So, if I needed shadows to create darkness magic, and dying animals to create death magic; and if all magic worked the same way; it meant I needed a physical representation to anchor the invisible mana inside me to this world.
Only then would I use the anchored – and transformed – mana to create a morb. It was a two-step procedure, even if it didn't look like that because the anchoring part was so easy and fast. The willing into a morb, on the other hand, could be fast or slow depending on the element: darkness was faster, death was slower.
What was she anchoring her mana to? Her body heat?
I tried, and it didn't work.
An emotion? Anger, passion, love?
I also tried that, and it didn't work.
What, then?
A god?
I had no idea who the fire god was, and I didn't need a god for any of the magic I could do, so it didn't make sense fire magic would.
Still frustrated, I punched the wall. Pain flooded yet again to my hand – I had used the ungloved one. Unfortunately, unlike in the cartoons, my punch didn't make a crater in the metal wall.
Ha, that would be nice. A fire punch to destroy the wall.
Come on, mana. Get in there. Let us do something cool.
And it got. I didn't see fire, but suddenly I felt my knuckles burning from a sourceless heat.
Holy shit! I thought as I shook my hand. When I saw I had lost a few mana points, I smiled and tried again, but this time as soon as the burning started, I willed it to a morb.
Right there, a little above my head and in front of my eyes, fire appeared out of nowhere and became a fire sphere.
Pain! Pain was the thing I had to anchor the mana to!
And it was in front of me the whole time: the red skeletons of the prison were the torturers and they used fire magic!
Title received: Hedge Wizard
Untrained, Hedge Wizards are self-taught mages who use incomplete or false understanding of magic to create real morbs.
Although creating a morb is not enough for using spells, tapping into the realm of magic without training and becoming a Hedge Wizard will automatically unlock the skill tree related to the element you first discovered.
Because you already received another mage related title, the secondary bonuses for receiving the Hedge Wizard title will be halved.
» Unlocked: The Flames skill-tree
» +2 intelligence
MP: 485 (+115)
» +2 Energizer
Energizer increased to 3 (+2)
» Can move very slowly while creating spheres
» Max distance: 50 centimeters
New skill unlocked in The Flames skill-tree:
Fire of Revelation (level 3)
Fire is the source of light that allows life itself to exist. Its power is ultimately unlimited and now you can create your own candle-sized flame, which will float around you at your will.
» Active Spell
» Cost: 15 MP
» Amassing time: Instant
» Element: Fire
» Damage: 3 + 12 [Intelligence] = 15
» Range: 3 meters
» Duration: 30 minutes
As I read the spell information, I felt as if my face would split, so large was my smile.
That was exactly what I needed! Not a useless fireball, but a reusable flame that I could move at my will. I already knew what the spell would be from real life sources, but reading it after all the hard work was something else.
And because of Renno's ring it was even better.
The cook had been there for a reason, as a clue. Just like the innkeeper had said, not every cook had the luxury of learning magic just for cooking.
Thinking about the cook... I climbed the stairs up and opened the door. "Nice acting, liar." I said to her.
She looked my way, saw the fire morb and her face would have been kinder if I had pissed on her food. Her eyes were full of anger and her lips became a thin and white line. "Out." She said low and slowly. My smile widened even further, if that's possible, and I winked and blew a kiss to her before climbing back down.
The physical was necessary to do magic. She hadn't thrown me away because she was worried about dying, but because she didn't want me to learn the secrets of fire magic. When I put my hand in the fire I had become closer and she got desperate.
Thinking that way, it was damn easy to become a Hedge Wizard. All one had to do was be a little bit crazy and put one's hand into fire. Nothing much.
I let myself take a second look at the fire morb. It was like a raging flame which entirely occupied what looked like an invisible ball, never leaving its boundaries, just like with the death and darkness morbs.
No heat came out of it, only light. When I touched it, though, I found nothing between myself and the fire and it poured, covering my arm before disappearing.
15 fire damage dealt to yourself
HP: 220 / 235
Well, time to burn myself some webs.
I created a new fire morb and as soon as I willed it into a flame, just like the spell description, the morb shrunk and became a single blaze the size of my middle finger.
Just like the spell said, I could move it at will within the three-meter radius. I touched the web on the secret passage floor with it and the web 'burned' just like it did in real life: it didn't actually catch fire, but shriveled away when the flame touched it.
Moving the undying flame one side to the other on the floor and walls – the space was tight enough that I might need to touch the walls when fighting – I removed the spider webs. Small chunks of burnt, heated webs remained on the floor, refusing to properly burn away into ashes.
Which was good in its own way, as I guessed the flame would die if I actually set something on fire with it. Using its heat without actually destroying something directly was kind of a loophole, but an expected one when dealing with fire, otherwise the cook would not be able to... Well, cook.
More good news was that I could create another death morb as I maintained the fire spell. I now had three active death morbs.
