Chapter 146: Fairness in a Two Versus One
The three groups gathered on deck. The sailors adjusted the trajectory, leading the ship closer to shore. Should they needed help, it may arrive sooner. The rest of the sailors headed inside, sealing themselves within secure rooms within the ship, along with the other passengers and their cargo.
“How many are there?”
“I don’t know twenty? Thirty? Mostly normal rank, but there’s iron and bronze rankers. They’re still far out and it’s hard to tell,” Nara said.
“Captain Kezo.” Sen addressed the man in question. “Can we out speed them?”
Kezo shook his head. “Our lookout’s gotten an eye on ‘em. Their ship is faster than ours.”
“We’ll have to fight them,” Sen said.
The battle would be difficult. They couldn’t use tactics that would damage this ship, such as the Rune Traps that were a staple of Sen’s strategies. That put all of their escorts at risk.
“Can we destroy their ship before they get close?” Nara asked.
“That’s not likely, miss,” Captain Kezo said. “Hulls are reinforced with magic. Even if we didn’t have you all here defend, the hull would not be seriously damaged by monsters it couldn’t repair away. You could tear chunks of it away, but it’d still make it here as long as those pirates had enough supplies to fuel the repairs.”
“Do they even know there’s adventurers here?” Eufemia asked, “In my experience—Hypothetically, if I stole something I wouldn’t have targeted a mark with this many adventurers.”
Kezo shrugged. “You’ve been commissioned for a reason, miss, if you excuse my saying so. Nothing valuable is unprotected. A big ol’ crew of thirty would need more than some cheap marks.”
Eufemia scowled; she was well aware of how small time she had been.
“There’s no silver rankers aboard?” Sen asked Nara.
“Not that I can tell.” Which was neither good nor bad news, because no sense of a ranker didn’t mean there wasn’t one.
Sen rubbed his hands together, in thought.
“How long do we have until interception, Captain?”
“Ten minutes, give or take two, according to ol’ Jess.”
“Nara do you think you could spy on them? Nahir, are you able to conceal yourself in water?”
Nahir was the adventurer with high underwater speed, wielded a trident, and paired with a shark familiar. He was part of one of the other two teams escorting the ship together with them.
“I have a transfiguration skill that will conceal me as a shark. Easy.”
Sen had become the de facto leader of the three teams. He had natural authority and was the leader of the largest team. Combined with his lineage, there was no complaints if he took charge.
“Go with Nara and see what you can detect above the boat.”
“Understood.”
Nara didn’t have a concealment skill, except for the effects of her Moonlight Raiment. However, the aura manipulation she had learned from Laius, along with the aura control and aura strength she had been refining meant she could get away with it.
“Can you breathe underwater?” Nahir asked her.
“I don’t need to breathe at all.”
He arched an eyebrow, but it wasn’t the time for questions, and he didn’t seem to care for the details. “You can ride with my familiar. Hold his fin tight.”
Nara held on for dear life as the shark and a transformed Nahir shot through the water. Nara did not have the ability to perceive through water. What she saw ahead was an expanse of deep blue, the water beneath fading into darkness. Any undercurrents of thalassophobia were suppressed for the impending infiltration.
The two other teams, the captain, and important crew members had received a brief explanation of Nara’s Party Guide. They were all added to the party. At bronze rank, Nara could add one hundred people to her ability. If the scaling continued, that would be one hundred thousand people at diamond rank. A number so large as to be impractical. Nara couldn’t think of a single situation where she’d need to add so many people and dreaded a situation if she had to.
Nahir and Nara approached the pirate ship, the shadow obscuring light and casting darkness into the water.
“My ability isn’t suited for above-water reconnaissance,” Nahir communicated through voice chat.
“I’ll handle it. Stick nearby in case we need to return quickly.”
“I will do so.”
Nara released Nahir’s shark familiar, floating in the water with the help of some minor weight manipulation. She examined the ship, probing it gently with her senses.
“What’s the matter?”
“Is it possible for this to be a ship conjuration?”
Nahir studied the pirate ship.
“This ship isn’t that. I’ve seen conjured ships. They feel different.”
