Act One: 520 Deepsummer DE
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Chapter One: Daily Grind
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Wisps of quickly cooling breath escaped Blychert’s lips as he gasped for air, only hopeful for a momentary reprieve in the action.
Though not that he’d get it.
The crackling sounds of his pursuers echoed farther down the cavern tunnel behind him, and he knew that he didn’t have much time before they’d be within striking distance yet again.
It was at that moment Bly noticed the slight shimmer of his own conjured sword, itself hovering several feet in front of him, beginning to sputter, and so he immediately swung his right arm up into the air. Locking-in on the magical weapon, he squeezed a bit more mana into the spell that sustained it and watched as a rejuvenated vigor fell over the entire blade.
Well, that was one problem sorted out.
Expulsing an irritated grumble, however, Bly also realized that he had created another issue just as quickly: he was reaching his short-term mana limits, which meant that he was going to have to make do with alternative measures sooner rather than later.
A flash of light flickered around the bend of the cavern tunnel at that moment, causing Bly’s attention to shift, though he already knew what was coming for him long before it even revealed itself.
Squeezing his right hand into a fist, Bly assumed telepathic control over the floating sword just in time to parry two of the incoming projectiles. The cold, icy dust of their remnants sprayed across his face as each one exploded upon impact with the magical blade. There was little time to relish the small victory though, as a third missile streaked past his summoned weapon in a flash.
“Swift shield—” Bly murmured instinctually, and before he knew it the frozen projectile had completely shattered against his defensive spell.
He glanced up and regarded the three ice demons on the far side of the cavern.
Their white, bird-like forms emanated long trails of frost as they scurried through the air. They were much quicker and much more elusive on the second floor of the dungeon, which made targeting them with spells somewhat more difficult than usual. Furthermore, his own reliance on ice spells for offensive magic fell to complete irrelevance against them too. Sure, he had a bit of fire magic up his sleeve, but he wasn’t proficient enough in that element to warrant much confidence in any spectacular attack. If he was going to get any use out of that kind of magic, he knew he’d need them to be a hell of a lot closer than they currently were, which presented its own issues.
A small twinge of pain surged through the left side of his head abruptly, eliciting a wince as Bly reached up to caress his temple. There was no mistaking the onset of mana depletion now.
Just a bit more. He stifled the pain with a thought.
The three ice demons surged forward ahead of him, their maws opening wide as the blue glow of more projectiles bloomed from within rows upon rows of jagged teeth. They were fierce and highly territorial, unrelenting even after Bly had put a good amount of distance between them. Not that he had any plans to make it easy for his pursuers. He had one half decent idea forming in the back of his mind, but it was going to require speed, and removing at least one of the three first.
Simple enough. Bly smirked slightly at the thought of his own ridiculous plans. But as his attackers approached, he quickly maneuvered himself back into a more sure-footed position and held out his left hand.
“System command: activate ability, x-p transmogrifier. Execute mana replenishment.” He issued the command hastily, and his sage terminal suddenly flashed in front of his outstretched arm, where upon lines of system hieroglyphs scrolled across the pane as his chosen ability ignited into action. Quickly, Bly followed up with, “Input class code: parse fighter, parse dragon knight, fetch dragon leap, link to active resource, execute.”
His experience pool took an immediate hit as the transmogrifier ability worked to replenish his mana supply. By converting raw experience into magical energy, Bly was fully able to engage the exploited class ability. The energy requirements for ‘Dragon Leap’ weren’t high by any means, but he’d still need a reserve of mana for the rest of his plan to work.
At that moment, an instant surge of power and a lightness of step that wasn’t there before filled Bly’s body, and he was only miffed about the lost experience for a moment or two, knowing that it wasn’t like he couldn’t make up the point difference another time.
“Surging winds, cast unto earth and let my steps be many. Winds of time, swiften my shadow in boundless pace. Hasten.” Blychert cast the alteration spell at once, mentally gesturing for his sage terminal to close, before making ready to move in for his assault.
Bending his knees slightly, Bly pressed off his back foot and bounded forward at roughly twice his normal running speed, thanks to the hasten spell. Racing onward, his conjured sword maintained the same speed as himself, but they were closing the gap to the ice demons rather quickly.
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The next wave of attacks overshot Bly by a decent amount, as he continued to close the distance. When he finally found his opportune moment, Blychert released his fist and the summoned sword stopped mid-air. Within a second his hand was wrapped around the hilt, and with a single push off from his front foot, he was bounding up through the cavern.
Even though he would have normally lacked the athleticism for such a feat, Bly’s advanced spellcasting propelled him all the same, and with just a little help from the engaged martial ability, his magical blade sliced straight down the center of the foremost ice demon.
Shards of cold, crystalized entrails scattered everywhere as Bly skittered back down across the cavern floor. But not a moment later, he heard the hissing cries and crackling rage of the other two above him.
Just like that. He thought approvingly.
Twisting around, Bly stepped to the right two paces, narrowly avoiding impalement from another icy spear. There was no questioning that he would have been hit if not for his heightened sense of mobility, but then that was the spell’s primary function anyway.
