I flipped the book open and began to read. It was hard, both because the gauntlets made it difficult to actually flip through the book and because I had trouble concentrating. My mind kept drifting to what was going on with Gwen and my sword. It took me three tries to read the same damned page.
Still, I’d gotten the gist of it. The idea behind them was essentially greed. Not the little g greed either. No, it seemed to center around being able to pull value from the earth itself. The thing I didn’t get was the how of it.
Then again, my sword hadn’t exactly come with an instruction manual, and while this one did, it might as well have been one of those IKEA ones that was only sixty percent helpful. With Clarent, I’d learned by doing, and I’d do the same with these gauntlets, even if it meant showing my face outside.
I got to my feet and put my book back in its pouch. Then I made my way back downstairs. It must not have been long because Sam was still standing there looking at the sword. When she saw me, she nodded.
“Take the sword on the wall.” She pointed to the corner where a few swords were hung. On it was one that looked similar to Clarent in general feel. It was a dark blood weapon. The blade glowed with soft emerald light and had a pommel similar to the one I’d had on Clarent. One that was made of tri-color dragon’s breath.
“The tester?” I asked, confused. “Don’t you need that to work on Clarent?” I pointed to the broken sword.
“I can make another. You need a weapon. That one won’t let you do the whole stats thing, but it will let you summon the dark blood armor and use the dragon’s breath magic. You should take it.” She smiled at me. “Mad as I am about this,” she gestured at Clarent, “I don’t want you walking around undefended, and it’s dangerous to go out alone.”
“Fair point,” I said, taking the sword off the wall. It did feel remarkably similar to Clarent, and I knew I could wield it almost as well, if need be. For all practical purposes, it’d be the same. Well, barring the one ability that mattered. I shoved the sword into Clarent’s sheath and moved toward the door.
“If you’re going to go wander the desert or something, tell Gwen first,” Sam said, not looking at me. “I’m tired of being the go-between for you two.”
“I’m just going to practice with these gauntlets. I’ll probably stay in town.” I shrugged.
“That doesn’t make my point invalid,” Sam said, picking up the broken hilt and staring at it like she could somehow will the metal to talk to her. Hell, for all I knew, she could.
“Okay,” I responded and headed outside. The fresh air was surprisingly cool, and as I glanced back at Sam’s shop, I marveled at how she managed to work in such a hot, humid environment. Shaking off the thought, I turned my focus to the gauntlets.
When I’d used Clarent, the ability had just sort of manifested, and I hadn’t even known what it was supposed to do. I knew what these were supposed to do. Well, sort of. Pull elements from the earth.
I made my way off the main road, heading around her shop. As I did, I focused on feeling the elements beneath my feet.
It was strange because as soon as I tried, I felt everything. There were all sorts of minerals, rocks, and dirt below us. Every single different thing popped into my head, and it was so overwhelming I nearly screamed. No, this wouldn’t do. Not at all. Instead, I focused on the closest material.
It was a stone called coti, and while I wasn’t sure what that was, it was just a few meters beneath my feet.
I reached out toward it with my gauntlets, and as I did, a tooltip popped into view. Unlike the ones I’d seen with Clarent, this one hovered in front of me like a silver diamond with a set of pulsating arrows that disappeared into the earth.
Coti
Material Type: stone
Grade: B (Average)
Depth: 6 meters
Difficulty: 3
A type of stone typically used in construction.
Well, that was certainly interesting. After reading through the tooltip, I swiped the Difficulty and Depth boxes, opening them before my eyes.
Difficulty – A measure between one and ten that determines how much effort will be required to unearth the material. The higher the number, the more difficult it will be to extract the material. This measurement is determined by several factors, including but not limited to Depth, Material Type, and Grade as well as the type of substance surrounding the desired material.
Depth – A measure of the distance between the surface and the material in question.
As I read them over, something occurred to me, and I swiped open the Grade window.
Grade – An average of the likely grade of the finished product once it has been finished by an artisan of requisite skill. While some of the material is likely to be lower or higher than the indicated grade, most will be of said grade.
Well, that was a useful skill. Before, when Sally had transmuted different materials, it was hard to tell what they would be before she actually worked on them. It meant she often spent time transmuting junk in the hopes she’d get something good. It was the ultimate grab bag, and what’s more, it wasted a lot of valuable time and materials. With these gauntlets, I might be able to tell which individual pieces were likely to be better.
Part of me wanted to go to her and see if that was true, or hell, walk back into Sam’s shop and see if she had any raw ore lying around. Only, I didn’t need to do that, did I? Everything in these gauntlets seemed to indicate I could pull materials from the ground. Maybe I could just try that and then look for myself.
I turned my attention back toward the coti and stared at it for a moment. I raised my hand, trying to feel the stone. My gauntlets began to glow with silver light. It was weird because I could practically feel the substance in my hands, and as I tried to pull it forth from the earth, I felt the weight of it move against me, felt the earth’s unwillingness to let go of it.
Taking a deep breath, I poured more energy into it, working on it the way I’d focused myself during my last year of training. I’d realized that I could sort of control my energy and use differing amounts of it when I’d used Clarent’s magic.
