Iron Shortsword (Essence Melded – Celerity)
Slot: Main Hand
Item Class: Magical
Item Quality: Good (+15%)
Damage: 50-65 (Slashing and Piercing)
Strength: +12 Agility: +16
Durability: 120/120
Weight: 1 kg
Class: Any Martial
Level: 25
Special: Essence of Celerity – Channeling the power of speed itself, this blade slices through the air effortlessly, granting you a +5% Attack Speed with all attacks made with his weapon.
Melding the essence to it boosted its Agility attribute slightly and gave it a special effect, I said to myself in complete awe as I looked at the sword and its description, belatedly noticing there’d also been a minor increase to the weapon’s damage range as well.
“So what do you think?” Garr queried, his voice causing me to glance up from my intent focus on the sword in my hand.
“It is amazing,” I replied, no other words coming even close to describing what I was feeling at the moment. “I had no idea what to expect, but this was beyond it.”
“That makes me glad to hear,” the man said with a smile. “Now, do you all wish to try for yourself?”
“Absolutely!” I exclaimed, my eyes dropping down to the shortsword in my hand and back up towards Garr.
“That’s what I thought,” he said with a chuckle, the man taking back the newly melded shortsword in exchange for another Essence of Celerity from the table.
“Now recall what I’ve told you as you focus your will upon the essence and allow yourself to be drawn into it,” he said to me as I held the glowing orb after having had sat down on a nearby chair at the far end of the table. “Only then will you begin to grasp the process of essence melding. Though, on those words, be assured that for a first-time melder, this process takes time to learn. Depending on your focus and understanding, it could very well take you the entire night or even longer.”
“We’ll do whatever it takes,” I stated, swearing to myself to stay up the entire night to learn the skill if I had to, knowing that the excitement raging through my heart wouldn’t allow me to sleep or think of anything else until I did.
Wishing us all luck, Garr then left us to our own devices as we assembled around the table, finding that he and Caius had laid out a few more weapons to practice on. Out of curiosity for the process, I silently watched both Léandre and Caius prepare themselves to meld, hoping to glean some inspiration from their movements before eventually turning my attention towards the essence in my hand.
Focus my will upon it, I repeated mentally as I looked upon the golden orb, seeing the shimmering energies dance within it. I hadn’t quite understood what Garr had meant by that during his explanation but had deferred to his instructions, knowing that I would figure it out after gazing into the essence.
And so I did.
Shifting my grasp to hold the sphere between my fingers as I’d been shown, I focused the entirety of my attention on the sphere, doing my best to ignore the world around me. The minutes slowly passed as I focused on the essence, my eyes slowly tracking all of the swirling whorls and twists within it, but otherwise feeling little else from the tiny object. Despite that, however, I refused to let that distract me, maintaining my focus upon it, time gradually losing all its meaning to me.
So then, when I finally felt something begin to stir at the edge of my awareness emanating from the orb, I had literally no idea how long I’d been staring at the essence. The only realization that I had was that the vague, airy sensation that I felt brush my mind had been exactly what I was looking for and forced myself to follow it. No sooner did that thought cross my mind did I suddenly feel like I’d been pulled off my feet and thrown into the air, despite the fact that I knew I was still standing in front of the table. Tumbling wildly within my mind, I was then bombarded by a thousand different impressions and emotions that changed the instant that I became aware of them.
One moment, I felt like I was flying. The next, I was consumed by an all-out desire to sprint as fast as my legs could take me. Then before either of those two feelings could even fully latch onto me, they were replaced by the desire for me to swing my arms as rapidly as I could, a new emotion then taking over an instant later. Building faster and faster than I could even process them, the constant barrage of sensations turned into an overwhelming wave of vertigo that threatened to take my legs out from under me. Scrambling mentally, I began to panic, shouting a single word through my mind in a desperate attempt to stop the onslaught.
Stop! I exclaimed in my head with all the force behind it that I could muster, feeling the maelstrom around me instantly respond and begin to slow. Stop moving!
Feeling like a drowning man coming up for a gasp of air, I realized that I’d managed to do something and instinctively redoubled my efforts, chanting the words repeatedly in my mind while imagining everything grinding to a halt. Reacting to my efforts, the torrent of emotions and sensations then began to slow drastically, allowing me to regain even more of my focus. As this process continued, I began to realize that the essence clutched between my fingers was slowly becoming clearer and clearer until it became completely translucent at the very same moment that everything spinning through my mind came to a stop.
And there it is, I said to myself with sudden understanding as I pulled my fingers away from the essence, the orb dissolving into countless tiny strands of energy that began to orbit my hands.
Staring at the golden streams of magic with wonder, I saw them slice through the air as they spun around my hands, though at a much slower rate than those around Garr’s had been when he’d demonstrated the process. Not knowing if that was at all important, I decided to continue onwards to the next step in the melding process, shifting my gaze upwards and reaching out towards a sword sitting at the edge of the table.
