ELEMENTAL RAGE
EFFECT: +20 ELEMENTAL DAMAGE ON ENEMIES WITHIN 10 FEET OF CASTER
Because I was still a melee fighter at heart, I liked the idea of having another spell to bolster my hand-to-hand skills.
I imagined taking on a squad of legionnaires, then casting this spell. Fire, ice, and lightning magic would be bursting from my body in all directions, damaging my opponents even before I got the chance to hit them with a blade or even my fist.
As I was reading over my new spells, I noticed a change in my Second Sight that I hadn’t seen before.
NEW CLASSES UNLOCKED!
I gasped. I’d finally gotten strong enough that the Soulguard was able to unlock new classes for me!
I looked over them, with my heart pounding in excitement as I thought about all the new possibilities.
KNIGHT
+5 LONG BLADE
+5 AXE (ONE HANDED AND TWO HANDED)
+5 HEAVY ARMOR
+5 ATHLETICS
+5 RESTORATION
+5 MAGIC RESISTANCE
+5 TRUST AMONG PUBLIC
-5 DESTRUCTION
-5 ILLUSION
-5 MYSTICISM
-5 SNEAK
-5 LIGHT ARMOR
Eh. Not exactly my style. The offensive melee benefits were decent, and the static defensive benefits were as well, but I didn’t like the idea of taking a hit to my more offensive magical options.
Also, at the moment, I had no interest in heavy armor. Though it seemed counterintuitive due to my love of melee combat, light armor just complimented my skills more. I enjoyed the ability to move swiftly and evade attacks efficiently.
PALADIN
+10 LONG BLADE
+10 HEAVY ARMOR
+10 RESTORATION
+10 MAGIC RESISTANCE
+10 SPELL ABSORPTION
+10 RESTORATION
+10 TRUST AMONG PUBLIC
+10 TOTAL DAMAGE VS ALL UNDEAD
-10 DESTRUCTION
-10 ILLUSION
-10 MYSTICISM
-10 LIGHT ARMOR
-10 SNEAK
Well, now I knew what a holy warrior looked like. Those skill modifiers would have come in handy against a lich lord or two. Still, I didn’t like taking the hit with my other magical abilities, though.
WAR MAGE
+5 LONG BLADE
+5 AXE (ONE HANDED AND TWO HANDED)
+15 DESTRUCTION
+10 MYSTICISM
+5 RESTORATION
+5 ILLUSION
+5 UNARMORED
-5 SNEAK
-10 HEAVY ARMOR
-10 LIGHT ARMOR
-5 ATHLETICS
-5 TRUST AMONG PUBLIC
Now, this one brought a smile to my face. Provided that the negative armor modifiers didn’t apply to the Soulguard, the pros of this class absolutely outweighed the cons.
Basically, becoming a war mage meant I’d become a fucking tank. I wouldn’t take a hit on my melee skill, but my magical abilities would be boosted to a fairly over-the-top level.
I’d be the perfect mixture of melee and ranged combat, of offensive and defensive capabilities. Sure, I’d be slightly less mobile due to the knock on my athletics skill, but I could make up for it with my unarmored bonus. At the very least, they’d nearly balance each other out.
More than just me being curious about trying out a new class, the war mage class had very practical applications at the moment.
My Dayfire blade would break in the next fight. In fact, it was so brittle and unreliable that I wouldn’t even trust using it against a mere skeleton or goblin.
The orcish war axe was a decent backup, but it wasn’t exactly an overpowered weapon, so why not rely more on magic for the time being?
Plus, if there was a battle coming, I’d be going into it without any armor. My glass armor pieces were either destroyed or so damaged that they wouldn’t last in a fight, anyway. Why not take advantage of the unarmored skill boost?
There was a drawback to all the new classes, however. It seemed that even the magic of the Soulguard wasn’t about the old adage, ‘you give a little, you get a little.’
Before I actually applied any changes, I noticed that, in the preview of my war mage stats, that my level would change.
WAR MAGE LEVEL 13
Hm.
