by K R Dimmick
Reduces the duration of all debuffs on those in your party.
Minimizer is part of the Spirit Magic skills
It is linked to the stats Intelligence and Wisdom.
Increase your Intelligence to increase the percentage reduction on debuffs.
Increase your Wisdom to reduce your casting time.
Increase your Spirit Magic level to increase the duration of Minimizer.
You have received the spell: Resurrect
You can resurrect any party member who dies. Travelers can be resurrected without a death penalty. NPCs can be resurrected within two minutes of death. Resurrections occur at your location and incur a ten-minute weakness penalty where all their skills are 50% less effective.
Resurrect is part of the Spirit Magic skills
Increase your Spirit Magic level to decrease the cooldown time for Resurrect.
I quickly read the two scrolls, learning the new skills. This was an incredible gift.
Another elf arrived and handed each of the sub-commanders, the King, and a few others, various potions. I quickly put the fifty Basic MP Potions, ten Basic SP Potions and one Basic HP Potion into my inventory.
Before I could say anything, another elf shoved what looked like a little orange cupcake into my hands and told me to eat it.
You have received: Star Orange Cupcake
+10 Wisdom for two hours
That would seriously help me reduce my casting times, I thought, as I ate the slightly sweet, slightly spicy cake and the blue apple icon appeared in my buff bar.
“You have the ability to move yourself between subgroups,” the King turned to face me. “Try to keep the Minimizer buff up on all groups as much as you can, while keeping an eye out for people who need healing. Resurrect is there as a last defense. Please ask me before using it, as you will probably only get one use during the battle.”
I nodded.
“Damir,” King Faelyn said, indicating a tall elf with dark brown hair and very large hands, “Is our Arcane mage. He has a spell to port anyone to him. He’ll be keeping an eye on the battle as a whole too, and if he sees someone who is too close to death that you haven’t had time to heal, he’ll port them away from the battle before it’s too late.”
I nodded to Damir and watched the text above his head change to Damir Medeis - 35.
“Buffs please,” said the King. “Commanders, you know what to do. As soon as you have your buffs, get going. We need to stop this attack as fast as possible, before they damage our forest.”
I joined the first subgroup and cast Minimizer. A quick glance showed me the buff would last for ten minutes and it provided a 23% reduction on the duration of all debuffs. That worked out at roughly half my Intelligence, which was useful to know.
I quickly left that subgroup and joined each of the others in turn, buffing everyone and watching the groups run off in the direction the hunter had come from. Finally, back in the main group with the King, Queen and Damir, I cast the buff again.
“Follow me,” Damir said, turning and walking away. “I’m assuming this will be your first big battle as a healer.”
I nodded, feeling thoroughly nervous, but hopeful that I might have found someone who could show me the ropes.
“I’ll be keeping an eye on the groups, just like you. I’ll call out any injuries I see that you seem to have missed. That way, you have a backup system,” he said, walking toward the edge of El Sanctum.
That was a big relief.
“For the buffs, you can stay here with me, they work on your party irrespective of how close you are to them. Healing, however, is another matter. For the serious injuries, I’ll port them here so you can heal them. That way, you’re both out of danger while you’re working. You’ll also need to run in to cast Healing Mist at various locations, as that only works for a specific area around you from what I remember.”
I nodded again. Thankfully, he seemed to understand how a healer needed to work in a battle.
“Don’t worry about running back once you’re done, I’ll port you back here, unless I can see you’re really close to a different subgroup.”
Okay, that sounded a little like I was going to end up with travel sickness, but it made sense to minimize the time I was running around.
I could hear the sounds of people shouting and the noise of swords bashing into shields. I could see the locations of all the commanders as little numbered blue dots on my mini-map. I watched the health bars, trying to see which group might need me the most.
Suddenly, there was another huge explosion. I had no idea what could possibly be causing that, since there shouldn’t be any magic users among the Dragon Hunters. Group three’s HP bars, however, had dropped dramatically, to 50% or less. One was even down to 10%. I started running toward their commander as fast as I could, Soter hot on my heels to protect me.
As soon as I was within range, I cast Healing Mist. Thankfully, my staff, coupled with the extra Wisdom from the food, made my cast time almost instantaneous. The group’s health started to tick back up and the swordsman who’d been at 10% HP had drunk a health potion.
Before I could turn around, I caught a brief glimpse of an orange mist around me. My belly button felt like it was being pulled out of my back and my entire body collapsed in on itself. A fraction of a second later, before I had time to panic, I was once again standing next to Damir, behind the barrier around El Sanctum.
I shook my head to stop my vision from swimming, only to find him trying to hide a smile.
“The first port is the worst. You get used to it after that.”
Somehow, I seriously doubted that I’d get used to being flattened down to a single molecule and transported across a magical forest with elves in it, but never say never.
I focused back on the fight.
Mikael had somehow managed to stealth around, behind the enemy army, and lay some of his traps down. Even now, I could see players getting caught in them when Mikael’s group rained down arrows on their archers, causing them to have to retreat a short distance, straight into the traps they didn’t know were there.
