“I think I can do this,” she said.
“Go for it,” he told her. An almost eighty-percent chance made decent betting odds.
And it worked. There were a few tense moments when Girl hesitated and the trap’s network of Mana seemed to tense up, close to detonating, but she got it done. The clasp trap dissolved away, along with the four unknown spells, and Hawke let out a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding. He really hadn’t wanted to find out what those spells would do. All they had to do now was take care of the padlock, and they would be golden.
They turned to the last trap. His chances had improved to 71%; hers were 87%. He nodded to Girl, and she started working on it. The Mana tendrils reached out and began disassembling the energy construct. Thirteen percent chance of failure didn’t sound like a big deal – until you failed. Hawke felt a burst of fear from Girl and saw one of the tendrils was touching the wrong part of the trap. She had triggered it!
Everything froze as he activated Timeless Mind.
Any spell he cast in that state would not be released until time resumed its normal pace, but some abilities would work while outside the normal flow of time. Hawke tried to use Disarm Magical Trap and discovered that his Mana tendrils were moving normally while everything else remained mired in slow motion. The effect used pure Mana, which appeared to be beyond the limitations of space and time. Something that he would need to consider, sometime when he wasn’t busy trying to keep himself from blowing up.
His energy lockpicks brushed Girl’s aside and went on to finish the job. She was over halfway done and his meager 71% chance was enough to do the trick, disarming the trap before the triggers activated the spells. He didn’t get any notification for side effects, so he had dodged that bullet. Still, he had a feeling that every time he broke the laws of time, something – or Something with a capital ‘S’ – took notice.
Congratulations! Your Disarm Traps Skill has been raised to 4.
“Whew,” Hawke said, leaning back and shutting off Communion. Girl had been in his head long enough. “That was close.”
“What the hell did you do?” Girl said. The anger was back, along with fear, both more vivid than they had been before he had performed psychic surgery on her memories. She was turning into a real person with real feelings, which might be good, or really bad, depending on which path she chose.
“Slowed time down and gave you an assist.”
“How the hell did you do that?”
“Trade secret.”
She glared at him. “I got your special x-ray vision, but I’m not seeing all the stuff I could when we were linked mind to mind.”
“You have to level it up. I raised my Mana Sight to the advanced version from a Quest reward. It involved an ancient Fae artifact. Win and you get a wish, fail and you die, that sort of thing. Maybe you’ll run into one of those, sometime. Or you’ll have to grind it until it improves naturally.”
Girl’s anger turned into something colder and more dangerous. Instinctively, he brought Saturnyx out of his inventory. He didn’t think the Shadow Mistress would try anything, not in the Dungeon, but it didn’t hurt to remind her just how outclassed she would be if she did. His Advanced Mana Sight showed him her state of mind. It took Girl some effort to set aside her anger and hatred toward him. She saw him as a threat, and convincing her otherwise might be impossible.
Not what I was planning. At all. But if things work out that way, it is what it is.
“You are talking to your sword,” Girl said. “I can see the energy link between you two.”
“You may want to keep the Sight turned off most of the time,” he recommended. “It can be distracting or worse if you leave it on. It can drive you insane.”
“Yeah, I can see that. Thank you, Hawke, for the unintended gift.”
“I didn’t know you could pick it up like that, but glad you got a little something extra for your trouble.”
In fact, now that he knew it was possible, he planned to use Communion with Tava and Nadia as soon as possible, to see if they could learn Mana Sight in the same way that Girl. Assuming they were okay with having him in their heads, of course. Nadia almost certainly could, since she also had Unlimited Potential.
How about you? Hawke asked Saturnyx. Could you learn Mana Sight and Mana Channeling from me?
Hawke nodded and turned back to Girl. “I should count Mana Sight against the spells I agreed to teach you.”
“Not a spell, macho man. Abilities follow different rules. They are more like a spell an outside source casts on us.”
