Mage Tank

Chapter 250: Durgeons and… (6)

Each piece of jewelry Hep had passed to Varrin was simple, but their effects vastly outstripped their requirements. These were a different sort of treasure, precious for how easily they could be worn.

Blackthorn Ring of the Dark

Requirements: INT 10, LCK 10, Reconnaissance

+20 Mystical DR

+20 Divine DR

Your Darkvision range is increased by 30 feet.

You may cause one attempt to counter, negate, or redirect a spell you cast to automatically fail. This effect resets after an 8-hour rest.

Black Walnut Ring of the Chain

Requirements: FOR 20, Blades

You cannot be disarmed of, or forced to drop, your weapon.

You gain a bonus to your flying speed equal to half your normal movement speed.

Deep Wood Amulet of Stimulation

Requirements: INT 10, AGL 5, Survival

+20 to maximum mana

+40 to mana regeneration

+20 to maximum dodge pool

Any activity, cooldown, or other effect that requires 8 hours of continuous action or rest requires 1 less hour to accomplish.

Mana monsters are neutral towards you unless provoked.

Kinesthetics Trinket

Requirements: Athletics

Your Athletics skill level advances 50% faster.

Bone Brawler’s Trinket

Requirements: Brawling

You may block with a block value equal to your Brawling skill level regardless of what items, if any, you are holding.

“None of the skill requirements have levels listed,” said Varrin. “You must only possess the intrinsic skill to use these?”

“A perk of higher-level Woodworking, my friend,” said Hep. “People who look down on crafters are morons. You can make shit exactly the way you want it, and for less than half of what it costs everyone else. Just, really, consider Smithing at the very least.”

Of all the things Hep had told him, Varrin found himself most swayed by that bit of advice. Between the items themselves, the Black Walnut Ring of the Chain was the best for his build, although the Rage threshold would force him to wait longer during combat to enter berserk. If he found more ways to generate Rage, it would become a major boon instead. Varrin chose that ring and slid it on, then returned the rest to Hep. The warrior accepted them. His generosity did have limits.

“Now you’ve got two options,” said Hep. “You can exit the Dungeon to seek out your audience with the real me–who will be eager to meet you, by the way–or you can stay here for a while and train.”

“I deeply appreciate your invitation to remain, Lord Hep, but I have allies awaiting me outside.”

“Back to ‘Lord Hep’ now that I gave you some free shit, I see how it is.” Hep grinned at him, then waved his stump dismissively to reassure Varrin it was a joke. “You’re the first one done,” he said. “It’s been, like, thirty minutes since you showed up. I figure you’ve got a while before your party members are all finished. I can let you know when we’re out of time.”

Varrin nodded. “Very well, let us continue our bout.”

“Slow down, champ,” said Hep. “I’m missing a hand and more in the mood to act as an instructor, not a training dummy.”

Varrin looked at the stump and felt a little embarrassed. “Will– Will your hand return?”

“Yeah, I’m good, but I never built into regen since my health pool is just… it’s absolutely monstrous compared to you little guys. It’ll take a few days.” Hep scratched at his scales again, then gave Varrin another sinister smile. “Let’s start by running through every Physical skill you have.”

As it turned out, all of Hep’s generosity had truly been a ploy to learn more about Varrin’s build. In the end, Varrin didn’t mind, since he left the Dungeon with a Physical Magic skill of 40, earning him his Restrictor Belt 3 evolution.

Restrictor Belt 3

So long as you have spent no mana in the last 24 hours, your weapon attacks gain +1 damage and apply +1 Bleeding per every 1 level of Physical Magic.

Varrin even learned a thing or two about Smithing while they were at it.

***

END ADDENDUM

***

I’d been running and teleporting down the eternally spiralling hallway for a while, and I was beginning to suspect there was no end to it. That was fine. I didn’t need to find the end. Instead, I could just [STOP TEXT]

[REROUTING]

***

SYSTEM ADDENDUM ADDED BY: USER NAME [Ruler 3]

ADDENDUM NOTE: Ruler 2 has added the following additional context: “If you want to try and steal my petitioner, then get off your tail and participate. If you were number one, maybe I’d take your requests more seriously.”

Ruler 3 ‘declined’ to add their own additional context, but asked for it to be clarified that “only those who believe themselves inadequate engage in competition.”

While the System takes no position in this matter, we feel the need to point out that Ruler 3’s statement is, in fact, additional context, and thus has been logged as such.

***

Nuralie crouched, hidden in a tree, because hiding in the river bed was too dangerous. She looked out over the misty forest she’d suddenly appeared within, watching the half-spectral beasts wandering its game trails as she worked through ways to mitigate involuntary teleports. She’d been isolated from the party too easily, and it had exposed a new vulnerability in need of address.

