---Maddy---
As a group it felt like they had ‘hurried up just to wait around’.
They barely had time to decide and rush to catch the caravan…but then once they were settled in on top of the cart's roof there was suddenly nothing to do.
To be more accurate it felt like there was nothing to do – Maddy finally had some time to work on something she hadn’t had time for yet.
Maddy could now do magic. Her childhood dream suddenly theoretically within reach.
…she just didn’t know how. She had applied a mage tattoo – following the necromancers’ directions – and used the last of her money to buy some books – nothing incredibly helpful but bits and pieces were better than nothing.
All she needed now was to do some testing.
Taking out a wooden slate and charcoal pen Maddy set them up beside her on the rocking bench.
“You planning on doodling to pass the time?” Jess asked glancing over.
“I’m…planning on trying to get stronger. I need to figure out what I can do since I claimed my skill.” Maddy explained pushing her hair out of her eyes.
“…I should do that as well.” Troy spoke suddenly looking down at his bow as if he had forgotten it.
“…and I guess I just what…do pushups? Try and train resistance by stabbing myself?” Jess asked seemingly put out by the process.
“You could always try and break your skill as well? Give me a second…” Maddy opened the second most useful of her translated books – on affinities and resistances – and skimmed through till she found the section.
“Okay, so the main affinities are life and death magic – what I have – fire and ice magic, creation and destruction affinities, light slash darkness schools and finally speed plus slow – otherwise known as movement magic. There are some more esoteric schools – the book says theoretically anything can be an affinity – but they are all, for the most part, worse.” Maddy skimmed through then shut it once more.
“Barriers are the most common form of creation magic alongside weapon creation and summoning – all this is to say if you want to break your skill into creation/destruction you have to use it to…destroy something? I can try and help you brainstorm ways to do that if you want? Keep in mind some of the books think you should figure it out alone.” Maddy offered.
“…I’m still not that fond of the idea of breaking something – especially as it works perfectly fine right now.” Jess sighed opening her hand and creating a paper-sized yellow barrier on the end of it.
“I’ll think about it” She finally spoke – slowly moving her hand back and forth while staring at the pane on the end of it.
Maddy kept an eye on her friends and the surroundings while splitting off and focusing on her own project.
Over the past sleepless night, she had had some time to consider what she knew and what she thought she knew.
Pros and cons of trying stuff out randomly or being ignorant. She had made up her mind – now that she had a safety back, playing with runes seemed much safer. Just in case she thought she’d start with life magic – it seemed less likely to kill them if it exploded.
To start out with she was going to forge ahead and ‘actuate’ or figure out the rune for each of the concepts she had available.
She had already found her rune for application – her main one if the necromancer was to be believed.
She also had a symbol she was pretty sure was transference – the simple one she had used instinctually to help heal quicker back in the dungeon.
Spending some time Maddy thought about and tried to figure out…or just create the shape for the rest of them. Scythes…well she drew a backward 7 and it felt right. Collection was a more complicated spiralling shape…she couldn’t remember if there were any others.
Think I got them all. Now to see what they do?
Erasing all her sketched runes but application Maddy pushed life mana into it.
Immediately the board was suffused with life mana – the wood feeling greener and somehow newer.
“That wood’s fresh!” Jess commented from the peanut gallery causing Maddy to laugh.
“Sorry it's weird to do this with an audience. Don’t mind me”
Erasing that scribble, she sketched the scythe rune and tried again. This time her mana seemed confused. It didn’t seem to know what she wanted – it suddenly jumped across and tried to heal her weapon? The wood of her scythe felt a bit younger, but the mana was spluttering around – it continued to feel confused – jumping back to around the rune and shaping itself into a scythe shape then flying off and doing nothing… then flitting back again and covering the hand Maddy used to hold her scythe.
Next, she tried collection.
Dumping mana into her slate caused it to build and build. It didn’t seem to have an output – the mana just pooled into a single point at the center of her spiral and stayed there.
Hmmm.
