by Dakota Krout
“All units, attack immediately!” The Legion rushed forward, at least fifty Dwarves with bladed weapons dashing to the base of the flower before it could launch a retaliatory strike. They cut its stalk at an angle, as though they were trying to fell a tree. The weed twisted and swiveled, slamming its maw down and crunching through the armor of a target like a hungry child chomping directly into an orange without peeling it. Damage was done to the soft flesh underneath, but the outer shell of armor stopped the vast majority of the bite.
Joe raised his hands and tried to cast a spell, only to feel a massive headache set in immediately. Confused, he looked at his mana and realized that it was completely drained. “Ahh! Abyss, that’s right! I cast Acid Spray in the area of effect of the ritual!”
Before he could beat himself up too much about losing all his mana to his own ritual, Havoc noticed his plight and grabbed Joe by his robe; chucking him almost all the way back to the entrance of the room with a single toss. The human hit the ground heavily and rolled, his Exquisite Shell taking four hundred and forty-one points of terrain damage, even though half of it was mitigated by his Jumplomancer abilities.
At first, he thought that Havoc had tossed him away because he was useless, but then Joe saw small seed pods floating around the area where he had been standing, as well as hovering over the remaining members of the legion. Just as he noticed them, the room flashed white as each of the pods detonated with the force of a brick of C4. Even as far away as Joe was, he still took three hundred eighty-six points of damage to his shield.
Exquisite Shell: 1519/2346.
Joe wasn't concerned for his own health; he was almost certain that that blast was a last-ditch effort to take out as many Dwarves as possible, and he was positive that it had a significant effect on the Dwarves who were only protected by metal and personal constitution. He wasn’t wrong; as his vision returned, Joe spotted twisted bodies laying all over the ground, even if most of them were still alive and kicking. The Dandy Lion was still alive as well, though it was slowly toppling to the side as its root system finally disintegrated to the point that it couldn’t hold up the oversized Guardian.
Joe felt something *click* in his mind, and he realized that the ritual had ended due to lack of input. His mana came flowing back to him second by second, and he sprinted to the nearest Dwarf, who clearly had a collapsed lung. Blood-flecked spittle sprayed from the Dwarf’s mouth every time she breathed out; her mustache was already matted and sticking to her skin. Even so, she managed to ask Joe questions as he started to treat her. “Is… *hack*… is that a rib poking into my breastplate? It got *cough* through the armor?”
“It did, but don't worry, you're going to be just fine. Mend!” The Dwarf managed to hold back a scream as Joe shoved her rib back into her chest, and his spell took the pain almost instantly.
“You better make sure to leave me a scar!” the Dwarf threatened him, not even slightly playing. Even with just a single treatment, she was already breathing and speaking easier. “No one is going to believe that one of my bones was hard enough to cut through Manasteel!”
“It had some help-”
The Dwarf cut him off instantly. “Yo, bro! This is an accomplishment; don't be trying to take that from me!”
“If you're well enough to mess around like this, you're going to be just fine.” Joe left her there to recover, moving to the next, and treating the most serious cases he could find. He only glanced up from his work once, when cheering broke out near the downed Guardian. Havoc was standing near the enormous plant, and had gripped just below the base of the flower, where the stem was attached. In one powerful heave, he had torn the entire Lion’s head off of the weed. The cheering reached a fever pitch and the bloodthirsty Dwarves started hacking up the rest of the Guardian.
Joe shook his head and kept moving among the injured.
“These Dwarves are insane.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
The fort had been captured, the remaining Dwarves healed, and the fallen troops recovered. Standing and watching as the fort was slowly re-grown into a Dwarven-held area, Joe found that he was at something of a loss for what to do next. It seemed that everything in this Zone was geared toward large-scale conflict and group raids. He specialized as a crafter and was effective at single-target or small-party combat. The main questline here was pushing him into Zone-sized issues, and all the things that he had to do just to pay off some of the debt ‘he’ had accrued was pulling at him.