It was a rather unsubstantiated instinct, Nahir had more experience in this field, so she trusted his conclusion. She sent Sage bodies upwards. Sage couldn’t exactly fly, but she could climb and hover above surfaces, which included vertical walls, or slip through walls that were thin enough and didn’t have protections against intangible entities.
Nara followed, leaping up to the deck once Sage had given her the clear.
She didn’t need to move far to realize the issue.
“They have hostages on deck,” Nara told the whole group. “I’m going to check below as well.”
“They’ll threaten their lives if we don’t hand over our goods.” Captain Kezo said, “I’ve heard murmurings of such tactics on land. Made up to counter the adventurers, put them in an uncomfortable position.”
“Can you verify if they were genuine hostages?” Sen asked.
“I’ll see what I can find out.”
The clock was ticking on what Nara could discover. She could feel the bronze rankers; they were below deck, in what presumably was the captain’s quarters. They auras showed no signs of detecting her. The captain was the strongest of the bunch, close to peak bronze. All of their auras beheld the hue of monster core usage, which Nara had learned to recognize.
“Can you sneak into the captain’s quarters, Sage?”
“It is within my capabilities, benefactor. Their auras are unimpressive.”
Sage’s aura capabilities grew with Nara’s. As a stealth and utility familiar, her aura was even harder to detect than Nara’s. Nara’s increased aura strength was reflected with Sage; Unless the opponent was a skilled silver ranker or possessed advanced detection capabilities, Sage was unlikely to be detected.
Sage set about her tasks, and Nara set about hers, sneaking through the creaking wood corridors of the ship. It was mostly unadorned, a ship that sacrificed all aesthetics for capability: speed and durability. Few pirates patrolled the corridors, the pre-battle strategy meeting had created an exploitable hole in their defenses. What few pirates did pass her were normal rank—unimportant to the meeting—and so poorly trained in aura that Nara could probably walk in front of them without notice, although she did not push her luck in this instance, instead teleporting to empty adjoining rooms, or jumping up to the ceiling to escape notice.
There were captives in cells at the bottom, mostly women looking worse for wear. The terror in their eyes and their shivering bodies told Nara these were genuine hostages. There was no guard at the cells. The pirates did not expect their home base to be so deeply infiltrated. Nara supposed, if they were boarded, the entire point of their strategy had already failed.
“I might be able to free these captives and portal them back,” said Nara through the Guide. “But not both groups. The pirates would sense the moment I got one group to leave.” Nara could hide herself, but she did not posses the power to shield others from their senses, or replicate their auras as dummies when they left.
The ones at the top deck were too visible. Once she called her portal, there would be a ten-minute cooldown. She couldn’t portal both groups.
“Portal what you can,” Sen said, making a judgement call.
“If Eufemia comes through the portal, do you think she could portal the top group?”
Sen pondered this option.
“Do you think you can fight off all the pirates in time to evacuate?”
“Maybe? I just don’t know.”
Sen thought evacuating what hostages they could, regardless of how many couldn’t escape or got caught up in the crossfire was the better option. The alternative was to have them used against them later, where they may die in battle anyway.
His next thought—what would pose the greatest burden to Nara? If any captives died as she helped them escape, it would weigh on her mind, more than if they died in battle later, or at the hands of a pirate. Sen wasn’t cruel; He wanted to save as many people as possible. The situation could devolve quickly, and he couldn’t predict the future. He had a decision to make, as was his role as team leader.
“Bring Eufemia aboard. Sabotage the ship. Rescue as many hostages as you can but prioritize your own lives.”
“Sen…”
“Nara, if any die it is not your fault. The pirates are the criminals. You cannot save everyone. This will not be the last time.”
Nara had done something risky back in Crystal Quarry Village 6. There wasn’t always a risky plan that she could pull off, and the risky plan wouldn’t always result in less casualties. They weren’t the criminals; they were the rescuers. They could only do the best they could.
It was a foreboding last statement, and one Nara knew was true.
*****
Eufemia, the semi-professional former conman and thief, had a solution to Nara’s conundrum.
