----------------------------------------
Why did the other half of this phylactery thing have to be in a desert? Jace was panting from the effort it took to walk along the desert surface. Not having something solid to grip his claws into was making traversal of the terrain very labor intensive. The weight of his prosthetics was not helping either, as each step caused him to sink a good few inches, which he then had to pull out again; plodding forward at a slow pace.
Priam, on the other hand, was walking atop the sand with no issue. He was constantly pointing out various desert phenomena that his father had told him about – mostly elaborating on what exactly a mirage was. The way he vividly described the desert terrain was almost artistic, in a way. “I’ve never been in a desert until now,” he stated mid-diatribe. “It’s…I feel like I’m meant to be here, y’know?”
For Jace, the chatter and lesson was a welcome reprieve from the silence of travel he had endured back on Velenar Prime and earlier on this Nihil…Nihileth… Damnit. I hate this world’s confusing name.
After traveling through the day, the duo traveled – according to the map – halfway across the desert tile. No sign of a Complex so far, Jace thought, just sand dunes in every direction.
They had paused at the top of a particularly large hill and stared across the admittedly beautiful landscape. The golden-yellow sands shifted and billowed ever so slightly, giving an appearance like the ocean softly surging.
“I wish I had an (Information) Boon,” Jace muttered as they took their meal and water break on the high point.
“Oh, I have two!” Priam replied as he wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “I’ve got a Common one and an Epic one.”
Ollie flew in front of the two and his eyes flashed through various shapes that Bloopa communicated with. “Common should be good enough to get the location of every Complex on this tile.”
Priam looked at Jace, “Want me to?”
“If you would.”
“Bloopa! Hit it!”
The Wayfinder companion of his ally shimmered and pulsed with a dull, blue light as the shapes twisted. “Looks good!” Ollie stated as he flew over to Jace and pulled up the map.
“Oh, we’re right near one,” Jace said, surprised at how close it was. “Just down the hill.”
Priam frowned and Jace could swear he saw the bunny-boy’s hat move slightly. “Huh…weird.”
“What is?” Jace asked as he looked at his companion.
“Look at your map…is that Complex…moving?”
Jace refocused his attention and got to his feet. It’s coming towards us.
<<<<<>>>>>
[Warning! You are about to enter a Complex!]
[This location has been marked by The Cosmic System as Tier 2.]
[Number of foes to clear out: 1.]
<<<<<>>>>>
[Quest: Slay the Boreworm.]
[Time Limit: N/A]
[Reward: Rare (Equipment Augmentation) Boon.]
[Sender: The Cosmic System.]
<<<<<>>>>>
Jace drew his weapon and quickly fired off his go-to combat Skills. Dark Matter Blade (Rank 5) [Rending], Dark Matter Shield (Rank 3). Glancing sideways, he saw that Priam had grabbed his book and closed his eyes briefly. The golden-yellow honeycomb barrier popped in place around both of them.
“It’s coming closer!” Priam shouted as he scanned the environment directly in front of and below the duo.
I don’t see it, Jace thought as he scanned the sand. Where is it?
“It’s under us!” Priam hopped to the side, and Jace tried to follow up, but couldn’t. Instead, his jump became a tumble down the dune as he flipped end over end. Thankfully, he was able to turn upright and skidded to a stop at the bottom of the dune, upright.
Behind them, where they were just sitting, an easily 50-foot wide, leathery-hide creature popped out of the top of the massive dune. Boreworm. Right. Underground. That makes some sense. It began to retract, and Jace took the momentary opening to throw his sword. It scored a hit, and the purple and crimson began to spread. It’s big, I won’t be able to kill it with just a few nicks.
Priam shouted out as he pointed his hand at it – only a few feet from the creature, since he was off to the side and had not fallen – “Priest’s Smite (Rank 1) [Marking]!” There was a pulse of electricity that shot from right above the creature and streaked downward, and the creature barely reacted.
But, for a brief moment, it was highlighted in the same crackling, yellow lightning before that suddenly surged, then faded. Huh. The damage over time effects I have can trigger his [Marking] Evolution. But he needs more Ranks in that Skill to be able to help at all offensively. Jace was able to recall and toss the sword twice more before the enormous mass vanished into the sand dune once more.
There was a surge in front of Jace, and he tried to jump away – but his claws did not have much to push off of, and he didn’t go vaulting to the side as expected. Stupid desert! An enormous, spiked maw appeared in front of him – and he had no way to get around it. Fuck!
It engulfed him, and he saw the golden honeycomb barrier begin to buckle and crack. Oh, hell no! I’m not dying inside a giant worm! “Burn this thing to death! Pyromancy – activate!”
The world exploded in red and white flames. Jace saw the sky once more as an enormous shockwave of incinerating fury tore through the monstrous creature. A pillar of fire soared into the sky, and the scent of roasted and burned meat hit his nostrils.
