by Jez Cajiao
“Giint…” I called, and he froze, glancing back at me with his head cocked to one side. “…will the explosion push the barricade out, and away from the ship?” I asked slowly, wanting to be very sure of that.
“Baaaang be biiig!” He grinned widely, turned, and ran for the deck hatch. The cover opened just before he reached it, and he jumped, pulling his legs up and basically ‘cannonballing’ out of sight into the lower deck.
I sighed as I grimaced at the others, and we exchanged looks that were a mix of amused, annoyed, and nervous, as we continued to wait.
We could see more ships cutting off the light, passing both overhead and outside in the greater portion of the cavern, but none had spotted us yet, and we were grateful for every second we could get.
Stephanos and Miren had taken up position on the raised wheelhouse’s upper deck, setting out arrows and making their area generally ready for the fight, with their summoned creatures standing alongside them. They’d both offered to have them stand with us, but I preferred to have the squishy archers protected, as Jian, who I’d normally delegate to that, was busy.
Grizz stood on my left, with Yen flanking my right. Arrin still sat catching his breath behind us, and Tang skulked nearby, waiting.
“Did you find anything good in the Vault then, boss?” Grizz asked as we waited, and I cursed myself for a fool, pulling up the inventory and examining the fresh loot.
There were only two Spellbooks, unfortunately. One was instantly useful, to my evil mind, ‘Control Water’, while the other was far more important. I passed ‘Control Water’ to Arrin and told him to read it and I’d explain why soon, then I opened the second book.
I read it quickly, my eyes flying across the pages as I frantically tried to take it all on, cursing myself distractedly for the time I’d lost in not reading this earlier.
Greater Examination:
This spell enables a far deeper examination of a target, at a significantly higher cost than that of the standard ‘Examine’. No Creature, Item, or Target will be able to hide its true nature from this spell.
Note: higher tier targets can obscure certain details. Increase your familiarity with this spell to lower the chance of this.
Cost: 50-150 mana, depending on targeted creature and information selected.
I gritted my teeth as the book began to shine, the words lifting from the pages and becoming glowing light that bored into my eyes. I felt the shifting, painful pressure as spell data, concepts of theory, and details I’d never known took up space in my brain, and I shook myself, trying to adjust to the new knowledge.
It was like biting into something, expecting it to be soft, and finding a damn nugget of bone, as I saw myself using my ‘Identify’ and then ‘Examine’ spells in the past.
This new information I’d gained made it clear that I’d been basically tossing the examinations off, seeing less than a third of what was there, and being satisfied with it.
I blinked away afterimages of gestures, arcane symbols, and more, seeing stars and moons before my eyes as I tried to focus.
“Jax…” Yen said warningly, and I blinked again, rubbing my eyes.
“God dammit…” I growled, frowning as I kept seeing things from the book overlaying my actual vision.
“Come on, boss, snap out of it!” I heard Grizz say, and I closed my eyes, breathing deep, then rubbed my eyes with the heel of my hand, before opening them and squinting, finally observing what they’d seen already.
A ship hovered just beyond the shattered section of the barricade, and a hulking form squatted on its deck, staring at us greedily from under tarpaulins and a heavy ‘haze’ spell that darkened the air and blocked away its hated enemy, the sun.
“Boss!” Grizz shouted, and I triggered ‘Greater Examination’, grinning as I saw so much more than ever before.
Your spells ‘Examine’ and ‘Greater Examination’ have linked, providing a greater depth of knowledge to be gained.
Adolescent SporeMother
Any SporeMother is to be feared by sentient life, but this creature is at the cusp of adolescence, its accelerated growth fueled artificially by sacrificing sentient creatures in the dozens to it. This SporeMother is controlled by the use of both a Greater Domination spell and a slave collar, and still is only nominally under the control of its master, kept that way by a combination of pain and pleasure.
This SporeMother has reached a high enough level to begin creating the species’ greatest tool, DarkSpore.
