by N H Paxton
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Skill Unlocked!
Skill: Shatter Spike
Utilizing crystalline fragmentation, the bolts fired from Gamma are fractured at the point of impact, scattering into a cloud of conduits, through which pure Chaos energy flows.
Skill Type/Level: Spell/Initiate
Cost: 45 Spirit
Range: 90 Meters
Cast Time: Instant
Cooldown: None
Effect: Bolts explode into a cloud of fragments on impact, then ignite, sending pure Chaos energy pulsing through the victim.
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Ability Unlocked!
Ability: Annihilating Rupture
The bolts of Impaling Chaos now dig farther into the foe, exploding with considerably greater force. This force is magnified based on skill level
Ability Type/Level: Passive/Initiate
Cost: None
Effect 1: Deeper bolt penetration, causing increased bleed damage on burrow. +10% bleed damage per level (Current: 10%)
Effect 2: Improved explosive power upon reaching maximum depth. +10% fire damage and +10% explosive damage per level (Current: 10%)
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Skill Unlocked!
Skill: Damnation Corruptor
Chaos energy feeds from the absence of order. Everything will become corrupted over time, thus is the law of Entropy. Combining the capacitance of the Chaos energy suffused with the Living Weapon and the absolute law of Entropy in the universe, corruption seeps into the target’s weapons and armor, reducing their effectiveness and capabilities. Damnation Corruptor causes a severe increase in damage dealt to a target while reducing their total defenses and attack ratings.
Skill Type/Level: Active/Initiate
Cost: 400 Spirit
Range: 90 Meters
Cast Time: Instant
Cooldown: 90 seconds
Effect: Upon impact, the target’s weapons and armor begin to corrode, resulting in a considerable drop in their effectiveness in combat. -20% Attack power and Defense power per level (Current: 20%). Duration: 3 minutes.
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I whistled in appreciation, a gentle smile finding its way to my lips.
Upgrade complete, prepared to annihilate, Gamma said smoothly.
Spiders Always
GARRET OPENED THE DOOR that led from the crafting room into the tunnels beyond. The old wood and hinges creaked as they shifted. They weren’t as large as the doors that had sealed the interior of the place we’d camped in for the night, but they were still twice the size of a standard door. I shuddered at the thought of what would require doors that size.
“Ready to rock?” Garret sounded sure, his voice back to the normal prideful tone it once had.
“Is good, only have four hours until quest from Collector expires. And still few for Guild quest.” We had spent more than an hour in the crafting room, working on the remaining portion of the axe.
I looked at the spiraling timer in the corner of my vision quickly. Twenty-nine hours and forty-three minutes. B’lyad, but time was going by so quickly.
Garret’s whistling to tuneless songs nearly drove me to throw a hammer at him, but I refrained. Barely.
“What’s the rush? I told you Ken was dead already. I barely escaped with my life.” He shook his head as we stepped through the door and into the tunnel beyond, the catacomb-like passageway stretching into the darkness.
“Do not believe. Perhaps survived somehow, quest timer still active.” I tapped the side of my head with my forefinger.
The suspicion in my head and the data I had collected about Garret not actually being Garret was beginning to mount.
“Quest timer?” Garret began walking faster at the mention of the entire thing.
He seemed to be trying to leave me behind.
“Perhaps could slow down?” I was so focused on trying to keep up with him that I hadn’t noticed the now quite audible scraping and crunching noises that were coming from above us.
“No time now, gotta keep going.” He lowered his head and picked up his pace to a near jog.
I had to actually jog to keep up. The sound became considerably louder the deeper into the tunnel we moved.
“Where are going? What is noise?” I was worried he was leading me into a trap. This wasn’t the normal Garret. I needed to get to the bottom of this situation before I ended up dead.
“Just keep going. We’re almost clear.” His jog turned into a full-on sprint.
I didn’t remember him being that fast. He was outpacing me easily, and I was beginning to lose sight of him in the darkness, despite the torch that was bobbing above his head.
