Lord Sorcerer: Singularity Online: Book 3

by Kyle Johnson

  Phil, Hector, and Saphielle were steadily putting down the ravants, as well. Hector’s axe wasn’t as effective against the large skeletons – their exposed organs were a weak point for them, and his weapon tended to hang up in their rib cage when he tried to target those organs – but he hacked brutally at their legs and knees, crippling them so that his fellow tanks could finish them off easily. Phil noticed this strategy and followed suit, and the three tanks soon had a solid routine: Phil and Hector took out the ravants’ knees or ankles, while Saphielle struck at the organs of the fallen creatures with her spear, quickly putting them down.

  Two minutes later, the clearing fell silent as the last of the undead collapsed. Aranos was honestly a bit surprised how well it had gone, but between the effectiveness of their Party Perk and the teamwork they’d gathered from training together, he supposed he shouldn’t have been. The undead force had only held a minor numerical advantage, and the individual creatures were lower levels than the party. Without a commander to organize their tactics, the undead hadn’t even been much of a challenge.

  Martina, though, stared at the carnage, her face registering shock. “That was awesome!” she breathed as she took in the utter destruction. “I mean, they didn’t even stand a chance! That was the easiest XP I’ve gotten in this game.”

  Hector chuckled. “Remember how I keep talking about finding a good group, sister? Now, you see why that’s a big deal to me.”

  Geltheriel and McBane went to work on opening the secret door. Geltheriel’s Perception was better, and she located the entrance first, but McBane’s Class had bonuses to things like opening locks, so she let the Rogue do the actual work of unlocking the portal. It took him less than a minute, but he looked apologetically at the others when the lock finally popped open.

  “Sorry, I haven’t really spent much time picking locks,” he admitted. “My Class trainer gave me some to practice on, but it never seemed very important.”

  “It is not for every Rogue,” Geltheriel reassured the man. “It appears you are more inclined to walk the path of the Duelist than the Thief, so you have undoubtedly focused on your fighting Skills at the expense of those that require Sleight of Hand.”

  “True, but I could spend some time on them,” the man sighed. “It’s just that there are so many other things to work on…”

  “It’ll get worse as you level up,” Aranos said quietly. “At some point, you’ll have to decide if you want to be great at a few things or okay at a lot of things. There just isn’t time to train everything.”

  McBane looked shrewdly at the Sorcerer. “Spoken like a man who’s faced that choice already,” he observed. “What did you decide?”

  “Well, I have a staff that’s decently powerful. Have you ever seen me use it in combat?” Aranos shrugged. “I also have more crafting Skills than Blacksmithing and Goldsmithing, but you don’t see me woodcarving or working in leather very often, right? I’d rather be able to make great metal items than a lot of just decent ones from different materials. Geltheriel taught me that a while ago.”

  The party moved swiftly through the tunnel until they found themselves in the large room with branching corridors. “Okay, let’s see what we can do, here,” Aranos said. “I won’t be able to do much while I’m doing this – or for an hour or so after – so I’m going to do some prep work, first. You guys keep an eye on those passages; I don’t want to get hit from all of them at once.”

  “And if that happens?” Martina asked, frowning.

  “We retreat into the tunnel and hold the passage there,” the Sorcerer replied. “At least, if they hit us before my Spells are complete. Afterward, we should be safe enough in here.”

  He tuned out any further concerns and sat down near the dried-out fountain, closing his eyes but not dropping into his mindscape. The first thing he did was set his Elemental Ward on the room; that would give them some protection from any undead attacks, at least. It would also lock them into the room, though, so he used his Spell Sculpting Skill to alter the hanging Ward, creating a safe path back into the tunnel leading to the surface. That way, if the undead struck before he was ready, the party would be able to safely retreat, and the room would turn into a killing zone the undead would have to cross to reach them.

  His next step was to cast his Radiance of Life Spell on the room, pushing back the effect of the Necrotic Zone for the moment, at least. The Spell was temporary, though, and Aranos was certain that here, its duration would probably be greatly diminished. He had an idea of how to make it last, though it would take a huge chunk of his SP to make it happen, and he wasn’t completely sure it would work. Theoretically, it should, but theory and reality were often different animals.

