TS6 - Chapter 21

Mana crackled through the air around Kat, infusing her domain with potential.  About thirty paces to her left, Dorrik was squaring off with some sort of flying diamond that flickered with pearly iridescent light as it summoned spears of light that darted through the air toward the dodging and slashing lokkel.

Kat glanced at the diamond in frustration.  Ordinarily she already would’ve used her control over gravity to toss the dungeon boss around, but it had no weight.  It was like she was targeting something that didn’t even exist.

The same went for the shape’s energy spears.  She could see them appearing, lunging and disappearing with her eyes, but as far as Kat’s magical senses could tell, Dorrik was shadow boxing a hologram.

One of Dorrik’s swords tagged the edge of the diamond, dispelling that illusion.  The blade of his weapon flared with purple light, giving it some sort of spiritual weight that let it strike its phantasmal opponent.

He danced backward, leaving a crack in the side of the diamond that oozed brilliant white light like it was blood.  The monster vibrated, unleashing a ululating screech that made Kat’s eyes water and her molars ache even as Sensory Dampening kicked in to prevent the sonic attack from deafening her entirely.

Dorrik didn’t seem to notice, all four of his arms wreathed in violet flames as he enhanced his strength and agility, weaving through another volley of glowing spears.  In the harsh white light rolling off of the monster, blood trickled out of the lokkel’s ear slits, tracing a shallow stream down either side of his face as his sword swung again and again.

Each strike didn’t do much damage.  The purple glow of Psi energy wrapped around the swords disrupted something of the strange monsters’ illusory form, but they weren’t enough to convey the entirety of Dorrik’s strikes.

More liquid light dribbled from the growing spiderweb of cracks that Dorrik hammered into the monster’s borders.  Once again he darted backward even as another spear of energy appeared barely a handspan in front of where he had just been.

“Kat!”  Kaleek’s scream drew her attention back to where the desoph was using his greatsword as a lever to try and force a large square of stone out of the floor of the dungeon.  “Help me out a bit with this, it’s heavier than my sister in law after-”

She tuned him out, using her already enhanced domain to send the huge lump of stone ‘falling’ upward. Kaleek stumbled and fell backward, blood still dripping from each of his furry ears.  Another tweak of her will slowed the rock down, leaving it hovering in the air about two paces off the ground.

Kat took a moment to glance at her projectile.  The chunk of rock was about as big as her torso and still bore the marks where Kaleek had hacked it out of the stone of the dungeon floor.  Through her domain, she could tell that it weighed a little more than the desoph in his full armor.

She took a deep breath, casting Mirage on the rock.  A second later the mana snapped into place, warping light around it and blurring its edges.

As soon as Kat felt that her spell was firmly in place, she twisted gravity, sending the chunk of rock hurtling toward the illusory dungeon boss.  She didn’t call out to Dorrik.  WIth his damaged ears, he wouldn’t be able to hear her anyway, but there wasn’t any need.

With the grace of a hunting cat, he spun to the side at the last second, dragging both of his swords through the flank of the floating diamond just as Kat’s boulder crashed into it.

The impact was underwhelming.  None of the rock’s momentum actually did anything as the entity didn’t have a body for it to strike.  On the other hand, the spell she’d tacked onto her projectile managed to do some serious damage.

Mirage wasn’t really a combat spell.  Rather it just disrupted light in an area around its target.  Ordinarily, Kat used it to blur her extremities, making it hard for an opponent to identify and hit her.  On the rock, it didn’t do much other than smooth out the grooves and cuts left by Kaleek’s sword.  At least until the big chunk of stone struck its target.

The surface of the diamond rippled as Mirage twisted the light that made up the dungeon boss.  Bulges of energy undulated through the creature, eliciting another high pitched shriek from it as the cracks created by Dorrik’s earlier attacks burst open, causing even more of the liquid radiance to spill out.

Another round of glowing spears flickered into being but a second later they blinked back out.  Already, the edges of the diamond began to fade and grow dark as it struggled to maintain cohesion.

Kat caught hold of the boulder, suspending it in the air in the center of the diamond.  It shuddered, bleeding mana and light as it listed to the side in a futile attempt to escape her attack.

Dorrik didn’t get it a chance, lunging forward to slash purple coated blades through the creature’s flanks time and time again.

Mana twisted inside Kat’s core as she gave into a hunch and cast Overpressure.  The instant the spell hit the monster, it was like a dam crumbling.  The hundreds of jagged cracks radiating out from where Dorrik had struck the creature erupted, gushing liquid light that left the monster’s body dim and insubstantial.

It flickered once, the stutter barely visible through the constant bright light created by its wounds.

Then, suddenly, the entire boss room was dark.  There wasn’t a malicious diamond or energy spears seeking to disembowel a party member.  Kat’s boulder floated soundlessly, its surface still blurred and hard to completely make out as it floated silently where the enemy used to be.

“Did we kill it!?”  Kaleek shouted, his sword stuck a hand span into the rocky dungeon floor, right next to the hole he’d managed to hack out of it.

