The icy winds howled with Gwen. The blizzard raged all around the arctic plateau, biting into her exposed skin and wounds.

Truthfully, it was nothing compared to the heavy burden of the [Chain of Atlas’] Guilt. Some armaments hailing from Lormar still carried the tremendous weight that was the calling card of the damned.

Gwen wanted to try breaking it again. Few would be comfortable being shackled this way. Unfortunately, the effort would be pointless. The cursed imprint specifically stated it required the power of a High Copper to begin to master.

Something Gwen was nowhere close to. Not that she could tell.

For now, the chain served as a weapon and a training tool. As a result, her strength eclipsed every other attribute, even vigor. Combined with [Defiant Juggernaut], the legendary title that enhanced the effectiveness of strength, she could unleash untold amounts of damage in bursts and tear through the environment in ways most competitors couldn’t.

The downside was unbalanced attributes, and slightly heightened stamina consumption. Arcane was shamefully low. Still, she preferred to specialize in something, rather than be average at everything.

Besides, the chain served as a reminder of her mended home.

Gwen scaled the side of the sheer cliff face, digging her [Blindbeast Claws] into jagged stone. This arctic plateau didn’t offer the convenient stairs that typically formed, so the pair needed to scale the tremendous elevation the ordinary way.

Thomas climbed after her, using the handholds Gwen naturally made. He was slower in the severe cold, but his dexterity made up for it.

Gwen closely followed the trail that [Insight of the Wolf] traced up the wall. Something she could smell through the blizzard. Though it frequently grew faint with the flurries of snow and the harsh, whipping winds. Anything that counted as difficult terrain diminished the range of [Insight of the Wolf].

And there was a lot of that across the many plateaus Gwen and Thomas ranged across in search of the missing Magi and the Putrescence wielders.

At first, Thomas didn’t believe that it was Mel on the mythical dragon, as if it was impossible.

Gwen was sure Mel had been this way. It had been slow going picking up her scent, even after seeing Mel by sheer dumb luck on that dragon. There were too many plateaus to explore in all directions. And that dragon could have sent Mel to any one of them.

By now, the scent was old and stale. It seemed that wherever Mel first appeared in this Convocation was incredibly far from most of the group’s original starting point.

What was greatly concerning was that Mel’s scent crossed the path of Putrescence monsters. Gwen deeply feared that her lost friend would encounter those aspect wielders, then suffer the same fate the Archivist, Almace, did.

He was lucky to have a talented healer, or else he would be very dead. It seemed that Mel was alone, which was an odd twist. To say that Charlotte Asleton, Charlie to her friends, and Miss Perfect behind her back, hadn’t responded well to Mel’s disappearance was an understatement.

Gwen climbed over the top of the cliff, her boots sinking into the deep snow. Thomas dropped into the snowbank beside her with a groan.

“It’s not that bad,” Gwen remarked breezily about the cold. Binding Winter aspect made some environments slightly more comfortable to endure. But not for her partner.

“Oh yeah? Well, I can’t feel my entire ass ,” Thomas said, his teeth chattering. Being a Mage with aspects more suited to the heat, he didn’t handle the freezing cold as well.

“What about the other bits, then?” she teased, trying to distract him.

He rolled his golden eyes. “They’re working just fine.”

Trying to hide her heated cheeks, Gwen hastily turned away and focused on [Insight of the Wolf]. Sifting through the scents weaving across the snow, she discovered that some were fresh and others lingered so faintly they strained the limits of the Copper aspect skill.

Then the acrid stench of a nearby monster twisted by Putrescence nearly overpowered everything else.

Growling, Gwen plunged into the blizzard, hunting the foul creature. The snow was coming down so hard it was quickly covering up any signs of the seeping, oily aspect.

It didn’t spoil her tracking. Not this close. The lingering stench reminded her of profane magic. The ones that tore into other realities. But this multiverse was different from anything else she experienced before. There were more layers of every kind of magic here. The complexity was enthralling.

Prowling up a steep incline, Gwen encountered a cramped passage wedged between two rough walls of icy stone. It was too small for either Thomas or Gwen to fit through, and yet the monster’s stench led within.

“Is it in here?” Thomas asked quietly from behind her.

She nodded. “I’ll ambush it. Feel free to blast it apart once I’m close.”

Being the ambusher, rather than the one being ambushed, gave Gwen enough time to conjure the [Primal Mantle] upon her shoulders. Without a [Sanctified Beast Bone] to spare, conjuring the mantle sharply drained her stamina bar.

