Glory to the Brave (Ascend Online Book 4)

by Luke Chmilenko

  “Oh, you’ll be fine,” Caius said dismissively as he set the container down on the table between us and opened it, accidentally using its edge to knock a pile of bone ætherscopes to the side which promptly rolled out of sight. “Just don’t bump into anything that looks precarious.”

  “That describes literally everything in this cabin,” I replied with a wince as I heard something on the far end of the table hit the floor, Caius not even bothering to look and see what it was.

  Mustering all my willpower, I forced myself to concentrate on what I’d come here for as the warlock pulled out a thick roll of papers that had been bundled tightly together. Settling them on the table, he undid a piece of string keeping them contained and unfurled them as best he could on the uneven surface. Reaching out, we each grabbed two topmost scrolls without comment and began to read over the arcane symbols inscribed on them, which to my immediate excitement were no longer the indecipherable mess that they’d once been.

  Flameburst

  Type: Spell

  Learnable By: Any Arcane

  Duration: Instant

  Range: Melee

  Arcane Tree: Evocation

  Spell Mastery: Evocation - Level 25

  Mana Cost: 300

  Description: You call a burning burst of flame to erupt outward from your palm, bathing everything before you in flames.

  Effect: Exploding outwards from your hand, a blazing inferno of flames and ash sear everything in an arc before you, dealing 250-375 points of Fire Damage. Furthermore, any target afflicted by this spell will be temporarily blinded by ash.

  “Whoa! I can’t believe we’ve been sitting on something like this all this time!” I exclaimed, my eyes widening as I read over the spell scroll. “It’s a level twenty-five spell!”

  “Shit, are you serious? And here I thought this one was going to be a prize,” Caius said to me in disbelief, waving the scroll that he had in his hand. “Trade me?”

  “Sure,” I replied, handing over the spell scroll to the warlock and taking his in turn. Glancing down at the spell scroll, I began to read through the arcane symbols, eventually deciphering the spell it contained.

  Arcane Chains

  Type: Spell, Class Skill

  Learnable By: Any Arcane

  Duration: Instant

  Range: 15 feet

  Arcane Tree: Conjuration

  Spell Mastery: Conjuration – Level 20

  Mana Cost: 200

  Description: You conjure a set of magical chains that whip through the air, wrapping themselves around your target’s legs, slowing their movements and possibly immobilizing them for a short period of time.

  Effect: When cast, this spell creates a set of magical chains around your target’s legs and attempts to keep them from moving, slowing their movement speed by up to 25% or potentially immobilizing them for the next 5 seconds.

  “Oh, man! You weren’t kidding!” I exclaimed as I finished reading the spell scroll, my hand trembling slightly as I noted that any arcane-based class could learn the spell. “This spell is awesome too!”

  “Neither were you!” Caius replied, shaking his head from side to side as he stared at the spell. “Damn, I feel like an idiot for not thinking to check this tube sooner after our run of levels in the Twilight Grove. The last time I think I looked at it, I was maybe level fourteen, right before we went into the ruins. They were all still unreadable then.”

  “Which must have been just shy of the skill level needed to read them,” I said, shaking my head as I glanced back towards the other spells still sitting on the table. “My Evocation skill is level twenty-three, and I can read this level twenty-five spell scroll, which means there’s at least a two-level gap in understanding, though I imagine it’s probably a bit larger than that in practice.”

  “I’d agree with that too,” Caius said as he scanned over the spell. “Judging by how the game has been so far with things, I’d guess that it’s closer to four or five skill level gap before the scroll becomes readable. Not that it really matters now I guess.”

  “No,” I agreed, pausing for a second to process the sudden bounty of spells. “Speaking of these spells though, I’m calling first dibs on this one in particular.”

  “Ha, I figured you would,” Caius said with a chuckle. “A slow and rooting spell is exactly what an already highly mobile spellsword needs to round out their abilities.”

