I wanted to just sit down and craft a little; maybe while [Spell-Weaving] and [Enchanting] on the side too, trying to mix and match everything with [Runes]; but fighting to defend my turf definitely wasn’t within my plans.
“Can’t I catch a break for once!?”
With a Patron like Luck? Probably not.
Breaks are boring.
This will make for much better entertainment!
Speak of the Devil and she shall appear, I guess.
“Darwin, can you please elaborate? I’m kinda getting worried here!” Sheeno snapped me out of cursing my mental passengers, making me instead notice how brine had started forming over her clenched hands, clearly as a response to her distress.
“Yes, sorry. We have two incoming people from opposite directions that show signs of [Divinity], with a third shadowing the one approaching from the back while remaining skillfully hidden to most senses, but this one seems more ‘normal’ in their [Affinities]. Overall, I think they’re just scouting from a distance, but I can’t be certain”, I replied, after a brief delay where I tried to read their intentions with [Precognitive Aura].
“Shit, [Priests of Purity]!?” She asked, alarmed.
“Language! And how would I know? Never felt his presence before.”
That response earned me a dead-pan face, but at least it worked in distracting her from the possible fight that seemed to be brewing.
“I’m thinking we just hunker down and ‘Home Alone’ this bitch”, I proposed.
“I… don’t know whatever you might have just proposed means…” Sheeno said, with an amusingly confused look on her face.
“Don’t worry: Just trust me on this and follow my lead”, I wrily assured her, already dashing off to booby-trap the mansion.
* * *
{HUNTER’S POV}
The newly arrived [Hunter] maybe had to rethink the proficiencies of his colleague [Hunters].
He had maybe spent half a day after getting to the edges of the [Wild Area] controlled by the [Adventuring Guild], when he caught wind of rumors about people matching two of his targets: The little [Demon], the annoyance he was mainly there for, and the [Banished Princess], a little bonus that he could earn if he were to deliver her to the [Temple of Purity].
Fortunately for him, it would take a lot more work before the patriarch of the Jeofferneys would be appeased and satisfied with what his bosses found, so fate would have it that he would get the chance to get to the place where his elusive prey was hiding first, only to immediately hear that they were both bickering out in the open like an old married couple.
And so it was that he found himself reaching out to the local hidden branch of the [Priests of Purity] so that they could act as a front during his scouting and analysis of his targets.
As all [Priests] of their [Demi-God], they only dressed in fine white linen togas, with bracelets and matching sandals made of intertwined dried vines, and with everything held together by small bands of gold.
No other cases, though, would have fitted more the name ‘nut-case’ than his current company.
“May his light shine upon this cursed land! May his radiance rid us of our corruption! May he shine all the brighter while we cleanse the land of all that is irregular!” The [Priest] next to him kept chanting, only slightly changing his words from time to time.
Did the [Priest] keep repeating himself out of some obsessive habit, or was he trying to convert the [Hunter] with his spiel?
The [Hunter] did not know and didn’t really care, so the discussion was a moot point.
Just before entering the territory of their prey, the [Priest] finally shut up, probably opting for a bit of stealth with that tiny bit of sanity remaining in his skull.
As per their previous decision, the [Priest] approaching from the front, a [Heliokan] with a bone to pick with the [Princess] in particular, will act as a distraction, while the [Hunter] and the [Iron Dwarf] will inspect the house and their targets from the back.
As far as plans went, this was so simple that it almost couldn’t be considered one, but with so many questions hanging around the [Human-Demon], ‘simple’ had the least chance of blowing up in their faces if things went wrong.
That is what he thought until the [Hunter] heard something explode from the opposite side of the mansion.
* * *
“IN THE NAME OF ALL THAT IS PURE-“, those we the only words the [Priest] in our front yard got out, seemingly augmented to sound louder magically, before the air around him detonated.
*Ka-BOOM*
The shockwave reached much further and with much more strength than the size of the explosion would have made one initially think.
“Darwin! Did you just fucking kill him!?” Sheeno shouted at me, trying to make her voice heard above the passing rumble.
