Chaos Funnel (Master Spell)
Time to Cast: 10 seconds. Cooldown: 12 hours. Cost: 250 Mana. Duration: 1 hour. Range: 100 feet. Prerequisites: Node Mastery II or higher; Mana Channeling II or higher; must be in range of a ley line or Mana Node. Effect: Drain the power from a Mana Node or ley line. The amount of Mana absorbed every second is equal to 250 per caster level plus the Mana Node level.
Warning: Mana in excess of your capacity must be used within five seconds or it will overload your energy conduits, inflicting 1-4 damage per Mana point above your limit.
Additionally, while the spell is in effect the energy flow from the Node or line will be interrupted at the funnel point. This will alert entities with a connection to the network, as well as prevent any other use of its energy.
Finally, after the spell ends, there is a 1% chance (plus an additional 1% per minute the spell was active) of permanent damage or disruption to both the caster and the energy source being tapped. The side effects are random but often severe. Chaos is a dangerous and unpredictable Force. Only Chaos Adepts and Masters can reduce the risks of using this spell.
He couldn’t move his legs, but he could do magic. With his bonuses, the spell’s casting time was reduced to two seconds; he pushed through the pain and released it, aiming upstream from the Chaos Funnel the Terror Tree had created. The giant monster stopped casting when it noticed that its energy tap had dried out. At the same time, Hawke’s depleted Mana pool got an influx of 5,000 units, more than twice his capacity. That was okay: he leveled Saturnyx at the abomination and fired off a 6,000-Mana Elemental Strike.
A beam of pure light some fifteen feet wide erupted from the point of the blade. Even through his gloves, he felt the sword heat up as if it’d been plunged into a blast furnace. Only the enchantments bound into the blade prevented it from exploding when that amount of energy passed through it. And for the first time since he’d met her, he heard Saturnyx cry in pain. Well, it was more like a grunt; the Fury didn’t go for girly displays of emotion, even when she was in agony. The Mana had to go through his body as well, and the Root Chakra seemed to burst into flames when it did. Everyone was in for a world of hurt that night.
But none as badly as the Terror Tree. Unable to heal itself after Hawke diverted the ley line’s power, the only things standing between its Health and 6,000-30,000 points of Light-based damage (which doubled against Undead creatures) were its natural armor and resistance values. They weren’t enough, not by a long shot. The light beam hit it right below the eyes and exploded the monster like a one gallon water container hit by a heavy rifle bullet. The beam didn’t dissipate at its normal range, either, but kept going up toward the sky, where it was visible from the campsite two miles away, and likely all the way back in Orom, although at that distance it probably just looked like a bolt of lightning.
Hawke quickly killed the Chaos Funnel before it killed him. Waves of pain kept pulsing out of the Root Chakra, and he still couldn’t move or even feel his legs. All he wanted to do was close his eyes and go to sleep, forever if he had to. His friends were all shouting at him in his head, adding a pounding migraine on top of all the other crap, but he ignored them and glanced at his newest notifications instead.
For slaying your foe, you have earned 2,880 Experience (360 diverted towards Leadership; 360 diverted towards Node Mastery).
You have earned 1,500 Experience towards Node Mastery.
Congratulations! You have awakened your Root Chakra!
You have earned 400 Experience (50 diverted towards Leadership; 50 diverted towards Node Mastery).
You have gained +10% to Mana Capacity and +1 to Mana Regeneration per minute.
You have gained Tranquil Mind (Mana Channeling Ability)
Tranquil Mind: By dedicating 10% of your Mana capacity towards centering and calming your mind, you gain (50+Level) percent resistance to all mental and emotional distractions, as well as mind-controlling or altering spells, and effects. You can ignore pain and discomfort and gain the same bonus to activities that require focus and concentration. The maximum bonus and resistance value cannot exceed 95%. Current bonus available: 72%.
You have found: 15 gold, 3 Major Mana Potions, 1 Major Healing Potion, 6 Pollen of the Walking Tree (crafting item), 3 Imbued Branches (crafting item).