Beware! Current DarkSpore capacity in use: 471/1000
Weaknesses: Fire, Light, and Life magics are all doubly effective against creatures of Darkness.
Resistances: Earth, Darkness, or Death magics used against this creature suffer a 75% damage penalty.
Critical Weaknesses: Sunlight
Level: 23
HP: 2785
Mana: 196/800
“Well, fuck me lovingly with a jackhammer…” I muttered, my eyes open wide in horror as I realized, perhaps fully for the first time, just how lucky I’d been in facing the decrepit SporeMother I had in the past.
This thing was far more powerful; hell, it could create and control a thousand DarkSpore. That was enough to swamp us in the damn things without ever having to get close enough to fight, and even if we managed to survive, we’d be exhausted!
I checked my mana and saw that it’d taken the full hundred and fifty to find out that much information, and I swore before telling the others what I’d seen.
I almost started casting ‘Cleansing Fire’ immediately, but I didn’t dare. I needed the damn things in close before I used that.
The ship moved backward, exposing more of itself as she watched us, and I thought quickly, remembering the fight in the Tower. It’d been too afraid of the Sun, and here, that was our greatest weapon, I realized.
“Okay, guys,” I said bluntly, glaring at the mobile darkness on the deck of the ship opposite. “Those fuckers hate the sun, and I mean hate. It’ll kill them quick, so our best chance of winning this is to expose that thing to the sun, somehow. Failing that, it’s fire and light magic, and good old-fashioned slaughter. If any of you get hit by DarkSpore, tell me. Don’t try to fight it alone; they’re parasitic little clouds that will sink into your skin and eat you from the inside out, controlling you. I’ll use a spell to surround myself with fire; if you get injured, step into the flames. I think it shouldn’t burn you, but I don’t know for sure. I do know that the flames will kill the DarkSpore, though, and then I, or Arrin, will heal you. That’s the best advice I can give you for now. Once the ship’s ready, I’ll set the explosives off and hopefully most of the barricade will be taken out, then, in the words of the wisest rabbit I know, we ‘Run Away’!” I said, grinning to myself as I thought about that damn waskerly wabbit.
“Rabbit?” Yen said slowly, then she quickly thrust a hand up. “No, don’t tell me; I don’t need more of your crazy.”
I noticed the looks the others were giving me after a second, then I shrugged and they unanimously moved on, clearly having decided ignoring me was the way forward when I talked like that.
“What have we got that could hit her from here?” I asked the group, and Yen shrugged again.
“I could hit it from here with a Flamespear, but the damage? Not sure; there’s a shimmer in the air when the ship moves, do you see?” She asked and I nodded. “That’s a shield I’ll bet; either she’s got a pet mage, or whatever is controlling her is protecting her as well.”
“Great…” I said slowly. “What if we…” I started to suggest, a sudden plan coming to mind as I looked around instinctively.
At first, it was just shadows, or so it seemed, movement in the darkest places, and when I looked, I wasn’t sure if there was something there, but then they slunk out, skittering, and buzzing frantically from one patch of darkness to another.
Sporelings, the filthy immature spawn of the SporeMothers, ran like spiders, hunching down in the shadows, then sprinting on a
ll six legs as fast as they could, crossing the sunlit patches while screaming in terror and pain… and I realized at least some of the DarkSpore that I’d seen the prompt mention were clearly inhabiting the little bastards, judging from the reaction of the Sporelings.
“Behind us!” I shouted, spinning around, and seeing them flow down the walls of the cavern all around, heading for the ship.
The Sporelings were blackened; more than half of them simply fell from the walls, dead or dying from their time in the sun, and with them came others, corpses that tumbled end over end to smash into the floor all around the ship.
Even though only one in five were reaching the ground in any kind of condition to go on, there were hundreds of them, and when the corpses smashed into the floor, bodies bursting like they’d swallowed grenades, the DarkSpore were revealed.
