Dave twirled the stone around in his hands, sitting back in his chair. He scrolled through messages, replying to them, and then moved on to his research.
“I never thought that smithing would make me look into such strange things.” Dave snorted as he got to a forum post about people using soul gems for a whole bunch of different things, from clothes to alchemy. Smithing took time and patience. It seemed that few had gone beyond even ebony. Few had varied away from the forms that Emerilia automatically gave a person. So, there was little help there.
Using the disruptor sounded pretty easy. The problem was managing your soul power. As time went on, then the soul power would increase in amount and how long it could regenerate.
Power that came from the soul was greatly condensed and powerful. It was ten times more powerful than normal Mana, and at least that much more controllable. Having his consciousness imprinted onto the very energy that made up his soul power meant that even his faint ideas would be easily communicated into a spell or whatever he was using his soul power for.
Smiths were never taught to use their soul power, but creation summoners did it a ton.
Dave looked through different parts of the forums, sending messages to Malsour, Anna, and Suzy to ask about different aspects of using one’s soul to imbue an item with power.
Party Chat
Anna > The first thing you need to find is your soul power. Once you have that, then you can proceed to try to move it around.
Suzy > Why the heck do you even want to know?
Dave > Just looking into something. Saying you don’t want me to keep on making more cores?
Suzy > No! I was wondering if you might be able to make me one from metal.
Dave > What kind of metal?
Suzy > I don’t know.
Malsour > Well, I think I know what our next lesson will be about.
Suzy > Fuck. More books.
Dave laughed in the workshop; a few walking past sent interested glances into the room, where Dave looked to be playing with a piece of glass in his hands.
Party Chat
Dave > How do I find my soul power? I feel like I should be in the 1970s, with an afro and bellbottom pants.
Suzy > No one else is going to get that, genius.
Dave > You did.
Suzy > Metal core—make it!
Anna > It is connected to your Mana, siphoning off a very small but constant amount to keep it sustained.
Dave > What would happen if I don’t have Mana for days?
Anna > Nothing. Your soul also uses the natural energy of your body and your environment.
Dave > All right, thanks. Going to do some soul searching!
Suzy > *Double facepalm*
Dave snorted and pushed the interface away. It would be a distraction for what he needed to do next.
Dave searched inside himself, looking at his Mana circulating around his body, and then looking at the soul power; it had a constant but minimal drain on his Mana, so that it was like looking for a raindrop in an ocean.
“Man, it would be nice if all of my Mana was more dense and easier to control.” Dave sighed. His eyes widened as he sat up slightly. “No, there’s no way, right? Surely? Right?” Dave’s mind whirled.
“I’ve been thinking of Mana like electricity, but what if I thought about it as food, or gasoline, or wood? That would make more sense, because how else would my soul have that much energy? Simply having a better storage is one way, but if it was, then the information would be lost. My consciousness would be fluid. Instead, it’s solid. The fact that my Willpower has a numerical system makes me think that it might be packets of power. Maybe it isn’t but my soul power shows that somehow you can condense Mana into the refined form of soul energy.”
I’ve used soul energy before, and it just converted right into Mana. I must have been using soul energy to change those spells at Boran-al. I wasn’t calling a spell, but rather willing my Mana to change the formula of the spell.
“I need to work on making the storage I have of my soul energy larger. Going to need to tamper with my soul gem and see if there is a way to convert Mana. Could store a lot more power in there—maybe ten times more? Will increasing the amount of soul energy I store increase my Willpower?”
Dave sat there, talking and thinking to himself for some time, as a plan formed in his mind.
“Well, I’ve got nothing but time on my side.” Dave smiled to himself. Eternity was a long time, or even the few centuries that would go on in Emerilia before the Jukal Empire cleared out the Players and reset the world, ready for the next batch of Players they had grown.
***
Suzy’s eyes went wide as her rock golems mowed through the underground henir.
Henir looked like a cross between an armadillo and a mole. They were blind as shit but they used their earth sense to traverse the area. They had small and loud mouths; they could form drills of earth in front of them to cut through rock. They had sharp teeth and claws and hard armor plates that covered their bodies.
Her rock golems acted as her shields while her metal creatures threw metal spears into the midst of the creatures.
“Metal, get into their middle!” she called out, reading the battle.
Her metal creatures, a part of her will turned animate, stuck out their arms and reached into the middle of the battlefield. Instead of letting go of their metal, they seemed to flow into the spear. Their extended arms acted as a focal point as they transferred their bodies, moving from the edge of battle into the middle.
The henir screeched, their voices imbued with Earth magic and making the cave they were in shudder. Even as the metal creations were starting to fight in their midst, the creatures charged forward against the golems. Their claws were small but sharp, taking chunks out of the Human-sized golems.