Grasping the hilt of the blade, I lifted the weapon and brought it closer towards me, laying it flat across my other hand’s open palm. Reacting instantly from the presence of the sword, I saw the whorls of magic in my hands begin to swirl around the item. Remembering Garr’s demonstration, I mentally encouraged the essence to flow into the blade by envisioning all of the strands streaming into it. Following my unseen will, the strands obeyed my command, swirling around the sword until it faded from sight in a storm of light much like what I’d seen earlier. Lasting for several seconds, I felt the weapon shift ever so slightly in my grip as the essence melded itself with the sword, the light slowly starting to fade away.
And then, just like that, I finished the melding process, which was promptly followed by a loud fanfare echoing through my ears and a long string of text flashing through my vision.
Congratulations! You have successfully gained the Crafting Trait: Essence Melding!
This crafting trait allows a player the ability to enhance items to truly prestigious strengths by infusing them with an Essence. Coming in multiple varieties and levels of potency, Essences are the physical manifestation of concepts, virtues, or attributes found within the world. In addition, this trait also allows for the player to be able to Merge and Sunder essences.
Merging allows for a player to combine a collection of essences of the same type and advance it a stage in potency (e.g. Merging 3 “Minor” essences together will create a single “Lesser” essence.) The quantity needed to merge essences varies depending on the type and stage in potency. In addition, some essences cannot be merged beyond a certain potency depending on its type.
Sundering allows for a player to do the opposite of Merging and split an essence from a higher potency into multiples of a lower potency. This ability also allows for players to Sunder an essence from an Essence Melded item in their possession and recover the essence within. This process, however, irrevocably destroys the item in question, causing it to turn to dust and fade from existence. In rare cases, it is possible for an essence Sundered by this process to take on special attributes or abilities that on
ce belonged to the Sundered item, allowing it to be transferred to a new one.
“Whew!” I exclaimed as I finished reading, coming back into the present for the first time since beginning the process, feeling exhausted and wrung out. Taking a deep breath, I looked down at the sword, seeing that it too had changed in appearance after the melding process, gaining a sleek deadliness that hadn’t been there earlier. “I did it! I melded something!”
“That you did!” Garr’s voice answered from across the mages’ section and behind me somewhere, causing me to twist in its direction, seeing him sitting at a workbench, working on something that looked like a dreamcatcher attached to a long metal rod. “And it only took you a little less than two hours to learn. I am impressed!”
I blinked numbly as I looked at the man and then towards Léandre and Caius, seeing that they were both still intently focused on their essences. “Wait, it’s been two hours?”
“Losing one’s perception of time is a common side effect of one’s first meld,” Garr replied cheerfully. “Consider yourself lucky, however. When I attempted my first meld, I lost the better part of a day and collapsed upon finishing. To see you finish so quickly…could make a lesser man feel jealous thoughts.”
“You didn’t say anything about losing that much time,” I shot back, turning my head towards Garr as I spoke.
“And to what end would have knowing helped you?” he answered back unapologetically, shoulders struggling as if it didn’t matter. “It would have simply been a distraction while you were learning to bend an essence to your will.”
“I…guess,” I agreed, thinking back towards my experience in trying to learn the melding process and knowing full well that it would have been the case. At the same time, however, to have lost nearly two hours of the day in what felt like the blink of an eye felt more than a little unsettling. “Though on that note, I have a question. Am I going to lose another two hours with my next meld?”
“Now that you understand the process? No, not unless you purposefully choose to sit idle or encounter a particularly difficult essence to impose your will on,” Garr said. “You should be able to finish any meld that you attempt within minutes, if not less.”
“Well, that’s good to know,” I replied, feeling a wave of relief surge through me at the information. Though as I did, I turned my attention back towards Caius and Léandre, who were both still wrapped up in their melds, realizing that it could still be a while until they were finished. Preparing myself to settle in for a little while, I turned back towards Garr once again, eager to ask him about what exactly he was working on.
But as I began to twist in his direction, my attention was instead pulled away by the sudden arrival of Constantine, the rogue jogging into view, looking a bit peaked.
“Lyr, there you are,” he said breathing a bit heavily, his attention drifting over towards Léandre and Caius before snapping back onto me. “I’ve been looking all over for you.”
“Well, you found me,” I said, only then noticing the serious expression that had fallen over his face and lack of interest in what the other two adventurers were doing. “Why? What’s up?”
“Sierra just respawned,” he explained, pausing to catch his breath. “And she’s called for a meeting with everyone who’s available.”
“Oh,” I replied in sudden understanding, feeling a spike of ice shoot through my veins. “So, then…”
“Yeah,” Constantine said in a whisper. “She found them. She found the orc horde.”
Chapter 56
“They’re all still coming for us,” Sierra announced in a tired voice as she looked out at those of us that had managed to come running after learning that she’d respawned back in Aldford, the specter of death sickness visibly hanging over her. “All of them that you said you saw at Khudazal and more.”
