The rapid steps of the beetles perforated their surroundings the further he went. Individually, they weren’t much of a threat, only posing a slight challenge once they circled Theron’s position. Borys took care of them with relative ease, with Berys managing on its own against a single beetle. Their swipes destroyed their exoskeleton with little difficulty, and the added support from his wolf allowed them an easy passage deeper into the thickening grove. The beetles appeared to be flightless, despite possessing a pair of wings.
A closer inspection of their carcasses revealed why—the membrane posing as their wings was flimsy and weak, more akin to a flap of flaky skin rather than an extra limb. They could flap it, sure, but it was more of an attempt to intimidate rather than to fly.
[You gained 40 experience points!.] x6
[Aspect: (Elite) Metal-clawed Bear gains reduced experience: 20] x4
[You leveled up! You gained +1 Might, +1 Speed, and +1 Toughness. +1 Free attribute point]
[Aspect of Black-Chrome beetle is added to your compendium. You can now summon it after materializing the aspect using an aspect core.]
[You obtained a materia: R-2 Black-Chrome beetle.]
Another one finished. Theron confirmed his recent growth by putting another point in his magic, jolly his recent excursion rewarded him with a significant amount of experience and materia.
He paused when he reached the river, eyes scanning the thicket on the opposing side, watching the lack of mists with a cautious look. No human faces showed up, yet. He trailed the line of the riverbed, scouring the slight incline leading across, then relaxed when he failed to find any humanoid figures. He turned his head away, then retreated back to the forest, picking another direction. This time, he headed somewhere southwest of the checkpoint.
His exploration halted when he sneaked into an opening with a slight slope forming a tiny hill with a sapling in the midst of it all. Theron observed the still trees circling it, noticing dead treants with parts of their barks smashed off; after a closer inspection, it was evident that the scars on their skin matched that of a troll’s fists. Theron gulped as he trekked the incline, head dancing left and right, unwilling to let himself slack off until his shadow brooded over the poor sapling’s figure. Something about this is different, he remarked to himself, pondering over the possibility of a hidden event. The dead treants and this sapling gave away what aspect needed to be present. He pulled two free aspect cores from his satchel, then crushed them, eyes wincing upon the new message drifting in his vision.
You crushed 2 aspect cores. Select a rank-2 aspect to materialize.
Rank-2 :
Ghostwood Treant
Black chrome beetle
The treant. Theron whispered to himself. A flash of power surged from within him, then the image of a treant formed atop his open compendium, revealing its stats. See you later, bud, He glimpsed over to Lux and unsummoned it with a guilty nod. He pulled out his wand, then drew all the magic contained within it and a wisp of mana from his own to conjure a wooden aspect right beside the hapless sapling.
[Hidden event found!]
[The sapling of life: Protect the sapling from the dangers of the night. Requirements: 1 materialized Ghostwood treant aspect.]
[Sapling life: 100/100. The event begins in 10 hours.]
I knew it. Before he studied the contents of the treant’s page, three lines of message overtook the interface. Closing off the warning messages, Theron diverted his attention to his most recent aspect. What it showed was anything but familiar.
Ghostwood Treant | Health : 35/35 | Mana : 5/5
Level: 5 | Next 600 xp
Rank: 2 | Max Level 10
Mana cost: 6 | slot cost: 2
Element: Normal | Affinity: Tank
Class: Treant | Type: Nature
-Attributes-
Free points: - (+2/level)
Might: 20 (+4/level)
Speed: -
Magic: 5
Toughness: 20 (+4/level)
Resistance: 20(+2/level)
-Abilities-
Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
-Abilities(passive)-
Bark regeneration
Innate trait : Nature’s stillness
Unable to acquire speed attribute. Increases resistance toward physical damage by a flat value of 10.
[Note: Innate traits. Aspects sometimes come with innate traits; special conditions which make them different from the other aspects. Only aspects starting from rank two has a chance to obtain an innate trait. Be wary of the aspect’s limitations and strengths.]
[Affinity: Tank. Automatically draws attention from nearby monsters. Monsters and aspects will never target a drifter when a tank is nearby unless they have specific skills or the ability to bypass this restriction. While bracing, reduces damage from all sources by 5%.]
[Bark Regeneration: Passively regenerates 5 health/ minute. Quadruples speed while atop a body of water. Regeneration stops when under attack.]
Okay… No wonder the treants always gave him so much headache before Lux’s magic came to life. A straight-out 10 flat damage negation, atop its already sky-high toughness. This aspect would fare well against most physical damage, however, they weren’t immune to it, evident from his experience and the dead treants surrounding this sapling. If the dead treants circling this sapling were of any sign, then Trolls would flood this spot with their raucous presence when the event began.
Reading off the event timer, Theron’s head craned to the surrounding wall of trees and approached a random, dead treant. No amount of [Extract Aspect] yielded results. The breeze led him to the outskirts of the slight hill, promising he’d return here once he, again, felt the need to grind to get stronger. Berys must reach level 5 before he returned to this place, any lesser would be perilous. The waddling treant struggled to follow him, its glacial speed rendered it a headache to walk or travel with.
While he’d love to play around with his newest summon, its slowness made it ponderous to train, and he didn’t have the mana to keep summoning and unsummoning it.
He unsummoned it with a sigh, then let Lux out from his compendium.
He picked the direction where the trees appeared most abundant. The bears’ berth rubbed against the trees as they ventured forth, coming face to face with more beetles, which they dealt with swiftly.
