Brushing aside the wave of embarrassment drifting through my chest at the sight of the amusing, yet simultaneously pitiful, level upgrade to my newest two spells, I returned to the task at hand. So, which option was the best pick for us right now? As Stella had said earlier, while I was disappointed in the glaring weakness of Corpse Rend, it could be quite valuable when we faced a legion of enemies. Wanting to make the choice more straightforward, I turned to Stella with a proposition.
“Hmm, how about we do a pros and cons, yeah?” I invited my petite friend. She shrugged noncommittally as if saying she was fine either way. “Alright, first up, we have Corpse Rend. A notable pro would be the huge benefit it will bring against large, bunched-up enemies. This is what we’re precisely going to find when we tackle Cicero and his mad legion, as well as the approaching war with Duke’s forces. I want to add that the additional damage over time effect applied after the explosion is a nice bonus.”
Stella nodded along, then chimed in, “It pairs well with blood boil and its specialized effect. Imagine it: a dying monster keeling over before triggering a shower of scalding blood to pepper anything unfortunate enough to be nearby. Then, we immediately follow it up with this new spell, and… BOOM, the body detonates, causing even more damage while also sending a new DoT rampaging anything still living. Even better, that one explosion could create a chain of other corpses equally exploding for catastrophic damage. If used after the initial stages of a large-scale battle, Corpse Rend could really shine.”
“Pretty awesome, but let’s move to the cons,” I stated, steering the conversation to what we didn’t like about the spell. “As you mentioned, this one is utterly useless against single targets. We’ve fought several powerful bosses and will continue to do so as we progress further into this world. The thought of having a potent spell wasting away on the sidelines because it simply can’t be used is definitely a significant demerit in my mind. I also don’t enjoy the thought of having to remember to use it in the heat of battle. Unlike Blood Boil, which automatically procs whenever a mob dies, I could see myself forgetting to cast this while actively engaging a dozen enemies.”
Stella nodded along with my words. A brief silence settled in the air between us, with neither of us appearing to have anything else to offer regarding the spell. Well, at least until Stella commented on how disgusting it was to imagine wriggling pieces of torn flesh burrowing under someone’s skin. It ‘wigged her out,’ as she put it. With nothing else for it, we moved on to the second option: Vivisection.
“Pros for your blade barrier spell,” Stella said, starting us off. “Based on the wording, this one will have the highest DoT damage, meaning it pairs well with your class selections. Plus, with the ability to have additional effects leap to other opponents means the spell is great in both small and large crowds of mobs. Perfect for any occasion.”
“Yeah. The ‘extremely high damage’ makes it fantastic against boss monsters, unlike corpse explosion,” I added. “The fact the effect will spread to a decent number of other mobs for free is an excellent added benefit. It makes this a fire-and-forget spell. Again, unlike our other option.”
“Alright, cons,” Stella said, tapping her lips. “So, unlike Corpse Rend, this one doesn’t stack. When an afflicted mob runs into something already under its own spell, since the fear effect targets another random hostile, all that happens is the spell’s duration gets refreshed. On top of that, I highly doubt it refreshes the number of times the contagion can spread meaning the spell could fizzle out rather quickly with only a single cast. My last thought: I’m also hesitant about the wording of the ‘cantankerous cacophony’ debuff. It makes it sound like it’s going to create a whirlwind of deafening noise, which, in the middle of combat, could certainly be a terrible thing, not to mention letting everything around for miles know you’re there.”
Stella brought up some good points, so I took a minute to work through my thoughts before adding, “The only other thing I can think of as a negative is the spell’s fear effect. It doesn’t include a snare. Snaring an enemy before you make it flee is usually pretty important when it comes to these types of spells. Otherwise, the damn thing could hightail it directly away from you, meaning you lose track of it in short order if you’re not paying close enough attention. Thankfully, Vivisection doesn’t appear to do this, but what’s to say the nearest enemy isn’t a hundred yards away, for example, which is essentially the same thing.”