Clouds of gritty, inky smoke rose into the air, filling our minds with their buzzing and making the gnomes inside the ship wail in fear.
I spun around frantically; there were at least ten, maybe fifteen Sporelings dead already, and hundreds of mobile corpses destroyed, but each and every one of them was releasing a cloud, and DarkSpore was quickly filling the air.
I hunted around, trying to think. Most of the group had literally no way to fight these bastards, and I… I had three magical sodding swords I’d dumped into my bag, and the terrible dagger!
I tugged the dagger out and passed it, carefully, to Tang, warning him what it was and how to use it, hoping against hope that it might help. Hurrying, I pulled out the two swords.
Hunger
Further Description Yes/No
Damage:
25-50
Details:
This weapon, along with its twin, Thirst, are vampiric blades, feeding on the life force of their victims and transferring it to the wielder. Hunger draws the victims HP, at a cost of 10mana per second, for ten HP, while Thirst drains the Victims Mana at a cost of 10 mana per second, for ten points of HP. If used in conjunction with its mate, vampiric drain is doubled, but cost is halved.
Rarity
Magical
Durability
Charge:
Legendary
Yes
98/120
500/500
“Holy shit,” I muttered, gaping at the blades in awe. “Who’s best with shortswords?” Grizz spoke up quickly.
“Probably me? I’ve reached level twelve in dual wielding; what about you guys?” he said to Yen and Tang, while gazing with blatant hope at the pair of gleaming onyx blades.
“Level seventeen,” Yen said, grinning.
“Level twenty-two with short blades, and seventeen with dual-wielding,” Tang added casually.
“Oh, come on!” Grizz groaned. “They’re not short blades; that’s daggers and knives!”
“Still works, as they’re under three feet,” Tang said smugly, and I grinned, taking the dagger back and passing it to Grizz, who frowned down at it sadly as Tang examined the pair of swords.
“So, if I use both, I’ll regenerate twice as much as I drain from a victim, but they’ll lose it even faster? Oh, hell yes; I can do some damage with these…” Tang said happily, spinning the blades into a figure of eight in the air.
“One more to go…” I said calmly, pulling out the greatsword.
Justice
Further Description Yes/No
Damage:
50-75 +5-25
Details:
Justice was a weapon forged for the Lord Paladin of Sint, God of Light. The sword was stolen before Sint could gift it to his Paladin and was eventually recovered by the Prax Glorious Retribution as part of the spoils in the aftermath of the Necromancer Wars.
It has never been blessed or sanctified, and as such has only a tenth of its full power.
This blade strikes with the holy wrath of Sint; let all creatures of darkness beware. Any wielder that has not been sworn to Sint will receive half of the damage they inflict.
Rarity
Magical
Durability
Charge:
Legendary
Yes
119/120
500/500
“Man, I hate my life…” Grizz muttered brokenly as I read out the weapons details, before putting it away regretfully.
“You’re a scout sniper!” Yen chided, rolling her eyes at him. “Why the hell do you never use the damn bow?”
“I took the wrong class,” Grizz admitted after a few seconds, as we moved back to waiting for the first of the DarkSpore to make their appearance. “I missed the one I wanted, ‘cos I was on punishment detail, so I just took the first one that came along after that; didn’t want to wait another year for the trainer to come around again.”
“What’s this?” I asked halfheartedly, watching my sector, well aware that everyone was talking to try to ignore their nerves.
“Class trainers…” Yen said quietly, her eyes moving quickly. “Both ours and the Fifth Legion, the Legion of Narkolt, have them, so every year, the trainers travel between our enclaves and give training.”
“Why the hell does nobody tell me this shit?” I asked in amazement.
“What, that we both work together?” Yen asked, confused. “We’re the Legion. Fuck the rest of the world; we’re still loyal.”
