The Mimic finished his meal with a loud pop and a much quieter belch from deep inside the velvety confines of its mouth.
In less than a second, the sword was gone and a shimmer of golden dust erupted from the Mimic. It was now at least twice as large as it had been before. It looked as if somebody hit it on the top with a magic fairy dust wand, with the way the golden sparks showered off its suddenly enlarged boxy body.
A small dusting of that gold light fell upon Hal.
The Mimic reaches Level 2.
You absorb 10 Mimic Essence.
More images were sent to Hal, more coherent and structured than before.
It had been starving for a long time. All creatures and items it used to feed on had stopped coming by long ago. But it was scared to move out of its hole because it sensed its hated enemy, an aberrant creature that had moved into the ancient underground lair.
The aberration sloshed its gooey mass through the long-dead halls, picking up delectable equipment-laden skeletons and whatever else was in its way. Each day the Mimic had to go farther and farther afield, into unknown tunnels and strange places to find food.
Eventually, it had gone too far and strayed across the path of a lesser aberration. A Gibberer. By that point, it had become so weak that it stood no chance against the creature. It was only Hal’s intervention that had saved it.
The Mimic thought very highly of Hal indeed after that.
Even more, once it learned Hal shared a common ancestry. As strange as that was to the Mimic, it took it all in stride as a matter of course.
Leading the Mimic out of the tunnels, Hal noticed the creature had stopped following him at some point. He turned to look and saw the creature pointedly urging him down a side path he had ignored in his pursuit of the sound.
Following the small creature, Hal soon came upon a broken chest that had been caught in a tunnel collapse. From a large crack in its wooden frame, treasure of all kinds spilled forth like lifeblood, glittering and beautiful.
Hal’s excitement was tempered with sorrow when the Mimic imparted its thoughts.
Mother.
Torn between the spoils that he clearly saw in front of him and honoring the memory of the creature’s parent, Hal stood rooted to the spot. His heart ached for the grieving creature.
The Mimic, after a few brief moments of sad contemplation, had no qualms about feasting on the loot. It lurched forward and vacuumed up the glittering piles of gold, gems, and weaponry that spilled out of the broken remains.
The air filled with the sound of joyous tinkling and spilling loot as it flew through the air into the vortex that funneled the riches into the Mimic’s velvet-lined maw.
It left, by Hal’s estimation, roughly half of the spoils.
Another shower of sparkling motes leaped from the Mimic.
The Mimic reaches Level 3.
You absorb 10 Mimic Essence.
The Mimic reaches Level 4.
You absorb 10 Mimic Essence.
The boxy thing came up to his knee now. A proper treasure chest.
The rusted iron bandings were replaced with polished steel. Its splintered, rough wood was smooth and lustrous. The simple keyhole on the front turned into an ornate worked silver with delicate filigree around the hole.
The Mimic sensed Hal’s approval and practically glowed with the non-verbal praise. It cozied up even closer to Hal’s boot, nudging it gently toward the remaining loot.
Loot was always a tempting thing. In any game, in any life, wealth represented power and prestige. Even here, where the currency of sparks could literally increase his skill, wealth conferred advantage.
Despite it, he didn’t feel right looting the Mimic’s corpse. It felt wrong. Like he had stumbled upon a lost cub in the woods and then found its slain mother. Only to skin it and harvest its meat in front of the cub.
While Hal was aware the Mimic at his side didn’t have any reservations about the loot its mother once had, Hal did.
After a while deliberating, and with plenty of nudging by his Mimic friend, Hal eventually took a single piece of loot. A pair of knee-high decorated leather boots with delicate silver inlay.
Anything more would seem sacrilegious. He tried to express his concern to the Mimic but it returned only faint confusion. When it became clear that Hal was giving the rest of the loot up, the creature wasted no more time in absorbing every last gem and coin. Vorax gained one more Level and earned Hal another 10 mimic essence.
The few pieces of equipment that remained looked too heavy for Hal to wear and most of it wasn’t in the best shape. The boots alone looked to be of surpassing quality and when he tried to equip them he found out why.
Leaping Boots
[Feet] (Rare)
Item Level: 30
DEF: 5
MDEF: 5
+10% Movement Speed
Insulation +7
DUR: 500/500
Lv.15
It was the first piece of gear that Hal had received that he couldn’t equip, solely because he wasn’t at a high enough Level.
He grinned to himself. I can fix that.
Leading the Mimic out of the tunnels and back to the ledge beneath the overhang he had come down from, Hal allotted enough EXP to bump Beastborne up to Level 5.
All told, it cost him 2,340 EXP, putting his remaining EXP at quite a hefty sum of 19,296. It would cost him considerably more per Level from there on out. Level 6 cost 1,400 EXP alone. And he suspected even with the nest egg of EXP that he had, getting above Level 10 Beastborne would blow through the bulk of it.
With those 3 Levels, Hal put every last point into VIT. That brought it up to a very respectable 20. He paused, feeling a change settle over his skin. It was a tightening sensation, like one of those spa facial masks.
Over the next few moments, as the change settled over him, he began to feel… heavier. He wasn’t fatter, or even larger in any way he could perceive. But there was no denying his increased weight.