My mind flicked back to being left in the sewers underneath Rowanheath, and panic began to set in.
“Gah!” A monstrous spider dropped from the ceiling and landed on the tunnel floor in front of me.
It was missing several legs and eyes. There were patches on its furred body that were open wounds oozing vile green and black liquid.
It reeled back and hissed, revealing a half-decayed mouth of fangs and mandibles. It lunged at me, leaping through the air with more dexterity than I would have thought possible, given that it was missing limbs. I managed to sidestep the lunge with considerable effort. I slammed my elbow into the back of the spider as it sailed past, forcing it to the floor.
I lashed out with my foot, connecting hard, sending the undead spider cruising into the opposite wall. A tag finally popped up above the unmoving spider’s body. [Fanged Nightmare]. Well, the name certainly fit.
“They’re weak to fire, Vlad! Burn them to ash!” Garret’s voice rang out from down the passageway where I could see his torch flashing through the darkness.
Another spider leapt on top of me from behind, shoving me to the floor. I landed hard on my shoulder, having twisted my right leg underneath me as I fell. Sharp fangs sank into my shoulder. My vision blurred for half a second before I was treated to the unrequested popup of a debuff.
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Debuff Added
Nightmare’s Venom: The venom of the Nightmare, a potent and terrifying chemical, causes neuroleptic seizures and fits of narcolepsy in the victim. Rarely do those envenomed survive long enough for the poison to naturally clear from their system.
Effect 1: Periodic seizures and loss of bodily control; duration, 2 minutes, 40 seconds.
Effect 2: Periodic narcoleptic episodes; duration, 27 minutes, 38 seconds.
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That was the most unwelcome notification I had received since arriving in Eldgard. I shook my head and dismissed the notification. The spider had steadied itself on the ground, removing its fangs from my shoulder.
My Health had been reduced by more than ten percent. I rolled over and punched the spider in the face.
The spider recoiled, taking several steps back. I took the opportunity to yank an Antivenin from my belt and chug it. Out of all of the potions I had tasted in Eldgard, this one was by far the worst. It tasted of passion fruit and nectarines and all kinds of sugar. I nearly threw the elegant glass vial to the ground but thought better of it.
The debuff cleared as I shoved the bottle into my bag. I felt my body and mind clearing, and the stiffness that was beginning to travel through my muscles vanished. I stared at the spider that was now dancing in the passageway, its front feet up like dowsing rods.
“Spiders are worst thing ever.” I pulled Gamma from my shoulder and released a series of Impaling Chaos bolts.
They scattered through the air, then slammed into the spider, the hideous green-and-black ichor spraying in every direction as they dug deep, then imploded. The Nightmare nearly folded in on itself, and the sounds of exoskeleton and limbs snapping and cracking filled the air. It collapsed to the ground without any further fight.
I turned quickly to see if the spider I had slammed into the wall was still dazed, but it had vanished. I scanned the tunnel, checking the ceiling and the walls farther down, where the torch Garret had been carrying was lying
on the ground. Had he been killed?
A skittering snapped my attention from the torch. I spun around so fast that my neck hurt from the reaction. There were half a dozen spiders shimmying back and forth in the passageway behind me.
“Derr’mo, always more spider. Does not matter if set entire world on fire, more spider.” Instead of using Gamma, I triggered Magical Augmentation and recreated the Firestorm spell I had used on the zombie horde.
There was a sudden hiss as the spiders stopped their movement and scattered in every direction. So much for the blazing bullet storm I had planned.
They began to move in a coordinated pattern on my position, all rushing toward me at once. A quick thought overtook me, and I made my second spell choice: Avalanche from the Frostlock tree.
My hands, both of them this time, whipped through the air in opposite forms, making tight circles, spiraling runes, and finally an uncomfortable twist together. The spiders were practically on top of me before the cast time was over.
