Awaken Online- Flame

by Travis Bagwell

  Except, the writings all speak of a mage of both youth and experience. They speak of the death of loved ones, bathed in flame and destruction. They speak of heresy and inspiration – a threat to the temple and a revolution of magic. They speak of a man that will master the art of spellcasting, consume that knowledge, and then taint it – his hunger insatiable.

  I believe the goddess was referring to me.

  It all suddenly makes sense! The Seer inspired her acolytes to have my parents killed and my mind enslaved to prevent a threat to her and the temple. I can only imagine that they kept me alive in an attempt to take advantage of my innate talents. Initially, this revelation threw me into a fit of rage – this nearly amounts to an indirect confession of guilt. I wished to immediately throw off my disguise and burn the temple to the ground.

  But then the writings gave me pause.

  If the Seer and her disciples went to these lengths to stop me, then that means she’s “afraid.” Which means she has a weakness. I need only find it. As I said at the beginning of this journal, fear is the death of passion – and oh how true that has become.

  ***

  “We sure made a mess of this place,” Finn said, glancing around the room. With Daniel’s alterations to his sight, and the cavern no longer obscured behind a haze of fire mana, he could now fully take in the devastation.

  “Probably the understatement of the year,” Julia offered, following his gaze.

  Blood, debris, and fragments of glass filled the cavern. If any of the wildlife was attracted to fire mana, then they had just sent up a huge signal. Although, it was at least some relief to know that the remainder of the fire ant colony now lingered more than a thousand feet below them. They just had to worry about whatever else might be living down here in this hellhole.

  Although, that did raise an interesting question.

  Finn’s attention settled on the dismembered body of one of the grubs. Its torso had been cleaved in half, soupy blood leaking from the severed portions. He stepped over to the creature and crouched down to inspect it. Despite the way his vision was now hazy and cast in infinite shades of blue, Finn could still detect odd fragments along the creature’s back – jagged lumps and obtrusions. He ran his fingers across them lightly.

  Glass? It certainly felt hard and smooth to the touch, and his guess was that it was partially translucent – although he couldn’t easily observe that now. Maybe damage from the exploding clusters and Julia’s shield?

  Except the fragments hadn’t penetrated the grub’s chitin. Instead, the material was fused to the surface of the creature’s exoskeleton. Almost like it had grown out of the shell…

  “Shit,” Finn muttered. This seemed to confirm his earlier suspicion.

  “Is that glass growing out of the grub?” Kyyle chirped from over Finn’s shoulder. His eyes scanned the room. “That would mean… Damn it. This was a trap, wasn’t it?”

  Finn nodded. “I’m guessing these little assholes can secrete a substance that looks like glass, making it mimic the energy signature of earth mana and injecting traces of air mana into it. I didn’t notice it until after I altered my eyes, but each of those pupae were comprised of dozens of layers of the glass, intentionally making it difficult to detect the grubs inside.”

  He spared a glance back toward the cave’s entrance and the central shaft. “My bet is that they lure the mature female ants from the central shaft in here – chasing after the air mana. Once they touch the glass…”

  “They explode out of their little cages and devour it,” Julia finished. “Damn.”

  Kyyle grimaced. “I should have thought of that.”

  Finn barked out a harsh laugh. “And I should have looked past the layers of earth and air mana to see the ravenous little nuggets of fire mana in the center. It was there the whole time. I was just in too much of a hurry.”

  “And I shouldn’t have dropped that fire crystal and gone full Leeroy Jenkins in here, spawning all of these grubs,” Julia pointed out, eyeing them both. “Point is, we can play the blame game all day, or we can learn from it and move the hell on.”

  “Exactly,” Finn added with a nod. “We planned as best we could under the circumstances, but sometimes plans go awry. Either way, we made it through the fight by working together – the same way we got out of that damn fire ant colony.”

  He hesitated as he saw the doubt flickering across Kyyle’s face. Clearly, the young man was beating himself up. However, the Seer’s words were lingering in Finn’s mind. A fire needs fuel, she had said. As he looked at Julia and Kyyle, he could start to see what she might have meant. A lone flame could burn brightly, but a group of people?

  They could build a genuinely awe-inspiring blaze.

  “You can’t plan for everything, and so we need to lean on each other. It’s the same lesson we learned during Brutus’ first class, remember? A bunch of novices against those damn fire golems,” Finn offered with a grin. “Yet we managed to drop his ass in that hole and blow up his golems – with only three spells between us.”

  That earned him a grin and a chuckle from the earth mage.

  “We’re strongest when we’re working together, leaning on the synergies between our skills and abilities. Hell, I’m pretty sure that’s why the Emir spread out power and knowledge among the guilds. He wanted to keep each group separate and isolated – individually weak.”

  Finn waved at the cavern. “But just look at what we managed to accomplish together… how far we’ve come.”

  Kyyle tilted his head. Then the earth mage glanced at Julia and saw her nod in agreement. “Fine,” he admitted grudgingly. “Maybe shit happens. But I’m still going to take notes, so I don’t make the same mistake again…” As he spoke, he pulled up his console and began typing away, occasionally glancing at the body of the grub.

