Message Part 1 [https://i.imgur.com/8MboPlh.png]
Message Part 2 [https://i.imgur.com/MtpCaKX.png]
Minor Feat Completed!
For your Minor Feat of clearing a Leveled Challenge, you have been granted a reward!
Reward: Force Blast, its Ability Slot, and all prerequisites have been improved from Level 1 to Level 2!
This Ability was commonly used during completion of the Minor Feat.
Feat Completed!
For your Feat of clearing a Leveled Challenge for the first time, you have been granted a reward!
Reward: Animate Spell Blade, its Ability Slot, and all prerequisites have been improved from Level 1 to Level 2!
This Ability was commonly used during completion of the Feat.
Feat Completed!
For your Feat of defeating a Level-appropriate group combat challenge without assistance, you have been granted a reward!
Reward: Force Bolt, Spell Hardening, Visual Targeting, Collected Knowledge, and their Ability Slots have been improved from Level 1 to Level 2!
This Ability set was commonly used during completion of the Feat.
Major Feat Completed!
For your Major Feat of defeating a Level-appropriate group combat challenge without assistance for the first time, you have been granted a reward!
Reward: All Abilities and their Ability Slots used during completion of this Feat have been increased by one Level.
Abilities that are higher Level than their Sphere will exhibit power appropriate to their Sphere's Level. The Ability Level of Rush could not be improved.
(Feather image)
Your Patron greets you!
I'm impressed. I certainly didn't manage to increase any Abilities past my Sphere level this early in my journey. You're more focused than I was, but that's probably a good thing. You're not alone.
You will be happy to know that you didn't deprive your companions of their credit, either; they will have gotten a Minor Feat / Feat for their first time cooperative completion because they helped you get here and then didn't interfere in something you could handle alone. It isn't as good as the without assistance Feats, but it's the same value as the Feat for cooperating in the final kill of clearing the Challenge. It's possible to miss that Feat in several ways; this is one of the few that give a different Feat instead.
If you can resolve the Challenge as well as clearing it, I believe you will find the rewards very worthwhile. I can guess what they will be, but it is only a guess. The Guide does not always do what I expect.
The only other advice I can give right now is to see if Taika will bond to either you or Dav. If he does, I will be able to affect his Spheres and make him a better companion for the three of you.
--The Wanderer
The message appeared in front of Sophia’s vision moments after the corpsevine’s cap hit the floor. She ignored it to check on Dav, Amy, and Taika. All three of her companions seemed fine, if shaken by the experience.
Amy’s attention was directed in front of her, apparently at her own version of the message. “You beat it without us, huh? What was I fighting, then?” She looked around her, but didn’t seem to find what she was looking for in the destroyed bits of plant and pot and wood support.
“It was an illusion,” Sophia told her with a small shrug. “I tried to let you know, but you didn’t listen.”
Dav snorted. He sounded a little disgruntled, probably at the fact that he was fooled. “I should have known. It explains why the thing never hit me even though it should have, a few times. Every time I started to wonder, I had to concentrate on the fight instead of thinking about anything else. It wasn’t just visual, was it?”
Sophia shrugged more obviously this time. “It was definitely tactile, too, or you wouldn’t have been able to hit it, and there was definitely some feedback involved. As for menatl stuff, I have no idea. A visual illusion can do that, if it’s designed to keep your attention well enough. That’s what I’m told, at least. I can manage a simple illusion, basically just a light spell, but that’s colored light, not the stuff of illusions or dreams. I never really tried to learn those, just the techniques for countering them.”
Sophia knew exactly why she never tried to learn illusions, even if she didn’t admit it to her parents. Illusions just weren’t interesting. You couldn’t kill a dungeon monster with an illusion. Now that she’d seen Taika’s illusions, that seemed like a very surface evaluation. She really should have tried harder.
“How do you counter them?” Dav didn’t seem interested in why Sophia couldn’t cast illusions.
“You look for anything that might be off, something that doesn’t match what you’re seeing. Like… if you stab something and it doesn’t bleed, or doesn’t seem to be there at all. Maybe it doesn’t have a smell, whatever. There are a lot of things that can match, and a lot of them have different explanations, but sometimes it’s an illusion. Once you figure it out, what happens depends on how it was made. If it’s all in your mind, it might vanish or turn into a mental fight. If it’s someone controlling light, well, the light’s not going to go away because you know it’s not really a monster, but you can act with what you know. Illusion Affinity spells tend to break apart if you really see through them, but the Dream Affinity often warps them into something else.” Sophia paused and bit her lip. There was a lot more she could say, but without demonstration she wasn’t certain how helpful it would be. “Taika manipulates light and color, that’s why you can see his disguises but not feel them. I’m not sure how much else I can teach you quickly.”
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“Oh, wow,” Amy interrupted. “Did you two get the same Feat rewards that I did?”
“I haven’t looked,” Dav answered without looking towards Amy. “I don’t want the distraction if there are more monsters, it can wait until we’re out of here.”
