by Scott Seier
Skill Alert!
New Skill Learned!
Micro Casting
Allows to caster to restrict the effects of spells to a much more precise level than the average caster
This skill also allows the caster to produce perfectly scaled down versions of known spells
The scale in which a spell can be reduced is dependent on the casters will
Skill Alert!
New Skill Learned!
Batch Summoning
Allows the caster to summon as many entities as their power allows, at once.
All reagent and mana costs remain unchanged
If the caster over estimates their abilities, the remaining cost of the summoning will be drained from their life force
My head was spinning. That was a lot to read... I focused on The AI who was looking at me expectantly. "There you go. I fixed all the useless stuff, didn't even help you out that much, simply took what you were working towards and brought it to fruition slight sooner than it otherwise would have. Not to mention you've given me the best idea that I've had since the game launched. If these cascaders refuse to better themselves in a world that is all about getting better. Maybe they will try harder if their lives depend on it?" he laughed then, cackled really, and took a few steps back from me. "Now, you probably don't know anything about resets, but just to fill you in so you can warn your friends properly I'll let you in on a little secret of Acrion." He grinned at me, the aura around him thickening, as if the world was straining to make his will reality.
"Acrion has only had about one third of its surface discovered so far. Only about half of that discovered land actually has any players in it to be honest. But the rest is out there waiting to be explored by the more industrious of your kind. Now, it wouldn't really be fare if npcs and mobs were left out there, toiling away for the sole purpose of maybe getting discovered one day, so I like to keep everything fresh for them. All the lands that haven't been discovered exist in an accelerated time space, much like the one we're in right now. If there are no players then I can simulate the game as quickly as I desire. So every two weeks is a couple hundred years, empires rise and fall, wars are fought and forgotten." The AI chuckled at an inside joke. "The point is, there is a rich history in every zone so that when a player finally finds it, they can spend years digging up the past, just like humans do in real life. It also gives the npcs a much more rounded personality and at the same time makes sure that no single society of npcs advances too far past what the current top players are capable of handling. That two week mark happens to be today. The whole world of Acrion is currently suffering from dozens of cataclysms, society ending civil wars, giant monster attacks." He jerked his head towards the turtle in the distance with an ironic expression. "Sound familiar?" he walked over to Grim and threw his arm around the other man's green shoulders.
"You don't know this yet, but I'm pretty sure ol' Grimy here is trying to get this." The AI flicked the amulet that was hanging around the baron's neck. "This is a mark of nobility, it partially governs how the nobility in a zone is dealt with. Spawn timers mostly, originally designed to be a failsafe from players running around and keeping all the royalty dead at all times. It was meant to be given to the highest reputation guild in the area. If the noble was killed, the guild could ferry the amulet away and respawn the npc. Simple concept. The only issue is that I don't know why Grim wants it... but I can't let him get it. But he worked really hard to get it, so he has to get it... working within the limiting confines of my own mind is difficult sometimes..." The AI looked at me seriously. "So, here's my real plan. I need you to beat Grim, drain him. Like you were planning on doing before. That will set back his godly progression significantly and give me more time to deal with the repercussions. Then I need you to warn The Tactician that the zone is about to get reset."
I stared blankly at the AI. he scoffed. "I never said that. I don't usually reset them, but this is unavoidable. The zone is young enough that it won't have long standing economic repercussions, and there is obviously a plot in the works that is taking advantage of my diminished state after the Cascade. I cannot allow that." As he spoke his aura started flooding into the ground around him. "Just make sure you warn your friends."
I was about to ask how he was going to do it again, when he turned away fully and stopped responding to my mental words. The body of the baron tensed and the aura around him doubled, then tripled, all flowing deep into the earth. I didn't have to wait long to get an idea of what he was planning. The turtle, still completely frozen in time from my perspective, lurched upwards. For a second I thought it was starting to fly, but then I realized that it was growing. Huge bone white spines began to form all over the mountain that was its shell. Within a few seconds it was almost twice the size it had been, its head looking even more dragon-like and its claws growing long enough that each of them could bisect a skyscraper. "Does that answer your question?" The AI asked innocently. "Reset by giant Dragon Turtle." he turned to face me and winked at me. "Remember your jobs." Then his eyes faded from orange to brown, and the ever present grin slipped off his face.
Time snapped back to normal speed and my body shot in about twenty different directions at once. My left leg gave out while my right kicked straight forward. Both my arms reached in opposite directions, and my head forced itself violently to the right. The result was that it looked like I suffered an accelerated seizure and fell on my face. It definitely got Grim to stop in his tracks. Yeah you better be intimidated.