A heavy silence greeted the elf’s words as we all stared back at her in mute acceptance, each of us having already guessed the nature of her news from the moment we’d heard she’d respawned. Unfortunately, though, given the timing of the day, most of our group was either away from Aldford or caught in the middle of something they couldn’t walk away from, such as Léandre and Caius. That had left only seven of us free to cram ourselves into Aldwin’s office, which in addition to him, Sierra, and myself, also included Constantine, Garr, Donovan, and Kilgore, the scout literally having arrived back to town on horseback minutes earlier.
“So you found it, then,” I replied from my spot leaning against a wall, eventually finding my voice after the wave of anxiety that her words had brought on finished passing through me.
“Yes. Yes, we did,” Sierra answered, her eyes losing their focus and dropping downwards as she briefly lost herself in memory, the woman exhaling a deep sigh as they sharpened once more and rose back up towards us. “We found the siegebreaker.”
Pausing just long enough for her statement to sink in, and to give herself an extra second to collect herself, the words then began to flow out from the scout as she began to describe what she’d seen.
“It is a level twenty-nine elite war boss—whatever that is exactly,” she said, squirming in her chair as she turned to look at me first before continuing towards Constantine and Kilgore standing nearby. “But as soon as I saw it, I got a war quest update marking it as an objective for us to destroy, which I’m sure you’ll get too now that I’m back to tell you about it.
“In either case, though,” she continued, shaking her head as she spoke, “this thing is even more terrifying than I could ever hope to accurately describe. It looks like a four-legged lizard of some sort, except giant—easily sixty or more feet in length and about a third that wide. But if that wasn’t enough on its own, there’s no doubt anymore that the orcs know that we have a way of hurting their constructs. From what we saw at a distance, it looks like they’ve gone and armored the thing with huge slabs of metal. As if its size weren’t overkill already.”
“Apparently not,” I grunted, my mental imagination already running away with itself as I pictured the siegebreaker in my mind’s eye.
“Definitely not,” Sierra corrected with a shake of her head. “Because for as much as the monster scared me, the horde marching behind it was just as bad, which in a way, is how I ended up back here in the first place.”
“That is something I was about to ask, soon as I figured out a polite way to do so,” Aldwin said in a gentle tone from behind his desk, his eyes unmistakably flashing towards Garr who looked visibly anxious since the meeting had started. “What is it exactly that happened, and what of the others with you? None of them resurrected here with you.”
“That’s because I was the only one who took the risk of trying to take a closer look,” the scout replied, immediately catching on to the subtext of the Bann’s words and shifted to give Garr a reassuring look. “The rest of the group should be fine, including those you sent with us. The plan was for them to take shelter farther into the Hartwyld while I went on ahead. So, beyond the orcs now knowing that they are being watched, the others should be safe.”
“That is reassuring to hear,” Garr answered graciously, inclining his head towards the scout, a curious expression crossing his face as he did so. “Though I would ask then if you already saw the horde and this…abomination, why did you look to get even closer?”
“Well, firstly, because I wanted to test and see how alert they were and if they would spot me,” Sierra replied, going on to motion towards a streak of corruption that covered a part of her face and arm. “Which, as you can see, they most certainly did.
“And second,” she added, her voice dropping as she glanced over towards the gronn. “Because of a specific tribal banner that your companions spotted flying over the orc horde. They were particularly worried about what it might represent. It was one with three diagonal slashes across with a broken bone beneath them.”
“A banner?” Garr repeated, his face at first narrowing in confusion as he took a second to parse Sierra’s description befor
e realization abruptly hit him, his voice breaking as he spoke once more. “W-wait, you don’t mean…”
“I think I do, yes,” Sierra replied as gently as she could. “I got close enough to the horde to see at least a handful of them before I was spotted.”
“I-I see,” the gronn said, glancing down at the floor for several seconds to compose himself before focusing his attention on Constantine, Kilgore, and me. “Then I’m afraid to say that it seems that our efforts to wound the orcs at Khudazal have succeeded all too well. Enough so that Zhul himself has seen fit to join the horde that he’s sent out for us.”
“That’s what they said,” Sierra stated with a nod. “But in either case, that was the major reason why I wanted to get closer to the horde. To make sure that what they saw was right. Unfortunately, though, that didn’t quite work out for me the way I’d hoped.”
“So what does that mean for us now?” Kilgore asked as the room fell silent once again, the aura of tension and anxiety that had initially filled it only growing thicker the longer the meeting went on. “Both with the full horde coming as well as Zhul.”
“It means that we are now officially preparing for a siege,” I replied, surprised to find a heavy weight lift itself off my shoulders the moment that I said the words. Since returning from Khudazal, I’d been filled with anticipation wondering how the orcs would react to our raid, whether they would choose to continue to press their attack, retreat and regroup, or do something else entirely. Knowing now that they were still coming towards us finally gave me something to hold on to and focus on, rather than letting my anxiety get the better of me as I waited for the proverbial shoe to drop. “Because there is no way that we’re going to be able to stand up to that many orcs on the open plains. Even with all the reinforcements that we’re about to get.”
Glory to the Brave (Ascend Online Book 4) Page 71