Endless Online: Oblivion's Promise
Page 4
"We did it!" Elise cried out, beautiful eyes alight with triumph, their cohorts' laser rifles and carbine cooling down, the last of the spiders dying with a high pitched squeal to Elise's shimmering blade.
Val grinned back, knowing exactly how she felt, happy to see her raising her fist in sweetest triumph, flickers of a past that had haunted her for far too long losing its hold every time they tasted victory, even if that meant simply cleaving through her enemies with a psionically enhanced magic blade.
And then Val crashed into her, Elise's eyes flickering wide in fear, confusion, then horror as her limbs were pulled back and she was abruptly yanked off her feet, dragging Elise and Val both into the air as thick milky white strands foisting them high into the deep black crevices above, where the mother spider of the entire hive they had butchered lay in wait.
Elise's screams rang through the chamber.
"Elise!" Sten's horrified cry, desperation and love interwoven with every panicked syllable.
Elise shrieked in agony. The crunching of bone could be heard.
"Get out!" Val roared, and such was the deadly intent his friends somehow sensed in both languages that they complied, even as a horrific roar ripped through the cavern, rock and rubble tearing into the queen Deathspider as she crashed and exploded upon the cavern floor, Val having jumped down an instant before with a madman's grace, judging the angle with the reckless genius of a man embracing his final moments as he danced upon the razor's edge of oblivion, shattering multiple bones as he slammed into the ground while striving to keep Elise from breaking a single one, close to death as he already sensed her to be.
Val screamed as agony tore through him, feeling Elise lifted into the trembling arms of Sten, sobbing and holding her close, the woman he loved, even as Val choked in drowning blackness, his body spasming as if death caressed his soul at long last, even as strange, potent energies crackled through him, his last coherent thoughts being of Arilius and Astmar laying their hands upon his chest.
Of Ava gazing at him with her strikingly beautiful eyes, whispering soft words into his ear. He could not hear them, but he could taste their meaning nonetheless as her warm breath washed over his skin.
"Thank you, Valor Hunter. The spiders are dead. We have seared that cavern so none may ever spawn there again." Feather soft lips touched his own. "You have given my tiny little tribe hope. The children I protect will at least get to experience peaceful lives for a few more years with our mushroom grove safe. Thank you, hero. In the next life, I will claim you as my own."
Deathspider Queen has suffered catastrophic damage! Deathspider Queen has perished!
Quest: Will You Save My People? I complete! You have changed the fate of the lost colony! Doomed to a quick end as Deathspiders honed in on their fragile little tribe, you cleansed them all in one mad swoop! Who knew you could mix and shoot out Elementium laced Silbion to explosive effect in an instant? Just before the Deathspider Queen could tear Elise in two! Rift Mastery Rank 2 gained!
Alchemy specialization: Elemental compounding gained! It is now easier than ever for you to create extremely volatile infusions involving the raw elements of arcane and psionic essences, and keep them from blowing up in your face!
Congratulations! You are now level 5!
It had been madness, Val knew that. The last of the vials, the smallest one, and he had forced both compounds out in a strange unified stream, sensing the caustic catalyzations occurring in that very instant, his stabilization skill the only thing that had kept him from instant death, a half second's grace, barely enough time to fling it at the hideous spider queen's backside, her massive body providing shelter from the worst of the shock wave and deadly shrapnel even as it shredded the massive arachnid inside and out, and Val knew his eardrums and right eye had ruptured regardless. But somehow, it didn't matter. Elise was alive. Ava was safe. The dwarves had another breath of hope.
Val let himself sink in gentle waves of agony before blinking his eyes back open, frowning, sure his right eye should be pulp. But both seemed to be working okay. He put a hand to his ear, amazed to see no blood streaming from it.
"Eyes on the board, Val." Elise, wearing the uniform of a professor once more. Her smile was warm and welcoming, for all that she was bandaged and bloody.
"I'm sorry," Val whispered.
