Regicide

by Dakota Krout

  “Uh… hmm.” Joe pulled up his menus, looking at his various titles. “You know what, I have a full ten titles; let me do something real quick.” He tried to select one of the titles, and after a moment, it trembled and a small text editor appeared.

  You are attempting to combine titles! You may align them as you like, but be sure that titles with ellipses are placed in the correct position. After arranging them, you have the option to make small changes, such as adding the words ‘an, a, the, of’ or something similar to create a sentence. The fewer changes that need to be made, the more potent the effect! Good luck!

  Joe was a bit concerned that the notification was wishing him luck or that it seemed cheerful at all. It made him trust this entire process a bit less, so he took several minutes to finalize his decisions. Taking a deep breath, he added ‘The Chosen of Tatum’, ‘...I choose to be…’, and ‘Legend’ together. In the text editor, he added small changes. The final title became: ‘As the Chosen of Tatum, I choose to be a Legend.’ He pressed ‘accept’ and waited to see the outcome with hitched breath.

  Title accepted! Calculating… Title condensed, Title effects boosted 10% due to consumed title ‘I choose to be’. Calculating…

  New title gained: Tatum’s Chosen Legend. Effect: You are the Legendary Chosen of a deity and have earned his respect. +20% speed of learning any water or darkness related abilities. -10% learning speed of any fire or light based abilities. +20% favor gained with Occultatum (retroactive). +30% damage against opponents who have a higher level than you. -15% Damage against opponents who have a lower level than you. Reputation gained at 2.5x normal rate and lost at .25x the normal rate. Capturing places of power now proceeds 31% faster. Caution! You will be worth 50% more experience and favor gain to champions of other gods who manage to kill you.

  Quest completed: Earn a God’s Favor. You have reached the reputation rank of ‘Ally’ with deity Occultatum! While being an ally with a god will have many hidden benefits, there are also instant rewards! You have gained 5 free skill points, ‘Query’ is guaranteed to give results once per three days, and you gain one divine boon based on the deity in question.

  Divine Boon: You may ask for one of three rewards. +5000 experience, one random Unique item useful to your class, or creating one ritual without the need for components (Mana cost remains). You do not need to choose now.

  “That was worth doing.” Joe was almost salivating at the titular and quest rewards he had just received. “Just, yeah, just think about combining them if you want. Really easy and intuitive system. I’d recommend putting powerful ones together; I did just now and it… yeah. Wow. Awesome effect and a new title. Even completed a quest. Those were really high-level titles. I didn’t realize how potent that would be.”

  “If you are done messing around and drooling on yourself, I think we need to go back into the dungeon,” Alexis announced firmly, to everyone’s shock. “I know that sucked for all of us, but the boosted experience is too high not to go back in.”

  “It will be even harder this time,” Jaxon pointed out unhelpfully. “You leveled up. The creatures in there will be even stronger than before. Those spiders will be ready to attack. I will still be fairly useless in combat.”

  “I think you would have been very helpful against the boss monster,” Joe attempted to placate him. “It was a giant bear. Big, thick joints. Paw finger-bones the size of my arm.”

  “Good lord.” Jaxon swallowed a mouthful of saliva, holding himself back from diving through the entrance alone. “Be that as it may… until that point, I’m a hindrance at best.”

  “Ye may nah have ta be.” Bard rubbed at the beginnings of a beard on his cheeks. “Ah saw a weapon at ta shops yesterday that screamed ‘Jaxon’ to me. Ah didn’t think much of it at the time, but ah think it’ll be what ye be needin.”

  Bard had the entire group intrigued, so they followed him to where the merchants had set up shop. It was still early in the day, but business waits for no man; the shops were open. There was a small line in front of them, but Joe thought that it would be cleared up soon if the shouting was to be trusted. “No, I don’t have any more arrows right now! You do know that there are other people that need arrows, right? For actual combat?”

  “Right, but we’re using them for a better reason, right, Dave?” One of the roguish-looking men said to the other.