  He took a deep breath and summoned his SP, pouring it out into a Spell Anchor that he tied to the Radiance of Life Spell. The Spell normally cost 150 SP, or about 95 with his bonuses, but he continued to channel mana into it, making the Anchor denser and more solid. At first, he flooded the Spell with double its normal mana, then five times, then ten times the power it was supposed to hold. He wasn’t finished, though, and continued to dump energy into the Spell, surpassing twenty and even fifty times the mana it should have needed.

  The Spell construct vibrated dangerously as it neared 100 times the SP it normally needed, and Aranos had to carefully channel more power into it. The energy pulsed and wobbled in his mind’s grip, threatening to leap outward in what he sensed would be a fairly cataclysmic explosion, but he held it fiercely and refused to allow the spell-form to rupture. The last few hundred SP were the most difficult; the Spell almost seemed as if it was resisting the additional energy, and he had to force the mana into the structure. When it reached 100 times its base cost, the spell-form shuddered, flashed once – and stabilized, settling into a state that Aranos could sense was incredibly efficient and stable.

  He grinned as he mentally examined his first-ever permanent Spell construct. He’d wondered how it would be possible to make a Spell permanent – after all, every Spell gave up energy to the environment, and that meant that eventually, it would dissipate – but now he saw how it worked. The Spell Anchor was slowly drawing mana in from the air around it, passing that energy into the attached Radiance of Life Spell and recycling any mana that the Spell itself released to the atmosphere. It was highly efficient, and while Aranos had a feeling it wasn’t really permanent – he could see the Spell decaying and falling apart eventually; entropy always won out in the long run, after all – it would probably last for some years, at least. That was close enough to permanent as far as the game was concerned.

  His SP hovered down at just under ten thousand – Aranos chuckled as he realized that, a couple weeks ago, ten thousand SP would have seemed amazing, but now it meant that he was under 50% – and he rested for a while to allow his regen to replenish some of what he’d lost. He needed to be over 90% for his Needful Reclamation Spell to work, but he wanted to be full so that he wasn’t in a state of Mana Deprivation once it was cast. Fortunately, with his high regen rate, it only took a few minutes of rest for him to completely replenish the lost SP.

  He closed his eyes once again and reached out to his surroundings. This had once been a place of light, of life, and of safety, and he needed it to be so again. This would be a space where the party could rest without fear, where they could sleep soundly, secure in the knowledge that the undead were barred to it. Aranos wanted it to be so; he needed it to be so. He demanded that it happen, that the room become once again a bastion of the Light, holding out the Darkness.

  Power exploded from him in a wave, surging through the room, burning out the Corruption and necrotic energy that suffused the very stones of the walls. Golden fire raced up the walls, searing them clean and leaving them a gleaming, polished white that shone brightly in the Spell’s radiance. Energy filled the doorways, forming portals of heavy stone that slid on highly polished rollers. Light burst from the globes hanging overhead, their radiance competing with the flames of his Spel
l. Even better, glowing water spouted from the fountain, filling the air with mist and splashing noisily into the catch basin below.

  As the Spell faded, Aranos leaned back against the now-wet stones of the fountain, breathing heavily. The Ascended Spell had taken a lot from him, but thanks to his Advanced Class, it had only left him Fatigued rather than Exhausted. He hesitantly dropped his Death’s Ward Spell and smiled as no notification popped up about being in a necrotic zone.

  “Damn, brother, that was one hell of a Spell,” Hector breathed, looking around the room. The walls, floor, and ceiling had transformed from dull gray to a gleaming, polished white stone that Aranos guessed could be marble or granite. The crystalline globes overhead glowed with a warm light that filled the room, and the air rang with the sound of splashing water from the restored fountain. “Is that water okay to drink?”

  “It should be,” Aranos nodded tiredly. “It was made directly from water mana, and anything toxic in the lines or pool should have been scoured away by the Spell. Probably a good idea to boil it just in case, though.”