“Aura dummies. They don’t last long and are an annoying coinage each, but useful to feint numbers, generate cover, or provide a distraction,” Eufemia explained. They were small cylinders, with a simple button activation at the top that glowed indicating their state. She activated them one by one as each captive passed through the portal. “Makes a random normal rank aura. It won’t hold up under scrutiny, but no one pays attention to normal rankers anyway. Especially not a bronze rank pirate. To them, they’re insignificant.”
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Ability: [Insight]
Perception
Cost: None
Cooldown: None
Effect (Iron): Perceive deception and emotions.
Effect (Bronze): Perceive auras.
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Nara may have the most expansive, strongest, and stealthiest aura, but Eufemia had the greatest ability to read the auras of others, thanks to the effects of her perception ability, Insight. She could roughly judge the personality of the pirate captain from his aura without alerting him of her causal inspection. It told her what she needed to know—that his guard was down, and his attention was elsewhere.
The below deck captives had escaped through the portal, thanking Nara and Eufemia with their eyes and scurrying with quiet steps like mice avoiding the cat.
While Eufemia’s attention was on the captain, Nara attention was elsewhere—the other normal rank pirates, whose auras were unusually distressed, even for a pirate ship about to attack an adventurer-escorted merchant vessel. Nara may not have Eufemia’s insight into the mind, but if these pirates were willing to take hostages, why stop at just threatening adventurers?
“Wait,” Nara quietly grabbed the arms of one of the women gently, “Can I borrow that bracelet of yours?”
The woman quickly nodded and untied the bracelet to hand to Nara. She was a smart woman, understanding Nara’s intentions without so much as a word of explanation.
“Please, free them,” she entreated quietly, placing a weathered but surprisingly strong hand upon Nara’s arm.
“Describe him for me,” Nara said.
The woman leaned forward and whispered into Nara’s ear. With an expression of cautious hope, she disappeared through the portal.
***
“I feel like we’re some sort of sabotaging duo. Two bad peas in a pod.”
“Now such an inelegant description hardly suits us two beautiful ladies.”
“So beautiful we heartbreak and hull-break?”
“Haaaah…Not what I had in mind, but I think it’s the best I’ll get out of you.”
There were only six minutes left until the pirate ship was within attack distance of the trading ship. In that time, Eufemia could set 12 total Rune Traps thanks to Convenient Copy.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
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Ability: [Prodigious Sorcerer]
Essence: Adept
Awakening Stone: Magus
Special Ability / Spell
Cost: Moderate mana
Cooldown: None
Effect (Iron): Gain the ability to use a known spell of a target. This may make your version of the spell higher or lower rank than the original, including losing or gaining additional effects from higher ranks. This ability has the same cost and cooldown as the original spell. Ability chosen cannot be changed until the ability is off cooldown. Chosen ability is available until changed.
Effect (Bronze): Maximum mana and the [Spirit] attribute are increased.
Ability: [Rune Trap]
Spell
Cost: High mana
Cooldown: 1 minute
Effect (Iron): Create an explosive rune that will disappear after a short period. The rune can be set to trigger by proximity, caster trigger, or both.
Effect (Bronze): Enemies affected by the rune trap will be the source of a secondary explosion after a brief period.
Ability: [Convenient Copy]
Essence: Adept
Awakening Stone: Adept
Special Ability
Cost: None
Cooldown: None
Effect (Iron): Duplicate one of your own abilities. This will not stack non-active effects. This ability has the same cost and cooldown of the duplicated ability.
Effect (Bronze): Non-active effects can stack at reduced effectiveness.
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Since she was actually duplicating Prodigious Sorcerer, Eufemia’s Spirit attribute had been boosted beyond what Prodigious Sorcerer normally granted. It wasn’t quite a double boost, but thanks to the doubling-up, her Rune Traps were potent. Convenient Copy allowed Eufemia to wring out surprising instantaneous power in a spell despite not specializing in spells as a spell caster, and the increased maximum mana meant she had more than enough mana for all 12 traps.
They prioritized the hostages, hugging the shadows to slink back towards the top deck. Nara guided Eufemia with her superior aura sense, avoiding pirates that hurried about, in the midst of their own preparations. Eufemia had transformed into a pirate, and Nara would conjure her door domain and slink into it while Sage became a cloth matching the color of the surrounding wood that draped over the door to conceal it.