“Thanks for the insight,” Hawke said, meaning it. He had to examine his Abilities and compare them to his ordinary magic. Learning the rules governing the Realms was important, especially if he wanted to cheat. Which he did.
“For my spells, I’ll take Animate Shadow and Hammer of Twilight. I don’t suppose you know how to teach someone a new Element or School of Magic.”
“I don’t, and if I did I would need something in return, of course. No freebies, not anymore.”
“Fair enough,” she said.
“Well, I guess we should check the loot.” He had Saturnyx let the rest of the Party know it was safe to come back in.
The chest turned out to be a prize of its own; it was a Chest of Holding, with 36 slots and no weight limits. The contents were equally impressive: 600 gold denars; Healing, Mana, Endurance and Rejuvenation potions (24 of each, for a total of 96); three slots with 100 units apiece of rare Alchemical components (Firewater, Infernal Sulfur, and Powdered Demon Horn; and two ingots of mithril. Furthermore, three slots were occupied by a pair of daggers, a mask/helmet, and a chest armor piece, all part of the same level 20 Masterwork Quality set.
The Panoply of Murder was a Rogue/Assassin set; the armor was made of Demon Hide and the paired daggers were an alloy of Infernium and Mithril. The mask looked like a demonic face, carved from black leather with crimson highlights. The chest piece was the same color and looked like a sweater made of light leather, except for spikes at the elbows and shoulders that made it into a weapon on its own. The daggers were wickedly curved and had a greenish sheen that showed they were permanently poisoned.
The stat bonuses of the weapons and armor were impressive, raising Dexterity, Constitution and Perception the most, although they also improved the wearer’s Strength, Intelligence and Spirit. The armor also gave bonuses to several Rogue skills and abilities, had its own Stealth power, and provided a short-range teleport once a day. If one soul-bonded with all three pieces, the set also provided +200 Health and Mana and the ability to do a Farsight effect once per day. The swords had a permanent Infernal poison effect and could take up to two additional poisons. The mask allowed the wearer to speak and read Infernal, and provided a +20% bonus on all tasks involving beings from Tartarus, everything from diplomacy to fighting them. On the other hand, the wearer would suffer a Charisma loss of five versus everybody other than Infernal creatures.
It was tailor-made for someone like Girl. Or Alba, for that matter, although the former barmaid was five levels too low to make use of it. And he wouldn’t wish that set on her, and would try to talk her out of using it, too. Especially because there was a little catch when claiming the set: the owner would have to kill a sapient creature at least once a month to retain its bonuses.
Girl and Hawke exchanged a look. If she took the set, she would have to juggle its requirements with the prohibition against harming innocents, or she would get herself killed. He shook his head at her, hoping she wouldn’t claim the dubious gift. Playing with Infernal items wasn’t a good idea.
Saturnyx had said none of the Elements had morals, but Forces were a different kettle of fish. Dea
ling with the Infernal was playing around with evil. They might not be the devils from the Bible, but they were close enough to make Hawke loathe them. According to his Lore, demons were spirits who delighted in the suffering and destruction of other sapient beings. Professional sadists. He would never wear anything that came from them.
“This is an easy choice,” Girl said, ignoring his wordless warning. “I only have three pieces of Masterwork gear, all at level ten. Dibs on the entire set.”
“It’s demonic stuff,” Hawke warned her. “There’s more to it than the stats we can see. Temptation and terror are what the Infernal are about.”
“Well, I’m tempted, and I don’t scare easy. We had a deal.”
“We do. I can give you the money value of the set, or let you pick from my Stronghold’s Vaults. I have lots of Masterwork Quality stuff there.”
“Any level twenty sets like this one?”
“No,” he admitted. “All single pieces. But it’s good stuff. And it won’t put you at risk of becoming some kind of Infernal monster.”
“I’ll pass. Thanks for the offer, but I’ll take the Panoply of Murder. If it gets me into trouble, I’m sure some white knight like yourself will jump in to save me.”
