by Aleron Kong
(Closed)
25
+3% to magical strength
*Must specify spell school upon acquisition. May only choose spell school used during battle leading a War Party.
Magical Strength III (Life)
(Closed)
100
+9% to Life magical strength
*Must specify spell school upon acquisition. May only choose spell school used during battle leading a War Party.
Magical Defense I
(Closed)
25
+2% to magical defense
*Must specify spell school upon acquisition. May only choose spell school used during battle leading a War Party.
Skilled Positions
(Independent)
400 to unlock each
Available Positions:
Tank III: LOCKED
Scout III: LOCKED
Healer III: LOCKED
Lead by Example II
(Personal)
300
LOCKED
Movement Speed I
(Open)
100
+10% Movement Speed
*Must specify terrain type upon acquisition. May only choose terrain type that the War party has traveled on.
Movement Speed III (Forest)
(Open)
400
+30% Movement Speed in Forests
Favored Enemy I
(Open)
250
When fighting a favored enemy:
+10% Melee and Ranged Attack and Defense
+6% Magical Strength (all Basic Elements)
+4% Magical Defense (all Basic Elements)
*Must specify enemy upon badge acquisition. May only choose enemies which have been fought while leading a War Party. Only one favored enemy per War Party formation.
Favored Enemy II (Goblin)
(Open)
500
When fighting goblins:
+20% Melee and Ranged Attack and Defense
+12% Magical Strength (all Basic Elements)
+8% Magical Defense (all Basic Elements)
*Only one favored enemy per War Party formation.
Trainer I
(Closed)
250
+5% experience earned for War Party members
Power Level II
(Closed)
250
20% of the experience earned by the entire war party can be channeled to a specific member. The third rank of this badge allows the recipient to be three times beyond the Sphere of Influence and still receive the experience.
*Experience recipient must be within Sphere of Influence
Sphere of Influence II
(Personal)
500
Increase range of Sphere of Influence by 200%
Total War Points Remaining: 1051.
The thousand and fifty-one War Points opened up a good number of options for him. The first thing on his mind was that Yoshi had told him that he was a fool for not having invested in defense or attack. With the points he had to spend now, he could buy up to the fifth rank in melee or ranged badges. That would translate to +25% attack or defense for himself and for anyone in his war party. Nothing to sneeze at. It could keep a sword blade from penetrating a breastplate, or help his people claim an enemy’s life.
Some of his other badges were still locked until he reached his next rank in War Leader, so those were out. Favored Enemy II drew his eye again though. The next rank was expensive at five hundred points, but the bonuses really stacked up. The fact that they would apply to anyone within his Sphere of Influence, and not just to the eleven that he could include in his own war party, was also a big selling point. He thought about it for another few seconds before shaking his head though. Richter had more enemies than just goblins. He decided to hold off on purchasing another rank.
Trainer and Power Level were always good, but he decided what he really wanted was greater mobility. His domain was about three hundred square miles. History had always shown that empires that could travel quickly were able to achieve great things. It was an open badge, so it could help him immediately, unlike closed badges where he’d have to wait a full day for the purchase to be useful. He made his decision.
Congratulations! You have purchased the War Badge: Movement Speed III. The movement speed of any friendlies within your Sphere of Influence is increased by 30%.
Total War Points Remaining: 651
The warband’s speed picked up immediately. Richter’s steps through the underbrush felt more sure, and the thickets they had to run through suddenly seemed less dense. He would have bought the next rank as well if possible, but he was almost a hundred points shy. It was tempting to spend the rest of the points now, but he decided to hold off. There was always time to buy more later.
At the speed they were moving at, the war party had to pause several more times. Stamina depletion was a real danger. Richter’s stats weren’t built for prolonged battles like a Professed Warrior, but his high level still meant his Endurance was higher than almost any of the village guards. He railed internally at the delay, but his people would be slaughtered if a monster attacked while they were exhausted. Richter just focused on the task at hand.
As the hours passed, they moved deeper into the forest. Richter had almost started to think that they would reach the army unmolested when a horrible clacking split the silence of the mists. Caulder heard the noise at the same time and barked out a command, “Form up! Fort formation! Shields front! I said form up! Move faster! Banished gods, I’ll find you another job that involves touching shit with your hands! Move your asses!”
The training the guards had received showed. They were no polished special ops team, but with a minimal amount of shoving and bungling, they got into formation. Richter gritted his teeth. Even though they were performing well, it didn’t change the fact that his men were equipped for speed, not battle. Few of them had shields, and the only long weapons they had were eight simple spears. Still, they were ready to fight, and Richter would stand with them.
The sixteen melee guards formed a square, four to a side, with Richter, two bowmen and a biomage on the inside of the formation. Each scanned the forest, their hearts thudding in their chests. Before the last man was set, the chaos seed had an arrow knocked to his bow. A golden glow sprung into existence. Another loud roar split the forest. The sound of breaking branches could clearly be heard coming from the southwest, and it was getting louder.