The improvements were more than worth the cost.

The drain upon her vital resources left her breathless as the glowing spirit overlaid onto her arms, shoulders and back. The head of the snarling spectral wolf fell over Gwen’s gaze, bringing bestial clarity to the world all around.

[Primal Mantle]

(Primal Aspect)

(Copper, Violet/Special)

(Grade 8 [34%])

Cost: Considerable Mana, Moderate Stamina

Cooldown: Long

Call upon the Primal wild to enhance your raw Strength and your ability to trade blows without flinching by conjuring the mantle of the ancestral wolf within.

Imprint(Copper Rank): Conjure a wolven mantle, fortifying martial impact and attack stability. Amplifies Strength with the mantle’s clawed limbs. Grants a secondary stamina bar. Consumes a [Sanctified Beast Bone] to reduce the vital resource cost. Grants [Lycan Calling].

[Lycan Calling]: Increases werewolf instincts. Renders monsters defeated susceptible to dropping a [Sanctified Beast Bone].

Gwen waited out some of the stamina drain until it recovered enough to no longer be a risk in combat.

Since there was no physical way in, Gwen broke through the walls of thick stone with a doubled set of claws. A pair from her [Blindbeast Claws], and another from the [Primal Mantle].

The Brawler charged in, giving up any pretense of stealth after that.

The snow shifted, then erupted into a spray of white as the bulky monster lunged for Gwen. Her silver eyes went wide at its corrupted state.

It had once been some kind of upright horned goat. That was already strange to begin with. Now it was half taken over by the tarry fires of Putrescence.

Not one to be easily intimidated, Gwen crashed into the monster and brutally carved into it with the combat art [Exploit].

[Exploit]

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(Combat Art, Weapon)

(Copper)

Cost: Low Stamina.

A simple, but effective maneuver that aims to exploit an opponent’s gap in their defenses to deal maximum damage.

Imprint(Copper): Strike swiftly, slipping between the gaps in your opponent’s defenses to deal critical damage. Usable on all weapons.

Synergy: Lightning, Storm, Blood, Poison

Despite that the monster was larger than her six-and-a-half-foot-tall frame, Gwen’s barrage outpaced its attacks. [Primal Mantle’s] fortified attack stability allowed her to exchange blows without pause or faltering. It was fairly normal for even a Defender to stagger against any monster’s strike. Even heavily armored people weren’t immune to pain and damage.

The class given combat art tore through the monster’s defenses. All the while, she dragged the [Chain of Atlas] behind her, hardly deterred by the weight.

The monster kept trying to roll and lunge away to put some distance between them. It probably had some ranged monster skills, but Gwen hounded it, keeping up the clawing strikes with [Exploit] while making sure [Grudge] stayed active.

[Grudge]

(Class Skill)

(Copper, Trait)

Brawlers are known for their fiery tempers and willingness to be the first fist flying in any conflict. This lust for battle allows them to keep fighting when all others fall. The longer they fight, the more difficult they are to topple.

Imprint: Applies a damage reduction effect while in combat and within melee distance.

Lightning lanced through the broadened passage, incinerating one of the monster’s bulky, overgrown limbs.

Aspect Skill: [Thunderbolt]

Putrescence aspect granted an unnatural second life to these things. Not quite undead, nor ghost, these monsters eked out an existence somewhere on the border of life and death.

Even as the monster’s lifeblood stained the snow with blacks and reds, its body mutated again.

Lightning repeatedly lashed whatever the monster had turned into now. Putrescence monsters were practically two monsters in one.

Sometimes, Thomas shared an echo of Gwen’s fighting style. Better to overwhelm the enemy with wanton, excessive destruction, than possibly leave them standing. It was times like this she could glimpse the man he truly was beneath the cracking veneer of the Magi genius.

“No need to wait for you to get up!” Gwen snarled, battering the monster relentlessly.

A growing crater in the stone and dirt formed beneath the booming blows of claws and lightning.

You defeat the [Decayed Highlands Goat (Copper Rank)].

You gain extra runes of Primal, Winter, Gravity, Wolf, and Moonlight aspect experience for slaying an elite monster.

You gain extra Battle Points for slaying an elite monster.

----------------------------------------

Thomas waded through the snow after Gwen. The cold was so bad his mana was struggling to keep up. Without [Mana Well], he would have been in serious trouble. Without adequate insulation, the temperature diminished the recovery rate of health, stamina, and mana.

