Arculus reached through the patch of black and entered the world like he was emerging from the water into the world. In this Vision, we see GM Seismic speaking to a character in a black suit with white hair, and a longsword. “So what do you think of the skill I’ve developed for you?” Seismic said to the man. The man raised his hands and looked deeply into them. Anything to make Crypto jealous is fine by me.” Seismic laughed but saw the man was deeply bothered by something. “What is it?” The man was surprised that the GM would notice something was bothering him, and even more care to delve in. “It’s nothing. I just...;” The GM placed his hand on his shoulder with a light pat. “This is a safe space. You can tell me.” The man crossed his arms and legs, scratched his head and then rubbed it. Something was making him uncomfortable, but he sensed something for Seismic that compelled security in him. “I think I’m going to quit this game.” The GM kept his hand on his shoulder. And with a sincere smile said, “That’s okay son.
“I’m not a genius like him. I’m not talented like Swift. And I can never be at Madder’s side with Blackfeather being the closest. I don’t know what they see in you.” Seismic took his hand, his shoulder, and looked up into a peerless white sky created in virtual space. He let out a breath, which resonated with the man. “I have a daughter. At a young age, she picked up art just like her mother, and science just like her father. Me and her mother argued about who she'd be like. Would she take on a life, learning piano or maybe hoping her paintings would be put in galleries? Or would she learn programming, maybe pursue physics, or medicine? That would’ve made me proud. The man looked at him, waiting for him to continue. “You know what my daughter became?” He allowed the question to linger as if it was rhetoric, but the man couldn’t answer. He had no clue. “She became a fighter.” He turned and out of thin air, a punching bag manifested. “Not one that fights with her hands.” Then it disappeared. After a gun appeared a scene of a war emerged. The gun entered his hand and he took the position, taking cover behind the bodies of a dead soldier. The man was in awe. “Not a soldier, she did not become this type of fighter, but some would say so.” Finally, he rose and it showed footage of a young woman in a hospital bed. “She didn’t become a fighter. I just didn’t know she was a fighter all along.” The man covered his mouth, speechless. “Did she” The man hesitating to ask anything of the GM. “No, she lives. In some ways, but died that day in other ways. Something a parent has to come to is that their child will always be more like themselves, and no matter who she becomes, She will always be family. She’d always be my little girl” He returned his hand to his shoulder. Tears fell from the man's eyes. “Just know that blood is thick. It requires blood to heal a wound. It requires blood to save someone, just like it did my little girl.” The man nodded as if something touched deeply within him. “Family is Blood.” Finally, the man looked at Seismic inquisitively. “How will I know when I have found people worthy of calling family?” Seismic smiled with his eyes and smiled. “When you are with them, you are more like yourself.”
Under the Blood Moon
“Tell me about yourselves…” The question was an odd one at the beginning of a battle. Ghoul looked at the other two, with confusion. “Is this some sort of interview?” He readied his weapon and dashed towards Arculus, who evaded like a luchador, patting him on the back as he passed him. “What about you ma’am?” Cullen looked at him as if he was mocking her. She did the same, and when her try met him, he spun around her, took her by the arms and as if he was in classical dancing, swayed her down, and looked at Goblin. “What about you there? Tell me who you are under the Blood Moon?” She quickly released herself from his grasp and jumped back while Goblin would ready an attack of his own. His fist began to glow red, and his health bar ticked down and up with the loss of life and gain as he sustained the skill. “That’s a neat application Under the Blood Moon!” Goblin approached Arculus with an array of martial attacks, with each Arculus craftably, blocking each with an equivalently adept martial technique. He then pushed his hand into Goblin’s chest and smiled. “Don’t take this personally but Combo 4 is better for the Haemaker.” Red Lightning pierced through Goblin's chest but due to the sheer immense force, Goblin was pushed back into a mountain, smashing into it, creating a crater where you’d not be able to see his body from the entrance. “Goblin!” Cullen yelled. She mustered her strength once again and raised her sword at Arculus. Arculus then blocked the attack this time with a shield made of blood. “You need to add more swing to your swinging!” He then summoned a sword into his other hand, and using the dull side of the sword, did the shoo emote, which knocked her into another mountainside. When she was far away, the blood sword and shield dissipated. He raised his hand towards Ghoul. “Ghoul, aren't you the leader of Engine? You shouldn't be acting like this.”