“I’m caught in the survival trap.” Joe sat on the destroyed grass in the keep. The realization came only after he had finished healing as many Dwarves as he could reach before the remainder stabilized themselves or died. No one had seemed overly concerned at the thought of dying, which was a testament to the sheer amount of faith they had in the respawn system. They had been influencing him heavily, and it was only after seeing the brutality and lack of care for their own—or each others’—lives that he had been able to step back and ponder the situation.
“I keep skirting around this issue… it’s just so much easier to let someone else make the choices.” Joe’s head was in his hands; luckily, the last of the Dwarven blood had already been erased by his Neutrality Aura. “I need the land I’d get from becoming a Noble, my guild needs it. I need to do quests to make this happen, but… this is just… war. I don’t want to be in a war. I want a giant enclosed space where I can practice my magic. My military days are supposed to be behind me.”
“Other people can activate the rituals, so why did I come out here and do it personally?” Joe thought about his circumstances for a short while and tried to face the facts. “It’s because I don’t feel that others can do the job as well as I can. So what? Am I all-powerful? I could always make a backup if they fail. I don’t need to be doing this. I don’t need to bull-rush ahead; I need to sit back and make a plan instead of just reacting to what comes my way.”
“Joe!” Havoc startled the human out of his introspection and motioned toward the fallen Dandy Lion. “Can you do anything with this? Want it before it vanishes?”
Joe eyed the massive Guardian corpse with interest and nodded. “Well. There might be some benefit to coming out here.”
As he made his way toward the pile of organic material that would become aspects, Joe’s eyes flicked to the notifications about his skill increases.
Skill increase: Mend (Journeyman 0). Congratulations on reaching the Journeyman ranks! You’ve done so much of the healing! Twenty percent more of the healing, for sure! Bonus gained: Maximum Mend. Upon casting Mend, the target can gain bonus health for up to 30 seconds. Maximum health: 50% of maximum health from skill.
Skill increase: Retaliation of Shadows (Journeyman I).
Skill increase: Coalescence (Student V).
Skill increase: Exquisite Shell (Beginner IX)
Joe didn’t want to acknowledge how nice those skill increases were. He wanted to maintain his resolution to work on his skills by adventuring and provide for the war effort at a distance. There would always be loot; war was synonymous with profit, but the fact of the matter was that he could’ve gotten the same crafting materials from ore that he could from refined gear. He sighed as he placed his hand on the Dandy Lion and let his mana surge.
Item: Guardian (Elven).
Reduction value: 134 Unique aspects, Special (Anima) 100, 122 Rare aspects, 683 Uncommon aspects, 1,884 Common aspects, 5,684 Damaged aspects, 6,166 Trash aspects.
Reduction cost: 625 mana per second.
After canceling all effects and getting back to full mana, Joe began the process of reducing the Guardian. He lit up with dark lines and had to resist the temptation to activate Essence Cycle. There was no need to blow his head off right now. One second passed, three… Joe sank to a knee just before the fourth second, and the rest of the Guardian rotted away into a pile of unusable mush. He looked over the aspects gained, smiling softly as his mana deprivation headache started to pass. “Got almost ninety-five percent of it!”
Aspects gathered
Trash: 9,491
Damaged: 8,771
Common: 6,341
Uncommon: 4,911
Rare: 1,134
Special: 100 (Zombified). 100 (Anima).
Unique: 326
Artifact: 0
Legendary: 0
Mythical: 0
“Oh? I got all the Special?” Joe stared at the Special Anima that he had just gained, but it didn’t give him any hints as to why it hadn’t depleted by going into standard storage. “Anima has something to do with being animated, right? As in ‘living’?”
“Time for us to go!” Havoc’s orders weren’t just for Joe; they were for everyone that had joined in on the expedition. “This place is building up, so get out of the way! Your Officers are working on respawns. Make sure we don’t miss even a single Dwarf! Look for your friends tomorrow; today, you need to set up a defensive perimeter!”
