Six had no time to dodge and took the shrapnel straight to his front. His Ring of Prophetic Vital Shield activated and three transparent golden shields layered over the mirage like Force Shell. Even still, the detonation was too much and the magical shields shattered in sequence, the magical force too much. The smaller bits and shards of shrapnel flecked off his armor but Six did not escape unscathed. He was pushed, sliding backwards across the floor. His already damaged body inhaled the broken cloud of crystal granules that puffed aways from the explosion, bits and pieces getting into his squinted eyes. He hacked out a rejecting cough and his body seized in pain.
Six stood and his body felt like it was on fire, his chest aflame. He wrenched his burning eyes open and lowered his gaze to see his armor penetrated by a sliver of this crystal, the protruding tip glowing in a calmer resonance.
Six fell to his knees, he felt weak.
You have been afflicted with mana saturation for 8 damage (19/557)
He had no mana to cast Vital Surge, or Imbue Life. He withdrew a potion from his spatial ring, the bottle appearing in his gauntlets, slick with black gore.
He dropped it.
“Fuck.”
For just a moment everything began to go dark, then a gentle hand rested on his back, life rushed into Six. It was a minor salve. His body still burned even within the cooling lake of whatever healing he’d just received.
Health: 108/557
His chest heaved against the pain and he brought in air but it was agony. Agony did not matter right now, Six needed air. A deep part of him knew that and it cut through the all consuming pain.
A potion was brought to his lips and Six drank deep, shivering, fighting to not waste a drop.
It too was just a minor balm to the inferno that six bathed in.
Dying wasn’t an option. Six focused his mind beyond the pain. He put it behind him.
“Mana,” Six grunted, and another potion was brought to his lips.
He cast Vital Surge and Imbue Life as fast as he could and saw his health rise again. His shuddering breath calmed and he managed to bring his awareness to the present. The voices around him, coming into focus.
Kali Kik was repeating a plea to him. “Don’t remove it. Don’t remove it.”
Irduth and Aclo were bickering over the crystal shrapnel littered about the audience chamber.
Indigo stood ready with more potions.
He had stabilized
It took a few hours for the mana saturation debuff to fall off to one damage per tick. The endless damage was painful and irritating but it was something his Earthen Endurance could counteract easily enough at this point.
Earthen Endurance healed 322 health a minute which equated to about 5 hp regened a second. More than enough to overcome the 1 damage a second he was receiving from the mana saturation.
Kali Kik didn’t want to remove the shard in case it caused more damage but Six protested in regards to him fighting.
He couldn’t tank effectively with a crystal shard protruding from his chest.
Kali Kik suggested he assist with his long range magic until they could have it removed.
Keegan and Narhurin were more than willing to shoulder more of the vanguard.
They rested in a side chamber, Aclo watching for anyone searching for the dead mages.
Six checked his prompts and revelled at the onslaught of skill increase prompts.
Skill increases:
Analyze - Initiate - Level 12
Elemental Magic - Initiate - Level 13
Force Magic - Initiate - 7
Butchery - Initiate - 12
Blood Magic - Initiate - 10
Blood Casting - Initiate - 11
Cycle Magic - Initiate - 9
Athletics - Initiate - 13
Heavy Armor - Apprentice - 25
Meditation - Initiate - Level 17
Some increased by two.
Chainsaw - Initiate - 8
Mindfulness - Initiate - 14
He grunted in satisfaction, this last battle, although brief, had brought his skills over several thresholds.
He checked his quest prompts.
Exploitation Disruption
Juthe-Wei Yudinzo has seen it fit to send a group of arcane scholars to the tsunken aelf homeland. Your soldiers cry out for a countering response and do not wish to see this opportunity fall to the hands of their enemy.
Rewards for Accepting: Increase of relationship with the officers.
Rewards for Completion: Voluntary Spiritual Energy
Superior Rank Item
Time Limit: Unknown
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Penalty for Failure: Loss of relationship with the officers. Loss of control over Superior Item.
Quest Succeeded.
Note:
The Superior ranked item, the Land Heart, was damaged in the struggle for dominance. A new one will not manifest for five years.
As such, you may choose an alternative item or receive (10,000) additional experience in compensation.
Well shit. Six was conflicted about this turn of events. He wasn’t sure what he was losing and he wasn’t sure what the ‘compensation’ would be. It all felt like the system was covering its ass after the fact.