  Julia just looked at Finn and rolled her eyes. Despite Kyyle’s cavalier attitude, Finn could tell that the message had connected. There was a kernel of truth to what Finn had said, and now that he had revealed the true goal behind this competition, he saw a fire burning in his companions’ eyes – a hunger to finish this. His own mana was responding to that excitement, simmering in his veins, and urging him to push forward.

  Finn rose back to his feet with a grunt, swiping at the air to bring up his map. “Anyway, the good news is that we might not encounter our irritating little buddies again. We’re getting close to Altair’s waypoint – this vault, presumably. The map has it positioned about 50-60 feet above us and just down that passage.” He pointed at the tunnel on the opposite end of the cave from where they had entered.

  A glance at Kyyle. “I suggest you finish up your notes quickly. We need to gather our stuff and get the hell out of here. Even with the way you walled off the passage to the central shaft, there’s no telling if the noise and mana will draw anything else into this cave. I sure as hell don’t want to meet whatever can feed on these grubs. This place’s ecosystem is just a bit too realistic for my tastes.

  “Once we get into the tunnel, we can set up a small rest area, check our notifications, and plan our next steps. Sound good?”

  Kyyle and Julia both nodded and promptly set to work scouring the cave, making sure they hadn’t left any stray equipment or materials that could be useful later. Soon, they were ready – bags and packs strapped down and weapons cleaned and sheathed. Finn had also taken a moment to reform Julia’s shield to make it less unwieldy, compressing the spikes back down into the surface of the disc.

  With one final look back at the room, they set off down the tunnel, looking for a place to make camp and plan their next move.

  ***

  After venturing down the adjacent tunnel, they had picked out a clear spot a hundred or so feet away from the grub cavern. Out of an abundance of caution, Kyyle had opted to drill out a new base camp – a narrow passage leading to a 20-foot by 20-foot enclosure that gave them enough space to spread out, plan, and re-equip.

  Tendrils of liquid stone coiled and s
urged through the air, connecting with the rock wall on the other side of the narrow entrance to the chamber that Kyyle had carved into the wall of the tunnel. Within only moments, the stone began to solidify, forming a thick barrier that fully blocked off their new camp.

  The earth mage had clearly improved his stone working skills since they had entered the Abyss. He automatically pulled a worktable up out of the rock and ringed the table with benches.

  “You’re turning into a real dungeon homemaker,” Julia quipped at Kyyle, shooting him a grin as she slumped down onto one of the benches. “We just need some tea and pastries.”

  “I could probably make that happen,” Kyyle shot back. “They might look authentic, but they’ll taste like rock and dust…” This earned him a pained grimace from Julia.

  For his part, Finn ignored their banter, relieved to have a moment of peace. Despite his group’s newfound resolve, the events of the last 24 hours were starting to catch up to him. The fight with the fire ant queen, a mad dash across the central shaft, the procedure with his eyes, that fight in the cave. There was a limit to his endurance.

  But they had to keep moving.

  First things first, Finn pulled his old novice tunic from his bag. The cloth was apparently almost indestructible, at least from most forms of attack. Although, it wasn’t completely impervious to damage, as Finn was able to tear off a rough strip. He quickly tied it around his head, obscuring his eyes from sight. He’d already seen how Kyyle and Julia stared at the dead metal, and he suspected it would be disconcerting for others.

  More pragmatically, he also didn’t want to tip off his opponents to his abilities. If they thought him a blind cripple, all the better as far as he was concerned.

  That simple task complete, Finn’s attention drifted to Bilel’s journal, where the edge of the tome stuck out of his bag. He hadn’t quite finished the entries yet, although he was nearing the end. The changes to his sight made it difficult to read, casting the pages in glowing color or a monochromatic blue. Although, he couldn’t shake the feeling that the mage’s story was important somehow – that he should finish reading it. With a frown and a flick of his wrist, Finn brought up his UI. He quickly found the group’s file repository, the folders filled primarily with Kyyle’s detailed notes.

  Finn accessed Daniel’s logs, pushing the AI’s scans of the journal into the repository. He’d had Daniel back up the journal a long time ago, afraid that he might accidentally damage or lose it during their journey. Now that foresight made it easier to convert the log into audio files that could be played while he was on the move or during a lull.

  Once he was finished, Finn decided to check his notifications. He hadn’t examined them carefully since their battle with the fire ant queen. There had been too many things consuming his thoughts to spare any attention to a few stat points. With a swipe of his wrist, he pulled up the notices.

  Immediately, a barrage of blue notifications tumbled down in front of him.

  x8 Level Up!

  You have (40) undistributed stat points.

  x3 Spell Rank Up: Mana Absorption

  Skill Level: Beginner Level 7

  Cost: 74% of mana drained as health damage.

  Effect 1: The caster can absorb ambient fire mana, adding the energy to their total mana pool.

  x1 Spell Rank Up: Imbue Fire

  Skill Level: Intermediate Level 8

  Cost: 200 Mana

  Effect 1: Imbues a weapon with fire mana, increasing the weapon’s base damage by INT x 13.5%. Can only be used on unenchanted metal weapons.

