B5 C28: Heaven's Wrath

In fairness, if Cal had been thinking far ahead, perhaps she would have anticipated what the quest update was telling her. Unfortunately, she’d only come up with her plan to chop the tree down a few seconds before she acted on it, which didn’t make for the best forethought. Even if she was partially to blame, though, that didn’t stop Cal from thinking all manner of nasty thoughts about the voltaic monarchs.

Your actions have reduced the rate at which the Voltaic Kingdom can gather cloud essence. As recompense, your tribute amount has been increased accordingly.

Cloud essence offered: 1/15,250

+5000 for chopping down an essence tree. 

+250 for the death of a cloudtender.

Because of course it couldn’t be that simple.

Hells, I’m half convinced I should stage some sort of uprising. One tree being worth the same as twenty citizens? Even for soulless dungeon monsters, that was some callous accounting. 

Plus, she was already a princess. Maybe she could convince the cloudtenders to take her on as their new queen. First order of business, no more collecting cloud essence. She had a perfectly good log cabin waiting for her, and she didn’t need any edgy gray cloud palaces.

Given the cloudtenders seeming inability to speak, she doubted she’d be able to convince them of much. Sadly, that left her with the onus of actually completing the quest. If the original ten thousand had felt like an impossible hurdle, then the updated tribute was downright devastating. Was this quest meant to be assigned to a party of five originally, or was the intent truly to bury her under months of meaningless labor?

The single upside was the other set of notifications waiting for her.

Apex Shroud has reached level 10!

Congratulations! You have reached the Initiate rank in Apex Shroud!

You have been granted the standard augment for your skill.

Augment of Partial Activation

Instead of fully hiding yourself from a given sense, for reduced resource costs, you may choose to partially hide yourself instead.

NOTE: Apex Shroud is not considered class aligned for the Indefatigable Onslaught class. Future leveling will be slowed.

On the surface, the augment didn’t feel like much of a winner. Sure, it could help her save on resources, but with her class, she had mana and stamina to spare. In a few more levels, she’d be able to keep the skill going at full-tilt through pretty much anything.

On second thought, she realized it was far more valuable. As strong as Apex Shroud was, the skill had been preventing her from leveling a lot of her resistance skills. She’d walked through the entire fire region without grabbing a single level of Heat Resistance, for instance. And now, she’d been blasted with lightning a handful of times, but she hadn’t grabbed a related resistance either.

Here, the new augment was invaluable. Instead of forming a perfect thermal barrier around her to hide herself from heat-based senses, what if she only partially activated her skill? Then, she could take any heat down to manageable levels while still leveling her resistances. The saved mana was just a bonus.

More than that, it offered her a few new use cases that hadn’t been feasible before. Some monsters, for example, had sixth senses for when they were being watched, with the sheer act of viewing them being enough to alert them. Unfortunately, whenever Cal tried to use Apex Shroud to mask that sense, the skill complied by… blinding her. Other settings of Apex Shroud similarly removed all tactile feedback, smell, hearing, and even taste.

Of course, in almost all cases, that wasn’t relevant, as the number of real-world enemies she’d encountered that could sense you if you smelled them was zero. Still, if she could only partially shut down her senses, that would make things a bit easier. Better yet, if it worked like she thought it would, it might make her less susceptible to being blinded every time she saw lightning or deafened whenever she was hit with a bit of thunder.

Which was great. It was! Cal was excited to test it all out.

At the same time, she had to remind herself that it did nothing for her current situation.

With much grumbling, Cal turned between the essence-laden tree at her feet and counter on her quest.

Heaving a sigh that should have blown away the entire region, Cal reluctantly got to work.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Cloud essence offered: 383/15,250

An eternity later, Cal managed to drag the entirety of the severed tree into the palace. It took a bit of crafty Apex Shroud usage, but with how strangely light the tree was, she managed in the end. Hunting down the room that had been set aside for her offerings, Cal then proceeded to mercilessly tear every last chunk of essence from the tree.

Perhaps the large amount of progress should have given her a sense of pride or other such nonsense. Reexamining her quest counter, though, Cal could only come to one conclusion.

“Yeah, I’m not doing this shit.” It just wasn’t happening. Maybe a goody-two-shoes like Verin would put in the work, but Cal wasn’t having it. “There has to be some way to cheat this quest, right?” Sure, stealing directly from the cloudtenders hadn’t worked, but she could work around that.