It took some time, but I eventually got to the end of the corridor and a green goo missed me by very little. A spider had seen the light and had attacked; the shrieks of a hundred spiders was deafening, loud enough to make my body vibrate. I ran back and stopped a few meters from the basement.
There, I made my stand.
Turning back, I felt fear. I could see legs moving, so many legs it would put my blood pumping if my heart could beat. The multiple eyes in each one's head reflected the light of the fire as they came from the darkness.
That was a vision from a nightmare.
They had to walk on the walls, the width of their legs was too great for the narrow floor of the passage. They came one at a time as expected. The first one was the young type – a brown spider – and I gripped my sword. I would save my death spheres for a special occasion.
It was too easy. Its attacks dealt no damage to me, thanks to my new leather jerkin. Blunt damage could ignore some of an armor's defense, but not all, and my new clothes were much better than the plain shirt I had been wearing on my last spider fight. I pierced its eyes with my brand new sword.
Critical hit for 2.0x damage!
128 piercing damage dealt to Young Giant Spider
HP: 0 / 114 <?>
Holy cow, that was amazing! A one hit kill for over a hundred points of damage!
After it died, another came. I just stood in the same place and let it attack me before putting my sword through its head killing it too.
They took their dead out of the way and I just kept killing. The thirty gold coins spent on the equipment had been well worth it.
Twenty more young spiders later, I began to worry. My stamina was draining fast and I had less than half left. As I killed the twenty first one, I barely dodged a green ball of goo that flew my way.
The spitter didn't come near, it just stood some ten meters down the corridor and spat again. Once more I do
dged and tried to get closer. Five spits later I finally got to it and attacked. One, two times. It died. A second one spit and this time I was tired and couldn't dodge, but I did block the goo using my shield.
19 shock damage received
HP: 193 / 235
With twenty-five stamina left, I might not be able to dodge incoming attacks and physically attack the spider. I used my three death spheres- No, not spheres, morbs. It died.
Another young spider followed and I could still see more legs behind it. Since it was ten meters away, I used the opportunity to create a new death morb. I felt an attack before the three seconds had passed by – that spider moved fast- but nothing happened to my morb creation.
Nice. So, as long as I didn't receive damage, I wouldn't be interrupted, just like the Energizer trait had said. Having mana to spare and lacking in stamina, I killed the next three young spiders and one spitter – whose attack I blocked again – with magic.
And then the attack ended. Just in case, I created three extra death morbs and stood alert. But that was it. I had survived the first wave.
I went back to the basement and sat on the floor.
Nothing like a good rest between massacres.
Jack Thorn
Unbound Deathlord
Legendary Spotter, Hedge Wizard, Dark Archmage
Level 9
Hit Points:182 / 235
Mana Points:265 / 485
Stamina:20 / 200
Attributes:
Strength:7
Agility:7
Dexterity:5
Constitution:7
Intelligence:12
Perception:5 + 10 [Items]
Willpower:9
Charisma:5
Traits:
Adept Mage:11 + 10 [Items]
Adept Controller:11
Energizer:3
Diviner:2
Gold Digger:2
Scavenger:2
Antimage:1
Crafter:1
Healer:1
Meditator:1
Mind Seer:1
Negotiator:1
Nitpicker:1
Shadow:1
11. Scrambled Eggs
"Never deal with desperate people. They're most likely to do something stupid that may hurt both of you."
- Father
It turned out killing helps build character.
Trait received: Athlete
After almost exhausting your body multiple times, you have learned how move it more efficiently.
» -1% stamina usage by non-skill actions
Non-skill actions were things such as running, attacking, defending and dodging that the game didn't have explicit skill ranks to define.
As much as it was a nice trait to have, what I would find really useful was a warrior or fighter trait. I had been using physical attacks much more than magic, after all.
Well, whatever; I was recovered and it was time to lure some more monsters to the slaughterhouse.
Yet again multiple spiders followed me through the corridor and yet again I killed them all, going back to rest after it was over. I repeated the process five more times and received an extra point to dexterity thanks to all the critical hits I was applying.
Fewer and fewer spiders came to fight each time. On the ninth time no spider took the fresh bodies out of the corridor.
I walked to the end of the corridor and found no young or spitter spiders in the big chamber. The corpses of the dead spiders were scattered all around the cave, one of them right at the entrance. I used it as cover.
The ten big gray ones were still there. Their legs were shorter, but their bodies larger and protected by an impressive carapace. They formed two protective walls around the queen. Elite guards, then?
If they wouldn't attack, I wouldn't complain. From the chamber entrance I sent three deathballs at one of them. They flew true and were about to hit when three of the spiders curved their... Asses under themselves and shot. Silk came out of it and hit my spells. The smoke of the death morbs released into the air and dissipated harmlessly.
