I knew he had an advanced class already, for the secrets of the Grenadier were not something that you could just stumble across, so we were on equal footing. I could pull rank and just take the elixir, or just lie to him about the yield…but that wouldn’t be fair. He wasn’t out here as a soldier, but as a friend.
I put the ingredients within the brewing cauldron to begin making the Kaos elixir and turned my attention to finishing up the new Ilrex charm. I had taken one of the long claws and refined it into a sharp pair of hairpins. Being on the road for so long meant my hair would grow out, so rather than attempting to cut my own hair (or worse, letting Trig have a shot at it) it would be better to use these pins to put them up in a bun. Better yet to have them provide some kind of advantage as well.
Glancing at the two white pins, I slipped them into my hair to see what benefits they conferred.
Ilrex Charm:
- Extra Limbs (0/2): After a moment of focus, you may produce an extra pair of arms or legs for up to an hour. These function as regular limbs and you are as adept with them as you are with your regular appendages. If an extra limb is severed, you permanently lose 15% of your health.
- Contortionist: (0/2): You gain a significantly high level of flexibility, allowing you to twist, bend and squeeze your body in ways that most would not think possible. You may use this to enter or exit small spaces that would normally be unavailable to a human of your size. Your gear also adopts this same level of flexibility, regardless of structure or design.
- Crawler (0/2): You grow sharp claws on your hands and feet, allowing you to climb any solid surface at high speeds. Unless you choose to release the surface, you cannot be knocked down by any external force.
I frowned at these options. They seemed useful, but nothing terribly interesting. Certainly nothing valuable enough for me to swap out my current charm roster. But the extra limbs could help Trig out quite a bit, giving him hands for bombs and dagger fighting. And hey, he might look stylish with his hair up in a bun too.
Once I was finished reading the less than impressive aptitudes of the Ilrex, it was time for me to allocate that L’Gara point to one of the existing abilities. This was my go-to charm because the extra strength was just always too good to pass up. No matter the skill, no matter the special power, few charms could beat out the capacity to just rip a monster’s head clean off. I couldn’t quite remember how many more I’d need to kill to get that ability. I glanced to see what the requirements were.
Aspect of the L’Gara:
You have 1 point
Aquatic (0/1): You may breathe underwater.
Mighty (0/3): +2 Strength.
Grasping (0/2): When underwater, gain +6 Strength.
Hmmmm. I could hold off on spending and look for two more L’Gara while in the Shadewood. Chances were they were present, especially if one somehow managed to crawl its way out of the forest and into the mountain. Or I could immediately gain the permanent ability to breathe underwater…though most of our hunts took place above water. Still, suddenly drowning was always a possibility when fighting an actual L’Gara so…
After a few moments of back and forth, I settled on saving the point. If possible, we’d try and track down where this L’Gara managed to drag itself out of and find two more. Who knows, maybe we could get lucky and then, I’d have a free charm slot again!
Chapter 11
While the black cauldron continued to brew the secret elixir, I examined my own abilities, looking where to spend the total 9,000 Bloodpoints I had earned from the last fight. The Ilrex had yielded a surprisingly high amount of Bloodpoints for a single kill, opening up the path for me to perhaps expand my alchemical abilities or continue growing in my bow’s unique powers. The Hunter’s Profile seemed to just get longer and longer, but hey, I wasn’t complaining! The more choices, the better chance of success in the field.
Archer Tier One Completed
Archer Tier Two Completed
Archer Tier Three Completed
Archer Tier Four:
- Armor Crack: If your arrows cannot pierce armor, they deal double damage to the armor itself. This ability works in combination with Rapid Shot or Multishot.
- Arrow Homeostasis: All arrows in your quiver will transform to match the strongest arrow that you have.
Tracker Tier One Completed
Tracker Tier Two:
- Know Your Enemy: Clues and trails now have a chance of revealing an enemy weakness.
- Darkvision: When on a trail, gain the ability to see in the dark until the monster is located.
Stealth Tier One:
- Camouflage I: Gain the ability to craft camouflage that provides stealth bonuses when worn.
- Stealth Instincts: Effective hiding spots glow.
Navigator Tier One:
- Cartography: Unlocks the Mapmaking ability.
Navigator Tier Two:
- Secret Passage: Hidden doors, passages and basements will glow, revealing themselves.
Navigator Tier Three Completed
Hunter Tier One:
- Animal Tracker: Your tracking abilities can now apply to natural animals.
- Butcher: Increases the meat gained from butchering any creature by 50%.
