Chapter 8 - A Walk in the Forest

As they watched the minions battle and picked up their scattered beads of essentia. Palinus discussed their ars and class options for their first level. Bruchts had three options to choose from as well:

Swordsman

Warden

Defender

Ars

Multi Strike

Reflective Skin

Improvised Sword Wall

Attunement

nil

nil

nil

Compatibility

n/a

n/a

n/a

Cooldown

n/a

2 minutes

5 Minutes

Skill Type

Enhancement

Defence

Area

Slot

Wrist, hand

Chest

Hand, arm, wrist

Slot Bonus

n/a

n/a

n/a

Description

Each strike applies effects twice.

The user's skin becomes reflective, preventing the next status effect and applying it instead to the caster.

Create a wall with your sword causing all enemy avatars and minions moving towards you to receive strike effect for each step.

“Imagine if I had Reflective Skin, preventing the stun which incapacitated me…”

Palinus replied, “If we had either of our ars they would have had to run rather than fight, and he might still be alive…”

“He was the enemy and he made his own bed.” Bruchts said, “But that is the power of power. Choice.”

“... choose what happens. I hope that’s true, but I’m not so sure. I think everyone in Erulea has to do what someone else says, no-one really has the power to choose.” Palinus replied.

“I bet the Emperor doesn’t answer to anyone,” Bruchts countered. “Anyway, that's depressing. Let’s get some more essentia and think about what we want the rift to make for us. I want a big sword!”

They stood and watched as the minions clashed. The waves piled in against each other and scattered their essentia on the floor. Each wave of violence becoming more mundane as Palinus began to feel almost bored.

“Maybe we sh…” He started to suggest they try their new ars out as he turned to notice Bruchts sheepishly avoiding his gaze.

The big teenager’s skin which was normally so pale now had a reflective sheen. He moved normally and didn’t seem to be slowed by the transition and as Palinus turned to stare he could see himself reflected in Bruchts bicep.

“I couldn’t resist trying it.” Bruchts said. “You should use yours too, it doesn’t seem like the Silvanians are coming back.”

“You don’t know that...” Palinus sighed, but he absolutely understood the urge to try his new ability. The ars was calling to him, it felt like another stomach with a hunger to use his essentia and blast the world with fire. The power sang to him and he felt a sense of rightness that he had never felt before. His fear and his anxiety was eclipsed by an intense feeling of confidence, he wanted the Silvanian’s to come back and he wanted to show them his fire.

He gave in to the tugging of the ars and let the essentia within him stream to the lump in his palm. He instinctively raised his hand with his fingers open and his palm pointed towards his target, the tall grass towards the forest. The lump beneath his palm took a moment to process the stream of essentia and grew hot as in the space formed by his outstretched hand a ball of fire began to form. Just as it became uncomfortable and he started to feel the flesh of his hand burn, he launched the ball with a splash of hot air into his body.

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The fireball shot off towards the brush. Just as Palinus was congratulating himself on the foresight not to use the ability on the minions and ruin the wave balance he noticed a rustling in the long grass.

As if in slow motion Marcus’s head popped out of the brush. Heis eyes went wide as he noticed the fireball coming and started to duck too late. The fireball struck with a splash and a roar as it hit his face. He tried to cover his eyes and immediately started smacking himself to extinguish the flame that covered his face, chest and arms.

Marcus Gavros 641/792 - [Burning] | Level 2

Bloody Maceman - Bruiser

He gave up slapping himself and started rolling on the ground as the fire was spreading across his body. Palinus and Bruchts ran to help smother the flame and it was a long ten or so seconds before they were fully extinguished.

“I’m so sorry Marcus!” Palinus said repeatedly as they helped the man up.

“Bah, it’s nothing. Good instincts, blasting someone in the bushes,” Marcus patted himself down, confirming the fire was extinguished.

“But, I shot you with a fireball…”

“Think nothing of it. My fault for not announcing my presence and popping out at you!”

The fireball did less than half the expected damage and Marcus was quick to recover. Once he had the man stalked around the lane checking all the hiding spots. Palinus noticed he also helped himself to the essentia on the ground.

“Looks like they haven’t come back down to the lane.” Marcus announced to the team, “No sign of them in our forest or the middle forest.”

“No Silvanmen up here either, they might be waiting it out in their nexus.” Minucia’s voice replied.

“Or they are farming the creeps in their forest. We’ll go scout, be ready to assist.” Marcus sent to the group. He turned to Palinus and Bruchts and waved at them to follow him. “We are going to take a walk through their forest. I swept it earlier and I think there is a deep red super creep spawn that I want to take down. If the SIlvanmen are anywhere near it, we’re going to fight them off..”

“What are creeps?” Palinus asked the man.

“They are the wild essentia monsters that spawn in rifts, you’ll see some in a moment.” Marcus replied, signalling them to follow as he walked into the tall grass.