Another large explosion grabbed my attention. I caught sight of Colt heading up a group of melee travelers going one on one with a group of elf swordsmen. I was tempted to throw a Fireball into the mix, but realized that might not be the best idea in a forest.
The group’s health was holding fairly steady, except for the elf who was directly fighting Colt. I guess Colt’s boast about being a good swordsman had actually been true. I started to run toward them to give the elf a regen buff, but Damir grabbed my arm to stop me.
“Wait,” he said, his concentration clearly elsewhere.
Suddenly, the elf, at 20% HP, with a huge gash in his side from where Colt had gotten through his defenses, appeared at my feet.
At the same time, Damir shot a bolt of lightning directly at Colt, now that there was no one from our side in his way. I watched Colt’s health plummet to 5%. The elf fighting the traveler next to Colt noticed and quickly Dodged the attack from his opponent, moving himself closer to Colt. His hand shot out and he stabbed Colt in his off side before he realized what was going on. I caught the look of surprise on Colt’s face before he keeled over dead.
I cast Wound Seal on the elf at my feet, who gasped out a thank you around the blood bubbling out of his mouth. I managed not to throw up as I registered the realities of war going on around me. His gash completely healed back up, taking him up to 50% health. I quickly cast Healing Mist on him as well, before he ran back to join his team.
Move. I threw myself to the right as fast as I could, grabbing Damir along the way, causing him to fall hard onto his side. His annoyance instantly disappeared as an Alchemy bottle exploded where we’d been standing a fraction of a second before. The telltale acrid green smoke of an Acid Bomb rose out of the floor. Someone on their side had made Alchemy bombs.
37
We Have Skills
I spotted Saris, hiding in a tree, getting
ready to throw another bomb at us. Thank goodness for Soter’s abilities and help.
“There,” I pointed so Damir could see her.
Grabbing my bow out of my inventory and pouring my mana into it, producing a purple haze, I sighted past the tip of the arrow to Snipe her. Before I could release, Damir hit her in the chest with another of his lightning bolts. I had to learn that skill after this was over, I thought.
Saris gasped in surprise at the scorched hole in her chest, her health bar down to what could only be less than 5%. Before she could grab an HP potion from her inventory, I let my Snipe fly. It hit her between the eyes, and I watched in satisfaction as she fell out of the tree, her body disintegrating into dust on the way down as she was sent to respawn.
I scanned the subgroups quickly, to see what we’d missed.
Reequipping my staff, I noticed that all of them had now run out of the buff I’d given them. No one looked like they desperately needed healing, so buff time it was.
“Rebuffing,” I said to Damir, “Watch the health bars for me.”
I moved myself into each subgroup in turn, casting Minimizer on each one. By the time I’d finished, another nearly dead elf lay at my feet, having been ported there by Damir. I cast Wound Seal and Healing Mist, before sending him back into the battle.
A war party-wide notification from King Faelyn popped into my vision.
They’re breaking and retreating. Make sure this isn’t a diversion to get behind us.
That would be something Andrew would do, I thought.
Two elf hunters ran back toward us and stopped at the barrier.
“They’re the city guards, so they’ll be able to see through all stealth attempts,” Damir said, in answer to my questioning look.
“There!” one of the guards yelled, pointing toward an empty spot between two trees.
Before anyone could react, the guard keeled over dead with an arrow between his eyes.
One of the subgroups had arrived back to support us. They all knelt down and leaned backward, releasing multiple Rain of Arrows on the area.
Damir quickly cast a semi-translucent shield over the remaining guard to protect him. Just as the shield popped into existence, another arrow came out of nowhere and hit it hard enough to break the arrow. The white-faced guard pointed again into the empty clearing in front of all of us, moving his arm as whoever he could see tried to run out of range of our attacks.
Without warning, the translucent shield around El Sanctum itself started to shimmer. Something was clearly attacking it. As I looked up at it, I saw a potion bottle impact it and leave behind some acrid green smoke, causing the affected area of the shield to smoke slightly.
“They’re throwing Acid Bombs at the shield,” I yelled to no one in particular.
Soter was growling, but hadn’t tried to attack. The arrows continuously rained down on the area the guard pointed out, clearly having no effect.
Suddenly, it occurred to me that, if their side had an Alchemist who could create bombs, maybe they also knew how to create the defense against physical attack potion Aliz hadn’t managed to discover yet.
On a hunch, I quickly cast Healing Mist on myself and anyone within range, then, grabbing two of my Freezing Bombs out of my inventory, I threw them as hard as I could at the empty space the guard was still pointing at.
All at once, an enormous ice block the size of a house formed around a lone figure dressed in black. There, right in the center of the ice, stood Joe, Andrew’s second in command, with a look of utter shock frozen on his face.
King Faelyn arrived back at the clearing, the rest of Andrew’s forces having turned tail and run.
I glanced at the timer next to the dead guard’s symbol in the war party.
“I have thirty seconds left to use Resurrect on him,” I said.
The King glanced at me, then looked around the clearing, quickly assessing the situation.