“Earth, trip them up!” Suzy said, playing one of her hidden tricks: simple squid creatures that cost one Willpower to make. Two stretched out of the ground, their tentacles latching onto the henir with spikes.
Need to work on arming them with some kind of poison.
The henir, even at their low level, were able to tear through the Earth-formed tentacles after a few hits. They weren’t really harming the henir, but they slowed their progress, allowing the golems to smash the henir’s sides and turn their innards to pulp with heavy smashes.
Suzy looked back to find Anna and Malsour watching and talking to each other. Deia and Induca were stretched out, with a fire going in between them, talking as if they were on a camping trip and Suzy wasn’t fighting a horde of henir by herself.
She made an annoyed noise and looked back at the fight. “Metal spin!” Suzy pushed Mana into her creations. She checked her character sheet quickly.
Character Sheet
Name:
Suzy Markell
Gender:
Female
Level:
1
Class:
-
Race:
High Elf
Alignment:
Chaotic Neutral
Unspent points-60
Health:
1,100
Regen:
0.24/s
Mana:
430
Regen:
3.35/s
Stamina:
270
Regen:
1.55/s
Vitality:
11
Endurance:
12
Intelligence:
43
Willpower:
67
Strength:
27
Agility:
31
Her Mana reserve had increased to over four hundred. She’d prepared her creations beforehand, powering them with soul gems that Dave had given her. It had meant she had a greater Mana pool to pull from for this fight.
She wasn’t allowed to use the vault-classed soul gem that held a good chunk of the party’s unused Mana for the last few months.
Best to know how to fight with the bare minimum than all of the extras. She watched as her Mana started to plummet.
Her metal creatures stood about four feet tall. With her command, they flattened themselves to about two-foot-tall, their metal turning into whirling blades as they spun. The Mana it took to make them transform and be able to move that fast was no small thing.
Henir watched as metal blades cut them apart from within their center. They tried to fight the metal creatures but they spun too fast for the henir to get close.
“Golems, forward,” Suzy commanded. They marched forward, hammering henir or tossing them into the metal blenders.
Suzy had to stop the metal creatures that were doing the least damage. She didn’t want to waste the power from the soul gems as they were just simple ones, not the rechargeable kind. Another hindrance Anna had added to her training.
“Solidify. Use sword arm.” Suzy felt lightheaded for the Willpower she was using. The longer she used a large amount of her Willpower, the more confused she could get. With just fifty percent of her Willpower being used, she was slower to react and think of complex ideas. It was as if her mind had been starved of oxygen.
She pulled her consciousness from her unused Earth tentacles. Her mind became sharper as she surveyed the battle.
The metal creatures pulled back into their original shapes, the metal slowing their spins.
Suzy could see statuses over all of them, color-coded to state their condition:
Metal Summoned Creature
Durability: 89/125
Charge: 471/1000
Metal Summoned Creature
Durability: 41/125
Charge: 817/1000
Metal Summoned Creature
Durability: 84/125
Charge: 587/1000
Metal Summoned Creature
Durability: 17/125
Charge: 119/1000
Metal Summoned Creature
Durability: 39/125
Charge: 315/1000
There were a good number of the golems in the yellows, with a few red. Three of the five metal creations were yellow, with one green and one red.
If the creatures’ charge or Health was low, then it would change status. On the right side of Suzy’s screen, she had her creatures color-coded from green down to red, knowing which of her forces could be used easily and those that would have to be changed out or sacrificed to keep other units alive.
One of the larger henir let out a screech as the others seemed to pause in their battle before trying to flee.
“Oh no, you don’t,” Suzy muttered. “Metal, transfer in front of the henir. Spinning blades—make a line and cut them down.”
The metal creatures that were fighting the henir with their arms turned into blades now shot out a length of metal, reforming before the retreating henir. They formed a line across the cave, cutting and slashing the henir that got close before they turned into spinning cyclones once again.
“Golems, push them into the metals.” Suzy lent her strength to the metal creatures so their soul gems wouldn’t be drained too quickly.
The six golems advanced, four of their comrades already down over the course of the fight. They harried the henir, who turned toward the walls when they realized they were getting hit from both sides. Earthen drills made from green Mana formed in front of them as they started to escape into the walls.
Shit, hopefully I’ve scared them away enough that they won’t think about doubling back. Suzy watched as the last henir was kicked by a golem into a metal creature’s spinning blades. Suzy didn’t have to say anything as the metals stopped spinning and the golems stopped moving, conserving their power while still holding their form. Suzy rubbed her forehead, drained from powering the metal creatures.
A henir jumped out from the ceiling, aiming right for Suzy, and let out a high-pitched squeal imbued with Earth Mana to push her to the ground.
