Guinevere found herself in massive throne room. Mordred sat on a throne with Exar’kun curled around the back of it. The dragon opened one eye to look at her than closed it again. Mordred removed his helmet. He’d gotten a haircut recently and shaved although that just made the long scars over the left side of his face more visible.
“Welcome to the Event,” Mordred said a smile spreading over his face. “I wasn’t sure if you would come.”
“This is the opportunity of a lifetime,” Guinevere said. “I can’t recall ever hearing any other time a non-champion was given the chance to enter into one of the Events.”
“You can thank Arthur for that,” he said.
“Arthur?” Guinevere asked, her body stiffening as she heard his name. “Of course, he’s here, but how is he responsible for this?”
“This Event is meant to be a PVP battle,” Mordred said.
“PVP?” Guinevere asked.
“Player versus player,” Mordred explained another one his earth terms. “There are two sides on either side of a massive battlefield, we needed to kill eachother, move flags from one side of the battlefield to the other and hold objectives to earn points to win. Some people wanted to kill me, Arthur among them, he told them that if anyone fought alongside me Camelot would consider them enemies after this.”
“He does have the authority to make that kind of decision,” Guinevere admitted.
“Well, no one sided with me, smart decision on their part.” Mordred said. “The System didn’t like them questioning the team composition it built so it gave me the option to strike out on my own as a third faction with a limited number of vassals I could summon.”
“So how many people are on our side?” Guinevere asked.
“It’s just us,” Exar’kun said his voice a deep rumbling growl. “He blew all his points summoning you and me since we’re both higher ranks that him.”
“There’s another problem,” Guinevere said. “I can’t be seen helping you… there are complications back home.”
“I can do something about that,” Mordred said reaching into his storage pouch and removing a half dozen ingots and several pelts another other miscellaneous materials. The objects rotated around her as he used his crafting ability to forge her armor in the span of a few minutes.
Runes began to glow along her armor as gem infused ink was directed into marks all along the edges of the plates infusing the dark black metal with red glyphs and sigils. Guinevere ran her hands down the armor, it was as tight fitting to her curves as the last set he had made her but she had come to appreciate it for its elegance as well as how well it moved with her. As her fingers ran along it she picked up a helmet that Mordred offered her reading its description.
Helm of the Blackguard: Type: Armor (head), Rarity: Rare, Hardness: 16: Your hair and eyes turns crimson while wearing this helmet and your description is changed to an alias. This enchantment cannot be pierced by abilities but will immediately be dispelled if the helmet is removed. Crafted by Mordred, Champion of Kelesa a master rank enchanter and divine smith.
Weight:
3.5 lbs.
Durability:
25-25
She set the helm over her head her hair spilling back behind her. Her snow-white locks began to turn crimson as if she had dipped them in fresh blood.
You have equipped a item that will hide your identity please select an alias and a title. (You cannot create your own title and your rank will remain unchanged in your description)
Guinevere thought for a second before going with her mother’s name.
“Inara the Dark Valkyrie,” she told the system.
Your description had been changed and will now read as
Inara the Dark Valkyrie, Gifted; Humanoid/human*, Hero, Rank: 445
Holding up her hands she examine the bracers and gauntlets she now wore. They were different than the last he had made for her. Her old set had been smooth and rounded these were jagged at the ends of them ended in sharp claws.
Gauntlets of the Bloodletter: Type: Armor (forearms), Rarity: Epic, Hardness: 16: All damaging elemental abilities you deal with are instead converted into bleed damage. Has a major effect on how abilities are manifested. Crafted by Mordred, Champion of Kelesa a master rank enchanter and divine smith.
Weight:
3.5 lbs.
Durability:
25-25
“I figured people might be able to guess your identity even with an alias if you kept using the same abilities everyone knows you have,” Mordred said.
“How is this possible?” Guinevere asked in wonder. “Your changing how an ability works, enchantments shouldn’t be able to do that.”
“Why not?” Mordred asked. “The more I study magic the more they have in common with abilities. I think abilities might be just super advanced spells that are physically and spiritually engrained into us to make them easy to use and reduce their mana and stamina cost.”
“That comes close to heresy,” Guinevere said.
“Don’t care,” Mordred said. “I was told to win a competition, not be a priest.”
“Is Kelesa really that hands off?” Guinevere asked.