  “Well, yeah, it kinda is,” I replied. “Blink Step is great for closing the distance, but I can only use that every so often, and it’s not like I have any ranged damage abilities either. Besides, it’s labeled ‘any arcane’ so pretty much all of our casters will be able to learn it.”

  “That is a good point,” Caius commented as we looked back towards the pile of spell scrolls on the table and back at one another. “Ready to see what else we have here?”

  “And how,” I replied eagerly as we temporarily put our scrolls down to the side and began to sift through the pile, discovering that it contained four other spells that we could finally read. Feeling another burst of excitement hit us, we then split the spells in half between us, the descriptions of the two that I had taken flashing in front of my vision.

  Blink Strike

  Type: Spell, Class Skill

  Learnable By: Spellsword

  Duration: Instant

  Range: 40 feet

  Arcane Tree: Alteration

  Spell Mastery: Alteration - Level 25

  Mana Cost: 220

  Description: You vanish from one place and reappear nearby, with your weapon charged with arcane energy and ready to strike.

  Effect: You can instantly travel up to 40 feet in any direction that you have line of sight to, reappearing with your weapon charged with arcane power. Any attack made after using Blink Strike deals Weapon Damage +100. Minor intervening obstacles such as people, creatures, or light foliage will not impede the spell. Other obstacles will cause the spell to fail.

  Arcane Shield

  Type: Spell, Class Skill

  Learnable By: Any Arcane

  Duration: 30 seconds

  Range: Self

  Arcane Tree: Conjuration

  Spell Mastery: Conjuration - Level 25

  Mana Cost: 450

  Description: Suffusing your aura with a surge of raw mana, you temporarily create a potent protective shield around yourself, protecting you from harm.

  Effect: Create a temporary damage shield around you that lasts for up to 30 seconds or until it absorbs up to 500 points of damage. Due to the ætherial imbalance that this spell creates in your aura after casting, this spell can only be cast once every five minutes.

  “Wow,” I said as I finished reading the two spells, my heart already racing in my chest as pulled my eyes away from the arcane symbols and looked towards Caius. “I have a Blink Strike here for spellswords and an Arcane Shield for all arcane spellcasters. They’re both as awesome as they sound.”

  “And I have a Create Greater Ward for mages here,” the warlock added, his eyes scanning over one of the scrolls he held in his hand. “Halcyon and the others are going to love this one. It looks heaps more useful and versatile than the regular version he and Donovan have been using.”

  “That’s great then!” I replied in a cheerful tone as I glanced up from my spells and looked towards the dark elf. “Though I’ll admit I really don’t know much about how wards work in the game here. Since they’re mage-only spells, I’ve just kinda glanced over them. They basically give a warning to the caster if someone passes through them right?”

  “That’s what the old one did,” Caius said. “But from the looks of this new one, it’s a fair bit more versatile. The new wards will all now block detection spells from passing through it, plus you can apparently ‘hang’ a handful of spells inside it now to trigger on certain events that you define. If I’m reading this right, you can even link other mages and even items into the wards too now.”

  “Huh, well that sounds all kinds of awesome,” I
said, instantly recognizing the potential for the spell. “We’ll have to get that thing into Halcyon’s hands and see what more he can tell us.”

  “You sure you want to wait?” the warlock asked, waving the spell scroll in his hand. “You can read this over yourself in the meantime.”

  “As tempting as that is, I’m so far out of the loop on wards I’d probably misunderstand half of it,” I replied with a shake of my head. “And I also need to get a move on with my day if I’m going to hit everything I need to do. What about your other spell there? Anything interesting for that one?”

  “Fair enough then, and let’s see,” Caius said, trailing off as he squinted at the scroll in his left hand his expression suddenly brightening as he finished reading it. “Blood Hex. Well, doesn’t that sound promising? Finally, an outright warlock spell for yours truly!”

  “And a rather gruesome sounding one at that,” I replied, making an uneasy face at the man, knowing full well the arsenal of crippling and painful damage over time spells he had at his disposal. “Do I even want to know what it does?”

