Chapter 24
I retreated into the cover of the unburnt part of the forest to watch the transformation, leaning heavily on a tree to recover. The immense serpent whipped its’ head back and forth, searching for me, dull yellow eyes restlessly searching the treeline. Frustrated, it whipped its’ body against the stump of a tower, pummeling it until nothing remained but a pile of stones. It slithered over them even so, compacting them down, ensuring that nothing living remained inside. With another spine-tingling roar, it set off back toward the moving mountain that sat at the center of the tutorial, zig-zagging back and forth in search of other prey. It roared once or twice in the distance, and at one point it clearly stopped to fight with someone or something else along the way; that was not a long distraction, though, and it resumed its’ course shortly after.
I was tempted to pursue it and put an end to it before anyone else could have the opportunity, but my legs trembled with fatigue and pain. I could feel a number of splinters still embedded in my body, smaller fragments left over from near misses. I wearily set about tugging them free, a little touch of flame burning away the wood fragments, the pain hardly noticeable with all of the other agonies I’d been subjected to in the last day. I nearly began to habitually ignite my surroundings, planning to defend myself with that until I had rested enough to recover, but caught myself at the last moment. Right now, the very last thing I wanted was more attention; even if the snake had left, I still didn’t know where the hammer-man had gone. Marcus.
The name seemed familiar to me, paired with the voice. It was a small but persistent thought that I pushed aside, eyes closing to meditate on everything I had experienced. I focused on the way magic moved through my body, trying to figure out just how much damage my fiery haste had done; the news wasn’t great, but it wasn’t terrible, either. While the muscles seemed damaged from it, the channels through which my energy flowed were not. That curiosity satisfied, I decided to delve into the notifications that I felt dully at the edge of my vision. It was quite a list that opened up; a handful of kills from my fires came first. The quest notification informing me that the Greenwarden had been summoned.
Quest Gained
[The Forest’s Guardian]
The Greenwarden has been summoned, and the creatures of the forest have been empowered. Every creature slain will weaken the Greenwarden according to its’ individual strength.
Additional rewards will be granted for the total strength of beasts slain.
Beware the Guardians, for each is immensely powerful in their own right; a pillar of the Greenwarden’s strength. (0/3)
May the Scribe witness your deeds!
I looked at the trail of destruction that the enormous serpent had left behind it, and guessed that it was probably one of the Guardians mentioned in the quest. I half-dozed as I dug through them, nearly missing three more notifications buried in the rest.
[Level up! You are now level 17. +10 Free points gained from Race and Class.]
[Level up! You are now level 18. +10 Free points gained from Race and Class.]
[Level up! You are now level 19. +10 Free points gained from Race and Class.]
I spread my points around a bit, rounding out most of my attributes and then dumping the rest into Fortitude. Fighting this hard was taking a hell of a toll on my body, and I needed all the resistance I could get; especially with my new trick of speeding myself up with heat, I didn’t want to burn myself to ashes on accident. I smiled, reviewing my information.
Name: David Miller
Path: Arcane Power
Race: Human (F)
Class: Flameheart Sorcerer (5 Will, 5 Wis, 5 Free)
Level: 19 ( )
STRENGTH : 30
DEXTERITY : 44 6
FORTITUDE : 40 11
VITALITY : 57 3
CUNNING : 27 3
PRESENCE : 25+10
WISDOM : 115+5 (+5%)
INTELLIGENCE : 33+15 7
WILLPOWER : 115+15 (+5%)
Points to Distribute: 0
TITLES:
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[Grand Fated] +10 to all attributes.
[First Blood] +5 to all attributes.
[Dungeon Delver] +2 to all attributes.
[Focused Pursuits] +5% to your two highest attributes.
SKILLS:
Fire Manipulation (Adept), Unarmored Defense (Basic), Heat Adaptation (Initiate), Heart of Flame (Initiate), Flameheart’s Hunger (Basic), Crystalflame (Initiate),
I dug through my kill notifications curiously, trying to figure out what had given me so much experience. Three levels since I last checked seemed fast, especially since my last two fights had been… inconclusive. Finally, I arrived on two notifications that I guessed were responsible.
Quest Complete
[Summoning the Greenwarden]
You have united the fragments of the Greenwarden’s Seal and began his summoning.
EXP gained; bonus EXP gained based on contribution. (3/5)
[You have managed to weaken one of the Greenwarden’s Guardians. Defeat it again to destroy it! EXP gained.]