She grinned, showing a broken tooth, but still beautiful. "You saved my life. Again, you silly boy. It will take some time, but I will heal. I'm good at healing from savage abuse." Her gaze turned haunted before she shook such thoughts away. "I sensed you were still ticking. Not one easily killed, are you, dearest Val. And it is these times when you seem most receptive. So let's crack open our books and embrace our next lesson in Internal Resonance Mastery, since it's obvious you just can't resist blasting flame at whatever we find."
Val grinned back at her playful smile.
"Did you level up, Elise?" He couldn't help but to ask.
She shrugged. "I'm not even sure what that means, Val. But I do know that your arcane form is extremely receptive after serious injury, or feeding upon the potency your kills."
Val grimaced, discomfited by her grim depiction of what he'd far rather consider his experience bar, shimmering and overflowing with brilliant blue once more. "Are you really Elise, or just part of my dream?"
She shrugged. "Maybe I am both. Maybe I too am dreaming. If I had a choice, Val, I would far rather be your teacher sharing this dream with you than a girl trapped in unspeakable agony as her body struggles to heal itself." She looked around and smiled. "Your classroom is nothing like those we use, but it gives me hope to see you laden with the memories of a boy. I'd like to think that somewhere in the universe there was once a real Valor Hunter."
Val shivered and swallowed, not knowing what to say. And with a few brief strokes, Elise was well on her way to displaying a massive diagram in shimmering blue and gold upon the chalkboard, dizzying in its complexity. Val was struck by a curious sense of wonder, suddenly seeing and comprehending linkages and understandings between the flow of concepts evidenced by a few symbols and lines more clearly than he ever had before.
(+1 to Scholarship. 1 of 7 points spent)
(Rank 4 in Personal Resonance Mastery. This is a Non-Intuitive Greater Skill. 5 of 7 points spent)
(+10% to Mana, + 10% to Psion, compounded. 7 of 7 points spent.)
Even as he felt the meanings flow through him at last, he had visions of himself in a far, far older classroom. A boy wearing a linen smock, gazing with adoration at an elder teacher levitating stones over his head as a classroom full of fellow students mastered the arts of internalizing their arcane flows, each of them using the arts of Earth and Manipulation to lift those stones, and Val shivered as he felt that lesson flow inside him as well, all of them focusing not just on levitating that small stone one could lift with a finger, but moving it around with a will so gentle, so controlled, it made no impression upon the strange electronic devices besides each of them, sensitive to radiations of any sort, most especially the arcane.
"Relax," whispered the elder to a struggling, panting Valor's ear. "It matters not if this is a dream. It matters not if you are really here. I see the ghost before me, and I taste the echoes you shall leave in your wake in times to come. Learn these lessons, child, and learn them well. Everything you will hope one day to accomplish depends upon it."
Several of the other shaven-headed boys gazed strangely at their master, but none of them stared at Val. It was as if he was not even there.
So be it, Val thought. It matters not my hopes and fears, whether I exist here and now, or ever existed at all. What matters is only what I do. That alone will be the ripple that marks my existence, my passage through the universe at all.
And I will do great things.
-Terrible things-
And I will learn control.
The boy nodded with a grim smile, and slowly he began to move the tiny stone with his will alone, and the exotic device beside him trembled
not at all.
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Valor Hunter - Level 5
Primary Attributes
Strength 12
Vitality 13
Finesse 13
Quickness 16
Perception 17
Scholarship 13
Willpower 16
Charisma 11
Luck ?? +1
Health 10xVit+Str= 142
Survival (Health+(10xLevel)+Luck) = 192+?
Stamina 10xVit+Str= 142
Mana 146 (144 Accessible: 5.25 kg + 250.573 kg Elementium Stored)
Psion 146 (144 Accessible: 36.9 L + 37.8 L Silbion Stored)
Insight 17
Base Appearance 10. +0 (11 charisma) +1 (athletic) = +1 to reaction rolls.