Six wasn’t worried about getting experience, it would just take time to accumulate. If he could get another Superior ranked item now he judged it a more valuable increase in resources.
But it's not like whining would change anything.
So, Six chose the ‘Alternative item’ choice and was immediately presented with three choices.
- Demon Mind Singularity -
Rank: Superior
Rarity: Mythic
Weight: 151 G
Durability: 4660/4660
Traits: The condensed minds of the demonic hordes of the 23rd Corridors War. Sentient, Material, Reagent, Consumable
- Ever-Red Toque of Big Jim the Killer -
Rank: Superior
Rarity: Mythic
Defense: 31
Weight: 1.1 KG
Durability: 5100/5100
Traits: Empowers the users lifeforce with the blood of the slain. Temporarily increases overall health and health regen in relation to the amount of blood spilled in a 0.5 KM radius.
- Fang of Ilmareth -
Rank: Superior
Rarity: Rare
Weight: 2.7 KG
Durability: 7500/7500
Traits: The Fang of Ilmareth. A dragon tooth forged into a longsword and imbued with the Solar Fire affinity. Material, Reagent
This was an easy choice for Six as he was not really interested in picking up swords. Really, he wished to grind his Chainsaw skill as fast as possible, so the fang wouldn’t be that useful to him. The toque was interesting but it required spilling blood to be useful, a limitation Six wanted to avoid being dependent on. He was already a bloodmage, the hat would just make him more reliant on carnage.
Six picked the Demon Mind Singularity. It being a sentient reagent of the Superior rank made it an incredibly valuable enchanting material. It would most likely give him the ability to bestow a higher degree of thought to one of his creations. A powerful modification.
The system placed his quest reward discretely within an empty slot in his spatial ring. It was a dark black orb, shifting under eldritch green flames that seemed to make howling faces as they danced.
Spooky.
Alongside the Superior item came experience points that when combined with his gains from all the battling pushed him well into level 13, putting him at 82613 experience.
He assigned his stat points, two to constitution and one to strength, endurance, charisma, and luck.
He earned another 35 perk points but saved them for later spending, all the good stuff cost more than he could earn in one go.
He saw no need to spend any of his skill points either. While he could bring some into Apprentice rank he did not, preferring instead to level them naturally at the easier lower levels.
After a short rest he led them back into the ante chamber, the remains of the fallen and crystal debris undisturbed.
A thorough search of the corpses revealed a bevy of magical items. Most of the haul were simple things, potions and gem based devices. The few items of significant magical potency belonged to the evolved mage.
- Cold Steel Hammer of the Frozen Lake -
Rank: Enhanced
Rarity: Rare
Weight: 4.7 KG
Durability: 3300/3300
Traits: A hammer imbued with the theory of cessation. Strikes with this hammer do additional strength and constitution based damage.
- Lareon Belt of the Rising Cloud -
Rank: Enhanced
Rarity: Rare
Weight: 1.1 KG
Durability: 1100/1100
Traits: Allows the user to levitate at a rate of 2 meters per second for 1 charge per ten minutes. 29/35 charges.
Six was interested in the belt and breaking it down for the levitation properties it demonstrated but allowed it to go to Irduth who expressed a loud desire for compensation. He had risked his life and Six felt that worth something.
The hammer went to Indigo, the young man wanting to use it as a weapon for self-defence and an alchemical tool.
All Six really took was the high quality smokeweed the evolved mage had. It looked like the stuff from back home, covered in teech. His herbology skill was too low to properly identify it but he knew what it was enough to get a half reading.
- Justiral Smokeweed -
Rank: Enhanced
Rarity: Rare
Weight: 10 G
Durability: 10/10
Traits: Consumable, Material, Reagent
He could consume it, but he didn’t know exactly what it would do. So, he just stored it for now.
The rest of the minor magic items, while interesting, were inferior to anything Six had currently. It would be better to outfit his soldiers with some utility.
They had gathered up the dust and shards of the Land Heart, it was some sort of crystal reagent. Six could tell he could use it as a power source of fuel type material. It was split amongst a Six, Aclo, Indigo, and Irduth.
Aclo protested and claimed it was his birthright but Six shut him down. He was already getting pretty strong and despite being a lower level than these soldiers his gear and golems were allowing him to hit high above his weight. They needed to distribute some of this gear advantage around to scale the effectiveness of the overall volume of their party.
Keegan had been injured by the hammer and his wound was ugly, a frozen and cracked patch of flesh, the wet tender pink of his insides visible through the fractures in his skin.
