“Seriously, how do you keep sleeping through all of this?” Q poked Schorl who wriggled on Wolfy’s head. She was sitting in the backyard surrounded by a bunch of wolves who were there to soothe her stress. When Wolfy was summoned, Schorl seemed to be quite surprised as it actually scurried underneath Q’s hat. After Q coaxed it out, Schorl and Wolfy seemed to come to a mutual understanding as Wolfy allowed Schorl to sit on its head. It even seemed that Wolfy had given some authority to Schorl, as when it hissed the other wolves would move around.
“But seriously… what was that?” Q muttered, remembering her fight with Phanos. Back then Q was able to clearly see that Phanos had a strong disdain for her, and she might even go so far as to call it hate. “I mean, I guess she needs to make sure that the people around Brie are safe for her to be around, but that was a bit excessive wasn’t it?” Letting out another sigh, Q decided to put this matter to the back of her head as she began to review the things she had learned about using her runes.
Currently with the way she had distributed her points in the skill tree, this is what she was capable of:
* She can have up to 10 different runes active at the same time (that includes multiple runes put into a circle)
* Her runes will last for 5 minutes before disappearing, and will follow her around if she creates them and doesn’t use them. (She can also move them around and make them stay in place if she concentrates hard enough)
Q also obtained a skill called [Rune-Launch] which let her fire her runes forward once they were created, making it so that she didn’t have to be close to the enemy to get them to work. These runes would actually stick to a surface if they were aimed at one, and she could use them as pseudo-traps. She also experimented a lot with the rune circles (as Q now called them) and figured out these things:
* The center rune has the most power. (Regardless of whether it was a command or element rune)
* The more element runes placed inside a circle, the more element attacks will be created (for example creating a forward rune in the center with two fire runes at the side will cause two fireballs to shoot forward)
* Multiple command runes are redundant, but the commands take priority depending on which one is closer to the center. In the case where command runes have the same distance from each other, it will cause whatever’s being used by it to move according to both commands at the same time (but sometimes they cancel out like forward and backward)
* Generally, the size of the circle (and runes inside) correspond to its power.
* The larger a rune, the more mana it takes to both create and activate it.
* Rune circles can also be used with [Rune-Launch], but disappear more quickly.
* A rune doesn’t seem to have a maximum range to be activated (as Q fired a rune all the way to the side of a building at least 50 meters away and was still able to activate it).
* Whenever she said ‘activate’, every rune she made would activate at the same time. There was a skill in the tree which let her choose which ones to activate, but that was still out of her reach for now.
* She could actually create a rune with every single finger (and even her tail!) if she concentrated, but it became incredibly hard to draw it correctly.
* Drawing a rune incorrectly will cause it to fail and explode in her face (slight mistakes like a squiggly line are okay, but make the rune weaker).
* She can ‘inject’ more mana into a rune to make its effects stronger, but too much will cause the rune to explode (larger runes can hold more mana).
“The only problem is, how do I summon you Schorl?” Q wondered while looking at the small salamander. Since all her spells were taken away, she couldn’t use [Summon Familiar] anymore. She did have the Summon rune, but had no idea if simply using it by itself would cause Schorl to appear. While Q was staring at Schorl, Schorl stared back and then lowered its head slightly. It’s tourmaline gem began to glow, and a few symbols appeared on it!
“Woah! What is that?” Q hurriedly memorized the symbols as she drew them in midair. With a bit of rearranging she put them inside a circle and stared at it. “Let’s see… I still have a screenshot option don’t I?” Q fiddled around in her menu and found the option. Many players were now recording and taking screenshots of their adventures and uploading them online, but Q hadn’t used it until now. “Hehe, I can screenshot these rune circles and save them so I can look at it later if I ever forget.” With the picture successfully saved, she addressed the symbols.
“Hey Schorl, what is this about?” Q looked at the salamander.
“Ksha.” Schorl’s tail curled up and touched its head.
