by Dakota Krout
Inflame
The Completionist Chronicles Book Six
Dakota Krout
Copyright © 2021 by Dakota Krout
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Contents
Acknowledgments
Newsletter
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Epilogue
Afterword
About Dakota Krout
About Mountaindale Press
Mountaindale Press Titles
Acknowledgments
As always, it is a true delight to release a new novel into the world. It looks good and is on time only ever thanks to my lovely wife, boss, and best friend: Danielle Krout.
I would like to make a special thank you to a few groups of people, as well as a few spectacular individuals. My followers on Facebook, thank you so much for sticking with me and getting as excited about the process as I do! My Patreons, thank you for wanting to be the first to have eyes on the work, and for giving me tips to make it all better.
Finally, to Aaron Walker, Jim Eleven, Mike Hernandez, Michael Pregler, Kyyle Newton, Garett Loosen, Chioke Nelson, John Grover, William Merrick, Justin Williams, Samuel Landrie, and Karnnie… thank you for doing so much, and asking for so little in return.
Newsletter
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Prologue
“Hello,” a musical voice called over as Joe peered around from the fluffy chair that he found himself in. He blinked as he locked eyes with an Elf. “Welcome to Alfenheim. You have a choice to make.”
“Welcome to Svaltarheim, and the choice should be an easy one!” the Dwarf on the other side called out. “Join the snooty Elves, and become a sworn enemy of the Dwarves-”
“Or join the unruly mob that is the Dwarves, and become the sworn enemy of the Elves.”
Joe tried to catch his breath, but every single moment felt like standing in the presence of King Henry. The Dwarf narrowed his eyes as he watched Joe struggle to breathe. “You… celestials above, human! You didn’t wait to break the mortal limit before you came here?”
“This one is clearly going to join the Dwarves; he must have no intelligence at all. I’m pleased to see that not every human that comes to this plane is going to be as talented and impressive as all the other ones that already arrived and joined us.” The Elf scoffed as Joe fully collapsed to the ground. “Look at him. This is a joke, for sure. Dwarf, you may as well leave; he has no physicality at all. He’s all mind characteristics, so there’s nothing he will want from you. Even if we have no choice but to accept him, he’ll certainly want to join the group that can actually help him.”
“Pah! That’s exactly why he’ll join the Dwarves!” The stocky recruiter stepped forward and reached out a hand to help Joe up. “He needs to beef up! Focusing on his mind above all else has made him as weak as a kitten, and he’s getting a chance to rectify that. Come on, lad, as soon as you join up with me, we'll go get a steak together!”
“Touch him…” The Elf threatened softly as the Dwarf reached out, “…and this is the last time we will see a peaceful recruitment. You know the rules. They have to make their choice alone, and anything we do besides informing them of their options will be seen as an act of aggression. Help him or hurt him before he chooses, and all potential recruits start spawning into a dungeon.”
A look of sorrowful hesitation crossed the Dwarf’s face, and he reluctantly dropped his hand. “I’m sorry that I cannot take this moment to do right by you, human. Arrow-Head over there has a point. There are precious few places where we can be in the same area without killing each other directly. If one of us messes this up, it will mean a demotion, at best.”
The Elf turned on the Dwarf and spat to the side. “Arrow-Head? Ah, my ears; I see. Yes, personal attacks are exactly what I expect from rabble such as you. Eventually, we will meet on the field of battle, and I will teach you that there are people beyond people, and heavens beyond the heavens. Your secular ways truly shine through with everything you do.”
Joe wheezed, but only frothing bubbles came out of his mouth as he tried to force his lungs to voice the words he wanted to speak. He couldn't get out more than a pained grunt, and the Elf and Dwarf were forced to watch without helping as the energetic environment of the second Zone slowly crushed and suffocated him over the next hour.
There was only one benefit to this terrible pressure: it counted as characteristic training all by itself.
Characteristic training complete. +1 Strength, Constitution, Wisdom, Perception. Caution: there appear to be massive downsides to training in this style!
You have died! Calculating: you have lost 4,400 experience! You will respawn in 12 of Zone Two’s hours!