Kat jogged over to him, casting Cure Wounds on the way.  The illusory dungeon boss didn’t reappear, confirming that they were likely safe for the moment.  Her hands glowed gold for a second as she touched either side of his head.  With a flash of light and mana, Kaleek’s bleeding stopped.

“There it is,” he said happily.  “I can finally hear my own voice rather than constant ringing.  Huge improvement.”

Kat smiled, slapping him on the shoulder as she turned toward Dorrik. The lokkel was already three quarters of the way to the two of them so she began casting Cure Wounds again.

“Next time,” Kaleek continued cheerfully, “Let’s try to find a dungeon where I can actually stab the boss.  I hate to be a whiner, but it kinda defeats the purpose of running around with a big sword and heavy armor if it all just passes through my target.”

“Six out of twelve,” he said with a shake of his head.  “Sufficiently difficult boss, but the fight was boring and too simple so long as you used the appropriate tactics.  Would not recommend.  Instead, visit the Golem Marsh located in the Briar Cliff ruins.  Tons more fun.”

Kat finished reciting the incantation for Cure Wounds, and rolled her eyes at Kaleek as she touched her hands to either side of Dorrik’s head.  With a flash of light, his ear slits healed as well, and Dorrik’s previously tight crest slackened slightly as his hearing returned. 

“It appears we are victorious,” Dorrik said, nodding to both of them.  “I saw that Kaleek was speaking.  Did I miss anything while I waited for my hearing membranes to be regenerated?”

“Yes, I-” Kaleek began, only for Kat to cut him off.

“No.  Kaleek was just whining about how he couldn’t do anything fun during the fight and was relegated to digging out a stone for me to use as a spell medium.”

Dorrik cocked his head slightly to the side, glancing over at Kaleek for the desoph to confirm or deny Kat’s statement.  The big otter shuffled his feet slightly, casting his eyes downward before replying.

“Well, that and I was about to bring up that we should research these dungeons a little more.  We had enough ability users to handle a completely phantasmal foe this time, but what would’ve happened if its sonic attack had managed to disable one of us?  Suddenly losing our ability to communicate like that could’ve been crippling, but at the same time, if we’d known what we were dealing with ahead of time, Dorrik just could’ve used his mind meld spell thing, and all three of us would’ve still been able to communicate.”

“I apologize,” Dorrik replied, inclining his head downward.  “I have not had sufficient time to investigate all of our dungeons beforehand.  Jaalin has brought an updated data repository with her, but on Earth I do not have access to Clan Ahn’s full information network so I cannot look into our dungeons during the day.  More than that, we are getting to the stage of the tower where not every dungeon is in our databases.  Ordinarily, I would take some time to follow up on local rumors in order to make sure that we have a profile of the dungeon before we risked delving it’s depths, but-”

His eyes flickered to Kat, but Dorrik didn’t say anything.  He immediately tried to change the subject but that didn’t stop the bottom from falling out of Kat’s stomach.

“But we have been successful regardless,” Dorrik finished with false enthusiasm.  “WIth each dungeon we grow stronger.  Unfortunately, I believe that we have explored every dungeon near our current adventurer hall, and it has become necessary for us to journey to a new hub.  My suggestion would be for us to travel to the town of Crimson Shoal.  We would need to spend at least one night at a waypoint, but there are at least nine confirmed silver dungeons surrounding Crimson Shoal.  If we can find three more in the area, that will be enough to power us through to the next level.”

“Level twenty one sounds great,” Kaleek replied, seemingly unbothered by the sudden drop in the mood.  “Will Crimson Shoal be big enough for us to be able to make some proper purchases at the adventuring hall?  I know that my armor is upgraded, but I think that it’s about time for the two of you to catch up.”

“Plus,” he said with a wink.  “One of the good parts of delving completely unprepared is that we aren’t spending enough marks on consumables because we don’t know what consumables will be needed.  It has been great for my pocketbook and I’m flush with money at the moment.”

Kat forced a smile onto her face.  Dorrik and Kaleek were clearly trying to do their best to make it seem like her pace wasn’t an imposition, but she knew better.  At least her gravity domain was developing to the point where it didn’t feel like a liability anymore.  The trick with Kaleek providing her with a boulder to use as a projectile was a bit slower than her old Gravity Spike spell, but it also had the potential to do extreme damage at range, functionally transforming her into a human trebuchet.

Still, a catapult couldn’t solve every problem as Kaleek and her had just found out.  Luckily the diamond was weak against her light magic so Mirage could do some damage, but that didn’t change the accuracy of Kaleek’s critique.  Some skillsets simply didn’t work against some bosses, and knowing that ahead of time could save their entire team a whole lot of pain and risk.

“Come on,” Kaleek said, elbowing Kat and knocking her out of her melancholic fit.  “Let’s get out of this dungeon.  There’s still about four hours left in the night and we might be able to make it all the way to the waypoint if we’re lucky.”