Ghoul clenched his teeth, annoyed by Arculus’s cocky behaviour. “I don’t care if you’re level 500 or 1000, You are not telling me what to do! Hegeforged Devilcryer” Ghoul summoned a weapon into his hands, forged by blood. It was a greatsword. The sword was broad, and glowing with a red aura. The hilt was studded with 6 black gems. Arculus understood its significance. Six Gems, and six black Gems to be specific means he levelled up the still with a critical augment. In that case…”
Ghoul enhanced his movement with another Blood Skill, called Adrenaline. This skill popped up on his character reading to increase movement per second. While many skills of the Blood Classes fell short the character's ability to bring out the most of its potential. This was due to the health limit that characters received. But under the blood moon, this was no longer an issue. Skills could be channeled forever and characters could be as powerful as they could imagine. Each second, Ghoul's movement speed would increase at the cost of health, while this cost would increase as time went by. Ghoul was so fast on Jun and Julia’s side they saw the afterimage of his character, but only saw red light as his presence. The crew sat on the sidelines watching as Ghoul bombarded Arculus with attacks. In each attack, Arculus blocked and evaded. Although the greatsword was a weapon with slow attack animation, Ghoul’s movement buff made up for it. But again this was under the Blood Moon, why hold back? “Blood Hands Quicken!” He yelled. This skill instead of health raised the player's attack speed each second and also consumed more health as the buff went on. “Another continuous skill.” Arculus thought. He darted towards Arculus, swinging his sword even faster than before, but still Arculus evaded. “Since I have no limit here,” Ghoul began. “Dark Tongue, Fallen Elder Speech!” Arculus smiled. He knew what these skills did but he kept dodging the skills. Jun would try to inspect the character but it was moving too fast. “Madder, what do those skills do?”
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Madder explained. “Well Dark Tongue allows a Blood Class player to cast more than one skill at a time with the cost of the skill costing double the amount, and Fallen Elder Speech reduces the cooldown of each skill to 0 with the cost of a significant amount of health each cost after the previous. He’s going all out.” Even still Madder's voice sounded unwavering. “Even still, this is Arculus.”
‘Who is Arculus?” Jun would question her.
With all of the buffs, Ghoul rushed Arculus, chanting spells that would normally require cooldowns in a mere second, and casting multiple versions of both melee and ranged attacks. Arculus would begin getting hit by some, taking damage, but he did as well. One second Ghoul jumped in the air, “Hellfire” he teleported, “Razor Edge, Bloodstutter!” Then he landed, throwing his weapon forged with blood, “Bloodsplitter”. The weapon would split into 3 weapons but he cast the spell another 50 times creating 150 greatswords all hitting Arculus. He then flew in the air and used a skill very known to us. Vegan used it many times. From the air, meteors began falling towards Arculus. And after he forged blood daggers from his hands, and chanted over and over, “Blood Dagger and chain!” As the meteors soaked Arculus in damage, each strand of the dagger on a chain struck Arculus like a whip. Each move stuttered him, making it seem like he was being stunned every 0.5 of a second. Ghouls' onslaught was not over. Finally, he pulled out a ball from his pockets. “You want this so bad, here take it.” Normally, in any standard condition a player could only summon 1 copy of a captured monster but blood summons work differently. Each blood summon requires a certain amount of blood to summon, and the Ursine he’s just captured required a large summon, but due to the Blood Moon he could summon an infinite amount of Ursines, which is what he tried. He would summon 20 Ursines on the spot surrounding Arculus. Each one used the same paw attack dealing massive amounts of damage to Arculus. In Ghoul's final attack, he sped right into Arculus's face and punched it. Arculus went flying into the ground creating a crater. And even still all of the attacks continued.