  “Absolutely, Paul!” Dave replied chipperly. “How are we supposed to keep Taj believing he’s cursed if we don’t fill him full of arrows? You can’t be cursed with ‘unending arrows of over-encumbrance’ without having plenty of arrows! At this rate, he’ll be able to move at a normal speed soon!”

  “You are filling his bags with arrows?” The merchant wiped his face with a damp towel. “Is he at least an archer?”

  “No sir, he’s a Bard,” Dave replied seriously, holding out a silver.

  “Get out of here!” The merchant waved his arms at the two men, who took off with a laugh.

  “Odd.” Joe looked over at Alexis. “They are spending a ton of money to mess with a friend?”

  “You don’t get out much, do ya, Joe?” Poppy chuckled almost nostalgically. “That’s what buddies do, man. Gotta mess with your best friends or they don’t think you care.”

  “Men are strange,” Alexis whispered her comment with a hefty eye roll.

  Bard pulled Jaxon over to the agitated weapon vendor who had a wide smile spreading across his face as soon as he saw Joe.

  “Hello there, unknown merchant man.” Jaxson cheerfully waved. “I am told you have a weapon here that screams my name?”

  “Oh, come on, Jaxon! I meant tha’ figuratively!” Bard pointed out a pair of gloves, almost more akin to gauntlets than anything else. With the merchant’s permission, Jaxon pulled on the gloves and tested their weight. He frowned as he found that his movements were a bit slower, but the merchant had him test his attacks on a training dummy that had obviously been set up for this purpose. Jaxon punched, nodding as he felt the blow cleanly. He could tell with a single punch that these would not reduce his capabilities at all. “Keep going!” the merchant told him with a grin.

  “Oh? There is more to these?” Jaxon hit once more, then again. As the third blow landed, blades shot forward a full inch, penetrating the wood easily. They retracted as fast as they had elongated, slipping back into place easily. “I like that very much.”

  “Every third hit, blades will pop out.” The merchant wiggled a brow at Jaxon enticingly. “You ever hit with less than your full fist? Try that.”

  Jaxon nodded at the man, hit twice more, then drove stiffened fingers into the dummy. Two needles shot forward from his fingertips, making a far smaller hole than the blades on the knuckles had. “For pinpoint attacks, I presume? I wonder how I can use this with my chiropractic pursuits? Perhaps… adjustments and acupuncture all in one? I’m so excited that I may need to find a bathroom. I’d settle for a room with a lockable door.”

  “Gross, and maybe test that weapon out on enemies first?” Joe said in a slightly worried tone.

  “Hitting with an open palm won’t count toward the number of hits, but it will reset the hit count, just so you know.” The merchant was openly smiling at the group, knowing he was making a sale today. “This is also only the basic version and has great armor penetration, but at level ten, you will be able to buy and use enchanted versions as well. They are artificed weapons; using them before meeting the requirements could kill you.”

  “Wonderful! I’ll take these right away! How much?” Jaxon was reaching into his fanny pack because of course he used a fanny pack instead of a backpack. The merchant stated a number, and Jaxon frowned, his intimidation skill lacing his voice as he spoke again, “I am with the guild; how much did you just tell me these weapons cost?”

  The merchant’s eyes flickered to Joe before he paled a bit. “Ah, yes, guild rates! Here… let me just… adjust that price…”

  They walked away from the merchant, several of them shaking the
ir heads in disgust. Jaxon was happily punching at the air, skipping alongside with Joe, who also needed to skip just to keep up with the others. “I like this form of travel! Much less effort for a much better return.”

  “Looks weird as all get out though,” Poppy said under his breath to Bard, who simply nodded as the two men skipped forward together. Jaxon kept pace exactly with Joe so that he could show off his striking forms.

  “I’m gonna need an hour to prepare before we go back in,” Joe told the others. “We need a way to take down that big baddie at the end.”

  Alexis called to Joe as he started to walk away, “Don’t sink him under the ground like you did that rock monster! We need to loot him, Joe! I’m sure we will get something off him, and if not, I’m sure some of his body parts will be worth a lot to either us or various other jobs. Tanners, perhaps? That would be a lot of leather at the minimum.”