  “Probably not,” he said, flashing me a grin. “But I suddenly can’t wait to find out where the Dread Crew have gone off to test this spell out.”

  “I know the feeling,” I said as I glanced down towards the pile of spells, the day suddenly looking much brighter than it had been moments earlier. “Well, I have to admit, this turned out better than I could have hoped for. Sure, I had my fingers crossed for something useful, but not six new spells kind of useful.”

  “Me either,” Caius admitted. “But then again, I think we’re long overdue for a string of luck. So I’m not going to complain.”

  “Definitely not,” I agreed as I placed the scroll containing Arcane Shield down on the table while holding onto the Blink Strike one. “In either case though, that means we’re going to need to fit in a bit of scribing for the day if we’re going to get these spells into more people’s hands. How does your schedule look for the day? Because I’m not going to lie, I want pretty much all of these.”

  “Same here,” the warlock replied in an envious tone. “But as for your question, the day is reasonably open, I have a few things to sort out here then I can sit and start scribing out copies of the spells I can learn. The others you or a mage will have to manage though since I can’t learn them.”

  “That’s fine,” I said, more than happy to make the time to scribe the needed spell for the other spellswords in Aldford.

  Scribing, or rather making copies of spells that a caster had learned, was something that we’d finally been able to devote a large amount of effort to over the last week, thanks in no small part to Marlin. After having a chance to set up his laboratory, the alchemist had been able to churn out a steady flow of much-needed products for the town—the most important one, in this case, being arcane ink. Relatively cheap to produce, the ink allowed for spellcasters to easily copy out the spells that they’d learned from their spellbooks and onto paper, which could be passed along and learned by others, saving them the need of using valuable class skill points.

  Of course, it was still possible to copy the spells out without using the ink, such as Halcyon and I did with the Ritual of Ætherbinding using charcoal, but the downside there was in the durability of the end scroll. Any smudges in transport or mistakes on the scriber’s part risked the chance of ruining the spell entirely, creating a worthless piece of paper. By using the specially prepared for ink, it ensured that not only would the scriber’s symbols appear crisp and clear as they wrote them, but that they would also last through rough handling and long storage.

  “I need to do a bit of running around first today before I can sit down,” I went on to say as I mentally outlined my day, trying to see where I could spare a few minutes to write out a few spells. “I was hoping to see if any of our prisoners are feeling talkative yet. A bit of intel in figuring out where Carver’s people have gone would make our lives so much easier. But before then, I need to find Stanton and fill him in on our plans regarding Lazarus and the others. I don’t suppose you’ve happened to have seen him by chance, have you?”

  “Only this morning, but you might have luck if you check the town hall,” Caius said to me as he turned to tidy the collection of spell scrolls into a pile. “He, Donovan, and Halcyon brought a load of stuff up earlier today from the ruins, but Hal wanted to do one last sweep while we still had the time. Stanton didn’t seem interested in making a second trek.”

  “Wait, you mean, there’s still more down there?” I replied in disbelief as I scanned through the room a second time. “Please don’t tell me you’re trying to bring up the runestones.”

  “We thought about that, but no,” Caius assured. “They’re just too big to manage. Plus, I don’t think we can even get to the last one by the ley line anymore; the tree’s roots have pretty much taken over everything on that side of the grove.”

  “Hrm,” I grunted, not entirely surprised by the news. There’d been quite a lot of æther that had pooled around the outcropping where the third and final runestone had been located on, and the roots had continued to grow steadily even after the ley line was sealed. “Good thing I guess that we made a few copies of that ritual spell before that then.”

  “No kidding,” Caius agreed. “Anyway though, the reason that Halcyon went back down was that he was interested in seeing if there was a way to extract that security system that was in the ruin. He thinks he might have found its nexus.”

  “Oh? Why?” I asked, feeling a frown come across my face. “That thing is just two steps above broken. I managed to talk circles around it easily.”

