Beta Chapter 6+7

Chapter 6: Obligatory Flashback

“Gods I’m gonna freeze my tits off out here.” Elaine said, tucking her voluminous cloak over her voluminous breasts as the snow kept pouring down around them, forming eddies as the wind blew through it.

“I can help you with that, El,” Gregor said with a chuckle. The man with this black hair was packing his belt full of emergency supplies, along with a couple limes. They had long since stopped teasing him about his fear of scurvy.

“Gee, that never gets old.” Elaine’s voice was flat from over a year of working with the man. “One of these days I wish you’d be man enough risk death or dismemberment to cop a feel, then we could move on. Ya bitch.”

Gregor’s eyes narrowed a bit, but it was all well within their usual antics.

“How do you do it, Karen?” she asked, turning her attention back to the towering warrior.

“I’ve got sheepskin lining the armor.” Karen said, tapping the obscenely oversized armor with her iron-clad knuckles. “I’m snug as a bug in a rug.”

The large balding mercenary, Andrew, popped his head out of his tent and frowned at her. “You used to have a giant suit of armor? How come I’ve never seen it?” he asked.

“I sold it to buy the farm, now shut up, Calvin, I’m telling the story.”

The large balding mercenary, Andrew, popped his head out of his tent and frowned at her. “Is everyone good to go?”

“Waiting on you, Drew.” Karen said.

“Well then wait no longer,” he said, leaving his tent fully armored. The six-foot tall man started stretching, limbering himself up in the whirling snow.

“Did you sleep in that?” Elaine asked incredulously.

“Nah, just leave the hinges open and roll into it in the morning. Karen, can you get my back?” he started cinching the straps keeping the armor tight against his front.

“Sure.” Karen walked up and cinched the straps on his back tight. Andrew preferred to have Karen do it because Elaine had never worn heavy armor in her life, and Gregor might be tempted to pull a fast one.

At least, that’s what he told them. Karen and Elaine suspected their leader had a soft spot for Karen but couldn’t bring himself to make things unprofessional.

“Alright, weapons check. Fuckin’ frost.” He said, yanking his sword out of its sheath, breaking the thin layer of frost on it that had accumulated while he slept. The other members of the party made sure their equipment was good to go, staring at the monolithic castle in the distance.

“I’m sure I don’t need to go over the plan again,” Drew said, marching in front of the three of them. “But I’m gonna do it anyway, because ya’ll are idiots.”

“Suck my dick.” Elaine muttered.

Karen was silent. She knew she didn’t have the mental capacity to be witty and know exactly what the plan was, so she chose to focus on the one that offered a better chance at survival.

“That castle was discovered last year by a ranger who’d gotten lost up in the mountains. Nobody who’s tried to explore it since has come back alive. I think you all know what that means.

“Phat loot.” Gregor said, the black fur around his shoulders obscuring his smirk.

“That’s right. This isn’t some ancient village with automatic breadmakers. That right there, is a military installation. One sword that cuts anything, or a Guardian Spirit, or something of that caliber, and we are set for life.”

“Now, in the interest of living that life a good long time, we are taking this slow and painstakingly careful. Elaine, you’ll be responsible for making sure our path backward is clear. I want you to wall up every door as we go, leaving only one path behind us. By all the gods, we are not getting struck from behind or splitting up by taking a wrong turn during a retreat.”

“That’ll take a lot of Bent, and I only recharge two a day.” Elaine said.

“What part of painstakingly careful did you not understand?” Drew asked. “We’re gonna poke our heads in, back out, poke out heads in a little deeper, rinse and repeat.

“Sounds like Gregor with whisky-dick.” Elaine said.

****

“Was my mom really that foul?”

“pretty much.” Karen said.

****

“Keep five Bent handy in case of an emergency. If I had to tell you to save your vials, I’d have already kicked you out. Karen and I are going to take turns acting as point, followed by Gregor, then Elaine, then whoever’s not point as rearguard.”

Karen saw Elaine run a thumb over the three vials of inky black substance on her belt, liquid Bent, in units of three. Each one had cost a couple gold pieces, the price of an entire horse or a good sword.

Rich wizards. Karen thought with good humor, rolling her eyes as they assembled and marched up the hill, with her pulling the rear guard. Karen’s armor was worth quite a bit more, but she’d earned it.

