SoK Chapter 200

Happy 200! That's awesome! Just realized I meant to schedule this but forgot. Eh. Take it!

To nobody’s surprise, Sarah refused to give any direct answers when TJ and the others called for them. Instead, she rushed this way and that, leaving trails of lightning in her wake as she cackled and crackled at evaporating so many bugs. When finally TJ had had enough, he barked, “Everything’s already dead! Get your ass over here and talk to us! Bring the corpse while you’re at it.”

Fortunately, Sarah did as she was asked, and blurred towards where she had fought the Yaga, picked up a blackened lump, and jogged towards the others. As she drew close, her armor melted away, and TJ couldn’t help but Appraise her to see how her Class had changed with her declaration of “I’m a Neophyte!”

Zealot (Copper (I)), 30

“You're not a Neophyte. What were you talking about?” TJ asked. “So far as I can tell, you just gained another level.” 

“If you put it that way,” Sarah grumbled, “I’m not technically a Neophyte, but I’d say I count because I have the best part of being one!”

After a quick moment’s thought, TJ understood what she was saying and asked, “You got Divine Transformation? And you can use your armaments while you’re at it, that’s what you were doing, right?! Holy shit!”

“Before we all get too excited, I’d like to compare the two Skills, because what I got has a different name, but I think it’s basically the same!“ Sarah began to answer with a slightly less chipper tone, but by the time she reached the end of the sentence, she was back to nearly bouncing between the trees. “It’s called Valkyrian Ascension, and it seems like a tweaked version of the usual version of Divine Transformation! Oh my Storm Servant, this is going to be so cool!”

TJ squinted as she used his Title to… take his name in vain, he supposed, but he just shook his head instead of saying anything. While he stood there, Sarah didn’t hesitate to ask the System to share the Skill’s description with the other three, and TJ pulled the two Skill descriptions next to each other to compare and contrast them.

Skill: Valkyrian Ascension (Nascent Storm Serpent) (Silver (II)); A Skill granted to a Valkyrie who has dedicated herself to a God or Prospective God. The Valkyrian Ascension is the opportunity for the Valkyrie to show her ability and willingness to fight alongside the one to whom they are devoted, to protect those who need shelter behind her shield and to slay those who need to receive justice at her blade. A Valkyrie ascends when she has demonstrated her devotion and willingness to follow their patron, and then she can upgrade this Skill to the same tier as their patron. The Valkyrian Ascension Skill’s tier can never surpass their patron’s Divine Transformation Skill’s tier. As a Valkyrie of the Nascent Storm Serpent, your Ascension grants you the bonus temporary Boon: Storm’s Blessing (Silver (II)). The Valkyrian Ascension grants a comparable bonus to Attributes as a similarly tiered Divine Transformation Skill. The Valkyrian Ascension Skill will change its bonus temporary boon according to the Patron to which you have sworn your allegiance.

Boon: Storm’s Blessing (Silver (II)); For a baseline cost starting at 100 Stamina, 100 MP, or 100 HP, you can empower your attacks, be they Skills or purely physical, with the wrath of the Storm. At Silver (II), you can choose lightning, wind, rain, or hail to accompany each of your strikes.

Skill: Divine Transformation (Silver (II)); A Skill acquired at the Dirt (0) tier of Neophyte then upgraded and moulded through the acquisition of the Storm-Calling Neophyte (Copper (I)) Class. This active Skill has been adjusted to adhere to the form of the storm-calling nature of Kukulkan, to exemplify the physical prowess and magical stature of your Bloodline Origin. You use the strength of Kukulkan’s body to supplement the power of your Divine workings, especially Storm Manipulation and calling Storms with your Divine Authority. As such, the Silver (II) tier of the Divine Transformation Skill transforms you into a storm coatl, a feathered serpent. As you progress in potency of your level of Divinity, your Divine Transformation Skill will improve. If you progress to the higher tiers of Divinity, beginning at Ruthenium, you will be able to adjust your Divine Transformation in accordance with your will.

Not for the first time, TJ was grateful for the little interactivity options within the System that allowed Participants to share separate bits of information with each other without having to recite it aloud. He scratched along his jaw, the thick stubble catching under his fingernails as he contemplated what exactly these differences meant. Sure, his own level would inhibit her ability to upgrade this Skill, but that wasn’t particularly worrisome. If he was being honest with himself, TJ wouldn’t ever allow Sarah to vastly outstrip him, if surpass him at all, so she wouldn’t have to worry about that. In the difference, not counting the Boon, instead of merely being an embodiment of some divine interpretation of themselves, this seemed to be a transformation made entirely for battle. Yes, Divine Transformation made the user much stronger and more dangerous, but TJ could see that, if he had the ability to better control his body, Divine Transformation would help him a lot with crafting, with rituals, and with any other number of things that occurred to him. For Sarah, however, the Valkyrian Ascension was to become a more perfect version of the warrior that she already was, nothing more, and nothing less.

“This is like your Skill, but without all the other bullshit.” Sarah smiled as she said it. “This is just a better version. You know,” she added, looking at TJ with just a hint of trepidation, “in my opinion. For me. You know, because my Class and Occupation are both for fighting.”

“It doesn’t bother me that you prefer what you have.“ TJ laughed. “What Attribute bonuses does the transformation, or Ascension, I guess, grant you?”

“A 250% increase on all my physical Attributes, 150% on the mental ones.”

“So both give the same Attribute bonus overall, with an average bonus of doubling every Attribute overall.” TJ nodded slowly as he said it.

“Yeah, but who the hell needs more Willpower?” Sarah retorted.