The Mimic turned to regard him, and Hal could feel it looking at him with something akin to pride. “So you understand Leveling,” Hal mused.
When he started off again, his new weight - he double-checked his status to make sure he didn’t have some random Debuff - caused him to stumble. Clumsily, he careened into a rough section of the cavern wall and felt a dull ache of pain across his cheek where he hit a jut of stone.
Hal grumbled. He took more damage from less before, but as he glanced at his HP… he noticed he wasn’t hurt. Raising a hand to his cheek, all he felt was the bit of stone dust that clung to his skin.
Curious, Hal pinched his cheek as hard as he could. It stung a little but felt... firmer? It was hard to pin down.
Was that what VIT did? It didn’t make him bigger and beefier as STR did. Instead, it seemed to make him sturdier.
His body was more solidly built. While he still took up the same physical space he was notably denser. “That’s interesting,” he mused aloud.
His HP jumped up to 255, and his regeneration went up from 24.6 to 41.6 an hour. It was still slow. In fact, all regeneration felt horrendously slow.
It only made it all the more important to have a large pool since it took so long to recover any resource. They sped up when camping or resting to double or higher but out in the wilds - and Hal counted the disturbingly massive caverns beneath Murkmire as wild - it would take several hours to fill up his MP.
The regeneration for HP was not as large of an increase as his MP had been. But a large improvement all the same. He also noticed that every Level Up carried with it a small boost to his HP, MP, SP, as well as their regeneration.
Maybe it wasn’t that great of an idea to put so much into VIT. It certainly flew in the face of the “typical mage” that died from a splinter. But nothing about Beastborne was typical.
Furthermore, there was so much riding on his shoulders that he felt it would be insulting to his friends if he continued to be a liability.
True, an increa
se of 50ish HP might not seem like a lot to somebody with 500 HP but to Hal, it was a rough 20% increase. That placed his HP and MP on practically level terms. Although his HP regenerated much slower.
Hal slipped on the [Leaping Boots], finally of the appropriate Level to wear them. He watched with a satisfied grin as his DEF rose 3 points and his MDEF 5 points. The downside was he gave up 2 points each of DEX and AGI. A worthy trade, considering the 10% movement speed bonus.
Especially when he could just trigger another Level Up and permanently allocate the points.
With his improved VIT, Hal was eager to see what the difference between DEF and VIT was. The systems at play hardly seemed as simple as a first glance would have one believe.
He touched his cheek again, reminded of how stark a difference 15 VIT was. If he assumed that a baseline of 5 stat points was roughly equivalent to a human back on Earth… maybe he should double everything to 10. That way he would at least be somewhat superhuman.
Rather than allocate the points right then, he decided it would be best to wait until they camped. He was getting tired. If they didn’t meet any opposition between then and now, he would use his spare EXP to boost all his stats to a baseline of 10.
Then he could begin to focus on those that mattered to him without fearing that he had a glaring weakness. Being “just a normal human” was starting to look more and more like a weakness to him.
The Level Up notifications blinked, demanding his attention. He dismissed them, focusing on his Beastborne prompts.
Beastborne reaches Level 5.
You learn the Beast Killer trait.
Gives you an edge when fighting Beast Family monsters, increasing damage dealt while decreasing damage taken. Adds a chance to Intimidate Beasts.
You have 1 Beastborne Perk point awaiting assignment.
Essence Tap 0/1
Increase Essence Gain by 25%. Increases chance of gaining Essence upon successful kill.
Essence Delve 0/1
Increase potency of Essence Powers and allow greater attunement when imbued with a specific Essence.
Deep Magic 0/3
Alters the Elemental and Monster properties of unassociated held weapons to include currently attuned Essence.
Lv1: Adds Elemental & Monster Properties to weaponry.
Lv2: Includes Weaponskills and Abilities.
Lv3: Includes Spells.
While gaining more essence was indeed useful, as anything over 100% appeared to give him access to the Monster Affinity as well as awarding him a perk that let him increase that essence’s specific utility, he could always hunt more monsters.
It was a time saver. Nothing more.
Essence Delve, now that seemed useful. It gave him greater power with all essences and that was something he suspected was far-reaching and immensely powerful.
If not for Deep Magic, he would have picked it. But as soon as he saw Deep Magic he knew what he was going to choose. There was simply no denying the overwhelming utility and power that could afford him. Especially if his theory that there was a series of mechanics between different Monster Families.
Acknowledging the assignment, Hal drew his [Goblinbane] and studied the curved blade that ended in a cruel point. No doubt it was a beautiful sword with lightly etched runes along the flat sides.
As Hal’s mind awoke to new knowledge, he tapped his newfound understanding of Beastborne. He watched with amazement as curling black shadow leaped from the dark around him and clung to the blade.
Shadows roiled and drifted off the dark edge of the [Goblinbane] like dry ice vapors. The shadows fell and pooled at his feet, creating eddying currents before vanishing completely.
Despite the Guild’s badge being less than two feet from the blade, the metal did not gleam. It seemed to reject the shine of light upon it, swallowing it whole.
I could get used to this.
