by Aleron Kong
You have found:
Poison of the Muddied Leech
Alchemy Class: Uncommon.
Alchemy Level: Solution.
Alchemy Strength: Processed.
Weight: 0.1 kg
Traits: Causes 57-75 points of Earth magic (24%) and Poison damage (76%) per second for 10-12 seconds.
“How?” Richter asked in wonder. This stuff was deadly. It wasn’t as powerful as shriek venom, but still! “Wait,” he said. The name of the poison was tickling something in his memory, “is this from-”
“The Assassin’s poison,” Tabia finished excitedly. “I was able to alter the recipe to increase it from a tincture to a solution. The local equivalent of a corrupt leech was a muddied leech, and it changed the Death damage to Earth damage. In light of its effectiveness, I did not think you would mind,” she said with a smile. The woman really enjoyed her work. “This is much stronger than the original venom.”
Tabia said she would keep working on potions throughout the day. Richter thanked and congratulated her before moving on. There were more stops to make.
The next place he went was the skath nest. As busy as he was, he hadn’t forgotten the importance of spending time with the young monsters. The greater the imprint bond, the stronger and more loyal the beasts would be in the future. The twins were also there. They invited him to “swim” as per usual, but there was no time for it. After only five minutes, he started walking towards the Quickening.
Sion was right. Almost fifty sprites should be emerging from the silver meidon shells today. As Richter walked up, he was delighted to see scores of changed sprites. Just like his Companion, they had all grown a foot in height and their faces had adopted a look of perfect vitality. He was less excited by the fact that the forest and wood sprites were shouting curses at one another.
“Look at the fancy sprites in their matchey matchey outfits!” one of the forest sprites shouted.
“Do not be jealous that our parents knew each other and could clothe us in more than animal skins!” a wood sprite shouted back.
“I could not hear you. I was distracted by the cute perfume you are wearing.” Another forest sprite said.
Hisako and Yoshi stood by watching the interplay. Richter didn’t understand why she hadn’t taken controlled the situation yet. Even if the forest sprites did not like wood sprites, the Hearth Mother’s presence should have been enough to quell snarling dogs, let alone a couple of frat boys having a pissing contest. When they made eye contact she just looked at him while the shouting worsened, and he understood. This was his land, that meant it was his problem.
“Enough!” Richter roared. All eyes turned towards him. “I am the lord of these lands. I am the liege of Queen Elora. My word is what matters here, not the petulant mewling of those who would fight their allies!”
He looked around fiercely, staring into each face. The anger that had been on their faces drained away. The chaos seed continued, “We have a true enemy to face. There are goblins on our doorstep sacrificing men, women and children. Humans, elves and sprites! We have waited a full day so that you could finish the bonding and fight with us. We sacrificed another life, so that you could fight against these foes! Now, what do I find instead of warriors? Petty children!”
Hisako finally spoke up as well, “Our old enemies are at our doorstep. Those green-skinned devils have dared to come into our forest. Will we let them stay?”
A ragged chorus of “No” came from both groups.
“Will we let them torture and kill our people? Will sprites stand by while evil is done?” she asked louder.
The shouts were louder this time, “No!”
“Will you stand in the name of the sorat’shin? Will you fight our ancient enemies? Will you answer the call to battle?” she shouted at a volume that belied her small frame.
“YESSS!” came the calls. Though it was clear there were old tensions between the wood sprites and their forest cousins, they still agreed on at least two things: the honor they paid to their common forebearers, the sorat’shin or ‘true sprites,’ and their hatred of the sprites’ racial enemies, the goblins.
She nodded to them, then looked at Richter and stepped back. He nodded back in appreciation. All eyes came to rest upon him again, “You are no longer wood sprites, or forest sprites. You have bonded. You have fulfilled the ancient ritual of the shetu’meidon and become more than you were before. All of you have bonded to the other half of your souls. These petty arguments are for the past. They are for who you were, I say! I say you are not who you were! I say you are meidon sprites!”