Current XP/Next Level: 71,664/100,000. Leadership XP/Next Level: 47,534/50,000
Current Node Mastery XP/Next Level: 24,888/25,000. Current Guild XP/Next Level: 4,382/5,000
Nifty, he thought before drifting off into the dark.
Four
“Well, that was fun,” Hawke commented over breakfast.
Said breakfast consisted of a generous order of scrambled eggs with cheese, hash browns and a stack of pancakes with honey and something that tasted a bit like maple syrup, although it came from a different tree; some kind of birch, he’d been told. Everything was made to his specifications and kept in the same state as it had been moments after it was cooked, thanks to his magical Inventory, the pocket dimension that all Eternals got free of charge to store their loot and any other crap they wanted to drop in there. Hawke was using it to lug a few tons of cargo around, as well as eighty-four meals ready to eat, divided into six different kinds of breakfast, lunch, and dinner. He might be on the road, but he didn’t have to rough it when it came to feeding himself. He’d also devoted twelve more slots to bring enough hot food for everyone in the caravan, since he wouldn’t feel right enjoying good meals if everyone else was making do with the Imperial version of trail mix. He had the space, since he had emptied most of the stuff he didn’t need into the storage vaults at his Stronghold.
“Glad to see you are feeling all right,” Tava told him. She had kept watch over his unconscious body for most of the night, and looked exhausted. He decided to talk her into sleeping in one of the wagons for some of the day, one of the well-sprung handful that wouldn’t bounce her up and down with every bump in the poor roads ahead.
“Well, all right might be pushing it. I can feel my legs, and I can sit down without screaming, as long as I do it slowly and carefully.”
And he could walk, but also slowly, with every step sending a shock of pain from his ass to the rest of his body. He’d tried using his new ability, Tranquil Mind, but it only took the edge off the continuous agony without eliminating it. Even worse, he soon discovered that when the power was active, it was too easy to focus on only one thing and ignore everything else around him. That wasn’t a good idea under the current circumstances, so he’d turned it off and endured the pain. It would fade away in time. He hoped. A good night’s sleep might help, but he had a lot to do and never enough time. The damn Terror Tree had messed up his schedule, on top of almost killing him and inflicting him with a permanent curse.
So far, nobody had noticed his Slowed Time effect. One percent was probably not noticeable, and with his high Dexterity, he was still faster than any normal human alive. The side effect wouldn’t become much of a problem until he screwed around with Timeless Mind too many times and it went up in strength. He mentally moved the ability from the ‘In Emergencies Only’ to the ‘In Absolute Life or Death Emergencies Only’ category.
“I just want to know why that freaking thing was still around,” he went on. “Without a Dungeon Core helping out, Larry the Revenant doesn’t have the juice to keep spreading Undeath everywhere.”
“That’s great. Wish I’d known and run away from it. Instead of, you know, nearly dying, not to mention tearing myself a new back hole.”
Hawke shuddered at the thought of the nearly-invincible monstrosity tearing through innocent villages, and had to nod in agreement. It had taken every unfair advantage he had to beat the monster, and even then it had been a near-run thing. Every time he thought he had a handle on things, the Realms seemed to delight in slapping some humility into him. To be fair, he usually came out of those situations stronger than before, although last night’s adventure had been unusually rewarding. He’d unlocked a new Force, learned a new spell, and gotten his third Chakra awakened. Only four to go!
“Anyway, I still have to go back to the ley line, since I was too comatose to finish the job last night,” he told the gathering around him. Besides Tava, they included Korgam, Helena Setes, who was the unofficial leader of all the merchants in the caravan, and several Adventurers and Eternals he’d brought along for security.
“From the aerial scouting we did, it should be safe enough for the next day or so. I will catch up with you by the day after tomorrow,” he concluded. He and Blaze would travel on the ground, he had decided, grimacing at the thought of having to fly. Hanging on for dear life while watching the ground from a couple thousand feet sucked.
