Beastborne- Mark of the Founder
Page 74
…
Your Beast Magic has risen to Level 13.
+3% Beast Magic potency (+39%).
Your Enfeebling Magic has risen to Level 11.
Your Enfeebling Magic has risen to Level 12.
+1% Enfeebling success (+12%).
+2% Enfeebling duration (+24%).
Your Sword Skill has risen to Level 9.
+1% Sword damage (+9%).
-0.25% Sword durability loss (-2.25%).
Your Evasion Skill has risen to Level 11.
+1% Evasion speed (+11%).
-1% Stamina cost (-11%).
Your Improvised Weaponry Skill has risen to Level 11.
Your Improvised Weaponry Skill has risen to Level 12.
+2% Improvised Weapon damage (+24%).
+2% Improvised Weapon attack speed (+24%).
Monster Attunements Available.
Eldritch: 2
Hidden Quest Completed: Peace for the Fallen.
You have put your fallen brother’s soul to rest, freeing him from decades of service as a jailer to Shae’kathoth. By defeating the Eldritch menace you not only gave Thirty-seven’s sacrifice meaning but managed to avert the impending disaster that would befall Murkmire.
Objectives
Release Thirty-seven’s soul from servitude (Complete).
Destroy Shae’kathoth before it can break free (Complete).
Rewards
Trait: Stalwart Soul.
4,500 Experience Points.
Murkmire Hero.
Stalwart Soul
For the purposes of overcoming resistance to negative status effects, all attributes are considered double their actual value.
Murkmire Hero
Though the common citizenry of Murkmire may not know the particulars of what you did, an oppressive pall has been lifted from Murkmire. As a result, all Reputation gains are doubled and Reputation losses are halved.
Soul Absorption made him feel uncomfortable. He felt reasonably sure it wasn’t actually a creature’s soul but it was odd all the same. It did, however, provide a powerful incentive – as if he needed any more – to go out and hunt rare or uniquely powerful monsters.
He wasn’t sure how he felt about having that thing’s soul in him. Though technically, it wasn’t Shae’kathoth’s soul, only its residual power. As the description said, it was little more than essence. Without form or intention.
Unsurprisingly, Shae’kathoth didn’t have any items on him. But the bounty in both sparks and EXP was massive.
While it went against his instincts, Hal decided not to spend all of his EXP and instead create a large buffer. Not for Founder Sigils - though he planned to take Thirty-seven’s advice and try to learn more in the days and weeks of travel in his future - but for the healing factor.
After they turned in the Contract and had all the supplies they needed, Hal meant to head west for the Manaseed. From there, he assumed they would go to the Shiverglades.
And healing while out in the wilds would likely be difficult or costly. Having a bank of EXP to do a full heal once per day would be useful.
However, he only wanted about 10,000 EXP as a buffer. Stockpiling the EXP at the cost of progress wasn’t what he was after. Committing his EXP, however, proved problematic. A prompt flashed when he tried to put EXP into Oathforger.
Cannot allocate Experience Points to Oathforger. All Classes (barring the first Class after Novice) can only attain Experience Points from Discordant Stones after they have been unlocked. All Experience Points gained prior are invalid for the new Class.
Figures, he grumped. But there was nothing for it. He would have to keep that in mind for later. Good thing he didn’t hoard his EXP hoping to dump it all and get Oathforger to Level 10 in an instant.
Instead, Hal took Beastborne to lucky Level 13. The cost was a little more, but Beastborne was his main Class and he felt it would likely always be.
Beastborne reaches Level 12.
Beastborne reaches Level 13.
You have 15 unspent Attribute Points awaiting assignment.
You learn Clear Mind.
Sacrifice a third of your HP, SP, and MP to reduce Strain to 0.
Limit once per day.
With his 15 points to spend, Hal pushed his MND to 30. Considering the boosts Oathforger had to CHR based actions and skills, he put the rest into CHR bringing it up to a base of 20.
[Status]
Hal Williams
Level: 24
Discordant Stone: 11,681/55,000
Strain: 0/50
BP: 10/10
Classes
Beastborne: 13
Novice: 10
Oathforger: 1
Resources
HP: 345/345
SP: 315/315
MP: 395/395
Attributes
STR: 10 (+5)
VIT: 20
DEX: 10 (+1)
AGI: 10 (+4)
INT: 27 (+1)
MND: 30
CHR: 20 (+10)
Regeneration
HP/hr: 51.1
SP/hr: 52.4
MP/hr: 92.4
Resistances
Fire: 25
Ice: 0
Wind: 0
Earth: 0
Lightning: 0
Water: -25
Light: 0
Dark: 0
Defensive Properties
DEF: 34
MDEF: 15
Insulation: 28
That was a significant boost to his CHR. Regal Bearing was pretty nice, he couldn’t wait to see how it worked in practice. With his higher CHR, it would make interacting with people a lot nicer and smoother.
Hal glanced toward Noth. Despite the deluge of prompts Hal received, she still wasn’t done with her own. He went about setting Shae’kathoth’s soul and felt more than a little uncomfortable during the process.
