by Taj McCoy El
Halsh snorted.
“Is that humorous, Halsh?”
“The city guard shouldn’t be much of a problem even if they did find us suspicious—as long as you know the right palms to grease.”
“You seem to know your way around these issues. Then I shall allow you to take the lead once we are in Drahtspule.”
Halsh nodded. “As you wish lieutenant.”
“With that in mind, we will be staying at an inn called the webbed horseshoe. I expect to be there before it’s dark outside. There are bad things in this city, and I would prefer to avoid too many entanglements.”
“Yes, lieutenant.”
“During our time here, I shall be known as Falx Coad. you will be known as—"
… The Key… His steps faltered, and he shuddered in pain from the spike and tried to come up with a name to end the war raging in his nerves.
“Keyes. Yessss, Keyes!!!”
“Just Keyes? Is there any last name for that, Lieutenant?”
“No. And no first name either. You are just simply Keyes. A simple man but with an enigmatic mystery, one that will draw attention away from me, with your dark, brooding, and extremely silent demeanor.”
“We will find our contact and move out as soon as possible.”
“Yes, lieutenant.”
They approached the gates and paid the two-silver toll to enter. From there they went to a messenger station and bought maps of the city. Malcipher was happy to find the map given by Caltura had secret places marked.
I will need to visit those before I leave.
They arrived at the webbed horseshoe about an hour after entering the city and took a stall in the back.
They ordered food but didn’t touch it and drinks but didn’t drink them. They sat there in the dark like statues and waited
✽✽✽
Mayah finished the wooden handles and slid the shortened arrow into it. It looked somewhat like a cross between a magic wand and BBQ skewer except for the arrowhead and the runes inscribed on the shaft. There were only two of them and it was so simple that Mayah slapped her forehead for not thinking of it before.
The Open (Lf) and Hold (E) runes sat in their own circle with a line drawn to a circle that went around the shaft directly below the arrowhead. Another line was drawn down the shaft to another circumscribed line just above the handle.
Below that line and hidden under the handle, she inscribed the Mana Source rune
This should catch any mana I put into it.
She enchanted the wand and received a popup.
DING!!!
You have Created a New Item
Name:
Wand of Storage
Type
Portable runeagram wand
Grade:
C
Material:
Iron and Wood
Weight:
3 lbs.
Damage:
15DP Piercing
Durability:
27/30
Usage:
30MP per second
Attributes
When activated this wand will pull things into the runiverse.
Created by Pretty Princess Cuddle Fluff (Enchanted Seamstress)
For creating new items in Majesta
50XP (bonus)
This actually works? The system actually recognizes this and …THIS ACTUALLY WORKS!!!!!!!! Mayah cackled deeply in her chest. Her shoulders hunched and knees pulled in to keep her limbs from exploding outward with joy. Her eyes were wide with unbridled frenzy!
This is my baby… My joy!
Ding!!!
Enchantment level 8
You have received 15 skill tree points. You have 81 unspent skill tree points
Ding!!!
Runes level 6
Runes hasn’t given me a skill tree or skill points. I wonder if it has one. Where does runic soul fit in with all this? Do all my skills have skill trees? What about Rage of Pyrmos? Need. More. Sciencing!!!!! Tonight, I will engross myself on the forums.
She cackled and rocked by herself while enchanting the other three wands and took a look at her friends. Grax was having fun with his short spears, twirling them like escrima sticks. Thrusting and jabbing at invisible targets. He jumped into a spinning kick followed by a fierce thrust. Margaret applauded and this pulled Grax out of training mode.
“Thank you, Margaret, for appreciating my greatness.” He bowed deeply.
"I did always love a good clown show!”
Mayah snorted loudly. Grax cut his eyes at her.
“E tu, princess?”
“Heh. Let me show you something. After that, I can enchant your spears and we can go.”
Grax spied the arrows Mayah held in each hand. They had been shortened and instead of fletchings, she had created handles out of wood that covered the bottom third of the shaft. Deep lines were engraved up to the tip with small chevrons pointing towards the tip and a ring was inscribed around the arrow. He looked at the arrows and his face showed nothing but betrayal.
“No fair I thought I was doing the short spears?”
“Hush up, cat. These aren’t spears. Do me a favor and toss a hunk a wood at me?”
“With pleasure!” The disgruntled cat complied
Grax wound up like a major league pitcher and Mayah yelled, “SLOWLY! These haven’t been tested yet.”
“Really?” A shifty smirk spread across the cat’s face as he wound up again.
“Don’t you even… Aahhh!!!”