Actually, the notifications made it sound like the issue was that the tenders weren’t meeting their quotas, which only means I can’t steal from them before they present their baskets to the king and queen. What happened to the cloud essence after that?

Without any better plan, Cal retraced her steps to the throne room, this time hiding under her strongest Apex Shroud. Instead of watching as the cloudtenders presented their offerings one by one, Cal homed in on one of the officials. Slightly bulkier than the standard cloudlings, the stormy figure began to carry one of the baskets away.

And so, Cal followed it.

Down winding hallways, Cal stalked her prey with none the wiser. When they at last came upon a set of heavily guarded doors that looked far more solid than the standard cloud material, Cal knew they’d reached their destination. A bit of magic from the guards was all it took for the door to unlock, and Cal raced through the opening along with the official before it could shut behind her. 

Jackpot.

Or, at least it was in one sense. Cal sorely hoped this wasn’t the palace’s main treasury, as it was notably missing any real riches. On the flip side, what it lacked in loot, it thankfully made up for in cloud essence. From floor to ceiling, the fluffy essence formed one giant heap, as if inviting her to jump in and take a nap.

Sadly, this wasn’t the time, not that Cal took naps in any case. Instead, after the official dumped its load and began to retreat, Cal mosied up to the nearest wad of essence.

Do you think they’ll notice if I take a full fifteen thousand? Maybe she’d have to take it slow, launder it out over a week instead of all in one day. Regardless, certainly one couldn’t hurt, could it? Her fingers quested out for her not-so-hard-earned bounty, sinking into the fluffy substance, and-

White.

All at once, the entire room disappeared in a blinding flash of overwhelming light.

Lightning Bolt hits you for 0 damage!

You have been blinded!

You have gained a stack of Rising Tenacity. Stamina recovery enhanced.

You have gained a stack of Wellspring’s Renewal. Mana recovery enhanced.

You have gained a stack of Surging Vitality. Health recovery enhanced.

At first, Cal assumed she’d tripped some sort of built-in defense, but when no damage managed to get past her defenses, she assumed she’d be fine. When the same set of notifications repeated ten more times in a row, she started to get a bit more nervous.

Had Tess been here, her Danger Sense would have been blaring, but without the benefit of the sixth sense, it took Cal a moment to realize something.

Her mana was going down. Fast.

Okay. Calm down. It’s probably nothing. Vision comes first. Belatedly recalling her new augment, Cal partially hid her sight from the surrounding light. It was a bizarre sensation, and as a few healing spells paired with her Constitution to return her vision, it was as if she was gazing out through a shadow. 

Unfortunately, now that her vision was restored, Cal wasn’t a huge fan of what she saw.

Dozens of snake-like bolts of electricity writhed throughout the vault, twisting and turning in unnatural ways as if intelligent. That wouldn’t have been great by itself, but connecting all of those bolts was the very last figure Cal had any desire to see.

The Lightning Queen: Level ??

Shit. Did she really sense me taking just one lousy essence? And she’d managed to get here that quickly? Cal wanted to call foul, but something told her the queen wouldn’t care much for her complaints.

The only saving grace was that the queen didn’t seem to be able to spot her, and with any luck, Cal would keep it that way. Forget the essence -- right now, the only thing Cal wanted was to get far, far away. 

Had the queen been slightly smarter, she might have locked the door to trap Cal inside, but she clearly hadn’t expected to have any trouble hunting the would-be thief down. Pumping her legs for all she was worth, Cal sprinted out of the vault and down the hallways.

Which was great. Really. She’d escaped that easily, and she was safe now.

But then why is my mana still going down!

Thinking she was still in range of some strange sort of area of effect spell, Cal kept running, first out of the palace, then past the guards manning the electric fence, and further still until she could barely see the palace behind her.

Still, her mana continued to plummet.

Okay. All right. I really, really don’t want to find out what happens when my mana hits zero. But then again, she didn’t have to, did she?

Right now, she had no idea what Apex Shroud was holding back for her, and normally, she’d have no way of knowing unless she dropped the skill. With her new augment, though, things became much simpler.

If I just reduce the mana I’m feeding into the skill to make everything run at 90% instead of 100%, that should at least let me know what I’m working against, right?

It wasn’t the best plan, but it was also the only one she had. Making the decision before she completely ran out of mana, Cal reduced the input to her Apex-

Wrath of the Heavens hits you for 10 damage!