“I’ve spoken to her only three times,” Mordred said. “As long as I keep gaining power, she seems to be pretty happy and doesn’t care what I do.”
“She’s never given you any advice?” Guinevere asked.
“She advised me against you,” he said with a shrug. “But she chose me because she wanted things done differently so she can stuff it, doing my own thing means doing my own thing.”
“You really aren’t afraid of being smited are you?” Guinevere asked.
“If she’s going to smite me for a lack of respect than she would have done so the moment we met,” he said. “Don’t pick up a scorpion and expect it not to sting you.”
Guinevere ran her fingers over the waist of her breastplate feeling the soft fur that lined its edges as she read its description.
Bloodletters Breastplate: Type: Armor (torso), Rarity: Epic, Hardness: 16: All elemental sources of protection are converted into void based defenses. Has a major effect on how abilities are manifested. Crafted by Mordred, Champion of Kelesa a master rank enchanter and divine smith.
Weight:
10 lbs.
Durability:
50-50
“What is a divine smith?” Guinevere asked. “I’ve never seen that on an item before?”
“It’s a title I almost died to get,” I said. “It increases the rarity of everything I create by one grade and increases its hardness by two.”
Strapping on her helmet, Guinevere spun around. “How do I look?”
“Like a vision,” Mordred said smiling and she felt her heart flutter for a second before she clamped down on the feeling.
“What now?” she asked returning to business.
“We still have about four hours before the Event starts for real,” Mordred said. “I need to rank up some of my abilities, almost everyone here is a higher rank than me.”
“Why have you been delaying ranking up?” Guinevere asked. “I would have figured you’d already be Hero rank by now.”
“I have… reasons,” Mordred said cagily. “You’ll find out soon.”
“I thought we were passed keeping secrets from each other,” Guinevere said.
“Think of it as less a secret and more a surprise,” he said. “This should only take a few minutes.”
--
“You’re not going to use any pain killers?” Guinevere asked me.
I opened one eye and looked at her.
“Right, you have some ability to ignore pain,” she said.
“Title,” I corrected her. “System, raise Blood Renewal to rank twenty.”
The strain of my Spirit attribute being so high would be reduced if I raised all my spiritual attributes to Hero Rank. It would bring me dangerously close to crossing the gap into Hero rank, but I planned on keeping five points from getting to fifty in my Endurance and Toughness. The likelihood of me picking enough abilities to push those stats was so small it wasn’t even a real risk.
I skipped past the first three notifications until I came to one, I hadn’t seen in over a year.
Congratulations! You have raised one of your Attributes beyond 50 the Veteran limit. Your body will now physiologically change to adjust to this increase to keep your Attribute from killing you.
I could feel something twist and change as I momentarily lost control of my body as something inside me changed. The change wasn’t bad as I felt the strain from my too high Spirit attribute fade as my other mana attributes finally all raised to Hero rank.
Your brain has converted fully into a bio-crystal and will hold memories perfectly with no degradation or change overtime. Due to your connection to the void and your semi-spirit nature it is converting into an ether-crystal which will allow you to survive piercing shots through your brain without receiving a Mortal wound.
I wondered if someone would harvest my body to turn into weapons someday like I had to the beasts I had slain. Would they make me into some armor or weapon or just let my corpse rot on the battlefield? Pushing aside that morbid thought I skipped passed the next notification to the upgrade section I had been waiting for.
Congratulations you have raised an ability to rank five, please pick from one of the three additional effects for your ability from the list below.
· Increases the amount of healing you do with this ability.
· Your healing will also grant your targets a damage shield for a short duration.
· Increases the range of this ability.
With the option to make a choice to upgrade my abilities again I surveyed my options. I wasn’t a healer no matter what abilities the system gave me so increasing the range or healing wasn’t something I was interested in. A damage shield sounded interesting; if someone was so hurt, they needed me to heal them, than chances, were they were in the middle of a fight. I picked the second option and read over the list of changes.
Blood Renewal (Rank 5): From the blood of your enemies are your allies restored. For every gallon of blood spilled on the ground you can exert 4 mana to heal all allies within 120ft of you for a Moderate amount of damage taken.
Grants your targets a damage shield for the next 15 seconds reducing the damage they take from the next attack by a Moderate amount.
Cost:
4 mana per gallon of blood.
Upgrade this ability to reduce the amount of blood required, the range and amount of healing it does. Each rank of this ability increases your Mind Attribute by 1.