In the end, he didn’t feel different aside from his awareness of the new spells at his disposal. Maybe in some small way, Hal could use the eldritch abomination’s powers for good, making up for the horror it once spread.
Shifting Mask would be especially useful.
With what he knew of Rinbast now, and that the man likely would be looking for him, he would need to be more careful. He could walk around any city without worry beyond the hourly duration.
Once his MND was high enough, he could probably natively regenerate enough MP to keep the spell up indefinitely.
Provided he could find a place to recast it away from prying eyes.
Soul Drain was just as useful if not darker.
Considering the enfeebling perk Dream Thief, Hal could see a potential synergy there. That potential, however, depended entirely on whether or not Dream Thief was specific to enfeebling magic spells or any spell that had an enfeebling effect – like Soul Drain.
Getting a 50% boost to its power would be useful. Finding somebody that was already asleep and near a battle he’d need the spell for seemed unlikely, however.
Stalwart Soul seemed something that Thirty-seven would have had. Even if Hal wasn’t a tank, being more resistant to negative statuses was always welcome. It would help bridge the gap when he wasn’t using Monstrous Resistance. And when he was, it made him even more likely to resist nasty effects.
I could have used it against that pain in the butt slow effect that nearly got me killed. Would have been nice then.
It was amazing how much his skills had grown from a single battle. Since Noth was still preoccupied, he brought up his attunements, wondering what eldritch offered.
He was more than a little curious how it differed from aberration, considering a Shoggoth was - as far as he knew - often lumped into the same category of horrors as the other Lovecraftian abominations.
[Monster Attunements]
Eldritch: 2
Fear Killer 0/5
Every attack has a 10% chance to inflict the Fear status affliction. Any creature under the effect of Fear takes 15% more damage from you.
Lv1: 10
% Chance | 15% Damage Increase
Lv2: 15% Chance | 20% Damage Increase
Lv3: 20% Chance | 25% Damage Increase
Lv4: 25% Chance | 30% Damage Increase
Lv5: 35% Chance | 50% Damage Increase
Elder Prowess 0/5
Eldritch creatures are deeply attuned to the ebb and flow of mana, making them unparalleled practitioners of the darkest magicks. All magic is 10% more potent.
Lv1: +10% Magic Potency
Lv2: +20% Magic Potency
Lv3: +30% Magic Potency
Lv4: +40% Magic Potency
Lv5: +50% Magic Potency
While Eldritch only had two essence attunements to choose from, both were really quite good. Fear Killer had a great deal of potential on its own purely for the chance to inflict a status effect without a spell or ability.
But as he delved deeper into casting and Beast Magic, overlooking Elder Prowess would be foolish. A straight improvement to the potency of all his spells was not something he could pass up. The wording meant it would apply to healing spells as well as buffs and utility spells.
Eventually having a 50% bonus to all magic potency was just flat-out broken. Not that he expected to reach that strength anytime soon. He doubted eldritch creatures were common. And as much as Thirty-seven had weakened Shae’kathoth, Hal still nearly died.
Looking over at Noth, Hal felt a pang of guilt. He wasn’t the only one who nearly died.
He could always specifically go out of his way to hunt eldritch creatures - assuming it was even an option - if he wanted to take Fear Killer at a later date. If he was only taking into account the damage increase, Elder Prowess would still win out.
At a 10% chance, the averaged out damage increase of Fear Killer was 1.5%. Even at its highest Level, it was considerably weaker. But together they would provide a massive boost to his damage.
Hal put both of his attunement points into Elder Prowess, increasing all of his magic while Splicing eldritch essence by a whopping 20%. He quickly swapped treant for eldritch, now channeling both shadow and eldritch at once.
The curling shadows that rolled off his body became red-tinged at the frayed edges like a wound torn in space. Ruby-red sparks of electricity arced soundlessly in the air around him and red blinking motes of spiteful mana flowed across his body.
He was strangely entranced by the otherworldliness of it all. It took him several moments to shake off the effect.
Hal got to his feet and found Noth looking up at him expectantly.
“Are we going?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Hal said, taking one last look around the place. He reached a hand down to her. “Finally.”
91
As a mimic, Vorax was used to watching and copying. It was, after all, one of his most basic instincts. But after a while, the mimic began to worry. The people Hal called his family – and by extension, Vorax’s family – had yet to move.
If they were mimics, that would be considered normal. Healthy even. But these people were not mimics. They breathed and shifted. If they only knew how loud they were, how much they moved to the acute senses of a mimic, they would be appalled.
Even the stealthy one with the golden hair that kept looking at him fondly was as loud as a sack of heavy metal armor falling down the stairs.
Yet here they were, unmoving as any statue. The empathetic bond between Vorax and Hal helped the mimic understand concepts and ideas beyond what the mimic had experienced.
Naming was one such concept. Seeing and hearing was another. For a mimic, the two were one. But as it spent more time with Hal, it began to differentiate the two.
Unlike most creatures, mimics didn’t need to look at anything in particular to see. Like most of its arcana-class brethren, a mimic had magical sight that relied on a type of “magical mist” for lack of a better description.