They walked up the side of the mountain, through the foot of snow, grimacing as the water melted into their armor and sapped heat, eventually making Karen’s feet go numb. Karen’s Endurance was such that she could go a lot longer before getting frostbite, however, so she marched on silently.

The others seemed to have their own issues, but they made it to the front of the castle without complaint.

It was a massive, looming thing formed of black stones the size of carriages stacked on top of each other. One might have thought the thing was made by giants, but for the tiny arrow slits and normal sized gatehouse. The black stone was coated in a thick layer of ice, making it look like flowing obsidian.

The gate itself stood open, inviting them into their death.

Andrew stopped in front of the gate, looking up at it with a scowl.

“I don’t fuckin’ think so. Elaine, remove the gate.”

Andrew must have envisioned a situation where the gate closed behind them, locking them in a death-trap. It could have been what happened to the last few parties. He wasn’t having any of it. the man would sooner dismantle the entire castle brick by brick than fall into a lethal trap.

Elaine closed her eyes and held out her hand. The other members of the party could feel her Bent flying over their heads, causing the hair on the back of their necks stand up.

The black stone groaned and peeled itself away from the ancient steel gate, releasing the heavy steel to topple to the ground, rumbling the very earth beneath them with its immense weight.

A hair-raising wail filled the air, reverberating through the snow-covered mountains.

“Back fifty paces, Elaine, a funnel, Karen, join me at the front. Gregor, watch Elaine’s back.”

“Right.” They accepted his orders and moved to make them so. Gregor didn’t even bother to comment about how happy he would be to watch Elaine’s backside.

The man was professional when he was on the job.

They marched backward, and Karen rejoined Drew at the front while Elaine penned them in with stone walls ten feet tall and four feet wide, buried deep into the stone.

The wailing gradually grew in volume until their enemy made an appearance, they were some kind of…purple men with grossly exaggerated tongues emerging from their distended jaws.

The thirty or so creatures rushed toward them, followed by a handful of strange crab-like creatures with brains bursting out from their carapace.

The man-things charged them mindlessly, throwing up snow as they charged, blueish drool dripping from their tongues. They paid no attention to the fact that they’d been penned in and funneled straight into the jaws of death.

“Hit!” Andrew shouted, and he and Karen smashed their shields into the charging creatures before hacking the stumbling bodies apart.

One managed to slip through the gap and tried to put its tongue through her visor. Karen jabbed her sword through its neck and shoved it away before locking her shoulder against Andrew’s again.

A droplet of the creature’s drool sizzled just underneath her eye, causing her eyes to tear up. She focused her mind and blinked the pain away, forcing her body to blindly match Andrew’s actions as they cut down another wave of them. She felt her sword cut through something.

“Spit’s acidic!” She shouted to Andrew beside her, finally regaining her sight.

“Don’t let them touch you with the tongue!” Andrew relayed to everyone.

“Do I look like I wanted to let them touch me with that shit?” Elaine demanded, keeping her eyes open for a new threat.

The cerebral crabs stood there and took their measure rather than rushing in, ushering dozens more Lickers through the destroyed gate.

Once they seemed to like what they saw, all five crabs began to vibrate, sending an invisible pulse into the air.

“Agh, son of a-“ Karen lost her speech as it felt like someone was slowly driving a rusty iron spike through each ear in time with her heartbeat. “GAah!”

She saw the Lickers crowding in around them, felt their claws scraping against her armor, and felt the sting of the occasional drop of saliva burning as it seeped between the cracks of her armor.

She felt all this, but the pain kept her floored, completely unable to move. Karen knew it was just a matter of time until one of the Lickers got a lucky hit or tore off a part of her armor, and then she’d be gone.

What a shitty way to die.

Andrew was beside her, and she could hear the sound of his groaning coming from the helm beside her as the Lickers began to pour over them, surrounding them and peeling off toward Elaine.

“…let the bargain be struck.” Elaine’s voice carried over to Karen as she waved her hand, discarding an empty vial.

In the distance, brilliant circles of light opened doors into nothingness, birthing monsterous orange-skinned devils with manes of wiry black hair and no lips. The two popped into existance beside the Cerebral crabs and fell on top of them, tearing into the exposed grey matter.

In a fraction of a second, the pain went away as the crabs shrieked and scuttled away in fright.

Karen stood and glanced behind her, where a third devil was warding off three lickers with its finger-length claws. Gregor sprung to his feet and took one out with a crossbow bolt, stabilizing the situation in the rear, so Karen planted her feet and once again got shoulder to shoulder with Drew, grinding through the Lickers like machines.

