Ability Selection

Choose a new spell to learn. You may later replace this spell with any other spell you are eligible to learn by consuming its Spell Card or using a Spell Book.

Spell – Implosive Missile

[You already know this spell. Choose a different spell available to you.]

Spell – Hardlight Tether

Requires 12 Spellcraft

Oral: Verse

Movement: Full

Mental: Focus

Cost: 6 Mana

Cast Time: 1.0 Second

Range: 15 Meters, 10 Meter Tether

Effect: 119 Hit Point Tether

You conjure a cable made of hardlight up to 10 meters in length. When you conjure the cable, either end can be bound to a creature or object within range; the cable will appear with a loop at that end which is secured tightly around that object. These loops can be no greater than 50 cm in diameter.

“If it isn’t the MVP,” I said at the sight of Implosive Missile. I supposed that with the way I played, I was sort of guaranteed to run into duplicates when I leveled.

It didn’t matter, because there was Hardlight Tether—a spell I could really salivate over. I could imagine the world where a level 9 mage with normal stats, casting the spell at level 9, was conjuring something with 50 or so Hit Points in a little under the base cast time of 1.5 seconds—a tether that might tie a monster to a tree and require them to hit it once. Not bad.

But just like with my other hardlight spell, my overpowered ass was casting it too fast, at too high a casting level and with too much Power to boost the thing’s Hit Points—the ramthorns we just fought would have to make two attacks to break through that tether, and that was before we got to Supercharged Spell and whatever Spiderman shit I was definitely going to work in whenever I could. If our last encounter had revealed anything to me, it was that high damage from being chosen was strong, but stuff like this—and probably heals—could simply shut encounters down.

In other words: not a spell to replace with the Slow Spell Card that I had in my inventory.

I opened up the psychic’s options, thinking that perhaps neither of those would outdo Slow:

Spell – Telekinetic Hammer

Requires 8 Spellcraft

Oral: Command

Movement: 1 Hand

Mental: Focus

Cost: 8 Mana

Cast Time: 3 Seconds

Range: 2 Meters

Effect: 21 Meters

You conjure a potent blast of telekinetic force that pushes your target away from you. This spell’s listed effect measures how far it would toss you into the air before you began your descent.

Spell – Moment of Clarity

Requires 10 Spellcraft

Oral: Verse

Movement: 2 Hands

Mental: Focus

Cost: 4 Mana + 7 Mana / Hour

Cast Time: 5 Seconds

Range: Self

Effect: 16 Celerity

You may only have this spell cast on one target at a time.

The target of this spell may expend the buff it grants either when they cast a spell or when they are affected by an ability or effect of the Mental school that distorts their perceptions or alters their emotional state.

If they expend it when casting a spell, the spell is cast with the listed bonus to celerity, though this does not apply to its cooldown or upkeep cost.

If they expend it when affected by a hostile ability, the effect is removed. When you cast this spell, you may choose to have it trigger this way automatically under certain conditions, such as if the effect is specifically a fear effect, if its duration is longer than 4 seconds, or if its source is a specific creature or person.

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“Okay,” I said, reading the Moment of Clarity spell twice just to be certain I understood it. I showed both to Cuby, then waited for her to read through them.

“I think it should obviously be Moment of Clarity,” she said, frowning in thought. “But also, we’re about to go up a mountain, and knocking people off… or knocking people off their wyverns… that seems pretty good.”

“I agree,” I said. “Very good.”

“But Moment of Clarity… it’s your ridiculous Supercharged Spell ability. What does 34 Clarity do for you?”

I shrugged. “Right now my Celerity is a 32.5% reduction in cast speed at 29. Moment of Clarity will probably bring it up to 50% or so—which is the equivalent of a 100% bonus to damage.”

“That’s a pretty fast spell.”

“And the escape from psychic attacks is clearly very good,” I said, working my mouth. “But on ground that’s even a little steep, a big punt from a Supercharged Telekinetic Hammer seems like an automatic win.”

Cuby shrugged. “Take the hammer, then. I really don’t know. I think you want both, eventually.”

I took the hammer. I wanted another half-dozen spells already, but I suppose it was best to be spoiled for choice. Slow was probably a better spell than both of these, but I didn’t want to overwrite anything when I knew, according to Cuby, that I was getting 3 new slots next level.

“All right,” I said. “What’s next?”

“Loot, obviously!” Cuby said.