Eufemia set two Rune Traps along the way. They had a mere four minutes at best before the fight would begin.
“…The pirate captain is top deck now.” Nara said to the other adventurers. “Along with the rest of their forces.”
“Is there anything you can do? What are their numbers?”
“Ten bronze rankers, fifteen iron rankers. Then a bunch of normal rankers.”
“Their numbers were larger than we initially thought.”
It was over Nara’s first estimate of thirty. She’d have to work on her accuracy. The normal rankers didn’t matter, they were fodder in an essence user fight. Likely, they’d man whatever emplaced defenses the pirate ship had.
The trading vessel had thirteen bronze rankers protecting it versus the ten of the raiding pirate ship. To fight a bronze ranker, three or four was the recommended number of iron rankers. The number of iron rankers was an issue.
“We could intimidate them into leaving,” Encio suggested, “Nara’s aura is terrifying if she applies it.”
“It’s terrifying?”
“If you want it to be,” Sen said. “It’s powerful. I’ve felt it for myself.”
“If they leave, what about the hostages on deck?”
“Nothing,” Sen said. “But they will live.”
“Until the next group the pirates decide to attack don’t care about the hostages’ lives.”
“Yes.”
“There’s no guarantee a bunch of bronze rank pirates will be intimidated by some bronze ranker’s aura. Even if it is impressively strong,” Eufemia said.
“They will feel empowered by their hostages,” Encio reasoned. “And ignore their better judgement.”
“I’ve got a bad feeling about that ship,” Sen said.
“Your instinct again?”
“Not just that. The pirates would not be so emboldened if they just had hostages.”
“Not every adventurer would care about the lives of hostages,” Encio said, catching onto Sen’s meaning and expanding it. “Their own lives come first. If this is a common enough tactic that it’s made it’s rounds, then some adventurers would have ignored the hostages.”
“Eufemia, Nara, stay on the ship and investigate it. Nahir, can you join them on it?”
“I hear you. I’ll find a way to board the ship.”
The pirate ship had intercepted the trading vessel, blocking their path at an angle. A large built pirate, hairy chest revealed through his wide shirt, and arrogant expression stood on its deck. He played the part of a minor antagonist a little too well, even holding a woman by her hair, who grimaced and sobbed quietly, trying to keep her terror as unnoticeable as possible, to be avoid attention even in her position. The pain from her scalp was the least of her worries.
He stood at the edge of his ship, not crossing to the trading vessel. He activated a magical amulet at his neck which amplified his voice.
“Look and see here adventurers! Pay attention now! This can be nice and simple. Or difficult and bloody. It’s all~ your choice.”
He unsheathed a knife at his waist, holding it at the woman’s neck. A drop of blood beaded at the tip.
“I don’t think this pretty lady here would appreciate the second option.”
His knife drew a whimpering sob from the woman, who closed her eyes in fear and resignation.
*****
Nara and Eufemia snuck below deck; the pirates occupied above.
“There’s a single bronze ranker,” Nara told Eufemia and Nahir. “A ritualist.”
“How do you know?” Nahir asked.
“My familiar has eyes on him. He’s standing in some large ritual circle. The normals are manning the cannons.”
Erras had something like cannons, though they operated on magic powder and not gunpowder. They were slender uniform tubes, that shot out a mixture of concentrated magic and flak. The normals were needed to refuel the cannons with spirit coins and a mixture of fire and wind quintessence after each use.
It was awfully wasteful for pirates, but it they were robbing adventurer-protected merchant ships, the return was large enough to justify their use.
“Then we kill the normal rankers operating the cannons first,” Nahir said.
Eufemia glanced at Nara. Her aura was unreadable, but her expression was frowning.
“Can you handle the ritualist? I want to try something first.”
Nahir glared, his expression as sharp as his shark’s teeth. “Don’t risk our allies for some pirates.”
“If it doesn’t work, I’ll handle them like you want.”
Nahir paused, but relented, although his expression was guarded and disproving. “The ritualist is more important.”
“Follow my familiar, she’ll show you the way.”
Against normal rankers, Nara’s aura manipulation powers were potent. She snuck up on a pirate duo, together with Chrome.
