Anything ~ 10!

- Taylor -

“I can’t let them get to me.” Taylor let out a long breath, releasing the tension in her shoulders and feeling Cleanse whisk away a streak of sweat that had threatened to trickle down her forehead. She strolled forward gracefully, watching as Luke plodded forward like a neanderthal. It boggled her mind that just an hour previously, the man in front of her had moved with the unending grace of a predator.

When he walked in the forest, the only branches that would break were the ones he hit. He could step in a puddle and not leave a ripple behind. Now… now he would cause local legends about monsters roaming around if people could see him. “It’s unbelievable that a ‘skill’ can have such an effect on him. Is… perhaps he has a skill impacting his mind, as well?”

In all fairness, there were certain spells that Taylor would never upgrade. Cleanse and Purify were forever destined to remain at Tier one. Seeing Luke practically fall over because he hadn’t needed to intentionally balance himself for who-knows-how long was a chilling reminder to the Mage that she had relied on these two personal grooming spells for over a decade and had been able to completely ignore personal hygiene that entire time.

Luke stiffened, and Taylor realized that she had been staring at him and critiquing his every motion for… she wasn’t even sure how long. She cursed her lack of attention to the area around herself, and immediately began searching for whatever signs of danger that had caused Luke to act in this manner. Not seeing anything, she quietly voiced her concern. “Do you see something?”

“Need direction.” The pig-like grunt was her only reply. Something needed to be done about his attitude and lack of courtesy, but for the life of her, Taylor didn’t know what that something was.

Realizing that she was the only one that knew where to go in the World of Names, and Luke had led them to the end of her last instruction, she nodded in approval. If nothing else, the Murderhobo had a great memory for instruction. Taylor looked around and calculated their position, pointing into the distance once she had her bearings. “We need to head toward Fountain-pen Falls, then shoot an azimuth from there to reach Paper-crush Rock. From there, it’ll only be a day or so to Inkwell Lake. Our exit is along the banks of the lake; we’re making great progress.”

After her small speech, Taylor had planned on the group taking a rest and having some quiet time to get better acquainted with each other’s presence. Instead, Luke simply nodded once and began running in the direction she had pointed. She and Andre had no choice but to follow, being completely unwilling to leave Luke to his own devices.

She did realize that there was a good reason for this speed: there was just no way to know if Zed was going to survive the entire time or if he would suddenly burst into flame and turn to ash. Taylor hadn’t wanted to worry the other two, but Zed was starting to show signs of imminent combustion. When a mana baptism went bad, as it almost always did, the only thing that would remain were bleached bones. All other organic material would erupt like a fireball, taking clothing and armor with it. The only reason bones remained was that the detonation was focused outward, and the bones were fairly well-protected until the very end.

A glance at Zed’s sweating face, with his eyes closed and veins clearly visible, almost had her instructing Andre to give up and drop the Bard before he too was caught in the magical flame and ick that would result. Instead, she steadied herself and increased her pace. “If we move at maximum speed the entire time, it’s likely we will be able to avoid the majority of attackers that might be seeking us out. Excellent thinking, Luke.”

“I’m just not tired.” The reply caused something in Taylor to break. She simply gave up on trying to get through to him with words. He followed her instructions… that would just need to be enough until they formed a natural rapport. Instead of trying to speak with anyone else, she simply kept her eyes open for opportunities in the world around her.

Until her team was back to full strength, she couldn’t use them to help her subdue the stronger spells in the area. Yet, her eyes had been opened to the fact that if other Ascenders could come into her world, she could greatly profit from their assistance. Even better, it wasn’t even entirely self-serving, since her being stronger would allow the entire group’s strength to rise.

As they traveled through what counted as night in this world, Taylor tracked high Tier spells, looked for small-scale dungeons, and prepared for when she would return as a conqueror. The night passed uneventfully, as did the following day. Fountain-pen Falls appeared on the horizon, huge buttes of stone and metal shaped as pens that rose unimaginably high into the sky as if they were writing the clouds into existence. Each ‘pen’ continuously poured an ink-like water from its tip, which flowed down and stained one side of each pen. “See that? It’s one of the natural wonders of this world, and is one of the most well-known landmarks. There’s never been something like this appearing in any other documented world.”