Joe blinked and found himself in his respawn room. He sank into the giant bean bag cushion that appeared in the center of the room, rubbing the center of his forehead. “Well, that did not go nearly as well as I had hoped it would. I need to figure out how to break the Mortal limit within an hour of respawning? Can I study that here? Maybe my ‘mortal mind’ just won't be able to comprehend it?”
He smirked at the thought, but the smile faded as he realized that he was actually probably correct about that. “System, can I inspect the items in my storage even though I'm dead?”
Joe wasn't expecting a response to this, and was pleasantly surprised when his inventory opened up. He received a notification immediately afterward, letting him know that he would not be able to interact with any o
f the items in his storage. He could only inspect them, though he could read over the books or data that was stored within. Joe pulled out the… scroll? Book? It was hard to tell exactly what this document was, as it shifted to a new form every time he blinked. “Thank you, System, that's exactly what I was hoping to see…”
Those were the last words he spoke over the next few hours, as he read over ‘Breaking the Mortal Limit’. The document itself was not difficult to understand; it was instructing him on how to create certain permanent patterns within his mana—and therefore, his body as a whole—and luckily had been tailored to his particular case. His mana was unrestrained and rampaged through his body at all times. The most difficult portion of study was the fact that there was no way to test his knowledge. While he was in his respawn room, he could only try to memorize the patterns as perfectly as possible.
At some point, the portal reopened, but he ignored it; for a day, then two, but just as the timer showed that he had been in the room for exactly forty-eight hours, Joe got to experience something absolutely brand new. He was violently and unceremoniously ejected through the portal at speed.
You are not allowed to stay in your respawn room for more than two days now that you have reached Zone Two! You have gained a debuff: Weakling. Avoiding your duty for two whole days has reduced your maximum health and mana to one quarter of its normal pool for the next 12 hours!
The debuff, coupled with the fact that Joe hit the floor hard when he came out of the portal, meant that the Reductionist nearly died by respawning. That would have been completely humiliating, but his current state of being completely unable to move beyond spastic twitching wasn’t much better.
“Oh look, that human is back.” The Dwarf immediately put on a greasy smile, moving into full salesman mode as soon as his target arrived. “You've been gone so long; you must have gone back to the previous Zone? Did you take the time to break the Mortal limit? That was very quick—what the abyss?”
A wave of healing water washed over Joe, bringing his health up to its current maximum. However, Joe did not stand up, nor did he move. He was stuck to the floor once more, slowly being crushed to death. The Elf scoffed at the sight, doing his best not to laugh aloud, but didn’t bother to comment about the weakness; instead making an astute observation. “He must have been banned, exiled from the previous Zone. Human, make sure to study and prepare during your time dead, else you will eventually return to the moon.”
The Dwarf winced at that, slightly sneering. The reason became apparent with his next words. “I hate to agree with this poetic fraudster, but if you die even a couple of more times, you are going to start losing ground faster and faster. You begin racking up debuffs, penalties, and you might just start respawning over and over. You will be level zero in no time… and your only hope will be returning to the previous Zone when your ban is over. For your sake, I hope that there is a time limit.”
“Either way, can you be quick about it?” The Elf sighed and picked at his nails. “Until you either leave for good or pick one of us, we are stuck without new recruits. This position and all bonuses are based on turnaround time, so…”
The fact that this was something they agreed on made Joe suspicious. They acted like mortal enemies, but they seemed to be getting along pretty well… or it might just be that important. Joe opened his status sheet and looked at the countdown timer. Three hundred and sixty-one days remaining on his exile. He swallowed, feeling like he was trying to get a ball of lead down his trachea.
Joe really needed to figure out this Mortal Limit thing.
Chapter One
“Four more deaths, and five days lost in Zone Two.” Joe sighed as he checked the countdown for his exile. That was the most accurate way for him to track how much time he was wasting due to failing to break the Mortal Limit over and over. Three hundred and fifty-six days of exile remaining meant that there was exactly one way forward. “I have gained four more characteristic points during each of those suffocation training sessions, and lost twenty-two thousand experience. I'm back to level twenty-one today, and if I can't figure it out this time around… I don't want to prove those two right.”
