Mage Tank

Chapter 265: System Mafia (also, art comm #1)

While we finished all the other crap we needed to take care of, the party never stopped prepping for our expedition with the Littans. With a little less than three months left, we still needed to snag three more Levels. We’d viewed this as a fairly trivial task, but had forgotten one important detail about an evolution I’d recently picked up.

Heavenly Gates

The Dread Star blesses your travel through the in-between. Your portals and teleports become Deific.

System Note: Accepting this evolution will change the nature of Delves you are offered.

This was something that had been glossed over in our haste to deal with all of Hysteria’s mental bullshittery, and it hadn’t ever been given much consideration. As it turned out, it was pretty important. Now, instead of destroying Delves in a figurative sense, we would be destroying them in a literal sense. Either that or repairing them. Or whatever other nonsense the System wanted from us.

We were now fixers, basically. Since my Deific portals trivialized the majority of challenge any Delve in our Level range could present, we were to be sent to Delves where shit was absolutely fucked for one reason or another. Instead of trying to survive or escape while meandering through a series of carefully laid plots and mechanics managed by a Delve Core, our job was to rectify whatever issue was causing the Delve to go haywire. Sometimes that even meant ‘taking care’ of the Delve Core itself, which made me feel like a System-hired hitman.

Still, in all cases, these Delves were set to cause some kind of havoc on the surface if left unattended, so they needed to be addressed. Since we had an unusual amount of experience cleaning up out-of-control Delves and were now capable of taking on even bigger projects, the System had no reason to waste its own resources.

We still got our Levels, and were more or less allowed to loot everything that wasn’t bolted down–along with a few things that were–from inside the Delves going through decommissioning. This generally meant that we got fewer chips but more tangible goods and materials, which Grotto could make excellent use of.

This also got us express service straight to these Delves, rather than having to go somewhere and locate them.

Yes, I had to fireproof my hair once again.

The Core couldn’t shut things down since it had been annihilated by the oscillating heat wave, and because of its love of dimensionalism the whole place was warded to heck against teleportation. Even the System had to drop us off just outside, and we ended up carving our way in. The Delve applied the Slowed debuff to everything that entered, was loud enough to deafen anyone in the party, and dealt a massive tick of constant fire damage. We even got a mini-brief from the System letting us know that the last crew that had come through was incinerated in less than an hour. The conditions had only gotten worse since then.

I teleported Varrin to the control room, and he cut the offending mana weaves to pieces.

Easy Level.

Next was a Delve that had somehow managed to collect enough sacred and profane objects in one place that they generated an environmental holy war. If you’re wondering what that looks like, it looks like a persistent zone of very bright light. Bright enough to immediately scorch your retinas. Additionally, it was absolutely infested with millions of these tiny Divine monsters–about the size of a flea–in constant battle with each other, which emitted radiation whenever they died for some fucking reason.

Anyway, I used Coordinated Thinker to find and teleport us to the main relic chapel, and Xim used her divine fire to create a self-propagating inferno that killed all the bugs while simultaneously cleansing us of the radiation. Meanwhile, Nuralie used her sense skills to identify the safest relics to ‘extract’ from the conflict. According to her, destroying the relics wouldn’t have helped, so now we had a couple of dozen holy and infernal objects that were either blessed as fuck or cursed as shit, possibly both at the same time. We’d find some use for them, I was sure.

Our third and final Delve of this timeskip was the Antimagic Ninja Warrior challenge. The entire place was a massive Mystical weave designed to counter any and all spells. On top of that, it had a variety of specialized weaves that created pain-in-the-ass hazards whenever a movement-enhancing technique was used. All of this supported the world’s dumbest obstacle course, which forced Delvers to avoid various death traps through mundane displays of athleticism.

This particular Delve was a problem since the Core had used the weaves to isolate itself and cut off all communication with the main System. The challenge of the Delve could only be passed by a Delver with a very specific skill set, which was a big no-no in Delve design. Most parties would lose the majority of their team before making it to the boss, and the boss itself was incorporeal and basically unbeatable without access to magic.

I had a portal gun, and it was my middle finger.