This felt no different in that regard. I poured more power into the stone, and as I did, it moved. The ground beneath my feet shook as the soil ruptured. I poured even more energy into the maneuver, trying to free the stone, and as I did, my vision went dark around the edges.
I took a deep breath, focusing all my energy, all my strength on freeing the stone, and it started to move, inch by painstaking inch. I collapsed to my knees, chest heaving from effort. Sweat ran off my face, pooling on my chin before spattering the ground. Still I pulled, and as I did, I put my hands on the earth.
More power exploded from my fingertips, and I realized it was a lot easier to pull the stone free with my hands touching the earth. That made sense, so I reached into the earth, gripping it with my fingers.
Still, I struggled to move it, but it was getting closer. There was just one problem, I was getting tired. Part of me wanted to give up, to try again once I caught my breath, but if I did that, I’d never progress, never move forward. No. I would do this. Now.
I pulled with everything I had, with all my hopes, dreams, and energy. I used all my focus, and as my vision went spotty and I collapsed to the ground, the stone broke the surface.
34
My dreamless, empty sleep was broken by the shrill cry of a siren. My eyes shot open, and I looked around, desperate to find out what was going on. I found myself staring at the coti I had raised from the earth, and as I smacked my lips together, I realized I’d been lying in the spot where I’d fallen since I’d collapsed. No one had come to find me, which was disconcerting since a quick glance at the sky let me know it’d been almost a half day since then.
Still, now wasn’t the time to worry about that, not with the siren blaring, anyway. I leapt to my feet, and looked around, trying to find out where to go. As I stepped around the building, I found my eyes drawn to the border we shared with
the Darkness.
Thunder rumbled and lightning cracked. As I stared out toward the border, I saw a massive horde of monsters coming straight out of the Darkness.
I could see Gwen and Crystal in the air, trying to thin the herd with a combination of fire magic and bullets, but it sort of reminded me of throwing a stone into the ocean. There were so many monsters, their attacks did next to nothing.
The only saving grace was, from here anyway, it looked like it was mostly variations of the standard lizard warrior. Some carried swords or pikes, while others had massive warhammers, but it was all just infantry. Not even a beholder.
That was good because there was another thing I realized, if I could see them, the walls weren’t high enough to block them from view. Sure, I was on a bit of a hill, but near as I could tell they were maybe ten feet tall. The moment those lizards reached it, they’d scrabble over it like a bunch of damned geckos.
“Fuck!” I cried, racing toward the battle.
As bolts of lightning started to fly, letting me know Gabriella had joined the fray, I felt the pull of magic in the air in a way I’d never quite felt before, and I realized it was from Sheila. She’d activated Defensive Aegis, but with a crowd like that coming at her, there was no way it’d last long.
I reached the wall a few seconds later and found myself watching Sheila fight desperately. She had wedged herself into a small alcove that had been built into the wall while Gabriella stood in front of her, blocking the way. Crazily enough, the lizards completely ignored the archangel as they swarmed around her, trying vainly to reach Sheila.
Even better, every time Gabriella swung her mace, a lizard man exploded into ectoplasm, and I wondered how many times they’d done this particular trick. Judging by the way the wall was laid out with alcoves every few meters, I was betting it had been a bunch of times.
Hopefully, it’d work.
Gripping my sword, I scrambled over the gate and dropped down onto the field. As soon as I touched the earth, I heard Sally yell my name, but instead of heeding her call, I rushed forward intent to clear a pathway to Sheila.
They didn’t even turn toward me as I closed the distance, and as I readied my strike, I realized something. The creatures seemed slow. No, not slow. Like they were barely moving. They were nothing like the enemies I’d fought for over a year.
As I slashed at the first of the creatures, severing its head from its neck with an easy flick of the wrist, green light enveloped my body. All of a sudden I felt lighter than fucking air. Sally had hasted me, and while I appreciated it, the whole thing felt a bit, well, weird. Before I’d always felt supernaturally faster when I got hasted, but this time, well, it almost didn’t matter.
I took down another lizard man by stabbing it through the eye, and as my blade burst out the back of the creature’s skull, I unleashed a blast of energy from the blade.
The sapphire bolt hit the creature behind it, burning a charred hole through its chest. Jerking my weapon free, I attacked again, slamming the pommel into another creature, effortlessly weaving through its defenses to penetrate the soft bits of its nose hidden beneath its helmet. An earsplitting crack filled my ears as it fell, but I was already moving, slashing the legs out from another, and as it toppled toward me, I scooped up its pike and hurled it at a bowman.
Now, I wasn’t super good at pike throwing, and it showed because the pike bounced off its armor, causing it to turn its head toward me, fighting the pull of Sheila’s magic. It shook itself as I dropped two more of its friends with blasts of magic and then sprinted for me.
It leapt the creatures between us, huge warhammer raised to brain me. Only there was no chance of that happening. I stepped lithely to the side, and as the huge metal head of the weapon sank into the earth beside my feet, I stepped through on my own attack, using the combined force of our momentum to rend it in two.