The instant that time sped back up several surges of Heraldic power shot through my body, in reaction to Grims power. I drank in the surges like a man who had been stranded in the desert for too long, then pushed myself up to my hands and knees. What just happened! I'm receiving a backlog of emotion. How did you have a mental breakdown in the span of a few seconds!? I didn't answer Vigil. I was too busy cursing. Grim hadn't stopped because of my stupidity. He was staring at the Baron, who was still standing in the middle of the square, both Grim and the royal had very confused looks on their faces.
At the same time Vigil streaked off, I focused on Grim and dug into my new skills. I still had all my shapes, Alpha through Epsilon, except they weren't called shapes anymore. They were strains. I selected Alpha, just because he was the original and for the first time cast Apocalypse: Pandemic. For good measure I micro casted the spell, as well as used my new batch summoning skill. The result was about fifty Alphas being summoned at near microscopic levels into Grim's body. He didn't seem to notice, but I could instantly see several highlighted areas on his form that denoted where the Alphas were. They were spreading... The 'replicate' trait working well with 'mana hungry'. They ate the mana, and then used it to copy themselves. Within ten seconds it went from fifty tiny Alphas to nearly one hundred. By the time Vigil sliced the Amulet off of the baron's neck, caught it, and brought it back to me, dropping it into my outstretched hand, Grim had two hundred Alphas in him. Although he showed absolutely no adverse effects.
I slammed my hands together and triggered a burst of spirit. It felt much stronger than usual and a surge of heat around my eyes told me that my Heraldic powers were helping me out. Grim eyed me, clear annoyance on his face. He glanced at the Baron and without even batting an eye, sent a wave of energy the size of a house at him. The noble was dead and gone before I could even think to try and help. "It seems you've figured something out, although, I can't begin to imagine what. I'm only going to ask you this
once. Give me the necklace." A huge swell of twitching energy rose up around Grim. For a second it reminded me of the AI's aura. I looked past Grim and saw that the changes to the turtle had stuck even after the AI had left. A perfectly silent battle was still raging miles away, but now I could clearly see that the Division was losing.
A huge portal opened up above the dragon turtle and spilled out five much smaller flying vessels. Each of them began to drop massive damage onto the raging beast, but nothing was even scratching it anymore. I had to refocus on Grim as he took a step towards me. There were now close to four hundred Alphas in him. All draining every drop of mana they could get their tentacles on, but he still looked unfazed. I took the mana that I'd regenerated and threw it into my Veil Imp spell. Five imps burst into the fight, this at least seemed to confuse Grim. I was really liking this Batch Summoning skill. Good stuff. The five imps bounced all over the place, peppering Grim with Veil Burst breath attacks. In the background I saw the turtle unleash a breath attack of its own. Something clicked for me then. The two attack looked identical, simply on completely different scales. I shoved the knowledge away and refocused.
I slapped my hands together again and ordered the imps to begin returning to me. As the other four put down some covering fire, one at a time would bound over and get their mana topped off. Each of them hit almost twice as hard with the amount of power I gave them, but still Grim was mostly just annoyed. The attacks were little worse than gusts of violent wind to him. It stung his eyes a little if he got hit there, but not much else. Eight hundred Alphas. I cast my Veil Tag on him and dodged behind the corner of a nearby house as he tried to retaliate. The entire side of the building was ripped apart by the vicious energy that he create. Luckily I hadn't stopped running. I rounded the opposite side of the house and was happy to see that Grim's eyes were glazed over as he examined the new dot that just got cast on him, he was probably wondering why I'd just negated his meager spirit stat completely. He also didn't seem to be able to burn this one off so easily.
I took advantage of his distraction and dropped a falling gate on him. He didn't even flinch! The huge gate hit him clean across the shoulders, but it just bent and then fell to the ground. I let this gate fade before he could send it through another building. I was acutely aware that somehow all the damage was still going to be blamed on me somehow. My heart sank when I realized that the kingdom will still try and hold me responsible after that turtle busts this entire zone back into the dark ages. I sighed, then checked on the Alphas progress again. Here we go! Over fifteen hundred! As I watched it doubled again and jumped to over three thousand. Then again! Just below six thousand!
It took me a second to realize that the reason they were replicating so quickly was because there was more and more mana being poured into the system. I refocused on Grim and could see a calculating expression on his face. The air around him was sizzling with energy. I guess that explained why some of the alphas were dying. It had to be hell inside his body, so much power... twelve thousand. Over twenty. Over forty.
A bolt of lightening sparked off of Grim's body and hit the ground near me. My whole leg went numb from just the byproduct of his building power. Shit... I dug into my spirit again and summoned another five imps. Grim scoffed and waved his hand. The same energy that had leapt up from within the royal guards, burst forth inside my poor imps. They all died instantly. I tried to summon more, but even my spirit was struggling to keep up with what I was demanding of it. Without thinking too hard about it, I dumped every spare attribute point I had into spirit. This was as good a time as any. I pressed my palms together and nearly fell over at the surge of power. I hit my mana max in under a second. The measly ten points being so easy to fill that my spirit didn't even notice it.
