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World: MSS - Loading...
"Thoughts"
"Speech"
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L’teya, fourth daughter of Agad was tired.
They had spent this entire day hunting monsters out in the desert, these giant monsters called Agwi. They had been fun to hunt initially, but when the orc child ordered them to hunt more it irked her. Then they were beset by a group of humans who attacked with no warning like the cowards that they were. Everyone knew that proper combat was done by introducing oneself to your opponents first. Not knowing your enemy’s name made for poor storytelling later.
She knew that her enemies were human even before they met the dagger-wielding assassin. Only humans would attack like that, or at least that’s what her tribe believed. In the Delirious Jungle, her tribe kept mostly to themselves, shunning any contact with outsiders. Yet that suffocating attitude was exactly what caused her brother to leave and get himself captured by the orcs.
“Possibly captured. Not sure yet.”
Atleast that’s what the rest of her siblings believed.
But that’s how life was like in the Delirious Jungle. Missing people were a daily occurence. Monsters were growing stronger and human expansion was growing more aggressive. Gone were the days when warchiefs spoke to each other face to face. Now, it was all these fancy men in fancy clothing with long-worded messages going back and forth. Just what part of ‘Stay out of our land’ was so hard to understand for humans?
Her brother had pressed the elders to join the Jayu States.
Altan, the first son of Agad.
Her brother, the strongest warrior in the tribe.
The one who should have become the next chief.
Altan had hope. He had a vision, he had goals and a plan for how to achieve them. Altan wasn’t like the rest of them. He was smart. He was strong. He was capable. He had been the leader for their generation.
“But the stupid ass got himself caught by the damned orcs.” Lety channeled her anger into her strike, hacking at the creature’s legs.
The Stone Tortoise lifted up its leg and stomped hard on the ground. L’teya dodged out of the way, driving her axes into the ground to stop herself from being blown away or knocked down. Everytime the creature stomped with one of its massive feet, the floor shook beneath her, threatening to unbalance her.
“L’teya!” Clover put both palms face out towards the elf-barbarian.
Greenish mana swirled from her hands and shot towards the elf-barbarian like vines, wrapping around her. Surprisingly, there was no weight to them and the mana faded as soon as it touched her skin. Some of the elf-barbarians bruises disappeared and L’teya’s knee stopped aching..
That brought her back to the current predicament, trapped in a dungeon with a beastwoman and a human.
Despite not having had the blessing of being born as barbarians, Clover and Lock were her precious friends.
“Comrades.” She corrected herself, remembering Lock’s words from earlier.
Lety dashed to another leg and began hacking at it; her mismatching axes trying to pry underneath the stone scale of this creature.
“FOR HONOR!” She yelled her battlecry, something that Altan had taught her to do when feeling overwhelmed.
Lock reminded her of her brother.
L’teya continued to hack away at the Stone Tortoise, unaware that some of the wounds were starting to bubble and leak green. The Core that she absorbed from the Death Worm was full at work, coating her axes in venom. But she felt the recesses of her soul beginning to grow empty, soon she’d have nothing left.
But she wouldn’t give up.
Not as long as Clover and Lock were by her side.
Meanwhile, the Stone Tortoise’s scales were slowly turning green.
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“Slaveborn! Slaveborn! Slaveborn!”
The Ujo twisted its body in ecstasy, screaming my name like a lover caught in the throes of pleasure.
I was long beyond caring, mostly because my body was in tatters.
After realizing that the monster was susceptible to the [Bleed] effect, I continued to bait out its dive bombing attack. If I could stack enough of the status effects, I could possibly get it to phase two myself. Initially, I had been afraid that its ability to copy speech was a sign of higher intelligence. But the Ujo must have inherited its IQ from its avian-ancestry because it fell to my tactics again and again.
But my body was growing tired. The health potions only healed wounds, it didn’t erase the fatigue that was building up both physically and mentally. I made a few mistakes and that caused me to be in the state I was in now.
My left arm was no longer moving; it was just a lump of flesh with the whites of my bone showing. My face had been rubbed raw from the creature’s bristly fur. Each time I dodged its diving attack, I had to twist my body at an unnatural angle and my face would rub against it. Additionally, my hamstrings and back were starting to seize up. But if I cramped up during a maneuver…
“It’s coming!” I baited out another dive roll and once again, survived the ordeal.
Blood fell freely from my head but so did the wounds from the creature’s stomach. Shallow as they were, they were still wounds inflicted with [Bleed]. The Ujo did not have a strong enough regeneration factor to overcome it.
