by Sean Oswald
“Exactly what I was thinking about earlier. So, I sorta already had it out with her. Would you be the one to go tell her that she is grounded.”
Dave made a mock face of shock. “Oh, I see how this is going. You just want me to be the mean one.”
Laughing, Emily said, “Well she does like you better.”
“Probably not after this.” Dave shook his head but stood up to go and talk to Sara.
Emily went outside and called Mira and Jackson inside so she could talk to them. It wasn’t long before she heard Sara crying but couldn’t make out exactly what she was saying. Mira almost had a smile on her face when the sound erupted.
“Don’t get too happy, young lady. Your sister is getting grounded to this house for two weeks, and you are going to have to take a turn being the one to watch her here,” Emily said.
The predictable outburst followed. It was somehow a refreshing reminder that some things never change. Magical powers and computer-like processing speed, but Mira was still a teenager. “What! That isn’t fair. She disobeyed, and I get punished.”
“It isn’t punishment to watch your younger sister and keep her safe. It is part of your responsibility as part of this family.” Emily’s statement didn’t stop the grumbling, and it no doubt didn’t help that Jackson taunted her saying he would have loved to help watch Sara, but he was going to be away at school. In the end, after ten minutes of sniffling, Sara came walking out hand in hand with Dave.
“Okay, so I have told her that she can have 5 minutes to say goodbye to Krinnk and Snowball if she is around. She seems to think that the thumper is off in the forest somewhere. Then, we will have to find someplace for Krinnk to sleep tonight, and Sara understands that she isn’t allowed to leave the house for any reason other than imminent danger or if she is told to by you, me, or her sister.”
They all nodded, and Emily went out and had Rak’kar release the goblin to come inside. Apparently, he had been behaving right up until Sara burst out crying, then he tried to stab the minotaur in order to be able to reach Sara. Emily even had to heal the cut in Rak’kar’s arm, but upon seeing his friend, Krinnk calmed down.
A few hours later, Dave was finally able to get some time to himself. He had been desperate to check all of his notifications but was actually proud of himself for putting family first. After disciplining Sara, he had gone with Emily to the dining hall while the older kids stayed with Sara. It was important for them to be seen and to talk to the villagers.
Once they got home, he had distributed the magic items. Jackson was thrilled to learn that he could keep the items. While he still intended to go after the Ironwood Monk class and focus on his unarmed combat skill, it was nice to have the axe as a backup weapon, and getting to keep the Air Core also went very well with the way he was trying to build himself up.
Emily was less than thrilled with her earring since it looked exactly like a wolf’s canine tooth set in silver with a sapphire, but Dave convinced her that it was good both for her mobility and as another way to have an attack. The discussion about switching from mana regeneration ring to the health and mana ring was not a hard call. She had come to the conclusion that more mana was more important than the regeneration rate. Fights were usually short in duration, and regeneration didn’t play a significant enough role.
Mira loved her earring. The extra mana was great, and she was fine with getting some mana regen even if it wouldn’t have a major impact during combat. The part that she was over the moon about though was the reduction in casting time. It dropped her normal Tier 1 spells down to a single second cast time and even her Tier 3 spells were only seven seconds now. This also helped with lowering the cost of quickening spells.
After this, they all talked together about leveling up decisions that Jackson and Mira needed to make. The dungeon had brought them together in a way, as did the scare with Sara. Even though they knew that Jackson had to leave in the morning, there was still an atmosphere of enjoyment as they worked through his leveling and Tiering up. It made them far more comfortable for him to be going back to the Royal Academy. Dave and his son even joked about what a surprise the bullies would be in for. The best part was that Dave had one more surprise for his son, but he didn’t let it slip out. It would wait for early morning.
Now though, they were all asleep. Emily had insisted she would worry about her upgrades in the morning. She needed to get some sleep for now. Dave, though, had his reduced need for sleep and too much excitement about hitting Tier 4 for him to fall asleep. Sitting there in a dark room, listening to Emily breathing, he closed his eyes and focused on the notifications:
Congratulations! Your raid party has completed the first run through Bastion of Thralls: Raid Mode.
Ding! Levels gained: 30, 31, 32. This now makes you a Tier 4 character.
Stat Points Gained: 22
Character Points Gained: 142
You have 464 unspent Character Points
You have 22 unspent stat points
You have gained a tier bonus: +20% bonus to any one Stat
Previously you had no class and could not receive your class bonus for reaching Tier 3. The bonus is now activated: Class specific skill gained- Arcane Backlash (20): This is a passive skill which is active all the time but may only activate 1 time per moon rise. It triggers whenever the skill wielder is struck by a surprise attack. The damage of the attack is reduced by 1%/level per level and 2%/level of the attack's damage is redirected back flawlessly at the attacker as pure force. (Max 100%)
* * *
Tier 2 Bonus: May be triggered to protect an ally within 15’.
Watcher’s Preparation: ongoing - As a result of reaching character Tier 4, four of your prior life skills will have their base level doubled. Each tier gained will provide an increase to a decreasing number of these skills, and only the skills enhanced at this or a prior tier gain will be eligible for future improvement. Choose wisely.