Adding multiple runes beside one another – [Scythe-Application] to start – seemed to be a better use of her time. [Scythe-Application] let her send life or death mana over to her weapon no matter where she stood on the caravan roof. It made an effect where mana appeared to teleport across the short distance to her weapon – not that she could figure out a use for that just yet.
The day progressed Maddy trying more and more combinations. The first few hours had a huge jump in skill – going from ignorance to having a minimum level of knowledge was huge but every gain past that point was barely noteworthy.
One huge discovery – or more accurately solved problem – was how her mental state and goal affected the result. Depending on the runes used, her own thoughts were more or less important. Certain combinations were ‘stable’ – the result being the same no matter how many times she used it – while other combinations appeared to randomly change.
That randomness wasn’t fully random – it was influenced by Maddy’s thoughts and by taking advantage of that she could make more flexible results.
Finally – several hours into the day – a minor discovery threw everything she thought she knew out and forced her to re-evaluate her thoughts.
Maddy was starting to get confident in understanding her ‘concept’ runes. The discovery that threw her back to the start was ‘everything else’. If she drew a random shape or scribble it also changed results. She was distinctly reminded of the mage tattoo she had made – and all the interlocking symbols she had traced.
Those symbols had made up the majority of the tattoo – simpler symbols half the size of her concept symbol.
Pulling up her pant leg and studying the faint white lines Maddy began tracing each symbol onto her board.
“What are you doing?” Jess asked.
Maddy froze.
What do I do?
She had spent so much time trying to figure stuff out Maddy had relaxed a bit too much. She hadn’t forgotten she was on top of a moving vehicle – that would be silly – but she had forgotten she was doing everything in plain view of her friends.
Do I tell her the truth?
I trust her…she gave her life for me in the dungeon.
…but also, do I even know her? It’s been less than a week since we met.
I could lie – say it’s an old scar.
“Can I…I might tell you later.” Maddy finally spoke. It wasn’t the best thing she could say. It wasn’t even what she would consider a good response from a social standpoint. Instead, it could be considered a crack. Her forcing herself to try and show trust.
Staring at her for a solid moment Jess nodded. “Okay, if its that big of a deal you don’t have to worry. Hey! I’m bored. You mentioned there were hunting grounds on the way – when are we going to visit one? The days half over? Also, when is something going to happen? I thought for sure we would be attacked on this route – why else would they be setting us up as bodyguards?"
Maddy reached into her bag and pulled out a book.
“I have three books for the ride. One on affinities and resistances – it explains how different skills and defenses work and some common monsters that take advantage of that.
This book right here has a large map of the area and shows information on every single established monster nest – there’s a page per nest with basic information and strategies plus a glossary of common monsters.
And this book is a book on wizards that explains some of the things they can do but not how they can do them – its really really basic and I don’t know how reliable it is.
So…you could borrow the guide and check out the nests we are passing? I want to hit the one on page 38 – We should have already passed a few so you’ll have to guess how far along the route we are.” Maddy finished her explanation and handed over the middle book.
Looking excited for something to do, Jess opened the book and began scrolling.
Slowly pushing down her pant leg Maddy returned to her studies – she wanted to figure out something useful by the time they reached her target nest.
Using her previous discoveries Maddy combined all her runes into a shape and pushed death mana into it in a familiar way.
The result was a line of necrosis shifting down her scythe beside her.
A bit more effort than before she broke her skill, and she had the functionality back again.
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
It was stupid and reckless, but Maddy reached out and touched the line instantly having her finger begin to bubble – black rot spreading towards her.
Except it was her own skill. Her own death mana turned on her – with a focused thought the effect broke, her mana responding to her command. A push of life mana had her finger begin to heal slowly and Maddy returned to testing.
This right here was…functionally the same as her old skill broken apart and put back again in the same way. If she stopped right here, the breaking she had done would be a negative – turning an ingrained ability into one that needed a board of runes to work.
Along those lines Maddy began adding the small whatever they were called runes around her main one.
