The Mountain Valley War

by M. A. Carlson

  I was very much beginning to miss my experience bonus, the same bonus I complained wasn’t enough of a consolation when my Seedpod was delivered three months late. I didn’t know just how valuable that remuneration was until it was gone. Still, ‘Bodyguard: Client Protection Tactics’ did teach me a few valuable skills.

  Detection

  Level: 4

  Experience: 13.24%

  Skill Effect (Passive): Where ‘Perception’ ends, ‘Detection’ begins. Augmenting your senses with magic you are able to detect more than you would otherwise. Increase Chance to See +2.00%

  Spell Mana Cost: 5 per second

  It stacked nicely with my ‘Perception’ skill, but it was very slow to level. I learned two other skills from it as well. The first was a skill called ‘Team Defense’, something that would be very valuable in any future protection-type quests.

  Team Defense

  Level: 1

  Experience: 0.00%

  Skill Effect (Passive): While working in a group to protect a client and their goods or property, your team has a 10% chance to take 1.00% of damage against your client and their goods or property.

  I hadn’t had the chance to test it out yet, but I was interested to see how it would improve as I leveled the skill up. The last skill I got was not what I had expected. In addition to the ‘Detection’ skill, I expected to get ‘Hunt the Wicked’, the skill the archivist from Hammerton, the tiny Dwarf Libre, mentioned. Instead, I got something called ‘Justice Unveiled’

  Justice Unveiled

  Level: 1

  Experience: 0.00%

  Skill Effect (Passive): As a Warrior Priest of the Goddess Issara, you have been blessed with a sixth sense that will help you pierce the veil and find Justice in the darkest of places. Increases the ‘Perception’ Chance to See by 0.10%

  I had no idea how it leveled up, I just knew that between ‘Justice Unveiled’ and ‘Detection’ I would have plenty of tools to improve my ability to stop ‘Stealth’ users in addition to simply improving my ‘Perception’ skill.

  Back to the stats, the fact it took 8-hours to gain +5-stat points meant I had reached the point where I would get better returns time wise using ‘Meditation’ than from simply reading, though I enjoyed reading far more. Or I assumed I would. I had yet to use ‘Meditation’ because it was easier to read for stat points. I wasn’t sure what using ‘Meditation’ actually entailed.

  Meditation

  Level: 1

  Experience: 0.00%

  Skill Effect (Active): Enter the Meditation Mind Temple

  Intellect: +1 per 60 minutes

  Wisdom: +1 per 60 minutes

  Charisma: +1 per 60 minutes

  I hadn’t tried it yet, mostly because I needed to finish the two books I borrowed from Hammerton’s archive. Now that they were read, I needed to return and pick up the book Mardi finally agreed to let me borrow ‘Assassination Handbook’. Once that was done, I was out of excuses for not using ‘Meditation’.

  “Heave!” Olaf bellowed next to me, his new bronze colored hand-cannons shining brightly at his waist. His precious new babies as he had referred to them a few times added another 2-yards of range that he was so proud of. It may not sound like much but to him it was a big jump in his range. He grunted, straining to pull the gravity using monster, gripping my net as he stood next to me. Even in its current drained state, the rock giant maintained some form of innate control over gravity, making it several times heavier than it should have been.

  “Come on you wimps, put your backs into it,” Bushy chimed in. Like Micaela, she was standing watch . . . or she was supposed to be. She took far too much pleasure in heckling us as we worked. She wasn’t big on sharing, so I had no idea if she picked up any new skills during our few days of training. Although, if she had learned something and used those skills, I never would have known. I just didn’t know her or her character well enough to know all her skills by heart, not that I knew all my other friends’ skills by heart either.

  “Still clear,” Baby said, dropping from the sky above us. The Fairy hadn’t changed much more than her sister, though I assume she gained several spell levels and increased her stats as well. It was the point of taking a few days just to train. Before anyone could question her, she was already zipping back into the air to scout for danger. So long as we weren’t in real danger the Fairy was usually acting as our eye in the sky. This also left most healing to me and my one healing spell.