  “I wasn’t going to sink him. That isn’t always my go-to option!” Joe replied indignantly. Not a single person in the group looked like they believed him, and Poppy had never even seen him activate a ritual. “Fine! I need two hours then.”

  “Called it,” Alexis smirked as Jaxon flipped a silver coin to her.

  ~ Chapter Twenty-four ~

  Joe grumbled a bit as he sat with his books and notes, trying to come up with a new ritual that had combat applications. “I could be learning how to make spell scrolls right now, but no~o~o, I decided that I need to lead a party and get combat experience.”

  Despite all of his complaints, Joe quickly got to work on building a combat-oriented ritual. Keeping the massive bear in mind, he tried to think of ways to incapacitate or outright destroy it without giving it the option of killing them or burying it a kilometer underground. “Huge strength, lots of stamina and health… how can I use that against him?”

  Joe pulled several symbols out of his other rituals, mixing and matching them. “What if I use the stamina drain from my ritual of containment, use the single-target spell circle, and maybe…” he trailed off as he reworked a few of the general-purpose ritual diagrams he had worked so hard to create before now. They were modular and easily mutable; he simply pulled one command out and reworked it into the form he wanted before replacing it. Creating the effects he needed took the entirety of his first allotted hour, but he came up with a workable ritual diagram.

  “I have all of the components needed, but there is no time to optimize this. It’s gonna cost more than it should have to.” Joe sighed at that thought, but he needed this to work more than he needed it to work perfectly. He could always fix it later. This was a Beginner-ranked ritual, so he decided that he should be able to complete it by himself fairly easily. With that thought in mind, he got to work on actually drawing out his intended spell work. Aten had gifted him with a dozen thin slates, and not only were they easily transportable, they worked as a canvas for his work better than anything he had used in the past.

  Joe intended to work on the slates later, drawing out his general-purpose diagrams on them so that they could be altered at a moment’s notice. For now, though, he had to content himself with doing all the work at once. Twenty minutes later, he was putting the finishing touches onto the glorified chalkboard. He quickly placed the needed components and started pouring his mana into the drawings. As expected, the strange patterns and runes in the diagram lit up easily, his personal power supply easily able to keep up with the demands of the ritual. What was not expected was the bolt of power that arced from the spell diagram and shattered the slate, releasing the accumulated mana in a single blast of raw force.

  Woozily sitting up sometime between a second and a minute later, Joe saw that his health was in critical condition. After trying nine times to heal himself, he finally managed to make the healing stick. Not understanding what had happened, he opened his blinking notifications and read through them.

  Blah blah. Blah blah blah, 10 yoo-hoos.

  Well, that was new. It looked like all of his notifications had similar text in them, so he ignored them for now. Joe really had no choice but to stay where he was laying as others came running to find the source of the blast that had rocked the interior of the temporary base. His situation was noted by a few people, but when they came over to him all he could hear was, “Bork bork? Blah blah bork? Meow moo bahh?”

  When all Joe did was look at them with obvious confusion, they started to mill around and talk to each other. After ten minutes, a few words of the conversation became understandable, and he took another look at his notifications.

  Blah concussion has turned into bork concussion! -40 int-bork until woof. 10 minutes. 80% chance for pew pew to fail.

  Alright. So, it looked like he had a pretty serious concussion, and it was impacting his intelligence. Right now he was sitting at a grand total of four intelligence if he was reading the notification correctly. Joe tried to heal himself again, but nothing happened. He kept casting the spell, and it eventually worked… but he had no physical injuries to fix. So maybe the rest of that message had been that he had a high chance for his spells to fail right now? Joe tried to think of a better way to do things, but thinking was so hard to do right now, as if he had a fever, a hangover, and the flu all rolled into one ball of nastiness, and it was sitting behind his eyes.

  “Joe? Bork bawk boop?” Joe looked up to see a concerned pair of eyes locked with his. Poppy offered him a hand, pulling Joe to his feet.

  Joe tried to tell him that he would be okay in a few minutes, but to his horror, when he opened his mouth, all that came out was, “Yolo, dab it, pokey-boi.”