The damage shield wasn’t much but there was potential for it grow as I increased the rank of the ability. I moved on skipping past the next few notifications to get to the upgrade.
Congratulations you have raised an ability to rank ten, please pick from one of the three additional effects for your ability from the list below.
· Your healing removes debuffs and curses.
· Your targets will gain the Valorous buff when healed.
· Your targets will gain the Sanctified buff when healed.
After a quick look at the options, I picked the first. I didn’t know what those buffs did, and I was more concerned about keeping allies from dying than I was in giving them buffs.
Blood Renewal (Rank 10): From the blood of your enemies are your allies restored. For every gallon of blood spilled on the ground you can exert 7 mana to heal all allies within 140ft of you for a Major amount of damage taken.
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Grants your targets a damage shield for the next 20 seconds reducing the damage they take from the next two attacks by a Major amount.
Your healing removes debuffs and curses effecting your targets.
Cost:
7 mana per gallon of blood.
Upgrade this ability to reduce the amount of blood required, the range and amount of healing it does. Each rank of this ability increases your Mind Attribute by 1.
The damage shields and healing were increasing every five ranks hopefully when it was maxed out I would be able to give out some serious healing. I skipped the next four notifications to get to the upgrade notification.
Congratulations you have raised an ability to rank fifteen, please pick from one of the three additional effects for your ability from the list below.
· Your healing removes poison and disease.
· Your healing give the Regenerate buff for a short duration.
· Your healing gives the Life steel buff for a short duration.
I wasn’t here to buff people and giving people a life steal ability right after they’d just been healed seemed redundant. I went with the first option since that seemed more in line and my personal experiences with poison told me that resisting it was a very important thing.
Blood Renewal (Rank 15): From the blood of your enemies are your allies restored. For every gallon of blood spilled on the ground you can exert 10 mana to heal all allies within 160ft of you for a Severe amount of damage taken.
Grants your targets a damage shield for the next 25 seconds reducing the damage they take from the next four attacks by a Severe amount.
Your healing removes debuffs and curses effecting your targets.
Your healing also cleanses your targets of poison and diseases.
Cost:
10 mana per gallon of blood.
Upgrade this ability to reduce the amount of blood required, the range and amount of healing it does. Each rank of this ability increases your Mind Attribute by 1.
While this sort of ability wasn’t really my style, I intended this one to be a generalist healing thing. I could shoot if off in the middle of a battle to get my allies back up than go right back to fighting. Skipping past the next few notifications I got to the good one.
Congratulations you have raised an ability to rank twenty, please pick from one of the three additional effects for your ability from the list below.
· Your healing gives the Ironclad buff for a short duration.
· Your healing also gives a short damage bonus to the target.
· Your healing also restores targets stamina and mana.
The first choice was another bust but the second one was tempting but again I wasn’t here to provide buffs. I picked the third option restoring mana and stamina would let my allies sort out whatever trouble they were in on their own with their own abilities.
Blood Renewal (Rank 20, Max Rank): From the blood of your enemies are your allies restored. For every gallon of blood spilled on the ground you can exert 15 mana to heal all allies within 200ft of you for an Extreme amount of damage taken.
Grants your targets a damage shield for the next 30 seconds reducing the damage they take from the next eight attacks by a Extreme amount.
Your healing removes debuffs and curses effecting your targets.
Your healing also cleanses your targets of poison and diseases.
Restores half of your target’s maximum mana & stamina.
Max Rank Bonus: The blood you use to cast this ability turns into a mist over the ground healing you and allies in it for a Moderate amount of damage each second for two minutes and causing enemies a Moderate amount of bleed damage.
Cost:
15 mana per gallon of blood.
Upgrade this ability to reduce the amount of blood required, the range and amount of healing it does. Each rank of this ability increases your Mind Attribute by 1.
The max rank ability was a combination of damage and healing, it was only a moderate amount but a damage over time effect didn’t need to be overwhelming like my attacks. That was this ability taken care of, on to the next!
“Raise Dark Guardian to rank fifteen,” I told the system.
This would put my toughness close to being fifty, but I would just raise Brutal Spite to only rank ten. I skipped the first four notifications until I got to the one for additional effects.
Congratulations you have raised an ability to rank five, please pick from one of the three additional effects for your ability from the list below.
· Cause the damage your allies take to be reduced.
· You can take a portion of the damage you receive and unleash it as a retributive attack.