Ghoul walked to Arculus and crouched looked at him. “This is why you don’t talk trash to a top guild leader, punk.”
One would think that Arculus would be defeated, but Arculus only smiled. What Ghoul hadn’t noticed was that his health was already depleted. “How many times do you get to let loose?”
“Huh?” Ghoul said. He was surprised and thought he had defeated Arculus. “I…I…I hit you with everything you must have taken 40 billion in damage.”
‘Close. 38, if we're rounding.” Arculus jested. “Look at your health.”
When Ghoul looked at his health it was at a negative 37 billion. “Wait how the Blood Moon buffs!”
“The Blood Moon event ended half an hour ago.” He explained. "You have grey health at the moment. Grey health represented health that was taken but also took damage in place of health.
“Then how was I using the skills…How was I receiving the Blood Moon buff?”
Arculus rose from the crater into the air and gracefully landed in front of Ghoul. “He placed his hand on his shoulder. “I am the Blood Moon.” At that moment Ghoul’s face would shiver. “Every ounce of health required to do any skill, I gave to you. Every time you attacked me both the damage I received and the damage you dealt was all circulation. I only have one question before I take it all back. How was that?”
Ghoul couldn’t understand. He could barely fathom what had just happened but something in him was excited and happy. He had never let loose, he was never able to. There was always a limit to his potential because of the exponential blood cost blood classes succumb to. “I...I…”
‘It's okay to let it out.”
“I’ve always wanted to do that. Thank you!”
‘I know. Big Bro Arculus knows! Come here, man!”
He then grabbed Ghoul by the head and began giving him a noogie.”
On the sidelines, Jun, Julia, Aethera, Gwen and Sean would see this and be very confused.
“What the hell just happened!” Jun yelled. “I don’t get it!”
Gwen smiled. “Even at the highest height, there is still more to learn.”
Sean nodded in agreement.
No one could see it but Madder was smiling, as was Crypto, although he was shaking his head thinking the moment was lame.
“So what now Ghoul? Why did you fight the Blood Moon.” Arculus looked at the Ghouls level. “You must be lonely, looking for a class change with no one able to give it to you.”
Finally, Ghoul looked at Arculus in wonder. “What the hell are you?”
Arculus pushed his hands out. “I am the only Stygian through all of the realms. Right now you're an Elder Blood. The way you’re spec’ing your character, you're following a path similar to me when I was your level. Do you wish to class change?”
“I…yes. Of course.” Ghoul muttered.
“Arculus placed his hand over Ghoul and began chanting. Suddenly a dark aura covered Ghoul and he was in awe. “I'm a…” He shed a tear. “I'm a Bloodletter.”
“Thank you. Thank you so much! I will never forget this! Thank you-”
Just then Arculus swiped Ghoul into three pieces with the swing of his finger.
“Huh..” Ghoul said hesitantly. The slash was so strong the mountain was etched. Ghoul began to fizzle. “
“I guess this is only fair huh?” Ghoul retorted, smiling.
“I'm glad you understand,” he replied. In that moment Ghoul was hit so hard that he was knocked physically 3 maps away. As he got up he noticed a buff on him that read, Blood Moon buff and then it ended a second later.
Meanwhile, back at Mount Haraburn, Gwen and Sean would see Arculus about to leave. “Hey! Please wait!”
Arculus turned around patting his head. “There were more players here?”
As they approached he could tell what they wanted as he inspected them. He quickly raised his hand over their heads, and they were immediately class-changed.
In the distance he saw Jun, Julia and Aethera, and knew they didn't require him. But then another name caught his attention. “Madder!” Then another name caught his attention. “Crypto…” His eyes dropped and he sighed.
Madder then emerged from her shadow, as did Crypto. “Long time Arcy!” Madder said while waving. “I see you’re using your PBE skill for good?”
“Yeah, Seismic told me some things…” There was a brief silence when Crypto grabbed him. “Come here, man! Long time!”
“I know we've just made acquaintances once again but…” Madder would then get serious. “Since the three of us at least have gathered. I think it's time we talked about taking over this Realm."