Girl laid down the three-piece set on the ground, took off her leather helmet, and picked up the mask. It looked more like rubber than leather, and it seemed to writhe in her hands like a living thing. She hesitated for a moment; Hawke turned on Advanced Mana Sight and saw that a notification had appeared in front of her. He couldn’t read it, but could tell that it was a warning of some sort. The assassin shrugged, pressed the mask over her face – and gave out a muffled scream of pain as it wrapped around her head like an alien face-hugger. She staggered, grabbing at the mask, and Hawke saw her Health pool dip by fifty points. Blood seeped down around her neck.
Hawke took a step towards her, a Hammer of Light glowing in his hand, but Girl waved at him to stop.
“I’m all right,” she said. “The mark just gets really attached to you. Like superglue and staples attached. Hurts a bit, but I’ll get used to it.”
Her voice sounded distorted, just one hint of the changes that had started when she put on the mask. She was still the borderline personality disorder killer everybody knew and nobody loved, but there was a new streak of Infernal energy running through her Mana channels. Wearing the mask might not have damned her, but it had definitely tainted Girl-Has No-Name. He would have to keep a close eye on her. It was something that he had planned to do all along, but now it had become even more important.
Girl finished putting on the armor and did a slow twirl to show it off. The mask covered her entire head; her short black hair was nowhere to be seen; she looked like a bald monster with jet-black skin and a grinning red leer that would give nightmares to a serial killer. As long as she had it on, she was going to be a swipe-left on everybody’s Tinder app. The chest piece added to the impression; it had an organic shape that matched the mask and made it look like she’d crawled inside a demon. Or become one.
“How do I look?”
Like a nastier monster than you already were, he thought but kept to himself.
He picked the chest itself as his reward, which increased his carry capacity to something approximating a container ship. The gold, potions and components were shared among the rest of the Party. It wasn’t exactly a fair division of the spoils, but nobody grumbled about it. Hawke and Girl had overcome the traps, so they could have argued the loot belonged to them alone. If Alba was unhappy about missing out on the demonic set, she didn’t give any signs of it. Like most people in Orom, she had been raised under as a worshiper of Shining Father and the rest of the Olympian pantheon. They felt a healthy hatred and disgust towards demons.
Other than the chest, he had learned two new abilities and four trap schematics. Had it been worth the danger and Girl’s possible temptation? He didn’t think so.
“One room down, and two hours until lunch,” Hawke said after everyone got their share. “Let’s keep going.”
Twenty-Three
Chamber #2:
For Slaying Your Foes, you have earned 1,200 XP (150 diverted towards Leadership; 150 diverted towards Node Mastery).
You have found: 4 gold, 2 silver coins, 1 Rejuvenation Potion, 1 Endurance Potion.
Chamber #3:
For Slaying Your Foes, you have earned 1,920 XP (240 diverted towards Leadership; 240 diverted towards Node Mastery).
You have found: 12 gold, 2 Mana Potions, 4 Healing Potions, 3 Endurance Potions.
Current XP/Next Level: 27,070/30,000. Leadership XP/Next Level: 19,915/25,000
Current Node Mastery XP/Next Level: 8,830/12,000. Current Guild XP/Next Level: 923/1,000
The next chamber had been a copy of the first. Knowing what the Soul Burners were capable of made the second round a lot easier. Hawke had led the way once again, except this time Girl had been part of the first wave. Her new armor gave her 45% Resistance to Infernal-based damage, the highest in the group. During the initial attack, she had torn into a group of three demons by herself, killing one from ambush and ripping the other two to shreds with only a little assistance from Grognard’s spells. She was faster than before; her new set’s bonuses had increased her agility beyond anything Hawke had seen. When she moved, her arms and feet actually blurred, and only someone with superhuman perception and reflexes could follow her actions. She made his Dexterity 43 seem clumsy; hers was at least in the low fifties.
