The gauntlets took on a similar appearance to his new armor, with spikes of bone protruding from their knuckles.
Grasping Ooze
Tier 3 Growth Weapon
Forged from the bones of Slothari, and infused with the very concept that underpins Mire, these gauntlets are among the strongest that can be found at Tier 3. Bring your foes to their knees with the true meaning of stagnation, while you remain at the pinnacle. This weapon can only be upgraded with quest rewards from the Hellbreaker quest. Every time it is upgraded, it gains a new ability, keyed to its plane of origin. These gauntlets have a natural repair factor.
Current Ability: Potential Drain
Once per week, you may use these gauntlets to drain the stats of a single defeated enemy. Upon doing so, you will gain 1 percent of a stat of their choosing. This will not be affected by title multipliers. This cannot be used retroactively.
Bonuses: +50 to Strength, +50 to Dexterity
Jonathan smiled. This was more his style. Using stronger enemies to empower himself was his tried and true strategy already, and this simply added another way for him to do so. While it was never something that could supplant his leveling, it was very useful.
Finally was the Crown of the Swamps, which, as the name suggested, was a crown made from bog soaked wood. While it looked mundane in every way, Jonathan could tell that it was special. An aura of rot and decay surrounded it, highly visible to his elemental sight.
Crown of the Swamps
Tier 3 Magical Item
Forged when Mire was still young, this crown represents dominion over all swamps and bogs. Drenched in conceptual power, it is capable of great things.
Special Ability: Fetid Sovereignty
Control up to 10,000 tons of swamp material for one minute per hour.
It was a device for terraforming, rather than mere battle, but Jonathan could see many uses for it.
He tried to don the armor and weapons, but then remembered that he was gravely injured. His anticipation at seeing his new gear had supplanted the pain for a bit, but now he had to rest.
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In the Oozing Bastion
The battle continued without pause, even as Mire came crashing down upon the Ash Heaps. However, there was one change. With Slothari’s death, the oaths binding her soldiers to her had ended. For the most part, this had no effect, as most had wanted to indulge their darker desires at the expense of the weak, but some had been forced to join, and switched sides.
About five thousand of Slothari’s legion turned on their allies, spreading chaos through the ranks. This had done little but act as a distraction though, and it had only granted Edgar’s forces a minor reprieve. That reprieve proved valuable though, as Edgar was able to regenerate enough mana to send a localized hurricane through the nearest avenue, taking out a few thousand soldiers in one go. As the city grew larger and more grandiose, its streets widened, rendering one of the few advantages that the invaders had moot. Unlike in the Ash Heaps, the effects of the dimensional merge had been minor, with only a few tremors. it did nothing to interrupt the fight, beyond informing the combatants that Slothari was dead, and Jonathan had defeated her.
The main street of the Oozing Bastion was called the Avenue of Rot, and it was filled with the realm’s premier warriors, all seeking to prevent Edgar and the others from reaching the center. As the far smaller army regarded their latest obstacle, the ground started to shake.
“The hell was that?” Hushar asked, distracted from his apoplectic rage for a moment.
Edgar pursed his lips. “I don’t know…”
A moment later, the source of the noise was revealed. A dwarf strode out from the center of the enemy lines, clad in the thickest suit of armor Edgar had ever seen. He was truly wider than he was tall.
In his hands, a hammer the length of a small tree rested, and every foot cratered the cobbles beneath him. Concentrated elemental energy blazed in a corona of halcyon light around him, mingled with a dark purple. He wielded the advanced form of Earth elementalism that governed gravity.
The man raised his hammer in one hand like it weighed nothing, and then threw it high into the air. It traveled far further than it should have, weightless under his ministrations.
Then he clenched his fist, and the hammer stopped dead in the air, before plummeting down at meteoric speeds. Edgar and Hushar raced away from the impact point, but some of their allies were too slow. The hammer struck the ground in between the two armies, and the entire street ruptured for hundreds of feet in every direction. Buildings collapsed, and fissures spread across the city like the web of a spider the size of a mountain.
Maniacal laughter drifted from the dwarf’s helm, and he took another world shaking step forwards. “Yer bastard lord may have killed Slothari, but ah’m still among the living!” He roared in a thick accent. “MAH NAME IS GRAVARN WOEHAMMER, AND AH WILL-” before anyone could learn what he was planning, a bolt of wind impacted his gorget, sending him a step back. He paused, seeming shocked that anything had moved him. Edgar flew forth, once the tremors stopped, and landed on the tip of the hammer, still buried in the earth.
“Jonathan Harlowe is not the only thing that keeps his faction from the maw of the abyss. I am Edgar Lackland, follower of the Aspirant to the Mantle of Hellbreaker. I am his lieutenant, loyal follower, and more of all, his friend!”