The scar on my thigh throbbed as I recalled my fight with the Umber Bear that had almost cost me my life. My squad members had already sprung back into formation as fast as they could. The earth mage raised a barrier in front of us to keep the beating wings from blowing us back again. This must have enraged the Queen Mother because in a moment her wings glowed brighter and sharp blades of wind fell on our position.
I ran to the side attempting to stay out of the line of fire and my enhanced speed and aura made it an easy task. The others weren’t as fast but the casters both provided various barriers. Blades of wind shattered each new barrier that they raised, and I could hear Santiago speaking doing his best to buff the caster's defensive capabilities. I didn’t have defensive skills or the ability to help with defensive buffs, but I could take some heat off them. Changing my weapon into an instrument, I began playing the same note repeatedly.
This was my first time using Tonal Torture, but I figured the best way to get the bosses attention was to cause it pain. I ran. Faster than I’d ever run before I ran and dodged the blades that were now solely focused on me. The Queen Mother screamed in what I could only assume was pain as I continued my torturous assault. Blades flew at me faster and faster and if it weren’t for my high dexterity and the sonar ability my aura gave me, I’d have been bisected already. Taking a chance to look over at the rest of the squad, I saw them preparing to attack the monster again.
Santiago wielded a handheld ballista and began firing it at the Queen Mothers’ wings. Every ranged attack the others could throw at the wing followed up the bolts. The Queen didn’t even notice their attacks, however, me being the sole focus of its ire now as I continued to cause it pain. I could only guess it maybe felt like a small bee sting every time I played the note to a monster of that level but nevertheless, I continued plucking the string. The air portion of my aura worked overtime as I learned how to adjust my buoyancy on the fly, motivated by the barrage of attacks that would kill me if I stopped moving even for a second.
Santiago must have realized that they would be in trouble soon, so he pulled out all the stops, and by that, I meant that he reached into his book and pulled out a giant ballista with a seat and controls that could help him aim. I’d heard about this weapon a couple of times before but from what I’d heard he would bottom out his mana and become extremely weary after just three bolts were fired. He essentially traded his ability to defend himself for a lot of firepower.
The first bolt fired and hit its target burying itself in the back of the monster, the second and third followed and each bolt climbed higher than the last. I suddenly realized what his plan must be, and I stopped playing the note placing my instrument in its case. Racing forward fighting the wind I managed to get directly underneath the giant moth. I jumped grabbing the first ballista bolt sticking out of the Queen and used it to slingshot myself to the next one. After using the last bolt, I landed on the boss’s head. The wind stopped pressing against me as I stood between the wings, but I didn’t have time to enjoy it. I pulled out my bow and fired five concussive shots into the top of its head. My archery skills didn’t take as much mana as my performance skills, but after my long attack on the boss, my mana was low so this was as much as I could do. The arrows each pulsed one after the other rocking the Queen Mothers' head back and forth. It started losing altitude and I hung on tightly to the fur on its head as it crashed into the ground. I was still flung off and I traveled halfway across the field before I was able to right myself and float to the ground.
I looked over and saw Santiago passed out in the stands, but the other team members were rushing out to the fallen boss. The Queen's wings flapped wildly attempting to right herself, but the rest of the squad wasn’t going to allow it. While the squad approached the boss the earth mage pulled a huge spike of concrete out of the stands and slammed the tip of it down on one of the monsters’ wings. From what I could tell it didn’t penetrate, but then the hammer-wielding warrior jumped as high as he could and slammed his weapons down on the top of the spike. With a small rip, the wing was pinned to the ground.
Another scream emanated from the mother, but the squad members didn’t stop their assault. I saw the fighters slashing and piercing the wing shredding it as fast as they could. Meanwhile, the other warrior defended against the thrashing of the boss while running to the other side of the queen with the ice mage. When they finally arrived at the other side of the monstrous moth the mage surprised me by stabbing his wand into the base of the wing. It didn’t actually get through the exoskeleton, but frost started spreading slowly over the area.
When the frost covered a large portion of the targeted area the mage stepped back allowing Eric to step in and smash his kanabo down on the frosted area. It shattered and he continued to step in swinging his weapon until he ran out of a frosted area. They continued trading off with each other until they snapped that wing off. I wasn’t standing idly while the others were attacking the monster, instead, I’d run over to check on Santiago. I felt for a pulse and still found one, we needed him though so using the small amount of mana I had gained back since landing on the field I played the Song of Healing, focusing it strictly on Santiago.