Richter reached for the spot in his mind that held his mental connection to Alma. She was too far away for him to speak with her, but he could still call upon her power. His Enhanced Imbue Arrow skill did not require his familiar to be close by, just that they be bonded. Blue-white crackles began to dance across the golden aura of his imbued arrow. Black streaks had appeared on the golden aura in the next second. Two seconds after that, the beasts came into view. Richter let out a snarl as he saw what they were facing
There were four of them in all. Each was on four legs and moved like a hunting cat. Their faces were reminiscent of a lion, but their lower jaws protruded like a bulldog’s. Two large tusks extended up for ten inches on either side of their mouths. They were four and a half feet tall at the neck, and their shoulders had hardened bone over them as armor. Two large bone horns extended from their shoulder blades and curved forward to either side of their heads like ramming spikes.
One was larger than the others and Richter identified it as the pack leader. Even as he poured mana into his arrow as quickly as he could, he spared five MP to use Analyze.
Name: Alpha DreemarDisposition: Irritable
An Alpha Dreemar leads its pack. These territorial animals are aggressive, but normally keep to themselves. The hardened bone armor and large tusks speak to its favored attack of ramming opponents and then goring them once they are on the ground. The Alpha can drive the other members of the pack into a rage, greatly increasing their attack and decreasing their response to pain.
&nb
sp; Level: 19
Health: 610Mana: 30Stamina: 740
Strength: 49
Agility: 17
Dexterity: 14
Constitution: 61
Endurance: 74
Intelligence: 3
Wisdom: 2
Charisma: 3
Luck: 10
Richter’s eyes widened as he saw its high Strength and even higher Constitution. The things would knock his men over like bowling pins! Struggling not to lose concentration as more than four hundred and fifty mana was now invested in the gold and black aura around his arrow, he gave a terse command. “Break the formation! Don’t meet the charge!”
He could spare no more words. The aura around the arrow had taken on the barbershop-pole appearance of gold swirled with black, and blue-white psychic energy crackled ominously across the surface. It shook on the string in an imitation of life, eager to fulfill its destiny and kill. Since evolving his Imbue Arrow skill Richter could channel the mana with much greater ease, but the possibility of losing control still existed.
Caulder looked askance at his lord after the order, but only for a moment. Years of service had taught the sergeant the importance of following orders in combat. The look of intense concentration on Richter’s face spoke volumes.
“You heard his lordship! Break into strike teams! Do not let these things charge right at you. Use the trees for cover! If you die, you’re on latrine duty for a month!”
The square immediately split apart. The guards formed into five-man groups and scattered to the right and left. The charging dreemar barely noticed. They apparently took a bright shining light as a challenge. On the one hand, that meant his people could get out of the way, which was wonderful. On the other, all four were barreling right at Richter, which in his opinion fucking sucked!
The hooves of the beasts churned the forest floor as they stayed tight in formation. Several tons of flesh bore down on Richter as he placed all of his faith into the first magical attack he had ever learned. With his newly improved Intelligence, he was able to pour more mana into his shot than he’d ever used before. He silently counted how much, and wished his pool wasn’t draining at such a prodigious rate.
561 mana… 597 mana… What the fuck am I doing? 614 mana…
The dreemar were close enough that he could see their nostrils flaring. The only thing that had kept his ass from already being run over was that the powerful creatures had a low Agility and Dexterity. Still, he decided he’d probably invested enough.
Richter’s teeth were bared in defiance as he finally released. He had maximized the secondary effects of his Enhanced Imbue Arrow skill after only two hundred mana. The extra six hundred were for stopping power. The arrow held so much magic that it had been bucking on the string like a vibrator on PCP. When he released, the alpha dreemar was only twenty yards away. The arrow shot forward like a coiled snake, crossing the space in the blink of an eye. Everyone heard the BOOM of the explosion a moment before they felt the compression wave. Richter was rocked back, but the effect on the dreemar was much more profound.
BEGIN COMBAT LOG
Alpha Dreemar suffers from Mind Fog.
Alpha Dreemar is Stunned.
Alpha Dreemar suffers from Psi Crystallization.
Richter strikes Alpha Dreemar with Enhanced Imbue Arrow for 909 points of varied damage (base Piercing=40, base Magical Force=263): {[(+16 Recurve Bow of the Wood Sprite + 8 Moonstone Arrow – 5 Armor) + 34% for level 17 Archery + 76% for 38 points of Dexterity] + [(614 Mana/5 -5 Armor) + 85% for level 17 Imbue Arrow + 38% familiar level]} x 3 Critical Hit for Pierced Lung. 6-foot radius AoE Damage (not including modifiers): 263.
Richter has slain Alpha Dreemar!
END COMBAT LOG
The arrow pierced its chest, scoring a critical hit. Richter had no idea about all the complex calculations that had gone into the blow, he just knew he’d fucked that thing up! His moonstone arrow, coupled with the already respectable damage range of his Recurve Bow of the Wood Sprite, had serious stopping power, but that was nothing compared to the magical damage of the imbued arrow. The sprites’ racial skill was costly. It drained almost his entire mana pool and so couldn’t be repeated, but for a one-off attack, you couldn’t do better.
The already magnified damage from the arrow crumpled the dreemar alpha’s face inward, leaving a bloody ruin. Its horn broke with a snap that was drowned out by the concussive boom of the imbued arrow. It plowed into the ground face first, its back legs finishing a final push before the body registered that the brain had been destroyed.