46
Hal sheathed the shadowy blade, enamored by the way the shadows fell off the metal as it slid home into the sheath. They drifted through the air like ephemeral ribbons.
It was still all bright and new to him, like a shiny toy.
Channeling his shadow essence, which was using his Splice ability on only a single essence, Hal reached out and tried to make his shadow-limbs again. They formed easily enough.
But when he went to lift himself up to the next handholds he spotted… nothing happened.
The problem with shadow was, it was immaterial.
Without realizing it, Hal had spliced two opposing affinities together. Not only that, but he had also spliced two opposing states, material and immaterial.
As he delved within himself, seeking out how he had made the shadow-limbs before, Hal garnered a deeper understanding of Splice and its near-limitless capacity to change him.
The ability was in its nascent stages, as was his understanding of it, but if it continued to grow in power – and his comprehension kept apace – he could see grand possibilities.
The Mimic jerked when Hal began Splicing the aberration essence. It didn’t quite turn aggressive but its confusion was clearly sent to Hal. It sensed something else, the very essence of the creature it despised but also Hal, and the familiarity of another arcana-based creature.
Friend? Family? Came the worried, plaintive wordless communication.
Hal turned and reassured the Mimic, petting its smooth curved lid. He didn’t want it to think that he was betraying it.
He did his best to send calming images of companionship. It only occurred to Hal once he had reformed his shadow-limbs that Ashera might not be so welcoming to the diminutive creature.
Once more, Hal focused on imagery and emotion, extending his consciousness toward the Mimic by his side. Not wanting to overwhelm the poor thing, he showed images of Ashera. His friendship with her, their companionship, and how she saved his life.
Emanations of confusion shifted into understanding and then a single crystallized thought: Family.
Hal wasn’t sure he thought of Ashera or the others like that but if the Mimic did then Hal wasn’t about to disabuse him of the notion. The last thing he wanted was for the creature to think his friends were snacks.
And yet, he didn’t think it was necessary to worry. The Mimic didn’t seem terribly concerned with eating anything living. It preferred its meals to be cold steel, precious gems, and glittering gold.
As Hal set his shadow-aberration limbs into place, he looked at the Mimic realizing he couldn’t keep calling it that. If only for his own sanity. But he didn’t know how to address the issue.
“We need to give you a name,” Hal said to the Mimic, which was idly nibbling on his newly equipped [Leaping Boots].
Feelings of identity and persona were sent out but it became confusing to the creature as Hal kept mixing up what he thought of himself and imparting that muddled message to the Mimic.
Says a lot about me if I don’t know my own identity.
Switching tactics, Hal tried to go for the simplistic approach. A name. Every society and every language used names for things, even if they were able to communicate like the Mimic. It would still need a name for rock and stone.
Or so he thought.
The problem with sympathetic telepathy was the lack of required explanation. There didn’t need to be an agreed-upon word, sound, or image for a specific rock when you could simply send that precise image to the other person.
In a way, it made every item unique. And also deeply confusing. But the Mimic had imparted feelings of hunger and loneliness to him before. Perhaps there was another way to go about doing this.
Eventually, Hal managed to get through to the Mimic. It took him a collection of feelings, impressions, and imagery for the Mimic to fully understand. In the end, Hal wasn’t surprised that the thing had no name. It was what it was.
Just as every person has a unique fingerprint or timbre to their voice, mimics could tell each other apart by their sympathetic emanations. It had taken Hal quite some time to reach
that conclusion but once he did, he latched onto it and pressed the confused treasure chest.
“How about, ‘Vorax’?” Hal asked.
The Mimic wasn’t thrilled about the name until Hal imparted its meaning. An image of a voracious, unending abyss where all manner of treasure and loot fell into its waiting, velvet-lined maw.
Though the word was foreign to the Mimic, it refused to associate with anything else from then on.
So much so, that when Hal looked at him again, his nameplate had changed.
[Vorax | Lv.5]
Hal reached out to Vorax and without waiting, his mimic friend jumped twice its height into Hal’s waiting arms. Using his reformed shadow and aberration Spliced limbs, Hal climbed his way back up to where he had left Ashera.
Ashera’s eyes lit up with wonder and curiosity when she saw Hal carrying the fine treasure chest in his arms. But when it opened its lid and a long spiked tongue rolled out like a panting dog’s, her scream of shock and surprise rang off the distant stones in the cavern.
Vorax, thinking that this was a fine time to make new friends, leaped from Hal’s arms and mimicked Ashera’s scream perfectly, while hopping and scooting across the floor to her.
It took Ashera several long minutes to calm down after that, and she still wouldn’t go near Vorax. Much to the mimic’s dismay. Hal had never seen nor heard the mimic… mimic somebody before.
It was uncanny.
Vorax scooted along beside Hal as they passed through the caverns, making progress in a generally upward direction. With his [Leaping Boots] it was much easier to keep pace with Ashera.
The mimic, it seemed, could adhere to anything and anyone it chose. Which made carrying it a non-issue whenever they approached an area too broken to traverse normally. Vorax would stick to his back, freeing Hal to hold Ashera in his arms.
Beastborne- Mark of the Founder Page 41