I stared at the notification in confusion, but shrugged slightly. I guess partial answers get partial credit? With the scattered increases to my attributes, I felt my body repairing itself faster, aches slowly shifting from sharp to dull, and fading from dull to nothingness. I spent a little time reviewing my sheet, and lingered on Fire Manipulation. The leap from Basic to Initiate had been easy enough; just some messing around to get familiar with it. Initiate to Adept had been harder, requiring creativity and careful expansion of my abilities to trigger. It seemed logical to me that the next step would probably require pushing my abilities further, though I was moderately surprised it hadn’t happened already; after all, I’d figured out how to set my muscles aflame and run even faster. If that wasn’t creative use of powers, I couldn’t figure out what was.
Something about that thought stuck with me, and I tried to focus in on it, reviewing my thoughts one by one as best I could. I felt like I was on the edge of a breakthrough, if I could just figure out what I was doing wrong. I chewed on my lip in thought, cycling my mana through myself slowly, trying to watch the way it moved for inspiration. Impatience gnawed at me even as I tried to dismiss it, pushing those thoughts aside in my efforts to unravel my fire manipulation ability. It clearly wasn’t just fire, though fire was a big component. It was what gave me the ability to exert my will over fire. I ruminated on the idea of fire, and began idly toying with the wand. It was a good thing to have, given how much energy it took to summon fire otherwise, when it was so much easier to start a fire and then use that-
I froze on the thought, searching it back and forth for a handful of seconds. It was there, buried in that thought. I had a flashback to the fight against the Writhing Puppet that was an ice mage, and the way he turned the whole area cold, weakening my magic… and strengthening his own. It wasn’t just cold, there was intent behind the cold. The cold held an oppressive weight, bearing me down and slowing my movements and attacks, sapping the energy from them. My breathing quickened as I struck on the train of thought, fists clenching as my sides as I drilled in on it. I focused on the idea of heat, the draining feeling of a hot day, the way it made you sweat and struggle to draw breath. Hotter. Water sizzled where it struck the ground, evaporating away in seconds. The absolute weight of oppressive heat bearing down on you, falling from the sky and burning up from the ground, filling the air around you with heat like an oven. Hotter. Burning trees, burning homes, a crematorium burning through flesh and turning bones into dry, brittle sticks.
I could feel the heat around me, trying to imagine it as vividly as I could. I imagined sweat dripping down, falling to the ground, sizzling like oil on a hot pan. I felt my will pooling outward, like a fog that was only visible to my inner sight. I slowly poured power into it, feeling my core of energy roiling as I emanated heat, spreading out in all directions. I opened my eyes and could see the leaves near me curling as they desiccated and burned, as if shrouded in an invisible flame. I took a deep breath and opened my power, pouring it outward, and felt the air itself ignite. It consumed a lot of energy to do… but the effect was immediate. I was surrounded in a ring of fire, the air boiling and rippling like a heat-mirage.
I glanced to the corner of my vision, and the notification appeared.
[Skill Increase]
Fire Manipulation (Adept -> Expert)
You possess growing mastery over your affinity for Flame; a path which is focused almost solely on combat magic, immolating opponents with both direct damage and damage-over-time abilities. Your skill with controlling Fire is increased significantly by your Willpower. This effect is somewhat reduced when controlling flames you did not create, and only functions moderately against flames created by the magic of others. You possess the ability to impose your power in an Aura of Flame, weakening others and strengthening your magic; you become more resistant to attacks of opposing elements, and their magic is more greatly diminished.
I smiled as I reviewed the new ability, seeking out the differences. Most of it was just wording, but Willpower now had more of an affect, functioned ‘moderately’ against other people’s flames instead of weakly… But the last part was the most interesting. This new ability was called an ‘Aura of Flame’, and I could use it to strengthen my own powers. While it didn’t feel like a huge increase, it felt like the flames waited just out of reach; all I needed to do was reach for it, and I could feel the fires spill into my hand. Rather than the sensation of pulling them from far away, using relatively huge amounts of power for a small amount of flame, this felt much more natural, as if all I needed to do was poke a little hole and let the power spill out. It felt like my willpower infused the air itself, strings of control radiating out around me. I could feel the flammability of the tree behind me, knew how much effort it would take to set the bark alight, or burn through to the heartwood, or even burn it all to ash. I reached out with my inner sight, conjuring tiny embers all around me; one here nestled in the branches of a tree where dead leaves had gathered. Another in the cradle of a bush, in a little cluster where dead branches laid across each other. I could sense the weaknesses in my surroundings, out to maybe ten or fifteen feet, but it was enough that the area around me quickly blazed to life with flames, though they kept a respectful distance around me, the flames straining as if waiting for the command to consume everything.
Round two, fight! I laughed at the thought, and began jogging toward the distant, undulating form of the serpent, the flames eagerly keeping up with me. My Aura seemed to parch bark and branches, turning living wood into greedy kindling, all too ready fuel for the flames.