For a split second, Leo didn’t know whether she meant her left or his left, and so he stared at the oncoming torrent of fire, until the last second where he dove in the direction that didn’t have as many darklings. That seemed to be the right call, he felt the heat of the fire wash across his back as he rolled, but it didn’t hit him directly, and the high pitched cries of the darklings he heard confirmed to him that she was right on target.
Instantly, three of the six of them were incinerated, with a fourth being able to partially dodge the blast, and the other two being unaffected. Leo was able to rise from his dive unaccosted, as the two darklings who didn’t get hit by the flames at all immediately rushed past him and started gunning for Rize. He wanted to go back her up, but the injured darkling lunged at him just as he’d gotten back on his feet. He blocked it directly with his shield, bashing its head and pushing it away, before he swung out with his sword and felt the blade connect and cut into partially burnt flesh.
A shudder went through his body, it had an altogether different feeling to him than hitting animated skeletons or undead, decaying flesh, but the adrenaline from the fight let him carry through. It was him, or the darkling, and Leo had no intention of getting shredded to pieces like that pangler. The darkling staggered back, and he took the opportunity to pierce it once, twice, three more times, until it collapsed, twitching and bleeding out dark colored blood. At that, he turned to find Rize, and spotted an odd sort of current coming from the charred bodies of the darklings toward her.
Rize blasted fire from her hands like a double flamethrower, keeping the darklings at bay and singeing them whenever they tried to get too close. He ran up to back her up, and one of the darklings whipped around at the sound of his approach, ready to pounce at him, only to be scorched when Rize turned both her hands to it and lit it aflame. It got a solid three steps back before it collapsed in a burning heap.
At that point, the last darkling took the opportunity to lunge at her. She ducked, raising her arms, and managed to avoid a direct hit, but cried out as the darkling’s claws raked across her arms, immediately drawing blood. After the impact, a burst of flames flew out from the wound, burning the darkling in some sort of automatic retaliation. Leo reached them then, and bashed the darkling with his shield before trying to skewer it with his sword. It was quick, though, and he only managed a shallow cut as it dodged away. From behind him, a small ball of fire flew out, getting a direct hit on the darkling and bursting in a bright flash, causing it to yelp. With spots in his vision, Leo ran up and stabbed it directly where he assumed its heart would be, right between the forelegs. It shifted and moved as if to dodge, but didn’t seem able to see where Leo was coming from, taking the hit directly, and quickly growing still.
With the fight seemingly over, Leo fell to his knees, breathing heavily, while he heard Rize chanting. He glanced toward her, and with a wave of her hands, all of the myriad fires she’d started by torching the nearby trees and foliage dimmed, with most going out immediately, and some other spots lasting for a few more seconds before petering out. He noticed her arms, actively bleeding from the cuts, and stood up before clearing his throat and gesturing for her to come over.
He took the D rank healing potions out of his storage, handing one to her and taking one himself as notifications from his interface filled his vision.
Auto Loot Activated
Items Obtained:
Darkling Claws 6x (D Rank) Dark
Darkling Stone Heart 2x (D Rank) Earth
Quest Complete!
Darkling Elimination (Urgent)
Reward
D-Rank Unrestricted Karma (6)
“Rize, your hearing is better than mine, are there any more coming?” Leo asked. He watched as she drank the potion, and the cuts on her arms immediately sealed themselves.
“Not that I can tell. I think we’re in the clear.” Rize replied, rubbing her arms and wiping away the blood. “That being said, I’m not particularly keen to stay here any longer than we have to, knowing that that horde of them is so close by. Do you think you could manage the walk back to Normouth?”
“I should be fine.” As he spoke, he could see the stonelike texture of his skin was already beginning to fade. “I don’t wanna stick around either.” They completed their quest already, that ended up being the easiest part of the entire night. Though he did not enjoy the prospect of taking the multi hour walk back to the city in the middle of the night, it wasn’t like he had to clock in the next morning, so he could take solace in the fact that he’d probably just sleep in. He took off his shirt, ruined from the darkling’s claws on his back, and put on a spare that he had in his storage.
While they walked, they took some of the food that they prepared and ate it on the way. The first several minutes were in relative silence other than the sound of them eating, but on a whim, Leo brought up his own stat window and got to thinking, before he decided to ask questions. “Hey Rize, what’s the best way to use karma? I’m assuming you got as much as I did from that quest just now?”
“I’m not sure what is best to raise for a Mixer.” She replied. “From what I can tell, each class has different stat that they benefit from more than others, but in general it’s best to focus on one or two, a physical and a mental, which would usually be those favored stats. That’ll allow you to ‘punch above your weight’, so to speak. I’m somewhat comfortable participating in C rank quests with other C and D ranked Laborers at this point because my Reflex is at C-, as is my Will after that last urgent quest, both of which affect my casting. I happen to have a spell to make up for my lower fortitude, though.”
“Reflex affects spellcasting?” Leo asked. Looking at his stats, he’d been on the fence about what to raise next after getting his intuition to D-. He supposed he should pick a physical skill, but he was interested in anything that might tell him whether or not it should be Fortitude or Reflex.
“It aids in the casting. The movement of your hands or your casting implement, allowing you to do so faster, or under pressure. In my case, though, it also helps with wielding a blade.”
