by Dakota Krout
Don’t forget that you can use more potent Cores to create larger jars! You can also vary the size of the Field Array to surround larger or smaller objects as needed! New information is now always available; in your crafting section, pull up ‘Aspect Jar’ information to refresh your understanding of your storage needs!
Then Joe was back in the cave, staring down at a completed Planar Shift ritual. He blinked a few times and blearily scanned the enclosed space. Just like every time before, it seemed that no time had passed at all. He couldn’t be certain of that, as there was nothing in the cave to show time, but he felt that it was correct. “I… okay, I think that entire thing was telling me that what I really need to do is create a permanent building where I do my crafting. I need a potent array if I ever want to work with Mythical aspects, otherwise the loss is gonna be… just… huge.”
Wisdom +1!
Joe gasped in pleasure. “A mental stat increase! Ooh!”
Chapter Forty
Joe was dazed by the shift away from the misty tutorial world and back into his expanded cave. It took a few moments to reorient himself, so he reviewed his notifications. Nothing pressing or overly important demanded his attention, so he turned his eyes back to the summoning circles that were prepared and laid out in front of him. “That was a serious diversion, but at least I have a better understanding of what I need to be doing.”
“As for this summoning circle… If I’m missing anything, I can’t think of what it might be. Let’s use the Planar Shift.” Something was calling for attention in the back of his mind, a warning that he just couldn’t put into words, but… he couldn’t think of anything he was forgetting. Joe slammed his hand onto the circle and released a thousand mana into it before he could talk himself out of doing so. The outer circle lit up, then the inner, and finally the last one shifted from grey to black in an instant; the entire interior was saturated with the inky color, as if he had used the ‘bucket fill’ function in a paint program.
The black space seemed to drop, as if it had cut a deep hole into the earth that was trying to pull everything into it. He stared at the summoning spot for a long minute, nearly getting knocked back as a wave of heat blasted out and up. Instead of abating, the sweltering heat only climbed higher and higher, reaching a climax as a creature pulled itself into view. “Fire! Hot! Enclosed room! That’s what I was forgetting!”
Reductionist class experience gained: 100.
Slag elemental. The entity was hard to describe, as it had no features. Even Joe’s coffee elemental had tiny coffee beans for eyes, but this? There was only a strange pile of multiple goopy metals and impurities that bubbled and frothed, exuding heat the entire time. It was like… a metal slime. Joe reached out with his thoughts and his words, not entirely sure what would be the best way to open a line of communication. “Can you understand me?”
There was a returned feeling of agreement—and slight hostility—as well as an angry emote that the being was cold. It demanded heat as payment for continuing to remain on this plane, but… getting access to heat was why Joe had summoned this thing in the first place. He needed high temperatures from this thing. “Slag… pile. What I need is for you to heat things for me. Metals especially, but other implements as well. What can I do to make that happen? To make a deal between us?”
Mana.
The concept, as well as instructions, struck him like a hammer ringing a gong. Joe needed to link to it and let his mana feed the beast. All Joe needed to do was agree to the terms of the deal. If he cut off the flow of mana, the elemental would return home. If Joe turned hostile… he was threatened with becoming nothing more than a handful of impurities on the surface of the elemental. Joe had no problem with that, as he needed to work, not fight. In agreement with each other, the human instantly flushed red as mana started to drain out of him in a strange and unpleasant way. It felt as though his internal energy was being converted to fire before leaving his body, and he did not enjoy the process.
Link to Slag Elemental successful! Mana investment: 300, +30 per second. -4 health per second.
Skill increase: Planar Shift (Student 1). You did everything right, and even bonded the summon to your will on the first try! Critical success!
Caution! Although you do have a perfect fire affinity, as this is your first time using fire-type mana, you may experience some unpleasant side effects.