  “I am able to purify it,” Rhys said quietly. “It is a simple Spell and requires but a moment. Fill your waterskins and bring them to me, and I will ensure that they are clean.”

  Aranos realized that he could do the same thing; thanks to his Survival Skill, he could think of several ways that he could ensure that the fountain’s water was clean and clear. Since Rhys could duplicate the same feat with a Spell, though, it was probably easier to let the Druid handle it. Aranos would be busy enough as it was.

  “Okay, I’m going to need to rest for an hour after that,” he told the others. “I don’t need sleep or meditation, just to sit quietly, so Hector, why don’t you give me your armor and axe? I can improve them a bit for you.” The Warrior gave Aranos a speculative glance before turning to Martina.

  “What about hers?” he asked. “Can you boost her stuff, too?”

  “I can, but I would rather do that tonight,” Aranos hedged. “Martina, you said that thanks to your race change, you’re immune to necrotic damage, right?”

  The woman grinned. “You want me to go scout the city,” she guessed. “I’m up for that.”

  “Sort of. You and Silma are the only ones that can go out on your own right now – although I’m hoping to start remedying that – so I need you both to snoop around. Not in the city, though; I want you guys to see where these other tunnels lead. I know the Library is above ground, north of the city center, but I’m hoping there’s a path we can take from here to reach it that doesn’t go through the city.”

  Martina frowned. “It’ll be harder to avoid any undead in the tunnels,” she pointed out. “If I get close enough for them to sense me…”

  “Then you run,” Aranos smiled. “Straight back here. They probably won’t try to come in, but if they do, they’ll be at a huge disadvantage. I don’t think even Zoridos or Lily would try to attack us here, to be honest.”

  The woman bit her lip but nodded, glancing at the giant fenrin questioningly. Silma padded over to one of the stone doors leading out of the room, grabbed the protruding handle in her teeth, and gently slid it open before vanishing into the darkness beyond. The Ranger sighed. “Guess I’ll take the opposite door, then,” she muttered, yanking the door open and disappearing through it.

  Hector walked over and placed his gear before Aranos. “There a reason they aren’t working together?” he asked softly. “Seems they’d be safer that way.”

  “I don’t think they would,” Aranos shook his head. “Silma’s probably way better at Stealth than Martina is, but her main advantage here is speed. She can outrun any undead she comes across.”

  “And Martina?”

  Aranos frowned thoughtfully. “I’m gambling a bit, there,” he admitted. “I’ll bet, though, that the undead can’t sense her the way they can us; or, at least, they might not be able to sense her as far away as they can us. For her, Stealth is the better option. She’s probably safer than Silma is right now.”

  “Okay, but why do you think that?” Hector persisted. “I don’t mean any offense, but I don’t want her going to respawn and having to head back here by herself, you know?”

  “I don’t blame you for being worried about her,” Aranos assured the man. “I wouldn’t have asked her to go if I didn’t think she’d be okay, though. Her going to respawn doesn’t help anybody.

  “As for why...that’s the gamble. See, all undead have a core of necrotic mana that sustains them and keeps their vital energy flowing to their bodies. Living creatures have the same thing, but it’s a network of lots of different mana types that ties into our Stats…” Seeing the Warrior’s eyes glazing over, Aranos shook his head.

  “Long story short, when I look at Martina with my Sense Mana Skill, she feels more like an undead than a living person. There’s a layer of necrotic mana that’s covering her vital systems, which is why she can’t take necrotic damage. When the undead go looking for her, I’ll bet all they sense is that necrotic energy, which they’ll either interpret as one of their own or as part of the necrotic zone – at least, unless she’s really close to them.” He shrugged. “I could be wrong, but I’d put money down that she can get right next to most lesser undead without being noticed. She’s basically just become a great undead hunter.”

  Hector looked at him thoughtfully before a grin broke out on his face. “I love working for smart officers,” he declared. “Glad you’re thinking this all through so well. I think I’m starting to see how you made such a name for yourself. You just get all this, don’t you? How it all works, how the pieces are put together. It makes sense to you, doesn’t it?”

  “Yeah, I guess so. I mean, I’ve gotten lucky, too, but I’ve spent some time trying to work it all out. And you’re right; it’s helped a lot, so far.”

