Haroshi had died with his eyes open, blood pooling out of his broken body to soak through his derunium chain hauberk and onto the ground around him. His expression was rigid, open-mouthed, meaningless.
I had paused once I approached him, then looked down at him for more than a minute. I needed to lash him with a Hardlight Tether and drag him back up the stairs to Cuby, and yet I had such mixed feelings. I’d never even had a conversation with this man, not really—the meeting in the mines had been the most I’d ever seen him speak.
He wasn’t dead. Much as I thought of it as killing when we took out the enemy players, this was only in game terms: NPCs died for real, but players just respawned elsewhere. He looked dead enough: his body was crumpled like a discarded pop can from the missile that had dropped him to zero—but Haroshi was still out there, somewhere—in Solarius.
It was a strange thing to think about: once, it might have made me feel better about killing someone, the idea that I wasn’t really killing them. But now I really wished he was dead. I’d have rather killed him for real.
And why didn’t this bother me anymore? Even if I’d been killing these people, I doubt it would make much of a difference to me—sure, I had a focus potion on now, but I didn’t think it would matter: whatever trepidation I’d first felt in the mines below the town was gone. If I had to watch a thousand people burn alive to defend Oromar’s Bastion a second time—well, it would bother me, certainly.
But I’d still do it.
It was my humanity, of course. The civilized part of me was young compared to the biological components that made me. What had been more dangerous to us than other people, back in the darkness of prehistory? Those of us who were averse to murder would have been out-competed by those of us who could kill when needed. And so people could kill when needed, even me.
“Good,” I muttered. And I lashed Haroshi, dragged up many flights of stairs to where Nerien had fallen, recast the tether to tie their legs at each end, and dragged them back to the boss room. Cuby lay like a starfish on the floor before the chest, staring at the ceiling, giving me no acknowledgement at all. Phrenodine things, I supposed—I left her alone and tried to be quiet as I transferred items from the corpses to the chest.
And the chest itself was interesting to me. It, like the other boss chests, had been made of derunium—could they perhaps be melted down, repurposed into ingots? Was this chest actually very valuable? I didn’t know how crafting worked, but if a beamling corpse was a lootable common item then surely these could be repurposed even if there was no recipe to do so.
Haroshi and Nerien had traveled light. Apart from their equipment and their gold, they had a few pieces of gear that I guessed they’d looted from the allies they’d betrayed to gain the levels they needed to face us. The real loot was the stuff that they’d obviously gotten from the other two bosses.
Rare Equipment – Librarian’s Severing Sword
This sword, carved from wood and enchanted to be stronger than steel, has been made especially for those who weave spells into their attacks.
Weapon Class: Medium
Attack Speed: 1.4 Seconds
Weapon Level: 5
+ 1 Magic Affinity
+ 1 Physical Affinity
+ 7 Precision
Adaptable: you may suppress or renew either of this sword’s Affinities (but not both) by focusing for 5 seconds.
Quickspell Blade: each time you make a basic attack with this sword, you reduce the base cast time of the next spell you cast whose base casting time is 6 seconds or fewer by 0.5 seconds. This effect stacks up to 5 times.
While nothing about the sword felt specific to me, I still tried equipping it to use as a weapon—its precision and weapon level were both much higher than the Derunium Lightning Rod I was still using as my main hand. But the system informed me that I needed 1 prowess or more to do this, and so I moved on:
Rare Equipment – Leather Belt of the Bookkeeper
This thin band of reinforced leather has been inscribed with overlapping passages from many an arcane tome. It provides defense against spellcasters and bolsters its wearer’s Mana.
+ 225 Mana
+ 15 Magic Resistance
+ 15 Psychic Resistance
They both had one of these belts, and the resistances alone were far greater than those of my current 15 Physical Resistance belt, so I equipped one and left the other out for Cuby. There was also a pair of boots:
Rare Equipment – Elementalist’s Fidgeting Boots
These boots, crafted from hardened demonskin leather, sometimes seem to shift and wiggle on their own. They have been enchanted for elemental protection.
+ 8 Fire Resistance
+ 8 Frost Resistance
+ 8 Lightning Resistance
+ 8 Nature Resistance
Elementalist: these boots increase your highest elemental affinity by 1. You may disable this ability with 5 seconds of focus.