The bard stirred while I was playing the song, energy suffusing his body. He smiled up at me while getting to his feet.
“Thanks, handsome.” He said and I nodded to him.
“No problem, should we get to work?” I asked obtusely. He sighed and closed his eyes for a moment before nodding.
“Just give me a few to build up my mana again.” I agreed with him because I needed about a minute to refill my own. The others continued their barrage of attacks against the boss, and when the other bard and I had refilled our mana, we started buffing them from the stands. I played “Brick by Boring Brick by Paramore” as the combatants systematically dismantled the Queen Mother. By the end of the song, I’d received the kill notification and the quest completion notifications. Santiago took control of the dungeon entrance and when we made our way outside, we found the army of insects had ripped each other apart.
With the death of the Queen Mother, I leveled up another three times unlocking another skill for myself. So, I checked my screens and placed all of the points I’d accrued.
Nathan Schute: Bardic Archer
LEVEL 45
STRENGTH: 15
CONSTITUTION:12
AGILITY:15
DEXTERITY:125
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INTELLIGENCE:21
WISDOM:33
CHARISMA:113
PERCEPTION:11
0 Free Stat Points
I was happy to see that the 12% boost to my stats compounded. Because that meant that as I continued to level up, I’d be stronger than those of the same level without those titles. A lot of my stats were falling behind the others, but I placed all five of my points into intelligence. My wisdom was doing ok for now allowing me to refill my mana quickly, but I was getting tired of running out so quickly all the time. Next, I needed to apply my skill point and I quickly placed it in performance.
BARDIC ARCHER SKILL TREE
0 SKILL POINT
PERFORMANCE ARCHERY CONVERSATION
AMPLIFY STEADY GIFT OF GAB
RITARDANDO SCOPE
UP THE OCTAVE CONCUSSIVE SHOT
TONAL TORTURE HUMMING STRING
12 MAJOR SCALES
12 Major Scales: Learning the basics of any craft is important. This skill will help you improve your musical skills. Increases strength, agility, dexterity, and constitution by 5% for each scale you can complete. If you make a mistake all increases are canceled.
I’d never been so happy that I’d taken a music theory class in high school. It had been a long time since I’d played my scales like that, but my intelligence and wisdom were working, because I could recall at least four of them. I smiled at my hands remembering when I had first built my callouses while learning guitar. The system had smoothed them out replacing them with slightly tougher skin. I don’t know if that was because I’d raised my constitution past the baseline or if it had something to do with my racial upgrade, but I knew I kind of missed the little rough patches on my fingers. They were proof of the hard work that I’d put in to learn my instrument.
“Hey, what you thinking about?” I got tapped on the shoulder by Santiago as he sat beside me. I was about to respond to him when my vision went black. It didn’t take me as much by surprise this time, after all this was the third time, I’d been pulled out of my place in time to chat with Apollo or some other congressperson.
“What’s up Nate dude how ya been?” Apollo greeted me with a wide smile. “Just wanted to tell you you’re doing great! That Umber Bear fight was SICK!” I looked up at my benefactor nonplussed.
“Hey Apollo hope you’re well. Is this another Q&A?” I asked him. He shrugged his shoulders and gave a “so so” gesture with his hand. A questioning look passed over my face but before I had a chance to ask, he burst out into an explanation.
“So yes and no feel free to ask me some questions I’ll do my best to answer em, but then I got a question for you alright?” I was surprised that Apollo would ask me anything. He was the congressman after all. “The ones with all of the answers because they make up the rules.” I thought bitterly. He must have read my facial expressions because he gave me a disapproving look. I nodded, trying to show a little more excitement just in case he decided that I was too surly for him to want to support any more.
“Ok, I guess my first question is why am I not a drooling pool of mush every time I see you? I can tell you’re powerful so your charisma must be super high.” He laughed at my question but straightened up after I cocked my eyebrow at him.
“You’re so serious, man. Well, you’re right that my charisma is like crazy high, but you have to remember that not all of the powerful people you meet are going to have that high of charisma. But anyway, I’m suppressing it with my aura.” I wanted to ask him how he did that, but he raised his hands up to stop me. “Sorry man I would if I could, but I can’t, so I won’t. Maybe one day! Oh, but would you like to see me without suppression? Gotta warn you bro you’ll probably receive brain damage from looking at me, but I’m down if you are!”
“I think I’ll pass for now thanks. Ok, then what exactly is the Congress?” I asked next.