As its body collapsed to the earth at my feet, I turned and kicked another in the knee. The staccato crack of bone breaking filled my ears as it tumbled toward me. I finished it with a whirling slash while reaching out to grab the fallen lizard man’s warhammer.
I continued my arc, flinging the heavy projectile at the next creature. My aim still sucked, but this time the weapon was heavy enough to cave in its chest. As the lizard fell to the earth, the air shimmered, and a new creature I’d never seen before stepped from the Darkness.
This creature stood a good eighteen feet tall and had long flowing blood red hair which was weird because it had a skull for a face. The rest of it was shrouded in dark robes that concealed its form, but as it raised its decayed hands into the air, I wondered if it was some kind of undead lich.
Either way, it didn’t matter because as the creature waved its hands, I felt Sheila’s Defensive Aegis shatter. All at once the lizard men surrounding me, turned. Their beady eyes narrowed with fury and anger as they charged at me.
The next few minutes became a blur as I slashed and dodged and cut. A blade came by my cheek, and I stepped past it with The Wind That Flings The Sand before countering with Slash That Separates Rain Droplets. Only as it collapsed, another took its place, and as it fell, two more took its place.
Still, I kept fighting, dispatching foes in an endless ballet of blood, death, and magic. Overhead, I felt the sizzle of lightning and fire. I smelled the smoke of gunpowder, and it was all concentrated away from me.
Dodging another attack with Tornado Spinning With Electricity, I took a moment to look at what was going on. The lich was engaged in an all-out battle between almost all my girls. Sheila and Crystal circled it, trying desperately to penetrate its magical shield, while Gabriella, Gwen, and Sally, hammered it with magic. Only everything seemed to slip off of it.
No good.
I spun, taking down another lizard man, and as I did, I pointed my sword at the creature. I focused on it and unleashed another sapphire bolt that cleaved through the lizard men between us before slamming into the lich’s shield. Sparks flew in every direction, but nothing of notice happened.
Okay, that wasn’t quite true because now the lich was focused on me. Its crimson eyes narrowed as it raised one bony hand and flung a bolt of lightning right at me.
I nearly laughed. Lightning was my fucking jam, even if this stuff stank of sulfur and was the color of moldy bread. I caught it with Lightning That Arcs Across The Sky and deflected it into the lizard men to my left. Only as it struck the first creature, it erupted into a geyser of fire that exploded outward. The shockwave threw me from my feet as it obliterated an entire mass of the creatures.
My shoulder hit the ground in a practiced roll, and as I rolled to my feet, horrible, guttural laughter filled my ears. I shook my head, trying to fend off the ringing disorientation from the blast, and as I did, I saw the rest of the lizard men writhing on the ground.
There had been a couple dozen, and somehow, someway they were all down. Was that from the electricity?
I wasn’t sure, but either way, they were down, and that was what mattered. Or so I thought. I had barely taken one step toward the lich when the lizard men exploded into a bloody tornado that sprayed ichor in every direction.
I raised one arm to block the chunks from hitting me in the face as the winds stopped. In the tornado’s place stood a massive bone creature I can only describe as a kind of fleshy crab, only crabs didn’t have that many claws, legs, and mouths. Scraps of skin and muscle clung to its spider-like limbs as it opened its mouth and screamed at the sky. The sound made my gut clench in horror, and then it was scuttling across the ground at me.
A sapphire blast bounced off its bony carapace as it slashed at me with more speed than I’d seen from any of the enemies thus far, and I knew in that instant, if I hadn’t been hasted, I’d have been dead.
The thought sobered me as I rolled to the side, avoiding its scorpion tail. As the massive spike buried itself in the ground, the smell of sulfur filled my nose. The earth began to bubble and froth as it retracted its tail, leaving a slimy green trail
in its wake that smoked and spat.
I took a deep breath, readying my sword in my hands, and as I did, the creature struck again. As the spike came at me, my mind went blank, and I was back on the battlefield, back in the constant struggle for life and death that had plagued my last year. I’d spent so much time being battered and broken, so much time being smashed to nothing. Now, I would take a stand.
I moved, stepping to my left and allowing the tail to miss me. Once again it buried itself in the dirt, only this time, I wrapped my arms around it.
The feel of the still wet, warm bone, turned my stomach as the creature jerked its tail backward. Only, unlike last time, I came with it. I let go mid-arc, allowing the force of the creature’s momentum to move me in much the same way I’d sometimes let the wind grab hold of me and fling me across the battlefield to add power to my attacks.
This time was different, but I corrected as best I could while driving my sword down with all the power I could muster.
The emerald light along the blade flared like star fire as I drove it to the hilt in the creature’s bony back and unleashed a sapphire blast from inside it. The explosion flung me backward in a rain of debris, and as I hit the ground on my back, I saw the lich walking toward me.
I blinked, trying to clear the fog from my eyes and saw that nearly all my friends had been captured by some kind of bone prison. Had that happened when the corpses had exploded? I wasn’t sure, but it meant there was a problem. I was the only one left to deal with the lich.
“So, you’re the Builder of Legend,” the lich said, raising one hand. Lightning crackled between its fingertips. “You’re good, but somehow I expected more.”
The Builder's Greed (The Legendary Builder Book 2) Page 21