Regicide

by Dakota Krout

  “Joe!” Poppy’s scream drifted up to him, and he suddenly noticed that the building he was in was falling apart. Joe turned and ran, getting out of the door just as the entire building wobbled and began to fall from its place in the tree-tall grass. As it happened, poor architecture wasn’t the reason that Poppy had screamed. The building landed on a massive wasp, crushing it to the ground and killing it while a last agitated *buzz* came from the massive insect.

  “Ding, dong, the witch is dead.” Joe slid down the stalk of grass, the angle of it allowing him to avoid the rubble and still-twitching wasp. Joe looked at Poppy’s damaged clothes and wheezing form. “What happened?”

  “Giant wasp! Whaddaya think happened?” Poppy folded in half, breathing deeply with his hands on his knees. “I fought it off as long as I could, but that thing was so fast.” Joe used Cleanse on Poppy, but it seemed he hadn’t been poisoned, so Joe simply got him to well-hydrated and waited for him to recover.

  “Alright. Thanks. Before we go, I’m getting that stinger,” Poppy firmly stated. “I’m almost positive it can be used as material to make a rapier for me, and I bet it’ll do some kind of extra poison damage. I’ll get Alexis to work on it.” Joe did what he could to help Poppy shove aside rubble, and luckily, the rear of the wasp was the part least covered by stone and wood. Poppy laughed as he cut out its stinger and made sure to carefully extract the poison sack as well. It would make a good bribe for Alexis.

  They started walking back to the town, and over the course of the jaunt, Joe told Poppy about what the small building had contained. After describing the structure that he could potentially create, the Duelist was strangely contemplative. “Joe, it sounds like making that building is going to bring a whole lot of trouble down on our heads. I understand that you want the unique class that you can get from it, but… you’ll make sure to go through all of this with Aten, won’t ya?”

  “...Of course. Yeah, for sure.” The rest of their trip was covered in silence, at least the majority of it when no animals came sniffing around. The late afternoon sunlight was making them sweat heavily by the time they finally returned to town, and only liberal use of Joe’s cleansing ability kept them from dropping from heat exhaustion. Joe thanked Poppy for his help and went off to bother the guild leadership.

  Joe found Aten discussing with a few others what they should do with the most heavily transformed building, the town hall. It was huge now and surrounded by open land and manicured gardens. Sir Bearington apparently wanted to burn it down to the ground and rebuild the original buildings that had occupied the space, while the guild was discussing if they should offer to buy the opened space in its entirety. Joe almost turned and walked away but hesitated long enough that he was noticed. Aten waved him over after seeing that he had something to say.

  When Joe walked over, Aten pulled him to the side to admonish him a bit. “Evening, Joe. Look, I can tell that something is on your mind, but you really shouldn’t come to me for every little thing. Do you even know who the next officer is in the chain of command for you? She’s very nice, I promise.”

  A bit taken aback, Joe tried not to neither laugh nor get upset. “Makes sense. Sorry if I’ve been bothering you recently, but this is important. This is something that is a bit… ‘your ears only’ at this point though.”

  “Oh no.” Aten looked at the horizon as if he would spot smoke or something coming to fight them. “I haven’t gotten any zone or guild notifications… you didn’t attack any royalty, did you?”

  “Why does everyone always assume the worst of me?” Joe grumped playfully. “No, this is better, but also potentially much more… world-wide infuriating?” Aten’s hands trembled a bit, but he listened to Joe and asked pertinent questions. He nodded along and finally, simply rolled his head around his shoulders a few times.

  “That’s… I mean, it’s interesting.” Aten shrugged a little. “Sounds like a conversation we will eventually need to have, but as far as I can tell, this will be pretty far off in the future, right?”

  “Not… necessarily.” Joe smiled a smile that Aten had come to regret seeing. “I got a reward from completing a quest recently, a divine boon. It lets me complete a ritual without the need for components. All we need to worry about is the associated mana cost. That’s where I am going to need your help.”

