Chapter 28
Choice of the Disparted
Cindered Desert [I]
Difficulty: 16/100
Defeat Monsters: Unknown
Defeat Elite Monsters: Unknown
Defeat Bosses: Unknown
Note: The Cindered Desert lies south of the Empire, flanked to the west by the Abaddon Sea and to the east by the sky-piercing Thousand Blades Mountains. The legend goes, a thousand years ago it was an oasis of prosperity--the very grass was considered a precious treasure capable of healing any ailment. But a Barbarian Warlord, in pursuit of ultimate death, challenged the local Lord to a duel. Their battle ushered in the Age of Decay, dissimulating everything that made the oasis perfect, leaving in its wake the harrowing desert of sand dunes, never-ending, sordid days, and monsters that lurk just beneath the grains, ever hungry for prey. Be warned, those who cross it in search of glitter--it is as close to death as one may dare come yet.
Asher stared at the screen with a heavy heart, contemplating.
It was the easiest of the unknown stages, and though the difficulty seemed 'mild', what with sitting at only 16 out of 100, he knew it wouldn't be that simple. If it were, this world itself would be of an entirely different make. He sighed, yet as soon as his finger drifted to the 'Enter' portion of the window, he paused. It was trembling, misguided by a sense of desire that he should bury.
Gnashing his teeth, he marveled for a moment at his own weakness. Though Qyne never explicitly said why the Shepherds continued even after so many years of failures, she did imply the reason to be resonant with something larger than life. Perhaps obscenely so. But if he wanted to learn what... he had to take a plunge.
Chances were that Bandits, and especially the Civilians, went through the already-beaten stages dozens, perhaps hundreds of times until they upgraded themselves to the point that this stage's difficulty was plunged down to 1 or 2 out of 100. Asher could do the same--his mind was telling him to play the long game, to be smart, to encase himself in the shadows as he always did. But that wasn't good enough. And thus, he took a leap of faith.
His trembling finger reached ‘Enter’ and the familiar pang of pain that had been missing for a couple of days now seared through his body for a moment. Opening his eyes, he found himself in precisely what he expected--a vast desert.
The sand stretched endlessly, its ochre hue somewhat even pleasing to the eyes. The horizon was blurred by the shifting sands and the wavering heat waves, with the entirety of the terrain being just a repetitive exercise of expansive dunes sculpted by the ever-present force of the wind into sinuous ridges and gentle curves. As his eyes wandered about for a moment, the sand's color changed, too, as the angle at which the sun hit it caused the shift--from ochre to pale beige, shades blending in perfectly.
He took a breath and immediately felt his lungs burn for a moment--though the air was excessively dry and parched, with virtually no humidity, that oughtn't have been the reason for the scorch in the lungs. The desert was amiss in many ways, different from what he expected.
It was definitely hot--even as the world was still in its ‘paused’ state, waiting for Asher to select his starter’s weapon, the intense heat was beginning to pulse against his skin. It would seem that another hazard of the stages would be introduced here--the environment itself.
Up above, a clear, cerulean sky framed the golden orb that was the star, its relentless, blazing light casting harsh shadows that danced across the undulating dunes. At the far edges of the horizon, mirages shimmered. Fading flickers of shapes that resembled familiar, yet were all but.
Asher shook his mind and focused on the three choices. To his chagrin... they were all new. Panicking, and angered that a promised reward of always starting with a staff wasn’t being fulfilled, he barely managed to notice the squatting window to the left where the option of staff existed. His relief, though, lasted but a second--though he could pick it, the choice came with some rather... unfortunate debuffs. So much so, in fact, that it was evident the ‘game’ didn’t want him to choose the staff. Just the -65% damage dealt debuff was enough for him to forgo the notion of choosing the staff, but the icing on the cake was the fact that the homing fireballs would be disabled.
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He didn't let the anger debilitate him, however; he was already, to some extent, immune to the 'bullshit' as it were. He never expected the Stage to be fair or easy or anything along those lines. Beyond all the possible preparation, Asher had deduced that every stage, to some extent, had a theme--and the speed at which he identified it mattered the most because he could then specialize his build. The final Stage of the Grassy Lowlands was an Anomaly in more ways than one--the 'Chaos' build was just guesswork of lucky rolls that somehow went his way more often than not. It was not at all what he aspired toward as it took out all the agency he had.