The AoE of Richter’s Enhanced Imbue Arrow had been greatly increased since the skill had evolved. It was now determined by the power of his familiar. At Alma’s vaunted level of thirty-eight, the AoE of his shot was now a staggering six feet. It meant that his imbued arrows could wreak serious havoc upon grouped enemies. Despite his powerful attack, the damage he could cause was still subject to physics. The force of the blast was greatly absorbed by the heavy body of the alpha dreemar, and the fact that the animals had been charging in a wedge formation. The magical force pulverized muscle and internal organs. It even cracked the creature’s reinforced bone. Yet even in death the alpha performed one last service for its pack: the bulky meat of its carcass protected them from the worst of the damage of Richter’s strike.
Its physical body did nothing to shield the pack from the secondary effects of Richter’s enhanced attack, however. His connection with Alma let him channel the Deep Magic of Thought into his strikes. These effects were also tied to the level of his familiar and had three tiers: Mind Fog, Stun and Psi Crystallization. The remaining dreemar were all affected by Mind Fog, causing them to become disoriented and unable to focus. One of them was also Stunned and it crashed to the ground. The third effect was what Richter had truly been hoping for, however.
The stunned dreemar and one other now had blue-white crystals floating near their heads. Psi Crystallization summoned the glowing jewels, which made any afflicted creature more susceptible to psychic attack and Thought magic. Without Alma around that did not mean much in the here and now, but the jewels had a secondary effect. If a creature was killed before the gems disappeared, the crystal would capture its mental energy. That could lead to some interesting possibilities down the road.
With the alpha dead and another stunned, that left just two beasts on their feet. They were both bellowing in anger and confusion. Richter did not give them time to recover. Despite the mana headache that was making the edges of his vision blurry, the chaos seed shouldered his bow. He downed two mana potions and rushed forward. Though he hated wasting two potions on this minor battle, he was already running on fumes and night would fall soon. He needed to end this skirmish as soon as possible and get to his people.
Richter ran at the dreemar, needing to get much closer to be within the effective range of the spell he wished to cast. When he did so, the strike teams moved forward to attack the beasts with their liege. Before they could get too close the chaos seed told them to hold back though. Caulder’s nostrils flared, but he and the other guards obeyed.
One of the disoriented dreemar saw Richter approaching and decided that was a good enough reason to attack. Before it could even get going however, he got off his spell. A green glow surrounded the fingers on one of his hands, and a ten-foot-wide circle of grease appeared under the dreemar. Both promptly fell to the ground with a crash and squeals of protest. His headache started causing actual pain as his mana bar dropped again. The mana potion restored one hundred and ninety-seven MP, but it was like taxing a system that had already been in the red. His jaw tightened as he fought against the sensation.
Part of Richter wanted to tame one of the beasts. He had felt strangely naked since sacrificing his shale adder to the Dungeon, but he reminded himself that he still had men and women out in the forest who he needed to escort home. Also, the psi crystals could not be harvested if he left the creatures alive. He watched the monsters slipping and roaring in the g
rease while his mana bar recharged. A few seconds later, it had regenerated enough for his purposes. Silently cursing the pain he was about to feel, he began. Green light suffused his hands as he dual cast Weak Rending Talons.
He'd been right. It didn’t feel good, but it had also been worth it. A swirling storm of claws, nails and talons appeared around the three beasts. The scratch of any one hook didn’t do much damage, but the spell reached every bit of bare flesh. Soon, blood was flying through the air and the confused beasts panicked completely. One gored the stunned dreemar while the other became hysterically agitated. It fell again and again trying to escape the AoE of Richter’s Grease spell.
The chaos seed desperately wanted to light the grease on fire. Weak Flame and Grease was pretty much his favorite spell combo, but he hadn’t forgotten the last time he had used Fire magic indiscriminately in the forest. It had taken several mages summoning rainstorms the better part of an hour to put out the fires. Instead, he cast a final attack spell, Weak Cloying Darkness. A cone of pure darkness shot from his hand and bathed all three dreemar. Casting the spell in the day decreased its power somewhat, but the heavy tree canopy preserved much of the effect. The Dark magic bathed the creatures, causing no damage but decreasing their attack and movement speed by 20%.
Richter called out to his men, “Let my spell do its work, but if they escape the grease, kill them quickly.”
The strike teams moved to surround the ring of grease and talons, but stayed a healthy distance back from the actual AoE. As if Richter’s words were prophetic though, one of the dreemar broke free. It dashed away, squealing and bleeding. It dodged between two of the five-man squads and, thankfully, none of the guards were foolish enough to try and stand in its path. Two did manage to spear it though, as it moved past. With a curse, Richter realized it was one of the dreemar with a psi crystal.
“Kill it!” he called out. Ten of his people rushed after it, and one of the archers managed to sink an arrow into its back leg. The limb went lame and it crashed into the nearby brush, disappearing from sight. Richter could still hear the fading sound of breaking branches, so he knew it remained on its feet. His guards gave chase and soon they were also hidden by the trees.