by Jez Cajiao
I pulled up my character sheet and considered my options while I washed the drying blood from my face absently. My Health, Mana and Stamina all slowly ticked back toward full.
I’d reached a familiar point, back to the old fight of ‘Min-Max’ versus a balanced build. There were so many places I could invest the points, especially as they were essentially freebies, so I wouldn’t miss them in that regard. That being said, there was nowhere ‘bad’ to put them, either.
I took a deep breath and did what I really didn’t want to, even though I knew I had to… I used them to ‘fix’ my weakest areas, putting seven points into my Charisma, two points into Luck, and a single point into Constitution, finally bringing all of my stats out of their ‘teens’ and into the twenties.
I looked over the finalized character sheet and nodded in satisfaction. As much as I wanted to bung the entire ten points into something, making a superhuman increase in a single bound, like I had with my Agility, I had to be realistic. My Charisma would be my undoing when I met the smugglers if I didn’t increase it, and I couldn’t afford that.
Name Jax
Titles: Strategos: 5% boost to damage resistance. Fortifier: 5% boost to defensive structure integrity, Champion of Jenae
Class: Spellsword > Justicar
Renown: Unknown
Level: 14
Progress: 45,443/140,000
Patron: Jenae, Goddess of Fire and Exploration
Points to Distribute: 0
Meridian Points to Invest: 0
Stat
Current points
Description
Effect
Progress to next level
Agility
41
Governs dodge and movement.
Average speed + 310% (+10% increase in darkness, -20% in daylight)
61/100
Charisma
20
Governs likely success to charm, seduce, or threaten
Success chance +100%
22/100
Constitution
33
Governs health and health regeneration
HP+460, regen 25pts per 600s (+10% regen due to soul bond, -20hp, each point invested now worth 20hp)
88/100
Dexterity
25
Governs ability with weapons and crafting success
+ 15% chance to wield weapon successfully, + 15% chance of crafting success
78/100
Endurance
25
Governs stamina and stamina regeneration
STM +150, regen 15pts per 30s
92/100
Intelligence
26
Governs base mana and number of spells able to be learned
+140 mana, spell capacity: 13 spells (-20mp due to soul bond)
74/100
Luck
20
Governs overall chance of bonuses
+10% chance of success in areas luck affects
38/100
Perception
25
Governs ranged damage and chance to spot traps/hidden items
+150% ranged damage, +25% chance to spot traps/hidden items
14/100
Strength
24
Governs damage with melee weapons and carrying capacity
+14 damage with melee weapons, +140% carrying capacity
38/100
Wisdom
35 (30)
Governs mana regeneration and memory
+250% mana recovery, 1.7ppm, 250% more likely to remember things, -50% mana regeneration until mana manipulation reaches level 10.
17/100
I dismissed all the prompts and scanned the cavern. The Kobolds were still huddled fearfully in the corner, and the surviving animals remained in their pens. The surviving Tiger had apparently found a friend in Barrett, who was slowly and gently feeding it.
I forced myself to my feet and spoke, drawing every eye and ear immediately.
“Thank you all. That was a hard fight, and the side effects of the manual for the horse, well, that kinda sucked… but I’m all right now."
"I know the Drow haven’t moved to come down this way; with some luck, they don’t know about us, but we have to be clear. We’ve made a fuckton of noise. The only reason they won’t know we’re here is if they’re as self-absorbed and assholish as we really think they are. So, let’s fucking hope for that.” That got a grin from the others, and I noticed the pile of gear set to one side, and more importantly, my chest piece. While I was out cold or fighting for my life in a weird fucking magical dreamworld, someone had beaten as much of the dent out of my armor as was possible. I pulled it back on and Cam gave me a slow nod.
“Did you do this?” I asked him, and he gave another nod.
“Thank you, Cam.” I said with a smile. “I’ll be more careful in future.” I pulled the armor on and looked through the pile of loot: a few nice spears, some daggers, a couple of non-magical rings, and a handful of gold and silver. All would useful at some point, no doubt, but for now, the best items were the last bits: three health and a single mana potion, which I handed out to those that were the lowest in the party, wishing I still had the majority of my ingredients with me.
The only potion I could probably make right now was one that’d stiffen the old trouser snake, thanks to the Drow’s ingredients, and I really didn’t think that’d help in the next battle.
Admittedly, I could use it as an extra weapon and beat them to death with it, but I’d just end up in therapy later.
We checked everyone over, healed up any injuries, and pocketed anything we thought would be useful later, and then I went to speak with the Kobolds.
“Do any of you understand me?” I asked. Several of them perked up at my words, but I didn’t know if that was because they understood, or they were trying to look attentive in the hope of avoiding a beating. “If you understand me, put your hands on your head,” I said, and after a few seconds, they started looking at each other, a barrage of words I couldn’t make out followed, and then the entire group put their hands on each other’s shoulders, looking confused.