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“It’s possible. Just phase two and I’ll take cover underneath the tortoise.” I gritted my teeth, inching my way towards the pillar.
“Lock! Help!”
That definitely didn’t come from the Ujo so I spared a moment to look at where the tortoise was, trying to find Clover.
The tortoise had shifted its colors from stone-gray to toxic green. Its shell was starting to radiate a gas of the same color, and I knew that it had to be poison. It must have been using its active ability, [Store Damage], followed up by [Damage Discharge]. The Stone Tortoise could absorb damage at a reduced rate for an amount of time then create an moat around itself using the nature of that damage. It only worked with elemental type damage and being the fool that I am, I sent Lety, a poison user.
“Shit.” I had to get over there and help. If it used the combination, the Stone Tortoise must be in Phase 2. I had underestimated Lety’ damage output.
L’teya’s skin was spotted with green and quickly turned black. I saw her leap out of the way, getting out of the poison fog. Whatever Oung had done to Clover though, it must have rendered her immune to the poison. Her clothes were starting to slough off, but her skin remained healthy. L’teya should have some natural immunity to poison thanks to [Death Worm], but the Stone Tortoise was a whole grade higher and a boss-class monster.
“Slaveborn!”
The Ujo got my attention again and I saw the creature dive bombing me.
My concentration was broken and I couldn’t bring myself to react in time. I did my all to roll forward trying to avoid its aerial strike. Regardless I felt its bristly fur scratch the entirety of my back; a feeling akin to carpet burn and splinters all at once. I got to my feet and started running in the direction of the other battle.
Since the Ujo could be affected by status ailments, the poison should work.
I pumped my legs, sprinting faster than ever at the growing cloud of poison. Clover dragged Lety away, holding her by the arms. Lety’s usually tanned skin was mostly black now. To my relief, Clover’s hands glowed with green mana and I saw that the spot where she touched, Lety's skin began to return to normal. I left the two to heal, hoping that the Ujo wouldn’t change directions towards them.
“Blood.” I was covered in it, and the Ujo would follow me.
True to my theory, I heard the flapping of its leathery wings and the Ujo was flying right above me. It hissed, then flew on ahead to try and cut me off. Just as it did so, I felt the world lose a little of its light. The torch lights weren’t as bright and the flaps of the Ujo’s wings weren’t as loud. Even the scent of my blood, sickly sweet, was absent.
“Clover’s buff ran out.”
My body was spent but I wasn’t out of tricks just yet.
Right as Ujo rounded and faced me, it slashed out with its talons. I immediately imagined a coin being flipped. I was using [Coin Toss], the only shitty ability I had at the moment. Except instead of casting it on myself, I cast it on Ujo.
“Please, please please. Oung, if you’re fucking listening make this work.”
It was a gamble, but that was how desperate I was.
It honestly didn’t matter what stat my coin toss ability decreased for the creature, Ujo's passive [Arcane Masochism] would always cancel out a debuff. In addition, the passive would then raise one of the three main factors that were crucial for close-ranged battle: speed, attack or defense. For characters, or for the people of MSS, it was nearly impossible to raise these stats directly. Most of them depended on hidden stats like handicraft or movement speed, and the other on equipment. This was one of the reasons why fighting a Ujo with lower leveled party was so difficult. It could dodge magical attacks and was almost impervious to physical ones. To boot, any debuff would make it stronger in a close ranged battle.
But not every buff was necessarily was a good thing. I had a 33% of my gamble succeeding.
｢ Lock Slaveborn has cast [Coin Toss] ｣
｢[Smell] has been decreased ｣
｢[Arcane Masochism] cancels [Coin Toss] ｣
｢[Arcane Masochism] raises [Speed]｣
Bluish light glowed briefly on the creature before it turned yellow, indicating that my coin toss had been successfully canceled by its passive. I didn't have time to stand there and watch though.The Ujo sped up so fast that if it continued the trajectory it would crash into the floor and my heart did a little dance. The creature landed a moment later, albeit in a controlled manner. It used its talons to slow down, leaving long grooves in the marble. But the creature, naturally averse to landing and having to navigate on its own two legs, flapped its wings to take flight.
I couldn't manage something like a controlled strike before. The flying beast was moving way too fast and I'm ashamed to admit I ended up closing my eyes at the last second. But I thrust forward with my sword and felt it catch on something.