“Yeah,” Stella acknowledged before letting out a deep sigh. “Okay, last up is Summon Skeletal Wraith. An easy pro would be the significant boost in your overall damage from having a lesser version of you throwing out every DoT you know. Oh, and before you ask, the wraith’s spells will stack with yours.”
“Nice,” I replied appreciatively. The question had been on the tip of my tongue, but Stella’s foresight quickly dispelled the concern.
“Also, anything the wraith casts, along with your dual cast skill, will level from each engagement,” Stella continued as we rounded an abnormally large redwood tree. It must have taken several thousand years to reach such a remarkable width. “Though, your spells won’t level any faster than normal and only come into play if you don’t also cast it during the same battle.”
As we were running through our options, I noticed Stedious glancing in our direction here and there as if interested in our conversation. Though, as of yet, he hadn’t added any opinion of his own. I suspected he found the conversation stimulating but would leave Hunter's business to the Hunter and his Accelerator. Still, if he wanted to, I would welcome any thoughts he might have. A part of me wanted to let him know he could, but I couldn’t bring myself to say anything.
After scratching the side of my jaw, with neither of us having anything else positive to bring up, we agreed to move to the spell’s drawbacks. “With it being a summoned minion, it means it can die. Sure, an enemy could have a way to dispel DoT’s, but it is far easier to slay a minion than wipe out one of my spells. We have no way of knowing how much health or defensible the skeleton will be,” I lamented. There was no way the small wraith could approach Ripley’s durability, for sure.
“I doubt it gets any bonus from my Warlock class. Right?” I asked, with Stella quickly shaking her head and confirming my suspicion. “It’s too bad, but I can understand why the System wouldn’t allow this minion to last forever.”
A key aspect of my tier two Hunter class was it made Ripley a permanent minion. Even if she died, which was known to happen from time to time, she would automatically be resummoned after a short cool down period. Sadly, this particular minion wouldn’t be able to benefit from this fantastic benefit.
“I also worry about how much of a mana drain this could have,” I continued as movement in the corner of my eye caught my attention. Thinking it was likely just a bird, I carried on. “While we typically have more than enough mana and could afford to use more of it, mana is the prime resource when it comes to keeping my Empowered Aegis up. Suddenly finding myself bottoming out my mana pool could be disastrous when my best line of defense crumbles around me simply because I lost track of how much mana this little beast was siphoning. In any substantially long enough fight, this could become a very real concern.”
“It is a possibility. I’ll give you that, but the amount of mana we allocate to the minion can be adjusted on the fly. It can be done beforehand if we know a big battle is coming our way,” Stella offered to allay my fear. I pressed onwards as another thought occurred to me.
“Not sure if this counts, but the spell–well, skill actually–doesn’t add anything to my damage over time repertoire,” I stated hesitantly. Though thinking about it, I felt more confident it was indeed a shortcoming. “This skill is basic. If we look at it strictly as a way to cast more spells, we would effectively be trading a higher amount of mana to get more DoTs on the board more quickly. While not exactly doubling my damage output, the mini-wraith would cause me to burn through more of my mana pool much more quickly. As a damage over time specialist, I excel over longer, drawn-out fights. Spending most of my mana pool during the initial stages of a battle isn’t how I usually operate.”
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Stella seemed to understand my words but didn’t look to having anything additional to add just yet, so I pressed on and laid out the rest of my thoughts.
“Think of it this way,” I reasoned, putting extra emphasis in my words. “If I had to choose between picking up a good amount of spell haste, which I believe this minion represents, or choosing a powerful new DoT, I’d pick the DoT every day. Being a necromancer is about balancing between doling out damage and having enough mobility or defensive means to survive while your DoTs tick away. Blasting through your entire mana pool could become a death sentence in some cases. For a necro, it’s better to survive while your enemy slowly withers to death. Otherwise, why not just be a mage slinging a dozen fireballs and showing your enemies with lightning blasts?”