These I also set aside for Cuby, as the resistances did a lot more for her than for me. Other than that, Haroshi had the two swords and the bow that he’d used in Oromar’s Bastion, along with his armor and a motley collection of uncommon gear that I figured we’d plunder once we were done with the rares, which there were several more of:
Scepter of Blinding Light
This glass scepter has been enchanted so that it is stronger than steel, and grants its bearer the power to unleash blinding radiance.
Weapon Class: Medium
Attack Speed: 1.4 Seconds
+ 1 Divine Affinity
+ 1 Magic Affinity
Grants Iconic Spell: Blinding Radiance
Adaptable: you may suppress or renew either of this sword’s Affinities (but not both) by focusing for 5 seconds.
Sungazer: you halve the duration of all blind effects.
Rare Equipment – High Priest’s Riding Gloves
These leather gloves were made by the finest craftsmen in Mirrakatetz for use by High Priest Axxonni in riding his noble steed, Quicksilver.
+ 4 Haste
+ 6 Might
Swift Steed: Increases your mount’s overall speed by 15%.
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Rare Equipment – High Priest’s Jodhpurs
These tight-fitting leggings were made from a bolt of unknown fabric by Mirrakatetz’s finest tailor for use by High Priest Axxonni in riding his noble steed, Quicksilver.
+ 150 Stamina
+ 2 All Resistances
Gifted Steed: Your mount gains double the bonuses that these jodhpurs provide.
“Okay,” I said, seeing that those were the last rares. It was essentially all useless for me or Cuby—apart from the belt, the specific loot rule of the bosses meant that Haroshi and Nerien had gotten a bunch of stuff I didn’t care about.
But there was one more thing I had to do: I took out the Eradicating Beam card and purified it, then looked at my results:
Rare Iconic Spell Card – Obliterating Beam
[Destruction],[Mana]
Requires 45 Spellcraft, Innate Magic Affinity
Oral: Verse
Movement: Full
Mental: Focus
Cost: 17 Mana / Second
Cast Time: 3.6 - 4.8 Seconds
Range: 30 Meters
Effect: 120 - 138 Damage every half second
This spell launches a powerful obliterating beam that lasts for 5 - 8 seconds: the duration depends on how long you charge it. The beam deals this spell’s damage every half-second, and the damage is increased depending on how long you charged it.
The beam is especially damaging to objects.
Magic: your active affinity must be part magic in order to cast this spell.
Neutral: this ability has the potential to be corrupted or sanctified.
All told, the damage throughput was still less than my Implosive Missile—and the fact that my Celerity only reduced the casting time portion of the spell, but not the actual beam emitting portion, meant that it would never outscale the missile.
But it didn’t need to. It was a good answer to evasion abilities—Cuby’s roll and Moment of Mastery were effectively useless against its damage, even if Haroshi’s spell-reflecting ability had affected the whole of Eradicia’s beam. The spell was long-range, and very flashy from the sounds of things: a half-effect beam cast with Sudden Spell could potentially draw fire onto me and off of our real damage-dealer, Cuby.
Next level, I decided. That was when I would be able to use one of my iconic spell augments on it—sudden, fragmented, supercharged. 92 spellcraft to fragment or supercharge it, and 96 spellcraft to cast it as an intuitive supercharged spell, reducing only the oral components down to requiring a command, not verse—good for when I was invisible.
Of course, I’d also have to use a skill buy or find a class that gave me another magic affinity—right now I got 1 from my Mage Class passive, but my off-hand and my Hierarch Class passive put me at 3 divine, which I could only reduce down to 2, meaning I’d need 2 magic affinity just to hybridize my active affinity to divine / magic.
Everything’s gotta be so damned complicated, I thought to myself, opening up the skill list to make sure that I could just buy a magic affinity that way. But the real point was this: I’d have a gigantic laser beam. Congratulations, me.
Then I sighed and sat down on the floor. Skill points I was putting off until tonight—I just needed to read the class cards, all of which I knew I wouldn’t be taking. But for a moment I needed a break.
I started organizing the demon-stones and uncommon items. I searched through, mostly for something to replace my Derunium Lightning Rod, the weapon I’d looted back in Oromar’s Bastion. I found nothing.
Nerien and Haroshi had 4861 gold, though, so that was nice. I set 2430 aside for Cuby and took the rest for myself, bringing me to 3049 total.
They had demon stones, and some demon parts, and some weapons I’d guessed they’d looted from their party—eventually I had to bring out Eradicia’s boss chest because the other one was full.
“I’m aware of you, by the way,” Cuby said after awhile, still staring straight up at the ceiling.