  Beginner Heal

  Level: 2

  Experience: 71.96%

  Spell Heal: 421-530

  Spell Cast Speed: 2.00 seconds

  Spell Mana Cost: 214

  Spell Effect (Active): Heal a single target.

  Finally, my heal could actually do a good amount of healing, it had ranked up from ‘Lesser’ to ‘Beginner’, though I really didn’t appreciate the mana cost. I could use this maybe ten times in a fight before I would end up out of mana.

  And it wasn’t the only spell to break through the first barrier into the ‘Beginner’ ranks, in fact most of them were either ‘Beginner’ rank or simply capped for the pre-requisite. Though still weak compared to some attack magic, I was most proud of getting ‘Holy Smite’ topped off as it was the longest slog to level up, gaining over fifty levels compared to the thirty levels the other spells managed to gain.

  Holy Smite

  Level: 100

  Experience: N/A

  Spell Damage: 105-110

  Spell Cast Speed: 1.50 seconds

  Spell Mana Cost: 210

  Spell Effect (Active): Smite a single target with holy damage.

  My biggest disappointment was ‘Lesser Holy Shock’, the cooldown on it made leveling it up difficult at best. Still, it had made large gains.

  Lesser Holy Shock

  Level: 79

  Experience: 13.29%

  Spell Damage: 89-94

  Spell Cast Speed: Instant Cooldown: 30 seconds

  Spell Mana Cost: 258

  Spell Effect (Active): A shock of holy energy attacks the nervous system of your target stunning it and increasing physical damage received by 79 for 5 seconds.

  How did I make such progress in less than a week? Well, on the very first day of our planned training, Rose and I decided to spar for a little while in the evening after hunting all day. We very quickly discovered just how much faster we level our skills when fighting against opponents around the same level. Long story short, after that first day of hunting, we limited ourselves to killing just ten bears a day to be sent back to the city. We then spent the rest of the day fighting each other and reading at night. It was how Rose leveled her spells so quickly as well.

  “Drain it again,” I called out, seeing the mana starting to refill again after the ‘Magic Paralysis’ ended. I would need to stun it soon to give Rose more time to drain the mana away again. Inevitably, it would regather itself and attack me until the mana hit empty again.

  I cast my ‘Lesser Holy Shock’ stunning it and dealing -344-HP damage. The rock giant’s health bar showed it was down under 30%, I could only stun it one more time, another cast after that would kill it.

  “Let it reform next round,” Rose called out between casts of ‘Drain Magic’. We were still a good 100-yards from the gate, if we let it reform just outside the gates and eat up its mana, we would have just enough time to get it into the forge before it restored itself again . . . hopefully.

  As planned, just outside the gates the rock giant reformed. “Come get me you piece of schist,” I shouted, using my skill ‘Order: Taunt’ to get it to focus on me.

  The monster without eyes sent a large stone ‘arm’ at me, my shield moved with practiced ease, intercepting the hit. So long as I used my new ‘Phalanx Shield’ subskill ‘Focused Blocking’, I was able to block most of the attacks at the cost of being unable to counter attack, not that I wanted to cause this rock monster any damage and ruin another attempt to build my spear up to the next evolution.

  Phala
nx Shield

  Level: 91

  Experience: 14.14%

  Current Defense Modifiers

  Block Chance: +4.55%

  Critical Block Chance: +2.28%

  Subskill: Shield Slam

  Damage: 47-49 Effect: Interrupt Chance to Stun on Critical Strike: 10.40%

  Skill Stamina Cost: 35

  Subskill: Shield-Counter

  Block Chance: +35.00% Cooldown: 30 seconds

  Skill Stamina Cost: 50

  Subskill: Focused Blocking

  Block Chance: +22.75% Unable to Attack: 10 seconds

  Skill Stamina Cost: 50

  And with Baby playing eye in the sky, it meant I needed to just take the punishing hits that it dealt. The damage was between -75-HP and -130-HP even with my shield and ‘Resist II’ skill absorbing most of that damage. Thankfully I had plenty of HP to take that kind of damage.

  Resist II

  Level: 91

  Experience: 8.47%

  Skill Effect (Passive): You have suffered greatly, so much so, that you have started to become numb to the pain. Resist -282-HP physical damage received. Resist -282-HP poison damage received. Resist -282-HP elemental damage received.

