“Fools!” A woman’s voice boomed from somewhere far above us. “You have done nothing but return the demonic power that was invested in the four guardians to its rightful source—me!”
But I was busy with other developments:
Congratulations, you are now a level 14 Hierarch/Psychic!
You have a new Iconic Spell Augment Slot. Open your Abilities pane to choose a new Iconic Spell Augment.
You have a new Iconic Spell Augment Slot. Open your Abilities pane to choose a new Iconic Spell Augment.
You have a new Spell / Spell Augment Slot. Open your Abilities pane to choose a new Spell / Spell Augment.
Your Hit Points have increased by 85 and your Energy has increased by 120.
Human Adaptability increases each of your Strength, Agility, Focus, and Spirit by 2. You gain 2 stat points to distribute.
Quest Completed: The Prisoner’s Release
The entire ravine below me darkened as the flames wore out, and I cast a Hardlight Tether so that Cuby could jump up and grab it to be reeled in. The chest for the boss had—rather fortunately—spawned beside me.
Both of us were covered in disgusting muck, the cloth of our robes stained with dirt and visceral juices. I had no idea if I would need to wash it—blood happened to fade from my clothes after a while, and I could only hope that this would, too.
I opened the chest and grabbed the card:
Legendary Boon Card – Chosen
And left the rest to Cuby, my eyes zeroing in on the red text of the game’s strongest bonus. I was already casting a Moment of Mastery. I used this as soon as it came up, even as Cuby nodded to me and we both began to sprint up the stairway.
First, I spent my stats and checked my levels, wanting to see if there was anything to make me make a snap decision against the illusion boon:
Ability Selection
Choose a new Iconic Spell Augment to learn. You may later replace this Iconic Spell Augment with any other spell you are eligible to learn by consuming its Spell Card or using a Spell Book.
Iconic Spell Augment – Fragmented Spell
[You already know this Spell Augment. Choose a different Spell Augment available to you.]
Iconic Spell Augment – Sudden Spell
Base Spellcraft: Add 1
Spellcraft Multiplier: Add 100%
Casting Speed: Subtract 50%
Cooldown: Special; 2 minutes (see below)
You may use this spell augment while it is on cooldown. If you do, the spell you cast has half the base effect that it normally would.
And I took Sudden Spell, which would surely come in handy, before moving on to the Hierarch Iconic:
Iconic Spell Augment – Supercharged Spell
[You already know this Spell Augment. Choose a different Spell Augment available to you.]
Iconic Spell Augment – Twin Spell
Base Spellcraft: Add 2
Spellcraft: Add 100%
Cost: Add 100%
Casting Speed: Add 100%
The modified spell affects 2 targets within range, instead of 1. Spells which don’t affect a single target can’t be modified with Twin Spell.
Upgradeable: You can learn this Spell Augment twice. If you do, the second copy becomes the Mass Spell Augment.
Gawk later, I thought to myself as we thundered up the stairs and I gave the next Moment of Mastery to Cuby. But it was, I thought to myself, terribly unfair that I didn’t get to enjoy the bullshit overpowered nonsense before me.
I opened up the Spell / Spell Augment selection that I’d got from my Mage Passive.
Spell – Penetrating Bore
Requires: 8 Spellcraft
Oral: Command
Movement: 2 Hands
Mental Components: Focus
Cost: 21 Mana
Cast Time: 2.7 Seconds
Range: 20 Meters
Effect: 283 Damage
A damaging line 1 meter wide extends outward from your position when you cast this spell. The line travels through creatures and material, damaging whatever is behind them as well.
Spell Augment – Huge Spell
Requires: Magic Affinity
Base Spellcraft: Add 4
Spellcraft Multiplier: Add 200%
Cost: Add 200%
This spell augment can only affect a spell which has an area effect. This augment triples the total area of the spell’s cross-sectional area of effect.
Note: this means that a spell with a radius of 5 will end up with a radius of 5√3, not 15.
Sure, I thought, taking Penetrating Bore just because I had Huge Spell sitting in my inventory. It seemed to me like neither of the options was about to come up, so I made my choice quickly as I continued to alternate Moments of Mastery on Cuby.
Then I spent my second-ever boon card and was engulfed in a flash of red light:
You have a Chosen Boon waiting to be selected.
And I opened up that interface:
Multi-Classed:
[You already have this boon. You cannot choose it again.]
Artifact of Legend
You gain the ability to craft 1 Legendary item. Note that this boon does not furnish you with the materials required to do so, which will be costly, rare, and difficult to obtain. It also does not grant you any of the professional training necessary to perform this task.
When you complete the item, you will face a choice: lose this boon and have it cease to count against your maximum Chosen Boons, or exchange this boon for the Mythic Armaments boon.