“I didn’t interrupt you, did I?”
She sat up, apparently finished. “No. It helps to have some things to ignore—once I ignore something awhile my nervous system gets the message and enters dormancy. It’s… strange, though, now that I’m human. I’m gaining the benefits of dormancy when we sleep, but I can still deplete my self-mastery. And I think a little while I’m laying there, even though I’m dormant.” She shook her head. “Erialda and the spiders were not easy for me.”
“I’ll bet,” I said. “But we don’t smell like death anymore, so I guess the system keeps us clean.”
She nodded. “I’m glad for that. The smell….” she shook her head again. “What’s the point of hating something that much?”
“Our revulsion warns us that something is unsanitary,” I said. “Smells, the sight of lots of insects, an appearance of some blemishes or discoloration—these things tell us that we could catch a disease, or eat something inedible. So we generally don’t like bugs and rot, even though they’re completely natural things.”
“Ah,” said Cuby. “Sensible, then. Enzal might have parallels—are those mine?” She looked down at a collection of stuff that I’d left out, including Nerien’s grappling gun—it had a derunium grapnel that could pierce stone.
“Yup.”
“We should go purge and loot the rest of the dungeon,” she said, standing and picking up the gun. Then she grinned. “Say: this is nice.”
“Looting?”
“Just having a bunch of rewards,” she said, closing her eyes for a moment to enjoy it. “Nothing urgent to push us forward—for me, at least.”
“I still need to look at the class cards,” I said.
“You should hold out for wizard, though,” said Cuby.
“I know,” I said. “I know. Believe me—I’m very interested in becoming a wizard. But I still want to look.”
“All right,” she said, taking all the other things into her inventory. “Did you look at Assassin, at least? It’s my first choice, so far.”
“One sec,” I said. She’d given me all of them, so I materialized an assassin card and tagged it, then opened its extended view:
Uncommon Class Card – Assassin Class
Requires 10 levels in a class that grants 3 Prowess a level, Innate Physical Affinity
Consume this class card to gain the Assassin Class
Class – Assassin
Each level grants:
3 Prowess
50 Hit Points
45 Stamina
4 Assassin Skill Points. These points can be spent on [Martial] and [Talent] skills.
Gain the following two abilities at level 11:
Fixed Iconic Passive – Assassin Class
You gain 1 Innate Physical Affinity
When you attack a creature that is unaware of you, you add your level to your Precision for that attack, and you add half your level to your Precision for each attack you make against that target for the next 3 seconds.
You gain 25 Penetration.
You gain a 25.0% bonus to Critical Hit Damage.
You gain a 25.0% bonus to the effect of any poison you use.
These bonuses each increase by 0.5 each time you gain a level [Current increase: 15.0].
Iconic Technique – Fade
[Beneficial],[Illusion]
Requires 30 Prowess, Physical Affinity
Use Time: Instantaneous
Cost: 61 Stamina + 61 Stamina / Minute
Effect: Fade at 53 Illusion Strength
You turn invisible. This invisibility is not perfect: when you move you can be discerned by a slight blur which grows more visible the faster you move. If you attack a creature or take more than 10% of your Hit Point total in damage from a single attack, this invisibility ends.
You cannot use this ability while a hostile creature is aware of you.
“I can see why the class is appealing,” I said. “Critical hit damage when we’re already stacking precision—and I’m guessing penetration lowers effective resistances.”
“Yup!”
“Glad to see that your invisibility also brutalizes your regeneration,” I said, smiling at the absurd 61 / Minute cost. “But if we’ve got enough advance notice that you know to use this, we should probably just use mine.”
“Probably,” said Cuby, smiling. “But I can just choose not to lose my Battle Trance instead of gaining Fade—that’s how it worked when I took Sword Saint. Plus, I’m not really sure what ‘unaware’ means—maybe if I hide behind a rock or something, I can instantly turn invisible. Plus it can’t be dispelled.” She shrugged. “I’m not taking it yet, though. I want to see what else there is. If the classes we got from the angels are any sign, not all classes are created equal.”
“All right,” I said. “So are you ready to go? I’ll read the rest while we lug this stuff out.”
“Sure!” said Cuby. “But how are we carrying these chests?”
I looked over at them. Two chests, and doubtless there would be more filled with items by the time we were done—we’d left something like a hundred unlooted demons behind us, and Haroshi and Nerien had probably left a pile of loot-stuffed corpses somewhere.
“Oh,” I said. “I have an idea.”