He turned and walked away, followed a half second later by Dorrik.  Kat lingered a couple moments, trying her hardest to redirect her thoughts away from the constant anxiety elicited by thinking about the pace she was forcing on her friends.

It was almost worse that they didn’t complain.  She could see the dangers caused by tackling dungeons without proper prep.  Now that Kat’s ranged attacks were limited, the problem became even more severe.  She was putting everyone at risk.  They knew it, she knew it, but Dorrik and Kaleek cared too much about her to actually come out and say it.

Kat closed her eyes and took a deep breath, holding the oxygen in her lungs for a second before exhaling, willing the stress and the anxiety out of her system along with the stale air.

She opened her eyes.  The breathing exercise hadn’t really worked.  She was still plenty wound up, but it had at least taken a bit of the ragged, wild-eyed edge off of her concern.

Her heart still felt like it was beating off rhythm as Kat walked over to the dungeon altar and put her hand on it, but at least her face looked fairly calm and normal.  Then, her reality dissolved into streaks of rainbow light as she teleported out of the dungeon, the status screen from the tower following a half second later.

A second later, Kat blinked into existence on the main floor of the tower.  Rotting wood barely held up the slick mud and clay that formed the roof of the catacombs.  In the distance, Kat heard water dripping as some underground lake slowly emptied itself into a long forgotten cistern.

Another window replaced the first, and this time Kat couldn’t help but smile.

She glanced over each option, reveling in the ability to pick new spells again for the first time in what felt like forever.  Months and months with the same abilities, honing and refining them until they were were second nature  only for her to lose a third of them had left a bad taste in her mouth.  

Kat knew that she was improving.  Her skill proficiency in the tower wasn’t the only measure of how dangerous she was.  Adapting to her attributes and smoothly transitioning from one ability to another were as if not more important than the numbers on her status sheet.

Still, there was something satisfying about watching the numbers go up, and gaining a new spell was even better. For the first time in who knew how many nights Kat actually had a choice in how to evolve and improve her skill set.

Mentally she examined the pop up, interrogating each option to get a vague idea of what it would do.   Medium Illusion allowed her to create an image in about a three by three pace cube.  Kat got the impression that she could program some limited movement into it, but it would be mana intensive to do so and it wouldn’t respond to any sort of stimulus.  She could create a rocking chair and have it move rhythmically, but that didn’t mean she could make an automatic door that would open in front of someone.

The next spell was self explanatory.  A high frequency laser, blue but not quite ultraviolet.  Unlike previous offerings, this spell could accept variable amounts of mana.  At lower levels it could be used to blind or burn flammable substances, but with enough mana it could do some pretty serious damage.  Of course, there was no free lunch.  The spell would never be as strong as Gravity Spike and the more mana she poured into it the more inefficient the spell got.

Kat couldn’t quite work out the specifics without actually selecting it, but she got the impression that it would be able to cut through metal at higher levels.  Maybe not immediately and the mana cost of keeping the spell active would be stupendous, but it would give her a ranged option.  Not the sledgehammer of her old gravity magic, but a scalpel like her knife.  Something she could use to target weak spots and slash through gaps in an enemy’s armor.

The next spell was useful, but Kat almost dismissed it immediately.  X-ray sight would let her see through barriers and armor.  It might be useful later as Kat suspected that it would let her pinpoint critical weaknesses in heavily armored opponents, but at the moment, that simply wasn’t the sort of ability she needed.

Quickly she moved on to the next ability.  Minor Nova would create a shroud of superheated light around her, blinding anyone that tried to look at Kat and damaging anyone that came too close.  An interesting ability to say the least, but at the same time, Kat wasn’t sure how much she needed it.

Already her gravity domain felt like a third arm.  She barely even needed to think about it to reverse someone’s gravity and send them flying into a wall or ceiling.  Combined with Pseudopod’s ability to autonomously wield a knife, it was beyond foolish for a lightly armored opponent to enter close range with her.  Any enemy that could resist her knives or survive the sudden changes in gravity her domain could dish out would simply ignore the heat damage from Nova.

After dismissing the spell, she moved on to Shroud.  It had more promise, letting her create a fairly large area where all light disappeared but the caster could see perfectly well.  It wasn’t a great spell for group combat as it would impede Kaleek and Dorrik just as much as their enemies, but if Kat were to use it back on Earth, it could easily turn her into a one woman killing machine.

Gamma Burst was also interesting.  The spell converted mana into a semi coherent blast of radiation that could penetrate armor with ease.  The problem was that it didn’t seem to actually do a huge amount of damage.  Even a small exposure to the spell would create a massive cancer risk for a human, but that wouldn’t do much in a life or death fight.  With enough blasts she could cook someone from the inside, but that also meant repeatedly landing the same attack on roughly the same spot.

Kat was sure that it could potentially add a lot to her arsenal if she leveled the spell up, but for right now she would have to pass on the armor penetrating qualities of the ability.  Now that her gravity magic was gone, what Kat needed was a ranged attack that did more damage than Dehydrate.

Improved Laser it was.

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