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Fortitude was the primary attribute that governed defense against Dimensional effects. There was little she could do in that regard, other than continue to place points there as she leveled. However, it wasn’t an immediate solution, nor one she was likely to pursue in earnest given her build.

Spiritual Magic had some capability with teleportation, but it was always conditional. There was potential for a soul-locking mechanism, but that might simply end up with the body being teleported, while the spirit remained behind. Less than ideal. She discarded the school as an option for now.

Divine might serve, but the Eschenden triad was not particularly strong in aspects relating to teleportation. She could likely protect herself while in Eschendur, but that was an incomplete remedy. Sam’lia would be a better choice given that she governed travel between layers, but still not a perfect fit. If Arlo had access to Divine he could beseech the Dread Star, but Arlo didn’t have Divine, and neither did he seem to worship those gods he’d thus far encountered. No, Divine wouldn’t work.

Physical might present an opportunity for enforcing one’s relationship to a specific place, ideally the one they currently occupied. Arlo’s Deific teleportation would bypass such a countermeasure, but a fix on locality might interfere with their other mobility skills. Inelegant, but it had some potential.

For Mystical, she could collaborate with Etja to create an automatically deploying counterspell. Perhaps Arlo could do something with wands. Nuralie could utilize the triggering mechanism from the Zng rifles and create a mana-detector to establish a threshold at which it would activate and automatically cast Nullify.

That would require comprehensive testing to ensure it didn’t accidentally negate a desired Dimensional effect. Etja could likely imbue some mana shape to make that happen, but Nuralie disliked relying on the mage’s intuitive magic. She wanted full comprehension of any device she deployed with the potential for serious backlash.

Arlo was also talented with shaping–albeit less so than Etja. He was more capable of academic discussion of the principles behind his magicks–so long as one could manage his near-constant state of distraction. Dimensional might also provide more options than a brute-force Dispel, although Nuralie wasn’t terribly familiar–

Planar isolation sprung to her mind. It would only impact Arlo’s teleports, which were Deific and could ignore anything she made. Etja’s talents could still be applied–Nullify was more effective countermagic for an area effect, which was likely required since the modified self-triggering wand wouldn’t have a predetermined target. They could work to modify Nullify so that it only targeted Planar magicks, Arlo could imbue a shape to make the effect discretionary, and Nuralie could work with them both to integrate a trigger apparatus into a trinket that was actually a wand.

She added the proposal to the ever-growing list of devices she might be able to create through application of Zng technologies.

She could also just try and pick up a relevant evolution, but why waste one if a trinket would do? The opportunity cost of selecting gear was far lower than the opportunity cost of selecting an evolution.

Satisfied that she’d given the problem a sufficient amount of scrutiny for the moment–a full ten seconds’ worth–she glanced over the System notification she’d received on entering once again. Then she began to Shadow Walk through the trees.

You have entered the Grove of the Illumined Ruler

Spiritual Dungeon

Recommended skills: Spiritual Magic 40

Nuralie had already done preliminary scouting of her immediate surroundings, to ensure she would have time to think without interruption. During that survey, she’d learned many things. Some she found fascinating. Some she found concerning. Most fell into both categories, which she found… appealing.

The forest existed in triplicate. The graying branch she stood upon appeared to be a corporeal entity, although the tree was not a species she was familiar with. The wide, heart-shaped leaves had small thorns growing all across their surfaces. She wanted to study the thorns, determine their purpose, but she was wholly focused on broader observations. She’d work from the general to the specific in time.

Approximately twelve inches to the right of the branch she stood upon was a perfect copy made up of spectral energy. She could only perceive it through her magic sense, which had been developing quite well recently. The branch was otherwise invisible to her.

Six inches to the left of the branch was a more abstracted form. This triggered her Divine senses, more ephemeral than the corporeal or spectral forms. It was perceptually confusing, and she felt strongly that this was a third representation of the branch, but it wasn’t something that could be confined within the concept of ‘shape’. It was there, she knew that much. Other properties of the Divine branch were pending further study.

Across the forest this phenomenon repeated. All flora and fauna had three states, existing within predictable distances to the central, corporeal body. However, they maintained their orientation relative to an unknown factor. The spectral versions always diverged from the physical form in the direction she’d designated as north. The divine versions always diverged south. This happened regardless of the physical body’s own orientation.

Additionally, the divergence was more extreme the further north she went and less pronounced when she traveled south. There was some sort of inverse square law involved, where the divergence rapidly became more extreme in the northern direction. Regardless, spirit and divinity were offset from the center of the corporeal form at a consistent two-to-one ratio.