Chosen Virtuoso:
You gain 2 Iconic Ability slots and 1 Iconic Passive slot. You gain an extra Iconic Ability slot at level 11 and every 11 levels thereafter, and an extra Iconic Passive slot at level 32.
Signature Move:
You gain a Signature Move slot. This slot can hold any ability you are already eligible to learn.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
When you prepare an ability into this slot, you choose one of the following:
- You gain a second copy of the ability that functions exactly like the first, but counts as another ability. This means that Buffs and Spell Augments can be applied more than once to a target or ability, and cooldowns will be separate.
- The Ability has no cost. If the Ability consumes uses or charges of some kind, such as Miracles, it will consume a use only every second time it is used.
- Increase the Ability’s effect by 40%. If it is a buff, increase its effect by 80%.
Chosen Polymath:
Gain 5 Ability slots and 2 Passive slots.
You gain 1 Ability slot at 5th level and every 5 levels thereafter.
You gain 1 Passive slot at 13th level and every 13 levels thereafter.
Chosen Titan:
You may grow up to 50% larger when you take this Chosen Boon. If you do, increase your base Might by up to 20%, depending on how much you grew. This change is permanent.
You gain an extra 40 HP per level.
Stone Hearted:
You cannot be critically hit, and you are immune to negative [Mental] effects.
Mythic Armaments:
You increase the maximum number of legendary items you can equip by 1, and you gain another Equipment Slot – Fragment
Master of Conduits: You gain a Chosen Conjuration Ability Slot. Anything summoned with this ability doesn’t count against your maximum summoning capacity. Increase your effective level for [Conjuration] abilities by 5.
A note on Chosen Ability slots: A Chosen Ability Slot can hold any ability of its stated type, including Iconic Abilities for classes that you don’t possess. When you gain a Chosen Ability Slot, the system will offer you two such abilities much in the same way you fill other slots.
Master of Deception: You gain a Chosen Illusion Ability Slot. Increase your effective level for [Illusion] abilities by 5. You can have two of each illusion you know active at a time, rather than one.
Master of Emptiness: You gain a Chosen Necromancy Ability Slot. Increase your effective level for [Necromancy] abilities by 5. Any undead creatures under your command become resilient to effects which specifically target undead; such effects are half as potent.
Master of Influence: You gain a Chosen Mental Ability Slot. Increase your Effective level for [Mental] abilities by 5. Beneficial [Mental] abilities with a limited number of targets have that number doubled, and detrimental [Mental] abilities don’t increase your target’s resistance to them the first time they affect your target.
Master of Sight: You gain two Chosen Divination Ability Slots. Increase your Effective level for [Divination] abilities by 5.
Master of Space: You gain a Chosen Warp Ability Slot. Increase your Effective level for [Warp] abilities by 5. Your [Warp] abilities with a range have their range doubled.
Master of Time: You gain a Chosen Time Ability Slot. Increase your Effective level for [Time] abilities by 5. Your [Time] abilities have their duration increased by half.
Master of Life: You gain a Chosen Nature Ability Slot. Increase your Effective level for [Nature] abilities by 5. Your [Nature] abilities have their costs reduced by half.
Master of Motion: You gain a Chosen Kinesis Ability Slot. Increase your Effective level for [Kinesis] abilities by 5. Increase the force generated by your [Kinesis] abilities by half.
Master of Mastery - All Skill Points you gain are converted to General Skill Points. You gain 10 extra Skill Points a level.
And I grabbed the Master of Deception boon.
You have a new Chosen Illusion Ability Slot. Open your Abilities pane to choose a new Chosen Illusion Ability.
Ability Selection
Choose a new Illusion ability to learn. You may later replace this Illusion ability with any other spell you are eligible to learn by consuming its Ability Card or using an Ability Book.
Iconic Spell – Perfect Invisibility
Requires 60 Spellcraft
Oral: Verse
Movement: Full
Mental: Focus
Cost: 53 Mana + 53 Mana / Minute
Cast Time: 5.1 Seconds
Range: 5 Meters
Effect: Perfect Invisibility at 25 Illusion Strength
Your target becomes perfectly invisible, leaving no blur to mark their passage when they move. This spell’s Illusion Strength is equal to your effective level - 10, making it easier to see through than most illusions.
[Note: opponents who cannot see you will receive a severe penalty to their Defense Rating against your attacks along with a severe penalty to Precision even if they correctly guess your location.]
Iconic Spell – Projected Creature
Requires: 75 Spellcraft
Oral: Verse
Movement: Full
Mental: Focus
Cost: 106 Mana + 106 Mana / Minute
Cast Time: 9.5 Seconds
Range: 100 Meters
Effect: Projected Monster fitting a 5.2 meter cube at 35 Illusion Strength
You create an illusion of a creature that can fit into a cube of the specified size. The monster can move, sound, and smell however you instruct it to. It has no tactile form—objects will pass through it harmlessly, potentially revealing it as an illusion.