Changing classes cut my level by half. The change only affected my base stats, with my health and fatigue dropping by about a quarter, though my mana would go up by fifty percent. My strength and speed would take minor hits, as well.
I scratched my chin, mulling my options. Part of me didn’t want to weaken my base stats, and I was about to scrap the whole plan…but then I saw my level up modifiers.
For the main war mage skills, I’d hit my skill increases far faster. Plus, though I’d be temporarily weaker physically, I’d reestablish my current power levels with just a few level increases.
Basically, in exchange for some minor short-term concessions, I’d be able to build myself up to far greater power levels.
Yeah, this was a no-brainer.
I switched over to the war mage class. The Soulguard rippled over my left hand, a steady, if minor, tremor quickly shot through the rest of my body as my physical form processed the changes.
Now, I could feel my connection with magic itself growing more acute. I even felt the base, inherent magical nature of the world around me. A low-level of mana flowed everywhere, invisible to the naked eye, but now I could feel it, almost on a subatomic level.
All my magic was boosted now, and I was eager to try out my new destruction spells.
And no, this wasn’t just a frivolous lust for a fight. This too had practical applications. If I was going to remain a war mage for awhile, it made sense for me to get acquainted with my new skills.
Slipping out of bed quietly so I didn’t wake up Esmerelda, I found Corvus Gavrus in the kitchen, making a pot of coffee. The other Mananymphs were sleeping in a second guest bedroom.
He looked at me with a sly grin. “Gamelord, I sense a wave of magic washing over you,” he said.
“Yeah, I’ve made some changes,” I said, then explained to him how the Soulguard let me change my class.
“Well, I don’t understand a lick of that,” Corvus Gavrus said, “but you seemed to have made yourself into a mage of considerable power.”
“And that’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” I said. “You need to find me someone to fight so I can get a preview of what I can do now.”
That didn’t take long.
Using an eagle he created to monitor this area of Darkwood Forest, he showed me that the woods were crawling with Imperials.
His illusion magic was thorough enough that they would never find us, sure, but it wouldn’t be for a lack of trying.
Hundreds of soldiers were tramping through the dense forest, though mostly they were broken up into squads of ten or twenty men. Each squad had a knight leading them, and most had a war mage to bolster their fighting force.
I laughed. Assuming that they were also taking their marching orders from Therena, it didn’t speak well for her leadership style to have her men walking in circles in these woods. She knew Corvus Gavrus was a master illusionist, after all. Now, these squads of men were so lost that they were isolated from each other, with every squad walking in a different random direction.
They’d never find what they were looking for, not with Corvus employing his illusion magic to make the forest scenery shift and change with every step they took.
“Find me a squad that’s close,” I said.
He tapped his chin, navigated his eagle through the canopy, then found a squad that was roughly a quarter-mile from our position.
Again, that squad was no threat. Even if they somehow came within spitting distance of our hideout, Corvus would simply shift the scenery again, making them get lost in his illusion once more.
Yet while they were no threat, they would serve as a nice practice fight for me to test ou
t my war mage skills.
I nodded, grinning. “Yeah, they’ll do just fine,” I said.
There were twenty of them. Eighteen were infantry, all well-armed grunts. A knight led them at the fore, clad in silver armor with a closed helm. A bearded war mage followed along at the rear, with a fearsome one-handed axe on his hip.
“That’s twenty men, Gamelord,” Corvus said. “Are you sure you can take them?”
I smiled. “Oh, it won’t be a problem.”
“Before you go, I have a gift for you,” Corvus said. “Given your new connection to magic, I think you’ll like it.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
CORVUS GAVRUS MAGE’S ROBE
EFFECT: CONSTANT EFFECT
-RESTORE MANA +1
-FORTIFY MANA +50
I wore the deep green, shimmering robe as I stalked through the forest. The stats were incredible, although not that flashy.
With the restore mana +1 effect, combined with my ability to slowly regenerate my mana over time, I’d hardly have any need for restore mana potions anymore. Plus, the fortify mana +50 perk helped me raise my overall mana threshold.