Joe decided to peruse his status sheet while he waited for the portal to reopen. He had learned that the weakling debuff increased in potency every few minutes that he waited to exit after the portal opened, culminating at the forty-eight-hour mark. That meant that the only way to maximize his chances of successfully creating the necessary mana patterns was to get out of his respawn room as soon as physically possible.
Name: Joe ‘Tatum’s Chosen Legend’ Class: Reductionist
Profession I: Arcanologist (Max)
Profession II: Ritualistic Alchemist (1/20)
Profession III: None
Character Level: 21 Exp: 248,820 Exp to next level: 4,180
Rituarchitect Level: 10 Exp: 45,000 Exp debt: 14,714
Reductionist Level: 0 Exp: 0 Exp to next level: 1,000
Hit Points: 0/787 (Currently respawning)
Mana: 0/2,152 (Currently respawning)
Mana regen: 44.54/sec
Stamina: 0/781.5
Stamina regen: 5.97/sec
Characteristic: Raw score
Strength: 76
Dexterity: 93
Constitution: 77
Intelligence: 138
Wisdom: 118
Dark Charisma: 80
Perception: 93
Luck: 59
Karmic Luck: -1
“I don’t even remember getting to level twenty-two. Did that ritual wipe out a monster population when it hit them? Did I get experience for that?” It had been an astonishingly long time since Joe had looked over his entire status sheet, and frankly, he was surprised to see how much it had changed. The final battles, changes, rituals, everything that he had done had apparently shot his level skyward.
However, now that he was losing levels, Joe had another concern. When he had gained the Reductionist class, there had been something in the description about not gaining characteristic points by leveling. If he continued to lose levels, was he going to start losing the characteristic bonuses that he had gained? When he had been able to get the little extras, it had always felt like an awesome reward, and losing them would feel like a double defeat. The whole situation was a little frustrating, but hopefully… that would all end today.
“I think I’m finally ready.” Joe had memorized the entirety of the mana flows, and he was about eighty percent certain that he could get them in the correct configuration today. The first time he had attempted it, he had only hastened his death, causing his body to implode and leave behind a puddle on the ground that neither the Elf nor the Dwarf had bothered to clean up. He had nearly drowned when he respawned the next time around. Who could have guessed that shifting energy that was as potent as unbridled lightning around in your body could have negative effects?
The Reductionist closed his eyes and tried not to give into frustration. He needed to be as balanced mentally and physically as he possibly could be if he wanted to have a shot of breaking through the Mortal Limit during this life. The portal opened, and he fell backward through it. Oddly, he came walking out the other side, just like every other time—except for the first, when he had been forcefully ejected. It was a truly strange phenomenon, but he did not have time to dwell on the mechanics of resurrection right now.
“An oligarchy is the only way to have a fair society based on the merit of the individual!” The long-bearded Dwarf was apparently making a case that was falling on deaf ears, because the Elf cut him off right away.
“Yet nothing ever really changes for your people, does it? That is why our theocracy is the best path. Our rulers are mandates from above!” The Elf’s voice was an unusually soft countertenor, and could have easily been mistaken as tenor, something Joe hadn’t really thought about before.
“You have the gall to talk about nothing changing? Your leadership has literally never changed without death involved.”
The Elf returned a simpering smile. “Mandated from above means permanency.”
Ignoring the caustic bantering of the recruiters—just as they ignored his body arriving and dropping to the floor—Joe got to work right away. He directed his energy back and forth, creating swells, tides, whirlpools. He had a strange crystallizing moment of realization that if he had kept his mana within a core like everyone else in the Mage’s College, this process would have been much easier; far more streamlined, at least. Joe could feel it, he was almost there. Just a few more whirlpools, another few seconds…
He lost it. While he was mentally groping for a thread of power to tie all of his effort together in a pretty bow, Joe slipped. Instead of pulling away a tiny stream of mana, he slapped his mana pool like he would a bag of mulch in a supermarket; dispersing a massive amount throughout his body. Everything that he had put together washed away in the face of that tidal wave… on the positive side, his body didn’t explode. Or implode. That was nice, too. Yet, he was back to square one with only a few minutes of oxygen remaining. He could practically feel the carbon dioxide building up in his blood, poisoning his organs and reducing his vision to a dark tunnel…