· You can instantly swap places with a nearby ally to take the hit in place of them.
This choice was a bit more difficult. I dismissed the second one, I wasn’t going to waste an effect on a single damage effect, especially on a defensive ability. The third one was more interesting but I ultimately dismissed it as well, I was too busy dealing damage to play tank. I took the first since it looked like a passive effect that would benefit my allies without requiring any work from me.
Dark Guardian (Rank 5): You have shown the willingness to sacrifice for others and can sacrifice your flesh and blood to protect those you choose. Allies within 70 feet of you heal a Moderate amount for every Severe wound you take.
For every Severe wound you are suffering the damage your allies with 70ft of you would take is reduced by a Moderate amount.
Cost:
N/A
Upgrade this ability to increase the range and amount of protection you grant to others. Each upgrade increases your Toughness by 1.
Unfortunately, this ability revolved around me getting the shit beaten out of me to the point of death. Did that happen on a regular basis? Yes. Was it something I did intentionally? No, well not exactly; I recklessly endangered myself, but I wasn’t a masochist, probably. Moving on from that thought I dismissed the notification and the next four as well.
Congratulations you have raised an ability to rank ten, please pick from one of the three additional effects for your ability from the list below.
· When healed by this ability your allies gain the buff Galvanized for a short duration.
· Your allies restore a small amount of stamina overtime while this ability is in effect.
· Your allies become tougher the more you suffer.
As much as I hated the rhyme the third option was the most suited to this ability. It revolved around me getting hit and this effect sounded like it would be more of the same. I already had other ways of restoring their stamina with my healing ability and I still wasn’t here to provide buffs.
Dark Guardian (Rank 10): You have shown the willingness to sacrifice for others and can sacrifice your flesh and blood to protect those you choose. Allies within 120ft of you heal a Major amount for every Major wound you take.
For every Major wound you are suffering the damage your allies with 120ft of you would take is reduced by a Major amount.
Your allies within 120ft of you gain a bonus to their Toughness equal to 5 per Major wound you are currently suffering.
Cost:
N/A
Upgrade this ability to increase the range and amount of protection you grant to others. Each upgrade increases your Toughness by 1.
While I wasn’t going to change anything about my fighting style my tendency to end a fight with my flesh hanging off my bones meant my allies would be in peak health through the whole fight. Skipping past the next four notifications I got to the next upgrade options.
Congratulations you have raised an ability to rank fifteen, please pick from one of the three additional effects for your ability from the list below.
· Your healing gives the Ironclad buff.
· When taking elemental damage become resistant to that type of damage.
· Your allies take reduced elemental damage.
No matter how much the system tried to goad me into it I wasn’t going to take a buff. The second option was a major break from the other options I’d seen before it was focused on reducing the damage, I would take rather than my allies. The third would benefit my allies but they were already receiving less damage thanks to me, the smart thing to do was to make sure I stayed in the fight so I could continue to provide passive healing and damage reduction.
Selecting the second option I looked over the changes.
Dark Guardian (Rank 15): You have shown the willingness to sacrifice for others and can sacrifice your flesh and blood to protect those you choose. Allies within 120ft of you heal a Severe amount for every Moderate wound you take.
For every Moderate wound you are suffering the damage your allies with 120ft of you would take is reduced by a Severe amount.
Your allies within 120ft of you gain a bonus to their Toughness equal to 5 per Moderate wound you are currently suffering.
You gain a 5% damage reduction to a particular type of elemental damage you are attacked with stacking to max of 40% for every attack you receive from the same damage element. (Can gain resistances to multiple elements at a time).
Cost:
3 stamina per second
Upgrade this ability to increase the range and amount of protection you grant to others. Each upgrade increases your Toughness by 1.
This ability would let Guinevere and Exar’kun power through my enemies and help me to resist some of the elemental attacks the other champions were sure to have. With that done I moved onto my next ability that I felt would have a lot of synergy with this one.
“Raise Brutal Spite to rank ten,” I told the system.
Congratulations you have raised an ability to rank five, please pick from one of the three additional effects for your ability from the list below.
· Your wounds bleed less letting you fight for longer.
· You are capable of ignoring all pain in a fight.
· Deal more damage against creatures that have recently damaged you.
The first option was kind of weak and the second one was useless thanks to my Wrathful Meditation title. Luckly the third was fairly interesting, it was a revenge effect the more a target would damage me the more damage I could do in return to them. A perfect choice for me.