“Oh, easy peasy we’re the guys that overthrew the last guys and yoinked the system so that we could get more resources from other planets. Oh, we also vote on stuff like what the system should be allowed to do, what restrictions we should put on the younger races, and what resources and monsters should spawn on a new planet.” That was a lot of information to process, but I didn’t know how much time I had so I moved on to my next question.
“What do you mean you ‘yoinked’ it?” He huffed.
“You really want to spend your limited time with me talking about ancient history? Buy a book. Next.”
“Ok um, what point are you in your cultivation?” I asked.
“I’m a half-step peak gold cultivator. Taken me a long time I tell you what!” There were some phrases I hadn’t heard in there before, so I took the time to ask about them. “So basically, in cultivation you have ranks there’s Bronze, Iron, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond, Sage, Monarch, Autarch, and then Immortal. There are four stages of each rank early stage, middle stage, late stage, and peak.”
“Wait so you guys aren’t the most powerful beings in the universe?” I asked and he chuckled giving me a look that said, “Oh you sweet ignorant child.”
“We’ll we are the most powerful in your universe right now. But in the multiverse as a whole no, most of us haven’t even hit platinum yet.” I paused for a second, taking that in. The Congress really only controls our universe. It was big news. “So, to escape them all I have to do is leave the universe. How easy.”
“Well, how far am I?” I asked, and in the next moment, I felt something light brush over my core before he answered.
“I would say half-step early-stage bronze.” I was dumbfounded and it showed on my face because Apollo started bellowing with laughter in between a fit of laughter he asked me what I thought I was at, and I told him it sounded like I’d be in iron. To which he broke down into giggle fits again. “Sorry man I wish I could tell you more about it, but you know.” He said after he finished laughing. I just moved passed his antics and asked my next question.
“Is there anything I can do to help out my world?” I asked this mostly so I could get Damien off of my back for a while.
“Well yeah, you’re already doing it. Close dungeons, gain essence and learn how to cultivate. We absorb the resources that you can’t use and tax the essence of your world in order to support our empires and personal cultivation. So, when you guys help us out with stuff like that you get points. Once you accrue enough points, we upgrade the system store or add something more useful to your system displays.” I gawked at him.
“There’s more stuff for the system?” He nodded his head.
“Yeah, dude like your map. You can buy the upgrades from the store but as long as your planet continues working hard and accruing points, you’ll get that kind of stuff for free.” My anger was bubbling up inside me, and I had to do everything I could to push it back down. I couldn’t afford to offend a guy like this. He may seem nice, but he was complicit and even profiting off of the death and suffering of our people. I wanted to spit at the smiling man but instead, I just smiled softly back at him.
“So, what can you tell me about reaching iron rank?” He looked thoughtful before answering.
“Nothing. But I can tell you what bronze rank is about! Get to peak bronze and I should be able to tell you more.” I motioned for him to go on. “So bronze rank is about two things, your body, and your aura, by the time you reach peak you should have four essence concepts that you cultivate, and really try your best to get as many insights as you possibly can. The other part is body tempering which brings me to the question I wanted to ask.” I already knew some of the stuff that he said because of my auric training. I nodded so he knew that I was ready to hear his question.
“Ok, how would you feel if I helped you out with your first tempering? You’ve got a fantastic concept and I think it would be better for you to build your body in conjunction with your aura, so I want to take you to this place called the bell tower. You’re gonna hate it!” I don’t know how I felt about the last part of his statement, but if he was going to help me become stronger then I would do it.
“Yeah, do I need to do anything?” He nodded his head.
“Yeah, body tempering treasures specific to your concept and a body tempering manual so you’ll know the process. Expensive yeah, but I’ll know when you have the items and I’ll pull you back in. With two boss monsters under your belt, we have a good little surplus essence so I can afford to spend more time with you so I figured this would be a good way to get that going.” I agreed to try to get that stuff together and we said our goodbyes. Yes, I was going to let them help me get stronger. "And then I’ll make them all suffer.” Another blackout later and I was sitting beside Santiago with him looking at me.
“I’m sorry what was that?” I asked him.
“Oh, I just asked what you were thinking about. Are you ok?” He said. My anger had come to the surface again now that I was out from in front of Apollo. I did a couple of cycles of my meditative breath before answering Santiago.
“Yeah, I’m alright but we should get going. They might need us over at the Venom Trap. “and I need to kill something.” The others agreed and we hastily double-checked our gear and each other before jogging toward the direction of the next dungeon.