“I don’t know, maybe the person whose entire ability to survive is based off of that?” Seth asked with a scowl and gesturing to himself. TJ realized then that he didn’t understand exactly how any of Seth’s Skills worked, or his Class in general, since Avenger had subsumed Acolyte as his primary… was it even a Class now? Or was he just primarily someone with an Occupation as his identifier? Now wasn’t the time to continue exploring those changes, and instead TJ reached a hand out to Sarah to shake it in further congratulations. She grinned widely back at him, and TJ saw the moment she came up with her idea. He only barely managed to keep his hand out of her grasp, pulling it back like he was about to be bitten by a venomous serpent. Or… like his bones would be crushed, which was a lot more believable now, since there wasn’t a serpent he’d come across that’d posed any threat to him now that he was a Neophyte of Kukulkan.

“Aw, really?” Sarah laughed as TJ danced back a step. 

“Yes, really. I like to not get injured by overexcited Zealots who’re going to break my hand with their Strength as it more than doubles.”

“Party pooper.”

“Guy who’s responsible for you getting the new Skill in the first place, you mean. And we don’t even have a Disciple here, so I’d have to just deal with it or spend a couple minutes setting up my ritual to take some of your resources. So, instead of being morons, let’s see what we can learn about the Yaga here. Going off their name, there’s going to be a group of them, right?” TJ turned his attention to Seth as he asked as much, and the Avenger nodded.

“Yes. The covens are effectively spiritual apprentices to the Baba Yaga, the ruler of the witches.” Seth supplied. TJ nodded appreciatively, since he’d already asked the System what he could know about the monster and gotten nothing back. Seth continued, his voice growing more confident as he spoke, “This is the one that was actively controlling the bugs, but her sisters were the ones continuing to channel the ritual to control the bugs. She was to control the bugs and confuse us while she also ambushed— there was another.”

It was inspiring to watch the way Seth’s mind worked under his Skills’ and Class’s influence, and as soon as he said that, he perked up, looked around, and shook his head.

“There were two, and the other one ran away?” TJ asked.

“Yes. Sorry, if I’ve been paying more attention, I might’ve been able to pick her out before she got too far. At this point, she’s gone.”

“None of us knew anything, you did nothing wrong. Thanks for all you know, and if anything else occurs to you, don’t hold back. For now, let me take a look at this corpse.“ After TJ said as much, the other three stepped away and waited for whatever information he had to provide. TJ flipped the Yaga’s corpse over, and the first thing to surprise him was how little it was actually burned, contrary to what had seemed to be the state of her body. There had been an overwhelming stink of burning flesh, and he’d assumed that it came from the monster. Evidently, no. Instead, the source of the smell was almost exclusively the bugs, thousands of which had been covering the Yaga at the time of her death. The hag’s corpse, though roughly chopped in a half dozen places and mostly dismembered, wasn’t burned from the storming fury of a Valkyrie ambushed.

As he looked at it, TJ felt his stomach turn at the witch's features. The shape of the corpse was human enough to make him think of a human’s cadaver, but everything about her was wrong. The arms would have hung down to her mid shins, if she was standing upright, and a thick hump grew on her left shoulder. She wore something like a dress, though, as he looked at it, it seemed more to grow from her body than to be a garment she wore. The dress glowed a sickly faint purple, and why that was he didn’t even want to guess. Her skin was almost a camouflage pattern, mottled green and brown, and patches of grass, pond scum, and roots grew from various parts of her body. Her fingers constantly dripped a thick, odorous sludge, and lichen dangled from each of her knobby, extra–jointed fingers. Worst of all was her face. With the same general silhouette as a human’s from the front, she might’ve been mistaken for a deformed woman. The second her profile was shown, though, it was obvious that at best, the Yaga’s body was a result of some or failed experiment at breeding a human with a wolf.

Yellow eyes reflected the light stronger than any person’s could, and that was only the beginning. Her ears were faintly pointed, and grew halfway further up her head, right at the point where the skull curved to the dome at the top. Her lank black hair was garishly styled in an approximation of a formal updo, but the persistent wetness and stench obviously indicated a lack of any social propensity, marking the hairstyle of a bastardization more than anything. Then, was her mouth. Or, more correctly, her snout. Like a wolf’s, her nose and jaw had elongated to be two or three times as long as a human's, looking in shape like a toddler had taken the clay head of a wolf and smooshed it onto a human’s. Where the muzzle met the human features, fur and skin met in a patchwork, and her jaw and brows’ structure was strangely Neanderthal–like. The fangs that filled her mouth weren’t so orderly as a wolf's, but instead stuck out in snaggletooth prickles that seemed to make any sort of verbal communication impossible. The smell emanating from her maw was absolutely horrendous, and TJ felt his stomach turn as he got close enough to investigate.

“Yeah, she’s a nasty son of a bitch.” Sarah laughed as she kept her distance. “I wasn’t playing around when I said what I said.”

“Nobody thought you were, but this is something else entirely.“ TJ waved his hand in front of his face in an attempt to drive off the stench that clung to him. He had a little success, but finally, through watering eyes, he looked at the rest of his little group of adventurers.

“If you all want anything from this, go ahead, but I’m gonna leave her here and let it… I don’t know, air out, but if we find more, that was a good experience.”

With a rallying cry of, “Experience!” the group strode off towards the next fight, ready to find some more levels. Hopefully, TJ wouldn’t let one of these horrible hags anywhere near him. Before they could go far, though, Sarah asked a question that made TJ’s blood run cold:

“Who else do you think is getting the Skills that the other Classes got now?”

Sven.