“I don’t know! The [Runes] were only meant to amplify and then distort any magic activated within the area, How was I supposed to know that the guy would use a [Matrix] to cause heightened vibrations that close to his body!?” I answered frenetically, already feeling sick to my stomach that I could have killed a person, accidentally or otherwise.
That is until I felt his living body with my [Detection].
“Oh, thank [Luck], he’s still alive!” I exclaimed in relief, feeling my legs falling out on me, but keeping myself upright by grabbing the windowsill.
“Good. Can’t dispose of them without earing where they came from, who tipped them off, and especially without having proof that they had malicious intent”, Sheeno nodded, completely serious and once more in control of her emotions.
“I’m sorry: What!?” I asked, baffled.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
“Darwin, dear, they might be after our lives. At that point it might just become a race to who kills the other party first”, my companion explained, putting a hand on my shoulder and angling her words carefully to avoid scaring me more than I already was.
Which didn’t work, since I could easily read her intent while so close.
“I’ll think about it when the time comes: I’m more of a ‘spur of the moment’ kind of guy”, I dismissed her words.
“You really aren’t: You’re constantly planning ahead! Also, that ‘moment’ might come really soon”, Sheeno warned, to which I could only agree and grimly nod.
Now, how did I make the [Priest] blow himself up? Simple: [Runic Traps].
I mean, I’m not sure that’s the proper term-
It is not.
-but the [Systems] accepts it, signaled by the brackets, so I’ll go along with it.
So… yeah, [Runic Traps]: Basically what happens when I combine [Runes] with [Word of Power], using the pseudo-language that [Matrixes] use, obviously using only the ‘words’ or ‘phrases’ that I can understand, and adding [Adaptability] to it all so it can attach itself to any other weave used in the area.
Now, that sounds really powerful (because it is), but I’ve only just discovered the synergy by accident, and I’m not sure of the limitation, but I’m pretty certain that it won’t work with [Spells] and [Skills] that activate from the inside of an individual, since it would activate from within the area affected by the core of the caster and not influenceable from the outside.
…unless I somehow aspect [Aether] to either of my [Divine] or [Healing Affinities], but that inherently doesn’t make sense: [Aether] is made of all [Affinities] before they singularly aspect when becoming [Mana].
So, nothing that I can do anytime soon; but limiting it to stuff that manifests other stuff still makes it pretty reliable in most situations, especially if I combine its use with [Annul], in which case I just become impossible to beat in a 1v1 (obviously, speed and numbers can still overwhelm me, but that’s about it).
Also, I don’t know how it could work if the target sees it coming, since it would make sense that they could resist it by simply concentrating.
It is not a Runic Trap: It is a quasi-projectile that you have to actively control, otherwise, it will disperse on its own.
Also, you are not yet proficient enough to control more than one floating Rune, and that severely limits their efficacy, especially if you consider how slow they seem to be able to be moved.
Besides the comforting words of the killjoy in my mind, I was ready to experiment more with this specific application of [Runes].
The dust from the explosion had finally settled, and through the windows, we could see that [Priest]’s body was still intact… most of it at least: He was missing an arm and a leg, most of his clothing looked charred, but his chest was still moving, so that was good.
“Uh, he really is alive. Probably had some [Enchantment] or [Artifact] that saved his life at the last moment, given his injuries”, Sheeno pondered aloud, surprisingly less bothered than I thought at the sight of one of her brethren in such a sorry state.
Whatever plan those in the back had it probably had just changed, since the remaining [Priest] was dashing around the mansion to reach his colleague, while the stealthed accomplice still looked hellbent on sneakily inspecting the surroundings.
“Egon!” A stocky bearded man, dressed in the same white garment as the guy that had exploded, rushed to that very man's side, immediately activating some kind of healing effect to stabilize his downed friend.
“Oh, hey, that a Dwarf! Kind of funny to see the size difference become so apparent when they’re one next to the other, uh?” I asked, trying to be funny. The Dwarf wasn’t that much shorter than I was, while the other [Heliokan] seemed to be matching Sheeno in size.