She launched forward, holding dagger Nirvana against his neck and cupping a hand over his mouth. Chrome did the same, a single glowing blade hovering against his captives neck, with his own hand reluctantly covering his mouth. Nara activated a privacy screen, capturing any muffled screams that would have escaped, then dragged the two away from the ships hole towards an unattended side room. Thanks to her aura manipulation skills, their quick assault-and-kidnapping went unnoticed by the other pirates at the cannon wall.
“Don’t be dramatic,” Nara said, “If I wanted you dead you wouldn’t have noticed. Stop screaming or it’ll be your last. If you understand, nod.”
The pirate in her arms shakily nodded, not daring to breathe.
“There’s a privacy screen up. No one will hear you scream, so don’t bother. Do you understand?”
Another nod.
“I’ve left you alive because I’m not trying to hit any high scores, but I’m not going to hesitate if you make this difficult. You’re just normal rankers, and I’ve had a feeling that something about those hostages down below doesn’t quite add up. Are those your loved ones?”
Nara had felt from their auras that the normal rankers here were equally unwilling participants as the hostages that had been locked up below deck.
The pirate in her arms shook in shock, then nodded a shaky confirmation.
“Double hostages? Smart, but his overconfidence will be his downfall. The idiot didn’t post a guard. My teammate and I have already freed them all. However, I can only offer this as proof.”
She slowly removed the hand covering the pirate’s mouth, who thankfully kept quiet. She showed him a bracelet. It was homely and faded; an article that was faded from the sun but cherished despite its lack of luster. It was a traditional craft, with thin threads patterned and two small beads tightly wrapped in the center. Both were common stones, with no value an essence user would care for, but with obvious symbolic considerations.
“Do you recognize this?”
“I do. That is the bracelet of my wife. Seya. She is safe?” The man lifted his left arm, where Nara saw a slightly different bracelet but with matching beads. She remembered that Encio said there were different traditions of marriage gifts; this must have been theirs.
“I asked her for it. All the hostages have been portaled out of here already, except for the ones above. We’re going to do our best to rescue them, but your participation at the cannons complicates things. Can you convince the rest of the pirates to stand down? I have 3 minutes before I can use my portal again, and all of you can escape from here. If anyone starts trying to sound any alarms, you may not make it out while I fight off a bunch of iron and bronze rankers, do you understand?”
He breathed out, shaky but hopeful, determined. “I understand. I will accomplish this task. I have to.”
*****
Prodigious Sorcerer only allowed Eufemia to copy the spell of a target, which meant she couldn’t change it from Rune Trap for the fight ahead since she lacked a target with a known spell. The only one around her was Nahir, who was a melee fighter, not a spellcaster.
So, she swapped Convenient Copy for Martial Gift, further boosting her physical strength. She transformed, shifting into the form of a Leonid and gaining their additional strength, speed, reflexes, and decreased stamina costs.
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Ability: [Mirror Form]
Special Ability (transformation)
Cost: High mana
Cooldown: None
Effect(Iron): Take on the form of any target you remember.
Effect (Bronze): When you take on the form of another race, gain some of their racial abilities in addition to your own.
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Mirror Form’s use in combat at iron rank had been mostly to confuse her opponents, earning a precious few moments born of their surprise. Against monsters, it wasn’t particularly useful, and was one of her few abilities Eufemia could progress without combat, albeit slowly. At bronze rank, it became a useful combat tool, and Eufemia instantly bulked up into a familiar slender but mighty jet black leonid, Laius.
“I thought you were a woman,” Nahir said, eyeing her dubiously. “Is this form or the other one real? I cannot tell and it’s…sort of scaring me.”
“I am a woman,” Eufemia said with Laius’ voice. An odd thought passed through her mind, and she lifted the hem of her pants to check. Well. “In soul.”
“You mimicry folks are odd. I don’t know how you deal with that.”
“You transform into a shark. Aren’t sharks known for…?”
He paused. “…I propose we never bring this up again.”
“Agreed.”
***
The two attacked before the ritualist could react. Nahir didn’t have Nara’s stealth, so there was no point in opting for a pre-emptive strike with their duo.
Eufemia teleported in with Flicker from Encio, unleashed a copied Unstoppable Force, then teleported back out, making room for Nahir.
