by Kyle Johnson
Aranos halted and looked at his Stats; none of them had dropped, yet, meaning that while he was in the region of Antas, he hadn’t entered the Necrotic Zone. With a rising sense of dread, he walked carefully toward the dome of energy blazing before him, his Sense Mana Skill active and reaching for the outer edge of the structure. As his mind touched it, he recoiled; the power there was vast and far beyond his ability to alter or disjoin. Still, he touched it again, more gently, not trying to change it but simply observing. As he realized what he saw, he swore silently and stalked back to the tree-line.
“There’s a ward over the entire city,” he told the others shortly, frustration creeping into his voice. “It’s huge, and there’s no way I can undo it. I don’t even think I could pry an opening into it, to be honest.”
“Is this a, now-I’ve-got-you-and-you’re-mine sort of ward?” Longfellow asked curiously. “Or a touch-this-and-suffer type?”
“More of a touch-this-and-go-respawn,” Aranos corrected. “There’s a dome of necrotic mana surrounding the city, and I’m pretty sure that crossing it will suck the life right out of you.
“And even if we could cross it,” he continued, “the whole city is a big ball of necrotic energy. It’ll drain a point from each of your Physical Stats just for entering it and another every hour you’re inside. I’m going to need to create a Spell to deal with this, I think. In any case, we aren’t getting in through the walls. We’ll need to start looking seriously for that tunnel.”
The trip back to the watchtower was somewhat quieter and less jovial than the trip outward had been. Saphielle was stoic as always, of course, but McBane and Rhys seemed melancholy, and even the usually flippant Longfellow was quiet and withdrawn.
“We’ll just have to start spreading out and looking for the escape tunnel, then,” Phil shrugged when Aranos came back and reported what they’d discovered. “Maybe you could make a charm for each of us like the one you gave Silma?”
“I could try,” Aranos sighed. “I’ve got to figure out a Spell to keep out the necrotic damage from the zone anyways. A day in there unprotected would have most of us down to almost our starting Stats.” He straightened his shoulders. “No point in being upset. There’s got to be a way, and I’m sure we’ll find it. We almost have to be looking in the right direction for the tunnel – this was still an elven city, so I doubt they’d try to escape toward human or dwarven lands – but if we can’t find it, we might have to start circling around the city a bit more to search.”
The group was a bit more subdued as they gathered around the fire that night, but Phil managed to entertain them with stories of his and Aranos’ past gaming experiences. “So, we’re sitting there facing these illithids,” the man was grinning. “You have to remember, Aranos is supposed to be this brainless Barbarian – you know, all muscles, not a thought in his head – and he challenges the chief squid-head to a mental duel. The squid goes for it, because why wouldn’t it? It’s going to win, and while it’s doing that, its lackeys are surrounding us and getting ready to make us a meal.
“Thing is, Aranos had pumped the bejeezus out of his character’s Will Stat so that he didn’t go all crazy when he raged, so the squid couldn’t take him, but he doesn’t have the Mind Stat to hurt the squid, either. They’re at this impasse, so how does he break it? He walks up to the illithid, who can’t break the contact or it’ll lose the duel, and hits it in the face with this huge axe. Chops its head right in half and frees the rest of us from the paralysis so we can take down its minions. And the best part is what Aranos said afterward…”
“Oh, God,” Aranos groaned, covering his face with his hands. “Why are you telling this?”
“He looked down at the squid and said – I kid you not – ‘Next time, don’t lose your head’.” Phil imitated the horrible, Schwarzenegger-like accent Aranos had tried and failed miserably to pull off. The Travelers snorted with laughter, and even the elves chuckled, certainly not getting the reference but appreciating the ridiculousness of the pun.
“See, Meridian, he’s the one you want to pressure into doing that stupid voice,” McBane told the Shaman. “If nothing else, your wiles might work better on him.”
“Not with stabby elf girl over there watching me,” Meridian laughed. “Nope, leaving him all alone.”