Interesting. A shame to them that I was an adept controller. Ten seconds later, I attacked again. This time, as their asses made the muscle movement of releasing silk, I changed the morbs paths. All three of them of them hit one of the spiders and it died, surprisingly silent.
The Queen did nothing, just stood there, looking my direction with an unhappy – and ugly! – face.
One of the other elites moved the dead body a little to the side and took the dead one's place in the defensive line. I created more death morbs and attacked again. Another of the spiders died and they repeated the process. So did I.
I frowned. This was too easy. Well, I was not one to look a gift horse in the mouth. Six more dead spiders later, I had ten MP remaining. I sat right there and rested. No spider attacked. After half an hour, fully rested and with three death morbs floating around my head, I killed the second to last spider. Then took a deep breath and killed the last one.
Tensing, I awaited a counter-attack while creating yet more death morbs.
Nothing happened.
Was it going to be this easy? Really? I sent a death morb flying at the queen.
It flew true, hitting her on the multi eyed face.
You healed Giant Spider Queen for 72 HP
She was an undead. I sent a dark morb next.
No damage dealt to Giant Spider Queen
She was also immune to darkness damage and too far for my little flame to reach her even if I wanted to try killing her with it.
So I rested yet again, created a flame to clear the webs on the floor with, and made sure I had all three death morbs ready. I tried to push the spider body in front of me aside, but it was too well stuck to the floor. Instead, I climbed on it.
That's when the queen smiled and I froze. She moved one of her legs and I raised my shield, but she just put it on the floor again and I heard movement behind me. Looking back, I saw a new wall sliding quickly upwards from the ground, blocking the exit of the chamber.
"You dared kill my children," her voice was loud and seemed to come from a hundred different female mouths. "Now you will pay with your own death."
She extended both her arms in my direction, the palms of her hands pointed up. She closed her left hand and pointed at me.
From hidden holes on the web covered walls and ceilings, hundreds of spiders emerged, young, spitters and elites. But they moved unnaturally, too robotic, and looked strange, as if... As if they were decomposing; some parts of them were missing. The smell of decay hit me a little later.
Undead, all of them.
Shit. I can't even try to defend myself with death magic. I looked back at the Queen. What wouldn't I give for a way to take that smile off her ugly face.
There was no way I would be able to get to her before the spiders got to me, though, not with all the webs on the floor. Even though I could take a lot of spiders one on one, I couldn't take hundreds of them without resting and I definitely couldn't take more than one spitter at a time; it was impossible for me to block two acid attacks at once.
10 blunt damage received from Unknown Enemy
HP: 225 / 235
I felt the hit on the back on my head and lost my balance. If I hit the floor I would stick on the web and die. On the spur of the moment I put all my leg strength into jumping to a nearby spider body.
I awkwardly succeeded and I looked at the source of the attack: zombie spiders had come from the walls behind, too. At least the damn thing had showed me the way ahead: the dead spiders corpses – the recently killed ones, not the ones trying to kill me – were all around the floor. Quickly deciding on a path to the Queen, I jumped.
Falling was not an option and although I had to use all the power of my legs to get to the next spider, it wasn't that difficult. Each jump consumed two stamina. I had already jumped over twenty bodies when I noticed that the Queen's smile had not died.
After about twenty jumps, the zombie spide
rs were halfway through to getting to me and I was three jumps from the Queen. All the while she had just looked at me and her smile gave me the creeps.
When I jumped again, a morb appeared over her head. A death one. On the next jump, and a second morb appeared, this one a light gray giving off a pulsating glow. Life, I guessed from what I had seen in the mind's eye. Before I could even jump again, she pointed her hand at the elite spider right in front of her, one of the steps I had to use to get closer.
I didn't lose time and jumped ahead anyway; whatever would happen, I doubted staying still would help. Her morbs joined, flew to the elite, and it immediately began to move. I landed on it and the Queen's smile disappeared.
Had she expected me to just wait while she did whatever she wanted? Typical woman.
The elite was getting to its feet. I didn't lose time allowing it to fully rise from the dead; holding my sword with both hands, the grip backwards, I jumped at the queen.
She was more than two times my height, but much of it was because of the big black scaled legs; her humanoid form was a proper human size. I expected my sword to sink in the middle of her breasts so I could get a hold, but it didn't. The sword did pierce her, but only the tip, and I found myself falling. She screamed in pain, again like it came from a hundred voices, but I was too busy to celebrate.
I did my best to grab something, anything, even letting my sword fall for that. My right hand slid by one of the Queen's thick legs, but it didn't matter. I fell, my back to the floor. Right into a web.
I was going to die.
But I'd be damned if I would die without a fight after having killed Renno. I used my flame and a lot of raw power to pull myself from the web on the floor and to unstick the sword. Just as I did, I felt something hit my shield.
Unbound Deathlord: Challenge Page 19