Yeah, being a war mage was turning out to be pretty awesome.
Corvus had cast a spell on me, so that I’d be able to see through the illusions he’d created in the woods, so I had a rather enjoyable walk as I made my way toward the legion squad.
As I walked, I kept one hand on the hilt of my orcish war axe. It felt good on my hip. Sure, it was no Dayfire longsword, but the orcish steel was reliable and always available in a pinch…
“Wait a fucking second,” I whispered to myself, then suddenly stopped in my tracks.
Orcs! That was the answer!
It had seemed so long ago that I’d last spoken to the orc warlord Gorrok that I’d all but forgotten about his forces.
With the Necromancer dead, the orc tribes in the Southern Mountains would no longer be scraping by to survive while constantly being hassled or enslaved by the Dark King’s undead forces.
If I sent word to Gorrok that I needed help, he’d doubtlessly ride north with his soldiers to help us out.
Excitement thrummed through me as I envisioned Therena shitting her pants when she looked out her window and saw me riding toward Homehold with an army of orcs at my back.
As far as contacting him, Corvus Gavrus could no doubt create an eagle, send it to the South Mountains, then use it to tell Gorrok that the Emperor had moved against us. Besides, the orcs had no love for the Empire, either.
We could free the imprisoned forces at Homehold, then move north to liberate Silverton. If I could convince the orcs to join the rebellion permanently…
Quite out of nowhere, our grim situation didn’t seem so grim anymore. The unwinnable battle didn’t seem so unwinnable.
The possibilities swam in my head. The idea that a three-pronged force of orcs, Homehold soldiers, and Silverton soldiers driving north toward the Imperial City seemed like a very real possibility, and in the near future, at that.
And I kept forgetting about Malia, the ex-head librarian’s daughter. While not as experienced as her father, I could ask her if she could remember any texts that referenced locations of other Gaia Gems and Gaia Stones. If I could get my hands on one or two of them before the Emperor could, I just might be able to take him on in a duel.
I just might be able to finally, finally, free Ciara from her long imprisonment.
I smiled in relief. Despite all the obstacles still in our way, I was suddenly able to see the light at the end of this long tunnel.
I heard the Imperial Legion forces up ahead, behind a cluster of trees. They sounded panicked, and no wonder; they’d probably been wandering around in Corvus’ illusions for twelve hours or more.
But something about their panicked chatter made me think they’d run into some resistance out there. Darkwood Forest was home to any number of nasty creatures, so that wasn’t a surprise. Still, I decided to keep my guard up.
With my bolstered illusion skills, I cast a camouflage spell to mask my movements. Though changing to a war mage had lowered my strength and speed stats, a couple of quick fortify spells boosted both categories, with the added benefit of not costing me as much mana as it would have before I switched to a war mage.
Through the briar and bramble ahead, a silver-clad knight came bursting through the tree branches. I smiled. I could have incinerated him effortlessly, but I wanted to have some fun first.
I hurled a TK blast at him, which knocked him hard onto the ground. The infantrymen behind him panicked, yet got into formation around him.
MYSTICISM SKILL INCREASED +1
They were exhausted, pale in the face, and ragged. A few were bleeding. One of them must have caught the outline of my camouflaged body because he screamed and pointed in my direction.
“There’s a mage ahead!” he cried.
I shed the camouflage spell and charged a fire storm spell in my left hand. Using magic was so much more intuitive now, more akin to a reflex than a conscious thought.
With my hood pulled up, my shimmering robe, and the fire crackling off the enchanted gauntlet, I cut an imposing figure to the terrified legion troops.
Good. Let them shit their britches. Because this was just one small part of the vengeance I was seeking for what the bastards did to Duke Gladios.
I snarled and hurled the fire storm spell at them. Four went up in flames entirely, quickly getting cooked to death inside their iron suits. Two more screamed as the flames kissed them in a glancing blow, but it was more than enough to put them out of commission.