The man bore it well, grunting and huffing but never complaining. He reported a unique Frozen Lake condition that sapped both his strength and constitution, the effects of the hammer. It would take time to heal naturally as Kali Kik could not cast the greater magics required for such serious wounds.
Six was somewhat crippled as well, the crystal shard embedded in his chest keeping him from any serious clashes.
Even still, they explored the room thoroughly, and that led to Aclo finding a secret chamber.
A section of wall slid open into the ceiling as the tsunken aelf inspected the area.
“I did nothing,” Aclo said, suspiciously.
“Well, it's open now,” Six said.
The chamber was small, there was a littering of treasure scattered about the perimeter of the room and held four skeletons, one of which had been partially crushed by the door. This was a secret vault that had been used as a safe room.
The crushed skeleton's legs were pulverized, as it fell prone half under the door. It must have been moments from making it. The only items it had that had not rotted away were a white porcelain mask, smooth and featureless with two black dots for eyes and a crack down the middle. There was also a glittering dagger, glinting with a blue light.
The three skeletons in the center were more, piles of bones and jewelry. Probably nobles of some sort. Family of Aclo.
They all moved to loot but Six held them back with an arm.
“Oh?” Irduth snickered.
Six looked past the priest and towards the tsunken aelves of his party. “Do you know any rituals for taking from the dead?”
They looked surprised for a second. Narhurin turned thoughtful. Bark's face took on a sardonic grin. Aclo grit his teeth in rage.
“We shouldn’t desecrate this place,” Aclo grunted.
“There is nothing sacred here to desecrate, “ Irduth jeered. “Only heathens fit for annihilation!”
“We do not know these people,” Six said with gravely stoicism. “We treat the dead with respect.”
“Even war crim-”
SIx cut him off. “You don’t know shit.”
The priest stepped back with pursed lips, offended.
Six continued. “Yo, Aclo, we are taking this shit. I can’t allow any advantage to leave our grasp. Sorry.” Six tried his best to apologize but it felt weak in the face of Aclo’s objections. Six tried to not let it bother him as he moved in and began to catalog the haul.
Overall it was mostly gold, gems, and jewelry of the mundane kind. Good for the coffers of Mountain’s End but nothing that would change their immediate power.
But there were a few magic items of interest.
Aclo received the broken white mask and the Adamas Shortsword of Lunar Resolve. Although the mask was broken and inert, Aclo saw value in it as a relic of his people. The shortsword was magical in nature, made of a durable material, its physical strikes were enhanced by the users emotional state. Six wasn’t sure it would be used to greatest effect in the hands of someone emotionally volatile like Aclo but it wasn’t Six’s pick to make.
Indigo received the Bangles of Dexterity, allowing him to perform more complicated brewing techniques and contribute a bit more directly in martial conflicts.
Kali Kik, Bark, and Irduth took one of the enhanced grade mana cores, a simple choice of pure power.
Keegan took some ancient jewelry he identified as K’gan in nature, a cultural request much the same as Aclo.
Narhurin received a ring similar to Six’s Ring of Prophetic Vital Shield but it functioned off of darkness mana instead of life.
Six took the lion's share of crafting materials, high quality mana cores, stillver and glittering adamas ingots, preserved and aged alchemical reagents, and much more that would propel his enchantments to the next level. He would go over it more thoroughly back home. But, there was also a book, a magic book.
- Magical Grimoire of Bloodwell Shaping -
Rank: Enhanced
Rarity: Mythic
Defense - 100
Weight - 3 KG
Durability 75/75
Traits: Capable of teaching the user the Bloodwell Shaping spell. Allowing the user to store and apply racial ancestry traits. A heirloom tome from the old age, one of the last vestiges of knowledge and power from the Yudain-zogh blood covens.
Aclo wanted it of course.
“No,” Six refused.
“These are the last remnants of my people. It should go to one of us.” Aclo said gesturing at the three aelves. Narhurin didn’t seem interested but Bark immediately perked up at the suggestion.
“Do any of you have levels in the blood magic skill?” Six asked.
They shook their heads. Aclo scoffed, “no.”
Six put on a face of mock surprise. “Hmm. Oh wow, would you look at that. I do.”
You have activated a magical grimoire for the Moderate Blood Spell: Bloodwell Shaping.
Using this tome will impart the spell knowledge and consume the item. Continue?