All the changes sprites present cheered and took up a call, “Meidon! Meidon! Meidon!”
A prompt appeared in Richter’s vision.
Your relationship with all Meidon Sprites has improved by one rank!
Know This! You have changed the way that the bonded sprites view themselves. This change will continue in the hearts and minds of all bonded sprites. “As is within so shall be without.” All sprites who bond with pixies formally have a change in race to: Meidon Sprites! This will continue for all future meitu’meidon.
Congratulations! You have won +500 Fame points! Your words and actions have led to the reemergence of a forgotten race, the Meidon Sprites. Total Fame Points: 11,582
Richter quickly read through the prompts in surprise. Once again, the point that words mattered in The Land was driven home. Looking over at his best friend, he used Analyze.
Name: Sion
Age: 34
Level: 19, 6% to next level
Health: 261 Mana: 412 Stamina: 192
Strength: 20 (base: 12 + items: 8)
Agility: 18
Dexterity: 67 (base: 59 + items: 8)
Constitution: 20
Endurance: 16
Intelligence: 37
Wisdom: 25
Charisma: 15
Luck: 17
Abilities:
Wood Craft
Forest Concealment
Know Thyself
Meidon
Skills:
Herb lore Lvl 12, 69% to next level, 63% affinity
Alchemy Lvl 10, 29% to next level, 74% affinity
Archery Lvl 44; 74% to next level, 71% affinity
Enhanced Imbue Arrow Lvl 32, 11% to next level, 87% affinity
Focus Lvl 26, 92% to next level, 81% affinity
Double Shot Lvl 11; 23% to next level, 86% affinity
Drill Shot Lvl 7; 46% to next level, 90% affinity
Stun Shot Lvl 6; 41% to next level, 95% affinity
Tracking Lvl 16; 78% to next level, 75% affinity
Small Blades Lvl 20, 33% to next level, 71% affinity
Light Armor Lvl 26; 94% to next level, 81% affinity
Air Magic Lvl 16; 79% to next level, 100% affinity
Animal Husbandry Lvl 1; 15% to next level, 83% affinity
Exotic Beasts Lvl 1; 9% to next level, 71% affinity
Marks:
First Meidon
Resistances:
Types of Magic
Life 10%
Earth 10%
Light 10%
Schools of Magic
Enchantment 50%
Race: Meidon Sprite
Reputation: Lvl 1 “Who are you again?”
Alignment: +3
Language: Sprite, Common Tongue, Pixie
Sion’s attributes were what he had expected. His friend had leveled recently and so had received the +3 to Dexterity that all meidon sprites received. The sprite also looked to have invested his remaining three characteristic points into Intelligence. None of this was surprising, though between the higher characteristic points and the eight magic rings his Companion was wearing, Richter was happy to see that his three primary stats were all getting respectable. Gone were the days that a casually thrown goblin dagger could end his friend’s life.
No, what was surprising was that, just as the prompt had indicated, Sion’s race had changed. Previously, all of the sprites that u
nderwent the shetu’meidon, the bonding, had kept their old race when they emerged from their silver shells. The word “meidon” had just been in parentheses. The chaos seed quickly checked all of the other bonded sprites and found the same was true for them.
Also surprising was that Sion had a Mark now. As far as Richter could remember, his friend hadn’t had any marks before. He was about to ask when the sprite called out in surprise. Sion held his hand in shock. On the back of his right hand, a sigil appeared. It was a silver bow with a nocked arrow. A blue flame surrounded the arrow. Everyone looked at it in surprise until it disappeared a moment later.
Richter was wondering what the implications were for that when another prompt appeared.
Quest Update: Unity of the Sorat’Shin II. You have merged wood and forest sprites into a new unified race! All old enmities are now forgotten. This is another step towards the reemergence of Sorat’Shin, the True Sprites. Continue to heal the wounds between the sprite peoples to fulfill your quest.