  Effect 2: While channeling, allows the caster to increase the heat in ranks, up to a current max heat rank of [4]. Each heat rank increases damage by INT x 5% while increasing the channel cost by 50%.

  Channel Effect: Allows user to control the weapon within his control range at a cost of 25 mana/sec.

  x6 Spell Rank Up: Haste

  Skill Level: Beginner Level 7

  Cost: 200 mana upon activation. 75 stamina/second sustained.

  Effect 1: Increases total speed by 33.5%.

  x3 Skill Rank Up: Flameworking

  Skill Level: Intermediate Level 4

  Effect 1: 36% increased power when shaping objects subject to Imbue Fire.

  Effect 2: 16% increased control when shaping objects subject to Imbue Fire.

  System Notice

  The system administrator has noticed that your pet has begun abusing the in-game “Tactical Highlight” system, attempting to highlight all targets within view simultaneously and continuously in order to allow you to simulate regular vision.

  Apart from the obvious abuse of this mechanic to overcome a limitation of your recent body augmentation, this has also placed an undue burden on system resources. On the other hand, the system administrator does wish to reward players for the novel use of game mechanics.

  As a compromise, this feature has been adapted into a passive in-game skill, replete with appropriate limitations and tradeoffs. If you have any complaints, you can lodge them with our customer service department. Please address your email to:

  Ididntthinkthisthrough@notourproblem.com

  New Active Skill: Short-Sighted

  Through the creative use of the in-game “Tactical Highlight” system, you have developed a skill that resembles something like normal vision. However, this ability comes with many restrictions. It can only be used outside of combat, its use reduces the user’s mana regeneration to zero, you can no longer detect specific colors, and the vision is inaccurate, with that inaccuracy increasing in proportion to the distance between yourself and an object – the equivalent of a near-sighted individual. We hope you appreciate the irony.

  Skill Level: NA

  Cost: Reduces mana regeneration to zero.

  Effect: The caster can view the world through a rough approximation of normal vision. Current vision is approximately 20/40.

  Finn barked out an inadvertent laugh as he read the prompts. It seemed that someone on the game’s development team had a sense of humor, at least. Not that he could blame them for placing some limitations on Daniel’s modifications. It did seem a little ridiculous to trade his eyes for his improved Mana Sight, only to also have nearly perfect normal vision.

  Although, the passive 20 mana/sec cost of his permanent augmentation was rough.

  That change alone had dropped him to 44.60 mana/second, even after taking into account the bonuses from the fire ant queen’s crown. While Finn could help compensate for the loss of regeneration with Mana Absorption, that ability ate through his health quickly. Even the reduced percentage as he leveled the spell added up fast. If he only burned half his health – which represented a considerable risk – that only gave him back roughly 1,412 mana. Or about half of his current mana pool. The effect was to increase his risk and to effectively shift his 8.05 health regeneration/second to mana regeneration.

  If I were being as efficient as possible, I’d always be slightly hurt and burning a fire mana crystal every time I hit full health again, Finn realized.

  On top of that, some of his spells had also begun to cost stamina. For example, Finn could only channel Haste for about 20 seconds right now, and it took him a little over two minutes to fully recover. He’d had to make do with a half-empty stamina pool with the grubs. He supposed that limitation made sense, given how powerful that spell could be, but it also meant that his stat priority was now much more complicated.

  If he put up Intelligence, he added more mana, mana regeneration, and damage. However, additional health increased his durability and could now be used to recover mana through Mana Absorption. He also probably needed to consider ways to improve his Endurance to increase his stamina pool and regeneration – which would increase his uptime on Haste.

  Although, as Finn reviewed the data, he realized that Intelligence was probably still the best stat by far. As Brutus had mentioned a long time ago, it was easier to train some of his physical stats like Endurance. Although, he supposed he hadn’t
had much downtime to do that lately. Mana could also be used to substitute for low health by keeping his Magma Armor up or using his Imbue Fire to block attacks – especially now that he had become more adept at manipulating the heat ranks and reforming the metal on the fly.

  As a result, he’d found himself getting hit less, focusing instead on using his abilities at a distance or to enhance Julia. Against a large crowd of targets, it was likely much more efficient for him to enhance her shield and attempt another one of those shield throws – which he was calling a “Shield Spiral” in his head – than to enter the fray directly.

  With a sigh, Finn dumped the remainder of his points into Intelligence. If they ever got out of this pit, he’d see if he could find some gear to boost Vitality and Endurance… or possibly go back to Brutus and ask for some help with training – as horrible as that option seemed. Even after the Abyss, he didn’t relish the idea of the fire mage’s instruction.

  As soon as he finished allocating his points, Finn pulled up his Character Status.

  Character Status

  Name:

  Finn

  Gender:

  Male

  Level:

  92

  Class:

  Fire Mage

  Race:

  Human

  Alignment:

  Lawful-Neutral

  Fame:

  1800

  Infamy:

  0

  Health:

  2105

  H-Regen/Sec: