He had been putting a lot of thought on what his next Class would be when he hit level 20. A part of him wanted a Warrior-type class, which would upgrade his Health. On the other hand, a caster class would give him yet another Mana boost, and with Mana Shield, Health wasn’t as important to him. He was still undecided. In any case, he had probably unlocked a bunch of Elite Classes that would be shown to him when he hit the next Milestone.
He turned to his Abilities next, which were as numerous as his spells. He had created another ‘rotation bar’ for several of them, so he wouldn’t forget to use them if he had to. Tulpa Weapon, for example, allowed him to inflict as many as 159 points of irresistible damage, and he could use it as a conduit for Elemental Blast and possibly other spells, bypassing a target’s armor and some other defenses. Something else he needed to work with until the moves became second nature to him.
Through luck and the intervention of goddesses, Makers and who knew what else, he had accumulated quite the bag of tricks. Was his benefactor preparing him for something that would need all of them? Only time would tell.
Nine
Hawke and Blaze were at the head of the caravan when it happened.
One moment, they were racing down the road, which was in much better shape now that it had joined the extensive network linking Akila to the rest of the Empire and parts beyond. Hawke was in pretty good spirits; the trip had been uneventful, they were in civilized lands, and the weather had been nice. There was a straight stretch of road ahead of them, no traffic as far as they eye could see, and Blaze had taken off at full speed, which was closer to a motorcycle’s than a horse’s. The ground underneath them became a blur and Hawke began to worry about the saddle beginning to shift under the continuous jogging it was taking. He started to ask the super-fox to slow down.
The next moment, Blaze crashed into an invisible barrier and Hawke was catapulted from the unsteady saddle. He smashed into a tree two dozen feet off the road, and the impact made him black out for a moment. Blaze’s cries of pain brought him back to full alertness.
The Drakofox was curled up on the road; his furry body was flattened against an invisible surface, as if he was a bird that had flown into a spotless pane of glass. His legs were kicking feebly; that and howling in agony were the only things he could do.
Twilight Step allowed Hawke to return to his side instantly. His Advanced Mana Sight discovered what had happened. The floating energy sigils of a ward became visible, floating in the air, part of an invisible dome that stretched up toward the sky. So were the deadly energies still attacking the intruder. He needed to move Blaze away from the magical barrier, and fast.
Blaze was as big as a horse, but was much denser. Hawke put his back into it and pushed the two tons of dead weight for several yards, ignoring the Endurance and Health loss as he strained his muscles and bones to the maximum. He pushed the now whimpering Drakofox until his senses told him he had been removed from the ward’s effects, cast every healing spell he had on him, and staggered to his feet, waving at Tava and Luna to stop. They had heard Blaze’s cry of pain from the rear of the wagon train and rushed forward to help.
“Ward!” he shouted at them. “Don’t get any closer!”
He turned back to Blaze. The Drakofox’s Health, Mana and Endurance pools were still dropping, despite getting hundreds of points of healing. The Ward was still attacking him: Hawke saw it as a burning green flame that flowed from the energy dome that rose up into the sky. It was targeting specific parts of Blaze’s aura, the bright orange energy that denoted his draconic heritage. They had tripped an anti-dragon ward, and it was doing what it was programmed to do: kill the intruder.
Refreshing all the heals kept Blaze from dying, but even the Healing spell, which normally removed all ongoing damage and debuff effects, didn’t erase the green flames. Blaze was withering away before his eyes. Desperate, Hawke cast Gift of the Martyr. Blaze had a higher Health pool than he did, but he didn’t care if the ward killed him, as long as he could keep the furball from dying.
Spell Failed!
Hawke didn’t need the notification to tell him that: his Advanced Mana Sight showed him the green flames of the ward blocking the link he tried to forge between him and Blaze. Damnit! Blaze was still losing Health faster than the spells were restoring it; even worse, the Drakofox’s Endurance and Mana were dropping into the low hundreds; when they went below zero, the ward’s physical damage would increase and also inflict additional effects, some of them permanent.
Luna kept her distance but cast her own healing spell rotation. Tava rushed forward and tried to feed a Major Rejuvenation potion to Blaze. She barely managed to pour the restorative liquid into his mouth; Blaze was panting weakly, his eyes closed. The potion did its work, but the ward would not relinquish its hold on its victim. From the strength of the link, Hawke didn’t think there was any reasonable distance they could move the Drakofox that would keep the curse from doing its work.
“Damn you,” Hawke said, speaking to no one in particular, except maybe the makers of the ward. The green flames were coming from the invisible barrier he and Blaze had hit. The ward was the key. Hawke targeted the energy flow from the ward to Blaze, and used a thousand Mana to block it, creating a dam between them. He gulped down a Major Mana Potion, one of the last handful he had, as he watched his energy battle the ward’s. A thousand Mana units weren’t enough, so he sent all but a dozen Mana from his pool into the makeshift barrier.
For several seemingly eternal seconds, nothing happened. Blaze wasn’t howling anymore. Everyone in the caravan with healing spells was working on him, and Hawke prayed that it would be enough while he focused everything he had into breaking the spell attacking his child. It wasn’t going to be enough, he realized; he was fighting dumb, using raw power, and the ward was empowered by thousands of Structural Mana. He reshaped the energy into patterns, using the blueprints from Dispel Magic and Disarm Trap. Neither ability was the right fit, but combining them allowed him to refine the Mana he was spending, making it more efficient. The flow of power from the ward was weakened, but did not stop.
He downed another Major Mana potion and tried another tactic, shaping all the energy he had regained into a Tulpa Weapon, a blade of pure energy. But why make it simple Mana? Hawke had a sudden burst of inspiration – or maybe dumbassery; he wouldn’t know until he tried it – and tapped into his new Chaos Mana reservoir, turning the weapon into a Chaotic construct. He figured that a Force of disruption and entropy was just what he needed to break the ward.
Changing the ‘flavor’ of the weapon turned out to be difficult; half of the Mana he had allocated to the task dissipated as he tried to reshape it. Only the knowledge that Blaze was dying drove him to push himself, shoving aside the Order energies that rebelled against him and using every last bit of power he had left. Something clicked inside his head and the Tulpa Weapon changed colors from its regular neon blue to an ever-shifting swirl of colors with black motes that looked like constantly changing Rorschach patterns along the energy blade. The weapon didn’t so much cut the flow of green flames as infect it with its own randomness. The flames wavered, changed colors, and Hawke felt the entire barrier swell up as Mana kept flowing but found no outlet. The green flames retreated from Blaze but formed a bubble, or maybe a blister, on the surface of the wall. And kept growing bigger. He had a good idea of what would happen next.
“Everybody down!” Hawke shouted, going down to one knee and activating Elemental Dome and his shield’s Dome of Order and placing them side by side, hoping that the barriers would keep them alive when the excess Mana…
Blinding light and overwhelming pressure washed over him like a massive wave, crushing him to the ground. Tava and Luna cried out in pain, but he noted on the Party Interface that they were alive.
… went boom.
Uncontrolled Mana had a way of tearing out the landscape, much like dynam
ite or C-4. He had been on the receiving end of too many of those explosions, and he had the feeling he would be experiencing many more before he reached endgame. His Mana Sight showed him the ward was still active, but was no longer going after Blaze. Good enough for him.
Congratulations! You have learned a new Mana Channeling Ability: Chaos Spike.
Chaos Spike: By infusing a spell with Chaos energies, you can cause it to malfunction, creating random effects instead of its designed purpose. The percentage chance of the spell being transformed are equal to your Willpower and Mana Channeling level combined. Using this effect has a minimum cost of 100 Mana or 20% of the Mana spent on the target spell, whichever is greater. Additional Mana increased the chance of Chaos Spike working by 1% per 10% extra Mana spent.
Prerequisites: Chaos magic, Tulpa Weapon.
That was great, but Hawke was worried about Blaze, who had fallen unconscious. The Drakofox’s Mana channels had taken a severe beating when the ward flooded his system with lethal energies, designed to kill any member of Dragon-kind that trespassed into its perimeter. Curled up in a ball, he looked just like the baby fuzzy he had been a few days ago.
“I’m sure someone noticed that explosion,” Hawke said. “Tava, help me get Blaze onto Luna. We have to get him out of sight before the local cops come to investigate what made their ward flare up.”
It took some effort, but they were stronger than top-end weightlifters on Earth, and Luna helped, gently but firmly biting on one of Blaze’s paws to keep him steady on her back. She was slightly smaller than her brother, but carried his weight without complaint.
“Go back to the forest and hide,” he told her. “Tava and I will meet you there later today. Maybe tonight.”
“Yeah, sure, I got you covered.” Hawke produced some eighty pounds of cured meats, tied them together in pairs, and hung them over Luna’s shoulders. “You can snack on those. I have half a cow in storage, and I’ll bring it to you for dinner.”
“And you can always hunt for more,” Tava added.
Luna told him, sounding quite a bit like Gosto and Tava when they teased each other.
“Good. Now, go!”
Luna trotted away, Blaze perched over her. She glanced back one last time before picking up speed and disappearing into the tree line. Really disappearing, as in she was there one moment and turned into something like Predator the next, melding into the woods.
“She learned my Camouflage ability, as well as your so-called ‘ninja’ spells,” Tava said. “Anyone who looks for them will have a hard time of it.”
“Good,” Hawke replied as he waved at the head of the caravan to keep moving. “Meanwhile, we need to get our stories straight for when the authorities show up.”
Getting arrested or having to fight the city guard would not be a good way to start their visit.
Ten
When the cavalry arrived, it did so from the air.
“Do you see that?” Grognard said.
The Battle Mage-Stalwart and Hawke were leading the wagon train on foot, with Digger off to one side. They had slowed down after a mad dash to put some distance between them and the place where Blaze had crashed into the ward. The plan was to pretend that whatever had happened had taken place behind the caravan. The beasts of burden were tired and lathered after the run, but they were recovering after resuming normal snail pace.
Hawke followed Grognard’s pointing hand and saw several shapes up in the air, headed their way. His Perception allowed him to make out details from a far greater distance than a normal human would: he spotted a man riding a giant bird, pulling a balloon with a basket filled by three or four people, flanked by a man in a hooded cape riding a…
“That’s a gosh-darned flying carpet,” Grognard said.
“Yep. A big bird dragging a hot-air balloon, and some dude on a flying carpet.”
“Air cavalry,” the former soldier commented. “Loaded for dragon, I bet.”
“Yeah, the guys in the balloon probably carry a lot of firepower, and the carpet flier must be a high-caliber wizard. Let’s all be polite!” Hawke finished in a louder voice.
He called Korgam over, since the Dwarf had lived in Akila for most of his life and knew his way around. He would be the caravan’s official spokesman. Hawke had used his Twilight Templar ability to mask his identity, appearing as a fourteenth level Paladin of Light and Monster Trainer. He wasn’t wearing his Death-attuned Thanatos Armor pieces, which really clashed badly with the Paladin of Light motif, and had switched to his old Battle Mage set. It was still good gear, and it didn’t make him stand out quite as much.
The flying figures began to descend, aiming for the road ahead of the caravan. Korgam ordered everyone to slow down and eventually come to a stop as the bird guided the balloon to a patch of land ahead. Metal spikes shot off from the corners of the basket, securing it to the ground, and four men in the red armor of the Akila City Watch got off, using a rope ladder to reach the ground. The bird rider and the wizard in the flying carpet stayed back as the guardsmen approached the caravan. Hawke figured that if things turned violent, the two fliers would act as mobile artillery pieces. There was a shimmer around the hooded man sitting on the floating carpet; it indicated the presence of at least one and more likely several magical shields.
Korgam left the wagon and stood in the middle of the road as the guards approached. Four of them, all Adventurers: three level 13 Warrior-Stalwarts led by a level 15 Battle Mage-Warrior officer. They were in a party and their effective level had been raised by two, making them a fairly formidable group. An elite unit, which made sense, since they were responding to a possible dragon attack. The wizard and the bird rider were too far away to see their class and level, but they probably were even higher.
“Welcome to Akila,” the leader – Centurion Antono Jules – said. “Have you seen or heard anything unusual while on the road?”
“There was some sort of light show a ways back,” Korgam replied. “Bothered us some, so we picked up the pace for a while,” he went on, pointing at the sweaty and clearly exhausted horses. “Nothing came of it, thank the gods.”
“I see. A dragon or high drakeling triggered the city ward. That is why we are here.”
“Dragon? I didn’t know the city had raised wards against their like.”
“We started to do so last month. Dragons are rising in the north. Or so we hear. The rumors are too numerous to ignore. The Prefect was not happy at the expense, but deemed it necessary.”
Korgam nodded. “Ye can’t be too careful, can ye?”
“No, you can’t. You’re a Stern, I see,” Antono said, noting the Dwarf’s nameplate; the gaming rules imposed on the Realms made introductions unnecessary among Adventurers and Arcane Professionals. “Where did you come from?”
“The town of Orom, ‘bout a week’s ride to the south.”
“Never heard of it.”
“’tis a nice enough place, though I miss Dwarven Hills something fierce.”
“You have some impressive guards,” Antono added, noting the levels and gear of the rest of the party.
“There’s been some trouble down south, and trouble breeds Adventurers.”
“Yes, that is true. Well, we will be on our way. Dragon or not, something powerful struck the city’s wards, and more trouble is the last thing Akila needs.”
“Is there trouble in the city? When I left, two, three months ago, things were peaceful enough.”
“No time to go into details, but beware. The Council of the Wise is in shambles; the Blue Tower has fallen, burned to the ground, and most of its leaders are dead. Killed by the Green Coven, or so it is said. Other factions are stirring and fighting each other, and that damnable guild of outsiders and Eternals is at the center of i
t. And people are going missing in the poorer quarters of the city, and even some City Watchmen.”
“May the gods protect us, and ye as well! We will be careful. Ye have my thanks, Centurion.”
“You’d best head straight for Dwarven Hills. They’ve locked their gates to outsiders, and are only allowing those who have someone of worth to vouch for them.”
“I thank ye again, Centurion. Clan Stern will remember this.”
The guard officer nodded. Being owed a favor from an influential Dwarven family was something that even a high-level guardsman could appreciate. The cops returned to their balloon and the bizarre patrol took flight once again headed in the direction of the ward breach. Hawke doubted they would find the Drakofoxes, but he was worried.
“I wonder how they learned how to make balloons,” Hawke said, watching them go.
“Hot air is lighter than cold,” Korgam said as he headed back to his wagon. “Many spells can heat the air inside a container, and if properly sealed – several types of silk are quite airtight – you can lift some cargo. The same spells can cool down individual cells inside the balloon to change its lifting capacity. The Roc – that big bird ye saw – provides propulsion, though an Elemental might do a better job of it. Expensive, though. The city can only afford the one, part of the Special Cohort of the Watch. A fancy name for a couple dozen Adventurers, but they are called when a major crisis is at hand. Like yer little stunt back at the ward.”
“Got it.”
Hawke had discovered that the locals might appear to be a medieval society, but they weren’t ignorant or primitive. They knew about germs, hydraulics, and, as he had just found out, basic physics and chemistry, enough to let them build balloons. Probably blimps, too. He bet the Nerf Herders’ attempts to ‘modernize’ Akila had been met with scorn.
On the other hand, the news about the Council of the Wise bothered Hawke. According to Girl’s report, the wizard society had been the Herders’ most dangerous enemy, and now their tower had burned down and their leaders had been murdered. He didn’t believe in coincidences: Kaiser and his bully boys had been busy. Hawke still thought that their plan to take over the city was doomed to failure, but they could do a lot of damage along the way. He had to stop them.
Guilds at War: The LitRPG Saga Continues Page 7