The familiar rush of mental energies expanded Glade’s mind as dozens, if not hundreds, of mental sparks flashed into existence. With his time dilation still active, Glade quickly sorted through the myriad of minds within his skills reach, discarding everything that wasn’t sentient or the spiders.
A kaleidoscope of tiny minds dotted the area, mapping the astral spiders’ movements like they were a swarm of fireflies migrating across an open field. Most of the dimmer minds steadily advanced from the catacombs toward the hall’s entrance, where Glade sensed most of his people gathered. But not every spider followed the crowd. Some of the brighter minds found various locations to hide throughout the hall, lying in wait to ambush unsuspecting victims. Like the ones currently dropping from the ceiling on top of Glade.
Abandoning his time dilation, Glade expertly swung Acumen’s monstrously sized book with both hands, slamming the palm sized arachnids to the ground.
Critical hit! You have surprised a surprise attacker! With a gift from an Adjudicator no-less! Acumen is not going to appreciate the fact that you used his tome like a common household pest control implement. Targets take 11 HP bludgeoning damage each and are stunned for the next 5 seconds.
The two spiders struck the ground with an audible crunch, where they lay twitching on their backs until Glade’s booted feet put them out of their misery.
You have defeated 2 x level 4 Astral Spiders and have been awarded 328 XP (159 XP x 2 x .03)
The XP was average for a sharded creature, but Glade was still surprised at how easy they were to take down. Then again, spiders were highly effective ambush predators. Taking away that advantage might just be the way to defeat them. He only hoped his plan to deal with the swarm was as effective.
Now that Glade had the entirety of the hall before him, he reengaged his time dilation skill to process everything he was seeing.
Their misshapen Golem stood at the catacomb entrance, its joints loudly grinding together as it stomped, punched, or kicked with the speed of a drugged up turtle. Sadly, the spiders entering the hall all but ignored the magical creation, easily bypassing the construct like it was nothing more than a Walmart greeter.
Frustrated at the waste of the settlement’s precious mana, Glade turned his focus elsewhere. Much to his surprise, Gird was somehow still alive, quietly working on Kedryn’s staff. Even more surprising, not a single spider was within 10 feet of the blacksmith.
Putting that particular mystery aside, Glade focused on where the fight was thickest. A host of dwarves, to include Krazzik and Bragden, held the hall’s entrance by smashing, stomping, and swinging weapons at any spider that dared exit the building. But it was the Corporal who stole the show.
Twin gouts of flame erupted from Kedryn’s outstretched hand, devastating any crawler that came within range. Even with time dilation active, Glade watched wide eyed as small spiders were reduced to ash in an instant; the larger spiders taking a few moments longer before they succumbed to the heat and flame.
Glade took in everything at the speed of thought, but it was the last scene that hit him and Ember like a freight train.
Not everyone had made it out alive.
Four dwarven bodies lay strewn throughout the hall, a host of spiders already in the process of wrapping silk around their swollen bodies.
A shout of outrage, either from him or Ember, Glade didn’t know, tore from his lips in one slow, agonizing moment. Three of the four were unknown to him, their names forgotten or, more likely, simply not shared in the short time they had been in each other’s company. He vaguely remembered their foolish charge with nothing more than warped pots and wooden spoons. But it was the fourth body, whose unmoving hands still held onto his battered pot used to cook their gruel, that pushed them over the edge.
Ember's wrath thrummed as they took in Croon’s glassy eyed stare, quickly overwhelming Glade’s cold detachment.
“Burn…” the egg hissed, pushing a massive wave of corrupted mana toward Glade that held enough power to obliterate every spider within their detection’s reach.
There was no prompt this time asking what Glade wanted to do. Instead, he knew instinctively what was, and was not, possible.
Allowing the full might of the corrupted mana to destroy the swarm would be like welcoming the abyssal rot to take over his mana pool, and like a disease, he too would become corrupted.
The temptation to use such power came and went in the blink of an eye, which was much longer when under the dilation skill’s effects.
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
Mentally, Glade rejected the promise of absolute destruction, turning it aside as easily closing a door. Ember didn’t even balk at the rejection, instead separating whatever clean mana he had available back.
This, Glade readily accepted, holding out his hand toward the nearest cluster of spiders.
Power the likes he had never known rushed through him, like a resonance that thrummed as it passed through his very being before manifesting into the physical world.
Attention! You have permitted the Unknown Egg to use you as a medium to cast Ember Stream. A stream of embers flows from you, targeting any and all threats until either you run out of enemies or mana, whichever comes first. Area of effect: 40 meters. Damage: 1 HP per attunement rank per ember. Total damage per ember from he Unknown Egg: 7 HP.