[You gained 40 experience points!.] x4
[Aspect: (Elite) Metal-clawed Bear gains reduced experience: 20] x3
[Your aspect core - (Elite) Metal-clawed Bear leveled up! It gains +6 might, +4 toughness, and +2 resistance. +4 free attribute points.]
[Aspect core learned a new ability! Embolden claws.]
[Embolden claws[Melee]: Buffs the bear’s claws, sharpening their edges, increasing damage by 30[36%] of the bear’s might. Lasts 1 minute. Cooldown: 10 minutes.]
So they have the same ability... Theron pulled its stat page up, putting 2 points in strength and one in speed, just to ensure it had enough gas to keep up the pace with the other aspects.
Theron kept an eye on his surroundings, paying particular attention to the towering checkpoint, assuring he’d find his way back to the sapling come nighttime. A clearing beheld their path, and within, a small inlet led to an unknown location underneath. Some kind of a burrow? Theron thought as he circled the hole, studying its size. While not as big as he hoped, Both Berys and Borys should be able to navigate their way inside.
[Chrome-black beetle’s burrow.]
Ah… The beetle’s elite? A waft of stale air brushed his face as he stepped closer, the fragrance of dirt and unwashed dung, his favorite. While the beetles posed him little threat— being the fodder monsters that they were—he grew wary of the potential rank-2 elite slumbering within. With their jet-black carapace and the general darkness, visibility would be an issue as well. However, neither stopped Theron from peering in. Their heavy footsteps echoed within, the lack of fresh air and light causing him to squint.
Wisps of sun rays lit their backs as they probed the inside of the insect-made burrow, wariness flashing from Theron’s dilated eyes. Specks of beetle droppings and shedding peppered their path, sprinkled haphazardly all around their vicinity. Due to their sizes, Both Berys and Borys had to walk in a single line, with Lux trailing close beside Theron, who positioned himself in the middle of it all.
The narrow hallway loosened to a massive cavernous spot with a gentle finger of sun breaching from a hole atop it, its walls splattered with holes and burrows leading to the other parts of this lair. This wasn’t just the three paths present from his earlier cave explorations, no, this smelled different than the others, both literally and figuratively. If this lair followed the rules of its simpler variants, then this spot must be a zone where he had to fend for his life. With slight trepidation, his ginger footsteps braved the entrance to the opening. Theron sighed, relieved he didn’t have to smell Berys’ hind any longer.
Sounds of their steps welcomed their entrance, echoing from the numerous holes present. Here it comes, Theron hunkered on a safe spot where no holes were dug on their flank, placing both bears diagonally in front of his location, with Lux growling in the back. Borys outsped Berys by quite a margin, sure, but their might still rivaled one another. Berys did best if the enemies came to it, after all.
So, after a period of waiting—and just like he predicted—a swarm of beetles left their holes, the flutter of their flightless wings announcing their coming. Black, chrome carapaces flooded his vision while the swarm encroached on them, and Lux began firing at the approaching monsters. Noticing the potential of his ability in this situation, Theron pushed out his Necrotic aura, affecting those a few steps beyond where his bears stood, affecting the closest beetles as their armies clashed.
A closer look at the individual beetles revealed that these were smaller than the ones he met outside.
[You encountered a swarm!]
[Swarms are mechanics unique to specific creatures. They are usually the lesser versions of a monster, with reduced experience gain and strength.]
A swarm? Shit, Use your abilities, Theron called out to his bears, both activating their respective buffs as their skill ballooned their savagery, each swipe sundering the carapace as if they were butter. Droplets of insect guts and juices drizzled their corner, coloring the otherwise light-brown dirt with dark dribbles of yellow and scarlet. Theron kept his eyes on his mana pool, pulling his wand out just to prolong his ability. A barrage of messages bombarded his sight from the dead beetles, each kill proclaimed by the system, and it covered more than half of his vision before the messages stopped appearing.
[You gained 10 experience points!.] x32
[Aspect: (Elite) Metal-clawed Bear gains reduced experience: 5] x32
[Your aspect core - Sable Metal-clawed Bear leveled up! It gains +4 might, +4 speed, and +2 toughness. +2 free attribute points.]
[Your aspect core - Full-grown horned Gray Brute Dire wolf leveled up! It gains +3 might, +2 speed, +4 magic, and +1 toughness. +2 free attribute points.]
[Your aspect core - (Elite) Metal-clawed Bear leveled up! It gains +6 might, +4 toughness, and +2 resistance. +3 free attribute points.]
Theron scanned the aftermath of the carnage, the once tranquil, eerie, unassuming cave had been transformed into a death pit of an incessant, ubiquitous pool of disgust. Entrails from the beetles drenched and seeped atop the layer of dirt, splotching when his aspects crushed them with their ponderous steps. In spite of the death, their smell wasn’t all that offensive—at least, not any worse than the odor from past lairs and caves. These beetles appeared to be a lesser version of their normal counterparts, granting less experience and essence. Yeah, it took an unreasonable amount of time for him to extract them all, 32 dead beetles with their bodies strung about, making the process cumbersome.
The earth shook, collapsing an untouched wall to his left, revealing a massive passage leading further deeper into the lair. Inside, the throes of an unknown creature bellowed, doubtless coming from the thing called Beetle queen. Theron allocated extra attributes to both his rank-2 aspects—might for Borys, and magic for Lux, propelling their stats further.
They were about to face their first rank-2 elite.