Mayah flooded the wand with mana and swung the pointer at the fist-sized hunk of wood. The two connected and the wood stuck to the tip of the wand like they were glued together. The tip of the wand buzzed loudly and the hunk went two dimensional and seemed to slide sideways for a moment before disappearing into nothingness with a buzz. Mayah’s other hand went to the shaft, and she brought the buzzing arrow tip closer to her face, observing it critically. She relaxed her glare and a storage crystal materialized and fell to the ground.
Grax’s jaw dropped. “You didn’t?”
"I did.”
"I am so jealous right now.”
“You should be.”
“Pbbbbttt!!!”
“Storage runes as a weapon?” Margaret's mouth was in an O while her eyebrows were trying to climb her forehead.
“Yep.” Mayah wiggled in joy.
“That is so OP.” Grax could only shake his head.
Mayah clutched the wands to her chest like an actress accepting an Oscar. The back of her hand went to her forehead, and she spoke to her imaginary, adoring masses.
“Thank you, thank you. I couldn’t have done it without you.”
“You’re welcome,” Grax yelled.
“NOT. You.” She pointed at Grax. “I totally did this without you. And I came up with another question that needs answering and I guess I could use your help.” Her pointed finger swung lazily over to Margaret. Grax’s face dropped as the finger moved away from him.
“I’d love to, dear.” Margaret clapped. "I love your experiments.”
“This is the part that goes boom right?”
“Most likely candidate of the day—so far at least.”
“What do you need from me?”
“From you? oh, a few spells, a few dead bodies” Mayah sat down and pulled out a smaller fabric runeagram.
“We know that physical items create blue crystals, and that spells create orange crystals. But what we don’t know could fill a book. I want to see what happens when you put spells and physical items together.”
“We haven’t tried that yet?” Grax
“Not to my recollection and I’m the one that has to be there EV-ery time we fire up the runeagram. I think I would have noticed.”
“I’ve never seen Cloutus do it either,” Margaret added.
“Well, there we go. It’s time to science. might as well start with an inactive doll and we’ll use the resurrection doll spell since it’s purely energetic. We also know that the items are s
ynergistic.”
“I’m following so far.”
“Mags, this may also help level your doll skill.”
“Ooh.” Margaret pulled a skaduvuurm out of her bag and placed it onto the runeagram. Whenever you’re ready, dear.”
“I’m not sure this isn’t a proscribed activity for explosive reasons. So, after you cast back off. Riker! Deanna!” The 1otten popped their heads out of the grass and looked at Mayah.
“Boom!” The 1otten ducked back down with a loud squeak.
Hehehe…
“Okay, Mags, opening on three, two, one…”
She activated Open (Lf) and Hold I on the runeagram, the vuurm slid sideways into nothingness. Margaret cast resurrection doll onto the surface of the circle the energies being absorbed into a buzzing sound. The spell cut off and Mayah waited a moment to make sure she got whatever energies she was supposed to from the casting. And released mana to the runeagram. The energies fizzled and a gray crystal formed and fell to the fabric.
“BOOOOO!!!!” Grax yelled from a distance.
“Why? Mayah asked him perturbed.
“No. explosions. Boooooooring!”
Margaret laughed uncontrollably. She looked at Grax and held her belly and yelled, “Jinx!”
“What? No!” Grax snorted
“Jinx,” Mayah doubled down.
“That not how that works,” Grax growled eyeing the two of them.
“Then why does me saying sewers work?” Margaret smiled at the feline.
Grax’s fur bristled, as he tried to come up with an argument against the superstition but couldn’t find any. “Thanks for that Margaret. When we get in the sewers, I hope you get a mouthful of poop water.”
Mayah could only laugh as she picked up the crystal.
You have created
Stored Synergy Crystal
Spell: Resurrection Doll
Subject: Vuurm
Durability: 100/100
She handed it to Margaret who inspected it.
“What should we do with it?” the necromancer asked.
“What do you think, noob?” Grax scooped the crystal out of Margaret’s hands examined it for a moment then tossed it into a delivery parcel and threw it across the field.
The concussive blast from the returning matter and energy from the runiverse was larger than previous and when the dirt cleared a vuurm doll stood there.
Margaret’s mouth dropped open. “It just popped up on my Doll list.”
DING!!!!
Hidden quest Raising The Dead completed
You have found the long-lost means of raising an undead servant over vast distances. This process has been lost since the war of the undead and is greatly coveted. You now have the ability to become a major power in the world of the necromancers.
Reward: 5,000XP + 100 skill tree points + variable rewards depending on further actions.
“WOOT WOOT!!!! 100 skill tree points!!! Oh yeah mama’s gonna get it on and cracking!!!” Mayah glowed and leveled up.
Before anyone else could respond another ding happened.
DING!!!
You have been offered a quest
A Good or Bad Death
You must choose a side between the Kol’rabeus and the S’karabeus and deliver the information to them. Once you choose a side and the information is delivered to them your reputation will fall to hatred with the other faction. Keeping the secret to yourself will result in the hatred of both sides.