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Ability: [Flicker]
Special Ability (dimension, movement)
Cost: Low mana and low stamina
Cooldown: 25 seconds
Effect (Iron): Move instantaneously a short distance away. Does not interrupt channeling abilities.
Effect (Bronze): Can be used a second time. Cooldown reduced to 20 seconds, with a use regained every cooldown period.
Ability: [Unstoppable Force]
Awakening Stone: Might
Special Attack
Cost: High mana and extreme stamina
Cooldown: 1 minute
Effect (Iron): Melee attack with massive momentum, dealing large amounts of additional resonating-force and disruptive-force damage. Requires a heavy weapon.
Effect (Bronze): For each enemy struck the cooldown of this ability and the cost of the next use of this ability are reduced.
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Unstoppable Force was underutilized against a single enemy but combined with Eufemia’s massive strength thanks to her leonid form and Martial Gift, she instantly chunked a large portion of the ritualist’s vitality with her staff blow. Bones crunched on impact, and the ritualist slammed into the wall and caved it in like an impact zone, face first.
The ritualist wobbled almost passing out from the instantaneous damage, but he reacted, adrenaline preserving him against the near-lethal surprise. He spun around to a low and fast Nahir, his trident lunging forward, piercing his torso and pinning him to the wall.
“Land battle is not my specialty, but…”
Outside of water, Nahir was still a fast and powerful physical combatant, aided by his own leonid physique.
The ritualist briefly became water, sliding through the fork of the trident to escape. It was like Nara’s phase shift, but less potent, since Eufemia could still target him with Void Cancel. Eufemia thought the ritualist likely had a combination of the water and magic essences, but she didn’t have John around to confirm it for her, nor was she searching his aura mid-battle to verify.
“No power escapes the void.”
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Ability: [Void Cancel]
Essence: Refracting
Awakening Stone: Void
Spell (curse)
Incantation: “No power escapes the void.”
Cost: High mana
Cooldown: 3 minutes
Effect (Iron): Cast a spell on a target, interrupting a target ongoing ability. You can cancel the inherent abilities of a magical creature. The ability that was interrupted is placed on a 3-minute cooldown, and mana is consumed as if the ability had been cast, up to a limit. If more than one ability is interrupted and no target ability is specified, the ability with the longest cooldown is prioritized.
Effect (Bronze): The next use of the voided ability has greatly increased cost. Only the original cost of the target ability is consumed if the target ability is affected by [Void Cancel] again.
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The ritualist couldn’t escape the trident in time, the final prong caught on to his flesh, a pain that Eufemia knew Nara was familiar with from poorly timed phase shifts.
With the trident preventing escape, the ritualist switched gears to destruction. He may be largely untrained, but all essence users, including small time criminals, benefitted from a semi-stabilizing effect of essences when their life was in danger. Fight to live, then freak out later.
“The ocean rages, the tide surges.”
A rush of ocean water gushed forth with a heavy surge, slamming Eufemia into the back wall despite her massive strength. The ritual on the floor survived the flood; it had intelligently been drawn with waterproof ritual components.
Nahir dashed through the water unimpeded, the ritualist unknowingly providing the Tier-Meridian based leonid with his home turf. He raked his trident against the flood’s surface, drawing up a torrent that he launched at the ritualist, slamming him against the wall for his second impact. He shot forward, water boosting his steps with each splash. His trident was stopped by a gleaming mana shield, the bubble shield sustaining under Nahir’s powerful blows. Nahir launched rapid fire special attacks, trying to take down the shield. The water at the ritualist’s feet glowed.
“He’s consuming water to restore mana!” Nahir shouted.
“How is that fair? That was his own spell!” Eufemia groaned a complaint.
“You’re talking about fairness in a two versus one?” The ritualist spat through gritted teeth, blood seeping into his robes from his trident wound and shattered bone.
“You want fairness when utilizing hostages?”
“…I’ll concede the point,” the ritualists said sourly, blood seeping from his mouth from the exertion.
