Ornaments
By the time I returned to camp, the sun had started its descent beyond the horizon. The camp was busy, people moving around, preparing for the trip as I had ordered.
As I came in for a landing, there was a lot of finger pointing and yelling, but it calmed down quickly as they realized who the winged creature flying toward them was.
Once I was on the ground, the people around bowed as I walked by. I soaked it in, my whole life I was one on the ground, bowing to others. No more.
I checked myself though, I had seen enough bad leaders to know what to avoid. I didn’t want to turn into what I hated.
I saw Saia in the distance, helping carry supplies, well, her drone. People had grown used to her, even though she had gotten ten times bigger in a span of days for them. I left her to it.
It didn’t take long after I landed for Kai and Carlito to come find me. They matched my pace, one on each side. Then Kai spoke.
“The first group returned from the rift an hour ago,” she reported. I had put Kai in charge of the survivors fighters, seeing as how their previous leader, Carlos Cabrera died fighting the horde.
The camp has been using a nearby arena rift as a resource mine, beasts within used as food and also to gather weapons that the kobolds used. I had them organize a few groups to clear it as much as they could before we left, looting mostly the weapons for the trip as well as meat for the trip.
“Good,” I said, then turned to look at Carlito. “How’s the camp been? Anyone looking to stab me in the back?”
“Nah,” Carlito waved his hand as we made way toward my tent. “You’re a vampire that can transform into a Dark Angel and tear monsters in half with your bare hands. No one’s that dumb.”
I suppressed a smile. He would be surprised how many people were actually that dumb.
“People are actually hopeful,” Carlito added.
“They are?”
He nodded. “The Father Rodriguez’s people worship the ground you walk on, and the rest feel better knowing you’re in charge now. Hell, most had expected it since the moment you arrived, even if they were afraid of you.”
“And they aren’t afraid of me anymore?”
“Oh, they’re afraid, but you haven’t started killing and feeding on people like a crazy vampire would. And between you and the shit that’s beyond these walls, they’d rather throw in with you.”
I was glad, it made things easier for me.
“Keep an ear out for anyone trying to gather some silver and stab me in the back again.”
“Sure thing boss lady.”
We reached my tent, and I recovered my stuff, my weapon and backpack with my gear. Then we headed to Max’s tent.
He was at his table, and Anna stood with her back turned to the entrance, sorting through some crates. Everything in the tent was in some state of being packed up, at least the things that we’d be bringing with us.
Max raised his eyes from the table when we entered, and gave me a smile.
“You’re back,” he said as Anna turned and greeted us too.
“Yes, you have the things ready for me?” I asked.
Max nodded and stood then fetched a large crate from the other side of the tent and put it on the table.
“We merged as many gemstones as we could, as you asked. There are still some F and E grade left over, but we managed to get eight D grade and one C grade out of it.”
I nodded, it wasn’t as much as I had expected, but then again they didn’t really have that much time to farm rifts.
“Okay, keep those for later, give me all the E grade ones,” I said. I wanted to experiment with evolving skills that I put gems into.
He pulled a small box from within the crate and put it on the table. I rummaged through it, finding a nice spread different elements. I picked one up and pulled my Mask out, then I focused on a skill that was currently on my shelf. I hoped that I could slot the gemstones in now. Immediately, I knew that I could do it, though I had to focus more intently than with the skills that I had access to.
“This is good,” I said. “Did you do any work on the other thing?”
Max pulled out a sheet of paper. “Yes, based on the things you told us, and the research we did with the people at camp, I have a tentative proposal for you.”
He pushed the paper over to me and I looked it over.
“A ruler Ornament?”
Max shrugged. “That’s what you are, aren’t you? It would be an easy source of Investment. If things work in the way that we think they do, then you should be offered that as an option.”
I nodded, his logic was sound. I had spoken with Shadow, but he could only speak in general terms. Max had been working on Masks and trying to figure out how Investment actually worked.
“And for my second Ornament?” I asked.