Provided there was some connection between one area and the next, the mimic could see uninterrupted for around 60 feet.
But the vault ahead of Vorax was completely sealed off. As soon as Hal touched it, the mimic lost all sight of its best friend. And so the mimic began to worry.
It rattled its lid and bumped into ankles, all to no avail. It opened wide its lid and showed the wondrous glittering trinkets and baubles that humans were so entranced by – a love Vorax shared – but none of them would come out of their stupor.
Even the floating death angel was gone.
Vorax was smarter than most mimics, the basic fleshgorgers. Treasuregorgers, on the other hand, were refined and thoughtful creatures. The aristocracy of the mimic monster hierarchy. Vorax, as a mixed-breed was an omnigorger. His diet consisted mostly of loot, but he could eat anything in a pinch.
At any point, he could have eaten one of these people that were now frozen in front of him. Held in check by some unknown magic. But he considered them family and as the ungainly relations that would be looked down upon everywhere by monster-kind, it was Vorax’s duty to make sure they were kept safe.
And so the mimic hopped about behind the group, rattling its lid, and sweeping its long purple spiked tongue about in the air to scare off any potential predators. Of which the mimic detected many.
They came on anxiously and slowly at first. Twisted creatures that bore no resemblance to anything Vorax ever encountered. Though Hal communicated with Vorax, he was akin to an infant, a tiny jewel box of a mimic in Vorax’s mind, most monsters communicated at a much higher level.
For the human, Vorax dumbed its communication to images and emotions that he thought Hal would understand.
The rapid-fire exchange that happened as the twisted dark creatures approached sensing an easy meal was unlike anything a non-monster –and thus an impaired being that should be pitied – would ever know.
Vorax and the creatures held a conversation that took all of a few seconds but within that discussion were philosophical debates about killing people. Particularly those that couldn’t fight back.
Pro-person was a pretty risky stance to take as a monster.
Until just recently, Vorax would have sided with the twisted things called vorclars. But he had seen Hal’s genuine concern up close.
When Vorax was at his weakest from weeks of starvation and about to be murdered by a hated aberration he had the misfortune of running into, it was Hal who saved him.
A person. And even stranger, one that was able to converse with him – albeit on a simple level – with the oddest desire to protect and help Vorax.
It challenged all of Vorax’s worldviews.
Over time he came to see the same potential in the people Hal traveled with. And though Vorax understood Hal was not a monster, even though at times he wore the guise of one, he didn’t hold that failing against him.
For monsters, killing people was a moral imperative.
People were cruel and evil, they destroyed the world. They caused the Manastorms that brought truly foul creations into the world and disturbed the natural order. They built houses instead of living in caves.
They sat on chairs. And ate at tables. Disgusting.
On and on the debate went (though it really only took seconds) and though Vorax was sure he could eventually win them over, he noticed one of them phasing through the wall to his left, coming out near Ashera. The one with the horns that smelled like dreary rain on a dark night.
Vorax could not let such blatant trickery – and poorly executed at that – go by unpunished. As an omnigorger, he looked like the more prestigious treasuregorger – which may have made these creatures bolder than was wise – but he had all the biting teeth and strength of a fleshgorger. Those ravenous boxes that devoured monster and human alike.
With Hal’s help, Vorax had grown strong on expensive treasures and items. These creatures were nothing to him.
A purple pseudopod whipped out from the gleaming chest and latched onto the creature just exiting the stone wall. The sticky appendage struck the twisted form of the creature and Vorax yanked it away from his vulnerab
le friends.
Three more pseudopods sprang to life and lashed out at the underhanded invaders. Two of them leaped aside, but Vorax snared one of them and drew both it and the one at the wall into his waiting maw.
If the vorclars were scared, they didn’t show it. With a few hefty bites, the mimic dispatched the two creatures easily and turned to face down the remaining two vorclars.
They made the mistake of turning and fleeing. Any proper monster would never show its back to another they just threatened.
Examples had to be made after all.
Rather than lash out with tentacles or teeth, Vorax summoned its innate extradimensional powers to form a sphere of nothingness in its gut. The mimic spat it back out, encased in a thin layer of its own mana; so that when the shimmering orb of nothingness landed between the fleeing creatures, the thin sheen of mana popped like a soap bubble.
Any mimic worth its salt is capable of creating extradimensional pockets. Most creatures feared a mimic’s teeth or tentacles, or something else equally as scary.
Few truly understood the devastating force of releasing a small extradimensional pocket and then letting it collapse upon itself. The sudden shift in the pressure of the collapsing nothingness created a powerful shockwave that could rip most creatures to ribbons.
The poor vorclars noticed the orb too late. As it popped, their twisted forms were shredded and painted across the walls of the cavern.
Never one to let a good meal go to waste, Vorax ambled up to the abstract art it had made on the walls, took a moment to appreciate its work, and then lapped up the remains.
Plop. Plorp, plop, came a sound down the tunnel and Vorax’s mood instantly brightened. It recognized that springy, goopy sound anywhere. He had been silently calling to the thing for days now. All but sure the little pink blob was forever lost.