****

“The plan went off without a hitch after that, and we returned home with treasure the likes of which people hadn’t seen in ages.” Karen said. “Your sister’s necklace was one of the things we got, actually.”

“So why aren’t we living in a castle snorting powdered Ambrosia off the asses of maids of our preferred gender?”

“Where’d you hear that?” Karen asked with a raised brow.

“Kort got it from his dad. Since my mom was foul-mouthed, I thought I’d try it on.”

“Doesn’t suit you,” she said, tweaking his nose. “As for why, well, that’s a much longer story than I’m willing to go into today. Besides, if I hang around too long, you’ll get a Listening to Boring Old Stories Warped Skill.”

“That is true,” Calvin said, nodding sagely before Karen hit his shoulder.

“Anyway, I just came in here to tell you that being a wizard isn’t a…bad choice.” She sounded like she was forcing it out.

“Most skills give you a passive bonus, with one active ability every five levels, giving you a slow, steady rate of increase, but spells are kind of the opposite. You get one active ability that starts out very weak and grows exponentially as you level it, and you can use it in any situation.

“Your mother could use her Stone Shaping magic to make shelter, bridges, walls, ramps, wedges, furniture, and so on. The Deadly slash ability I got for my fifth rank in Swordsmanship? I can use it to slash things.”

“I see.” Cal said, nodding. “I’d like to keep pursuing magic, Karen.”

“According to the tiny owl, you’re a prodigy, so keep at it, I guess,” Karen said, tousling his hair. “I’ll leave you be while you’re Forming, but tomorrow your ass is mine.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Cal said before his foster mother left.

Stealth has reached level 5! Freakin’ choose an ability or mutation from the list of compatible ones, damnit.

Abilities:

Active Stealth

Unseen Affinity

Sneak Critical

Mutations:

Vein-Sight

Camouflage

Third Eye

Touch-Grip

“All right, what do they do?” Calvin asked.

Abilities:

Active Stealth: Become invisible for 1 hour/Bent. Effect fades if you attack.

Unseen affinity: Active abilities used from a hidden vantage are treated as 2 levels higher. (Trans: Spell Sneak attacks)

Sneak Critical: Attacks from a hidden Vantage are significantly more lethal, automatically seeking vital spots.

Mutations:

Vein-Sight: When using Stealth, the Veins of living creatures glow brightly from beneath their skin. (May Cause Slight Vampirism)

Camouflage: When using Stealth, the skin actively redirects light around the body, nearly disappearing. (Much less effective when wearing clothes.)

Third Eye: Feel any sentient creature actively paying attention to you, and the direction they are in.

Touch-Grip: At will, finger tips and toes become able stick to objects, with a force equal to your endurance squared. (May cause super-heroism.)

Chapter 7:

As Calvin brought each of his options to the forefront of his mind, a helpful sentence described it.

Calvin went through them a couple times to make sure he knew what each of them did. He slowly narrowed his selections down.

Active stealth is pretty good, like a spell in and of itself, but I don’t have a lot of spare Bent to go around.

Unseen affinity is powerful, especially at the beginning.

Sneak critical is out. I’m not planning on becoming an assassin.

May cause vampirism? What in the nine hells? Cal looked at the first Mutation. Does that mean these might change my body? Hmmm.

Camouflage is useful if I plan on sneaking around naked like a perv twenty-four seven, which is the only way it would be more cost-effective than Active stealth.

Third eye…that’s not bad.

Touch grip is interesting. I could theoretically climb walls and even ceilings with impunity, and pick pockets with a single finger.

Calvin took a deep breath and began weeding them out.

Don’t focus on what’s cool, focus on what pays the most dividends over the longest period of time.

After some thinking, Calvin narrowed it down to Third eye and Unseen Affinity. After fifteen minutes of careful deliberation, he painfully chose to give up on the empowered spells from stealth. Third eye was just too handy in more circumstances.

Knowing when people were looking at him meant he knew exactly when his stealth was blown, and conversely, when it wasn’t. He also could notice other people in stealth easier if they were paying attention to him. He could tell when girls stared lustfully, or if someone behind him was staring, possibly allowing him to dodge backstabs. Even in a social situation, if someone was throwing too many looks at him, he would know.

It’s a damn shame though, I may never get my Body high enough to get another chance at that ability at tenth level.

“All right, I pick Third Eye.”