Sparks of fire poured from Glade’s outstretched arm, flying through the air like a cyclone of fireflies, darting every which way to strike at the spiders within his immediate vicinity.
Notifications poured in, so much so that Glade had to minimize the prompts to keep from being overwhelmed.
10… 20…30… sparks flew from him with more pouring out of his outstretched arm every second. As they passed 50, Glade felt the resonance of Ember’s spell awaken something from within. Like he had been deaf all his life, but now, his soul finally grasped the echo of long-lost music.
And it was beautiful.
Congratulations! The constant flow of the Unknown Egg’s spell, combined with its Resonant attunement level, has resulted in opening your Fire Mana Channels! Attunement assessed at 1%…
60… 70… 80… sparks flew from his hand, each one homing in on the unsuspecting swarm of astral spiders. With every passing moment the gaps between Glade’s and Ember’s resonant power inched closer. He was so enthralled with the music, Glade never noticed that he dropped his time dilation skill.
Attunement assessed at 2%… 3%... 4%...
More sparks flew as Glade’s attunement climbed, until Ember’s flow of mana finally began to dwindle. As it finally came to an end, so too did the harmonies that had just begun to sing.
For the briefest of moments, Glade was tempted to permit the corrupting power of abyssal mana in, just so he could resume the incredible feeling of attuning his fledging fire channels with that of Ember’s powerful song.
Congratulations! Your fire attunement is now at the Spark rank and is assessed at an 8% attunement.
Lowering his hand, Glade came back to himself, like breaking free of watery depths to once again breathe in the world around him.
“What in the hell just happened?” Glade gasped. He knew Ember was special, but that had been something else entirely. If the fire mana had been the size of a pool, the size of the corrupted mana still within his companion’s core had to be the size of a lake. If they could have brought forward its full abilities, nothing could have stood in their way.
Without knowing how, Glade once again committed to helping his companion cleanse itself from the taint of abyssal magic.
“That… was… awesome!!” Kedryn cried, breaking Glade from his trance. The Kid moved steadily toward him, sweeping his twin flames from left to right as the dwarves followed, stomping, or crushing spiders along the way. “I was not expecting you to pop out of nowhere and push the spiders back using fire magic of all things! All we needed was a free moment to rally and you provided that in spades. Now we have the spiders on the run!”
Realizing that he was no longer under his time dilation skill’s influence, Glade took stock of their situation before answering the Corporal.
Thanks to Ember’s spell, more than half of the spiders were dead or dying, the higher-level ones currently running along the ground, up and down walls, and along the rafters on fire. The ones closer to the entrance had turned around and were now heading his way. But the Kid was very much mistaken if he thought the swarm was retreating.
No, they had just changed targets.
“Kid, the spiders are now focused on me!” Glade growled, also noting the absence of Ember’s presence which meant it was recovering.
Good. As much as he appreciated having Ember close, his companion’s uncontrollable emotions were having a profound effect on him.
“Keep mopping them up from behind!” Glade called. “I have an idea that should take care of the rest of the swarm. If it doesn’t work, be prepared to run like hell!”
“Yes sir!” Kedryn called.
“Do ye want us to tell ye now that yer plan be dumber than a bag o’ hammers,” Bragden called, stepping on one of the larger spiders that was still burning with a loud pop. “Or do ye want us to wait till after ye share yer idea with the council?”
“I missed you too Bragden,” Glade laughed, scrolling through the settlement interface. He left his dilation skill turned off seeing as the spiders weren’t close enough to be a problem. “Does that mean someone actually approved your bid to be the Storm of Magic?”
In answer, Bragden raised his hand toward the retreating spiders, accessed a settlement earth spell, and muttered a word of power. A shower of sharpened stone fragments flew from his hand, skewering several spiders in the process.
“Good to know you finally have access,” Glade called back, finally finding what he was looking for within Storms’ Rest’s interface.
A smile spread across his face. What he had hoped for was indeed available.
“In answer to your question, take a look at the interface for creating golems,” Glade called, already calculating what he could do with his own mana pool.
“Ye must have lost all yer points in intelligence if’n ye think another golem will help,” Krazzik called. “The one by the entrance be ‘bout as useful as a garden gnome in a drinkin contest.”
“I wasn’t going to create another one of those,” Glade replied as he funneled almost every point of mana he had into the settlement’s create golem spell. Then he slammed his hand onto the floor.
The stones around Glade’s feet began to churn. First one, then two golems began to take form.
“Oh,” Bragden said, stopping in his tracks. “Now, that might just work.”