“Neat.” Luke looked appreciatively at the pens. “Reminds me of the mana waterfall in the entrance to Murder World. I’d show you, but you’d die.”

“Really neat stuff, Taylor!” Andre wore a properly awed expression as he looked at the mountain-height scribe supply. “What kind of spells live in there?”

“Only absurdly powerful Mages go there.” Taylor shook her head at the thought and shuddered lightly when she saw Luke look at the pens with interest. “Seriously. This is not foreshadowing or playing with fate. I’m just describing a landmark. That ink water is corrosive to the extreme and turns mana into more ink-water. The entire place is a domain spell, and people think it’s a pinnacle Tier ten, or maybe even a descended Tier eleven. It releases such a powerful resonance in the interior that it is a popular place for level twenty Mages to Ascend to their next plane. The universal veil is thin there.”

“So going there is death, is what you’re saying.” Andre piled on as Luke got more excited.

“Yes.” Taylor looked them in the eyes, having to work to make Luke focus on her. “Powerful spells are released from there all the time. There’s about a hundred miles around it that has roaming spells, and the closer you get to the Falls, the more powerful they become. If you want to fight something later, I’d be wildly happy to bring us back here and go hunting.”

They adjusted their path in an attempt to stay out of well-known areas. Several hours later, mana shook the air and coalesced around Andre. He turned to the side as his eyes unfocused, and he vomited onto the ground and collapsed. Zed tumbled out of his grip, coming to a rest just shy of the fresh puddle. Taylor ran over to Andre and checked him for wounds, but found no reason for his sudden attack. The Druid slowly sat up and took a few deep breaths, managing to explain after a moment. “Ability upgrade… finished. It felt like it scraped out a seed of my soul and grafted on an Epoch Bush.”

“What does that mean?” Luke quizzed him.

Andre gingerly shook his head, “It took my Ability… and the change is just so drastic. I have no idea how to better describe-”

Luke interrupted flatly, “What is ‘epoch’.”

“Ah.” Andre blinked a few times and gave a better explanation. “An epoch in this context is ten thousand years. An Epoch Bush is considered the most complicated type of plant in our plane of existence. It has no purpose other than being used as a time-telling device. From the time it is planted until it reaches full maturity is ten thousand years. Every one thousand years, a seed grows on it. At ten thousand years, it flings all ten seeds into the distance, then the trunk grows exactly one meter taller. The whole process starts over for it then. It’s in almost every world, because that was how they originally determined time dilation.”

“Why are you telling me all this?” Luke rubbed his head and snarled at the Druid.

“To explain how utterly complex this change is. I’m just going to outright show you this, and you can figure it out for yourself.” Andre grew a papyrus sheet, and wrote out his entire Ability for them to read over. “Here. The name of it changed from Bloodthistle, to Hemoflora.”

Effect 1: Marinating a seed in blood will allow you to use mana to grow and control it while it is in your hand. Costs 20 mana to begin the growth process, and 1 mana per second to control it.

Bonus 1, at range: Can control the grown plant within line of sight.

Effect 2: If the grown plant has access to blood, it uses the blood instead of mana. Removes mana cost until the blood is all absorbed.

Bonus 2, Multitarget: You can now control multiple plants and seeds at the same time. This is modified by your ‘Talent’ sub-characteristic.

New! Effect 3: you are able to impart a concept onto blood-marinated seeds or spores to force the plant to generate 1+n pseudo Abilities of its own, where 'n' = skill level, capped at 9. The more narrow and focused the Ability is, the less likely it is to also generate unwanted side effects.

Taylor and Luke read the information. The Mage was speechless for a long moment, just long enough for Luke to shrug. “All I know about plants is that they make me empty myself easier after eating them. I have no idea what this means.”

“You can create plants that have almost any Ability you can think of?” Taylor almost bit her tongue hard enough to draw blood to keep herself from calling this ‘unfair’. “How is this, um, possible?”

Andre went still for a moment, turning to look at the Bard laying next to a puddle of swiftly drying vomit. “No idea, but I have a really good idea of how to test it.”