“Move on him, you cowards!” the knight shouted as he got to his feet.
The rest came at me, though not without panic in their eyes. As they got closer, I charged the Soulguard with the fire fist spell, cocked my fist back, and waited for them to get into reaching distance.
The moment they got close enough, I slammed my charged fist into their center mass, causing the remaining soldiers to go flying back in a fiery explosion.
CRITICAL STRIKE!
DESTRUCTION SKILL INCREASED +1
With most of his men dead, the knight threw off his enclosed helm, showing me a war-scarred face.
But, the scars were fresh. Most were still bleeding. When he spoke, I realized he was missing several front teeth, having recently been knocked out.
“Damn you and the rest of these wicked forest folk!” he growled as he drew his silver longsword back.
“Forest folk?” I asked. “Dude, I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”
“You bastards slayed nearly half my men from the shadows and sent your goddamn forest beasts after us, rather than fighting us face-to-face with honor!” he shouted.
I cocked my head. Who the hell were the forest folk he was talking about? Corvus said most of the Darkwood denizens kept away from his home.
Anyway, I didn’t get the chance to ask him. The knight charged me, coming at me with a full head of steam.
With my speed fortified, I sidestepped him effortlessly. As he went stumbling head-first into a bush, I finished him off with a quick lightning storm spell, and he died writhing in a torrent of electricity.
That was when I heard movement behind me.
Thank God my fortify speed effects hadn’t worn off yet, because the moment I turned around, I saw the deadly arrow coming straight at my face.
I raised the Soulguard just in time to block the shot, and the arrow splintered into bits when it impacted the gauntlet.
I paused, charging another lightning storm spell in the Soulguard, and scanned my surroundings.
No movement. No sign of life.
I used my skill ability to cast a detect life spell, but there were so many creatures rummaging hidden throughout the forest, it did me little good.
My first thought was that the hidden archer was an Imperial Legion soldier, but none of the others that I’d killed had been armed with bows or arrows.
Carefully, I made
my way forward, the way the soldiers had come. Through the thick trees ahead, I saw the rest of their number. They were dead, all of them. Some had arrows through their eyes, others had clearly been mauled by a bear, or possibly something nastier than that.
Off to my left, there was rustling in the bushes.
I spun around and saw them. A grizzly bear, easily towering over me…but it wasn’t alone.
Along with the bear were three wolves, snarling and snapping their jaws at me.
This didn’t make any sense.
I didn’t care what realm we were in, bears and wolves didn’t get along in the wild. Both species were aggressive predators. Animals didn’t team up like that.
The curiously allied animals stormed me, but I didn’t want to hurt them too badly. Instead, I hit them with a lighter version of the TK force bomb. An added benefit of the war mage class was that I could adjust the severity of my spells.
They went sprawling off in different directions. I hit them hard enough to push them back and scare the shit out of them, rather than harm them. They went scampering off back into the trees.
“Don’t move,” came a serious, female voice from somewhere above me. “You so much as blink and I’m putting this arrow through the back of your head.”
I paused then put my hands up. “I’m not here to bother you,” I said. “If you’re the one who killed those Legion troops over there, then that means we’re on the same side.”
The hidden woman paused for a moment. “I’ll decide whether or not we’re on the same side,” she said. “Now what are you doing out here? Are you the mage who caused the forest to act so erratically?”
“No, but a friend of mine did,” I answered. “The Imperial Legion is hunting us. He used his illusion magic to get them lost in the woods.”
I heard her mutter in frustration up in the trees.
“Again, I’m not your enemy,” I said. “Lower your goddamn bow and I’ll get out of your hair. Besides, I hate the Imperials as much as you do.”
“Hah!” she snarled. “You think it matters to me if you’re Imperial or a rebel? They’re all the same to us. You lure in our citizens from the forest and make them work in your silver mines.”
“You’re talking about Silverton?” I asked. My stomach twisted. She didn’t sound like one of those typical Darkwood elves I’d encountered before, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t as crazy as they were.
Monstergirl Quest Book Two Page 23