- Stomach Sense: You can tell which monsters are edible and which ones are not at a glance.
Acrobat Tier One Completed
Acrobat Tier Two Completed
Acrobat Tier Three:
- Wall Run: May move alongside flat vertical surfaces for a distance of ten feet at a time.
Acrobat Tier Four:
- Blessed Descent: You no longer take fall damage and always land on your feet.
Giantslayer Tier One:
- Flatten Body: Reduces stomp and smash attack damage by 80% when fighting a Giant monster (10 feet or taller.)
Giantslayer Tier Two:
- Crush Defense: Reduces grab and squeezing attacks by 50% when fighting a giant.
Giantslayer Tier Three:
- Iron Meets Steel: When touching a Giant, you gain +5 Strength until contact is broken.
- Titanfoe I: Titans take more of an interest in you than other targets in a fight.
Alchemy Tier One Completed
Alchemy Tier Two:
- Miscibility: May convert Estoan to Firnin or Firnin to Estoan at a rate of 2:1.
- Apprentice: May brew Level Two potions.
- Nourishing: Potions now feed and hydrate you.
Magician Tier One:
- Memory Trick: Reduce memorization cost of spells by 25%.
Magician Tier Two:
- Mystic Bonds: Select one item in your possession. That item, when worn, grants you an additional +100 mana. You cannot cast spells without your Mystic Bond equipped.
Magician Tier Three:
- Fast Caster: You may spend an additional 20 mana to reduce casting time of a spell down to 10 seconds. This only works on spells with a casting time of an hour or less.
- Mystic Vision: You can sense the elemental strengths and weaknesses of enemies by observing them for a few seconds.
Spellbow Tier One:
- Arrowfinder: You always know the exact location of your arrows and can find your way to them in the shortest time possible.
Spellbow Tier Two:
- Platform Arrows: You may spend 5 mana to instantly turn an arrow into a platform arrow. When a platform arrow strikes a solid target, a 5 foot long steel platform appears, affixed to the surface. These platforms exist for 1 hour before fading.
- Command Arrows: You may spend 20 mana to command all arrows in the area to fire themselves at a single target. (This spell does not work on arrows in quivers or other containers.)
Tier 2 Alchemy abilities weren’t crazy expensive, at least not when compared with the higher end of the ability pool. At 500 points each, I could purchase Apprentice and Nourishing, opening up not only second level potion making,
but also the third tier of alchemy. With a shrug, I paid the 1,000, fondly remembering the days when a decision like that would take me hours to commit to.
At once, the potion tab of the Hunter’s Sight informed me of an entirely new list of potions I could create. I took a look before I invested any more points into alchemy, to see if Level 2 had anything worthwhile.
Level Two Potions
Advanced Accelerated Healing:
Cost: 50 Firnin, 50 Estoan
Duration: An hour
Effects: Grants a year’s worth of physical recovery within an hour.
Side Effects: While the potion heals, you are unconscious.
Spell Surge:
Cost: 50 Estoan
Duration: Instant
Effects: Restores mana immediately.
Ironskin:
Cost: 100 Firnin
Duration: 2 hours
Effects: Transforms your skin into iron, granting you high resistance to slashing and stab attacks. Attacks that manage to bypass your defenses will be reduced to a fourth of their damage.
Side Effects: When potion ends, you become disabled for ten minutes.
Sense Invisibility:
Cost: 100 Estoan
Duration: 8 hours
Effects: When consuming, focus on a single sense (sight, hearing, scent or supernatural). You become effectively invisible to that sense group. You cannot be detected by that sense group by any normal means until the duration ends.
Side Effects: Mild hallucinations occur when under the influence of this potion. Whichever sense you have become invisible to you will manifest in strange and misleading ways.
Extended Minor Stat Enhancement:
Cost: 100 Firnin, 100 Estoan
Duration: 1 week
Effects: Grants +2 to a state of your choice for 1 week. Multiple uses will not stack.
Side Effects: This concoction has a slight intoxicating effect when it peaks at multiple points during the digestion process. Expect random bouts of sickness, mood swings and lack of coordination lasting for no more than 10 to 15 minutes at a time.
Ability Purge:
Cost: 1 Kaos
Duration: Instant
Effects: Consuming this potion allows you to immediately purge X number of abilities from your body. These abilities are removed instantly and are no longer available to you. You receive a full refund in Bloodpoints equal to the total value of the abilities purged. You may not purchase these abilities again, however, and they still count for the advancement down your skill trees.
Side Effects: You must be properly hydrated, or this process will kill you.