Brutal Spite (Rank 5): Even when you have been beaten down, your blood sapped from your body and to the point of death you continue on. For every Severe wound you are currently suffering your stamina regeneration is increased by x3.
You deal x2 damage against a creature who has dealt a Severe wound to you within the last 2 seconds.
Cost:
not available
Upgrade this ability to increase the rate of increased stamina regeneration per wound suffered. Each rank of this ability increases your Endurance by 1.
A damage multiplier but it required me to take a significant amount of damage in order to activate and barely lasted for a few heartbeats but there was potential there. I dismissed the next four notifications eager to get to the next changes.
Congratulations you have raised an ability to rank ten, please pick from one of the three additional effects for your ability from the list below.
· Increases your mana regen rate as well as your stamina.
· Take less damage from the next attack in proportion to the damage received by the last attack.
· You can place a mark on a single creature increasing your damage against that creature.
The first one would just increase my mana regeneration rate which was huge, my mana pool was huge but it would take minutes to fill once emptied this would let me actually keep it topped off during a fight and make me a spell cannon. The other effects weren’t bad but despite the simple sounding nature of that first effect it was by the far the most powerful option here. More mana meant more of every other ability I had not just one more nifty augmentation to a single ability.
Brutal Spite (Rank 10): Even when you have been beaten down, your blood sapped from your body and to the point of death you continue on. For every Major wound you are currently suffering your stamina and mana regeneration is increased by x4.
You deal x3 damage against a creature who has dealt a Major wound to you within the last 10 seconds.
Cost:
not available
Upgrade this ability to increase the rate of increased stamina regeneration per wound suffered. Each rank of this ability increases your Endurance by 1.
That was that I couldn’t put more points into this attribute and risk going over the limit for the Dragon Tourney by ascending into Hero Rank.
“Pull up my current status,” I said.
Mordred, Champion of Kelesa; Gifted- humanoid/human, Veteran, Rank: 407
Available Rank Points: 1,034
Might:
73 (+43) = 117
Mind:
68
Speed:
52 (+40) = 92
Perception:
67
Toughness:
46
Spirit:
141
Endurance:
41
Power:
51
Maximum Stamina:
342
Maximum Mana:
13,053
Stamina Regen:
77.2 per second
Mana Regen:
103.8 per second
Ethereal Regen:
20 per minute.
Maximum Ethereal:
200
Abilities
Dominion (Rank 50), Telekinesis (Rank 20), Heightened Speed (Rank 20), Foresight (Rank 20), Hell Dragon’s Armory (Rank 20), Bestial Senses: (Rank 20), Phantom Form (Rank 20), Storm Soul (Rank 20), Magma Heart(s) (Rank 20), Troll Hide (Rank 20), Black-rage (Rank 20), Hell’s Talons (Rank 20), Helheim’s Scream (Rank 20), Chain Lightning (Rank 20), Voice of the Chasm (Rank 20), Setules Palms (Rank 20), Tremor Soles (Rank 20), Spirit Collective (Rank Error), Dark Guardian (Rank 15), Brutal Spite (Rank 10), Blood Renewal (Rank 20)
Blessings:
Blessing of War (Veteran), Blessing of Tadris
Titles
Mark of Cain, Bloody Pugilist, Exorcist, Survivor III, Feral Barbarian, Field Alchemist III, Berserker, Beast Slayer III, War Chief, Venom Resistant III, Keytaro’s Guardian III, Wrathful Meditation, Fireproof III, Superhuman, Bearer of Death, Lightning Resistance, the Fate Breaker, Apprentice Bludgeoner, Master Deflector, Apprentice Spearman, Divine Smith, Master Enchanter, Knight of Camelot, Challenger, Artifact Breaker, Abomination Slayer, Spell Carver, Master Swordsman, the Possessed
A horn blew through the air as I closed my notification screen and a new pop up appeared.
The Event has begun, fight well and prove which of you is the worthiest of power. No interference from any deity will assist you now only by your own strength will you prevail. Prove yourselves champions.
Rolling my shoulders, I stood from my throne.
“Time to introduce myself to the rest of my peers,” I said. “When I’m done this place is going to be like a COD lobby.”
“Is that a good thing?” Guinevere asked me.
A vicious smile spread over my face. “No, no, it is not.”