Just throwing random squiggles at the problem was not an effective solution – it was a brute force way of experimenting. Some small runes made it much worse. Some small runes made it better but fundamentally changed the skill in some way – for example adding several crescent moon shapes about her [reapers blade] base caused it to no longer jump to something when she attacked.
…at least testing it on her finger gave that result – she didn’t exactly have any ‘enemies’ lying around to try it out on.
Turning a single application and then ongoing damage skill to a skill that applies immediate ongoing damage. Its basically the same but not sticky…I think someone else might like this one more.
Maddy wasn’t arrogant enough to think she could figure everything out in a day – but it was grating she hadn’t managed to get something practical in the time she had wasted.
There was one other avenue she hadn’t touched yet – she had a second skill as of the end of the dungeon currently unused. Unlike before when skills felt like some unreachable thing in some unknown place, now Maddy could actually feel her new skill. She could feel the barrier holding it in place – paper thin – and could imagine ripping into it like a gift.
All it would require was a moment of dedicated thought and she could break it as well. Maybe using bits of it could increase her rune abilities?
The reason she hadn’t was a combination of safety and not having used it before – her memories of using it were foggy now – none included how it should feel now that she knew it was using mana.
Noting a landmark they passed – a large emerald tree – Maddy quickly began drawing the runes for her old skill into her scythe. She spent a few minutes to figure out how to fit it on the wooden handle, carefully drew all her concepts and added in a few minor symbols that seemed to make things better in her tests…
Standing up once she saw a second landmark, Maddy turned to her friends.
“I’m going on a short stop at this nest. If you want to come, you’ll have to plug your ears – I want to test out my new skill.”
Troy paused and seemed to consider staying, but then saw Jess jumping up beside him and quickly changed his mind. He didn’t want to be left behind.
“Finally! Let’s stretch our legs” Jess bent from side to side before jumping off the side of the caravan.
Troy went to the side and took the ladder down and Maddy followed stepping off after him.
As a crew the three walked towards a sign the caravan stopping behind them – a worried looking drivers head poking out of a window and staring at them as they walked away.
Contract-wise, the caravan and riding adventurer’s setup heavily favoured the adventurers. They didn’t have any obligations to stay and guard them – the merchants in turn didn’t have any obligation to stay and wait for them if they decided to hit a nest but they would in the hopes the group would return afterwards.
“So. Why do you want to ‘hit’ this nest?” Jess asked once they were a hundred feet from the caravan.
“…for some selfish reasons. There is a load of slow and incredibly resilient monsters here. Apparently, necrosis works well on them – its not the only type of attack that works well but its actually noted as the best. Add to that and there’s a rare but incredibly valuable monster called a death slime that occasionally appears – its something that can only die to life mana and its core sells for hundreds of pips if its undamaged.”
“Got it. You want to cheese some fights. I call picking the next nest!” Jess seemed unbothered by the description. Troy simply nodded. As time progressed the third member of their group seemed to be more and more comfortable staying a silent observer.
As a group the three walked towards a sign – one denoting the “edge” of the nest. The sign had some simple symbols – they didn’t seem to have splurged for translating text instead simply showing a monster head with four notches and a shield – the symbol for tanks.
Stepping past the invisible line the group continued on – Troy making sure to stay back an arrow cocked as he walked.
As they progressed further the environment seemed to change slightly. The grass grew shorter and stubbier – taking on an almost wood like texture as it turned brown and stiff. There were occasional shrubby trees here and there, but they weren’t close enough Maddy would consider this a forest.
A bit further and the grass was strong enough to resist their steps – it was like walking on a sea of bent wooden sculptures. Ahead and to the left, a creature that looked like an eight-legged wooden pig watched their approach. As they grew closer it bent its head slightly and prepared itself.
“I’m going to try and hit it,” Maddy moved her scythe around into a prepared position – pushed death mana into it – and began running forward.
Snorting, the monster in front of her pawed at the ground like a bull and began its charge.
The wooden bull was faster than Maddy had been imagining – at least based on the “slow” description her book had given her – but still manageable. The creature charged at roughly half Maddy’s running speed, but it was having less troubles with the wooden grass below.
