Shield to protect me. It only worked to stop the first dagger. The second she wrapped around the side of my protection to burry it in my right side just below my ribs. Stone Skin and my Magic Armor reduced the damage but still made it a dangerous wound.
Almost reflexively, I call a Fireball to my hand and hit her in the chest with it at point blank. We are both thrown back from the explosion and lose HP. Down below 50% health I’m still better off than my opponent. I stumble back but catch myself, Spite on the other hand is still close to the edge where the rest are fighting in the alley. Not able to catch her balance in time Spite gets a courtesy trip to the ground below. I take a second to rip the new additions to my arm and side out before casting a Reverse Pain to stop bleeding. We’re only two stories up so I’m sure Spite isn’t dead. I can’t afford to leave her unoccupied, so I use Folded Space once again and drink a Mana Potion as I walk through to appear in the alley once again.
Finished with the potion, I look around the area to see what the situation is. I can see Spite laying on the ground and struggling to get to her feet. Grace has been able to take down Malice’s Barrier but he is using smaller ones to entrap her legs so she can’t close with him. He is also trying to dodge the arrows and feathers from Azzaria and Thia. Timbre looks to have been knocked down and is getting to her feet now. I run up to Spite before she can regain her feet, bring my staff to hand, and then club her with the end to the back of the head. There is a flash of light at the point of contact and Spite is sprawled out on the ground again.
I shift directions again and as I pass Timbre on my way to Malice I shout. “Switch.” Timbre gets it and turns to Charge Spite. Agony explodes from my back as I can feel daggers lodge there. How many throwing knives does this woman have? Pushing through the pain I continue running, trusting Timbre to occupy Spite. “Azzaria! Roots on the other one.” She too turns and starts casting at Spite. That should keep her from interfering any more. I take a look at my HP to find I am below 35% now.
Not wasting any more time I stop to cast an Earth Spike towards Malice as he dodges more feathers. He runs right into it, impaling his own thigh on the rock. I continue in his direction as he starts raising a hand toward me to cast. “Too late shit-head” I think as I swing for
the fences. Just before impact I activate Interrupt causing the head of my staff to glow. I don’t think he was expecting a physical attack from me because his eyes widen in surprise but he never tried to block with the staff.
With a little whistling sound my special staff connects with the jaw of Malice eliciting a sickening crunch. The sharpened wings at the top slide across his face as it’s forced to turn and leaves a cut from temple to lip. A horrible scream shatters the night, louder than all the fighting beforehand. My hit shattered his jaw but that isn’t what really makes him scream. Spell feedback must be ripping through his melon like a chainsaw goes through zombies. Seeing that Grace is now free again I leave Malice to her and turn back to Spite. She is being overwhelmed by the combined actions of Azzaria and Timbre.
Watching the battle I’m proud of my girls. Azzaria roots Spite again to keep her immobilized as Timbre keeps her attention by attacking with her hammer and defending with her shield. While Spite is trapped, Azzaria peppers her with arrows. Wanting to be done with this battle, I jump behind Timbre to avoid another fan of knives and charge a single spell to the point of losing control. Watching for the right opportunity, I see Spite’s daggers glow as she wields one in each hand again. What follows is a flurry of blows that Timbre is unable to protect fully against. She takes many on her shield, but still receives multiple small wounds to the arms and legs.
Down to 50 % HP, Timbre isn’t deterred and counters with a shield bash. There, the momentary disorientation from the shield bash gives me the moment I need to strike. Not even bothering to raise a hand for aim I release an overcharged Ice Lance right at the off balance Spite. A light blue object rockets forward with so much force that it passes all the way through Spite and embeds itself in the stone wall behind her. She freezes in place and looks down at the hole through her torso where her heart should be before looking at me. All I can see in her expression is disbelief before her eyes role up in her head and she collapses, never to rise again.
Quickly turning to the other fight I’m in time to see it end. Malice has multiple golden colored feathers sticking out of him and Grace’s spear is skewering him through the chest. He makes a gurgling sound but apparently Thia doesn’t give a damn about whatever he is trying to say. A bolt of lightning comes down from the sky to connect to one of the feathers in Malice, where it branches off into the others. He seizes up and the eyes go glassy as the life leaves them. Grace looks over to Thia with an impressed look before yanking the spear clear of Malice’s corpse.
“Alright everyone” I call out. “Loot up quick. We are in lower city so the guards will be slow to respond, but we made a lot of noise. No doubt they will show. Grab everything you can from these two and we’ll look it all over when we get where we are going.” We divide up and take everything we can from the dead. Grace, Thia, and I take Malice to strip while Timbre, Azzaria, and Maka strip Spite. We don’t check it out, just stuff everything we can grab into storage and leave the rest. Then we follow Curt once again through lower city. Soon we are close to the east gate leading to upper city and stop at a house near the wall that looks just as run down as the rest we have been passing. Leading us into it, Curt then closes the door behind us.