“Oh wait a minute, is this how I summon you?” Q hurriedly put in the Summon rune in the center and then activated it. The rune began to glow, and Schorl who was beside her disappeared. In a few seconds the glow faded away, and Schorl reappeared in Q’s hands. “That’s awesome! So I can use the summon rune to bring up just about anything, and these extra ones around it are kind of like… the telephone number? Does that mean you have one too Wolfy?”
“Grr.” Wolfy shook his head in denial.
“Yeah, I guess that’s because you come from a skill. But hey, maybe I can summon other familiars to use in battle! Or better yet, fluffy animals to pet!”
“Ksha~”
“What? I need to learn their own runes first, and even then I need to get the creature’s consent to be a familiar? Aw, there goes my plans…” Q deflated a bit when she learned she couldn’t constantly summon more animal friends.
“Everytime I leave you alone you always seem to get weirder.” Kukis suddenly came around the corner with Asphy dripping down the sides of her head.
“Speak for yourself Burnt-Cookie.” Q laughed at Kukis’ appearance. Right now Kukis’ face was charred black, while her clothing was slightly burnt and frayed in many places.
“Ugh- An accident happened when I was trying to mix some stuff together. Anyway, how come you understand your familiars?”
“I actually have no idea.” Q looked at Wolfy and Schorl who also looked at her with bewildered faces. “But whatever. Do you want to go out and hunt some monsters? I’ve been itching to try out some of my new runes.” It’ll also give me a chance to get my mind off of what just happened… She silently thought.
“Sure. We should probably go around the village to grab some quests first though. You know, make it worth our while.”
“Lead the way, Charred Snack.”
“...We’ll go after I clean myself up.”
*****
[Defeat the Fog Wisps] - 0/50
[Collect Mandrake Roots] - 0/15
[Hunt down the Escaped Experiment]
[Clear out a Wicked Wailer Nest] 0/100
“Now that’s a nice lineup of quests. Ready to go Cookie?” Q readjusted her hat.
“Yeah, just... as... soon as… ASPHY GETS OFF ME!” Kukis pulled Asphy off her head as it was getting dangerously close to her mouth and nose.
It was still night time when they were asking around for quests, but despite this the village was still quite lively. Living underneath a thick layer of fog and clouds, the residents rarely ever got to know what time of day it was so they lived with irregular sleep schedules. There were quite a few eccentric figures running around the town at night time though, and one of them gave them the Escaped Experiment quest. By the time they finished gathering all the quests it was already daytime, not that it was obvious though.
As the girls entered the forest they felt some slight discomfort, but by now their wisdom stat was high enough that they were unaffected by the aura it gave off. “So what first? Fog Wisps or Mandrakes?” Q asked.
“I say Mandrakes. The fog wisps come up randomly anyway so we’re bound to encounter them as we just walk around the forest.”
“Ditto.”
The two began making their way through the forest and quickly encountered some Fog Wisps. They were dispatched without much trouble, but Q was actually having some trouble keeping up with Kukis’ rate of killing them because she had to draw a wind rune, a forward rune and a circle around it for a single gust of wind.
“Wow, that’s not very efficient is it?”
“I think it’ll get better with practice. I’m having a bit of trouble making the rune look perfect in the heat of battle. Maybe if I add in some points into dexterity and agility it’ll get better.” Q mused. The only reason I could make those runes against Phanos was because I used my ‘cheat’, and that’s not something I want to use often.
“Yeah. Maybe you should keep some runes floating around ready for use then. Like a pre-emptive strike or something.”
“Oh, good idea.” Q created 3 different rune circles to follow her around, and she replaced them anytime one would run out. During their walk, Kukis used a skill to locate the Mandrakes and harvest them while Q stood guard. A good portion of their time was spent searching for the Mandrakes, and they ended up finishing the Fog Wisp hunting quest by the time they found their tenth plant.
A Will of the Wisps actually spawned, but it was taken down fairly easily with Q and Kukis who used fire spells to chunk its health down before finishing it off with other spells. While they were collecting the spoils from the battle, Q picked up Schorl who was curled around her ear.
“Hey Schorl, can you show me what you do in battle? I know you can do stuff because it was written in your status screen, but not once have you done anything.”