Running around its side and slashing out as hard as she could Maddy’s scythe dug a thin scratch along its flank her mana jumping off and beginning to attack the creature’s flesh.
Circling it Maddy reached out and took hold of her mana – this was the addition her extra runes had added. Trying to keep track of her running body and direct the mana inside the bull’s body simultaneously was a mind-bending task. She was nearly certain if she hadn’t chosen a split mind, she wouldn’t have been able to pull it off.
One part of her focused on not tripping on the uneven footing, a second focused on burrowing and worming through tough flesh.
She felt like a worm operating based on feel and sensing based on how tough stuff was to dig through. She ate and melted and spread – constantly splitting off into more worms that were too hard to keep track of.
Maddy ran. Her book hadn’t mentioned the ground being this awful to run on.
Maddy figured out how to split her focus more – more worms less controlled. She was a conductor – a general directing an army.
Maddy returned to her partners', slowing down and throwing the last of her attention that had been focused on her body towards' the current task.
She felt like she was on the cusp of something – each of her tendrils of death mana were quickly fading. They were splitting apart and weakening and soon would be completely gone – but they also felt…
There. Maddy realized each tendril had a purpose…some part that she realized was from the ‘collection’ aspect. If they managed to kill this creature, they would gorge on its death and return to her – refilling her mana to full once more.
She could feel the monster weakening could feel the death on the air – why couldn’t the tendrils ‘collect’ that and continue feeding? Maddy pulled her desire towards the worms attempting to communicate. She had a desire – she wanted them to continue.
She was so close…but the worms refused to listen. One by one they disappeared and Maddy found herself once more watching the bull from her body. it looked like a wreck. Its whole side was black and vague lumps of ‘something’ were oozing and dripping out of its body coating the grass below it in inky red and black.
“Please cover your ears” Maddy called to her friends then spoke.
“Please Die,” Maddy’s voice changed as she evoked her skill.
She could feel death mana resound out of her skill filling the air with her will.
The bull began to shake – death mana crossing the distance and burrowing in through its ears.
She couldn’t control this death mana – it didn’t even fully feel like hers – just sense it. Just barely see it was happening.
I have to break this skill soon.
Beside her Jess shook slightly – she was grinning, black ooze leaking from both ears.
“Dammit Jess, I warned you!” Maddy yelped suddenly mad that she had hurt her friend. The skill seemed powerful in a way – it dealt almost as much ‘damage’ as [the reapers blade] from a safe distance – she could also tell it dealt ‘damage’ to everything that could hear it.
If she had it in the dungeon room full of demon ferrets, she could have wiped out all of them at once…
But it could also hurt her allies – especially if they were dumb enough not to follow the one rule she had given.
Reaching a handout, Maddy pushed the small amount of mana that had regenerated since she had used her slash towards' Jess.
…and then paused. Just pushing mana wasn’t very effective.
Ahead of her the immobile bull died – she was barely paying attention at this point as she held her scythe up and tapped the tip to her friend’s ear.
Instead of using her attack skill, Maddy pushed life mana through the same runes.
Mana gathered meaning and purpose then erupted out of the tip of her blade the moment it pierced the mushy flesh of her friend’s ear. Maddy controlled the weak tendril of life mana as it sought to mend and fix what she had done.
Maddy was much less experienced with healing by this point – that was bad. Her affinity put her into the place of her team’s healer she should lean into that more.
To the side she noticed another bull-like creature approaching. This one was nearly identical but had a flower growing out of its head.
…she had used most of her mana killing the first one and was distracted trying to heal Jess.
…sure, this nest had four notches – that meant tier 4 or ‘one third of the way into rank 1’ but that should be close to her strength – right? She didn’t know her exact ‘level’ but had tried to guess based on the stat levels she had read about.
She was levelled for this hunting zone and had specifically picked it because she countered stuff here – why wasn’t it as easy as she had imagined?
“Guys, second target,” pointing towards' the new bull she heard a faint twang and a streak of light as Troy shot toward it.