  Aten was a bit slow to respond, and his voice was grave when he did. “I admit that it would be amazing to have a building of this power under our control. I need to know, though, would it be under our control or your control? What is it that you would need from the guild?”

  “Aten, I am a Wanderer through and through. Together, this guild is going to do amazing things in this world.” Joe stuck an arm out and put his hand on Aten’s collarbone. “That said, it would be a little of both. This is going to act like a giant conduit for me, letting me complete really powerful rituals and spells. I need to have access to it all the time, and I’m not sure how it works. There may be times I need to kick everyone out, but I’ll try to do that in a way that is scheduled. At the same time, there is no way for me to guard it, control access to it, or charge others for the services it’ll offer.”

  Joe relaxed a bit, retracting his arm. “If that works for you, then heck yeah, do whatever else you wanna do. We’re a team. In terms of the mana requirement though… well… it’s pretty high,” he admitted reluctantly.

  “How high are we talking?” Aten was relieved; he was really glad that he had added Joe to the guild when he first appeared. He couldn’t imagine what would have happened if the other guilds had gotten their hands on this walking goldmine.

  “Well, after reducing the cost by a flat fifty percent, eighteen point five percent from the ritual magic skill, then an additional nineteen percent on top of that… oops, almost forgot Coalescence, so another nine percent, forty-six point five percent off the new total…” Joe was obviously stalling, so Aten crossed his arms and glared. “Alright, sheesh. One hundred seventy-four thousand, three hundred seventy-five mana.”

  “Well, this was a fun talk. Hope you had a fun day today!” Aten turned around and started walking away, whistling off-tune.

  “Aten!” Joe followed after the physically powerful man. “Wait, wait, wait! Listen, this is a Master level ritual created by a Sage! If I am reading the information correctly, the building can even be upgraded two more times into a Grandmaster building… and then a Sage tier building! That means it would be an Artifact from the start and a Mythical by the end.”

  “Explain yourself,” Aten resigned himself to the conversation.

  “Alright, did you know there is a chart for rarity on the internet now?” Joe nodded even as Aten shook his head. “Alright, listen, there is a rarity rating for items, and I think for spells and classes as well. From worst to best it goes: trash, damaged, common, uncommon, rare, special, unique, Artifact. Um, special is kind of a catch-all for things like mana potions, which fall under ‘artificially rare’, or set items. I think something else I found, Restricted, lands there as well. After Artifact, you get Legendary then Mythical rarity.”

  “I get that there are rarity levels. What I meant is: what use is a higher tiered building? I understand how an Artifact-ranked sword could be useful, but…” Aten trailed off, leaving Joe to fill in the blanks.

  “Ah! Well, these buildings will give the entire guild buffs! I don’t know what will happen when we build this, but I know the castle in Ardania is at least Legendary ranked. I hear that combat skills increase at quintuple the speed in and around the castle. The wall around the castle is apparently the boundary for the area of effect. That’s why it is so far away from the castle itself! I’m pretty sure the Mage’s College is one as well; it has spatial magic in it that makes the inside far larger than it should be.”

  Aten paused, chewing on that thought. “You think that you can figure out how to get us a Legendary or even Mythic building?”

  “Eventually… yeah.”

  “This is going to suck, J
oe. I really hope you’re right, or I’m going to have some very unhappy investors.” Aten took a deep breath and walked over to his original meeting, pressuring the others to put in a bid for the open land in the town. A few hours later, everyone in the guild got a notification.

  Quest complete: Base-ic operations! Your guild has found a new home, make sure to defend it well!

  ~ Chapter Twenty-nine ~

  When Joe awoke the next morning, he was stiff and sore. He creaked out of bed and wobbled to where the glorious ambrosia named coffee lived. This was his favorite time of the day, early enough that the air was crisp and clear but late enough that the sun was up and warming up the area. Nodding at the few people that he knew by sight, he pulled out his cube and started working on it. There was a problem that he hadn’t finished yesterday, and he was hoping that his rested mind could figure it out quickly. It was the last one he needed to do on this side of the puzzle cube, and completing it would put him at fifty wisdom.