“Something combat related,” he said. “Your Mask needs blood, and you often get it by fighting beasts. If what you’ve told us is true, then you only need to decide if you want to specialize in killing beasts or take something more general.”
I looked through what he had written, which was a more detailed explanation of what he said. It was mostly conjecture, but it was good work. “Okay, I’ll need a private space to experiment for a little bit, Kai,” I turned to the taller woman. “I’m going to need you to watch over me, I’ll be going in and out as I try to figure things out.”
She nodded and I turned to Carlito. “I also have some things for the two of you.” I reached into my backpack and pulled out the two daggers I got as reward, the fire and ice ones. I offered them to Carlito.
“For me?” He asked, then pulled out the fire dagger out of its sheath. “Oh, hell yeah. Thanks boss.”
He grinned at me, and I pulled a pair of boots and the lantern and offered it to Kai. “I don’t have any more weapons, but the boots muffle your steps, which can be useful, and the lantern is a light source.”
Which was actually useful in a world where we no longer had electricity. She thanked me and then Max led me to a side room inside the tent.
I settled in and entered my soul space.
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I looked through the list of Ornaments available to me. As Max had suspected, I had a lot of them offered to me. They were supplemental to a Mask, and as I had learned they could consolidate and evolve the Mask in different directions. From some things that Shadow had said, I knew that my Mask had been altered in ways that made how I get Investment different. Revelator remained, meaning that Investment revolving around truth would advance my Mask. Seeker had come from my Student Ornament, so I had to assume that it was related to learning, or seeking to learn. Since it was joined with the Revelator, perhaps I had to seek to learn the truth? Since it had consolidated into my Mask, perhaps doing so through blood.
I did get memories when I drank blood, so perhaps that was all there was to it. I would figure it out in time.
My choices of two new Ornaments would need to reflect what I wanted to do, and how I wanted to alter my Mask in the future. This wouldn’t be something that most people on Kirios would have to worry about. They rarely advanced beyond the Fourth Investment, but I planned to reach as high as one possibly could, which meant that every ten carvings I would have a chance of consolidating my Ornaments.
True, it could happen before going up an Investment tier, but according to Shadow, that was rare. It required gaining a significant carving, one that came at a moment that was heavy with Investment from both the Mask and Ornaments.
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The choices that I had before, when I was picking my Mask, were still there. Thug and Servant, now, I’ve gotten what I believed to be an improvement to Student—Scholar. But, I also had new ones, unlocked through my deeds since the Grand Spell arrived. Most of my choices were simple things like Fighter, Hunter, or Leader. The most basic of options as far as I knew. But there were a few new and more unique ones.
Blood Warrior for example, seemed like something very useful and geared toward me. I could see how that could synergize and eventually consolidate well into my Mask. There were a couple more combat related ones that were interesting, Beast Hunter, Rift Hunter, Beast Slayer. But, if I was being honest, none of them really caught my eye.
My main issue was deciding what I wanted my Mask to be. To the people of Kirios, Masks were part of them, their life path. For me and people of Earth, they were something external, an added power.
I struggled with using my skills in the moments when I was lost in battle. I had to remind myself, it didn’t come naturally as it would to someone for whom the reality of Masks and skills was known since birth.
Still, my Mask did reflect who I was, and my two Ornaments did too. Revelator meant someone who revealed truths, and it did resonate with me. I didn’t like to lie, I felt like the truth was a both a weapon and a shield. Heart of Azure and Scarlet had that built-in the core of it, a lie was a debt in my eyes.
From my Student Ornament I got the desire to learn, which was also a part of me. I knew that I was lacking in areas, and I wanted to improve.
I had seen glimpses of what Masks could do, the power that they could grant. Shadow felt like a mountain that I couldn’t even dream of approaching. Even as injured as he was, I had felt his power. Even now, with as much power as I had, I doubted that I could be his equal. I didn’t know what Investment his Mask was, but it was definitely higher than Fifth. And in the Challenge I had faced a Fifth Investment Masked, and lost.