With his imagination running wild Palinus was almost excited to see the monsters in the forest, especially a ‘super’ monster. But recalling the warning from Minucia and the bestial roars they had heard from the forest he was glad to be entering with Marcus and Bruchts as he followed them into the tall grass.

The boys tried to emulate Marcus as they followed. He walked with his mace in front of him in a comfortable position but ready to move in any direction to respond to a threat, he wasn’t trying to sneak but moved quietly and deliberately in unpredictable bounces from brush to brush carefully checking in all directions as they moved through the forest.

“We are going into their side of the forest now so be on the lookout. If we get split up, run.” Marcus whispered. “Give the creeps a wide berth and if they get aggressive, just run.”

Bruchts and Palinus both rolled their eyes at another rough explanation with no room for questions as Marcus started moving before he had finished his sentence. In a flash he was through a gap in the trees and into enemy territory leaving the boys to scamper to catch up.

They passed through another gap in the trees along a short path into another thicket of tall grass that completely obscured the way in front of them. Marcus did not hesitate to plunge into the tall grass and after a moment turned back to wave them into the patch of brush.

The tall grass they stood in acted as cover over a junction of three other passages through the forest. To their right they could see a gap back towards the back of the Silvanian turret in the lane they had been standing and ahead they could see a direct path through the trees towards the Silvanian Nexus, their path was covered in dark shadow, winding itself deeper into the forest.

The path wound around the forest, through thickets of tall grass. As they darted into one such patch Palinus saw his first set of creeps. Three creatures that looked like large tan coloured wolves sat in a clearing of the forest. Even with their long legs tucked beside them the beasts looked too tall and wide to be regular wolves, their hides had spots of tan and wide jaws that almost seemed to smile as they cackled at each other and occasionally got up to sniff around or snap at each other.

Corocotta 410/410 | Level 1

Spotted Dog Wolf

There was a pulse of essentia from the clearing as he watched the Corocotta. As the pulse flared the creatures got excited and rushed around the clearing as if trying to catch flies in the air.

A tug on his arm dragged him along as he turned to see Bruchts trying to get his attention and Marcus glaring at him from a brush further down the path. They gave the creeps a wide berth as they moved on.

Only a short way further along they came across another clearing that looked to just be a small tree standing on its own. As they walked past Palinus spotted a slight movement and was able to see a box with the creep’s information.

Seps 230/230 | Level 1

Putrefaction Serpent

Shaking himself to attention as he kept walking, he was glad they weren’t going near the tree. He hadn't seen a creature there at all with the snake hidden amongst the leaves. Palinus was sure he had heard of Seps before, stories of a brutal venom that melted skin and from a snake that was nearly invisible until it struck.

A signal from Marcus to follow quietly made Palinus’s heart race. A moment later he could hear what had triggered the change of pace. Up ahead there were the unmistakable sounds of a fight.

As they moved through a section of tall grass they turned a corner to a clearing deep in the Silvanian forest. The area was dark, in the heavy shadow of the trees towering above them and in the shadow was a dark stone mausoleum with its heavy stone door standing wide open.

Through the door they could see a chamber lit by hundreds of candle flames and three of the Silvan avatars battling against monstrously proportioned humanoid corpses which were partially rotting, gushing smoke from their mouths and wounds. Palinus felt instantly drawn to the essentia of the mausoleum, it called to him, and a feeling of hunger pulled him into the mausoleum and made him rage against the Silvanian’s for standing in his way.

Vulcan Spectre 643/920 | Level 5

Vengeful Shade of Smoke

There were only two of the spectres but the Silvanmen seemed to be struggling in the battle against them with their higher levels. Reinvar was less than half health and they had done little damage to the other spectre at all.

Reinvar Umfridus 304/630 | Level 1

Spearman - Defender

Reinvar’s allies were barely helping as Raolet and the other Silvanman were affected by the status [Blinded] so they couldn’t see what they were doing and got in each other’s way.

Raoulet Umfridus 672/712 [Blinded] | Level 1

Forest Warrior - Warrior

From the brush on the other side of the clearing they saw another Silvanman briefly pop his head out of the grass to throw a dagger at the shade. It did some damage and the man returned to his bush.

“We’ve found the Silvanmen,” Marcus reported in a whisper to the team, “We see three taking on a super creep spawn in the middle of their forest, and the 4th is looking out from the brush. No sign of the 5th respawning.”

“Are you going to engage?” Minucia replied.

“I’ve got a level advantage and we’ve caught them with their pants down. More importantly, it’s a deep red so a potential coalescence is too valuable for me or Palinus to let go without a fight.”

A surge of adrenaline spiked through Palinus’s body in agreement with Marcus desire to fight. It felt like his body was ready to fight the Silvanmen alone if it had to.