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but it sounds like you’ve eliminated the skeletal wraith from contention,” Stella reckoned.
“Yeah, I believe I am,” I chuckled lightheartedly. “At its base level, I’d rather pick another DoT than risk burning through my mana too fast. So, we’re left with a chaining corpse explosion or a contagious blade barrier.”
Before either of us could add anything else, Tallos shocked both of us into a sort of stunned silence as he jumped in.
“Don’t forget to consider how either of the spells may play a role in your next class evolution,” Tallos stated casually as if he had been a part of the discussion this entire time. Riding atop the cantering Jax beside us, his comment was so unexpected we could only stare dumbstruck back at him.
“What?” he asked in a surprised tone of voice. His expression was a mix of pride and hesitancy at his honestly commendable point for us to consider. “I listen, you know. I’ve been around you both long enough to pick up a thing or two about Hunters. Until now I had nothing to add, but then this thought popped into my head.”
He laughed, “Stop staring at me like that. It’s unnerving.”
With a chuckle of amusement, I shifted to a bright smile at our insightful friend as I patted the elf across his back. “It’s an excellent point for us to consider,” I praised. I wasn’t sure we had ever considered how spells we picked when it came to my next Hunter class. With only four more levels to go, it was an astute observation.
Seeing the validity of his comment dawn on both of his friend’s faces, Tallos smiled back at me before turning back to the open spell book resting on his lap. Noticing the tome, I realized I had been so absorbed in my discussion with Stella I hadn’t noticed when Tallos retrieved one to study. It was dark out, but his Darkvision would allow him to read it easily enough.
Which spell was he working on? I questioned myself internally. Oh, Stalker’s Mark, that’s right.
By the look of it, he was between a quarter and halfway through the ample-sized tome. With one last amused chuckle, I looked back to Stella riding in front of me. “Alright, so between corpse and blades, which do you think might have the greatest gain when it comes to upgrading to my tier four class?” I asked, but then quickly added, “Even in light of Tallos’ comment, I’m still passing on the summon wraith spell.”
While I was confident I could make some adequate guesses on what the System might offer during my next Hunter class selection process, Stella’s intuition would probably be far closer to what we would actually see.
Stella didn’t respond right away, looking deep in thought. She wasn’t using her Accelerator interface, so I guessed it couldn't help with this question. This didn’t surprise me, but I was hopeful nonetheless that Stella’s perception of how the System operated could prove beneficial. As she continued pondering, I realized my decision between the two spells wouldn’t be overly influenced by Stella’s forthcoming prediction.
Several moments later, Stella finally spoke up, no doubt running through many possibilities. “For Corpse Rend, my best guess, and I do mean guess mind you, would be the spell may add an automatic blast whenever an enemy afflicted by one of your DoTs dies. Similar to Blood Boil’s specialized effect, I believe the System would add a small to moderate chance the victim’s body explodes at the moment of death. However, what I can’t venture a guess would be if the explosion will be direct damage or perhaps adding a damage over time effect on anything nearby. Heck, it could be a combination of the two for all I know, though I doubt the bonus effect would be as strong as the spell itself.”
Stella made eye contact as she spoke her next words, a coy smile tugging the corner of her lips. “I’m sure you’d love having a nice ‘fire and forget’ additional to your spells. As for Vivisection, I’m thinking along the lines of the System adding a fear effect to every tick of DoT damage, though it would likely be a minimal chance, something like less than one percent. I could be wrong, but I doubt we’d see this happen more than once or twice in our normal engagements.”
“Otherwise, the System could add the spell’s contagious effect, meaning getting too close could cause the spell to jump to another hostile mob,” Stella continued without interruption. “Hmm, last, we might be offered a class where our foes shed a weak version of the spell affecting them in a small area of effect. It could be similar to Ripley’s AoE DoT, but considerably weaker. Still, if every spell gets this added effect, having ten spells going could stack the damage to noticeable levels.”