Dave realized that he had forgotten to apply his stat points from gaining his class. He grinned as he remembered how he had gotten distracted but at the same time was beating himself up. There really was no excuse for this. He determined once again to never let himself get so distracted as to not fully take advantage of any stat points that he had.
He wasn’t as worried about the unused character points as he had honestly planned on saving most of those until he reached Tier 4 anyway. Now though, he had some decisions to make, and even if he didn’t get any sleep, he would work through them. The first of many decisions was what he would do with the bonus 20%. He immediately decided it was between Strength and Intelligence. Strength would help his physical attacks and didn’t really gain any benefit from his class. On the other hand, Intelligence would add health, mana, and spell damage.
The decision took on a new weight for him. No one here knew of anyone who had ever exceeded Tier 4, not in all the history of the people on Talos as they knew it. They did admit there were rumors of an ancient world their ancestors had come from, although no one was quite sure why. The legends said that there were people of higher Tiers there, although at least most of the humans considered those to be stories. The elves were more close-lipped, but he got the sense that they believed the legends and mourned that they were no longer a people who could reach such lofty heights. The fact that he possessed a spell book with Tier 5 spells as well as the teleportation scrolls that Gunidar used was strong evidence that it was possible to level beyond Tier 4.
Yet, for the first time, Dave took the warnings seriously. He felt like he had to assume that level 39 would be the highest he could obtain and more than that, he had to recognize the difficulty of gaining XP while a Tier 4 since only Tier 3 monsters would provide any XP.
Ultimately, if this was going to be the last such bonus that he would get, he needed to use it where he would get the most value out of it. For that reason, he triggered it on his Intelligence. Dave had realized something that had escaped Mira. The boosts in Intelligence were not producing t
he same kind of IQ increase that the early boosts had. In fact, unless he actually stopped and tried to crunch numbers or run various thought exercises, he didn’t notice any difference since his Intelligence had hit around 20. It had taken some effort to think this through, but eventually, his high processing speed was able to crunch the numbers which comprised his observations. Intelligence was still good for increasing mana and spell damage as well as health in his case, but it wasn’t actually making him smarter and hadn’t been for a long time. It would have been a mistake to confuse the simple ability to process data with actual human smarts.
Next, he had to assign the stat points he had received from the recent level gains into Tier 4. He broke it down first into 5 each and put that into Wisdom and Charisma. Then, he added 2 points into Strength to reach an even 50, and the remaining 10 into Intelligence to keep with his goal of being a user of magic first and foremost. He felt this was balanced and increased both his social skills as well as all aspects of his combat capability.
Next, he chose the four skills he wanted to increase with the Watcher’s Preparation, and again, he made the assumption that this was going to be the last time he would get this benefit. If he got it again, then so be it, but for this round, he was going to choose skills which would have a strong impact for him.
Unarmed Combat (90) - +450% to attack, +90% to damage, automatic second attack when exclusively using unarmed combat. You maintain the lower level bonus increases including Tier 2: adding a second attack, Tier 3: adding kicks as effective techniques, Tier 4: the use of throws to redirect energy.
You further gain the Tier 5 bonus: close quarter evading. Move like the wind and Tier 6: Vulnerable point strikes for various critical effects: You may now aim for special weak points such as the eyes, throat, joints, and other applicable targets. These blows are called shots and more difficult to make but can add a variety of debilitating debuffs.
Diplomacy: (140) +900% on all diplomacy related matters.
You have reached Grandmaster (Tier 7) level. You will now be recognized by all guilds, merchant houses, and royal courts anywhere in Eloria as an official negotiator. As your reputation and faction increase with various groups, you will be sought out for premium prices to negotiate. This may include job offers or simple opportunities to negotiate a treaty. Be careful who you agree to work for as the causes that your name are attached to will affect your reputation. You may be appointed by any of the above types of organizations as an ambassador. Faction gains will be multiplied by 50% and losses reduced by 50% going forward.
Knowledge: Research- (201) +1005% information obtained and speed of research. You have already passed into the Grandmaster Tier. There are no further tier increases available and skill level increases will only produce decreasing incremental gains. It is now time that you put this to use. Your ability to research is now beyond the supernatural. It has transcended simple human thinking. You will have the perfect recall of everything you have previously learned as applicable to the current research and will be able to see connections where others cannot. This will be known as the google effect. You must consciously apply this skill for it to work. You now have the potential to research the requirements of artifact level items, technologies, and spell forms. Further speed of research is now quintupled as basic foundational research becomes second nature to you.
Archery: (40) +200% to attack, +40% to damage. You have reached the Apprentice (Tier 3) level. Your range has now increased by 30%, this is in addition to the Initiate bonus of 30% increase in rate of fire.
Given that he had 466 character points and that they might represent the last large cluster of points he would get, Dave knew that the decisions he was about to make would be some of the most important yet.
The first part was easy. He needed to level up his core skills to the next level. That meant dropping 20 points into Abjuration, Conjuration, Evocation, Shaping, and Heavy Armor to push them each up to Tier 4.