“You are welcome to make the attempt,” Saphielle shrugged. “Should he respond, you would not be the one in danger, Shaman.” The woman gazed calmly at Aranos, but he saw the twinkle deep in her eyes.
“I do believe that was the Avenger’s attempt at humor,” Rhys murmured with a smile. “As it was the first such effort we have seen from her, I believe we should forgive how badly it was done.”
The tension broken, the group chatted easily for a while before Geltheriel took watch and everyone else found their tents. Aranos retreated to the top floor of the tower, where he would have more quiet to work on the Spell creation and Enchanting he needed to do. As almost an afterthought, he grabbed everyone’s weapons and armor; if he was going to be Enchanting, he might as well take care of his party’s stuff at the same time.
His Elemental Ward was active, so everyone else had to remain on the ground floor where they’d be safe, but he had a couple of advantages. First, he would know right away if the Ward was activated, so he’d have time to retreat to the ground, even if it meant flying out the window to do it. Second, his Composite Armor could protect him from thousands of LP damage before collapsing, so even if he was caught in the Ward, he’d be able to make it to the safe area without getting hurt.
Once he was settled, he began removing some of the metal samples from the sack Ilmadia had given him. If he was going to be Enchanting everyone’s gear, it only made sense to upgrade the materials at the same time. He might even try to turn at least one weapon into faymetal; that weapon wouldn’t be able to be Enchanted after, but he had some thoughts on how he might be able to Runecraft it. Even if his idea failed, a faymetal weapon or shield would be great against enemy spellcasters.
As he looked at the gear scattered around him, he sighed and set it down. The Spell needed to come first, especially since he wasn’t sure he could create it in a single sitting. Enchanting the party’s gear was important, but he honestly wasn’t convinced the disjoining trinkets would be useful. Splitting up to search for the escape tunnel seemed like a good idea on the surface, but realistically, only two or three members of the party could hunt for it in any practical sense. He was certain that both Geltheriel and Silma had the Perception to find a hidden tunnel and the speed necessary to escape if the undead sensed their presence. McBane was Stealthy, but Stealth didn’t seem to work against the senses of the undead, and if he was caught, he wasn’t likely to escape. Aranos could probably join the hunt himself; his Perception wasn’t great, but if anyone had used the tunnel in the last few years, his Tracking Skill would tell him. The problem with that was that his Flight Spell wouldn’t be as effective under the forest canopy, but he wouldn’t be able to search from above the trees, and without the speed and maneuverability of the Spell, he wouldn’t be able to escape an ambush any better than McBane would.
He dismissed those thoughts and closed his eyes, focusing his thoughts and picturing what he wanted from this Spell. While creating it in his mindscape would be faster and easier, it would also cut him off from what was going on outside; if the tower was attacked, he might not realize it until his ward was breached and he started taking damage. With a mental shrug, he began to create the Spell he needed.
He decided to try the most obvious idea first. The simplest thing would be to create a shell of restorative mana that would encompass the entire group, annulling necrotic energy that touched it. The concept wasn’t difficult, but creating a weave of soul and life mana that held together and covered that kind of distance was tougher than he’d imagined. At first, the dome simply collapsed when he created it; after some examination, he realized that nothing was holding it together, so the individual threads succumbed to grav
ity the moment he stopped holding them.
He started again, this time carefully weaving the strands of restorative mana in a crosshatch pattern. The dome held its shape this time, but the moment he envisioned it being surrounded by necromantic mana, he realized his mistake. That loose pattern of mana left thousands of tiny holes in the construct, and necrotic energy streamed past it like water through a sieve.
Sighing, he went back to the start, this time weaving the pattern much more tightly. That would require more SP, of course, but his Spell couldn’t be cost-effective if it wasn’t actually effective. When he recast it in his mental vision, the dome held, and the necrotic energy was repelled; at least, for a few minutes. As he watched, the dome eroded, frayed, and collapsed.