“Swift shield—” Bly extended his hand, and not a moment too soon. The second icy projectile burst across the barrier with a thunderous crash, exploding into hundreds of pieces. Thereafter, Blychert immediately dropped both the defensive and conjuration spells in the same action, before moving directly into a secondary cast, just as he’d envisioned it, “Flickering ember, ignite my will, Fire bolt.”
A tendril of flame leapt from his fingertips and blazed a path through the air, dissipating the latent energy still lingering from his shielding spell as it hurdled towards the ice demon nearest to him. With his arm still extended, however, he clenched his fingers together and made ready to play his final card.
Scatter shot. Bly mentally gestured, and his sage terminal reciprocated the command.
Halfway through its route, the fire spell split into two separate trajectories. Each fiery missile penetrated an ice demon at blistering speed, consuming their bodies in burning flames from the inside out. The whistle from their melting forms rose through the cavern as they floundered to the floor, until eventually nothing remained. Well, nothing but three small shards—energy crystals—one where each of the slain ice demons had fallen.
A stillness fell over the dungeon cavern thereafter, and the only sound to be heard were those of Bly’s gasping breaths and the pounding in his ears.
“System command: disengage all abilities.” He managed to say, holding out his left hand somewhat as he tried to catch his breath, “Clear all inputs.”
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{SAGE --> Raven System Notification}
- - - Ability [XP Transmogrifier] deactivated; Class Ability [Dragon Leap] removed - - -
> Operational conditions set to [normal]
[Experience gained: +12 xp]
[Experience total: 6,502 xp]
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All that for a measly twelve experience, huh? Bly exhaled wearily, grinning somewhat as he wiped the sweat from his face.
He knew full well that it was his own fault for pushing so hard today, so he couldn’t be too upset about it even if he wanted to be. It wasn’t like anybody was there forcing him to delve all-day long. He just… enjoyed it.
It was another day’s work, all things considered, and another one-hundred experience points in the bag. Subtracting what he’d spent during the fighting, it was a mostly “break even” sort of day. He didn’t really mind though, he supposed. Considering the amount of kinks that he still had to work out of his new weapon summoning spell, the practice was somewhat worth the cost.
At that moment, a faint sparkle suddenly caught Bly’s attention as he pondered to himself.
Eyeing the pale-colored energy crystals out of the corner of his eye, he slowly walked across the cavern and scooped them up, depositing them into his pack. They weren’t highly valuable by any means, considering the lowly spawns they’d dropped from, and they contained less than an eighth of the mana required to cast a basic spell. But Alyse would surely be eager to get her hands on them before long, seeing that she had far more use for them than he did. Though Bly knew he was going to have to sell a few at least if he wanted to replenish his own supplies, at least enough to requisition more healing potions.
Considering the rate at which he was delving, and considering his lack of healing magic, he’d need all the help he could get.
But that seemed like a problem for another time.
Blychert then lumbered across to the near side of the cavern. Slumping down onto the first rock within range of his rearend, he set his back against the stone and slowly opened his sage terminal, flicking across to his attributes page.
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[Attributes]
> Athleticism: 35
> Endurance: 38
> Intellect: 41
> Charisma: 37
> Willpower: 51
> Magic: 53
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No changes. He sighed, more than a little irritated by the fact, but not ultimately surprised.
Not one of his attributes had even budged in the last year, despite Alyse’s assurance that it was bound to happen before long. But shouldn’t he have expected to see some changes. He had at least hoped that his magic score would have gone up a little bit, but nothing.
It was demoralizing, to say the least.
Shoving the sour thought aside, Bly glanced up from the terminal and perked his ears out somewhat, then peered down the cavern towards one of the other tunnels on the far side. A faint blue light could be seen in the distance, and he quickly realized that if he wanted to get back to town with his experience pool still intact, he was going to have to make like a bandit.
Though he couldn’t help but grunt amusedly first.
The dungeon sure gave as good as it took, there was no denying that.
Monsters were plentiful, but that was because they seemed to always be respawning. Nobody in town could even guess how many floors there were beyond the first two, which was unusual considering that it was only a ‘D’ rated spawn zone. The Compendium described low-rated spawn zones as “tame” and “predictable”, but they weren’t very friendly, and they most certainly weren’t for fun.
Which begged the question, what were the other dungeons like?
Bly had obviously read about them, at least to an extent, but it seemed impossible to imagine what the higher rated spawn zones must have been like to delve. At the very least, partying up seemed like an absolute necessity, and the thought made Bly frown.
He wasn’t sure when, or if, he’d ever get the chance to party up. At least, not like him and Irvin had always dreamed about, back when such things were normal to think about; weren’t dangerous, that was. But this was the daily grind of a renegade sorcerer, what more could he really ask for?
In any case, Bly mentally gestured for his terminal to close, and soon found himself rising to his feet, ready to move out at last.
The sound of spawning ice demons wasn’t too far behind, but by then he was already gone.