I look around at our new surroundings and see that the house is gutted. There are no walls just an open room with a couple weight bearing pillars and thick curtains over the windows. In one corner of the large room is a trap door that leads into a small basement. Done looking around, Azzaria and I go around and heal all the wounds sustained during the battle. Then I take a seat next to Azzaria and Thia as Timbre stalks around the room with nervous energy. We still have an hour or two before we should be okay to enter the slave holding area without notice so I look to the notifications that last battle earned me. I earned a level in my Space, Fire, Water, and Neutral type magics from that battle. Also…
LEVEL UP! You have increased your level by 1. You are now level 18. As a Void Human you get 6 points to apply to your Stats and 1 Talent Point. As you are a Mage +1 INT +1 WIS are allocated. You currently have 4 undistributed SP and 1 undistributed TP. You can distribute these from your status page. Continue to increase your level to follow the path of true power. Fight for the RIGHT to survive!
LEVEL UP! Your Familiar Thia has increased in level by 1. Thia is now level 18. As your Familiar she gets 5 points to apply to her Stats and 2 Talent Points. Thia currently has 5 undistributed SP and 2 undistributed TP. You can distribute these from your familiar’s status page. Continue to increase your Familiar’s level to follow the path of true power. Fight for the RIGHT to survive!
Like always I start with my familiar. I place two points each into WIS and INT. The last SP goes into VIT. For the Talent Points she has I ask her what she wants. She tells me to place them in a talent under the branch for her feather knives. It’s called Penetration and adds a total of 20% armor penetration and 10% increased damage for her Knifewings skill with the two TP I place in it. I think this will also increase the damage from Bladestrike but it doesn’t mention it directly. Thia also leveled up Knifewings, Zapp, and Bladestrike each by one during our fight with the assassins.
Moving on to my own SP for distribution I think about it for a few minutes. With the four I have now I add another to INT and WIS. The last two I place in STR and VIT. Now it’s time for the talents. In my Celestial Mage talent tree I decide to finally use a point to pick up Stasis in the time focused branch under Time Management. This means I can get Spell Armament on my next level up. Looking over the spell description I see how it can be used as a control method and an attack.
Spell: Stasis: Creates a field of slowed time where the difference makes it appear as if the target is frozen. Duration: 10 Sec. Cooldown: 1 Min. Range: 1 Foot radius of target. Cost: 70 MP.
Not only does this new addition to my arsenal take a target out of the fight for ten seconds but, if I’m reading this correctly, ranged attacks sent at the affected target will also be caught in the time dilation when they get close. To the target it will look like the attacks just appear a foot in front of them. I get lost in the ways this can be used to my advantage for a time before I pull myself out of my contemplation. Since there is some time left until we need to get to work I look through my professional talent trees.
Under my enchanter tree there are a couple of options which are tempting. These are Split Charges and Active Skill Power. The former would allow me to add another active skill to an item and split the charges stored to accommodate the two skills the item has. This wouldn’t increase the number of overall charges that the item stores. The later is simple but useful since it improves the power of an enchanted active skill by 5% each tier up to 10% total if I sink two talent points into it. Which I plan to. For now though I add the one TP I have to spend into Active Skill Power.
For my Bonding specialization in enchanting I look at the options open to me. Because of only getting one TP every two levels I can still only see the first two tiers of talents and it doesn’t leave me with a lot of choices yet. I can add another point to Soul Bind Living in order to increase the information that bonded creatures get for each other. When it’s maxed out I will talk to Azzaria and Timbre to see if they want me to bond us together, but I don’t want to do it multiple times if it’s going to cause a lot of pain. The other option I have is Mana Consciousness which would give a soul infused item conscious thought. Not sure I want my staff to talk back to me I go with bringing Soul Bind Living to the second tier.
I close out the status interface and sit back for a moment. There is always a sense of satisfaction I feel after taking care of my level advancement as I can see real growth quantified plainly in numbers. It was always one of my favorite parts of the video games I played back on Earth: choosing a character build that suited my play style. It’s also interesting to feel my mind expand and my body become stronger, healthier. Almost time to get started with our little jail break I get up. “Okay everyone. Lets place everything we looted from the two assassins together
so we can sort it all out.”
We bring it all together and I tell the others to split the money they got between themselves, including Grace in the distribution as well. I don’t take any money though, I have plenty. Next I store all the junk that is just clothes with no stats or anything else of negligible value. I will carry it and then sell it when I have a chance before giving the money from it to the others. There were a few items that were better, like Malice’s Robe, but were not useful for anyone here. The robe for instance increased Dark magic potency, but no one here has that type of magic unlocked. I touch these items and send them to my storage space as well. It is then I note that Grace is looking at me with her mouth open. I forgot she didn’t know about that ability. I just give her a wink and go back to inspecting what is left over.
Throwing Knives of Return: A bandolier of twelve throwing knives. The bandolier and knives are enchanted to return thrown knives to the bandolier after 10 seconds. Item class: Rare. Durability: Varies per knife.
Mail Choker of Defense: Chainmail choker of high steel. Provides some defense for the neck. Enchanted for increased survivability. Item class: Uncommon. Durability: 47/50. Armor: +20. +5 VIT.
White Gold Ring of Intellect: A ring made of white gold and decorated with etched symbols. It is enchanted to improve INT. Item class: Rare. Durability: 30/30. +7 INT.
A Mage Rising: (The Chronicles of Herst 2: A LitRPG Saga) Page 36