Elemental Immunity:
Cost: 100 Firnin
Duration: 8 hours
Effects: You may select one element. For the duration of the potion’s effects, you are immune to the harmful effects of selected element. Note: you are not immune to damage from elemental attacks. A fire arrow will still deal arrow damage and a frost boulder will still deal impact damage. However, the elemental effect deals no additional damage.
Side Effects: You become vulnerable to the opposite of the chosen element for the same duration.
Walking Sleep:
Cost: 100 Estoan
Duration: Instant
Effects: Consuming this potion grants you the full effects of a full eight hours of sleep. Anything that would have occurred during your sleep state such as healing, regenerating mana or durations of potions ending, occur as if eight hours had actually passed.
Side Effects: Sustained use of Walking Sleep builds up nightmare toxicity. When you experience real sleep next, you will experience disturbing dreams for a number of days equal to your toxicity.
Not bad! A lot of situational potions, but frankly, many of these situations came up more than once in a hunt. Being able to press on without sleep was useful, as was the better Accelerated Healing. Ironskin and Sense Invisibility were also must haves. I glanced at the third tier of Alchemy to see what was available.
Alchemist Tier Three:
- Strong Stomach: You may ignore 1 side effect per day.
- Extra Sip: You may drink only half a potion and receive its full effects, effectively giving all potions 2 uses.
- Botanical Knowledge: You may now extract Firnin and Estoan from plants. These yield lower results than monsters.
Extra sip was exceptionally valuable out of the three, certainly worth the 1,500 Bloodpoints I’d have to spend. But I think that was going to be the end of my branching out into the alchemical world, at least for now. The enhanced accelerated healing potions and the invisibility potions were well worth the purchase. All in all, not bad for 2,500 points.
My next purchase was one I had been meaning to buy for quite some time. Iron Meets Steel cost a heart-stopping 3,500 points, but that extra strength when dealing with anything giant class or bigger would turn me into a proper force of nature. Like I said before, few things could really beat sheer, raw strength.
That was 6,000 points down the drain. Only 3,000 left…but I was going to hold onto them for now. From my experience, having some extra points on hand to rapidly gain a new ability in the moment was fairly handy. I couldn’t predict all the troubles that would come my way, but I could certainly adapt to them quickly enough. All it took was a bit of focus and some Bloodpoints, then I’d be good to go.
My Hunter’s Profile shifted to reflect my new abilities and I looked it over, all the while pondering who would get the Kaos elixir.
Avery Lorn: Giantslayer
Health: 100%
Mana: 100
Bloodpoints: 3000
Stats:
Strength: 4 (2+2)
Dexterity: 4
Intelligence: 4
Perception: 3
Charisma: 4
Stealth: 2
Archery: 10
Tracking: 5
Navigation: 7
Trapping: 3
Acrobatics: 10
Surprise Attack
Clean Retrieval
Search I
Light Step
Snare Trap
Leap
Archer’s Eye
Recognizable Scent
Fast Movement
Spear Trap
Safe Fall (40ft)
Piercing Shot
Tracker’s Instincts
Home Territory
Advanced Bear Trap
Dodge Reflex
Focus Breaker
On the Trail
Expedition Leader
Perfect Balance
Rapid Shot
Danger Sense
Acrobatic Training
Multi-shot
Strider
Acrobat’s Grip
Swift Hands
Group Captain
Air Combat I
Sniper’s Aim
Springheels
Explosive Shot
Homing Shot
First Aid: 5
Alchemy: 7
Magician: 6
Spellbow: 3
Giantslayer: 6
Skilled Extraction
Mystic Recovery
Spell Saver I
Fell The Mighty Oak
Physiological Examination
Mana Boost
Spell Arrow
Obsession
Enhanced Mixtures
Student
True Arrow
Invigorating Roar
Apprentice
Dabbler
The Harder They Fall
Nourishing
Journeyman
Hindered Regeneration
Extra Sip
Iron Meets Steel
Ill
usions:
Weapons:
Armor:
Tools:
Bone Charms:
Alchemy:
Dazzle
Bone Bow: Strong Fire Affinity
Swift Medium Scale Leather
Slots: 1
Expanded Bag
Max Level Kinru Charm
Firnin: 500
Phantom Sound
Iron Crossbow x3
Swift Blackoak Greaves
Level 1 Fitzon Charm
Estoan: 1000
Enchantments:
100 Tooth Arrows
Blackoak Vambraces
Slots: 1
Monster Hunting 401: A LitRPG Fantasy Adventure Page 6