My arms shifted, and my hands came up, then in unison they slammed down on the ground as I crouched hard. A crystalline wall of blue ice exploded outward from me, engulfing the entire passageway in frigid, energy-sapping cold. The spiders tried to dodge, a couple jumping from the walls, but all were consumed by the blizzard.
The ones that were caught in mid-jump fell to the floor, their frozen bodies shattering as they struck the hard stone. The ones on the ceiling stayed put, their legs glued to the spot. I turned in place. There were only three spiders left, frozen solid by the blast. I knew I didn’t have much time, so I brought Gamma back down from my shoulder and fired off a pair of Shatter Spike bolts at each one.
The Spirit cost was enormous, eating through the half of my Spirit that remained, bringing me dangerously low. There was an intense throbbing building in the back of my head as my Spirit bar flashed a critically low warning.
The bolts impacted against the frozen spiders, then exploded into a cloud of flaming dust. The spiders were engulfed and annihilated.
Powerless against the chaos. Gamma’s voice floated through my skull, self-satisfied.
There was nothing but dust left of the three spiders I had disintegrated with the new ability, but I had little time to bother over the piles of enemy residue. I slung Gamma back over my shoulder and raced down the tunnel to where Garret’s torch was guttering on the ground.
“Is not here.” I narrowed my eyes as I looked around the passage.
The horrible green ichor from the spiders was splattered all over the walls, sprayed in huge, arcing patterns. Garret had fought well, apparently. A pair of spider corpses lay side by side about a meter away, enormous and disgusting.
I noticed boot prints on the floor, painting the walkway with the green ichor from the spiders. Garret had run off—he hadn’t been dragged or carried. Had he led a group of spiders away from me? Why didn’t he take his torch? I would need to answer those questions soon.
I looted the spiders that were still intact, the ones Garret had slain. I gathered a gold coin and several silver, as well as a vial of [Nightmare Venom]. Surely I could find a way to use this poison effectively.
After gathering the few items, I pulled my hood down over my face, activating my Shadow Vision ability, and took off down the passageway. I needed to follow the trail before Garret got too far.
I kept alert for any kind of noise that might indicate incoming enemies, but the only thing I heard was my own footsteps as I plodded down the long tunnel. The holes in the ceiling were much bigger than they were when I had first noticed them. I absently wondered if that was where the spiders had come from, as well as what other terrible things would potentially come from them this far down the tunnels.
I rounded a hard turn, almost ninety degrees, and found Garret standing in front of the corpses of several spiders. The creatures dead before me were much larger than the Fanged Nightmares I had fended off previously, but Garret had managed to defeat four of them at once. The tags on them titled them as [Forgotten Spinners].
“Holy shit, it’s about time.” Garret turned toward me, his face covered in ichor, his armor splattered with filth.
“Impressive.” I raised my eyebrows as he stowed his axe on his back.
“Gods-damned spiders, man. They come from the ceiling and try to drag you away. It’s awful.” He rubbed the back of his head as he looked at the ceiling.
“Will watch ceiling, my thanks for pull aggro.” The words felt thick and heavy in my mouth. I was still having a hard time with video game lingo.
“No problem. Here, I found this stupid book on one of them. Something about a Vault or something. I couldn’t read it, it was super boring.” Garret handed me a small book, the size of a journal, titled Vaults and Their Purpose: The Truth Behind That Which Is.
“You found amazingly useful book, but were not interested in contents?” There was definitely something wrong with Garret.
“I’m a warrior, dude. No time for that garbage.”
“Vlad is interested, so will be quiet for a moment, da?” I flipped the book open to the first page, where a drawing of a sphere of bright white dominated a landscape of darkness.
I was careful to keep an eye on Garret, who I was quite certain now was not actually Garret.
“Yeah, whatever. We’ve gotta boogie, though. So, make it quick.” He shook his head as he sat on the ground.
“Will not be long.” I leaned against the wall of the passage and pulled a cigarette from my inventory, placing it in my mouth and lighting it with a snap of my fingers, triggering Purifying Fire.