“Right,” I said, looking around at the various bodies. “Let’s get to it.”

First, the morthoth was mine:

You receive:

Uncommon Equipment – Infernal Iron Longsword

Uncommon Equipment – Infernal Iron Targe

Uncommon Equipment – Infernal Iron Chain (4m)

Uncommon Item – Crystallized Demon Heart

Then I looted one of the spirefiends and two of the ramthorns:

You receive:

[4] Uncommon Item – Fledgeling Wyvern Heart

Uncommon Item – Demon Stone

Common Item – Wyvern Claw (3)

Great Machine Scrap (7)

Derunium-Infused Scale (33)

You receive:

Uncommon Item – Demon Stone

Uncommon Item – Flawless Corrupted Ram Horn

Common Item – Cracked Corrupted Ram Horn

“I have seven inventory slots left,” I said. With my potions, power cells, grenades, and a total of 10 spell cards, I was running out of space to haul items with. The upside was that I could gain 5 slots from a skill buy—I know Cuby had done as much. Whether or not that was worth it was another question, however.

Cuby came to join me just as I returned to the morthoth and did what I hadn’t had time to do by using my demonology ability on its corpse:

Lore – Demonology – Morthoth

A morthoth is a demon that has been summoned from Hell and bound to this world by dark magic. Morthoths serve as formidable footsoldiers in hell’s armies and are typically both well armed and well trained.

A morthoth has high physical and divine resistance and low psychic resistance.

“More or less what I expected,” I said.

“So these ones can command the little ones,” said Cuby.

“Not that it made them much more effective,” I said. Sure, if one of the wyverns had pinned us under them it might have ruined us, but the maneuver had mostly just cost them attacks. And the goats hadn’t been much improved by the morthoth’s presence, either.

Cuby showed me some robes that the cultist had dropped, but wound up keeping them—the robes I’d gotten from Miradel’s shop were stronger.

Then it was time to talk strategy. “So… those eight monsters were a lot of experience,” I said. “But I also feel compelled to add that they were only supposed to be one monster.”

“Mhmm!” said Cuby, nodding. “And I feel compelled to say that we should probably not climb the mountain on this side.”

I thought about this a moment, then realized what she was getting at. “If Haroshi shows up, he’ll be coming from the other town.”

“Vereth’s Rest.”

I pulled out the map and gave it to her. Cuby took out the compass, then pointed to the road that led to Vereth’s Rest. “We’ve got a third of the mountain to get around. Then we should climb from that side.”

“Actually,” I said, leaning over her. “It’s a bit of a detour—but what are the chances there’s a third devil set to watch the road into the mountain? They’re the only thing we know of that gives class cards.”

Cuby thought about this, then nodded. “You’re right—it is a bit of detour, but we also have to deny him. Also,” she said, smiling. “I did like the look of surprise on that last one’s face.”

“Let’s move in that direction, then,” I said. “And let’s figure out how to keep every combat from becoming a shitshow like last one.”

“A… shit show?” Cuby asked dubiously. “A curious-sounding presentation. What does it consist of?”

“It’s an expression,” I said, fighting the urge to laugh. “It just means that it was an undesirable, chaotic mess of a situation. There are no actual shit shows where I come from, it’s just a phrase.”

Technically I was lying, here, but I figured that if I were the first human from Earth that Cuby had ever met, I should probably put our best foot forward and avoid telling her about Two Girls One Cup until I’d said something about, like, The Godfather or something.

“Next time we see a goat,” I said. “I’ll lay some traps we can fall back on and save whatever my Fragmented Spell is for something more important. The cultist didn’t have control of the spirefiends, only the morthoth did—so if a cultist shows up with a spirefiend, we should be able to do what we did last time.”

“We should let it grab me, not you,” said Cuby. “A basic Unnatural Terror and a Fragmented Telekinetic Hammer will be an instant kill at enough height—you should jump on its back.”

I nodded, looking over my Unnatural Terror spell. Truth be told, I still missed Hex of Chains—but the fear had been enormously effective against the demons, removing the morthoth from combat for something like 15 seconds off a 4 second cast.

We continued to talk about our abilities and expectations for awhile as we started to round the base of the mountain, with a lot of our conversation about how to use and abuse my Hardlight Tether. As dangerous as the mountain seemed, we were in good spirits: the experience promised to come fast.

Soon enough, we found something that gave us both pause—a promise of another difficult fight to come.

A single ramthorn.