Eufemia’s Reverse Power was a difficult ability that was hard to use. It required anticipating and timing. The reversal effect only lasted a few seconds. If she timed it wrong, an unimportant ability would be reversed. If she targeted an ability that wasn’t about to be used, the enemy could just wait it out, and the ability was set to a 30 second cooldown, even if it costed her no mana. She could use it on allies, transforming healing to damage or damage to healing.
In the fight with the Death Essence user, Siyu, that is what she should have done. The team analyzed the fight afterwards, and Eufemia realized she had lacked the impetus and the judgement. She had relied on Sen for important uses of her abilities.
The others had assured her she couldn’t have possibly known the effect of his spell. To Eufemia, even the drunkest town idiot sloshed on the most tasteless of spirits could have guessed it from the incantation and his gloating expression.
She needed the judgment to make her own calls in times of crisis, and so she had asked Sen to set her up for fights independent from him to learn this. It was dangerous, but she needed to learn from danger. She needed to pay more attention to her surroundings, and pick up and pick out which abilities, large or small, required her intervention.
Reverse Power had been her final ability to hit Bronze Rank, and when it did, she felt a breath of relief that she internally chided herself for.
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Ability: [Reverse Power]
Essence: Refracting
Awakening Stone: None
Special Ability (curse)
Cost: Variable
Cooldown: Variable
Effect (Iron): Reverse the effect of the next use of a target active-use ability or the next active-use ability. This effect has a short duration. You must know the ability. If the target does not have the ability, this ability will not take effect. You can reverse the inherent abilities of a magical creature. Reversal causes positive effects to become negative effects, and vice versa. If there is no applicable reversed effect, the ability is nullified. The cooldown and cost of this ability is equal to the target ability. The cooldown of this ability only takes effect when the target ability is used, or otherwise has a 30 second cooldown if the ability fails. If the targeted ability has no cooldown, both this ability and the targeted ability are unavailable for 1 minute.
Effect (Bronze): Can be used on in-use and channeled abilities. This effect can be resisted. If resisted, the cooldown of this ability is not triggered, but mana is consumed equal to the cost of the ability that resisted the reversal and cannot be used again on the ability that resisted the reversal until that ability enters cooldown.
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She tried to reverse Mana Shield, but the ability failed. Mana Shield was powerful for its ability to also block all effects targeting the caster, not just damage.
“All that set up and no payoff. What a letdown,” Eufemia sighed. “You’re up, Lumi. Shed some light on this slippery bastard.”
She called out Lumi in its new bronze rank form.
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Ability: [Firelight Wisp]
Familiar (ritual, summon, light)
Cost: Extreme mana
Cooldown: None
Effect (Iron): Summon a [Firelight Wisp] to serve as a familiar.
* Incorporeal.
* Can move extremely quickly. Cannot attack while moving quickly.
* Casts light on its surroundings. Light can be dimmed or strengthened.
* When the light of the familiar is increased to its maximum, reveals hidden enemies. Wisp cannot attack in this state.
* Attacks using Light Rays. Attacks gain increased power and frequency in strong light.
* When subsumed in the summoner’s skin, the summoner can manipulate light to make their self and their abilities harder to detect or cause themselves to glow.
Effect (Bronze):
* Can attack while moving, but not at top speed.
* Can utilize a swarm form. Swarm form deals vastly decreased damage and has moderately reduced movement speed. Swarm must combine to return to normal form. Cannot utilize strong light in this state.
* When subsumed in the summoner’s skin, for moderate mana-per-second, can manipulate light to become invisible.
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Lumi became a swarm of light, filling the room of the ship with lights like fireflies over a moonlit lake. Each individual mote launched tiny needle light rays, inflicting minor but rapid damage. Disruptive-force damage was effective against magical defenses, one of the few weaknesses of the Mana Shield ability.
Even with the water restoring his mana, maintaining his mana shield was futile, so the ritualist dropped his shield. Eufemia anticipated his next move and used the iron rank effect of Reverse Power. If the ritualist was combat trained, he should have teleported before dropping his shield, but the surprising drain on his mana had scared him into making a mistake.
And the opposite of a movement or teleportation ability was staying in the exact same place or moving slowly, it seemed.
The ritualist was stunned that he hadn’t moved an inch. His eyes at first opened in shock, then forced open as Nahir’s trident pierced through his head.