“Ksha.”
“Oh, NOW you’re willing. Okay, show me what you can do when the next enemy comes up.”
“Seriously, how do you understand it?” Kukis said with an amazed look on her face. “Hey Asphy, what can you do?” Asphy jiggled a little, then began to rapidly envelop Kukis’ head! “Not that damnit!”
An hour later they managed to collect all the mandrakes, and then began looking for the Escaped Experiment. According to the person who gave them the quest, it was a monster which was a fusion between a lion, a goat and a snake. Q and Kukis instantly thought it was a chimera, but the person kept denying it and simply called it an experiment. Besides that he told them what to look out for, and that was a trail of acid.
Within a few minutes the two girls found a patch of earth that seemed to be corroded, and they began to follow the path it led to. With a few twists and turns (and a few more encounters with random monsters) they eventually came up to a small cave that led deep underground. “Hey, isn’t this a wicked wailer nest? It matches the quest description.” Q said.
“Alright! We’re getting two birds with one stone!” Kukis pumped her fist.
“We do need to be careful though. We don’t know what’s down there and we don’t have a tank either, so it’s best if we proceeded with caution.”
“Psh, we don’t need to go into the cave.” Kukis then brought out a few vials. “We’ll make them come out!”
“That’s… smart. But doesn’t it feel wrong?”
“Hah, it doesn’t matter as long as I win in the end.” Kukis wore a sinister smile on her face as she uncorked the vials and let them roll down into the cave. “And now, we wait.”
For half a minute nothing happened, but then they could hear sounds that were like the wailing of the damned coming from within the cave. Kukis then set up a few extra vials that seemed to be filled with oil on the ground, while Q set up some fire runes at the cave entrance. While the two girls nervously waited, they suddenly got a notice and saw that the quest was slowly being completed! “Hahaha, my experimental poison worked! Now if only they came out so I could see how much damage it’s dealing.”
“Be careful what you wi-” Q was saying something, but it was too late as they heard terrible groans and flapping noises! Suddenly the entire entrance of the cave was filled with black creatures about half a meter in size. Q activated her runes while Kukis cast [Flamethrower], and the swarm of creatures were quickly being killed off. What they didn’t expect to hear though, was a large explosion from deep underneath them!
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
“Huh, I guess the poison gas was explosive as well. Who knew?”
“Now’s not the time!” Q yelled as she desperately tried to create more runes to keep up with the swarm. Eventually the swarm calmed down and they were able to clearly see what the wicked wailers looked like. They were clearly bats, but the strange thing was that they didn’t have ears. Instead their eyes were enlarged to an almost comical size, and were completely red besides the pupils. Their chests were quite large as well, as it seemed like they were puffed out for some reason. They then opened their mouths and began to scream.
[Wicked Wailer] - Level 20
“Augh! What the heck is that?” Q covered her ears as the bats’ terrible scream was giving her a bad headache. Enhanced Hearing is working against me right now...
“That’s annoying, is what it is!” Kukis threw a vial with one hand, and then cast [Pebble Shot] right after to break the vial midair. Its contents spilled all over the bats and began burning away and corroding their fur! With many of them not screaming anymore, Q used [Tri-Spark] and began creating as many runes as she could and launched them at the bats. There were simply too many bats to handle though, and quite a few of them got through the ‘killzone’ and began to attack Q and Kukis!
“Cookie, you got anymore of that corrosive liquid?” Q continued to create runes with her left hand while she fended off the bats that got close with her right.
“Yeah, just one vial left though.” Kukis cast [Earth Armor] to keep most of the bats from getting at her skin, but she was still being swarmed.
“Throw it as high as you can!” Q yelled as she created another mini arcane overload to clear out the area around herself. Kukis threw the vial high up into the air, and Q took careful aim and shot out an earth rune!
She activated it in midair to create a rock which flew forward and broke the vial. Q then began to create as many wind runes and began shooting them all into the sky, activating them as soon as they made contact with the liquid. The moment the wind runes activated, a small gust of wind would happen and scatter the liquid all over the area! In no time at all the bats were covered in this liquid, and they became easy prey for Q and Kukis who hid underneath a wall of earth that Kukis made.