User will be rendered unconscious while Mutation is taking place.

Huh?

Cal’s skin started to itch, and his head started to ache, then stab with pain as the plates of his skull popped apart and began to shift.

“Agh!” Cal gave a strangled cry before everything went dark.

Cal woke up still in his bed, clothes sticky with sweat.

“What in the hells was that?” he asked. “Does everyone have to go through that when they mutate? Never told me.” Matter of fact, no one had ever told him anything about mutating, it was always abilities, abilities, every five levels in a skill.

Cal reached up and touched his skull. Did it change? Are people going to start asking questions? After massaging it for a few minutes, Cal didn’t notice any changes worth mentioning. His hands and skin looked the same, and he plucked a hair out.

Hair color’s still the same. As long as my eyeballs didn’t change, I’m golden.

Cal didn’t have all day to sit and screw around, he had twelve Warp to spend.

The amount of Warp a person received each Breaking was dictated by their highest primary stat, Body or Mind, and according to Bekvah and some of the people he’d asked since, twelve warp to spend was a lot.

It also explained why Bekvah suggested frontloading his Warp into Mind.

Spending all twelve points doing puzzles would raise his Mind to thirteen, ensuring his next Break gave him seventeen Warp, which was a truly outstanding amount. It would simultaneously raise the limit on his sub-stats greatly…but, he wouldn’t have access to any skills to raise them until his next Break.

Bekvah’s method truly leaned on getting more Breaks afterward.

So if the nobility basically cheats by absorbing Warp from battlefields, why can’t I?

A seed of an idea began to germinate as Cal opened the book of puzzles and began solving them. The first couple pages were easy, but they quickly became something that Cal had to struggle to solve.

Your Mind has reached Level 10!

Remaining Warp 9/12

Your Mind has reached Level 11!

Remaining Warp 6/12

Your Mind has reached Level 12!

Remaining Warp 3/12

Once Cal had only three Warp remaining he got out of bed, carefully trying not to devote too much effort to any one thing. He was starting to get a feel for the Warp buzzing around behind his heart, like Kala had told him.

Cal decided to pick up two Will related Skills, and a Stability one, to increase his Bent recovery and Storage.

Cal didn’t want to be left high and dry for years if his plans didn’t work out.

He stepped outside into the afternoon sun and squinted against the glare.

First order of business, fishing.

Cal leaned over and grabbed his rod, a simple notched Lipia sapling with twelve feet of string and an iron hook on the end.

Lipia was famous for its flexibility and strength, and it was commonly used to make war bows, but the farmers of Deinos, who had the stuff growing in their back yards, often made fishing poles out of them too.

Cal trotted down the well-beaten dirt path to the river. The trees loomed over the well-worn groove in the ground as he walked downhill. After a couple minutes walking between splashes of sunlight, Cal made it to the village fishing hole, where the villagers liked to relax and put an extra fish or two on the table.

Old man Juka was sitting on a lump of dirt overlooking the river, silently watching his wooden bobber.

In Deinos, fishing was a popular pastime for the elderly, who were too frail to engage in heavy labor, but still wanted to put food on the table for their children and grandchildren.

“Afternoon, Calvin.” Juka said, glancing over. The village elder wasn’t working in that capacity at the moment, so he was just Juka.

Calvin felt a sensation something like an itch on his face, with the directional feeling of warm sunlight beating on his skin. This must be the Third Eye mutation.

He could vaguely tell the direction the old man’s gaze was coming from, but maybe with enough practice he’d be able to pinpoint people with his eyes closed.

Juka was a bald old man with no teeth. He was a stick thin prune of a man, but he was wise, and could still hold a fishing rod.

The old man had his rod tucked in a frame, so he could let a fish wear itself out before reeling it in. He wasn’t that strong, especially against some of the large fish to be had in this river.

“Afternoon,” Cal said as he did his customary check for Norlocks. The awful creatures were the apex predators of the river, and weren’t above snatching things off the bank. They didn’t even taste good. There were no strange eddies, or suspicious brown lumps in the water.

“No norlocks today, son.” Juka said.

“As Karen would say, I’d rather trust my eyes than another person’s word.”

Juka chuckled. “Good plan.” He turned back to his bobber, patiently watching it dip in the slow-moving current.

“What are you doing here so late?” Juka asked, glancing over at him. “Best fishing’s already done.”