Amy shook her head. “There won’t be any monsters, one of the feats was for clearing the Challenge. That means clearing it of monsters or at least of all of the important ones; any we missed will have vanished. That’s one of the rules of Challenges. The clear feats are one of the reasons to do them, but this one is something else. It’s free Ability levels!”
Sophia glanced at the window that still partially covered her view and it snapped into full visibility again. “What’s so amazing about that? I thought Wisps was the normal award, and these aren’t all that expensive, even if there are a lot of them.”
“You don’t know?” Amy sounded shocked. “I mean, I know you didn’t get much time with Rensyn, but surely your parents…”
“Weren’t Called,” Sophia finished the sentence. It was the easiest way to explain their ignorance; no one seemed to accept just how “far away” Sophia’s home was, or at least they didn’t seem to really understand when she said the Voice was different. The fact that Dav didn’t have anything like the Guide at all where he came from just didn’t compute at all.
“Oh, right.” Amy flushed slightly. “You said that earlier. Uh, the difference is that if you buy the levels, the cost increases. Since these were Guide-increased, buying them to Level three will cost what it would have taken to get them to level two, and so on. It only applies to these specific Abilities and slots, but it will keep the cost down no matter how high you go. At higher levels, those cheaper Ability and slot increases are supposed to be really important. The only thing better is a bonus ability in a free slot; those keep up with your Level and don’t increase the cost of anything else, but those one come from Grand Feats and no one knows how to do those reliably. Even Major feats are usually one-time things.”
With Amy’s reassurance that there would be no more monsters, Sophia felt comfortable enough to check her message in more detail. Even without the reassurance, she was confident there weren’t any nearby; if there had been, they’d have intervened during the battle, not now after it was over. She certainly took long enough.
Sophia’s eyes widened as she saw the full list. “That’s a lot of Abilities.”
“Yeah, that’s why it’s amazing,” Amy agreed. “I expected bonus Wisps, since that’s what other people got, plus maybe an Ability slot or unlocked Ability from the first-time feats, but this is better. I even had a couple of Abilities go up two levels!”
Sophia looked at her last Feat again. She had the feeling it was more than a couple of her Abilities that went up two levels. She’d have to talk to the others later and see if they could manage to get everyone the “without assistance” Feat and Major Feat some time in the future. The Major Feat seemed huge and that meant it was a good thing to spread around, even more so because it was only available once per person.
“Huh,” Dav sounded surprised. “We got a Feat for being caught in an illusion while you killed the corpsevine? That seems weird.”
“I’ve heard of this one,” Amy disagreed. “It’s hard to get because you have to actually be able to kill the monster without being in too much danger. If you get seriously hurt, even if you succeed, the Feat is downgraded and the people who stand by and don’t help you don’t get a Feat at all. You’re supposed to decide as a group when to stand back and when to go for it, and when to step in if it’s too risky. There’s actually also a feat for rescuing someone who’s trying to get the Feat and can’t, but that one only happens if they actually needed rescuing. Modir says not to try for it unless you’re really certain you can get it, because the risks aren’t worth it. I think she might change her mind for Ability levels.”
Sophia wasn’t so certain; her experience with family said that they were a lot more concerned for her safety than they were for her progression. Maybe Amy’s modir - mother? - was different, but she doubted it. She knew better than to say anything out loud, though, so she pulled up her Status instead. She really wanted to see what had changed.
Status [https://i.imgur.com/I8VLhwu.png]
Sophia
Spells:
Unaffiliated Abilities:
Warped Human
(Rush, 1, 2)
(Innate Communication, Bonus, Free)
(Feather Image)
(Spell Hardening, 3, 3)
Body: 6
Martial Abilities:
(Visual Targeting, 3, 3)
Core: 8
(Stunning Roar, 1, 1)
(Disruptive Magic, 2, 2)
Shield: 30
Species Spells:
Species Abilities:
(Force Bolt, 3, 3)
(Aura Armor, 2, 2)
Wisps: 108
(Force Blast, 3, 3)
(Spell Reservoir, 3, 3)
(Feather Image)
(MageSight, 2, 2)
Spheres
Attunements:
Spellblade (Hallow)
Contraceptive Amulet, 3
Spellblade Abilities:
Level: 2
(Imbue Blade, 3, 3)
(Animate Blade, 3, 3)
Collector (Linked)
(Animate Spell Blade, 3, 3)
Level: 2
(Collected Knowledge, 3, 3)
There were definitely a lot more than “a couple” Abilities pushed to level 3 by the Major Feat. If that meant they’d always cost as much as an Ability two Levels lower than they were, Sophia could see why everyone really pushed getting a good number of Abilities while you were low Level; this was going to save her a lot in the future. Why hadn’t Rensyn mentioned this as the reason?
Maybe this wasn’t the reason to have a lot of Abilities early on? She was pretty sure the reason she was given was that it was cheaper to buy them and upgrade them as she Leveled than it was to buy them outright later, which was also a good reason. This only made it better.