  ‘Resist II’ was very nice but nothing compared to Rose’s Rank V, she took almost no damage at all from the rock monster.

  Eventually the rock giant dropped to the ground with its mana drained again and leaving it vulnerable for me to toss my net over it and hand it off to Olaf to start dragging it into the city. Meanwhile I cast a few ‘Beginner Heal’ spells on myself in addition to drinking a mana potion and water. As soon as I had full MP again, I was right next to Olaf, helping him pull the orb deeper into the city. Thankfully, most of the players knew to stay out of the way by now after they almost cost us a rock giant on our first time actually getting one into the city. Olaf made a very pointed threat with his hand-cannon that the other players took very seriously.

  “She’s ready for you. She says the spear is at the perfect temperature and you should hurry up,” Vision said, appearing next to me. I was glad I had come to expect his sudden appearances, or I might have dropped my hold on the net.

  “Good job, Vision,” I said, grunting as I pulled on the net.

  Deeper into the city and down into the lava forge. If not for the game world that was the World Tree, the heat would probably have melted us before we even got into the actual forge, but I couldn’t afford to worry about that right now.

  “Alright, I was starting to think you would never get me one,” said Mardi, looking at us eagerly.

  “Yeah, yeah, just be ready to crack this egg shell,” I said, struggling, it was starting to regain mana again and I was about to stun it.

  “Do not stun it,” Mardi warned. “Rose, dear, please use your ‘Magic Paralysis’ on it. Olaf, drag it the rest of the way in here. Bye-bye, this is going to hurt.”

  “What is?” I asked.

  Mardi pointed at the lava forge.

  “What about it?” I asked.

  “You need to reach in there, grab ahold of your spear and stab it into the still beating heart when its mana is just starting to refill,” Mardi explained.

  “You’re telling me to let it get up again?” Rose shouted, her spell freezing the mana in the monster instantly.

  “Yes, sorry,” Mardi replied.

  “Alright, I’ve got this big lug then,” said Rose.

  “Oh, and because you are near a lava source, it is probably going to grab lava rocks . . . so yeah, a lot more damage,” Mardi added.

  “Great,” Rose replied sarcastically, bringing both of her shields to bear. “Olaf, Mic, Bushy, clear out. Baby heal me from maximum range down the tunnel.”

  Everyone quickly moved as Rose ordered while she placed herself between the exit and the .

  I dove out of the way as globs of lava floated from the forge at high speed, converging on the orb we painstakingly dragged in here. When the lava did move, it uncovered just enough of my spear for me to see the glowing red-hot weapon. I looked back at the fight between Rose and the Rock . . . nope, not a rock giant anymore. The nameplate now read , which also made me question how in the world it suddenly gained 10 levels.

  “Jack, be ready to help heal, this is going to hurt,” Rose warned loudly, a single punch of lava from the monster stripped away Baby’s ‘Sage’s Ward’ in an instant.

  I was already casting a ‘Beginner Heal’ as the next hit plowed into Rose’s shield, knocking her back a few feet into the tunnel leading out of the forge. Rose pressed forward again, bringing herself back into the room, her shields took on its own bright red-hot coloring from the fiery hot lava punches.

  It took longer for the mana to drain away as was expected of a level 20, a level jump that I would question later. Eventually, the lava sloughed away, revealing the familiar orb that was now also red-hot and glowing brightly from being super-heated by the lava it was just using as a weapon.

  “Now, Bye-bye!” Mardi shouted.

  I reached my fingers into the lava forge, taking ticks of -105-HP, -102-HP, -117-HP and several more every second they were in there. I ignored the damage, moving quickly and grabbing hold of the spear. When my hands cleared the lava the damage ticks kept going, though now they were about half as much, dealing -51-HP, -56-HP and around that point.