Stella looked pointedly at me before adding, “Mind you, none of my predictions may come true. So, with that said, I strictly forbid you from holding me to these… sophisticated suppositions.”
“Sophisticated suppositions?” I queried with a raised eyebrow. “You mean an educated guess. Oh, and no, I wouldn’t dream of it.” I said this last part with the barest hint of sarcasm. I could tell Stella simply didn’t want me to tease her down the road if none of these played out when we reached level thirty.
“Oh, that reminds me,” I added before she could question the authenticity of my words. “I want to acknowledge how helpful you are, Stell. I doubt many other Accelerators could pull up even half of the behind-the-scenes information as you. You really are quite impressive, my friend.”
Stella’s eyes narrowed questioningly but softened in acceptance of the compliment as I intentionally held a bright smile across my lips. “You are absolutely correct,” Stella replied, accepting my compliment as a clearly established fact. “I am awesome. However, I would be lying if I said other A.I. cannot uncover at least a small portion of what I can. I am unique, after all, and my investigative talents provide you with many benefits simply because of my greatness.”
Both of my eyebrows reaching upwards, I nearly laughed aloud at her boastfulness. There was no way I was about to argue with her. It was best to let the self-praise stand for now. “Alright then,” I stated in all seriousness. “Let’s make a decision. Between the two, which are you leaning towards?”
Before Stella could reply another whistle followed by several more caught our attention. All were of the ‘all clear’ variety, reminding me of a morning dove’s call, the first coming from in front of us before transitioning to our sides and rear. The whistles from the other Wardens didn’t come one after the other; it seemed like several doves were calling to one another. Nothing dangerous was nearby which helped relieve a small amount of tension growing in my stomach I hadn’t been aware of.
“Vivisection would be my pick,” Stella responded after all the elves checked in, and Stedious acknowledged the message with a soft warble of his own.
“Yeah, me too. It’s the best against bosses we generally need the most help with, as well as small to big groups of mobs. I’m really hoping it doesn’t create a tornado of noise when cast, but the worry itself isn’t holding me back from picking it.”
Stella and I shared a look before she tilted her head towards Tallos’ direction. We smiled deviously and allowed silence to reign momentarily as we both turned our heads his way. Tallos didn’t notice at first, so focused was he on his spell tome, but the sudden silence even caught his skewered attention.
His eyebrows narrowed in confusion as he didn’t immediately comprehend our twin stares. Raising my eyebrows to cue him to offer his opinion between the two spells, I was met with a soft grunt from the powerful ranger.
“Sure,” was the half-hearted and noncommittal response Tallos muttered before returning fully to his book. Stella and I shared a smile when he finally gave an amused shake of his head.
“Well, that settles it,” I barked before pulling up the System window and confirming my selection.
Congratulations! New Spell Unlocked: [Vivisection]!
[Vivisection] – An ethereal wall of twisting blades surrounds a hostile target within 100 feet, causing 1,200 (up from 600) plus 4n damage immediately and then every 6 seconds until the spell expires, where ‘n’ equals Intelligence.
The target is afflicted with the debuff, “Cantankerous Cacophony,” which has a moderate chance of causing the target to uncontrollably flee randomly to a nearby hostile target. While this debuff is in effect, if a new target comes into contact with the swirling blades, a new copy of the spell will manifest upon them. Note that this effect will trigger at most five times at first level.
Cost: 600 mana. Cast Time: 1 second. Cool down: 5 seconds. Duration: 168 seconds (base 120). Plus 10 feet maximum range, plus 120 (up from 60) base damage per spell level. Plus one additional triggered effect per three spell levels.
Note – Hostile targets may only be affected by one spell effect at a time. However, the maximum duration will be reset if contact is made with another afflicted entity.
“Not bad, not too bad at all,” I said with a low whistle of appreciation.