You can have any spells you cast originate from the projected creature’s location, rather than yours, but these spells will have no effect on hostile enemies who are aware that the projected creature is an illusion.
It casts my spells, I thought, looking at Projected Creature. It was a wildly strong spell… but if it was going to work, then so would Perfect Invisibility, which I chose.
Thankfully, Intuitive Spell added base spellcraft and cast time, but didn’t have a spellcraft multiplier—I started casting an 8-second Intuitive Perfect Invisibility as we ran up the stairs.
As I did this, I opened the quest:
Quest – The Prisoner’s Release
Objective: Be the first players in the world to kill Erialda Mel.
If you do, loot will contain additional rewards. Loot will be selected to suit your characters, rather than randomly determined.
And I brought myself past halfway to my next level by completing it. “I’m ready,” I said.
Cuby traded me immediately, giving me two items while I remembered to pass her all my remaining concussive grenades.
I equipped the items she’d given me, skipping their descriptions and reading their stats as we charged up the stairs:
Rare Equipment – Broken Ring of Sacred Promise
Axxonni Mel gave this silver ring to his daughter Erialda with the promise that she could pursue her own calling rather than join the priesthood. The band has snapped in one place, and pinches your finger when worn.
+ 5 Celerity
+ 5 Power
Deceiver: Magic cannot discern if you are lying while you wear this ring.
Rare Equipment – Robes of Supple Skin and Sinew
These robes are made of well-stitched skin, its source unknown. They are cool to the touch and comfortable to wear.
+ 150 Hit Points
+ 3 All Resistances
We got another 5 Class Cards, by the way, Cuby said. It’s Paladin, though. And I got the same robes and a belt, nothing as good as—ah, Alatar! You didn’t say anything!
My invisibility spell had finished, and I had disappeared, becoming a translucent outline to her. I made a Mighty Leap up the last of the stairs and began to cast hers as we ran toward the final boss chamber.
It’s called: Perfect Invisibility, I said, mentally beaming as I chanted out the next spell. Yours is upcoming.
Well, I got Blessing of Protection back—it gives 8 Defense Rating now that I count as a level 33 from being a chosen with a rare weapon, Cuby said. But somehow that doesn’t feel as good.
As we kept speaking, I prepared our kit: investiture could hold 7.6 seconds, now, and my Celerity was making my spells fast indeed. The Hierarch Class Passive specified that temporary increases to power and casting speed were lost when a spell was invested—which meant that while my Celerity applied, the Sudden Spell Augment that I’d just gotten would not. It was no matter: double-speed, half-effect spells would still be viciously strong in PvP.
Through the mind link, Cuby and I had composed a pretty good idea of what we were walking into, and what our strategy would be. I had four crowd-controls: Invert Hostility, Unnatural Confusion, Unnatural Terror, and Hex of Chains.
If they couldn’t see us, had no true sight? We’d crush them.
But if they did have a potion or an ability that let them see through our admittedly low-strength invisibility, we’d turn to that target and kill them. The first few seconds would be crucial: we needed to lock down Nerien and Haroshi in order to seize the initiative. This would take more than one of my spells: both of them had evasions, and Haroshi even had a spell reflection ability to go with his effect-wiping miracles.
But I had a plan for that, too.
I gave Cuby a Psychic Parasite at 1.8 seconds, two Invert Hostilities at 4.8 seconds, and—because I had little room left, a Hardlight Tether at 0.9 seconds. My Fragmented Spell was a Supercharged Devour Magic, for rune traps or blessings, whichever we encountered first.
We approached the hall leading into the final boss’s chambers. I felt determined, elated, focused. It was ending here—the quest to kill Haroshi, my quest to find my helpful hinter, our unspoken quest to acquire an extraordinary amount of legendary boon cards and secure our power for dozens of levels to come.
But as we approached the hall, me with my mage sense out, something began to feel… off. There were no Rune Traps laid out for us, no illusions—our enemy had apparently done nothing to prepare for what they had to know would be our inevitable assault.
Then we rounded the corner and saw why.
They didn’t have any mages. They didn’t have any party members left at all.
The three of them stood in a line, waiting for us:
Nerien – Level 13 Chosen
Haroshi – Level 14 Chosen
Ryxariel – Level 15 Boss – Devil from the Machine
“They warned me you were clever,” said the devil, a blonde, horned woman with glowing red eyes who was wearing a plain white sundress. “But cleverness only takes one so far.” She grinned, looking between us. “—And there’s no hiding from me.”
Quest Unlocked: Liberate Mirrakatetz