The choice now was about the future. My Mask was a part of me that grew in power as I fed on blood. It offered me ways to take the power of others for myself. It revolved around taking power. Choosing my Ornaments was now in what ways I wanted to augment that.
Max had suggested I take a combat and leadership Ornaments. But combat for me was not a priority, I could take skills from others for that, I had already taken many.
I needed different types of power.
Leadership I agreed with. And the only Ornament that fit that was Leader, something simple. Which was fine, Ornaments could reach Second Investment, so there was room for growth.
I did have an Ornament that didn’t fit within any of the other types.
It was called Blood Heir, which if I was being honest, I had no idea what to do with. How was that even a thing? Did the Grand Spell devise new Ornaments. It had to have, my Mask was based on Vampires, I didn’t think Kirios had anything like us before.
And I didn’t even know what this Ornament meant. What would it do. Shadow wouldn’t be able to tell me anything about it, I already knew. But the Grand Spell had patterns, one could read in between the lines. It was something related to my vampire nature. It had to be.
If I was being honest, there wasn’t much that appealed to me among the choices. Leader was a certainty. I wanted to lead, and I needed the skills that the Ornament would give me.
I shook my head, pushing all doubts away. If I was being honest, a lot of my decisions had come from within, done on instinct. I stopped trying to figure out what the best course of action was and picked the two ornaments, Leader and Blood Heir. No Investment, No Carving, but it was a start.
There, it was done. I rolled my shoulders and turned toward the Hallway of Doors. It was time for me to get some skills.
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I spent a while killing beasts and lower Investment humans and Suul. With my current strength, dealing with them was easy even without my weapons and skills. None of them were over Second Investment, aside from a couple of beasts that were higher. None of it was much of a challenge, but it was a good warm up.
I went back into the hallway after depositing the latest of a dozen skills on a shelf. I walked and looked at the doors, trying to decide which one I would enter next. I was ready for more of a challenge.
I stopped in front of an old door, the one leading to the Mature Ferrorn. The first creature I met on Ish Vimza that was stronger than me.
That was… a long time ago. I was without weapons, without skills, with just my Fledgling Vampire strength, and even that was weakened by the sun.
Today, I was a different person.
I entered the room fully equipped to fight it. In one hand I carried my serpent-tongue spear, and in the other I had drawn my revolver. The Fourth Investment beast stood across from me, as intimidating as it was the first time I encountered it.
This time though, I recognized the effect of a skill. It had an aura of terror around it that wormed its way in my mind. I shrugged it off with ease.
It roared and charged.
I raised my arm and aimed, then pulled the trigger eight times. The beast obviously had no idea what the gun was, bullets found their targets. I put all eight of them in its head.
The mature ferrorn stumbled, fell, slid, and came to a stop just in front of me. I looked at the dead beast as its body fell away and a skill remained. How much easier my time on Ish Vimza would’ve been if I had been transported with my gun? If I hadn’t been nearly dead and with no weapons?
Perhaps it wouldn’t have changed much. But I knew that weapons like the gun in my hand would’ve made things easier. Powerful Invested had tougher skin, were just stronger, had more skills. But, as I had just seen, not every Mask could stop a bullet. Granted, my bullets were made out of an alien biomass that I didn’t fully understand. Saia had made them to ensure penetration against the toughest materials we had encountered.
Perhaps an ordinary gun wouldn’t have helped at all.
I gathered the skill and walked it back to the shelf, then read through the plaque.
[Terror Grasp]
Exude an aura of terror.
A good skill to have. I turned back to the hallway and went back to gathering skills.
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My toughest fights of the day were the Ungoir Emperor, a beast from the challenge trial, and Guo Zhang, the shifter. And even they weren’t truly dangerous. I had struggled, in part because of lack of information about their capabilities. Fighting them a second time, fully prepared, with time to plan, and having all of my weapons ready, was another thing entirely.