Aranos shook his head. The issue was that the dome was annulling the necrotic energy, as he’d hoped, but the necrotic mana was doing the same to the strands of the dome. He could maintain it by adding more restorative mana, but so long as there was more necrotic energy than restorative, the dome would eventually collapse. Aranos had a feeling that there would be a lot more of the vile mana within the city than he could counter, so that was going to be a losing proposition.
What he needed was to hold the necrotic mana out, not counter it. He needed to create a barrier that would repel the energy without being consumed by it. The problem was, no lesser aspect was going to work for that; Enhanced mana was much stronger than Primary, and the constant pressure of all that necrotic mana would collapse even his strongest shield fairly rapidly. He could empower the shield with soul mana, but that would just make it take a bit longer. Soul mana itself might work, but he had a feeling that soul mana wouldn’t hold out much of anything on its own; it was too adaptive, too easily shifted into other forms. Heck, he might end up with a shield made completely of necrotic mana at that rate…
He stopped as he realized what the solution was. A shield of necrotic mana. It wouldn’t be fun to make, but so long as he didn’t use it to animate undead, he should be free from Corruption. The necrotic energy should work to hold out more of its own aspect, so long as he wove it tightly, and it wouldn’t be decayed or eroded in the city. The thing he had to be sure of was to make sure his dome wouldn’t radiate any of its debilitating energy down on the party beneath…and that he used less than 50 SP of it, so it didn’t drain his Wis just by casting the Spell.
The first thing that Aranos realized was that a shield of pure necrotic energy wasn’t going to be possible. It would take far too much SP; casting it would probably drain his Wis Stat by 4 or 5 points each time. That wouldn’t work in the short or long term. What he needed was a thin layer of necrotic mana on top of a solid barrier that would support it but would allow the party to attack at range.
The simplest thing to use would be air mana, but that would also stop their ranged attackers. In fact, any sort of primary mana that was solid enough to hold up a necrotic shell would also work to stop attacks. At first thought, that seemed like a bonus, but Aranos realized that was short-sighted. He knew that eventually, they’d be assaulted by undead and that, if enough of the creatures swarmed them at once, any solid barrier would eventually fail. When it did, the shield would stop protecting them from the disabling effect of the city, and they’d be fighting the undead and the weakening necrotic zone at once.
What was needed was something that would bind the necrotic shield into a stable form but would let attacks pass through in both directions. He simply couldn’t think of anything that fit that description off the top of his head. He wasn’t sure of a mana type that was stable but immaterial at the same time…
As he considered, his eyes fell on the bar of faymetal he’d taken out earlier. It’s stable and solid, he mused, but only because the metal matrix holding it together is. A lattice of necrotic energy wouldn’t take many SP to craft, and Aranos could use more spirit mana than he could necrotic. The shield would resist magic of any kind, thanks to the spirit energy, but it wouldn’t stop anyone or anything from passing through it.
Actually building the necessary lattice was difficult, of course. Aranos had to create an interconnected weave of necrotic energy that would guide the spirit mana through it without letting it dissipate while minimizing the amount of necrotic mana necessary. That meant that the strands of necrotic energy couldn’t ever touch or cross one another; if they did, that would mean that two strands were supporting the same point, which would be wasted energy. Fortunately, there were a number of fractal patterns that could do what he wanted. It only took him five tries to find one that used four curling, looping strands of necrotic energy that wound near one another without touching.
Hesitantly, he imagined slowly adding spirit mana into the dome he’d woven in his mind. The chaotic, prismatic energy raced through the dome, following the looping patterns he’d woven – and then flooding into the atmosphere in a wash of entropy. Aranos sighed and tried again, examining the construct. Once more, the energy flooded the system, and it just as quickly fled it, as well. This time, though, he’d seen what had happened: he hadn’t linked the four strands to one another, so the moment spirit energy reached the end of a strand, it had nowhere to go except out into the air.