  What is the largest palindrome made from the product of two 2-digit numbers?

  The answer cube was obviously the last one that he needed to use, but unless he did the work, he wouldn’t get the reward. Not that he hadn’t tried. The words on the answer cube were blurry and no matter how he looked at it, he couldn’t make it out. Joe snorted and started doing the work; he started at ninety-nine, and worked his way down with the other number, hoping it would be that easy. Surprisingly, it was.

  99 x 91 = 9009.

  That was a palindrome, right? Joe looked at the cubes again, and to his delight, the answer cube now held that number. After spending far too long a time spinning the face, the cube clicked into position. The blue section of the cube flared with a gentle light, and the message he had been waiting for appeared with extras!

  Characteristic point training completed! You have completed the (Novice) cube face! Rewards have increased! +2 to intelligence and luck! +1 wisdom, perception, and dexterity! These stats cannot be increased further by any means other than system rewards, study, or practice for twenty-four hours game time.

  You have reached fifty points in both wisdom and intelligence! We suggest laying down to avoid damage as your mind is upgraded. Since you have both Mana Manipulation and Coalescence, you will be granted the opportunity to increase these while unconscious! 3...2...1…

  By the time Joe finished reading the text, it had unfortunately already counted down to ‘one’. His eyes rolled back in his head and he flopped to the table, spilling his poor coffee before slowly sliding sideways off the bench.

  From his perspective, Joe blinked and appeared in front of the raging storm that was his center. The orb of swirling mana hadn’t changed much since the last time he had seen it, and he felt a bit guilty that he hadn’t kept up with the skill. Now, though, it was crashing against the barrier he had imposed on it, fighting against his control as hard as it could. That wouldn’t do at all. He walked forward, imposing his will on his power. The hurricane spun faster as if angry, and the vaporous energy began to shrink down into a more compact form.

  Joe pressed and pressed, determined to make as much improvement as possible in the time he had. A *crack* seemed to be felt, heard, and seen as the vapor shifted. Reaching a point of no return, a droplet of liquid mana appeared in the center of the gale-force swirling mana mists. This drop was spinning as well, seemingly pulling in all the mana in the area. In moments, the droplet had expanded to the size of the fingernail on his pinky finger and taken in all of the gaseous mana that had been in his center.

  He was concerned at first that he had just done something stupid, but that tiny drop of liquid mana gave off an odd feeling, a pull like the sensation he got on a swiftly-twisting roller coaster. Gravity? Was he feeling a gravitational pull from this mana? There was no way to test it, but that was certainly the feeling he got from the shining drop of power. As he contemplated this development, more gaseous mana flowed in and was quickly absorbed by the droplet. Was that his mana regen kicking in?

  Thinking of what else he should be doing, he remembered that the message had mentioned his mana manipulation skill. He looked around the area, at the other passages he could go through, but they all had an impassable feel to them. Right… it had said upgrading his skill. How could he…? Joe looked at the trail of gaseous mana that flowed out of the cavernous room he was in and tried to pull more mana from the droplet. The entire thing moved at once, and Joe was wracked with gut-churning pain.

  “‘Kay. Not like that. Got it.” He looked at the spinning power and imagined a small portion of it vaporizing and following him as a cloud. The mana responded easily, and a thick fog billowed out of the orb and drifted toward him. He directed it to surround the current stream, integrate with it, and perhaps increase it in size. This… didn’t work. The original stream seemed to reject it, staying separate no matter how he tried to combine them. But… maybe combining them wasn’t what he should be going for.

  In the next attempt, he used the cloud to envelop and compress the original stream. In his mind, he was picturing a set of bare wires being covered and insulated, protecting and directing the power. Somehow, it worked perfectly. Not only did the stream condense, it began to flow faster and stronger like pressurized water through a hose. Joe finished the entirety of the path, connecting it to his center just as a message appeared.

  Mental attributes upgraded successfully! Base modifier for both Intelligence and Wisdom have reached ‘2’! You have come a long way from your humble mental beginnings. Someday you might even be able to call yourself smart and wise!

