As he worked to clear the mental fugue of his mind, he opened his notifications. It was only once he had them open that they would start acting on his character.
Dave skimmed through his blinking notifications panel. He didn’t read them all, only looking for the ones that he needed—swiping many of them away or activating them; the others he left. He didn’t have time to accept them all.
Passive Skill: Perception
Level: Journeyman level 4
Effect: 51% chance to find hidden details.
Passive Skill: Dodge
Level: Expert level 3
Effect: 69% chance to evade objects.
Active Skill: Sprint
Level: Expert Level 7
Effect: 77% increased speed
Cost: 5 Stamina/s
Passive Skill: Night Vision
Level: Master 3
Effect: 89% increased night vision. 30% chance to see through magical darkness
Racial bonus: Dwarves, even half-Dwarves, are at home in the darkness of mines and their empires dug underneath mountains. +25% increased night vision.
Active Skill: Magical Circuits
Level: Expert Level 10
Effect: 83% chance of creating better Magical Circuits and understanding them.
Cost: Dependent
Active Skill: Maintainer
Level: Journeyman Level 8
Effect: 59% chance to restore durability; at higher levels, possible to increase durability, quality and gain Sharpen bonus to items that have been cared for.
Require: Dependent on gear; Sharpening stone, hammer, anvil. Better maintainers tool leads to higher chance of increasing stats.
Active Skill: Builder
Level: Journeyman level 2
Effect: 47% speed making items with more than one material
Required: Tools
Level 42
You have reached level 42; you have 195 stat points to use.
He swiped again, barely reading it before accessing the box below it.
Stat Increase
+2 Strength
+13 Intelligence
+13 Willpower
+16 Endurance
+2 Agility
His stats had gone quite literally ape-shit. He hadn’t been in the thick of the fighting but he’d still been far from the rear.
His Agility had gone up as he’d been nimble on his feet. It would only take a strong breeze to take his ass out with all the magic that was being tossed around. Intelligence, Willpower, Endurance: all had rocketed up for a few reasons. Using magic was not easy, to put it lightly.
He was channeling a Mana pool that was thousands of times bigger than his own, pulling power from released souls, his own Mana, and spells he had pulled apart. He was using techniques well outside his level range: his Magical Circuits, the altering of pre-existing magical runes to make them stronger with his conjurations.
Conjuring the Daggers of Demons Ruin was not only Mana intensive but stretched his mind in spatial awareness, using his Touch of the Land in ways he had only theorized, like tearing a spell apart by conjuring Mana inside a spell to make it lose cohesion, or to change a spell’s magical format so that it held together better and hit with more power.
Endurance and Willpower came from the Mana he was expending and the fact that he’d only taken the shortest of rests before getting back into the fight. Expending Mana was mentally exhausting—complex creations like Dave was making, even more so. He continued to do it again and again.
Well, that’s enough lying around.
Dave pushed more Mana through his body. If he completed this fight, he was going to invent some kind of damned pill for Mana-using headaches. Felt as if he’d drank a winery’s worth of booze and then had every single bottle cracked over his head. He pushed the pain away and focused on the scene in front of him.
There were fifteen cultists left, including the ten boss classed cultists around the now closed portal. Their spells were tearing the Dwarven lines apart. That kind of power was just incredible. Even with Dave’s enchantments.
The rogues were in the wings, ready and waiting.
A cultist’s shields dropped; all of the combined forces’ fire power dropped on the creature. Within five minutes, they were dead but another AOE spell of tentacles had formed in the Dwarves’ lines.
Right where Lox’s warband was resting from being on the front lines on and off for several hours.
Dave looked to his party settings. He tried to conjure better shields, more Health, all of the runes he could think of; still, Joko and Tounk’s Health bars dropped to zero.
Dave wanted to fall to his knees, to cry and let out the pain and frustration: at the Jukal, the idiotic Pantheon of Affinities, at how Emerilia was real.
Instead, he heard Joko’s firm voice from their first day of training.
“Quiet, recruit. In a warband, you live in discomfort. Your shield and sword are your constant companions. You will hold them until they are ripped from you and you are dead.”
He grit his teeth. His emotions told him to run in and hack the cultists apart, but he had not gotten this far on his fighting skills. He’d gotten this far by making preparations. He would meet the cultists how he wanted to.
That meant he needed a hell of a lot more power.
His friends had been fighting for their homes and their families; he would not let their losses be in vain.
“Jules, Esa, protect me.” Dave knelt on the ground and pressed his hand to it. He knew others would die as he made the preparations he needed; he knew that action now would mean they would lose. They would pay for the time he needed with their blood.
He channeled power through his hand, digging through the ground, finding the Magical Circuits that spread for kilometers in every direction.
The Magical Circuits that had powered the prison around Boran-al’s Citadel.
Time had little meaning to him. It was if he were in the smithy again—the world disappeared, leaving nothing but him and his work.
