CC 10: Thesaurize ~ Twenty-Three!

Once more speeding through the sky separated only by a thin plane of force and water, Joe stared intently at the landscape below as he came to the point where he had been forced to flee, and his shrine in the hostile settlement remained buried.

From his vantage point, he could see the signs of a large Beast Wave unfolding in the distance. They were nowhere near as orderly and linear of attackers Novusheim dealt with, due to the walls surrounding the upcoming Hamlet on all sides. “I love that no one except us figured that out so far.”

The light outside was growing ever more dim, which was no impediment to Joe's ability to see thanks to his class. Instead, the world becoming shrouded in darkness was only a benefit to him and his ability to move unnoticed through the sky. Conversely, each time the Hamlet’s walls were struck, the sky above them flashed with strobing light as their wards and magical protections flared brightly.

“Oh, dear! It seems they’re under attack! If only there was something I could do to help.” Without hesitation, Joe lifted his Ritual of Remote Activation, pointing it at the Town Hall of the enemy settlement. It wasn't necessary, as it worked off of sympathetic connections, not direct line of sight, but it made him feel better. “Let’s see what—wait… ohh, that was a close one!”

Joe quickly set out his stabilization cubes, barely managing to fit them all in proper placement in the cramped space. From there, he felt confident injecting a touch of mana into the tiny ritual in his hand, which resulted in a blaze of light from the center of the Hamlet in the distance. He could just barely make out one of the edges of the Ritual of Raze hanging in the air above town, but that was enough for him. He was certain that the building was done for.

“There you go, monsters! Those mean Elves were attacking you, but this should help out.” Glancing side to side at the bubble he was in, his smile grew wider and he settled into his bean bag chair. “I'm practically the good witch Glinda to those Penguins right now. A regular, bald, fairy godfather.”

Since the Town Hall was such a low rank, he knew that it stood no chance against his magical force. It crumbled in approximately thirty seconds, and he only knew this thanks to the notification he gained about progressing his quest with Havoc once again. Even so, it brought a grim satisfaction to the Ritualist. It was always nice to know that he was causing enormous setbacks to his adversaries while making his own position stronger. “They’re going to have to re-fight all those Beast Waves, then do it again before they get back to this settlement rank.”

He tried not to think too much about the humans that would be caught in the crossfire as the walls collapsed around them, but he was extremely pleased that the Elves would most likely be wiped out over the next few days. Since there was no major settlement around them able to revive the Elves, they would likely be thrown all the way back to Alfheim for their respawn. Given the complexity of the time dilation effect between the worlds, Joe was certain he wouldn’t be seeing them again.

Only ten minutes later, he was touching down; his maximum range to connect to his shrine network already stretched to its limit. “I suppose I could consider that shrine in the soon-to-be destroyed Hamlet as a relay point, but there's a good chance that the monsters eventually destroy it. Better to be prepared for that.”

He went about his usual preparations, sinking a large hole into the ground before creating the next shrine. Once it was up, running, and as camouflaged as he could make the shrine with how casually he was dropping these, Joe decided that he should get his bearings on Daniella before continuing. He pulled his newly-magical shirt out of his inventory, wincing slightly as the pattern of her grinning face across the entirety of the shirt seemed to mock him slightly.

He pulled it on, and was infused with the knowledge of her location. His head snapped to the side as he stared into the distance, a wide smile on his face as he saw that she was under a thousand miles away. “That's less than two days of travel if I only go for my normal amount of time!”

It felt slightly surreal to be excited that someone was a thousand miles away; to be relieved by that as a close proximity. Chuckling to himself at how strange things could become in a magical environment, he began changing out of his shirt. As the material came up over his eyes, his arms held above him pulling the shirt, Joe found himself face-to-face with a skeletal creature that was draped in tattered, frost-covered robes shimmering slightly as it came out of stealth.

Its grinning, skeletal features were sharp and menacing, its eyes burning with icy-blue flame. It moved with an eerie grace, gliding across the intervening distance without leaving a trace atop the snow. Joe was too surprised by how close it had come to him before he had noticed it, and failed to avoid the icy projectiles that shot from its outstretched hands.

A half dozen icicles launched toward him: smaller than spears, larger than arrows. Besides the simple frozen water, they were propelled by powerful gusts of wind that battered him around with intense turbulence even as the frozen projectiles smashed into his Exquisite Shell. Joe only stumbled back a few feet, managing to maintain his stance only thanks to his Immovable Object title.

Exquisite Shell: 8,378/12,002 (3,624 piercing freeze damage taken!)