The brilliant arrow sunk into the bull and was essentially eaten by its flesh.
In one side and then gone – a faint glow illuminating the hole for a moment and then fading.
Jess stepped forward and whipped a barrier into place – her new whip had a longer reach and supposedly better flexibility – so the barrier appeared right in front of the bull.
She seems to be doing okay.
Maddy dropped her focus on the spell – the manual portion the rest of the life mana worming around could figure itself out – and gripped her scythe once more.
She wished her first cast of the scythe had stayed around long enough to refill her. Her roughly 10% fill mana pool would have to do for this attack.
Maddy paused. What’s that?
She could sense her death mana still in the corpse of the first creature – could sense its death still tinging the air with untapped energy.
“This is probably a dumb idea but I’m going to try something, I feel like if I don’t try this, I’ll keep thinking about it,” Maddy called back watching as Troy shot another arrow – this one a pitch black blur darkening reality as it warped towards the bull and disappeared into it ineffectually.
Running towards the first corpse Maddy struck it with a weakened [Reaper’s blade] pushing mana into the body and feeling it collect…stuff.
It wasn’t mana it was eating and ‘collecting’ just energy – and Maddy could only sense this energy due to her affinity.
With a surge she felt the tendrils gorged and full – like leeches that had over fed on blood and were now about to burst. Each tendril disappeared when it was full – returning to her across the distance and refilling her pool.
☠️ Achievement get: Reaper’s prodigy. (Unique)
Description: Actively seek out and collect the energy of death for the first time.
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Stat: +1 soul power.
Stat: +3 mental power.
There was still quite a bit of energy on the death.
Striking it for 10% once more Maddy turned and ran towards the second bull.
Behind her the invisible leeches filled up on death energy and as Maddy grazed this bull releasing her skill into it she found herself refilled once more.
[Words of Death] was off cooldown – “cooldown” meaning it had refilled its pool of mana and the system skill would now let her use it again.
At this moment she really could understand why someone would consider the gifted system skill ‘unowned’. If it were hers, she could send it off before it finished refilling. Heck if it were hers the invisible mana pool for the skill would be added to her own – she could use that mana on more scythes if she wanted.
Breaking in the midst of a fight seemed dumb, however. Just something for the future.
Out of the corner of her eye, she could see another bull running towards them – it was still a ways’ away but gaining as it ran between bushes across the wooden grass.
“I’m using my sound skill. Please cover your ears” Maddy yelled making sure to watch until Jess covered her ears this time.
The third bull was in range, so Maddy spoke – frustration bleeding into her words. “Both of you just die already.”
Beside her the second bull buckled and fell – while ahead of her the charging ‘third bull’ tripped and slid. A crackling sound rang out as it broke a path of grass like some fleshy Zamboni.
Maddy turned and ran towards it her scythe at the ready. Now that she was getting into the groove of things, she was more confident with her choices. Her partners didn’t seem to be doing too well here… but she had specifically picked this nest for herself – she had even told them she could go alone.
A bit more exercise and she should have enough experience to go back and study some more.
A strike of death worms into the fallen body and Maddy turned – making her way back towards her partners. There seemed to be a lull in the attacks – no 4th bull was attacking as she reached them.
“How are you two doing?” Maddy asked making sure to address how she could tell they were feeling.
“I feel useless, I need to break my skill soon” Jess responded smiling and trying to play it off. Her voice was so soft it was hard to hear when she wasn’t doing the equivalent of excitedly yelling.
Troy seemed to be studying his bow.
“I’m fine” he mumbled after realizing she was looking at him.
“I’ve mostly got what I came for,” Maddy said after a moment. real experience using her skills had done more for her than the last few hours of studying – she couldn’t wait to try and refine her findings.
Suddenly Maddy paused. “Hold that thought” she spoke staring past them.
It had been a rare chance but…she thought she saw the golden goose watching them from underneath a shrubby tree ahead.
A death slime.
If she caught that all her hopes for this trip would have been achieved.