“That’s an understatement.” Joe wiped his nose, his sleeve coming away bloody before his Neutrality Aura scrubbed away all traces that it had ever been there. Joe watched the floor nervously as the summoning circles lifted and surrounded himself and the elemental, binding the creature to his will at the same time as putting the details of their bargain into play. At this point, if he had made a small error in the creation of the circles, the binding would fail and the creature might become hostile to him. Yet, his fears went unrealized as the elemental started following his orders right away. It moved into the exact center of the room and shifted its malleable form to focus and maximize the heat directly above itself.
“Right. The first thing I want to do is bind a characteristic to one of my Ritual Orbs, so let’s make a…” Joe checked the data of the orbs, and shifted the direction of his thoughts. “Nevermind! That’s an enchanted ritual circle. Which I could have done without a Slag Elemental. Or instead of summoning it. I… let’s pretend this wasn’t an accident and bind a spell. Potion making time!”
Without further ado, Joe dropped his cauldron out of his ring and on top of the elemental, which started sending him excited emotions. It rubbed against the metal of the cauldron, but it couldn’t leave a mark, no matter what it did. The heat started to rise rapidly, but to its apparent surprise, the elemental couldn’t heat it up even a single degree. Joe could, and did, by controlling the cauldron to absorb the heat in specific patterns. Feelings of amazement came from the elemental, and Joe grinned cockily.
“To create an alchemical ritual, I need alchemical reagents. Potions. To make potions, I need to use this cauldron and the required aspects. Let’s see here…” Joe opened the information on one of his Ritual Orbs and wrote down the recipe needed for making a binding potion. “Okay… I need to make a potion at the same rank as the spell if I want to use it at full power. Or I can make weaker potions and use the spell as a weaker version of itself, like I did when I made that ritual for spraying acid. My skill level for alchemy is at… Beginner three. Do I have any spells that I could use at that rank?”
Joe perused his skills and spells, finding two spells that would be a good fit for his first attempts. Both Cone of Cold and Corify were perfectly situated in the Beginner ranks, and the thought of automatically using them as on-hit effects was just… exciting. “Right… to make a Beginner-ranked potion, a Draught, I need to use…”
He glanced at his crafting sheet to double check, “Common aspects are the highest that would need to be in there. That should be pretty straightforward, since I have lots of those.”
Joe formed an oversized spatula-bucket thing using Common aspects, nearly instantly holding a bright white… implement. He was sure it had a proper name, but, oh well. The aspects flowed down the tool, and he used his knowledge of alchemy to coat the cauldron in specific places. The aspects reacted to the cauldron exactly as he would expect standard components to do: burning, sizzling, becoming aromatic. It was odd, because he was working with aspects of Trash, Damaged aspects, and finally Common aspects; but it smelled like frying rosemary and garlic.
He followed the recipe exactly, and over the next forty-five minutes, the aspects began to congeal. Joe’s attention to the heat didn’t waver, and as the newly-formed liquid condensed, he began removing the heat entirely. One second, two… and the liquid flashed white. Joe scooped it up and poured it into a large bowl, eyeballing it carefully. “I have enough here for two portions, easy.”
Reductionist class experience gained: 100 (50 x2).
Skill increase: Ritualistic Alchemy (Beginner IV).
&nbs
p; Profession experience gained: 101 (Ritualistic Alchemist).
“Nice! Now to draw out the alchemical rituals.” Joe pulled the cauldron into his ring, against the complaints of the Slag Elemental, and started sketching the ritual diagram that was displayed in the information panel of his orbs. “Two circles for a Beginner-ranked ritual, already have my inscriber…”
Joe muttered to himself for the next hour as he drew out first one entire ritual, then a second one. He checked them over carefully, finding no issues. They were perfect copies; both of each other, as well as the original diagram. “Let’s do this!”
An orb went into each one, though he only poured the potion on the first, as well as placing a Common Core on the edge. With an outpouring of mana, the first ritual circles lit up. The pressure mounted, and Joe stared at it for almost a moment too long. Luckily, there was a built-in prompt.
Cast the spell you want to assign to the orb directly onto the orb!
“Corify goes first.” Joe held out a hand and cast the spell on the first orb. He blinked as the knowledge of how to cast the spell vanished from his mind. It was a sickening, invasive feeling to have the thoughts scrubbed out of his head so completely.