He’d almost forgotten that she’d gone on this quest with him because she wanted to learn how to use a sword from Sir Verakith. “Since we’re gonna be training together anyway, would it bother you too terribly much if I asked you to teach me some basic magic?” He asked her.
“I’d be glad to.” She replied, faster than he expected. “I did say I was in your debt for paying for me to be trained. I’d been looking for a good way to repay you, and that would be perfect I think. I must warn you, that there are multiple skills that help with my destructive capabilities, so I don’t think you’d be able to get to where I am without help from the Labors.”
“That’s fine.” Leo said with a shrug. “Just knowing how to light a candle with a snap of my fingers would be great, then I can go from there.”
That seemed to settle the matter, and with that, Leo went back to thinking about what stat he should raise. Honestly, he didn’t know if big Karma hauls like this would come often, as much as he wanted to raise his Reflex to another rank, he figured he should bump the stats that were bottom of the barrel while he had the opportunity. With that in mind, he put five of the D rank unrestricted Karma he’d just received into Fortitude, raising the rank up to E, and he immediately felt lighter, less tired, like he could do the rest of this walk with no problems. In the same vein, he put the last unrestricted Karma into Will, and tossed in the two D rank Mental Karma and E rank unrestricted Karma to make it 8/10.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
Especially after the fight he just had, he still had no intention of being any kind of tank if he went questing with other people, but he felt the need to be at least a little tougher, based on what he’d seen from both that fight and the fight with Oorden. He wasn’t sure how Will factored into anything, but he figured it would be better to have more than the absolute lowest possible. After he got Will to E, he could focus on Reflex and Intuition and see where that took him. He supposed it didn’t matter as long as his stats were rising.
He absolutely needed to get a hold of more items like the pangler’s hide, though. That probably saved him from getting torn to shreds by the darklings. The sting on the cuts on his back had long since faded to a dull ache, and he barely felt it after drinking the healing potion. On a whim, he went to Combine a Darkling stone heart with another Blooming Oovina with the intention of making another stone skin potion, but for the first time since he’d started Mixing, he was denied. It seemed like he needed the Pangler stone plating, or another part of a Pangler directly to make that potion. He’d have to check the Labors’ shop later to see what he could find.
The fortitude bump was enough of a boost that he made decent time on the walk back to Normouth. The sun began to rise over the horizon, with the twin moons fading out of view in the brightening sky as they reached the walls of the city. Once they got back inside, they decided to part there and meet back at Sir Verakith’s place sometime in the afternoon to report that they’d completed their quest, but not before Rize had another topic to bring up.
“I’ve been thinking about it since we started walking back, but that many darklings above ground is highly unusual.” She told him. They’d stopped in the wide central square of the city, leaning on a fountain as the city itself slowly began to come to life in the early morning. “Especially so close to Normouth. We should warn someone. A horde of monsters that large could decimate the city if they managed to sneak up on them.”
Leo could only imagine, hundreds of darklings swarming over the walks, running in the path of unsuspecting people. A gruesome prospect no matter how he thought about it. “Okay, sure, who should we warn?”
“The city’s guards, for one. I’ll take care of that, but there’s only so much they can do. Maybe we can tell Sir Verakith, and he can point us in the direction of someone who would be able to organize a more proactive defense.”
“Got it. Maybe the local guilds for Laborers, too? Surely they’d get quests for this if they did attack the city.”
“Also an option. We don’t need to do it all at once, though. I’m not sure how long the darklings have been there, but I believe that quest we completed prevented them from noticing the city earlier than they would have. Let's get some rest before we start running around the city.”
“Sounds like a plan.” Leo agreed, with that, they parted for the morning and Leo went to get some well-deserved sleep.
Name:
Leonell Bolden
Stats
Title
-
Fortitude: E (0/10)
Class
Mixer
Reflex: E (0/10)
Element
-
Intellect: E (0/10)
Total Rank
E
Intuition: D- (0/10)
Status
Health 85% Mana 50%
Will: E- (8/10)
Skills
Combine, Auto-Loot, Appraise, Storage
Luck: D (0/10)
Skill: Combine
Mix different raw materials into a new item. You choose the shape of the form. Final form is affected by rank and element of materials.
Store Combine results into a mental guidebook that grows based on Intellect rank.
Skill: Auto-Loot (Mixer)
Automatically separates mixable materials from slain creatures. If the [Storage] skill is active, automatically places loot into storage space.
Skill: Appraise (Mixer)
Look at a creature or material and gain information on them. Information includes: Rank, Element, Class, Statuses, Titles. May have difficulty appraising creatures of higher rank, or creatures hidden by another skill or effect. Skill affect boosted by Intuition Rank.
Skill: Storage (Mixer)
Creates an inter-dimensional storage space that only you can access. Storage increases with Total Rank
Storage
Animated Bone (E-Rank, Dark)
Basic Short Sword,
Large Shell (E-Rank, Water)
Basic Shield
Drowned Heart (C-Rank, Water)
Sigil of the Drowned
Scorched bone (E-Rank, Fire)
Blooming Oovina 3x (E-rank, Aether)
Petrified Bone (E-Rank, Earth)
Moonlit Blooming Oovina 2x (D-rank, Aether)
Deepgold Coin (E-Rank, Metal)
Soul Husk (C-Rank, Aether)
Darkling Stone Heart 2x (D-rank, Earth)
Darkling claws 10x (D-rank, Dark)