Quest Update: Unity of the Sorat’Shin II. Your Companion, Sion, was the first of this new race. He has been awarded the Mark, First Meidon. He will now be seen as the natural leader of this new race. All meidon sprites have increased damage when fighting near him. +0.1 damage per meidon sprite in the vicinity.
He looked over at Sion in shock. His friend had just become… a boss? Hisako seemed to know something as well, because she started smiling broadly. Angry shouts had been replaced by rueful laughter as they all intermingled, no longer divided by the enmities of their old lives. It also didn’t escape Richter’s notice that many of the meidon sprites looked to his friend with respect in their eyes. With the fighting done, their allegiance to the chaos seed asserted itself. One of the sprites walked up to Richter and knelt. Soon all of the other newly reborn sprites followed suit and, like that, the population of the Mist Village grew again.
CHAPTER 16 – Day 141 – Kuborn 31, 15,386 EBG
Richter accepted all of their oaths of fealty. He quickly told them that they would be following Sion’s orders after his. Not a one had a problem with that in light of his friend’s new mark. The chaos seed also made it clear that for the purposes of the upcoming attacks, Yoshi and Hisako were to be obeyed without question. A wry twist came to his face as he commented on how most of them would probably need Hisako to resize their armor.
The Hearth Mother laughed as well and assured him that she would handle it before the battle. She did mention that she might run short of mana however. He handed her a few blue replenishment potions. Richter then turned to leave when something occurred to him. He walked over to Sion and asked his friend to follow him.
“I don’t know why I didn’t think of this before,” Richter began, “but your Enhanced Imbue Arrow is a skill. That means I should be able to learn it.”
Sion looked at him with a bit of doubt in his face, “I am not sure that this is something that you can do, brother.”
“You said the same thing when I asked you to teach me Imbue Arrow,” Richter reminded him. “I definitely learned how to do that.” It was strange thinking about how much had changed since then. In a literal sense, less than six months had passed, but in another way, it felt like it had been a lifetime since he came to The Land.
“There is no denying that you are a freak of nature,” Sion quipped back to his friend. “And I have no problem trying to teach you, but I don’t think you have the required equipment.”
Richter sighed a deep sigh, “Let’s just try, okay?”
Sion looked at him in surprise, “Really? You’re just going to let that one slide by? I guess you are serious. Okay, let’s give it a shot. So to speak.”
Richter rolled his eyes at his friend’s weak humor. The two of them walked a bit further away and then faced a wall of bare stone, twenty yards away. Sion looked at his friend for a few seconds. “I am not sure exactly how to explain this. You remember how I explained imbuing before?”
Richter nodded. It had been a turning point in his time in The Land. Imbue Arrow was the skill that had kept him alive more than almost any other. He remembered every word Sion had said, “You told me to imagine my mana as a field around my body, ‘both imperceptibly thin and massively powerful.’ It was the first time you weren’t a total dick to me.”
“Yes,” Sion said with a smile. “The enhanced skill starts the same. The second step of extending the field around the arrow feels the same as well. The final step, however, is where the skill changes.” The sprite paused for a moment before continuing, “I did not understand what I was doing unconsciously at first, but the more I practiced, the more I recognized the truth. I was no longer simply channeling my own power into the field.” He looked at Richter meaningfully.
Richter thought about it for a moment, then the answer was obvious, “Your pixie.”
Sion nodded and raised his voice, “Sapir!”
The air pixie descended from right behind Richter, buzzing by his face. Sion looked at his meitu’meidon mischievously, clearly expecting his Companion to be startled. When the chaos seed remained nonplussed though, he just grunted in dissatisfaction. To cover his irritation, Sion moved faster than the eye could follow. He drew an arrow, sighted on the cliff face, imbued his arrow with mana and Air power and released. The blue aura that always characterized sprite imbued arrows was tinged with a distinctive yellow as it blurred towards the stone. It exploded against the cliff and Richter could see the faintest of yellow, electrical discharges play across the rock for a split second before they dissipated.