Joe was already walking away and had decided that he needed to hide from the world for a while. Havoc saw him going, but said nothing to stop him: the human was at least moving in the correct direction for safety. He also knew that seeing combat like this could change people, in ways large and small. The Dwarf mulled it over and decided to give the human some room, but also make sure he would come back. “Joe! When we get back to the city, I will distribute your quest rewards immediately. We'll also go over what you have earned from me, and from this mission.”
Though he hesitated, Joe didn’t turn back, simply thanking the Dwarf and continuing on his way. As he walked along the demolished path that the Legion had left in its wake, Joe decided that he needed to take a detour. He got off the beaten path and strolled into the forest within the fort’s area of influence—which was slowly wilting away—simply to take in all the greenery and colors of the woods.
*Meow*!
A sharp sound reached his ears, and Joe’s eyes slowly turned to spot the source. “Was that a cat? Why would there be a cat out here?”
He moved faster, knowing that a domestic animal wouldn’t have a chance at survival if they met a monster. “Here, kitty kitty!”
Joe stopped himself from calling out again, knowing that he shouldn’t be giving away his position like that. The meow came again, more frantically, along with hissing and the unmistakable sound of spells and combat. Joe burst through the last bit of foliage and ground to a halt. “What the-?”
A cave opening descended at a sharp angle into the ground, almost more of a hole in the forest than anything else. Standing at the edge of the—either hole or sharp-angled tunnel—were several broken and bloody Elves that were fighting a housecat. The Elves were shouting something, but their words were mostly unintelligible to him; only a few insults were in a language that he could understand.
“Move, foul thing! When the pheasant and the turkey fight each other, it’s the hunter who benefits!” Joe was mostly certain that this insult was actually a plea, but it didn’t matter to him. When he saw an arrow pin the cat to the ground, all he could see was red.
“Mend!” Joe’s first target was the cat; then he released a Dark Lightning Strike, triggering his bonus. A second bolt came down on their heads, but both bounced off various mana barriers and jumped at the Elf that had shot the cat. His tackle took the Elf to the ground, but again did no damage through the shielding. Perceiving that an aggressor was in their midst, the Elves switched targets and bombarded Joe with their various attacks. Joe winced as he realized that he hadn’t refreshed his shell before leaving on his own.
“Ow!”
“What was that?”
Exquisite Shell: 921/2346.
Skill increase: Dark Lightning Strike (Apprentice V).
Joe smiled as he tried to choke the Elf; his Retaliation of Shadows was slapping the Elves with each attack they sent his way. The smile vanished when he realized that he was in a bad position. If they could have used their most powerful attacks, he wouldn’t have lasted very long at all; luckily, he was rolling around with one of their own. Joe would have been far more surprised if they hadn’t hesitated, but it would have at least justified the war in his mind.
He wanted so badly to see them as brutal attackers that cared nothing for friend or foe alike. It would have been so easy to hate them if they were monsters through and through.
“Hold! Stop; we need to get Elvis and get out of here. Havoc is almost certainly still looking for survivors.” A shining face dominated Joe’s field of view, then a telekinetic hand wrapped around him and lifted him into the air. It wasn’t attacking him, so the Elf didn’t get slapped. Joe stared at the golden skin of the Elf keeping him in the air, activating Intrusive Scan.
Elfwyn Searinglight
Highest stat: Intelligence
Ongoing effect-
*Slap*.
Exquisite Shell: 683/2346.
Joe’s head rocked back as a second mana-made hand was formed and hit him across the face. Elfwyn was staring at him with cold, dead eyes. “How dare ya look me in the face, ya friggin’ worm? You’re a thousand years too early to be lookin’ at swan flesh. How did ya find us?”
Joe didn’t bother to answer, his eyes searching out the cat that the Elves had been attacking. He sighed in relief when he saw that it was gone; hopefully it had escaped. The Elf hit him again, getting another slap in retaliation but ignoring it. “How did you find us? The illusion is in place; can you pierce illusions?”