  “Then keep at it,” Hector nodded. “I’ll take smart and lucky any day.”

  “I’ll do my best,” Aranos chuckled, turning his attention to the gear in his hands. The Warrior’s axe and armor were simple starting gear, as far as Aranos could tell. Both were of Rough quality and Common rarity; there was nothing special about them at all. The Sorcerer frowned; there were a lot of ways he could go with these, depending on what kind of build Hector was going for.

  Aranos turned back to the Warrior curiously. “Is there anything special you’d like me to do with these?” he asked. “I mean, I’ll obviously improve their quality by a fair bit, but what kind of Enchantments do you want? What are you building yourself out as?”

  “I haven’t been, if I’m being honest,” Hector sighed. “I mean, I’ve worked on my Axe Mastery and Shield Mastery, of course, and I’ve put my Stats into Strength and Endurance, with a secondary focus on Agility, but I’ve just been playing vanilla support and defense.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with that,” Aranos pointed out.

  “Yeah, but I’ve been thinking about what you said, earlier. About how it’s better to specialize, especially as you get levels. I’m not sure which way to go, though.”

  Aranos rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Well, there are a lot of different choices,” he said slowly. “Saphielle’s taking what I’d call a heavy tank role; she can stand toe-to-toe with things that are stronger and higher-level than she is, and she can survive attacks that would slaughter the rest of us. Phil’s always been more of an AoE tank. His Spellsword Class – and probably the Paladin Advanced Class he’s shooting for – lets him do small amounts of extra damage and gives him minor boosts to his defense and threat. That makes him really good at tanking large numbers of lower-level creatures.

  “You don’t look like you want to take the Heavy Tank route, at least not judging from the chainmail and axe you’re carrying. You could focus more on Agility and take a dodge tank role, the way Silma sometimes does, or you could try to develop some Skills and Abilities that grant you auras so you can support everyone else in some way, like mitigating their damage or increasing their resistance to magic.�
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  Hector’s eyes narrowed. “Magic resistance,” he said slowly. “I’ve actually got a bit of that. Got a Perk a while back from surviving a nasty Spell. I could build on that, become a mage-killer.”

  “That’s a good role,” Aranos grinned. “I could Enchant your Shield and Armor to be magically resistant, give you a token like Silma has that disjoins magic on you whenever you want, and make your axe extra dangerous to summoned or Enchanted creatures. If you really want to be a mage-killer, though, you’ll need to learn more about magic, probably get the Arcane Lore Skill, and see if you can’t figure out how to fight magic yourself.”

  “I can do that, I guess,” Hector nodded. “We’re going to a Library, right? They’ve gotta have some books on magic that would help. Although, having an expert Wizard coaching me would help, if there’s anything you could do.”

  “I might,” Aranos said thoughtfully. “It’s possible – you’d lose your SP and probably any ability to ever cast a Spell, but I’ll bet that would make you really resistant to magic.” He tapped his chin. “Let me think about it; I’ve got an idea, but you’d have to be willing, and there might be side effects. I want to play around with it in my head, first, before I do anything. Is that okay?”

  “Take your time,” Hector laughed. “I’m not ready for my Advanced Class, anyway. That respawn hurt.”

  Aranos turned back to the Warrior’s gear as Hector walked away, headed toward Phil. His first step was simple, if time-consuming; the equipment was made of an inferior metal, and that had to be fixed before anything else could be done. The chainmail shirt was simple enough to turn into truesilver; each link was small enough that it didn’t take a lot of SP or effort for him to shift it. While it was a bit monotonous to individually change every link – and to adjust the resulting twisted circle by removing a bit of the metal from each one, so the final product wasn’t half again the size the original shirt had been – it wasn’t particularly taxing, either. Once the transmutation was complete, Aranos carefully etched it with runes, winding the runeforms along the chain links as he shifted the truesilver into auril. The armor could only take three runeforms and two Enchantments, since it was truesilver, but that was enough for Aranos to boost the wearer’s Physical Stats and magic resistance, as well as giving a bonus to Defense and Dodge.