  “Well, we had an idea that maybe we can figure out how it works and then either fix it or learn how to make another one,” Caius explained. “If we’re ever going to have a hope of getting the translocation hub working again…we’re going to need to replace that Nafarrian AI thing that we were forced to destroy ages ago. Not to mention that it might have other uses down the road too.”

  “Huh, I’d completely forgotten about the hub’s original purpose, save for being a raw æther source at least,” I said, having written repairing the place off as a fanciful pipe dream for the foreseeable future. “Getting that up and running…is going to take a lot, assuming it’s even possible at all.”

  “Won’t know unless we try, Lyr,” Caius said, despite nodding at me in agreement. “You know the saying, ‘Rome wasn’t built in a day’. If we’re going to find a way to make it work, it’s going to be through a bunch of small projects along the way.”

  “Yeah, I guess you’re right. Plus, there’s that skill crystal thing I found too,” I added, remembering the strange Nafarrian shard that we’d found after defeating the shoggoth. I was still in the early stages of absorbing it, a process that was going to take a couple more weeks, but once I finished it, it promised to be a treasure trove of information and knowledge.

  “That too,” Caius said. “I was actually going to ask how much longer was left on that before it finished.”

  “Still a while,” I replied, the completion date having burned itself into my mind. “Final day will be April twenty-seventh.”

  “Ages away,” Caius mused, pausing thoughtfully for a few seconds before giving me a shrug. “Anyway, that’s our dream at least. We’ll have to see what comes of it in the end.”

  “Fingers crossed, and be sure to keep me in the loop,” I replied, already thinking of the possibilities of what we could use a vaguely sentient magical AI for. “In the meantime, though, I need to get moving with my day. Maybe I can stick the scribing in somewhere along the way. Save me a copy of those four spells I can use?”

  “Yeah, for sure. I’ll set some aside for you,” Caius promised. “In the meantime though, good luck with Stanton and the prisoners if I don’t see you before then.”

  “Thanks, though hopefully things will go smooth on both accounts,” I replied as I slowly turned in place, trying not to knock anything over as I moved. “But before I g
o, I have one last question.”

  “Sure, what’s up?” Caius asked curiously, his eyes following my hands as I motioned towards the boxes I’d stacked in front of the door, now blocking us both in.

  “How do I get out of here?”

  Chapter 11

  Feeling like we were starting to spend our day walking in circles, Amaranth and I returned to the town hall, this time cutting straight through the now nearly empty main room and making our way upstairs. Based on what Caius had told me, I knew that there were two likely places that Stanton would be if he’d returned to the town hall. The first of those being his room, which I immediately dismissed given the time of day, leaving the second place the most likely location to find him.

  That place, in particular, being Samuel’s room.

  Taking in a deep breath as Amaranth and I reached the upper floor, I felt a heavy weight settle on my heart as I forced myself to continue walking towards the room in question, the door slightly ajar for airflow. Crossing the distance, I gently pushed the door open and looked inside, catching sight of Stanton sitting at a small desk on the far side of the room, barely an arm’s length away from a large bed that faced an open window.

  “Morning,” I greeted him quietly, seeing the elder noble turn in his seat to look in my direction, our eyes meeting briefly before I turned to look towards the prone figure that was lying in the bed. “How’s he doing today?”

  Propped up amid a pile of pillows and blankets lay the sleeping form of Samuel, one of the two mages that we had rescued from the Irovian tower two months earlier and even more recently, from Carver’s attack on the Twilight Grove. It was during that attack that Samuel had been badly injured, losing both of his legs in the process. But as tragic as the loss of limbs were, it was the other casualties that we’d suffered in the attack that had affected Samuel the most, with the most important being the death of his friend, Quincy. Ever since then, Samuel had fallen into a near-catatonic depression that he had yet to break out of, spending the last few days asleep, regardless of what was going on around him and ignoring our best efforts to wake him.