  All around the downed giant, lava coated the floor, melting some of the stone and not leaving anywhere to really stand. My only option was to jump for it. I leaped through the air and over the lava, landing on top of the red-hot shell, my damage ticks jumping back up again. I needed to trust my friends to heal me or I would be in real trouble. I stabbed downward, my spear easily cutting through the shell of the orb and piercing the rapidly refilling heart, except the refilling mana was tapering off. Instead, the blue blood was funneling into my spear, bright blue lines of energy began tracing itself along the spear from the tip and filtering throughout the shaft, the process created a winding series of blue veins that were visible through the red of the forge heated weapon.

  As soon as the Lava Giant finally died, Mardi shouted. “Now, the oil, hurry!”

  I rushed over to the long vat of bubbling black oil set directly into the floor, the heat of the nearby forge bringing it to boil. I plunged both the spear and my hands into the boiling liquid, a rush of steam and damage notifications filled my vision including the much-anticipated quest completion notification.

  Legendary Quest: Spear of Gungnir II – Completed!

  Find the blueprints for the next level of the Spear of Gungnir and the necessary materials and bring them to Mardi, the Duchess of Hammers.

  Reward: +20,000-Experience, Spear of Gungnir II

  Finally, I pulled my hands and the spear still in my grasp from the oil.

  Legendary Quest: Spear of Gungnir III

  Find the blueprints for the next level of the Spear of Gungnir and the necessary materials and bring them to Mardi, the Duchess of Hammers.

  Reward: Experience, Spear of Gungnir III

  Do you accept this quest?

  Yes

  No

  Of course, I accepted the quest. I would have been an idiot not to, especially after finally getting a look at the upgraded weapon.

  Spear of Gungnir II

  The Spear of Gungnir is a legendary weapon of Odin, the All-Father of the Norse Pantheon. While this is but a pale imitation, it is still most formidable. One-Handed Base Attack Speed 2.00 – One-Handed Weapon Damage 42-45 (Scalable to Lvl 20 - +3-Damage per level) – Two-Handed Base Attack Speed 1.80 – Two-Handed Weapon Damage 56-60 (Scalable to Lvl 20 - +4-Damage per level) – +20-Dexterity, +20-Stamina,+20-Intellect, +20-Mana Regeneration, +56-Holy Spell Damage and Healing (Scalable to Lvl 20 - +4-Holy Spell Damage and Healing per level) – Unbreakable – Soulbound

  I couldn’t help but whistle appreciatively as I stared at the stats on my freshly upgraded spear. I wanted to giggle like a school kid on a sugar high, but I was sure Rose woul
d never let me hear the end of it. My damage had increased by +1 per level, taking the Two-Handed weapon damage from +3 to +4 per level. My flat stat gains had doubled plus it now gave me Intellect and Mana Regeneration. This was a clear upgrade over the first iteration of the spear.

  “Jack, you coming out of there any time soon . . . you know, like before you get cooked to death?” Rose asked, her voice carrying loudly from the hallway and well away from the heat. And speaking of the heat, it didn’t seem to be bothering me at the moment. I saw a notification of damage, -43-HP, -42-HP, -40-HP and more but the numbers seemed to be getting smaller despite the room not cooling down in the slightest. Every now and then I would see my HP jump upwards then start slowly ticking down again.

  I looked to see if there were any pending notifications and there was indeed a flashing exclamation point that made me curious.

  You’ve learned the skill ‘Heat Resistance’

  Heat Resistance

  Level: 1

  Experience: 0.00%

  Skill Effect (Passive): Having forced yourself to endure extreme heats for extended amounts of time you have developed a resistance to heat effects. Damage due to heat from any source reduced 0.50% (does not include direct damage caused by Fire or Lava).

  Now that was interesting, as were the dozens of level up notifications. They were all level up notification for ‘Heat Resistance’. More interesting, in the time it took to go through all the messages, another three notifications popped up. Walking away from the extreme heat, I gained another level, leaving the brand-new skill at level 62 when I finally left the heat behind. The skill at that level now gave me a 31% reduction in damage caused by pure heat. I was half tempted to turn right back around and level it all the way to 100, but seeing as my friends were waiting for me, I figured it was best not to make them wait. I let my mind wander a little on the walk, I was curious if there were other resistances like that. Maybe a pure fire resistance or lava resistance, I was sure cold resistance was an option though I cringed to think what that might require to develop.