“Do it,” he said.
I walked over to the guard’s body, kneeling down beside him and transferred myself into his subgroup. I thought Resurrect and watched as my hand started moving in a complicated gesture on its own. The guard’s body started to fade away in my vision and I was left looking at a long white cord rising out of the semi-transparent body. Following the cord with my eyes, I found myself looking at a misty, white copy of the guard’s body hovering in the air. The cord went directly into the misty copy’s belly. I reached out and mentally pulled on the cord, hauling the mist form back toward the dead body. As soon as they were together, and I’d mentally pushed the mist inside the body, a series of golden lights shot out of my hand and surrounded the prone form. Splitting into hundreds of different lights, they created a grid around the body, much like the grid I saw when I was casting Wound Seal.
Without warning, the body started to vibrate, and I began to worry that I’d left it too late to cast my Resurrect. Before I reached full blown panic though, the guard sat up and started coughing violently, his health bar at 1%. I instantly cast Healing Mist, following it up with a Wound Seal to take care of the hole the arrow had put in his head. His health climbed rapidly, the non-combat status taking it the rest of the way.
Several elves rushed over to help the guard up and ushered him away to help him recover.
I was shaking slightly from the spell for some reason. I looked at the bottom of my vision to find I was completely out of mana, the Resurrect spell having taken a huge chunk of it to cast. I grabbed an MP potion out of my inventory and downed it quickly. A refreshing blueberry taste bubbled around my mouth, making me smile slightly.
“When does this ice end?” The King thundered.
I turned around to find that every elf who had a sword had been chipping away at the block of ice around Joe, so the whole area looked like an iceberg had been attacked by a band of raging werewolves in a snowstorm.
“It lasts for two minutes,” I said, “After that, he’ll be chilled for another two minutes.”
The King looked at me in surprise.
“Impressive. I don’t believe I’ve seen this spell before.”
“It’s actually an Alchemy potion I discovered yesterday, and I had ten of them in my inventory.”
“I do remember Mikael mentioning something like this,” the King laughed.
My face started heating up.
Thankfully, I was quickly forgotten as the ice disappeared all of a sudden, depositing a soaking wet Joe onto the muddy floor with a thud. Even with the elves rushing forward quickly, and the two-minute chilled debuff slowing him down, Joe managed to grab a potion out of his inventory and swallow it.
“I won’t tell you a damn thing!” he yelled, starting to froth at the mouth. In less than two seconds, he was dead, having managed to poison himself in order to escape and respawn in his guildhall.
“Council meeting, now!” King Faelyn shouted, storming off and disbanding the war party.
Since I seriously doubted I was invited to the meeting, I looked around at the elves slowly making their way back into El Sanctum. Now that we were all out of combat, no one seemed to need healing, so I was free to take another look at the notifications I’d ignored in the heat of battle.
I settled down on a tree stump near the edge of the clearing, with Soter at my feet. All the elf hunting parties had gone back out again to secure the forest. I’d managed to give each group Minimizer before they’d left and had also distributed my Alchemy bombs between the groups.
I sighed and pulled up my notifications.
Congratulations! You are now level 9.
You have 5 unassigned stat points to use.
You have also gained 5 HP, 5 MP and 5 SP.
All changes are final. Place your points mindfully.
You need 100,000 XP for your next level.
Sweet. I guess being part of a huge war party killing off lots of players and unfortunately misguided NPCs had given me enough XP to reach level 9. I looked down, and sure enough, I was even 55% of the way toward level 10, wh
ich is why I hadn’t immediately spotted the difference.
I glanced up to the top right of my vision and my stomach turned to lead. A large red number three was staring back at me, since it was a new day. Three days to go. I swallowed, trying to get some moisture back into my throat. Well, nothing for it now, I would talk to Arik as soon as I was done with these notifications.
Another notification told me I’d gained a point in Intelligence from something, which was very helpful.
I placed one of my five level up points into Intelligence, taking me to a total of twenty points. If I was right, I only needed twenty for the riddle’s requirements. I pulled the Blank Parchment out of my inventory in the hopes that I would now be able to read it, but there was sadly no change on that front, so I stuffed it back inside.
I was a little worried about Andrew’s ability with Mind Magic. I hadn’t met him in this fight, but I knew it would happen eventually. So, I decided that putting the remaining four points into Fortitude to bring it up to twenty would probably be a good idea. I’d hopefully be able to resist him controlling me a bit better that way.
It was time to have a quick look and see how I was doing again. However, my stats sheet was starting to get out of hand. It was time to start archiving the skills I no longer wanted to see each time.
After the experience I’d had when I’d first met Soter, I decided I wanted nothing more to do with traps, so I removed Trapping. Leatherworking was next to go because I wanted to focus mainly on Alchemy. Night vision wasn’t really something I could work on, nor was Perception, so I decided to archive them as well. Bargain and Eavesdrop didn’t need to be there since I was now among allies, and I still had zero interest in Hand to Hand combat. Lastly, I hid my alliances and race, after all it wasn’t like I was going to forget I was allied with the elves or that I was human.