My revolver was, as before, almost unfair. My opponents in the rooms within my soul were as they had been the moment I had drank their blood. Frozen in a moment. It made them far less of a threat.
The two skills I got were [Water Burst] from the Ungoir and [Nature’s Rest] from Zhang. Which didn’t really fit with my mental image of the shifter, but I guess that his Mask had to have been tied to nature. It did fit with the shifter culture. The skill helped him recover more from the rest while surrounded by nature. I didn’t know how useful it would be to me, but I could always use it to evolve another skill.
Which was what I was in the process of doing. I decided on my ten skills, then jumped out of my soul space to slot in the gemstones in them. Then, once I was done, I returned and gathered them in preparation for evolving them.
The ten skills I’ve chosen were mostly new ones, and almost all lesser or simple skills. I wasn’t looking to make anything complicated. Instead, I wanted to see how gemstones would impact the newly formed skill.
The base for the evolved skill was a newly earned one and one that I used to have before. A few of them were skills that I had overburned before and have now found a new source of.
Base — [Strike]
—[Lesser Swipe]
—[Lesser Lash]
—[Lesser Thrust]
—[Jab]
—[Lesser Rend]
—[Rend]
—[Pierce]
—[Lesser Impale]
—[Impale]
Most of the skills came from the humans and Suul, with only a couple from beasts. I didn’t know if that mattered. The tags seemed to only be relevant to my |Potential Augmentation| bonuses.
I’ve put an E grade Fire gemstone in each of the skills, hoping that would influence the skill somehow.
I moved to the pedestal and placed all the skills in.
The evolution was quick, the skill orbs glowed then collapsed to the center into a new skill. I carried it over to the shelf and checked what I got.
[Cinder Strike]
A fiery strike that leaves behind a trail of cinders.
I smiled at my success. The effect wasn’t that powerful, cinder didn’t sound too powerful, but the gemstones were only E grade, so I hadn’t expected anything more. What did surprise me was that the result was just a simple strike. Perhaps the gemstones tilted the result into a more Fire Source related result. More testing was required.
Unfortunately I didn’t have enough skills for all of that, so I left it aside. For now, knowing that gemstones could impact the result was enough.
Ten skills for one though was a lot. I would need to be more careful in what I chose.
With the skill done, I turned to my profiles. Having [Mist Step], [Mistshroud] and [Lesser Constitution] together meant that I didn’t activate any of my trait bonuses, the only shared ones were
I left it alone and switched to my second profile, there I swapped out [Pulverizing Smash] for [Rending Whirlwind] in which I slotted a D rank Air gemstone. And I also replaced [Double Strike] for [Cinder Strike]. Attacking twice at the same time was good, but not necessary with how fast I already was.
With everything done I left my soul space and asked Saia to display my information for me.
Marianna Rojas (The Star That Dances In Blood Beneath the Light of the Broken Moon)
________________________
Mask of the Sanguine Reaper; Revelator Seeker — Third Investment; Third Carving (Physical, Weave, Esoteric)
Leader (Esoteric) — No Investment; No Carving
Blood Heir (Physical, Esoteric) — No Investment; No Carving
________________________
Attributes:
Physical: A
Weave: E
Esoteric: A
________________________
Skills:
P1-No bonus
[Mist Step] - Mist (D)
[Mistshroud] - Mist (D)
[Lesser Constitution] - Metal (C)
P2-Combat bonus
[Cinder Strike] - Fire (D)
[Triple Thrust] - Lightning (D)
[Rending Whirlwind] - Air (D)
[Swap Profile]
[Overburn Skill]
[Blood Gout] - Nature (D)
[Quick Swap Slot]
[Blood Empowerment] - Primal (D)
[Smell Lie]
[Memory Like Blood]
[Learning Through Blood]
[Channeled Blood—Essence Door]
[Scarlet Moon Style; Dance of the Shifting Mist]
Once I finished the overview of everything, I stood. I was ready for things to start moving again.