“Well, fuck,” I muttered, shaking my head, they clearly understood slightly, but fuck it. “Okay, we already freed a bunch of your friends and let them escape further down the tunnels. You can go find them and do whatever you want, just stay here until we’ve gone, okay? Then, just go do whatever, and try not to get eaten, I guess.” I shrugged and turned back to the rest of the group and gestured to them.
“Come on, guys, let’s go get this over with,” I said, stretching awkwardly and trying to get rid of a knot in my shoulder as I looked at them. “Horkesh, tell us if anything changes with your drones. Bane, lead us out of here.” With that, my team started moving, and I took up my usual position as second in line, the group behind me gripping shoulders or asses, as per their taste, and we set off back to the main tunnel.
Once we reached the split in the path that we’d entered from, I made sure we were all ready, and Bane started us off along the higher tunnel again.
Chapter Twenty-Four
We hid in a side tunnel, waiting as the spiders explored and came back, Horkesh and her drones communicating, and then Horkesh relaying the twists and turns ahead of us, until finally, half an hour later, one of the spiders didn’t come back, and we knew we’d found the Drow settlement.
The spiders bunched up around Horkesh, and she hesitated, hanging from the wall close to me at head height. It was a mark of how used to her I’d grown that I didn’t try to bat her away, but deep inside, I still instinctually wanted to Firebolt her in the face.
“We can’t go on. If you die, and the Drow find us, they will attack the Queen, we… I… would help, but…” I nodded to her in understanding.
“It’s okay, Horkesh. Thank you for your help so far; I know it’s not been easy, especially after you were injured. Return to Queen Ashrag. She will know when we kill the Drow and the quest is comple
ted, so you don’t need to risk yourself any further.” She looked at me for a handful of seconds, before spinning in place and darting away, her drones going with her.
We all paused momentarily, then shrugged at each other. 'Spiders were just weird’ seemed to be the general consensus.
It didn’t take long to find the remains of the spider that had gone missing, or at least to find some bits of it. The area looked like it was supposed to be a guard post, but it’d been abandoned, the arrogant Drow wandering off with the spider’s corpse. As we snuck along a tunnel a few minutes later, we could see a light up ahead, and here and there on the floor were sections of chitin that I thought I recognized as the Spider drone’s carapace.
I could hear voices up ahead, and Bane slunk past me, creeping to the corner, and peering around, before slowly returning to where we waited around the previous bend.
“We’ve found it,” he confirmed. “The tunnel up ahead opens out into a large cavern. There’s a handful of small tents spread out, and a building being constructed in the middle. I could spot maybe six or seven Drow, all arguing about the spider that went missing; one of them is on the floor with a dagger in its back. Looks like they don’t like to share.” He gave off a low thrum of amusement.
“What about the boss; what about Oracle?!” I asked quickly, and he shook his head.
“Can’t see it anywhere. I’d assume it’s either not here, or it’s inside the building. There’s no sign of Oracle, as far as I can see. The present Drow appear to be regular soldiers, mainly armed with swords and shields, a few with bows. They’re all gathered around a cook fire in the middle of the cavern."
"There are piles of equipment and loot dumped against the walls, and I’d guess that they’re what remains of the caravans that were taken.”
He paused, then shook his head. “There’s also a cage against the far wall. A handful of prisoners are in it, with one being stripped of its skin on a table nearby.”
I froze, watching Bane, shock filling me as I considered what he’d just said.
“They’re alive, or at least they were recently, judging by the blood. It’s still flowing, but I think they’re unconscious. It might be a mercy to kill them.”
“No,” I said straight away. “We’re not killing someone that we might be able to save. Anything else you can tell me?” I asked, and he shook his head. “Fine, then; this is how it’s going to go down. Bane, you’re the stealthiest motherfucker amongst us. Think you can get into the cavern and hide?” I asked him and he nodded. “Great. Your job… your only job, is the boss. I’m going to make an explosive spell; it’ll be a big one, and I’m going to chuck it at the group that’s standing together, see if I can take them all out. Arrin, you be ready with a fuckload of Magic Missiles, and target anyone who looks like they might be trouble after that goes off but stay behind me with the others. Lydia, Barrett, you’re with me. We’re going to spread out in the mouth of the cavern; nobody gets past us. Cam, Jian, you’re right behind us, you support us, striking when we can’t, and if we get injured, you step up and take our places. There’s only seven of them, but I don’t doubt that others will come running once the fight starts. Miren, Stephanos…I want you ready with the poisoned arrows."
"Get the boss when it appears. This is its home, so I don’t think it’ll be far away. Any questions?” Lydia immediately spoke up.