She catalogued these observations and set them aside.

All flora she’d encountered seemed to lack motor function and were non-hostile. No plant monsters to be found. She identified some plants she was familiar with, several of which were excellent potion ingredients, and a few of which were exceptional poison ingredients. There was also a wealth of unfamiliar plantlife with potent concentrations of spiritual energies. Very useful, potentially. Extraordinarily dangerous to handle and harvest, perhaps. She still planned on collecting samples later.

The fauna was a mixture of passive herbivores, mild omnivores, and more aggressive carnivores. The majority fell into the category of mundane, in that they did not seem to possess any notable control over mana. Lizards, elk, worms, songbirds, serpents, all typical of what appeared to be a temperate forest.

Beyond the mundane animals, there were small clusters of mana monsters which appeared to feed only on the frequent nexuses of spiritual energies. The most dangerous of these that she’d found was Grade 12. Quite high, all things considered, but the mana concentration in the region was dense.

The mana monsters were territorial, but otherwise non-aggressive. The primary danger was not realizing she was encroaching into their territory. There was a flock of owl-like birds that were invisible until they were in range of her Sense skills, and the hundred-foot range of Sense Life was inadequate to maintain an appropriate buffer between herself and the creatures. They had little trouble spotting her, despite the shifting camouflage of her leathers, her translucence in the dimly lit environment, and her rather advanced Stealth skill. They were not fast enough to catch her, so she’d been chased from several areas, but escaped unharmed. She’d rather not kill the creatures if she didn’t have to.

There was a burrow of quadrupedal mammals, approximately eight inches long, with webbed feet that would become incorporeal to travel through the ground. There was a hive of bees that drained nearby spiritual plants and brought the energies back to their hive–Nuralie was very curious to know what they produced with it. At one point she spotted a bear that literally died when it slept–disappearing from her life sense–only to resurrect upon waking. It travelled between small mana geysers, taking short reposes atop each as the mana filtered into its body.

Altogether the area would have been deadly for most Arzian races, but posed little threat to Nuralie, even if she hadn’t been able to avoid the vast majority of wildlife.

The only exception was the silver men.

The System called them Asimanth, and their average Grade was 20. They were humanoid in form, but had elongated frontal limbs and prowled on all fours. Their heads were shaped like a person’s, but lacked any distinctive facial features. There were suggestions of a nose and lips, like a sculptor had abandoned their job halfway done. Where their eyes should have been was instead a cluster of small, irregular holes, and Nuralie had not seen any evidence of other orifices. If they ate or breathed, she did not know how.

Despite having a vaguely human appearance, the Asimanth didn’t appear to possess higher reasoning. They were nude and used no weapons or other tools. Nuralie could find no evidence of permanent structures or any other significant modifications to their environment. They were cunning and ruthless hunters, in the way that a clever feline might be, but laid no traps. They traveled in groups of five to ten, but their coordination was rudimentary. If they had a language, it wasn’t a spoken one.

The Asimanth did not trigger Nuralie’s life sense, but when they drew near, her Divine senses flared in warning.

They were Undead, and the Eschenden marked them as profane. However, she sensed no evil from them; another reason for Nuralie’s belief that they were animals rather than people. If these beings had been intelligent, their actions would certainly have been those done with malice.

The Asimanth stalked the forest, quick and silent as a cat. They prowled the rivers, hidden for ambush like a crocodile. Their bodies were near-invisible in the gloomy water until they sprang upon anything that came too near. The Asimanth captured every living creature they could find, breaking it until it was completely subdued, while taking care to keep it alive. Then, they carried the tormented animals away into the north.

Nuralie observed their work for several hours, taking note of their behaviors. Many of their prey went rigid the moment an Asimanth came within thirty feet, paralyzed through some mechanism. Their victims could only watch with rolling, panicked eyes as the silver men broke their legs, wings, or backs. It was cruel and merciless work, but the Asimanth did not do it out of sadism, it seemed.

Given that these beings were Undead, and that they behaved in a manner suggesting some level of planning–taking their prey to a secondary location–Nuralie thought it likely that they were drones of some sort. If so, whatever force that directed them likely lay in the north, where the spiritual divergence grew more severe.

Nuralie spent some time preparing, double-checking her supply levels, and readying a new batch of spiritual toxins. Undead would be immune to most physical ailments, but they still had souls to harm, however broken they might be. She also gathered her flora samples, made sketches of the thorny-leaved trees, and snuck a bit of spiritual ‘honey’ from the bees in exchange for a few spectral stings. She worked until she was satisfied that, should she be unable to return, she had a robust collection for experimentation.

Then she set off north, to find out where the Asimanth were taking their victims.