Looking at the few hints that the Stage gave him--such as the desert terrain, and the fact that there were just two goals: to survive for 5 minutes and to kill at least 1 Rare and stronger monster--Asher pondered for a moment. The ‘at least’ part was a bit annoying in its vagueness, but it wasn’t difficult to ascertain that the more of the harder monsters he killed, the bigger the rewards would be... but so would the risks.
The three weapons offered were as follows: a pair of Wooden Daggers, a Wooden Mace, and a Grimoire. He didn't muse on the effectiveness of something as stupid as a 'wooden mace' as it was irrelevant, and more so at how the weapons interact with the surroundings. Even though he couldn't move just yet, Asher had already realized that moving around this place would likely be one of the hardest things to do. Hilly terrain with deep pits on top of the slippery sand as well as the fact that his feet were definitely sinking ever so slightly into the grains... something like a mace, in a traditional sense, required a lot of stationary gravitas in order to swing with as much power as possible. Sinking sands were probably not the best place for it.
He was evenly split between the remaining two--the daggers, in particular, were tempting. Lightweight weaponry would likely yield itself to upgrades emphasizing precisely that. However, the terrain, once again, cast doubts on the weapon's effectiveness; every step in the grainy sands would feel as though the ground was yielding to you as much as it was resisting you, creating a strange sensation of both sinking and floating at the same time. Such uneven balance for a weapon as precise, ordinarily speaking at least, as the daggers were probably not the best option.
That left the Grimoire.
Avennon's Grimoire [Common]
Level: 1
Effect: Every 3 seconds (is lowered by Cooldown Reduction rather than Attack Speed as with other weapons), store a Lumine Charge. You can hold up to 6 Charges at a time. Spells in the Grimoire all have their own innate costs. The Spells have no cooldown and can be cast in an overlap. Leveling up the Grimoire increases the number of Spells that you have access to. You can set the Grimoire to ‘Automatic Casting’, but doing so will halve all the effects of Spells, and they will be cast purely at random.
Currently Available Spells:
Ice Weave [2 Lumine] -- toss a weave of magic in a direction that freezes all normal enemies within 6 yards of its origin point. Attacking the frozen enemy with another spell of opposing or complementary element will deal 100% more damage.
Lightning Spear [1 Lumine] -- conjure up a spear of lightning in your free hand and throw it at an enemy. It hones in on your mental selection, dealing your base (10) damage. Has a 3% chance to Paralyze the target and a 15% chance to pierce through, dealing half the damage to the nearest enemy.
Arcane Rain [5 Lumine] -- conjure a cloud of arcane above the targeted position within 100 yards. It will begin to pelt the droplets of Arcane Rain for the next 10 seconds. Each pelt will deal 50% of your damage (5) and inflict a stack of Mana Sickness to the enemies. Each stack of Mana Sickness increases the damage the enemies take from the magical spells by 6%. Stacks infinitely.
Hallowed Ebullition [3 Lumine] -- explode in a fit of holy rage, knocking back all enemies around you (including bosses) for at least 30 yards, dealing minimal damage. You can time this ability perfectly to deflect an attack or projectile, returning it to the attacker.
Sanctified Aura [6 Lumine] -- become beatified for 7 seconds. For the duration, deal damage to all enemies within your aura (16 yards radius) equal to 10% of your damage (1) every 0,5 seconds. Additionally, gain a 3% chance to purify the foes' souls upon killing them, gaining a permanent 1% boost to ALL main stats (Damage, Attack Speed, Movement Speed, and Health). Lastly, cursed enemies take 500% more damage.
Cosmic Drift [5 Lumine] -- Drift forward for 40 yards through the space. You will be given a 2s grace period to choose where to appear within 10 yards of the landing location.
Fire Blast [1 Lumine] -- blast the target by igniting Mana around it into flames, dealing your base (10) damage. Gives 1 stack of ‘Infused’, increasing magic damage dealt by 10% for 3 seconds. Stacks infinitely. New stacks do not refresh the duration of the previous one.
Note: The ancient Magics of Grimoires are lost to the vestiges of time. Only the long-forgotten Magi of the Court were able to create them, and even so upon sacrifice so grave that their entire Order was executed for Heresy and all knowledge of Grimoire Creation burned alongside their dismembered corpses. However, hundreds of Grimoires still remain, though most only have low-level spells that nobody desires. Few, however, stand at the very pinnacle of magic and are considered Forbidden Chattels of the Occult, banned from use by even the most powerful.