“What about the prisoners?” She asked, and I shook my head.
“We deal with them once we’ve killed the Drow. Trying to protect them sooner is just putting us and them at more risk.” I knew my crew wasn’t happy, but they couldn’t argue with my logic. “Time to nut up or shut up,” I said, hefting my naginata, before passing it to Lydia. “I’m gonna need both hands for this, so do me a favor and hold that for me, okay?” She nodded.
I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, deciding at the last minute that if I was going to try to take out the entire group, this was going to need to be a beast of a spell.
I relaxed the walls I’d built around my anger, relaxing the forced control I’d been exerting. I thought about what they’d done. They’d taken Oracle, they’d taken someone I loved, and I did love her, I admitted that to myself now.
They’d taken her from me, they’d put everything I had at risk, they’d endangered my people, and now they stood between me and Tommy. They were scum, and they deserved everything I was going to bring to them.
I felt him stirring. Amon. As always, my extremes of emotion brought him out. He’d been watching, waiting, and now he was ready. I felt it, felt the bloodlust rising from him, fueled by the fury that one of his citizens had been taken, harmed.
I also knew Amon better now, and I understood what I hadn’t before.
He wasn’t just the last remnants of a long dead Emperor, my ancestor. He wasn’t just a ghost of a ghost that demanded I protect the weak and stand as their shield.
No, he was a fucking animal in his own right, a monster amongst monsters. The only thing that he’d ever feared was what he would truly become if he went all out and gave in to his darker side.
He’d instead made a set of rules, the rules that governed the Empire, and when something broke those rules, he could let go of the reins and fucking murder everything that crossed him.
He was a man who spent his life preventing the fight, ruling carefully and justly, but secretly lusting for war.
Now he was in my mind, and my anger was feeding his.
I could feel him as he made little suggestions, tweaking my understanding of the Firebolt spell that I’d already started to cast. I was planning on using the unstable Firebolt spell I’d made up before, but that wasn’t going to be enough, I realized. It wasn’t enough because that might leave some of them alive.
I kept building it as I sneaked along, getting to the Cavern entrance, and looking inside. The original seven Drow had shifted; five of them were still hanging around the corpse of the sixth, while the seventh had moved over to the half-skinned person on the table, and they were sharpening their blades, getting ready to go again.
The five Drow that stood near the fire were finishing off their snack and talking, laughing as one of their number imitated the spider and made gestures of breaking off the legs.
I grinned as I changed the spell at Amon suggestions, weaving in the outer ring segment of the ‘Cleansing Fire’ spell, but using it to contain the spell in ways the original hadn’t, much in the way a lid did on a pressure cooker...
I added in segments of the Firebolt, specifically the targeting, expansion, and heat. I took the sections of ‘Airblade’ that hadn’t been lost, and added them to the lightning spell, forming the containment sphere from hissing, crackling lightning. I wove it all together and began to sink my mana into it, pouring fifty, then a hundred, then a hundred and ninety, stopping only when I hit two hundred mana.
I’d have gone further, such was the righteous fury that filled my mind, but I couldn’t hold the spell anymore. My arms were shaking, and crackling, seething lightning streamers suddenly erupted from the ball of molten hatred I’d created, the light that flashed in the tunnel entrance drawing every eye in the cavern as I stepped out into full view.
“Hadouken!” I screamed at them, slamming both arms forward and locking my wrists together like I was in Streetfighter.
Before they had the time to dodge, my spell flashed across the intervening distance, the sound of its passage a high-pitched whine that hurt the ears.
It slammed into the fire that stood in their midst, and it unfurled, the writhing, twisting mess of lightning suddenly unravelling to form a mesh that flashed out, covering the ground, and surrounding the Drow.
From impact to full extension was less than a full second, then the second phase of the spell went off, and the compressed air that was part of ‘Airblade’ instead formed a dome, a shield that trapped the Drow inside as the spell entered the final phase.
Flames roared to life, turning it into a pressure cooker of flame and lightnin
g, one that shrank by the second. The compressed walls of air drew in quickly and crushed them in, as Lydia chucked my naginata through the air to me.
The spell wasn’t powerful enough to kill them all outright. I was too new to magic, and too inexperienced to craft something that powerful, even after pouring so much mana into it, but it was enough to give all five severe burns, stunned debuffs, and break multiple bones, not to mention causing panic in the ‘oh so superior’ Drow.
When the spell expired twenty seconds later and evaporated, all five of them were hunched around the fire in the center, burnt, stunned, and forced into the flames by the pressure. Once it expired, all they wanted to do was get the hell away from it, and they sure as shit weren’t expecting us.
I had led the charge into the room, Barrett and Lydia on either side of me. Cam and Jian flanked them, Stephanos and Miren following in the middle as they waited for the boss to show itself.