  Poppy visibly startled, then tried and failed to hide a wide smile. As the remainder of the team walked over, Poppy called out to them, “Joe took a boop to the snoot! He’s as dumb as a square of pebbles!”

  Joe knew, intellectually, that Poppy was not saying the words that he was hearing. His mouth movements didn’t match the words, for one. For another–hey! They were laughing at him! He wanted to say something in his defense but knew that opening his mouth right now was a bad idea. Waiting for the next ten-minute block of injury to wear off was difficult because no matter what the others actually said, all Joe heard were vague insults. If this was how warriors felt in the game all the time, it was no wonder that there was such a high population of berserkers among them.

  Severe concussion has turned into moderate concussion! -30 intelligence. 10 minutes until moderate concussion turns to mild concussion. 60% chance for spells to fail.

  His intelligence was now sitting at a very helpful and useful fourteen. “Alright, not going to lie, that sucked pretty bad. Give me a few minutes guys; my head is killing me.”

  “Can’t you heal it? Or whatever Cleanse counts as? I thought that healed status effects,” Jaxon blinked a bit too much as he spoke, but he got his point across easily.

  Flushing a bit and blaming the concussion for forgetting about his spells, Joe used Cleanse on himself, thankfully completing the spell on the first attempt. Relief literally washed through him, and the pain in his head faded like a bad memory. He looked at all of the notifications waiting for him, surprised that not all of them were about his recent exploding ritual. Only most of them were.

  Status ailment fixed: Concussion removed. Ability to cast spells set to normal values. Intelligence returned to normal values.

  Ritual failed: Instability reached 60% (non-recoverable) due to incorrect placement of variables, components, and inconsistent sympathetic link width. Ritual destabilization resulted in catastrophic failure.

  You have encountered a new component of rituals: Instability! New menu options are available. Remember, knowing something and understanding are very different things. While you do have a bonus 10% spell stability thanks to one of your skills, you have never felt the ill effects of instability!

  Skill combination complete! You have encountered a branching skill, and your choice here will determine your growth in many areas! Please choose a new type of magical defense.

 
; Option 1) Skill: Titan’s Armor (Novice III). Effect: For every point of mana in this spell, negate one point of damage from primary sources of magic and one point from primary sources of physical damage. Increase conversion by .025n where ‘n’ equals skill level.

  Option 2) Skill: Exquisite Shell (Novice III). Effect: For every point of mana in this spell, negate .75 damage from primary sources of magic, .75 damage from primary sources of physical damage, and .75 damage from elemental effects. Increase conversion by .02n where ‘n’ equals skill level.

  Joe hadn’t expected a choice like this. Either of them were better than his previous skills if taken as a whole. Titan’s Armor seemed to be a mash-up of the two skills, giving the good portions of both and taking away the lower values for physical and magical damage. On the other hand, Exquisite Shell added some functionality while averaging the damage reduction for physical and magical damage. What all counted as elemental effects? Burning? Hitting the ground? Joe had to go with his gut on this one. Even if Titan’s Armor gave more direct benefits, Exquisite Shell was the clear winner in his mind.

  He made his selection and the skill seemed to flare before being sucked into his eyes. Joe suddenly sneezed, then again and again. “Ugh. I’m ready to go now, guys. Let’s make like a librarian and book it. Wait, what am I saying? Hang on.” Joe pulled out a fresh slate and began drawing on it while the others groaned. “Yes, well, I’d really like to beat the boss. Groan all you like, but if any of you have better plans…”

  “I need to restock on reagents anyway. I almost forgot! Maybe if I use holy water as a base it would work better against the Ghouls?” Alexis wandered off to see if there were any merchants selling potion and poison supplies.

  Joe took extra time setting up this ritual, looking for anything that could have been causing instability. When he didn’t find anything, he got a bit worried. He hadn’t seen any issues in the first one, either… he placed the needed components in their spaces, arranging them so they were more symmetrical, and stopped. Just to be on the safe side, he activated Exquisite Shell and poured a thousand mana into the spell. It took nearly five seconds to channel so much power into the low-level protection, but the shell would absorb eight hundred and ten points of damage. Well worth the wait.