I gave those antimagic weaves said finger and teleported us to the obelisk. Grotto identified some weaknesses in its design, and Etja used some shit she called ‘pure’ mana to overload it, burning out the mana supply to all the weaves in the entire place. We did a proper full-team boss fight, kicked some spectral ass, and hunted down the Core to figure out what was going on.

It was a weird situation.

The Core had been trapping Delvers who failed the obstacle course and holding them prisoner, rather than killing and eating them like a proper Delve Core. Those that made it through the obstacle course were granted ‘champion’ status and forced to compete in an evolving set of physical challenges, made up at the whim of the Core with no real end. It then used the data it collected to try and ‘improve’ the bodies of those who had failed the obstacle course before sending them back out to try again.

The Core was trying to build up some kind of elite sports cult, but the whole thing was the result of a Delver party getting their hands on the Core and trying to modify it in wildly unsuccessful ways. Those guys were long dead, but there were three more full parties being held prisoner alongside several more teams missing a few members each.

We had to terminate the Delve Core, but the whole thing had an uplifting end where we rescued a bunch of people. Traumatized people who’d been subjected to a host of experimental body modifications. The first woman I tried to talk to jumped instead of speaking every time she opened her mouth. Hopefully, some high-end healing magic would address at least some of those problems.

Three Delves done, three Levels gained, and 27 attribute points assigned after taking Dumping into account. One of these had also counted as an Escalation Delve, snagging us our final intrinsic skill slot.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Now, my original plan for this Delve rush was to get Fortitude to 70 and then push Strength to 40, grabbing the next evolution. However, my fight with Ishi and Varrin’s titanic Physical resistances made me think twice about that. Not the Fortitude part, that was definitely going straight to 70. The question was whether Strength should be my next focus.

Strength was the best way for me to boost my single-target damage. Each point added one damage to my hammer throws, which then compounded through Flurry of Blows. It would also let me equip armor with better base DR before weaves were considered, so it was helpful defensively as well.

However, my Physical spells kind of sucked at the moment. I didn’t have any evos that boosted their damage, and Physical was generally the easiest school to defend against. Varrin could sit there all day while eating my Elemental Barrier without losing a single point of health, and Ishi had been close to doing the same.

I didn’t use Elemental Barrier primarily for its damage, its biggest benefit came from the debuffs it applied. I could push people away, knock them down, Ignite, Shock, Deafen, and Slow. It was an extremely versatile spell and a major source of the traditional control effects I could produce. The problem was, in order to apply any of those debuffs, the spell had to deal at least some damage. It was becoming useless against hard targets, which were the kind of targets I’d want to debuff in the first place.

The solution? More Intelligence!

Honestly, I felt like I’d temporarily lost track of my own build concept. My spells scaled off of Intelligence, so why was I getting distracted by big heavy armor and shiny hammers? I did want to grab Strength 40 eventually, but Intelligence 70 would have a larger impact on my build. While it might not be as good as Strength for single-target, It would do more for my AoE damage and control effects. As for losing out on slightly better armor, Fortitude would continue to be my primary defensive stat.

All of that being said, here were my attribute totals after ascending to Level 16.

Strength:25

Agility:10

Speed:22

Fortitude:70

Intelligence:55

Wisdom:40

Charisma:10

Luck:10

This was a nice milestone to reach, since I finally had more stat points than a full Level 26 Gold who’d followed the Hiwardian difficulty progression. This was the real beginning of the platinum journey.

And it started with a Level 70 Fortitude evolution.

But first, I got some more skill levels.

Your Dimensional Magic skill has increased from Level 50 to Level 54!

Your Physical Magic skill has increased from Level 32 to Level 34!

Your Mystical Magic skill has increased from Level 30 to Level 32!

Your Blunt skill has increased from Level 29 to Level 30!

Your Dungeoneering skill has increased from Level 29 to Level 30!

Your Leadership skill has increased from Level 29 to Level 32!

Your Shields skill has increased from Level 28 to Level 29!

Your Heavy Armor skill has increased from Level 24 to Level 26!

No evolution breakpoints, sadly, but these Delves weren’t the best for combat skills. Even so, I still ended up right on track with Varrin’s platinum skill progression goals for Level 16, mainly due to the Dimensional Dungeon and lessons from both Hep and Ishi.