The perk for heavy armor hitting Journeyman level was to reduce the impact that wearing the armor had on his movement rate. It didn’t matter much for him because he only wore part of the armor, but if he ever needed to wear a full set, then he would be glad for it.
Then he thought about the skills that he relied upon the most. Besides his magic, it was his sword and the skills that enhanced that. One by one, he started maximizing his most core combat skills:
Long Blade: 60
+300% attack
+60% damage
Journeyman level perk- chance to cause crippling wound: 1%
Weapon Specialization: Long Sword (60) +300% damage
Arcane Backlash (50): Reduce damage of sneak attack by 50% and reflect 100% of damage. Apprentice Perk: Back blast travels in a 10’ cone.
This dropped him down to 256 points remaining. So, the decisions got harder. He decided not to increase Esoteric Senses because he felt the range was enough, and his points were too limited to be able to spend them on Divination or other knowledge gaining skills. Since he had to split his points between his physical and magical skills, he had to make hard choices, and that made him reach the conclusion that he would have to rely upon other people like Emily and Mira in order to fill in for his weaknesses.
That conclusion led to him cutting Archery, Double Strike, Sneak Attack, Dodge, and Flanking off of his list of possible skills to upgrade. He also dropped Improved Critical Strike because the more often he had to deal with the unpredictability of Eloria, the less he liked it. He decided to focus on skills which were more consistent.
Dave briefly considered picking Enhance Arrow and Phasing Arrow, but since he had already opted not to increase Archery, it didn’t make much sense. He would simply rely upon his magic for ranged attacks. This led him to thinking about what he was good at. With his new class, his Health, Mana, and Stamina Pools had increased dramatically. He was already making use of his health as a tank and his mana by focusing so much on casting skills. The logical choice was then to choose skills which relied upon his Stamina. He had eliminated Dodge because if he had to trigger it multiple times in a row, then he was probably already dead. It was also easier for him to get behind dealing more damage. So he dropped the 40 points into Offensive Stance. With his increased Stamina, he could theoretically keep it running for 9 ticks at a time.
Offensive Stance: Activated Stance
Cool-Down: 3 minutes
May be active maximum of 1 tick/level. When active, defense is decreased by 50% but atk is increased by 300% and dmg is increased by 600%
Stamina: 2/tick.
Now though, the decisions were getting even tougher. He only had enough to maximize three new skills. He first thought about Toughness but not for the skill itself. He understood Jackson taking it. It would reduce the unarmed blows of his classmates, but that was really all it was good for. If Dave spent a full 60 points, it would only provide 12 points of damage resistance, and while passive damage resistance was useful, he was more worried about the things that would be hitting him for 500-1000 points of damage against which 12 would be inconsequential. The real reason Dave was considering toughness was because it was a prerequisite for one of the hybrid skills. He hadn’t really paid much attention to the hybrid skills page before and had always ended up rejecting any significant choices off of it. Now though, he was in a place to meet the requirements for Regeneration. Specifically, his health was high enough to take it because of how his class worked. So, all that he needed was to spend 15 points on Toughness, and then this new skill would open up to him. If he understood it correctly, if he maxed it out, he would regenerate 12 health every tick, or 120 health a minute. In short, even with his health ring, he would be at full health in 12 minutes. It wouldn’t turn him into Deadpool, but it would definitely lower the healing burden on him, and when he was fighting solo, it would give him a far greater longevity. The more he thought about it, the more he realized that was a definite possibility.
He also looked at three other hybrid skills. Two of
them were defensive: Frost Armor and Mana Barrier, and the final was Arcane Weapon. He discarded the offensive option as he had just spent a ton of points on increasing his offense. He wanted to focus on more magical options now, and Eloria itself had told him that neither offense nor defense could be perfect. He needed both.
He personally liked the idea of Frost Armor as it would cause damage to those who attacked him while also protecting him and providing a chance to debuff his attackers. In contrast, Mana Barrier was entirely defensive, but at a high enough level, he could create a bubble large enough to protect his entire family. That had a lot of appeal to him even if it wasn’t quite as cool.
While weighing those options, he decided to give up on some other items he had initially liked such as Elemental Resistances. He would have to rely upon spells for that. He also gave up on Shape Change. The ability to innately change shapes sounded amazing, and his Shaping Magic had finally reached a high enough level for him to get access. He wanted it but felt it was for selfish reasons. Nothing about the skill led him to believe that it would create a more powerful form for combat, and yet … he just couldn’t shake it, the desire to be able to do something so purely magical as changing shapes.
There were also two other categories which he had to consider. One was magical focus. He could apply it to a school of magic which would then have incremental increases in range, duration, and all other applicable aspects based upon the level of the skill. Of course, that meant he would have to figure out which school of magic was the appropriate one for him. There was the immediate temptation to put points into Evocation to increase the damage of his spells, but he continued to focus on what areas his class helped him focus in. The more logical choices would be Abjuration for its defensive capabilities or Shaping Magic as it was his go-to choice almost since he first arrived in Eloria.