Wrath of the Heavens hits you for 13 damage!

Wrath of the Heavens hits you for 12 damage!

…

The entire world melted away until all Cal knew was light and sound and pain. Descending from on high, a pillar of lightning fell down, thick enough to swallow even a jungle hydra with ease. If that wasn’t enough, sonic booms filled the air around her, appearing in unpredictable locations with no rhyme or reason. Without a doubt, even the first second of the attack would have been enough to kill her thrice over without Apex Shroud, and to her dismay, the heavenly strike lasted far longer than that.

If Cal screamed, she couldn’t hear it. Whatever sounds she made were lost to the wind, and even then, her eardrums had already ruptured. She nearly instinctively threw herself back into the full embrace of her shroud before glancing at her mana.

Mana: 95/600

Even as she watched, it ticked up a few points before plunging down, and if it weren’t for three repeated notifications, it likely would have been empty by now.

You have gained a stack of Rising Tenacity. Stamina recovery enhanced.

You have gained a stack of Wellspring’s Renewal. Mana recovery enhanced.

You have gained a stack of Surging Vitality. Health recovery enhanced.

With each new bit of damage, her recovery soared, and it was all Cal could do to hope her class skills would keep her from bottoming out on mana -- or health. Not caring if she was seen, Cal redirected dropped every aspect of Apex Shroud except the sonic and electrical resistances, hoping to save on mana however she could. With the skill currently draining more mana than stamina, she also rapidly converted the latter to the prior with Omnisource, but no matter what she tried, the heavens continued their assault.

You have learned a new skill: Lightning Resistance

You have learned a new skill: Sonic Resistance

Pain Resistance has reached level 7!

Lightning Resistance has reached level 2!

Sonic Resistance has reached level 2!

With each new bit of resistance, the drain on her resources slowed until it was barely a trickle, but even that would be enough to do her in if nothing changed.

One eternity later, and only when her skin was covered with burns and her mana was in the single digits, the universe finally seemed to forgive her transgressions. With their wrath expended, the heavens withdrew, leaving a smoking form prone on the ground. Jagged, fern-like scars dotted her figure, and for a while, she didn’t even bother to move, simply waiting for her vision and hearing to return.

If there was a single bright side, her Surging Vitality was still in full effect, and under the ministrations of the skill, her health soared upwards. Outpacing whatever lingering damage her burns were doing to her, the recovery boost made fast work of her poor eyes. The moment Cal could see enough to know which direction was away, she started to roll over.

Mid-maneuvering, she caught a glimpse of the palace in the distance, and she froze.

There, on a protruding balcony, were two figures that certainly hadn’t been there before. Seeming to cast their judgment on her despite the great span between them, the voltaic monarchs gazed down imperiously.

Cal was half convinced they were going to kill her right then and there, but either they couldn’t be bothered, or whatever grand spell they’d just cast had taken a lot out of them.

Instead, they did something that was almost worse.

As Cal collected herself just enough to start running away again, the system once again chimed in with her least favorite message.

Quest Updated!

Spent as she was, Cal needed all the information she could get right now, still uncertain how the previous spell had latched onto her. And so, reluctantly, she read as she frantically fled.

You are under suspicion of stealing from the royal vaults!

Having spit on your hosts’ goodwill, you have been barred from paying the customary tribute. Now, all that remains is to discover what happens when one stands against the wrath of the heavens.

The barrier around the region has been strengthened. No one is permitted either out or in until this grudge is settled. Until either you or the monarchs are vanquished, you are confined to the region.

Without the energy for any of her usual quips, all Cal could do was sigh. Maybe she really should have worked for months on end just to escape, but it seemed to be too late for that now.

Thinking back to the power she’d just witnessed, Cal shuddered.

How in the hells am I supposed to win against that?

Unbidden, an image of Tess and Verin came to her, the two doubtless waiting for her back in their cabin. Steeling herself, Cal did her best to banish any lingering defeatism. Running through her notifications again, Cal read through her new resistances, and at last, a grin found its way back to her face. Like every other problem, the answer was clear.

One step at a time. The Vengeful Hag hadn’t been able to put her down, and a little bit of lightning wasn’t going to faze her, either. 

And more than anything else, she couldn’t wait to see the look on the others’ faces when she told them she cleared another region by herself.