Connections started to form, the runes changing shape as he used his power of conjuration to alter the magical runes. He started from the receivers that pooled power from the area and moved inward. It was if he were scanning through parts of code that had been left in its same form but the connected code had been deleted or left in fragments. He altered the original code, fixed the old and changed its purpose.
Slowly, power started to trickle into Dave’s armor.
His mind was hammering away but Jules seemed to heal him, as if sensing what he was doing.
Chapter 37: Absolute Darkness
Deia downed another potion by reflex. People were buffing and healing her as she worked with other offensive mages to try to cut down the cultist’s spells.
There weren’t really any offensive mages left; they were all just trying to protect their own forces so they could get close and the melee fighters could deal with them.
The undead and skeletons were hammering on the Dwarves’ shields. The cultists didn’t care whether they killed their own creations to get the living that they were fighting.
A new hole developed in the shield wall. Dwarves and Players were left with burning dark holes through them. Dozens of mages piled on healing spells and blessings as the line moved to cover them and reform the shield wall.
Deia felt new anger fill her as Joko and Tounk’s names went gray on her party view. She doubled her efforts, eating food that would’ve made chefs around the world be proud of. It tasted like sawdust in her mouth, just more fuel to her Mana pool to hopefully save a few more.
There was a commotion as rogues and rangers detailed with killing traitors and undead in the ranks appeared among the dead, their blades stabbing into those who were rising from the dead.
Deia finished her meal, hurling a lance of fire at the cultists. Another shield flashed darkly as an artillery spell struck it, opening it up to the melee fighters surrounding it.
The Players and People of Emerili
a rushed the cultist. It was a mad melee as the shield wall took the hits, archers fired into the target, and rogues moved between the gaps to land vicious and surgical blows.
Deia focused on the ten cultists who hadn’t moved from their place around the portal that the Demon Lord had come from.
She could hear the sounds of the dragons and the Demon Lord in the distance. On her mini-map, she could also see that there were forces engaged at the castle down the hill.
Great, a battle on two fucking sides.
Deia threw another flaming spear into a growing magical circle, smashing into one of the lines of power and disrupting the growing spell.
The cultists isolated the area of the spear and worked around it.
Deia sat down, her Mana pool dry, and urged it to charge faster. She hadn’t ever seen a magical circle like the one that the cultists were making.
The power buildup was faster than that of the portal as they channeled their own power into it.
The cultist without a shield fell. Its soul powered the circle as it grew across the citadel’s square.
Deia heard the black dragon cry out as the magical circle came to life.
***
Emerilia was going to hell in a fucking handbasket.
Cassie had been hit with a draining spell early on; that added with a few hits from different Dark spells and she’d been pulled back to the camp in order to rest and regrow her Mana pool.
She’d invested her skills while Naylor had kept a watch over her. More like sat on her so that she didn’t go charging back into battle and get herself cut down.
Her dark mutterings and orders fell away as she watched the Demon Lord go sailing over the camp and into the forest behind. It seemed to almost be a signal for the forces that had been creeping through the forest toward the camp. Sprites released their power as wild beasts that they had tamed raced for the camp’s walls.
The dragons—one black as night and the other like a streaking flame—rushed over the camp, hammering the Demon Lord with their magical attacks. Their power was enough to make Cassie reel in shock.
“Never fucking piss off a dragon,” she said through gritted teeth, looking at her forces that were already moving from Omal to the camp.
The roads and their steeds were eating up the distance but it would be twenty minutes as the Earth Lord’s army was already at the camp’s gates.
We’d been so focused on the citadel, we forgot all about the fucking woods.
“Tanks up along the walls; casters and archers in the towers! If you know how to wield a spear, get on those walls. They’ve got bears climbing up. We need to repel them before they get down among the wounded!” Cassie yelled.
The gamers weren’t complex people; they ran to the walls, getting to know one another as they moved. Sometimes all it took was a nod and a glance to get to know the person to the right and left of you.
Players were an odd breed. This was their passion and to get to the level that was needed to attend this event, they were dedicated Players. While the People of Emerilia wore grim looks, the Players laughed and openly smiled. This is why they played Emerilia, after all!
“Come on, Mother fucking Nature! Let’s go!” a Player yelled.
Even the Dwarves might have been thrown off with the gusto that the Players were throwing themselves into the fight. This was a once-in-a-lifetime event and they were not willing to stay out of it.
Soon enough, the Dwarves and the Elves got over their fear and were joking along with the Players.
“Fucking shit me out of a goddamn Mario kart and call me Peach!” Naylor said.
Cassie swore she went cross-eyed for a minute as she looked at the man. And then the night lit up with blue flames as the red dragon streaked across the front of the camp, laying down its breath.
“Firm up the lines! Casters, archers—hit the bastards with everything you’ve got. Aim for those sprites—they go down and they can’t control the animals!” Cassie yelled, working to make group chats to organize the flow of information.