The moment they killed all the bats and finished the quest, they heard a terrible roar from inside the cave! They exchanged glances, then backed away from the entrance of the cave while preparing themselves for what was coming next. Kukis brought out a straw doll and began lobbing random vials towards the entrance of the cave, while Q once again set up her ‘trap’ runes, and also began working on creating a rune circle with a Weaken rune in the center.
Contrary to their expectations, they didn’t hear any sort of footsteps, but instead heard a strong hiss and the sounds of something scraping on stone. The moment the two saw something poke its head out of the cave, they instantly activated the things they set up before, and caused a huge explosion at the mouth of the cave! A roar of indignation could be heard as the thing rushed out of the cave and they were able to see what it looked like. The creature was about 10 meters long, and was covered in murky green scales. The main body was a snake, but on the ends of it where a snake head and tail would normally be, were instead replaced by a lion head and a goat head!
[Civedul’s Experiment] - Level 50
The lion head roared while the goat head bleared, and they both began to charge forth at the same time! While Q was temporarily flabbergasted at its appearance, she quickly regained her wits and dived to the side, tackling Kukis who was staring dumbly at the creature. They barely managed to avoid the attack before it turned around and began charging at them again! With a quick glance Q saw that at least a quarter of its health was gone. At least our attacks seem to have done a lot of damage. Or maybe it was just Kukis’ poison.
“Th-that’s no chimera! What is- I don’t evrin-.” Kukis began blabbing nonsense as it seemed that she couldn’t fully understand what was going on.
“Snap out of it!” Q noticed that Kukis had the ‘confusion’ status on her so she slapped her hard and dragged her off. “I think it has some sort of confusion ability. Get ready for a tough fight!” Q used her ‘weaken’ rune circle, then made a rune circle with fire, condense, and amplify and used [Rune-launch] to put it on the ground in front of the Experiment. As soon as the experiment’s body ran over the rune circle, Q activated it and burned its underbelly! While the experiment screamed in pain, Kukis seemed to regain her senses as she apologized and began to cast spells.
It was at this moment that Schorl suddenly looked up and stared at the experiment. For a moment its eyes wandered back and forth between the goat and the lion, but eventually it settled on the lion. A dark glow came from Schorl’s forehead, and then a black mist came out and began to surround the lion’s eyes! “[Spell Analysis]!” Q tried to see if she could possibly copy Schorl’s ability.
[Blind rune analysis: 40%]
“Nice job Schorl! I’ll feed you a treat later!... If you even eat anything that is.” With the lion blinded and flailing about wildly, Q focused her efforts on the goat head which widened its eyes and stared at Q.
Q felt a strange feeling of confusion wash over her, but she tried to resist it with all her might. Seeing this, Kukis sent a rock flying towards the goat head. The rock missed, but it allowed Q to break free from the confusion stare as she regained her senses and continued to bombard the experiment with multiple fire runes.
“Try a little variety now and then!” Kukis yelled as she created a powerful stream of water to hit the goat head and push it away.
“Fine then! [Tri-Spark]!” Q zapped the now wet goat head, causing it to take even more damage. The goat was stunned for a while, but the lion broke free of the black mist and lunged at Q! In the split second that Q looked at the lion, she noticed that its fangs were dripping poison. With no other way to go, she bent her upper body as far back as she could and managed to just barely avoid the lion’s bite.
(A/N: Matrix?)
A bit of the venom happened to drip onto Q though, and as soon as it made contact with her skin it began to sizzle and she felt incredible pain! “OWW!!” Q stopped, dropped and rolled away from the experiment as she felt agonizing pain on her skin. “Wolfy’s bites didn’t hurt this much. This guy’s poison is nasty!” Q’s health was also dropping at a fast rate, as she soon lost a quarter within 10 seconds! Suddenly she saw something flying towards her, but she relaxed once she saw that it was a potion Kukis threw. The moment it made contact with Q the potion completely disappeared, and so did the burning spot on her skin.