Rank: SS.
Reward: Special necromancer skill + 5,000XP + 5,000 gold.
Failure: Refusing to give the information to either side of the necromancers or allowing the knowledge to be stolen.
Do you wish to accept?
Y/N?
“Did you all get the quest update?” Mayah asked.
“I’m trying to figure out why I got it,” Grax asked.
“It must be because we all played a part in the summoning. It was Margaret’s spells, my runeagram and your activating of the crystal.”
“So, what are we gonna do?”
"I think we should turn this into Cloutus as soon as possible or someone he trusts. should be easy enough.”
“So, then we are accepting this quest?” Margaret inquired.
"I already did,” Grax laughed.
“Presumptuous scruff nerfer.” Mayah glared at the cat.
Grax stuck out his tongue.
“Iddn’t dat how you albays ged in twubble?” Margaret teased Grax with his own bitten tongue talk.
Grax pulled his tongue in and glared. Mayah just laughed.
“So, yes Margaret accept the quest.” Mayah pressed yes on her quest notification and got another popup
DING!!!
Worldwide Notification:
Pretty Princess Cuddle Fluff, Margaret Crenshaw, and Graxiel Destruir have rediscovered an ancient technology thought long lost to Majesta. There is now a chance that Ba'alquion’s tomb may be repaired before he rises again.
You have been offered an Imperial quest
Sealing the crypt
The Emperor has heard off your efforts in finding the ancient technologies that created Ba'alquion’s crystal prison. In recent centuries the crypt has begun deteriorating and unleashing Ba'alquion’s foul miasma upon the world. This effect will only sow discord and blood across Majesta. By discovering one of the ancient technologies there is a chance to repair Ba'alquions Crypt before he can grow strong enough to break free.
Rank: Imperial - See the Emperor for ranking.
Reward: ??? Variable. See the Emperor for details. Failure: Ba'alquion escapes from his tomb and evil incarnate walks the land.
Do you wish to accept?
Y/N?
“Whoa….” Grax fell on his butt hand over his mouth.
“What is a worldwide notification?” Margaret asked.
“Oh nothing… It just means we have targets painted on our backs for real. Shaz, Shaz and more Shaz.”
“And an imperial quest?” Margaret doubled down.
“Not quite sure on that one. Pretty sure it’s gonna have serious ramifications for our wellbeing, though,” Mayah grumbled.
“You done stepped in it now, princess.”
“You’re right there with me, though, aren’t you?”
“Doesn’t look like I have much of a choice,” Grax said pensively
Mayah accepted the quest and informed Margaret to do the same.
DING!!!
Reputation Notice
Your Faction reputation with the Imperial forces of Majesta has risen to Ally/Trusted. These forces will allow you to move freely in their territories.
DING!!!
Reputation Notice
Your faction reputation with the dark forces of Ba'alquion has dropped to Enemy/Distrusted. These forces will be more liable to attack you without remorse or reservation.
Margaret hummed an anxious, “Hmmmm. That can’t be good, can it?”
“Thanks to the imperial quest, the targets on our backs just got bigger but it should also open some doors for us to raise our reputation even more once we get out of here. Silver linings on storm clouds, and all that.”
“So, let me get this straight.” Margaret pondered the overall situation. “We accept the quest to seal the crypt and we automatically join the forces of the emperor? And now have an unknown amount of people after our heads?”
“It’s because accepting the emperor’s quest puts us in direct opposition to everyone who wants to free Ba'alquion. It’s pretty simple. Also, quest chains out the wazoo.” Mayah did a little happy dance that ended with a fist in the air. “Totally worth it if you ask me. I wasn’t planning on picking sides. But if you’re gonna go, best to go to the top.”
“Oh…” was all Margaret could get out.”
“Man, if I had known that I was going to have so much fun with you I wouldn’t have given you so much guff earlier,” Grax laughed in disbelief
“So, are you going to change now?” Mayah questioned.
“And defy orders? No, ma’am. This cat is set to snub. Haahaha…”
“Let’s see how you snub without me enchanting your spears.”
“Snub retracting. Please enchant my spears?” Grax fell to a knee and proffered his spears to Mayah.
“That’s more like it, cat. Now gimme the spears.”
Mayah took the offered spears. Grax raised his head and wiped his brow in relief. Mayah chuckled.
I still have to reward him for saving the dungeon. Sigh….
She sat down and added the runes for club light to the wood with five extra Light (W) runes on each side of the blade and moved the Place (Lt) rune to focus the light along the edge of the stiletto and threw in a Safety (Lt) just for fun. She wrapped thread of iron around the joins for extra strength. Mayah sat down to enchant them. After the enchantment clicked into place, she examined the first one.
Name:
Half Spear of Light