Not that I don't appreciate the influx of mana, but why are you not attempting to flee? You have the necklace, do you not? I grunted as two imps were disintegrated and the first gate was melted to slag in under five seconds. "I have to drain him." I bit out as I struggled to keep a handle on the energy that was flowing through me. Something was wrong. That last spirit boost was supposed to have worn off by now. Why was the tide of power only growing stronger?
The two remaining gates and all of the imps were wiped out in an instant. Vigil tried to unwrap himself from me and attack Grim, but I held him back. Grim's dead emerald eyes stared at me like I was less than an insect. This guy had been pretty nice a couple minutes ago...godhood really took its toll. I couldn't help but see some similarities between Grim and Will when they both dipped into their respective power. Somewhere deep down I kind of felt bad for them.
Then he moved, fast. His fist was about six inches from my face when time froze again. This time I knew what was happening. Saoirse had said Heralds could manipulate time and space, but I was a baby Herald, so I could only effect how I perceived time. I took the river of power that was pouring through me and sent it into ever cell of my body. If Grim got a final form, then so should I!
The burning feeling intensified to uncomfortable levels, but I was starting to get results. Even with the time stopped, I was moving. Extremely slowly, but moving. I was also feeling the drain. The AI had been right. I couldn't hold this time thing for long. Grim's fist obliterated an entire section of the street that I had been standing on a moment before. He turned to see me pop out of the roll that had gotten me out of range of it. Gold and purple light reflected in his glowing emerald eyes. Was that me? I looked down at my hands and could see that my skin was indeed glowing a light gold. My fingernails, veins, knuckles, elbows, all the joints were a deep royal purple color. Cool!
I didn't notice Grim move this time. His strike hit me dead center, but instead of splattering me all over the place, it sent me through the wall of the nearest building. It was an odd experience, feeling stone crack when my skin made contact with it. It was like crushing ice in my bare hands. The debris falling on top of me and nearly suffocating me wasn't as interesting to deal with.
As I struggled to uncover myself, I felt my spirit snapping my ribs back into place. I stumbled out of the wreckage and smiled at Grim. "That was a good shot." He snarled, I smiled.
Grim raised his hand above his head and conjured a colossal ball of energy. Five times bigger than the one he'd used at the start of this fight. What do you need me to do.
I raised my left hand and activated the 'consume' seal once more. The energy snapped into the size of a marble and stored itself neatly in my cuff. The metal was instantly hot again, hot enough to melt my skin if I wasn't currently in Herald mode. Still hurt like hell. Grim looked momentarily shocked that his attack had been negated, then even more so when Vigil punched straight through him.
His eyes bulged and green blood poured out of his chest. Vigil turned, and rocketed through him again, this time entering through his back. Grim coughed violently and pressed his hands to his ruined torso. A flash of dark green light was the only sign that he'd healed himself, but I wasn't paying too much attention at that point. I never
expected Vigil's attack to kill him. I was already moving. I swung hard, connecting the heated metal cuff to the side of Grim's head as hard as I could, at the same time my 'halt' binding went off. Grim froze. It only held briefly, but it was enough time. I used the last tiny bit of the jailer's stability to break the cuff and stick it to Grim's head. The sight was pretty funny. Grim struggling to stand with an open metal shackled glued to his temple. It was less funny when the soul focus failed completely and exploded. It snapped Grims head to the side and sent him back to his knees.
Without missing a beat I drew Frightener's Song and hefted it. Its weight feeling oddly reassuring even though I rarely used it. I was expecting a retaliation any moment...and here it comes. A wave of energy, just like what Grim had used to kill the baron, barreled towards me. I raised my mace. These runes were way better built thanks to Vigil. I was a lot more confident about what I was doing this time.
A quick look confirmed that there were nearly fifteen million microscopic Alphas leeching off of Grim now. He was getting slower. Vigil buzzed with power, but I held him back. The wave of energy closed in on me, but was instantly gone when I used the 'consume' seal on the mace. It didn't even get hot! The good part was that the seal on the mace could also release the focused energy. I charged Grim, consumed two more smaller energy attacks and dodged a wild strike aimed at my head. Frightener's Song struck him in the side of the chest and at the same moment it made contact, I released the energy that I'd just sealed away in the form of pure kinetic force. In that moment I also found out what enchantment was on Frightener's Song.
Frightener's Song
Mace
Binds when equipped
Main Hand
4-6 Damage/Speed 2.5
Enchanted: Two for one
Runic Weapon: Halt
Runic Weapon: Consume
Two for one. Apparently it functioned pretty simply. It sometimes doubled a strike... it just so happened to also work on the seals release as well, doubling the already large discharge of power. Grim was sent hurtling backwards, it was his turn to get put through a wall, technically several walls. The mace sang in my hand, a haunting ringing melody that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Didn't stop me from smiling though.