“Thanks Cookie! By the way we should probably take this thing’s venom after we’re finished. It really hurts.” Q dodged another charge from the experiment and then tried using a light rune to damage it. She began to cycle through each of the elements, and found that both fire and water work incredibly well against it. As soon as she figured this out, Q and Kukis began to coordinate their attacks with each other, as Q used fire to hit the lion while Kukis used water to attack the goat.
Despite being big and intimidating, the experiment was also quite slow so Q and Kukis didn’t have much trouble dodging its attacks. Every so often Schorl would also blind one of the heads, allowing the girls to focus on a single one and quickly bring its health down. Once its health was reduced to half, the experiment’s heads began to coil around each other, and eventually made a shape which resembled a cone.
The two heads screamed, and then they began to spin around in place! At first Q and Kukis were completely confused by this action, but the moment the two heads opened their mouths they began to run away in alarm as it began to spit out poison gas! Whatever the gas touched began to slowly melt away, and while it was spinning it began to slowly advance towards the two girls!
“That’s one dangerous beyblade…” Q said as she shot out some more fire runes at it.
“Yeah, we need to seal its mouth with something… but what?” Kukis wondered as she tried to keep Asphy from falling off her hat. “What is it Asphy? I’m trying to think here!” She grabbed Asphy (who kept wriggling) and kept it in her arms as she continued to run.
“Seriously Cookie?”
“What? Why are you... OOOOOOH! Buy me some time!” Kukis turned around and took aim at the experiment with Asphy in her hand. Q drank a mana potion and then began to set up a large rune circle with an Arcane Overload setup. Once she finished creating the circle, she inserted half of her total mana into it and then launched it on the ground just in front of the experiment. The moment it hit the ground she instantly activated it, and a powerful blast actually sent the experiment skywards for a moment!
It then slammed back down onto the ground and became stunned, which gave Kukis the opportunity to throw! “Asphy, I choose you!” She yelled as she threw the slime towards the goat’s open mouth. Right as Asphy made contact with the goat, it began to expand in size and completely enveloped it! The goat panicked and tried to spit out more poison gas, but it was blocked by Asphy’s body which seemed to be immune to the gas. Instead, Asphy actually began to go inside the goat’s mouth, causing it to let out muffled screams as its eyes widened in horror. “Holy crap Cookie, you have one scary slime.” Q grimaced at the harrowing sight.
“I… yeah.” Kukis shivered as she imagined having to go through that. “But whatever. Just focus on the lion now!” With the goat head distracted, Q and Kukis focused all of their attention on the lion and shot out as many fire spells as they could. The lion head was also panicking slightly, but it still continued to spit out poison gas (which became stronger and more potent since the goat’s side was sealed off).
As they maintained a careful distance from the experiment, they slowly whittled down its health and eventually it reached zero. The experiment made one final shudder, and then collapsed onto the ground.
[Level Up!]
[Stats Gained]
[Skill Proficiency Gained]
“Hey, great job Asphy! I… Woah wait, stop! NOOOOO!!” Asphy happily jumped towards Kukis’ head as it felt it should get a reward for doing such a good job.
“Now that was some proper hunting! Time to go back home.” Q looked towards the direction of the witch’s village as she splendidly ignored Kukis being attacked by her own familiar.
----------------------------------------
Remember back when I mentioned that Schorl's main element was Earth? I meant to say Earth and Dark...
Anyhue, this is the most game-like thing that Q has done isn't it? Grab quests, run around an area and just complete them one by one. So hope you enjoyed the triple-release (because I'm never doing it again. maybe)
Fun-fact: Of the 3% of water that isn't the ocean, 69% of it is frozen.
Edit: I'm very happy it's not summer anymore. I don't have to be like this all the time:
Spoiler :
https%3a%2f%2fi.imgur.com%2feWi8K0X.jpg [https://i.imgur.com/eWi8K0X.jpg]
Also, next chapter is the introduction of a new character! Or a previous one...?