Chat windows were integral to a complicated battle with multiple groups. Most of the time, Cassie just felt like a damned old-fashioned telephone operator connecting people to one another.
She saw a glowing green ball of magical artillery in the distance. “Purifying Slash!” She drew her sword, gold light making after-images as it vibrated, pointing directly at the sprites’ magical artillery. Light caught up with the blade, charging and rushing forward and striking the building spell.
If she’d hit the sprite, then the others might have been able to contain and direct the spell. Hitting the spell threw Light Affinity into a spell that was meant to only hold Earth and none of the Earth sprites knew much of anything about the Light Affinity.
The spell worked pretty well, and took out three of the five casters and blew a nice big hole in the tree line.
“Fuck, magic is scary,” Naylor said.
“More than being crapped out of Mario?” Cassie said.
“Definitely.” Naylor looked her straight in the eye without even flinching.
Cassie held her head and let out a pained sigh. When she looked up, Naylor was laughing and stabbing a bear as it climbed the stone walls of the camp.
She laughed and went to work organizing her people; she just hoped the forces around the citadel could hold out. Her laugh died in her throat as she felt Dark energy even more powerful than what she had felt when the Demon Lord had walked out of the portal. It was like a physical presence that made her want to run and hide, to find a place where there was sunshine all the time and never a shadow dared show its face.
Dread filled her as her instincts cried at her to run or die.
It seemed to break the sprites’ hold on the creatures as they streamed away from the camp.
***
Bob watched the scene in front of him. To any other, it would have looked like a big chunk of the ground had been eaten.
The magical darkness that now created a dome over the citadel was so dark that it drank in the light of the surrounding area.
Screams and cries could be heard across the battlefield. The darkness was taking their fears and making them live through it; phantom pain of the mind overruled their bodies as they were unable to move or try to escape the darkness.
Chanting started again.
“Selezar’s tentacles,” Bob hissed.
The Darkness of Ouck-so turned the mind into a weapon, turning mind against body, holding people in place and so petrified that they couldn’t move past their fears.
Selezar’s tentacles was the AOE spell that the Demon Lord had used: corrupted tentacles of shadow, stone, and metal that would tear through their opponents to leave hit damage and nasty poison damage.
Bob’s fist tightened hard enough for his fingernails to draw blood. He was unable to do anything; he could only hope that the forces that he had put into motion would prevail. How many times have I moved behind the scenes, unable to act but able to see the horrors created from the system I created?
His head turned as the Demon Lord let out a bellow, Malsour’s mouth around its neck as black Mana poured through the Demon Lord.
The trapped souls of the Demon Lord fell apart as it dropped to its knees. It tilted, falling in the dirt as Malsour stood in the middle of a wrecked forest, his scales cracked and bleeding in places.
Induca was screeching, helping the camp against the sprites and Earth golems that were pressing their attack still, keeping the people in the camp tied down so they couldn’t help their comrades.
Malsour let out a pain screech and took to the air. His wings were rent and torn but still he piled on the power, gaining height and moving toward the citadel.
The chant was nearing completion. Bob could feel the buildup of power; the words and thoughts turned into magical runes that now overlaid the battlefield. The hellish cries of people trapped within their own minds, fear keeping them stuck in their places. Many called out for their own deaths under
the pain.
Malsour might be able to break the spell, to give the fighters a chance.
“Elsoom, ma’kan. No sor exda. Null.” The voice was spoken at a conversational tone, but the magical power that it contained made it spread across the citadel and the forest plains below.
Bob felt the hairs on his skin start to rise.
It was as if a small ley line had poured out into the sky but was being sucked up by something.
Bob waved in front of his eyes, casting Ever-see.
His eyes looked through the magical Darkness to see a halfling start to rise to its feet.
An Elf halfling also rose, Fire burning in the Darkness, her own armor also glowing.
Magical power was pouring into them, their armor glowing as gray mist surrounded them, pushing back the night.
***
Dave got to his feet. The power that had been used to seal away Boran-al’s Citadel now coursed through him and Deia’s armor. The armor’s magical runes kept people out of their minds and flared brilliantly to push back the darkness around them.
Dave looked to Deia, gray glowing eyes meeting fiery ones. They nodded to each other.
Dave pulled his axes free and charged, yelling at the top of his lungs as the souls that had powered and been bound to the Demon Lord rushed to add their power to Dave and Deia’s armor.
Just seven cultists were left, all of them over level 150.
Dave cast Soul Trap on the cultists. They looked at him with pure spite as they continued their chant.
Deia fired Scorching Rain down on the nearest cultist.
Anger rolled off Dave but his mind still worked. He studied the shield, finding its weakness. He made as if to cut the magical shield.
The cultist poured more Mana into the shield as Dave conjured Mana right into the runes that were controlling it.
The Trapped Mind Project (Emerilia Book 1) Page 49