“Forming Day,” Cal said, sitting down about twenty feet down the bank, leaning up against a fallen log he and Baroke had moved there for that purpose. “Thought I’d pick up fishing as a Warped Skill.”

“Ah, can’t go wrong with that. My uncle got to level five, and the man never went hungry. You don’t mind if I cast where you do, do yah?”

Juka gave him a wry toothless grin.

“Get your own fish,” Cal said, digging a worm out of the soft soil and baiting his hook before relaxing back into his nook and casting his line out into the water. On a hunch, he aimed for a particularly fast moving current that eventually drew his wooden bobber into the shallows in a more natural way than simply splashing the lure into the hole.

Fishing was a common Will/Sta hybrid skill. Skills that raised Stability tended to be ones that relaxed you, kept you grounded, or ensured a certain quality of life. Cooking, Cleaning, and Tool Maintenance were all good examples.

Will skills required focus, determination, or patience. Examples included Babysitting, Animal Training, Hunting, etc.

Since fishing was both relaxing, grounding, and requiring focus and patience, it was a hybrid skill, delivering a stat point to whichever attribute was lower every five levels.

In Cal’s case, it would be Stability, but that could reverse if he raised his Stability higher than his Will. He felt like it was a good choice to have a skill that could flip as necessary to help round out his attributes.

After this he’d grab two more Will skills, and be well on his way to being able to restore two Bent per day to fuel his magic practice.

Call waited, watching his bobber intently as the brown water swirled around it, waiting for the moment to set the hook. After ten minutes, Cal replaced his worm and cast again, letting the lure flow down into the shallows on its own.

After another few minutes of waiting, his bobber dipped unnaturally. Cal’s heart slammed in his chest, causing him to flinch and almost tug one the line too early, but he caught himself. No, it’s just testing the bait. wait until the fish swallows it.

A couple seconds later the bobber dipped under the surface, more violently this time. Cal tugged the pole back to set the hook. Not too hard, or it’ll snap the line or tug the hook out. Just the right amount of pressure.

The hook set deep, and the fish began to swim back and forth under the surface of the water, intractably hooked.

You have manifested Fishing!

Fishing has reached Level 1!

Level 1: Boosts effectiveness of bait and line strength. 5% correction

Remaining Warp 2/12

“Whoo!” Cal shouted as he let the fish wear itself out. Their homespun line didn’t exactly have a lot of strength to it, so he had to be delicate.

“You seem awfully excited.” Juka said.

“I got the skill!” Cal said, doing his best to follow the fish’s movements and keep the tension on the line steady.

“Oh, maybe I can bum a couple fish off of you, then.”

The fish suddenly made an unnatural turn, snapping the line and nearly yanking the pole out of his hand.

Damn, I paid a copper piece for that hook! More specifically, the hook was a copper piece that Ghol the smith would form into a hook for kids in exchange for chores. Cal recently had been bumped up to adult rates for hooks, so the loss stung.

Cal felt Juka’s gaze land on his face before the old man spoke. “Hah, I guess I won’t be bumming any fish off you today. In honor of getting the Skill though, I’ll give you a small loan from my stash, with a very reasonable interest rate of one fish per day.”

“Bah, I’ll be back with a couple spares tomorrow,” Cal said, glancing over at the old man. “I could even-“ Cal’s eyes went wide as he spotted a purple, veiny lump of muscle, something like a snake with a penis’s skin, sporting a mouth full of barbed teeth at the end.

A norlock’s tentacle.

“Look out!” Cal shouted, pointing.

“Eh?” Juka only had time to glance over before the Norlock struck, sinking barbed fangs into the old man’s arm and dragging him off his hill.

“Motherfu-“ Juka’s words were drowned out as he landed in the water, where more tentacles writhed just below the surface.

Ice went down Cal’s spine. Tradition was, if you spotted a norlock, go get some friends and pelt it with arrows from a safe distance until the damned thing floated to the surface, but it had Juka, and the old man would be dead before he made it halfway back to the village.

Pulling the old man out wasn’t going to work, neither of them were strong enough to pull away from the thick muscles designed to pull things underwater and drown them. Not before Juka was already shredded, that was. The only way Juka was getting out of this alive was if the norlock died in the next minute.

Cal spotted the old man’s fishing knife, a razor sharp piece of steel with a modest four inch blade. It sat unattended beside where Juka had been sitting.

Just have to hope it’s enough, Cal thought, running forward and snatching up the blade as he sprinted past, diving into the roiling water.