She grunted, falling to her knee, seeing her oncoming death before a firebolt tore it apart.
“T-Thanks,” Suzy said. The pressure released, her heart racing from the near-death experience.
“I trained you to use your sword better than that. Next time I won’t save your ass,” Deia said with a hard look.
“Yes, Deia,” Susy said, angry with herself for letting her guard down. I didn’t even have my sword out. She mentally chastised herself, thinking that she would fight everything at arm’s reach.
“Remember, you might be a mage, but when someone gets within blade distance, you need to be able to defend yourself. Mages are glass cannons; once your Mana is out or your enemy is close by you, you need to know how to defend yourself and be ready for that,” Deia said.
“Yes, sorry. It won’t happen again.” Suzy’s hand was on the hilt of her sword as she looked down in shame.
“Good, because Anna and I are going to make sure you remember that when we get back to the western gate.”
Suzy winced, but she knew that Deia was doing it for her own good. Her stats were higher than she had thought possible in just a few short months. The party might train like monsters but it showed in not only their stats but the ways that they held themselves. Their harsh words would help to make Suzy stronger and for that she was grateful.
“Otherwise, that was very well done.” Malsour looked to Suzy.
“Thank you. The Earth tentacles weren’t much help but I think with some poisons for their thorns, I might be able to make them a lot more effective.”
“Good. Not only taking a victory but learning from it is how you will grow. Never think that your strategy is perfect. That said, you did make good use of the terrain and pulled the henir right into a trap. Studying and knowing your enemy led to a decisive victory,” Anna said in approval.
Suzy smiled, still irked about her screw-up at the end and a few other things she thought that she could improve on.
“With that, I think that we should move on and continue to clear this place up. Should be some higher-level creatures farther in and some kind of cavern big enough for us to try out some bigger techniques.” Deia smiled.
“Well, what are we waiting for?” Induca jumped up and stretched.
I might be surrounded by monsters, but one day I’ll stand shoulder to shoulder with them. For now, I can just enjoy the show. Suzy smiled, excited to see what their new techniques would do. She had yet to see them in a full-on battle but she knew it would be something she didn’t want to miss.
Chapter 27: Testing
They had left the henir burrows and the cavern that it was attached to a few weeks ago, moving to bigger and stronger areas where different creatures were resting, from rock snakes to goblins and wild wolves.
They had each taken a cave and worked their way through it, taking frequent breaks to critique one another and talk of improvement.
Even though their overall levels weren’t that high after using Dave’s strategy and working on their stats rather than the levels to get stat points every level, their stats were enough to turn it into a difficult fight against level 50s but not impossible. Well, for everyone except Anna, who could breeze through them easily as she had been using Dave’s method for hundreds of years. Her father had limited her stats when she had come back but she was still really damned powerful.
It was now Deia’s turn as they entered a cave system that should have level 60 to 80 residents.
Suzy sent out her different groups, using her metal creatures as scouts to check out the area. As they found new targets, a red silhouette would appear through the rock, showing the position of the various creatures. Most of them faded as their positions were only updated if Suzy’s creatures remained in their vicinity.
A few dozen showed up before the metal scouts entered a larger room, moving around the edges. The interface’s map showed the different rooms’ layouts, which would be saved to their maps.
A large creature was revealed, creating a red cloud. Before the silhouette could be completed, it started moving.
“Ah shit, it saw my scouts,” Suzy said. The map stopped expanding as the creature destroyed the different metal creations.
“Well, looks like this one will be interesting,” Malsour said.
“One can only hope.” Deia laughed and pulled her compound bow down. She needed a new one. With her strength and spell-imbued arrows, she was close to ripping the bow apart at just half her power. She moved the black helmet on her head, which looked to have two crystals on its front, like eyes.
This was linked to Suzy, who could look through the gems to tell the others what she saw. Most had gone on ahead, the others too slow or trying to move in stealth that Suzy had come up with the idea from something she called a camera.
Deia moved into the cave system. The mid-morning light faded behind her as the deep gloom of the cave system awaited her. She closed her eyes, listening for anything that might be near, and let her eyes adjust to the newfound darkness. She opened her eyes, finding the cave system’s darkness easy to see through. She maintained a hold on her strung arrow, moving forward quickly, her shoes not making a sound.
You did make this armor well, my little smith. A smile formed on her face as she thought of her armor like one of Dave’s hugs, his large arms protecting her from the world even though he wasn’t there.
It didn’t make a noise as she moved through the area.
Rock Troll
Level 54
Deia breathed deeply and pulled back on her bow. She released, just using her strength without any special skills. The arrow flew true, catching the troll in the throat before it knew what was going on. Deia grabbed another arrow, moving into the area the troll had been living in.
Benvari Mountains (Emerilia Book 2) Page 24