Richter considered what he had heard, “Will your enhanced skill work even if you are far from Sapir? He cannot go into battle with us.”
The pixie started protesting immediately, “I can fight. I want to fight, Unca Wichter!”
Sion spoke up so that Richter didn’t have to, “No, Sapir. You are still too young. You will stay here and protect the village.”
The pixie’s wings started beating faster in agitation, “But-”
“He ditte da no picate,” Sion said firmly.
The pixie boy stuck his tongue out at the sprite and flew off towards the Quickening, leaving a trail of disappearing yellow sparkles behind him.
“So you use pixie-speak when you need to be firm?” Richter asked with a small laugh.
Sion smiled after his meitu’meidon, “Sapir is a good lad, but he and his brothers and sisters are all still so young. I will need to get him stronger before he comes into battle.” He turned back to Richter, “The bond he and I have seems to work independent of distance. I have traveled miles from him since we bonded and my arrows still have the Stun capability. You see now though, my friend. Despite your ability, you have no pixie to augment your attacks.”
Richter chuckled, “Who needs a pixie? I have a dragon!”
Alma had been hovering above them all the entire time, which was how the chaos seed had known that Sapir was watching them. She now swooped in from behind Sion and blew air on the back of his neck as she sped past. The sprite’s reaction was much more colorful than Richter’s had been.
“What the hell? Gahhh! You flying rat!”
Sion fell to the ground, cursing Alma the whole time. She gave a toot of triumph that complimented Richter’s loud laughter.
“You are an asshole,” Sion spat from the ground.
Richter raised both eyebrows at his friend and said, “Don’t start shit, won’t be shit.” That earned even worse epithets from the sprite. The chaos seed just chuckled again, and turned his attention to his soul familiar.
*You heard all of that, my love?* Richter asked psychically.
*Yes, master* she responded. *Try to draw on my magic.*
For the next several minutes, Richter imbued his arrows. He went through the steps as slowly as possible. Visualize a mana field, extend it around his arrow, invest his energy into the field. His arrows glowed gold and he released, as he had done countless times before. Alma had access to Air and Life magic and so he thought about drawing
on both of those powers, individually and then together.
Nothing.
Richter had her summon her mana, but stop just short of casting a spell. Still, there was no change that he could detect in his shots. People had started to come over and see what their lord was doing, but one look at the frustration on his face communicated that this was personal time. They decided he shouldn’t be bothered.
Sion’s mood improved as he saw the building irritation on Richter’s face.
“Fuck,” Richter said quietly. “What am I missing?” he asked Sion.
“I told you. You need a pixie. When I imbue my arrows, I can draw on the essence of my connection with Sapir.”
Something about the way Sion said it this time pulled at Richter’s mind. Maybe it’s not about the magic, he thought. Maybe it’s about the connection.
He nocked another arrow and imbued it. Rather than trying to draw magic from Alma though, he just found the bright spot in his mind that represented their Psi Bond. This time, something flowed through the small gateway in his psyche and manifested in the real world. Fine ribbons of energy, like white-blue lightning, began to play across the surface of the golden aura surrounding the arrow. In surprise, Richter released his arrow.
The arrow blurred towards the rocks and detonated with its customary boom, but this time he could see secondary damage! The blue-white lightning played across the cliff-face for a moment before disappearing.
“Ya ta!” Richter shouted, throwing both hands in the air.
Congratulations! You have evolved your subskill Imbue Arrow. Your new subskill is Enhanced Imbue Arrow. All levels that you had gained in the original subskill will be transferred to this evolved subskill. Changes include:
1) The baseline mana flow of 10:1 mana:sec has improved to 20:1.
2) The baseline mana:damage ratio of 10:1 has improved to 5:1.
3) The original leveling bonus of investing mana 5% faster has improved to 10% per level.