Priam was at the top of the dune. “Good job!”
<<<<<>>>>>
[Quest Completed: Slay the Boreworm.]
[Time Limit: N/A]
[Reward: Rare (Equipment Augmentation) Boon.]
[Sender: The Cosmic System.]
<<<<<>>>>>
“You take the Boon,” Jace shouted up to Priam, who gave him a thumbs-up in response. Jace looked to Ollie, “Dust it.”
<<<<<>>>>>
[Stardust Acquired: 500]
<<<<<>>>>>
“Split half and half?” Ollie asked.
Jace nodded as he looked off to the next Complex on the map. It was then that he noticed…all of them were slowly moving. Except for one. Conveniently enough, it looked like it was just next to the phylactery ‘System Glitch’ location. A dungeon core popped up on a pedestal next to him, and he grabbed it. 64.
Priam came slipping down the dune and got next to him, “Good kill!”
“And I’m only operating these Archmage spells at 25% efficiency?”
Ollie nodded, “Yup!”
“Can we transfer the Skills to Priam? He’d be able to make more use of them.”
“Sadly, no. Not now, at least. Maybe Xera would know a way?”
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Priam’s ears sagged a little, “Just means we gotta wait.” His ears perked up immediately after, “Well, hey – you having versatility is still good!”
Jace nodded, “True. Now, let’s come up with a plan of attack for these things that doesn’t involve me being eaten and using a once-per-day Skill.”
Priam put his hand to his chin as the duo kept walking to the Southwest. “Well, from what dad told me, there’s all types of desert predators! The best way to keep away from them is to tread lightly.”
Jace winced and looked down at his legs, “Yeah, that’s not really an option.”
“Hmm…maybe…” Priam frowned, “Nope, that won’t work…Maybe some shoe- nope, claws would go through it. Plus, where would we get the material?” He shook his head, “Nope! No way around it; you’ll attract them.”
“Then a plan of attack,” Jace stated as he looked at his Skill readout in the corner of his vision. “I can’t grapple to anything for mobility except the ground – and I could use that to drag myself away from the emergence point. I have the Dark Energy Beam that could probably do some damage, but I don’t know where their vital parts are. Plus it’s really energy intensive.”
Ollie raised his paw, “The weak spot is their butt. Well, close to it.”
“Ew,” Jace said.
“Yuck!” Priam said at the same time.
Ollie chuckled, “Hey, you wanted to know.”
So, we’d have to bait it out of the ground to the point that we could get at its backside. And my Dark Energy Mine… “Ollie, for Dark Energy Mine, does it need to encompass the thing? Or just ‘tag’ a part of it?”
“Just touching it with the radius of the effect will affect it.”
Jace smiled, “Then I think we have our solution.” He pulled out some garbage from one of the survival meals from his pack. “Dark Energy Mine (Rank 1).” The tiny dot of black appeared on the object, and he handed it to Priam. “When it gets close, I’m going to stand still. You make as much motion as you can to attract its attention. Drop this trash. Then, I’ll grapple-pull you out of the way.”
“I’m…You’re going to use me as bait?” Priam asked.
“Sort of,” Jace replied. “I can yank you over to me pretty quickly, and you’re more maneuverable than I am, anyways.”
Priam’s lips grew taught and he nodded, “It’s…scary, but I’ll try my best!”
“Then we keep going to this non-System integrated location. Get that phylactery.”
----------------------------------------
Yholl was watching The Dungeon Run play out across his world. Most of the tiles were fully cleared, and a few groups of Aspirants were making a beeline for the remaining dungeons. A group of about twelve had taken up hiding places near the starting point, presumably planning to ambush those returning and take their dungeon cores. Too bad, Yholl thought. Once all the cores are claimed, they all are teleported to my feast hall for the ceremony.
It wasn’t really much of a choice he had. Once all the dungeon cores had been collected, the world itself would quite literally shift and warp. The tiles would all flatten before the world terraformed itself – with just a smidge of his guidance. If he did not recall the Aspirants, they would likely be crushed in the new terraforming. And he wanted those dungeon cores.
Scanning through his various sensors, he picked up the interesting duo trekking across the desert tile to the Southwest edge of the world. Slow moving without terrain to tether to and launch from, eh? No more blitzing through dungeons. He sat up straighter in his chair as his magical sensors followed the two from high above. Why would they go to a place that limits mobility so much? That makes no sense.
The rewards for the desert tile were the same as the mountain tile. And they were at a much greater disadvantage. But the smaller, floppy-eared humanoid was…different. He was moving across the sands with ease. Oh, he must come from a desert world. Yholl chuckled, that makes more sense. The terrain might not benefit the prosthetic one, but rather the organic one.
He saw the ground moving off in the distance from the two. And look at that. Another dungeon approaches.