[Mana Well]

(Class Skill)

(Copper, Trait)

Through their study of the cosmos and the workings of mana, Mages and Mystics both deepen their reserves of mana. While a Mystic uses that mana to improve their defenses, a Mage uses their excess to improve the quantity of spells they can cast.

Imprint: Increases maximum mana.

The Brawler dashed into the structure of half-worked stone that had seemed to be nothing more than an expansive cavern at first. Broken statues were toppled all over the place, clutching ruined weapons, moldering scrolls, and charred books. An oily liquid coated the chamber in messy streaks.

Horror seized his chest. Thomas reached out for one of those scrolls. It disintegrated into ash at his touch.

The Putrescence twins had been here, and destroyed everything they couldn’t take. Worse, they left more of those decayed monsters as a hateful present.

Enraged, Gwen ripped apart a Mundane ranked monster consumed by Putrescence then barreled into another one, raking it viciously with [Primal Rend]. This one held up against the initial assault, and Thomas took his opportunity to incinerate it with lightning.

Aspect Skill: [Thunderbolt]

Gwen leapt over a fallen pillar coated in the tarry substance and crashed into a decayed monster.

There was no chance of saving anything here. Thomas mourned the loss of the knowledge that had been left in those scrolls. What kinds of ritual magic could he have learned? What sort of truths might he have unraveled from their forgotten texts?

You defeat (5) [Decayed Highlands Groles (Copper Rank)].

You gain runes of Sunlight, Bastet, Summer, Sky, and Grimoire aspect experience.

You gain Battle Points.

With the monsters put to rest, the signs of Putrescence began to fade away. Though the damage was done to what had once been a trove of knowledge.

Gwen held a new weapon in her hands, one rewarded from the quest completed for clearing this area of intruders. The [Gibbous Guillotine Blade] with its broad, curved, and most of all blunt edge, seemed more suitable to bashing and crushing than slicing.

Bracing the weapon on the back handles, Gwen tried it out by digging a deep furrow into the stone tiles.

Thomas looked over his own reward, then put on the fur-lined boots with immediate relief. The magical insulation against the cold was exceptionally effective.

Gwen paced restlessly in front of one of the only statues that hadn’t been defiled. The sorrowful visage of some Olympian god watched over what was left of the chamber.

“They’re not here,” she said, chewing her lip. “The trail just goes…nowhere. Like they were transported somewhere else.”

“What sort of ritual magic or aspect skill would do that?” Thomas asked, studying the statue.

“Don’t know. All they seem to have bound is that same foul aspect,” Gwen answered, looking towards the light slanting into the chamber.

He knew what she was thinking.

She wanted to give up on these competitors and finally find Mel. Something that still made him uneasy. Gwen never understood why it bothered him. And how could she? Gwen blocked out the events leading up to the uplift.

Truthfully, they were both growing tired of this chase. These Putrescence wielders were elusive. They were aware they were being tracked and rightfully feared an encounter.

Thomas figured they would show up eventually or else a Magi would get them. Though it would be better to put them down sooner than later. Their magic was wildly dangerous. If they one day grew to prominence, they might become a threat that could not be easily contained.

Though, what it really came down to was that they hurt one of their own. Magi did not let such things go easily.

He wanted to seek out better opportunities elsewhere. And he knew Gwen wanted the same. She lived for fighting. The more challenging, the better. But she was distracted.

While roaming the Elemental Plateau, they hunted elite monsters, gathered mana-rich ingredients, and sought invaluable loot like ritual scrolls and kindling branches.

Tombs, dungeons and the like were some of the more lucrative places to explore. Though not the most. Areas of extreme danger served as the territory of the most ferocious of monsters. High rarity gear was necessary to endure the elements in such places.

Sometimes Magi worked together, sometimes not. It was important to grow, adapt and learn, whether that was alone or as a group.

Though, that was also how Magi were. They came and went freely, wandering like vagrants until they felt the call to be among like-minded company again. The only exception to that unspoken rule seemed to be Gwen, but even their friendship had to have limits.

“You want to go after Mel, don’t you?” Thomas asked, dreading the answer.

“Yes,” Gwen said, eyes bright. “She’s been through this plateau. I think I can find her.”

Thomas suspected that if he refused, they might part ways. And that was not a price he was willing to pay. Not now. Maybe not ever.