“Wish we’d been able to help,” Lady Pew-Pew said. The ninth level Half-Elven Exalted Ranger was one of the six Eternals Hawke had brought along, a group that included Grognard (level fifteen Battle-Mage and Stalwart), and Boris Imdoomed (level seven Ranger-Warrior). The rest were newbies Hawke only knew in passing: Mandrako (5th level human Wizard), Angus Kold (6th level human Warrior) and Hoon (5th level Half-Orc Druid). They’d been recommended by Grognard and Kinto, who spent more time with the other Eternals than Hawke did. That total didn’t include the three Dwarven Eternals Korgam was delivering to Akila. Through sheer bad luck (and in one case, two suicides), their Identities had gone down into the single digits. They had forgotten most of their previous existence and wanted to integrate into their people’s society. Weeks of mining and occasional adventuring had raised them to or close to eighth level.
“Maybe next time,” Hawke told her. “Although against that tree kaiju thing, only Grognard would have had a chance to survive.”
“And I don’t go looking for trouble,” the veteran said. “There’s plenty of it already.”
“There is that. I’m hoping that all of you will pick up a few more levels by the time we make it back to the valley. We may end up tussling with the Herders, although hopefully not all of them at once.”
“I was a top-ranked PVPer,” Lady said. “And Boris won a bunch of arena tournaments back in the day. We’ve got you covered.”
Grognard sighed. “That was computer games. Things are a mite bit different here, as you may have noticed.”
“My fellow Rangers have acquitted themselves rather well in the field,” Tava said, coming to the defense of her prize pupils. “If they faced opponents of similar rank, I would expect them to prevail.”
Which was one of the problems they faced; the Earth and Realms Defenders were outnumbered and outpowered. The Nerf Herders had grown in leaps and bounds, having attracted dozens of new members since Hawke’s visit to Akila. Besides the big cluster of Eternals in the swamplands close to the city, there had been three smaller ones nearby, each consisting of ten or twelve Eternals, mostly from North America or Western Europe. A fourth, even larger one, was centered around the port city of Ostas; and it was comprised of Central and Eastern European players.
Kaiser and his henchmen had lured many of those Eternals into the guild, and once you were in, you couldn’t quit. According to the report Girl-Has had written for Hawke, there were only a couple of non-Herder Eternals in the city, both under the protection of Dwarven clans, and fourteen others in Ostas, where they had formed their own guild, the Knights of Stanislas, and told the Herders to go eff themselves. The rest, well over sixty Eternals, were under Kaiser’s control, or perma-dead.
To make things worse, the Herders put their favored members – the ones willing to follow Kaiser’s orders unflinchingly – through a continuous grind at the local Proving Grounds, which included a high-level Labyrinth that had portals that led to the Gates of Tartarus, right in Hawke’s back yard, although thankfully the rival Guild hadn’t figured that out yet. Most ‘active duty’ Eternals in the Herders were level twelve or higher, with Guild officers in the fifteenth to eighteenth-level range. And grinding Proving Grounds would provide those Eternals with lots of magical weapons and devices.
Hawke had started improving the Defenders by creating dozens of Guild Quests. Even simple ‘fetch and carry’ and ‘collect ten Alchemical ingredients’ quests provided experience, cash, and minor item rewards. It wasn’t much, but the Guild Quests had helped most of the Earth and Realms Defenders get over the fifth level hump.
Still, he wasn’t going to Akila to fight, so he had only brought a small group of Eternals along. If the Herders came after them, his team didn’t have the numbers or power to defeat the enemy Guild, which had over thirty fighting members. On the other hand, he could count on the Stern Clan and, through them, the Dwarven Hills community, a city district on the northwest side of Akila where a few thousand Deep People lived. And there were other potential allies in the city; Girl’s notes had made it clear that the Herders had made a lot of enemies in Akila, including the largest wizard’s association in town. Hawke was hoping to use diplomacy to take Kaiser and his gang down, or at least down a notch. A set-piece battle would play to the Herders’ strengths. He wasn’t planning on giving it to them.