As he attempted to fight back, the Ritualist found that he was still tangled in his shirt, and the material had stiffened under the freezing effect of the creature and its magic. Flailing about slightly, he heard an ominous *snap* and found that his arm was free. He twisted to the side, pulling the shirt off of himself and leaving his torso exposed to the elements. The magical item was glowing and beginning to flash as mana was pulled in from the environment around it. “Abyss!”

Realizing the imminent danger, Joe twisted and flung the partially-frozen item like a frisbee at the skeletal creature. He hadn't noticed how close it had come during his moment of distraction, and the fabric settled around its outstretched arm—freezing in place as the frost effect emanating from the creature hardened it further.

Joe Omnivaulted backward, up and out of the hole he had dug, just in time to escape the shirt going supernova. Flames and arcing energy erupted as the garment disintegrated and released all of its stored power. The hole contained the blast fairly well, and a wash of heat rolled over the Ritualist as the fire consumed the very air around it for fuel.

He sank to his knees, breathing heavily only due to the surge of adrenaline. “Great… she's a thousand miles away and now I have no way to track her. What was that thing?”

Only when he realized he still didn't know did Joe recognize that combat was ongoing. A flash of panic suffused him and he Omnivaulted straight up, staring down at where he had stood just in time to see a bony arm lash through the air where he had been standing as the creature broke stealth. “Dark Lightning Strike!”

Black lightning struck the creature, and it released a hiss of fury as its eyes locked onto him. Its single remaining hand, which had been glowing an ominous blue-green, had its color fade away as whatever spell it had attempted to use on him failed. Joe was just as upset as the creature, “Why aren't you dead yet?”

The skeletal apparition clacked its teeth, and Joe realized that it couldn't answer him even if it wanted to. As he began descending toward the ground once more, the creature glided across the ground to be in a good position to catch him when he fell. It lifted its arm straight up, and its hand once more erupted in the strange frozen flame effect. “No, no!”

Joe's mind whirled as he cast about for a solution, surprising himself with finding an answer. The enormous explosion of heat had converted a large amount of snow directly into steam, and even though it was rapidly cooling and dropping to the ground, there were still wisps of it in the air. “Omnivault!”

Pushing off of the water vapor, Joe changed his trajectory and shot in a horizontal arch away from his assailant. Ritual orbs launched away from him like an aircraft releasing chaff, turning and being guided through the air to *thunk* into the creature’s body. Even that wasn’t enough to take it down, and Joe cursed at the mountainous durability and Constitution that every creature on Jotunheim seemed to possess.

“Cone of Cold is out, so—Acid Spray!” A hiss of either pain or fury escaped the grinning face of the speedy creature as his spell, clearly super effective, began destroying its exposed bones. Even being rapidly frozen didn’t seem to slow the damage, and in only a few moments its head fell off of its body. Even then, Joe didn’t get a notification that the creature was dead, so he spent a few moments having his orbs pound the skull until it had shattered into ossified chunks.

You have defeated an Undying Ice Wraith! Experience gained: 1,120!

After falling apart, the skull revealed a core shining in the eye socket of the twice deceased wraith, and Joe went over and scooped it up without any hesitation whatsoever. At this point, he was more than familiar with looting his enemies after their death. He had lost all squeamishness on that front, for sure. In fact, he was happy that he didn’t have to dig through messy, gooey remains, only snapping a few chunks of bone growth off of the shining gem.

Item Gained: Core (Unique). You are able to convert this core into 8,900 experience if you’d like! Wanna go for it? Yes / No.

Joe looked at his message with slightly pursed lips. “Did my prompt writer change or something? I hope I didn't get my assigned mod fired… either way, no.”

He stuffed the core into his codpiece, then returned to the shrine to inspect it for damage. There was slight charring and a few chunks broken off, but nothing that would inhibit its ability to function. The Ritualist could only shrug, set up his Ritual of Bubble Travel with his new coordinates, and hope for the best.

“Going by the previous settlements, there might be two or even three places Daniella might reside in on my path. I'll just have to make sure to take the next couple of days very carefully, and… maybe it's almost time to bring the others along. They did say they’d come with me if there was a good chance that there’d be something interesting happening, and I'm no scout.”

Then he realized that he had been able to walk through the previous Hamlet unhindered because he didn’t have an Excommunicated title. That thought led him to the realization that if he was going to infiltrate the town, perhaps Jaxon was not the best person for a stealth mission.

“Maybe I’ll just bring Heartpiercer.” the Ritualist nodded gravely to himself at that thought. “At least until we know it’s time to go in, t-rex head hands blazin’.”