Skills of Significance
Shadowmind Rank 4 / Psi-Sense (Shadowmind Dependent) Rank 2 / Psionic Perception Rank 2 / Arcane Perception Rank 3 / Cypher Rank 2 / Meditation Rank 3 / Rift Mastery Rank 2 / Psionic Oathbinding Rank 1 / Stealth Rank 3 / Sword and Shield Rank 2 / Magesight Rank 1 / Mageward Rank 1 / Demolitions Rank 2 / Basic Literacy Achieved! (Limited to texts of Arcane or Psionic nature)
Greater Skills Learned
Greater Alchemy Rank 3 (Specialization: Elemental Infusions)
Meta-Magic Feat: Stabilization Rank 2 / Spellboost Rank 1 (150% for triple cost)
Personal Resonance Mastery Rank 4
Greater Oathbinding Rank 1
Jordian Magical Arts Learned
Creation - Rank 1
Manipulation - Rank 1
Fire - Rank 2
Water - Rank 1
Earth - Rank 1
Jordian Spells Learned
Firestream Level 20 C/F - Cost 8 Mana
Explosive Retribution Level 30 C/F (Must save against Oblivion when casting.) - Cost 55 mana.
Condensation Collection. Level 5 M/W (This spell will allow you to collect dew and condensate from most surfaces, directing the flow towards whatever container you have ready. It is slow work, taking 1 hour per liter of fluid collected, but if you're dying of thirst, the one thing you need is dedication, right?) - Cost 0 mana.
Stoneflow. Level 1 M/E (train your internal resonance. Can you move the pebble without your intent moving through you?) - Cost 0 mana.
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3
"Val, are you awake, kid?"
Val groaned, rubbing his head. "Still tired, dad." He grimaced, expecting to feel his legs ablaze with agony even as flashes of the most fascinating dream percolated through his head. Had he gotten ahold of Endless?
He took a deep breath, expecting to smell the warm scents of crisp bacon, fluffy buttermilk pancakes, coffee, and maple syrup, but all he smelled was cool stone, sweat, and fear, all entwined with a whiff of pine and strange floral aromas.
Val's eyes fluttered open. He lurched back and swallowed, seeing not his father but Sten's brooding gaze. Features as youthful and handsome as any rogue captain in any movie he had ever seen, complete with tousled hair, blaster, and oversized leather jacket reinforced with shimmering plates of reflective armor. His was not the roguish smile of a smuggler, however, but the hard gaze of a man who feared for his fellow's safety, and his own.
The captain's gazed softened. "Sorry kid, not your father, though I'm sure he was a fine man."
"If he existed at all," grumbled Gregor over the tome he was reading, earning a glare from Sten.
"I care not if you insult me," Val said, voice turning icy and cold. "But if you insult my father again, I will challenge you to a duel by whatever laws codify such in your assinine world. My father was as fine and noble a man and soldier as any you will ever meet!"
Gregor paled, eyes widening. He swallowed, putting down his book, bowing his head. "I withdraw my comment, and I formally apologize if I have given you or your clan any offense," he said with a hitch in his voice.
The room had grown deathly quiet. Everyone now staring at Val. He felt as if he had suddenly stepped into a minefield.
"Apology accepted," Val said, suddenly feeling nothing but shame, the smaller man visibly frightened. Val forced a smile. "I don't mind if you tease me, Gregor. But please leave my father out of it. He was a good man. And whether or not I'm real, my father most certainly is. And whether or not I died like a fool trying to cross dimensions I can't even understand, or I'm simply trapped here, my father lost his son either way."
Gregor grimaced, bowing his head once more. "You are right, Val, or the memory of Val, whichever you are. Your clan is real and I overstepped. Again, my apologies."
"It's okay," Val grinned. "You can make it up to me by showing me your tome on alchemy sometime."
And as fast as Val could blink, and he was very fast, Gregor had the tome open before him, the first dizzying graph causing Val's head to spin, yet much to his amazement, he really felt like he could almost understand it! The parts measuring and quantizing arcane flows and effects, at least. The strange symbols for plants themselves, or, the idea of plants, their place on the evolutionary tree, the chart somehow accounting for all sorts of breeds and offshoots, was still inconceivably complex, but somehow, he almost thought, yes... he was almost certain that if he held a real actual plant and someone could tell him exactly where that specimen fell on the relativistic scale... he could piece together at least a few of the alchemical formulas being shown.