Exquisite Shell: 410/2346.
“I’m just the advance party. You were right; the whole Legion is looking for anyone that escaped.” Joe’s dark chuckle riled up the Elves, and they started to panic. All of them except Elfwyn.
“Relax, he just lied. He’s alone.” Elfwyn’s dismissal caused the others to calm down so fast that Joe realized she must have a spell that could detect lies. He started cursing in his mind, and prepared himself to head for respawn. “Let’s take him captive, and we’ll figure out what he’s doing. Human, work with us, and you can switch over to the Elven side. The winning side. Ya gotta realize that’s the truth, right?”
Mental Manipulation Resistance has rejected an attempt to enthrall you!
Joe went limp and read over the notification, apparently giving his eyes the correct ‘glazed’ look Elfwyn had been looking for. She set him down and started walking, and didn’t stop when he began following her. Elfwyn motioned for silence, and the group stepped into the hole in the ground.
As he entered, Joe was reminded of the tunnel that he had once taken to get to the Dwarven training area, but this time, he was paying close attention to what was going on. They walked for a short while, until they came to a branching path. Joe’s ears were ringing, and the noise got louder, the closer they came to the intersection. There was obviously something very hidden, or very enchanted, at that juncture. He only knew one thing for sure: he couldn’t go in there.
The group paused, looking around nervously as Elfwyn stepped forward and mana started to flow from her into… something. She smiled at Joe and sweetly stated, “Accept the prompt, my pet.”
Joe nodded slowly just before a notification appeared.
Elfwyn has started teleportating her party! Would you like to join her? Destination: Elven border fortress ‘Daffodil’ (minor). Yes / No.
Joe pressed ‘no’, just as every other Elf vanished in a stream of light that flashed down the tunnel like lightning. Or… “More like data that just entered a fiber optic cable.”
He knew it wouldn’t take them long to realize that he had not been enthralled, so Joe chased the sound he was hearing and frantically scraped at the rock and earth in his way. “Where is it, where is it?”
His hands reached hard stone, and he didn’t even realize what he was touching until a notification appeared.
Would you like to capture this travel shrine for Occultatum? Currently, it is dedicated to: Madame Chan- _ERROR_.
Would you like to capture this travel shrine for Occultatum? Currently, it is dedicated to: Gaia. Caution: T
here is only one Deity with representation in this Zone. Capturing a shrine may have unintended consequences. Yes / No.
Joe mashed ‘yes’, and his mana began to flow out of him. A perfect circle that formed this section of the tunnel melted away from the stone, and an open book-shaped shrine formed in the center of the tunnel.
Zone Alert! A second Deity has found representation on Zone 2 (Svaltarheim / Alfenheim). Speak to ‘Joe Candidate’ or find a place of power devoted to Occultatum to join the faction!
You have gained 100-
You have lost 100-
Caution. Several hundred messages detected. Aggregating messages… you have gained 3,167 reputation with the Dwarven Council. Current reputation: 3,314. You have reached ‘Friend’ status with the Dwarven Council.
You have lost 5,000 reputation with the Elven Nation! Reputation rank ‘Blood Feud’. Reputation rank cannot decrease further.
Joe stared at the messages in abject confusion. “What in the abyss did I just do?”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“Well, kid, you’ve gone and done it now.” Havoc let out a sigh and a cloud of cigar smoke. They were back at what Joe had just learned was Havoc’s family estate in the Capital city of the Dwarves. “You let the abyssal gods loose on the world. We were so close to forcing Gaia out of here, and then the war would have been our own, instead of a great game for the bored people looking down from Valhalla.”
“And now people want to talk to me?” Joe guessed, going off the defeated air Havoc was exuding.
“Yes, people want to meet you,” The Dwarf spat, kicking a chair so hard that it slammed into the wall and shattered. Extra impressive, since it was wrought iron. “I need to give you your rewards first, so come with me. Also. A letter came for you, and it’s sealed with magic. So, here ya go, hurry up and read it.”