Spell successfully assigned! Use a Ritual of Unbinding or break the Ritual Orb to regain personal usage of the spell! Remember to add a Core or Mana Battery to the orb so that it can cast the spell!
Joe held up the newly spell-assigned orb, noting that a small, glowing blue square had been etched into it. “Okay, that’s super cool. Totally forgot about making mana batteries, though. Maybe I should hold off on assigning Cone of Cold…? Nah.”
Repeating the process of ritual activation with a side of alchemy, he assigned the spell to the second orb. This time, a white swirl of wind and snowflakes was etched into the orb, and once again, the spell was removed from his mind. Joe admired the orbs in his hands, already plotting out the next steps.
“I need to assign characteristics to these, but first, I really need to figure out the battery situation.” Joe sat on his sleeping bag for the next while, writing down the next steps he needed to take to make the weapons more powerful. He leaned back against the wall with a satisfied sigh, storing his notebook away. “Now to-”
Just then, the entire room shrank. The Slag Elemental was scooted closer; so close that it burned off Joe’s left eyebrow before he could turn his head away. The human screeched as his skin began to blister. “Slag! Get as far away as possible!”
The Elemental did its best to comply, roiling to the far wall and squishing itself against it. Though it left a trail of molten rock on the ground, the heat directly impacting the Reductionist lowered enough that Joe wasn’t literally dying by the second. Joe reactivated all of his protections and shielding, which he had taken off to ensure he had plenty of power for the rituals, and looked over to thank the elemental for following the orders so quickly. They were now in a four hundred square foot rock cave, and if it had hesitated any longer, Joe might have melted just like the wall was.
“Wait…” Joe squinted at the stone wall behind the elemental. “Rock shouldn’t melt away as completely as whatever that is…”
Carefully making his summon move in time with him so that he didn’t get scorched again, Joe went over to inspect the space where it had been standing. There was a small hole in the rock, about six inches behind where the wall ‘ended’. It was especially visible because a strange, soft light was shining through. As Joe had Darkvision, he hadn’t bothered to light any torches. That worked out well for him, because just as he peered through the hole, a hulking earth elemental, an ‘Air Spirit’, walked past… closely followed by what were clearly Elven summoners.
“Abyss. That crazy Dwarf at the base of the cliff was right.” Joe watched as the Elf moved along, catching the exact position where they faded out of existence. “Oh, look. A fast travel point. No wonder the Dwarves could never figure out how the non-hostile ‘Air Spirits’ were attacking Dwarves in the caves.”
Quest update: Air Spirits Suck. You found the reason the spirits are invading this territory! Either report your findings, or continue questing to put a stop to the issue on your own.
Quest update: Go Away For a While! Level gained: 0/1. Elves killed: 0/100. Important information gained: 1/1.
Chapter Forty-One
The Reductionist now had a dilemma. Should he go and report his discovery right away… or should he enter the tunnel system and try to learn more information? There were pros and cons to each of the options. Namely, if he left the cave, the door would open and light would shine through and into the tunnels. The Elves might be given a chance to close this off.
But, if Joe was fast enough, he might be able to get an entire battalion of Dwarves back here. He would need to get out at night, and… he looked at the dial that still showed a ‘four’. If the room shrinking back down was any indication, he was stuck in here for at least three and a half more days, unless he went out through the tunnel. Joe sat and watched the hole for another few minutes, but he didn’t see any more Elves. That was unsurprising. He guessed it was… early. Very early. If the sun was going down—cut off by the mountain—around four in the afternoon the previous day, then it made sense that most rational people would be asleep.
“If I’m going to go… it needs to be now.” Joe motioned for Salgathor—his new name for the Slag Elemental—to hurry over and start melting the wall. While he waited for an opening large enough to fit through, he cracked open his two Ritual Orbs and placed Common ranked Cores in them.
Ritual Orb of Corify. Charge remaining: 1,112/1,112. Cost per hit: 65. Cooldown: 4 Seconds.