Halvar whistled. "Well I'll be a silverback wereboar, Val looks like he's actually getting it. Maybe."
Sten shook his head. "You just had to near start a clan war, Gregor."
"I apologized, I apologized!" The shorter man protested. "How was I supposed to know our homunculus felt that strongly about his... very real, noble, and just father?"
Val smirked at that. "Apology accepted, Gregor. We're still friends, or as close to friends as whatever it is we are. And, well, I can almost make out what this graph is getting at!" He looked down at his pin, careful not to take it apart, but pointing at the sprig of leaves. "If anyone could tell me how each of these cuttings relates to the graph, I think, maybe, I can piece together the formula for the basic rejuvenation it's depicting."
Gregor blinked, eyes wide. "You actually understand it's a rejuvenation potion?"
Val nodded. "It replenishes mana stores and speeds up healing. In game terms, it would be a very weak healing potion. But practically speaking, it would be priceless on my world, assuming we actually had arcane forces and fields back on Earth." He shrugged. "I think back home it would basically be as fortifying as a cup of herbal tea."
Halvar frowned, bringing his massive frame over to sit casually beside him as Val scratched at itchy skin under tightly wound bandages before pausing to consider if perhaps they were protecting serious injuries. But he felt no trace of soreness, and their careful removal revealed smooth flesh unmarred by cut or burn. He gave a relieved nod, doing his best to ignore the increasingly wide-eyed stares of his friends.
"So you understand the symbols and flows between these matrices here..."
Val nodded.
Halvar frowned. "But you don't understand the basic symbols depicting the genus and phylum of these plants?"
Val shrugged. "It's not a stable word meaning just, say, this leaf." He pointed to one of the leaves fastened to his pin. "Your symbol seems to account for the whole genus, and we're somehow supposed to know which specific species at what point in its lifecycle is best suited for the potion."
Puzzled silence. "You are asking very strange questions, Val," Halvar said at last.
"It's like talking to a child." Gregor rolled his eyes before flashing Val a worried grimace. "Even if from a very prestigious family."
Val sighed. "It's fine, Gregor."
"Are you sure? Because I don't want any half-mad shadow warriors feeling entitled to challenge me to a death match, just because I say the wrong thing entirely by accident!"
&
nbsp; Val smirked. "Passive aggressive sarcasm. That I understand perfectly. Your symbols for plants are completely beyond me, however."
Halvar frowned. "It's like you can't fathom the place of variables? How about match? Your sprig has a value of 2. 2 always equals 2, right?"
Val nodded, understanding that much.
"Well, think of the variable X. X always equals X.
Val nodded.
"Well, these variables are relativistically consistent," Halvar said. "They are always X and Y. Just let the formulae and patterns flow through your mind and the answers you seek from the tome are obvious. It just depends upon your question. The value you would assign to X."
Val grimaced. "I understand 2 = 2. Just like I understand what you mean if you show me this particular leaf." He pointed to the pine needles pinned to his shirt. "But looking at the symbols here, I'm totally lost."
Gregor's eyes widened. He gave a pitying shake of his head. "He doesn't get it, Halvar. Not at all. Somehow, Elise has taught him to taste the meaning of the magical symbols and how they interact, and magic alone Val has affinity to, like a wolf scenting his prey. But the rest is beyond him. How is he managing to save our skins so often? If we weren't fighting for our lives in these tunnels and caves, he'd be in remedial education with a designated caretaker to help him navigate employment and basic needs for the rest of his life."
Halvar nodded. "But like a wolf in the forest, this is his home." He flashed Val a grin meant to be reassuring. "Here in the wilds his natural instincts shine, and we could ask for no better ally. When you return to the city once more, you do not demand your wolf put on a bluesuit and become a factor. Such is absurd. Instead, you keep him in comfort with a big yard to play in, til the next time you return to the woods and he may shine in his environment once more."