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“Now!” Jace shouted. He shot his grapnel out to his side – attaching it to Priam’s barrier – and pulled the bunny-boy out of the way of the boreworm’s upward attack. The Pulsar Priest was pulled back to Jace’s location, and the Dark Matter Ascendant waited until the creature had just popped out of the sand. Detonate.
The Dark Energy Mine, attached to that scrap of trash that was now inside that creature’s maw, went off. The creature wriggled in the air – attempting to move down by shifting its coiling form. Jace fired off the grapnel line again, attaching to the monster, and pulled himself up to it. From there it was just a matter of slashing. For the twenty-eight seconds of time he had where its movement was massively impaired, he chopped in. Over and over, into the same few spots. The thick, viscous, oozing brown blood smelled foul and he almost gagged – but pushed past the discomfort.
The crimson and purple spread from the wounds and each additional slash inflicted more of it, and damaging effects spread faster with each strike. Priam called down several bolts of electricity that jolted the creature – not much damage, but every little bit helped – and Jace’s [Rending] effect triggered the [Marking] Evolution immediately. With two seconds left, Jace kicked off the creature and landed a few feet away.
The anti-gravity faded, and the creature began burrowing into the sand and fleeing. Jace looked back to Priam and gave him the thumbs-up, “Now we wait.”
Priam walked over with his characteristic, enthusiastic grin plastered on his face. “That wasn’t so bad! Being bait was easy.”
Jace patted the smaller man on the shoulder, “Yeah, I told you you’d be fine.”
<<<<<>>>>>
[Quest Completed: Slay the Boreworm.]
[Time Limit: N/A]
[Reward: Rare (Skill Evolution) Boon.]
[Sender: The Cosmic System.]
<<<<<>>>>>
About twenty feet away, the creature reappeared on the surface of the desert sands. As if it was trying to escape from the debris that it most likely could not differentiate from the bleeding effect and constant micro-singularities. The duo walked over to it, and Jace gestured for Ollie. “Dust it.”
<<<<<>>>>>
[Stardust Acquired: 500]
<<<<<>>>>>
He looked over to Priam, and watched as Ollie shot a stream of stardust into Bloopa. “And that is 250 for you,” Ollie said with a smile.
"And a (Skill Evolution)," Jace muttered. “We can have multiple per Skill, can’t we?” Jace asked as he glanced up at Ollie – who was hanging just over his head from inside the hood.
“Yup. Just one can be active at once.”
“Alright. Ollie, let’s use it on Cosmic Infusion.”
“I…I do not know what that will do,” Ollie muttered. “But if you want it, we can try it.”
“Why the concern?” Priam asked.
“Well…it is constantly ‘on’ for Jace. Same as his Swordmage Stance. And you cannot deactivate a Skill Evolution on something that is always ‘on’. You have to swap it to something else.” Ollie had a slight frown.
“So I couldn’t even turn off Astral Annihilator if I wanted to?” Jace asked.
“What’s that?” Priam asked.
Jace turned to grab the dungeon core that appeared on a pedestal from where the boreworm’s body came to rest. “It’s an Evolution for my Swordmage Stance. I can sunder Skills with my bladed weapons.”
Priam’s mouth went slack, “That…that explains why you could pop my barriers so easily!”
Jace nodded and flexed his Anathema Arm, “This thing can do the same for magic. Just by touching and willing it.”
“So cool! I would love prosthetics, but it would reduce my soul energy. And I’d rather try to get back home and receive some blessings from the gods. Those could be really neat Skills that no one else has!”
I wish I could give him the World Pillar Skills, Jace thought. Hopefully, Xera can come up with a workaround or transfer. “Okay Ollie, let’s do what I wanted. Skill Evolution on Cosmic Infusion.”
<<<<<>>>>>
[Using Boon: Rare (Skill Evolution).]
[Applying to Skill.]
[Skill Name: Cosmic Infusion.]
[Evolution Name: Innervating.]
[Effect: Increases energy regeneration rate from all sources.]
<<<<<>>>>>
Jace had felt slightly tired after the fight – mostly due to the Dark Energy Mine – but he felt almost refreshed. “That’s nice,” he stated.
Ollie flew out in front of him and put his paws to his cheeks, “Priam, you seeing this?”
“I am!”
“…What?” Jace asked.
“We don’t have any mirror, do we?” Priam asked Ollie and Bloopa. The Wayfinder made of shapes mode and shimmered before flying in front of Jace and forming a large square. He could see his skin had taken on a slightly silvery hue, with streaks of gold throughout.
Jace was taken aback at first, but he hadn’t seen much of his own reflection over his life. This is just what I look like, now. He smiled and nodded, “Thank you, Bloopa.”
The shapes shifted once more and moved to float just above Priam. Ollie flew back into Jace’s hood and nestled just behind his head – popping his little whiskers and nose over Jace’s forehead. “Let us continue! The phylactery awaits!”