by Scott Seier
I sent clearly to my friend.
I slammed every ounce of my disgust into the spell and felt a weird sensation block my intent. It tried to resist the cast, but after a bare second, the feeling snapped under the pressure. It was my turn to smile. The cloak looked dumbfounded. "What are you grinning about..." that was all he got out. A large steel wedge came down between us, instantly cutting off the venomous comment. The bottom of the gate hit the ground with enough force to embed itself over a foot into the earth. That kind of force was more than enough to break the grip of a level 1... in more ways than one. I reached up and ripped the still clawing hands from my throat. The gate had come down so fast and hard that it had easily relieved the cloak of his appendages. Luckily this wasn't real life, or else there would have been a ton more blood. In Acrion there wasn't any blood unless an actual bleed effect was in progress so I was able to remove the foreign hands without ruining my outfit. Handy...
I dropped them to the ground and watched as they faded before ever making contact with the dirt. It was an interesting effect, one that a normal player's severed arm would not usually replicate, but I was already moving and couldn't devote too much thought to the strange visual.
I slid from behind the gate and without really aiming at all, dropped every dot and debuff that I had on the sorry fool. The cloak was just staring at his stubs for arms in confusion when my spells took hold, but he was soon slumping to his knees and groaning under the force of my debuffs. My status effects putting him in his place more effectively than I had ever seen them do before, the strength drain in particular from Astral Tag had completely drained him of the vital stat leaving him unable to even lift his significantly lighter than normal arms. That was new... He looked up into my eyes, an expressing of pure loathing. Now, at least, I had a theory as to why this stranger hated me so much. But even though could guess why he was doing what he was doing, there wasn't even a hint of sympathy in me.
He had brought back some of my most unpleasant memories and feelings with his grimy hands. I was extremely grateful that he was spending some time separated from them. "You will di.." His head hit the ground before he could finish the sentence. Vigil's form, looking as dangerous as ever before, rose back into the air. The iron sand so agitated that every inch of his extended body was bristling with spines. One long, thin, iron blade slowly retracted into the main mass. He did not deserve proper last words. "I couldn't agree more." I growled, out loud, turning towards his friend. The cloak that was still holding Milenta was now staring at me with wide eyes.
I cast my Veil Siphon on him, but he didn't wait for me to send Vigil after him. He released Milenta and took a step, disappearing completely. He moved so fast that I was once again at a complete loss. I thought that when they ambushed us they were using a cloaking spell, or a teleportation ability maybe. But that guy had just stepped away. Unfortunately for him, the second he let go of Milenta she had full control of herself again. The man was frozen mid-move twenty feet away from where he had been an instant before. Milenta had followed his impossible speed and snared him without moving a single muscle of her own. She was kneeling, leaning on the tree that we had been hiding behind for support, breathing heavily. "That... Was... Extremely unpleasant..." She said taking long, slow breaths between each word. She stood and turned, I saw an anger etched in her normally pleasant features. Anger that outstripped my own by miles. There was no snarl, no bared teeth, her emotion was deeper. There was pain in her eyes that spoke of way more than just physical discomfort.
The man in the cloak was struggling now. I could see that he wasn't just caught mid step, he was actually hanging an inch or two in the air. Whatever Milenta was doing she definitely wasn't being gentle, sweat was pouring down the cloak's face. We both walked over to him. Milenta seemed completely unbothered by our lack of stealth and I followed suit, not caring in the slightest as we walked in full view of the camp. We came to a stop in front of the man. Milenta stared into his eyes with an intensity that made him squirm, or he would have squirmed if she hadn't casually raised her hand and squeezed two of her fingers together. Apparently tightening her hold on him to the point that he couldn't move an inch. Apparently she was also forcing his eyes to stay trained on her own, because it looked like they were about to pop out of his head.
"I always found that it's best to face your fears head on." She said quietly. She took a step closer, her nose coming to within a few inches of the cloak's. "I have a lot of questions for you, but you're too low of a level to survive even the gentlest interrogation skills that I have." She paused and took a moment to pull another orb out of her bag. She pressed it to the cloak's face and then whispered a word to it that I couldn't hear and sent it flying into the night. "My guild knows your face now." She said casually. "You will be killed on sight by any member that lays eyes on you, or anyone who values an alliance with us." She stepped away, turning her back to the cloak and looking at the camp a hundred or so yards in the distance.