Ritual Orb of Cone of Cold. Charge remaining: 1,545/1,545. Cost per hit: 195. Cooldown: 24 Seconds.
“That’s… expensive.” Joe winced at the hefty cost associated with using the now on-hit effects. “Cone of Cold can only be used eight times before it drains the Core?”
Slagathor finished melting into the tunnel and squeezed through. Joe gave the path enough time to cool down, then jumped through and started walking down the unlit corridor. The elemental started rolling alongside him, and Joe wavered between letting it guard the area, or just going it alone. “Hey… I’ve decided that I’m gonna need my mana, so I need you to go. If I call out into your plane another time, is there a way that we can work together again?”
Feelings of acceptance came back to him, so Joe cut the flow of mana between them. Since the terms of his side of the bargain were no longer being met, the elemental instantly vanished, like a soap bubble popping. Now down a protector, the human rushed over to the spot where he had seen the Elf vanish. He felt around, listening to his Hidden Sense, until he found the spot where he could take control of the point. He didn’t activate it just yet, instead opting to use its function.
The point was set to ‘open travel’, likely due to capturing Dwarves and carting around massive creatures made of rock. A message appeared, asking if he wanted to travel to ‘point Qfzt1554’.
“Don’t mind if I do.” Joe stepped through just as he blinked, and found that he was sweating right though his Neutrality Aura. A low red light filled the area, and the heat…! Quickly searching for a place to hide and figure out his next move, Joe spotted something that boggled his mind. Two things, actually.
He was clearly inside an active volcano. That was a pretty big deal. It explained both the light and the heat. Frankly, ever since someone had mentioned a volcano a few days previous, he was almost certain that he would eventually go into one. The second chunk of news was a bit more alarming: he could see an entire fort within the cavern. If this was the volcano he thought it was, Gramma’s Shoe, then it meant that there was an Elven outpost practically right next to the Dwarven capital city!
“How? How could this go undetected?” Joe breathed the words softly, not trusting that he could keep quiet enough at even a low speaking volume. His mind was buzzing with possibilities, but the main thought spinning around was that the Elven race were maste
rs of illusion magic. Joe had only heard one thing about the most active volcano in the entire Zone, namely that it was so dangerous that no one should ever go there. Had that always been a lie, or had something changed?
“They must have this place layered in illusions so thick that you can swim through them!” Joe’s eyes were so wide that it felt like they were about to fall out. He was glad that he had come here; there was no chance that they could have found this place if the Elves had shut down the fast travel points. He was frazzled, unable to even think about how he could alert the Dwarves or stop this…
“Wait.” Joe peered at the fort in the distance. “Wait, wait, wait. That many illusions…? There has to be a permanent structure supporting something that powerful. I can do something about that.”
The entire area was a series of lava flows that had hardened, and drifting ash had settled in thick drifts. There were plenty of niches where Joe could go to hide and get off the main path. As long as he avoided any actual lava… or was it magma? He was technically underground, so he felt that it would be magma, but it was on the surface… “What am I doing?”
Illusion Breaker (Ring) has come into effect!
Illusion broken through: Fae Beckoning.
“So there are defenses, even in here.” Joe realized that he was standing up and staring at the lava in the distance, so he tossed himself back to the ground and started trying to blend in. His bright white clothing and reflective head wasn’t helping him, so Joe did the only reasonable thing he could do: he turned off Neutrality Aura and rolled around in the volcanic ash that was covering everything. Sweat started to run down his body right away, and he began to itch terribly. “Whoo, boy. I’ve gotten really spoiled from being clean at all times.”
Joe started to creep along a low patch, sliding forward using only his elbows and knees to maintain the lowest profile possible. The wall of the fort wasn’t too terribly far away, maybe a tenth of a kilometer? The fort itself was roughly a kilometer from the stone wall in all directions, but the travel point was luckily far closer. His path couldn’t be straight, as that would stand out to anyone that happened to be on guard. An hour into his snail-paced scuttling, he started hearing voices and the heavy grinding of stone that signified Earth Elementals in the distance.