“Point,” Grizz said, then snapped out quickly. “To the left!” I followed his direction and saw it, a clawed hand that reached up and over, clamping down hard on the railing and gouging splinters out of it as it hauled its body up.
The Sporeling was in rough shape, the right front leg worked, but the left didn’t; half its eyes were burned away, and the skin was bubbling in the diffused light. It moved forward unsteadily, hissing, and screeching in pain, even as it attacked.
Tang was the closest, and he set himself ready to receive its charge, when two arrows slammed into it a second apart, staggering it back.
He lunged forward, stabbing out with both blades, and sinking them in deep. One carved a long furrow across its face before sinking into a cheek and practically destroying its face, while the other dipped into the space between its ribs and clavicle, burrowing in deep.
Tang grunted, then took a deep breath as the blades glowed suddenly. Red and blue lines snaked up them, traveling the length of the swords, up into the hilts and then into Tang.
He let out a little gasp of shock, then a groan of relief, like an itch he’d grown used to was finally scratched, and he straightened, seeming to grow taller as he slipped out of his habitual half-slouch.
The Sporeling shivered and shuddered, reaching up with weak claws to slap ineffectually at the blades, before slumping in death.
Tang yanked the blades free, then stepped back to join us, flicking the swords to free them of the majority of the blood.
“Now that was gooood,” He groaned under his breath, looking around for another enemy as I pointed with my naginata at the corpse behind him.
“The head,” I said simply, and he looked back, registering the slowly shivering skull as the DarkSpore regained control of its meat puppet.
He stepped back in, passing one sword to Grizz to hold, and took the other in both hands, slamming it down hard into the skull.
It cut deep, and a screeching filled our ears as the DarkSpore met the magical blade and had its life sucked away.
The DarkSpore collapsed into dust, and Tang shuddered again, swallowing hard and taking the sword back from Grizz hurriedly.
After that, it was seconds before the next appeared, only to meet the dagger wielded by Grizz. I’d worried that it might not work, but when he drove it deep into the skull of the creature, twisted it, and yanked it back in one fluid motion, the Sporeling collapsed bonelessly to the floor, and this time, the DarkSpore was dead as well.
“Okay, people…” I said, my ears pricking at the sounds of climbing. “This is where it gets real. Try to kill the DarkSpore as quickly as possible,” I said, before looking up at Stephanos and Miren and their summoned creatures
. “Stephanos! Miren!” I shouted. “Get inside; you’re not doing any good up there.”
I didn’t have time to see their reaction to my words, as another two Sporelings and a cloud of DarkSpore rose to my right, but as I spun into them, my naginata glowing like the rising sun, I saw the archers clambering down the ladder and running to the wheelhouse.
I stabbed out, the blade sinking into the almost-insubstantial cloud before me, and I felt as much as heard the scream that was ripped from it as the parasitical creature was torn apart. I slashed sideways, left to right, cutting through three of them, then jumped back, lifting the shield, and feeling a soft impact, like a snowball with less substance, but as I glared at the nearest Sporeling, I saw the sooty tendrils reaching up and flowing over the shield, sinking towards my arm. I grinned, aware as it wasn’t, that the armor there was empty, and I dragged the naginata down across the front of the shield, stripping it of the contaminating creature of the night with a scream of joy.
I stabbed out, the bladed tip sinking into an eye socket of the Sporeling, killing it, even as the other one leapt onto me, staggering me back and biting at my face.
Its teeth snapped shut inches from my eyes, spittle flying, and I had a frozen second to glare into its own hate-filled orbits, all of them glowing with a malevolent internal light, before it screamed, an arrow protruding from one eye socket.
The bolt distracted it long enough for me to yank the naginata up, and I punched it in the face with my closed fist where it gripped the haft, before yanking the weapon downwards. The blade was drawn across its skull, and as razor sharp and filled with magic as it was, it carved a deep groove, making the creature flinch away, releasing me and falling to the floor.