“If anything, Sheeno actually looks bigger than that guy, but that could just be the sheets he was wearing covering the majority of his bulk… and the loss of mass due to the missing limbs.”
“Did the [Temple of Purity] send these guys to infuriate us on purpose?” My… girlfriend?... surprisingly proposed instead, making it clear that she was being much more serious and analytical about the situation than I was.
It was then that I felt the person still in the back disable all the more mundane traps that were waiting for him almost exactly all at once.
“Uhh… that can’t be good”, I said, while twisting my head around as if to peer at the more competent of the trio through our walls.
Which wasn’t exactly incorrect.
“What are you talking about?” Sheeno asked, without stopping to watch one [Priest] regenerate the other’s limb at a slow yet visible rate.
Her voice momentarily threw me for a loop, reminding me that in my mind I had inadvertently called her my girlfriend, which felt like way too soon to do so.
Once I shook that line of thought out of my mind I just relaid to her that our third guest could be entering soon our home, uninvited and unharmed.
“They must be good… too good for the likes of these fools in front of us. We might be dealing with an actual [Assassin] hired by a third party. After all, some of the traps back there were made by [Artifacts] from my personal collection, and your [Rune-crafting] had cooked up some really messed up stuff back there too”, she said, finally looking back like I was, similarly expecting to catch any signs of the soon to be intruder.
And to be fair, while yes, her defensive [Artifacts] were impressive to able to be used with only a small amount of [Mana], I really went heavy on the ‘home alone’ theme, thanks to [Rune-crafting] being limited mostly by my knowledge and imagination (and a couple of attempts at making random [Matrixex], with the desired ‘concept’ within them, could impart most of the said knowledge, while the ‘imagination’ side I already had covered), and, of course, sheer difficulty in execution, acerbated in this case by the time constraint I had worked with.
For a moment I thought if that were the proper application of [Runic Traps], but quickly dismissed it: While they were traps, I just used the [Runes] to simulate the effects of a [Spell] or [Skill] without needing to have a specific one in each application.
“While, yes, that shows he’s good, I still think that you’re overestimating the power of my [Runes]”, I clarified, trying to stop Sheeno from building up this person.
His [Stealth] might be impressive, and he might also be extremely talented, but something was telling me that he wouldn’t pose a problem.
And yes, ‘he’, because he was trying to sneak towards us with what appeared like silly overexaggerated movements to my unbothered sight, during which I took the chance to [Inspect] him.
Name:
//
Class:
Rogue Specter
Sub-Class:
Scout
Job:
Hunter
Proficiency:
//
Race:
Shadow Nymph
Status:
Cautious
Well… first of all, he had somehow hidden his name and a new ‘something’ from my [Ability], which, second of all, was displaying way more than normal.
That’s when I felt a stab of pain in my left eye, which surprised me enough to make me take a sudden step back, which in turn alerted the [Hunter] that I had definitely noticed his intrusion if us looking in his general direction wasn’t enough of a tell.
A couple of notifications flashed by, but I tried ignoring them while summoning a bunch of [Flying Trappers] to shoot and immobilize the guy.
But since I wasn’t cognizant enough to regulate the number that I would spawn, I ended up filling the room we were in with four dozen or so, which prompted even more notifications to come up.
And then they shot the poor guy all at once.
And I’m convinced he had barely enough time to whisper something that sounded suspiciously a lot like ‘fuck’ just an instant before he was covered head to toe in brilliant ropes of light.
That was when I felt myself falling again, and this time Sheeno was the one to hurry over to keep me from face-planting.
Before she could shout more than my name, an overbearing presence appeared at the edge of the mansion, who then proceeded to enter the premises with a full contingency of [Guards] at their heels.
“This is a [Guild Official] speaking: Everybody put your palms upwards and keep your mouth shut, and don’t resist arrest!” The heavily armored woman, because the voice was decidedly feminine, shouted.
This was turning out to be a bigger assle than I thought, so I just urged Sheeno with helping me in complying, while I instead went to check my notifications.
And, oh boy, were there some interesting ones.
At least I thought so until a new bout of pain assaulted me, seemingly coming from my core, which knocked me right out.