If it happened anyway, he had a few tricks up his sleeve. He hoped he wouldn’t have to use them, but he was willing to nuke them from orbit, just to make sure.
Five
You have placed one Mana Node Seed on a ley line.
Proceed? Y/N
After agreeing, Hawke took a step back and watched the glowing green construct sink gently into the earth. He had found a natural cave on the side of the hill where he had encountered the Terror Tree, close enough to the ley line to serve as a Node site. Now all he had to do was burn some Mana and let the energy egg become a full-grown construct.
Mana Node Seed (Life)
Health 1,000 Mana 9,975 Endurance n/a
He had been feeding Mana to the seed every day, getting it close to the ten thousand it needed to sprout. Now that it was on fertile soil, as it were, all it took was a trickle of energy to awaken it. He had seen the process three times already, but it was always a sight of wonder. The Life Node burst into light, bringing comfort and vitality everywhere. For a few seconds, even the toothache-like pangs from his overstressed Mana channels vanished, making him gasp in relief at simply not feeling continuous, intense pain.
The area had been ravaged by Undeath and the Terror Tree that had encroached there. The surviving plant life took the infusion of Life energy and improved visibly: from the mouth of the cave, Hawke saw new leaves appear, branches straighten, and seeds sprout and grow a season’s worth in a matter of seconds. The pulse of Life followed the ley line’s flow, healing all living things along its path. Hawke grinned, ignoring the flare up from his Root Chakra when the effect passed. He had done a good thing there, even if it also benefitted him.
“It’ll only be a day. I’ll be back here tomorrow morning, and I’ll see you then.”
“Good. Now let me finish. We’re burning daylight.”
You have accessed: Level 1 Mana Node (Life). You have the following choices:
Leave Mana Node alone: No risk or reward. Y/N
Claim Mana Node: +250 Experience, +100 Mana as long as you are within 1 mile/level from the Node. Y/N
Destroy Mana Node: +500 Experience, +1 Spirit. Y/N
Absorb Mana Node, gaining three new Life spells, +50 permanent Mana pool increase. Y/N
Hawke claimed the Mana Node. Normally, doing that
brought a surge of strength as his Mana pool increased, as well as a warm feeling from having a place of power become a part of him. The energy flow ran through his damaged Mana system, however, sending another burst of pain through his lower body and making him stagger. He had to lean on Blaze to stay on his feet.
Saturnyx agreed.
The sword kept using that term of endearment on Blaze, despite the fact that the fur-loaf now weighed five times as much as Hawke did in full armor, and was too long to fit in a horse carrier even if someone cut off his fuzzy tail. Even so, he also thought of the massive Drakeling as a small child. It was hard to believe that the critter and his sister had grown from tiny cubs to their current size in a matter of days. And that he and Tava had become devoted to them – and vice versa – in the same amount of time. Magic rushed things, sometimes, or made them so intense that you could experience a lifetime’s worth of feelings in a few hours. It could also reduce your lifespan to zero just as quickly, of course.
“Listen to Tava,” he told Blaze, ruffling the pelt between his ears and getting nudge from his furry snout in return. “Keep everyone safe, okay? I’ll see you tomorrow morning, rain or shine.”
With that, Hawke used Node Travel and made his first teleport of the day.
* * *
Gosto Kintes looked up from his gardening when the shift in energies warned him of Hawke’s arrival.
“Greetings, Lord Hawke,” the young Druid Warden said, the formal greeting clashing with the grin on his face.
“Greetings, Grove Warden,” he replied, taking a few stiff steps towards Tava’s brother and shaking his hand. He didn’t want to show it, but the teleport had kicked his ass, sending a jolt of agony from his bruised Root Chakra through his entire body. Pulses of pain kept radiating from there. He forced himself to act normally, but sweat dripped down from his forehead as his body reacted to the continuous torment. Gosto’s smile faltered, but he took his cue from Hawke and ignored the situation, clearly figuring it was Hawke’s business and not his.
Guilds at War: The LitRPG Saga Continues Page 3