“Slaveborn!” It screeched, a fresh cut decorating its wings, dripping blood.
Inflicting the wounds themselves didn’t do any damage. They were too shallow for that. But the bleeding…
The creature was bleeding enough to fill a bathtub in seconds. As much as I wanted to stay and contemplate the effectiveness of a Bleed-build on a creature who was practically immune to physical-type damage, I forced myself to move. Clover had dragged L’teya away and the poison was almost gone from the elf-barbarian’s skin. I saw L’teya try to get up but she was so weakened that Clover could just push her down and shove more healing mana into her.
Clover didn’t look so good either. Her clothes had been sloughed off and anywhere else, I would have offered her my armor. Her skin had lost all color and I saw that she still bore the aftereffects of Oung’s treatment. It was a miracle that she had somehow learned to heal and cast buffs.
“Could it be that she’s talented?”
I reached the Stone Tortoise, stopping right at the edge of the poison cloud.
Oung had called this a boon.
Initially I had thought about it as a curse… but was it really?
These trials, what were they for?
Of course Clover became a priestess. Hooray. But so what?
These trials… Oung’s Trials to be exact, they were testing us. And this boon was the same. Oung had to be helping us in some sick, divine way. That meant that there had to be a way out of this situation. She didn’t call this a boon for Clover, her priestess. Child of Blood and Mana, the way that humans were referred to. Then Child of Leaf and Star, the way she referred to elves.
Then she said this was a boon for us.
Did a goddess really act on such whims? Such understandable uni-lateral dimensions?
No… it wasn’t just a boon. In this final trial, Clover had unlocked her spells but none of them had been that impressive. They were all standard Priestess toolkits.
Maybe she needed to be pushed.
Or maybe all this in my head was me trying to stall.
“I’m gambling with my life again.” I wanted to blame this on the Beckoning Cat.
The flapping of wings alerted me back to the present.
“BEHIND YOU LOCK!” Clover’s voice warned me.
I knew even without turning around that the Ujo had curled himself up, dive bombing me once more. Now was the time. I had no room to fail.
“This is going to hurt.”
I ran inside the poisonous mist under the Stone Tortoise’s legs and the Ujo screamed as it followed me in.
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Kyrian Tricilan pored over the beastman script on the doorway.
“What are you doing?” Abay muttered.
He sat with his back against the wall, a wet towel over his eyes. He had poured healing potions over his amputated fingers but still felt them ache. He cursed the priestess for leaving without healing his fingers and wondered how many coins he’d have to pay. Then his thoughts strayed to ripping apart the black-haired slave and having his way with the two women who were with him.
If Kyrian knew the rage that dwelled underneath Abay’s tone, he gave no indication. He continued to study the writing, not deigning to dignify Abay with an answer.
“I don’t care what you do. Just make sure that the two women are-”
“I said I understood the first three times you said it.” Kyrian snapped.
He was bothered by Abay’s tastes and behavior, but as a mercenary himself didn’t want to talk too much about it. But the way Abay was so relentless in confirming their verbal agreement was sickening. Kyrian told himself that if the chance came, he’d finish the slaves with his spells so as to keep them out of Abay’s hands. He was a mercenary, but even he could show mercy to another person.
Not like Abay could do anything to him anyways.
Try as Abay might, Kyrian was a mage and was certain of his strength. Even if they were in an enclosed alcove like this one, there was plenty of moisture in the air to boost his lightning spells. If Abay tried to do something to him out of anger, Kyrian would just fry him and leave the body here.
“But then I’d have to explain why he died to the Akka Xaluds.” He didn’t want to do that.
So he focused on opening the door. The sooner they got this over with, the better he would feel.
“Mana will light the way…” He muttered.
“Hey, do you have anything to eat? How about a story?” Abay laughed darkly. “Surely I’m the the only one thirsting with nothing to eat in this desert.”
It was all too obvious that Abay wasn’t talking about food.
Kyrian did as the tablet said, and poured mana into the door. His bluish mana filled the gaps and the door lit up with light. One particular pattern caught his eye, not in the door itself but on the wall next to it. A perfect rectangle outlined by his mana, amidst an unassuming cave wall.
Kyrian pressed it.
Click.
Grr-grr-grr
The door opened.
Abay stood up eagerly, his eyes alight with ugly rage.
The mage sighed. He promised the Three gods that he would try his best to give them a quick death, but wasn't sure of his ability to deliver. Mercy was a luxury for those with power.
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