After overcoming the second chamber, Girl and Alba had cleared a bunch of traps on the next corridor, which led to a circular room with a stone altar in the center and twelve Soul Burners guarding it. With those numbers, some minions would almost inevitably target the more vulnerable members of the party. That put on display Hawke’s biggest weakness as a tank; he didn’t have a ‘taunt’ ability that would force all or even most of the enemy ‘mobs’ to attack him instead of more vulnerable members. That meant he and whoever was in the first wave would have to survive the enemy’s first volley without support from the rest of the group, who would have to wait until the demons were fully engaged with the tougher members of the team before they could join in.
“Send me in, coach,” Nadia had said. “I hit level twelve after the last fight, but I’ve been saving the stat boost for an emergency. I think this counts. Between that and Mana Shield, I can take the aggro.”
When you applied a new level’s Attribute bonuses, it sort of ‘reset’ your system, bringing all your energy pools back to full and removing negative effects. It was a nifty trick, but if you got killed while saving a level (beyond a five-minute grace period), you lost it along with your entire Experience pool.
Hawke added her to the first wave, along with Gzzatt, who would not stand by while his empress went into danger. Nadia had drawn all kinds of aggro by casting Snowstorm, which filled half of the chamber with freezing rain and hail, inflicting an average of ninety points on damage per second on all the demons in the chamber. Hawke added to the carnage with his Burning Light. Three flaming skeletons targeted him. Five hit Nadia with their curses. Girl, Gzzatt, the Nature’s Guardian and Digger got one hit apiece.
The five Soul Burns overcame Nadia’s defenses but couldn’t eat through her Mana Shield, which shifted damage to her Mana instead of her Health pool. It still dropped that pool by four fifths, and would have soon depleted it if she hadn’t leveled up, regained all the lost Mana, and removed the ongoing damage. By then, Hawke, Girl and the pets had entered melee range and two of the Soul Burners were already down. The rest of the fight was rough, but nobody in the Party other than the summoned pets were badly hurt before they overcame the defenders of the chamber.
“I think we’re getting the hang of this,” Hawke said after emptying a bottle of lemonade. Everybody was drinking; dehydration would impair Endurance and Mana regeneration
, usually at the worst possible time, on top of the normal physical effects. Like death.
He glanced at the altar they had found in the third chamber. It was a crudely-cut block of stone, its gray surface deeply stained brown; Hawke realized that the rock altar had been drenched in blood over and over again. He thought about studying it with Advanced Mana Sight, but before he could do so, a notification appeared:
You Have Been Offered Two Mutually-Exclusive Quests:
QUEST: Purify Infernal Altar
This ancient Infernal structure has been used to lure unwary Adventurers into making deals with the Demon Lords of Tartarus. Its power could be turned into a force for good if a ceremony of purification cleanses its Infernal taint and replaces it with Celestial energies. If you succeed, you will strengthen your link with your patron deities and gain access to Celestial magic.
Quest Objective: Successfully perform a Ceremony of Purification on the altar. This may require multiple participants.
Warning: Accepting this quest will automatically reject the other Quest associated with the altar, ‘Make a Sacrifice, Earn a Reward.’
Rewards: 2,500 Experience, access to Celestial Magic (all your Light and Life spells can now be cast as Celestial spells at double their Mana cost; Celestial versions of spells have a variety of improvements over the original versions), +150 Reputation with the Triune Goddesses.
Failure Penalties: None.
QUEST: Make a Sacrifice, Earn a Reward
Make an offering to the Lords of Tartarus and gain a great reward! A proper sacrifice – blood (yours or another’s), a life, or a permanent loss of an Attribute or Characteristic – will be rewarded in direct proportion to the value of the sacrifice.
Warning: Accepting this Quest will prevent you from accepting ‘Purify the Infernal Altar.’
Rewards: Vary.
Failure Penalties: None.
Hawke accepted the Purification quest – and saw Girl jump on top of the altar.
Labyrinth to Tartarus: A LitRPG Saga (The Eternal Journey Book 3) Page 15