  Calculating…

  Skill increased: Coalescence (Apprentice I). You have reached the beginning stage of liquid mana! Your mana has gained an attribute, and as you increase in rank, this attribute will grow based upon your areas of focus. No longer will your mana be swept aside by another, blown by the wind like a morning mist. You have unlocked a character trait: Suppression resistance.

  Suppression resistance will grow as your power does and gives you a 50% resistance to stun, silence, and paralytic effects. This does not mean you will not be impacted by these; it means that if these debuffs take effect, the length of time they will remain active is halved. Your mind has always been striving toward freedom, and your mana has taken on a bit of your resolve.

  Skill increased: Mana Manipulation (Apprentice III). You have increased not only the skill but the rarity of this skill! New effect unlocked: Steady flow.

  Steady flow increases spell stability by 10% and reduces casting time of all mana-consuming skills and spells by 10%.

  Joe’s eyes popped open as soon as he had absorbed all of this information, and he sat up smoothly. Around him was a cluster of his early-morning coffee aficionados, but seeing that he was awake, they simply nodded and returned to their routines. Joe blinked a few times, feeling like he was seeing the world for the first time. Information seemed to flow easily through his mind, and snippets of conversations and things he had read in the past seemed to come together and make sense in ways it never had before.

  He stood up and started walking, but after a few steps, he stumbled. Joe steadied himself and kept moving, but every few steps, he would stumble. He frowned, looking around and trying to see if someone was messing with him. Someone was indeed looking at him and smiling, shaking his head. Joe cleared his throat and growled, “Excuse me, are you tripping me? Please stop, it isn’t funny.”

  “Ha, that’s a good one!” The man snorted and came a few steps closer. He looked Joe over, noting a bit of dried blood that had dripped from his nose as his brain overheated. “You passed a mental threshold, didn’t you? Intelligence?”

  “Wisdom as well,” Joe affirmed, unable to stop a small grin of pride from appearing. “How is it obvious, though?”

  “Oh? Very nice. It’s good to get those two together, can cause issues otherwise.” The man nodded to himself, a wry smile still playing around on his lips. “What’s your dexterity at?”

  “It’s not my ma
in area of focus… nineteen?” Joe waited for the man to laugh at the number, but he only grimaced.

  “Gonna take more work, but you’ll get there. High intelligence will help you make more dexterous movements, but until you get used to it, you are going to stumble frequently. Your mind is just moving faster than your body can keep up. Your brain is saying ‘step, step, step’, but your body can only complete ‘step, step’ in that amount of time. Get it? There was a whole segment on this in the new wiki. Good luck.” The man shuffled past him to the coffee area, leaving Joe a bit troubled.

  “Stats need to be balanced like that?” Joe could only keep moving; there was nothing else he could do right now to familiarize himself with his new bodily functionality. Needing to discuss a few of the details of the upcoming building with Aten, Joe set off to the command area. As he got back to the town square, Joe was waved over by a guild officer he didn’t recognize.

  “Hi there! Joe, correct?” She smiled at him brightly, a bit too brightly. Almost a Jaxon level smile. Joe was instantly suspicious. He didn’t trust morning people. Terra, for instance, got up and went jogging.

  “Good morning… sorry to be blunt, but who are you and what do you want? No, I don’t want to have said that. I’m sorry, the coffee hasn’t kicked in yet. Let me rephrase that. What can I help you with?” Joe felt like he had committed a faux pas from the way her smile crumbled.

  She tried to plaster her smile across her face once again but failed. She sighed unhappily and let her face settle into a look far less pleasing. “Alright, listen up. I’m the next guild officer in your chain of command. Aten asked me to meet up with you and introduce myself so that you’ll stop bothering him. My name is Daisy. If you are a team leader, then I am basically a manager. I manage several parties, helping out when they have conflicts or questions. Beyond sending me to get you off his back, Aten also wanted me to let you know that he sent a messenger to Ardania last night, and another guild comprised entirely of Mages is coming to help you with something. They should be here tonight.”