Now, on to one of the most important parts of getting higher attributes…

Better gear, of course!

One of my final acts of fevered preparation was to craft some new armor, taking advantage of my improved stats and Smithing skill. The Cuirass of the Descent would stick around–it was too good to replace at the moment–but every other piece of heavy armor got a prismatite upgrade.

I went back to my blue and violet theme, making the colors darker to match the vibe of my cuirass. Since the cuirass itself was immutable, there wasn’t anything I could do about the shade, and I was forced to try and mix in some demon bone aesthetics to the rest of the set. The prismatite made every piece shimmer like it was coated in the slightest layer of diamond, which was kind of incongruent with the cuirass, but my boa created a nice demarcation between my glamorous extremities and my more subdued core. I wasn’t totally happy with it, but it looked pretty good overall.

Oh, and the armor had way better defenses as well.

Superior Prismatite Plate Armor of the Descent

Heavy Armor Set

Requirements: STR 25, FOR 30, INT 30, CHA 10, LCK 10, AGI 10

+77 Physical DR

+10 Fire DR

+32 Spiritual DR

+32 Divine DR

+67 Mystical DR

+32 Dimensional DR

+100 Health Regen

+180 Stamina Regen

Whenever you are hit by a hostile spell, you absorb 10% of the mana spent on that spell.

I focused on things that counted as “defensive” weaves to take advantage of my recent Smithing evo, which meant I lost a couple of nice bonuses from the verdantum gear, like movement speed and throwing weapon damage. In return, the prismatite set had four times as much damage reduction.

The only thing I’d really miss from the verdantum was the self-repair function. The prismatite armor was way more durable, but if it got some holes poked in it, I’d have to fix it myself. There was an opportunity to create some verdantum-prismatite alloy that would have a slower form of self-repair, but I didn’t have time to mess around with it. That was a project for later, maybe once both Strength and Smithing were at 40.

Okay, fine, enough stalling. While all of this other stuff was awesome, the most vital thing I did during this three-month period was get my Fortitude to 70 and pick my most potent evolution yet. I even had a super evolution to burn from our System award for killing Hysteria, and the options were kind enough to show me how that would affect things. The System was its usual self when laying out my options.

Remember when you got half your brain exploded and it was, like, not that big of a deal? Do you realize that you’re now 50% less human than you were back then?

A giant roach carves out your entrails, a big scary cannibal explodes your eyeballs with a mean glare, a woman literally rips your heart out, that shit doesn’t even ruin your day. It’s a ninety-minute inconvenience at most.

That’s barely the length of a feature-fucking-film, my guy.

But, hey, why stop there?

Do us a favor and take a look at that grease stain on the ground to your left. Yeah, that one. That could be you, chilling with 10 HP, ready to get back in the game in an hour or so.

Don’t believe us? Go ahead, pick a new evolution. Then you can go and find out what it feels like to become a puddle.

1) Body of Asclepius

Whenever you would heal from any source, double that healing.

Super Evolution: Whenever you would gain Shielding from any source, double that Shielding.

2) Extended Care Network

While at maximum HP, you can choose one party member to gain an additional amount of HP regeneration equal to your own. While under this effect, that party member gains the benefits of all of your FOR evolutions other than this one.

If your current HP drops below your maximum while a party member other than yourself is under this effect, you can focus to allow them to retain the effect.

Super Evolution: While at maximum HP, you can instead choose to grant this health regeneration to all party members affected by one of your beneficial auras.

3) Bioweapon

You gain an aura extending a number of feet from you equal to your FOR. Poisoned and Bleeding enemies within this aura take additional Poison or Bleeding damage equal to your FOR every 6 seconds. Whenever an enemy within this aura takes Poison or Bleeding damage, you heal for an amount equal to the damage dealt.

If any skill would remove Poison or Bleeding from an enemy within the aura, the skill’s source must spend an additional amount of mana or stamina equal to your FOR, or else the skill fails.

Super Evolution: This aura also emanates from all party members affected by one of your beneficial auras. This only increases the area affected by this aura; you are still its sole source and beneficiary.

I’d venture to call these options… pretty fucking good.