"I can tell that you won't answer any of my questions. Or if you did, every word would be lies...do you know what that means?" she turned back to see his answer. The man's eyes were even wider now, with fear or with anger I couldn't tell. He was obviously struggling with everything that he had, but not a single centimeter of him moved. Milenta's power was absolute. I briefly wondered who would win in a fight, Milenta or Saoirse, but shook myself out of it when Milenta answered her own question. "It means that you're useless." She said simply. She waved her hand and the mans head was released from her power. He took several ragged breaths. "I'll answer anything. I swear!" Spit flying from his mouth as he screamed. "You are lying." Milenta responded matter of factly, but she wasn't watching him anymore. Her eyes were fixed on the camp. The cloak's desperate voice had carried through the sparse forest. The many figures illuminated by the distant campfires were frozen, staring in our direction.
What followed I was barely able to track. Some of the cloaks in the camp stepped in our direction. Each of them looked like they were entering hyperspace. Disappearing from their starting points and appearing a few feet from us, already completely frozen by Milenta's power. After she'd snagged six of them she turned to the first and smiled a beautiful, Innocent smile. "You are done now." She said. The man simply disappeared. He ceased to exist. If the sun had been at it's peak and the forest hadn't been so dim I may have noticed the carbonized flecks of former cloak being sprinkled across the ground in a trail nearly thirty yards long in the direction of Milenta's glance. Then all hell broke loose. Milenta blurred and was gone, the half dozen cloaks that she had restrained were dragged with her like rag dolls.
The screams from the camp were the only thing that I could hear in the woods as the sun set fully. Twice a random cloak appeared nearby, but Vigil removed their heads before they could ever touch me.
Ten minutes passed before everything went silent and Milenta literally dropped from the sky in front of me. Not a single hair out of place, not a single drop of blood or dirt on her armor. She rubbed her neck and looked at me with one eye, the other one closed as she worked out a kink. "Mission accomplished." She said contentedly.
I stood looking at her like the goddess that she apparently was. "That was insane." I said, my voice sounding weak and squeaky to my own ears. "Yeah.." Milenta said tilting her head back and forth. "About that, you just saw me do some stuff that I don't want everyone to know I can do. If you could keep that quiet for me? I'd be grateful." I just nodded dumbly. What she just did, with the weird force grip thing, didn't fit into the description of any Acrion class I had ever heard of.
Made sense she wanted to maintain an edge I guess.
She looked at me skeptically, obviously questioning my mental capacities. "Look, how about this. I pay you one hundred gold to walk me back to Four Flags. Then we decide if you're going to go to the Thorgoods with intel on my power-set. If you think you're leaning in that direction, the guild can make it worth your while to not do that." The one thousand gold blood debt mark on my forearm itched suddenly. A chance to be one tenth of the way to paying it off? Even if Vigil said that would be useless, one hundred gold?! That was ten thousand dollars in real life money. Just to walk a girl who could probably fight off an entire army of mountain giants to the place I had been heading towards anyway. I smelled an ulterior motive, but honestly couldn't care less. "That's a deal then. Also, who are the Thorgoods?" Milenta just shook her head and pointed vaguely in the direction of the town. "I'll explain on the way. Lets move."
We walked through the woods, moving north back towards civilization. Milenta mentioned that not far from where we were we would be able to pick up a road than ran through the forest, after figuring that it would only be a few minutes of walking and then a lot smoother sailing we decided to alter course slightly to get to it sooner rather than later. Over the hour we spent traveling Milenta had to subdue fifteen wolves, three bears, and loads of flesh eating bats that became very active after nightfall. She never killed the mobs, only holding them in place until we had passed by. Apparently my low level acted as a beacon to the mid twenty something mobs. Milenta also informed me that, once night set in, the mobs had their aggro ranges boosted by about three times, which wasn't helping the situation, and they sometimes could get interesting attributes added to them on top of their natural abilities.
She talked about how she had discovered the hidden buffs some mobs got at night while studying the migration habits of a specific type of sparrow-like bird. The little guys apparently only ever got to about level 5, even when they were fully grown, but one of them had been able to inflict a small bleed debuff to her when she had gotten too close. She had been in the mid 150's then so it had certainly been a surprise. The whole thing had eventually lead to the documentation of nearly one hundred different special abilities that certain creatures would spontaneously acquire at night. We were still talking about what she thought caused the weird phenomenon when a deep bass bellow rang out through the woods.
I crouched down, peering into the shadows that surrounded us. Milenta stood calmly, observing something that I couldn't see yet, somewhere to our left. I stared off into the inky blackness until it moved close enough for me to make out its shape.
And Back Again
"Well, that's a new one..." that's all that Milenta said as a massive humanoid shape pulled itself out of the dark and hobbled towards us. It was probably around fifteen feet tall and had arms that dragged on the ground. Its brutish face showing only the barest hints of intelligence despite it standing on two legs instead of four. "So, any reason you aren't holding this one in place?" I asked nervously. "Hmm." She mumbled to herself, analyzing our new guest instead of answering me.