Vaults: places of storage for dangerous, expensive, and powerful items. But are vaults more than this? There are secrets told of a very special Vault in Eldgard, one that holds unthinkable power and terrible secrets. One that is not within the world of Eldgard, but also not outside. It is hidden between spaces, where nothing may enter without allowance and nothing may leave.
So far, the book was describing, to the letter, the Vault of Souls. The handwritten format of the book almost made it seem as though the individual who wrote it had a firsthand account of the situation.
According to legend, the entrance to the Vault exists in one of three places, but never the same location for longer than a hundred years or so. The potential locations also vary based upon the cycle of the Vault itself. The exact number of years that it remains is unknown, as there have been no continuous records that have given reliable details.
It struck me as odd that the entrance to the Vault would move. Was it shifted by an external or internal force? Was it alive, moving of its own accord? I would need more data—this was becoming interesting.
The most recent locations are said to be...
And the journal ended. There was nothing more than that to go off of. I flipped furiously between the front of the journal and the back, trying to figure out if I had missed a page or if the rest of the information just wasn’t finished.
“We’ve got incoming.” Garret’s voice shattered my concentration.
I snapped the book shut and shoved it into my inventory, then threw my spent cigarette to the stone floor and ground it under the toe of my boot. I looked down the passageway and saw a pair of vaguely humanoid figures heading toward us, each carrying a large weapon. Garret’s axe was already out, his stance wide. I huffed and pulled Gamma from my shoulder. I was becoming tired of interruptions.
“Foolisssh human peoplesss die here, giving of all the good thingsss to Collector,” one of the figures called out from the darkness. It was a hiss, like one might expect a snake to sound if it could speak.
“No, human things will give items to us. We will get in good with Collector, then we get promotion.” The second voice was gruff, like a growling bear.
“How about we just kill you both and be on with it, eh?” Garret shifted his axe in his hands, the metal clanking. The weapon transformed to its war pick form.
“Will take weapon, isss a good artifact!” the hisser called ou
t as it rushed toward Garret, the sound of slithering and sandpaper over stone filling the narrow passage.
An enormous half-snake half-man emerged from the darkness with blistering speed, his weapon up and ready to strike. He cleared the distance between him and Garret in an instant, his weapon swinging down in a deadly arc.
Garret met the snake-man’s weapon, an unusually shaped glaive with an open crescent blade, head-on, the metal clashing and clanking. They began a deadly dance, turning around one another, taking quick swipes with their own weapons while parrying their opponent’s.
I had been paying so much attention to the snake-man’s approach that I neglected to pay attention to the other creature. It had traversed more than two-thirds the distance between us without making a sound.
The creature had the snout and head of a boar, with tusks and enormous teeth. A tag appeared: [Brendan Half-Wart]. It wielded a greatsword in each hand as though they were nothing more than toys. It carried one over its shoulder, the other dragging along the ground, carving a furrow into the stone.
“This crossbow is powerful, unusual. You give to Brendan, Brendan makes Collector happy, gets promotion.” The boar-man swung his blades in a cross, one over the other.
The attack was so swift I could barely follow their motion. I narrowly backstepped, the wind from the blades blowing past me in a crossed arc. I felt small cuts open up all over my exposed skin, knocking a solid five percent off of my Health bar. Gods, he was powerful.
“No, will not give up Gamma.” I pulled Gamma to the ready and fired off a trio of ShadowFire Bolts, the attack arcing through the air.
Brendan shifted suddenly, appearing in front of me. Had he teleported?
“Give. Crossbow.” One of his meaty hands flew through the air, the back of it striking me in the face and knocking me to the ground.
I turned just in time to see an enormous fist cruising through the air. I scrambled to get out of the way, dodging at the last second. The backhand had knocked another twenty percent off of my life bar. If he landed that crushing punch, I didn’t think I would survive.