Aranos grimaced and looped the strands into one another, creating a single, endless strand of necrotic mana. He flooded the construct with spirit mana in his mind once again. The energy rushed through the loops, twisting and spiraling, swirling chaotically through the fractal pattern – and held firm. The dark green dome took on a faintly prismatic sheen, and when Aranos released his mental hold on it, it remained stable.
It took him another few minutes to anchor the Spell to himself, so that it would follow him around, and to practice it enough times in his mind that he felt comfortable spinning out the lattice without too much effort. Once he had it down, he began picturing himself under the dome, surrounded by necrotic mana in every direction. The vile energy pressed against his shield but was unable to penetrate, held back by the spirit energy and unable to devour the necrotic matrix holding it in place.
Aranos spent some time pouring SP into the Spell, but he could tell that he wasn’t going to finish it that day. The construct didn’t require a lot of mana, but it was very complex and, thanks to the huge investment of Enhanced mana required, it soaked up SP like a sponge. That was fine; they hadn’t even discovered a way into the city yet, so his shield wouldn’t be necessary for a couple days, at least. Worst-case scenario, he could partially deplete his mana crystal to hurry the process along, although he hoped that wouldn’t be necessary, since the crystal hadn’t quite fully restored itself from the last time he drained it.
After thirty minutes or so of working on the Spell, Aranos turned his attention to the weapons and armor arrayed on the floor around him. He started simply, with Meridian’s gear. Her hammer didn’t need to be anything like deepsteel or truesilver – she rarely used it – but he did shift it to arcane silver so it could take an Enchantment better. He inscribed it with runes to make it lighter and hit harder, then Enchanted it to improve Wisdom and to do light mana damage. He turned her armor and shield into arcane silver as well and inscribed them with runes of protection and durability. He gave her armor resistance to magic, as well, and Enchanted it with boosts to her SP and LP regen.
There wasn’t much he could do to improve either Longfellow’s or McBane’s leather armor. Both were already higher quality than anything he could make, unless he got lucky with his Greater Creation Perk. He could, however, use his Leatherworking Skill to inscribe runes along them for Defense and Stealth. He filled in the runes with a trace of auril to help channel the energy more effectively – he knew that runes in substances like leather or stone weren’t usually as potent because the material didn’t channel mana well – and then laid an Enchantment that boosted Longfellow’s Dex and McBane’s Agil.
In a similar fashion, Aranos could use his Carving Skill to Runecraft Longfellow’s crossbows, giving them boosts to Attack and damage. He laid Enchantments that
allowed the Archer to add fire or light damage to any bolts fired, as well. He added bonuses to Attack and Damage to McBane’s twin blades, as well, and coated the stabbing tips of each with a fine layer of deepsteel.
Phil’s armor and shield got much the same treatment as Meridian’s. His sword, though, Aranos spent some extra time on. The Spellsword’s blade was a simple longsword, about three feet long with a tapered point and dual cutting edges. Aranos began by transforming the spine of the blade into a core of auril, making it stronger and lighter; he also hoped that the auril would enhance any Spells Phil cast using the sword. He wrapped the auril in arcane silver, then transformed the point and cutting edges into a very thin layer of deepsteel. He shifted the pommel into a thin layer of arcane silver laid over a core of hauratite, with fine threads of auril radiating out from the pommel to the base of the blade.
He gave the blade runes of durability, sharpness, and damage, but he spent some time etching a layer of sub-runes that defined those properties more specifically. It took him two hours simply to etch the runes and fill them with auril to help conduct the mana more effectively. Once that was done, he linked the runes with Enchantments to boost the Spellsword’s Physical Stats even further. He connected the runes and Enchantments to the hauratite pommel core, then poured SP into it. Ilmadia’s book hadn’t been exaggerating hauratite’s ability to absorb energy: he dumped over a thousand SP into it before it was full. The new blade gleamed a brilliant silver-blue, with purple-sheened edges and a tracery of golden runes across the surface. It weighed about the same as it had before, but it felt much stronger and practically blazed with Enchantments.