"Clearly a minion of The Dark. I could intervene, but it is fixated on the summoner. So a challenge? Very interesting." I was taking careful steps backwards as the lumbering giant closed within twenty yards. To call it a giant would be an insult to giants. While many of the lesser giants, like the ones up on the mountain, this creature seemed to not be all that bright, but its body...it was twisted and altered in gruesome ways. It looked like it had been formed by some insane scientist to embody literal brute strength. It had dark blue skin and its eyes were milky white. That, of course, didn't stop it from staring right at me. I glared accusingly at Milenta, but she was still having a conversation with herself. Lovely. The monster charged, blowing right past her like she was invisible. "Screw it."
The fight was done before it had really begun. I retreated, dropping every spell that I had on the creature. My astral tag spell shaved off an entire fifteen percent of it's strength, but I still had no doubt that it would crush me with a single blow. While I ran, Vigil went to work.
The dark black iron sand slowly growing more and more purple as he dug deeper into the mana reserves within his new body. The more purple he glowed, the faster he moved, carving huge gashes into the monster with every pass. Bleeding effects stacked with my damage over time, my Veil Siphon drained at his health continuously, but when I spared the moment to check it's health was still above eighty percent. I needed a change in tactics here.
A large, solid steel gate appeared above the creature. It showed up with a flurry of rippling movement. As if it had been hidden under a sheet, composed of reality itself, that was ripped off of it to reveal the large barrier. It hung in the air a moment before gravity remembered to take effect, then it fell towards my intended target. The force of the summoned gate hitting it, coupled with its crippled legs, was too much for the monsters. It was sent sprawling as the multi-hundred pound slab of metallic material smashed into it. It didn't get back up...
Walking up to it carefully, I confirmed an 'unconscious' status on the creature, along with a myriad of bleeds and dots. My own spells would run their courses and eventually fade unless I refreshed them, but the bleeds would continue until they were healed. I didn't think this thing would ever wake up. Milenta appeared at my shoulder and bent to examine the creature. "I'm actually impressed." She said after a few minutes. No need to sound so surprised... I sent a mental fist bump to Vigil and got a celebratory nod in return.
Before he could answer Milenta started up again. "This thing was sent to fight you specifically. It happens sometimes when The Dark gets agitated or stimulated somehow, although I haven't gotten any word that there was Dark activity in this area. Usually we can predict them like scientists can predict earthquakes, or volcanic eruptions. There are usually signs..." she trailed off. The monster finally succumbing to it's injuries and dying.
Experienced Gained!
+713 experience
Well that was a chunk and a half...
DING
Congratulations, you have reached level 15!
Attribute points awarded: 2
Training points awarded
+2 Focus
Lyst
Herald
Level 15
Summoner (Veil)
Attributes available: 25
118
Strength-str
Increases damage done with weapons and abilities that scale off of strength.
Increases the amount of weight that you can carry before becoming encumbered.
11
Agility-agi
Increases damage done with weapons and abilities that scale off of agility
Increases your maximum movement speed and attack speed
11
Intelligence-int
Increases damage done with weapons and abilities that scale off of intellect
Increases your mana pool
Allows the learning of spells (magical Abilities)
10
Spirit
Increases the rate at which you regenerate health and mana
Certain skills and abilities scale off of Spirit
28+(2)
Constitution-con
Increases your health pool and resistance to status effects.
10
Stamina-stam
Increases your stamina pool
Increases the regeneration of STAM
Increases how much phys
ical activity you can do before exhaustion
16
Focus
Increases your chance for a critical effect to occur
Increases the precision of attacks and actions
17
Charisma
Increases your persuasiveness and the rate in which NPCs (non player Characters) gain reputation and attitude.
15
As I looked over my stats I noticed that the attribute points that I had yet to allocated were, surprisingly, reading what I had expected them to read. The only issue being that I was thinking about the twenty three points that I had banked up before I got de-leveled. I should have been eight points lighter before I got these two for hitting 15 again...somehow the cloak hadn't been able to take them, maybe because I hadn't invested them yet? I smiled, well, this was one of the first times that self doubt had been of any help to me. Even with the free points to work with I wasn't sure what to do about my stats yet. I sent a mental middle finger to the AI that had taken Saoirse's body. If he thought to take my glitched points away he could go right to hell. Payment for pain and suffering. Plus it was his mistake, right? Finders keepers.
"Hey, Milenta. Did you lose any levels to that cloak?" I asked as I looted the corpse. Two moldy hunks of leather armor, that I didn't bother moving to my bag, and a random chunk of black stuff that had no description. It reminded me of some of the more mysterious stuff that had been in 'Relics to Relics' Broxly's store in town. Sort of like a mix of obsidian and rubber. Weird. I pocketed it.
