CC5 ~ 17!

17

“Almost a full week now.” Joe stood atop a section of the landfill that was especially tall, looking between the various ‘mountain peaks’ that he had visited over the last few days. Seven redesigned rituals had been placed on the peaks: Acid Spray rituals at the Beginner ranks. The main reason he had needed to redesign the rituals wasn’t for more potent acid, but so that he could include a time delay in their construction. They would still only be able to damage items at Common rarity or below, hopefully leaving him with a treasure trove at the bottom of the pits after they finished digging for him.

“If everything goes as planned, I have five minutes until they all start up at the same time…” Joe attempted to shake the oversized metal bin he had placed the final acid ritual on, making sure it was firmly in place, then took a running start and jumped from the mountain of rubbish as hard as he could. Thanks to the less than firm footing, he wasn't moving fast enough to cause the barriers to activate, but with his increased strength, he was able to get a solid distance away from the ritual itself.

He slammed into the ground with the force of a man who had leapt off a mountain of trash as hard as he could and approached terminal velocity. Joe chuckled at the inane thought as he struggled to dig his way out of the mushy crater. “Did I get a concussion on the way down or something?”

A gentle rain started, and panic flashed across Joe’s face. “The area of effect is higher than I calculated!”

Damage taken: 55 (Acid rain is dealing 55 damage per second.)

The liquid was draining off his shell, but Joe had to hustle to get out of range. Not only was he concerned about his shell’s durability, but the ground was already beginning to sink. If he got trapped in a sinking zone, he would soon need to start worrying about the acidic gases as well as everything else. A broken cry arose in the distance, increasing in volume as more and more voices joined in. The rabid animals and zombies caught in the acid were furious about the sudden yet unrelenting gradual damage to which they were being subjected. Joe gulped and moved faster.

Eventually, he surpassed the edge of the acid and looked back. A flare of flame lit up the underground, and he hastily guesstimated the actual effect of the series of acid spray rituals as they misted over the edges of the ‘peaks’ he had placed them on. “Maybe… a thousand feet in diameter? That’s a lot more than I thought I would get.”

To be fair, he had crafted the ritual to release the liquid as forcefully as possible, using intentionally weaker acid for a greater range. Even so, he was pleased to see everything work out so well. The garbage was reduced at about two feet per minute, and he had hours remaining-

A thunderous roar and splashing drew Joe’s attention to one of the ‘mountains’ he had selected. He could just barely make out the rotting forms of a huge group of zombies that had attacked the thing damaging them. They tore the ritual apart, and it appeared as though the ritual had discharged all at once, dousing the zombies in everything it was supposed to release over time. Joe waited for the experience to roll in, but… nothing. “That’s odd… I’ve gained experience for fringe kills in the past? Why not these? Did they not die?”

Hello there, youngster! Thank you kindly for your inquiry. I regret to inform you that the experience from residual damage has been… nerfed? Yes, that. We recently implemented a system that allows intent to carry weight in experience gain. There were some people planning to break a Zone in half so they could ‘claim the kill’ for everyone and everything on that Zone. Your ritual was not intended as anti-personnel; it just so happened that it did hurt things. None of that sweet, sweet experience for you. Please note that if you create whatever this was again for the express intent to kill things, the costs to do so will be vastly higher.

My apologies for any inconvenience and for the interruption to your day, but I am here to maintain the balance and must fulfill my role.

~A.

“Who are… wait, I see the sign off, but I didn’t know there were any active admins. Are you from the game company?” Joe waited for a long few seconds, but there was no reply to his questions or concerns. It seemed that message had been a pre-recorded response in anticipation of someone becoming grumpy about not getting experience for something they had done in the past, rather than an actual person currently watching him and giving him answers. “So you just irrevocably nerf my class and walk away? This is unacceptable! You are going to require different resources for the same effect?”

Joe lodged an official complaint right away. He was not going to let this stand.

With nothing else to do for the moment, Joe sat on the garbage and waited. At the end of his rituals, the area of garbage that was being doused in acid should have dropped by about five hundred feet? Not terrible for a Beginner-ranked ritual. With nothing else to do while he waited, Joe decided to burrow into the trash and activate Essence Cycle. He had not gained a single bonus characteristic since he had come down here, and Joe was feeling like he had been slacking.

He was not prepared for the overwhelming dark-aligned mana that was flooding the place. Normally, when Joe activated this ability, he was immediately aware of large surges of dark mana, but they were interspersed with all sorts of other colors. In fact, it usually tended to look a bit like a kaleidoscope, which was fun and always interesting to stare at. Here… darkness. All encompassing, saturated darkness. Then the darkness filled with numbers. Joe sat for an unknown amount of time, contemplating the darkness and data before finally managing to voice his thoughts.

“But why? Why is it so dense here, compared to anywhere else? Is it the garbage? The fact that things are rotting, that things are breaking down here? Is the garbage itself releasing dark mana?” Essence Cycle was broken as a notification shocked Joe into coming back to himself.

Skill increase: Essence Cycle has reached Beginner 0! You have spent time actually using this skill in varying environments, attempting to understand the why. It matters.

Tier increase bonus: You are now able to activate Essence Cycle without dropping into a meditative state. This allows you to follow mana emanations to their source, as well as moving between active and inactive states without an outside influence.

Characteristic points gained: +5 perception! Sometimes it is not necessary to make great leaps of logic, or to bend your mind to a strenuous task. Sometimes it is just important to look at the heart of a matter and see it.

Joe immediately reactivated the skill and peered around. Now, instead of just a dense cloud around him, he was able to see that the darkness was striated. The refuse was indeed releasing mana and pushing it into the air. He stood and picked his way to the densest nearby cloud. As he stepped into it, he checked his characteristic sheet to see if anything had changed. He smiled as he noticed the difference immediately, then choked on the air and stepped out quickly.

Column of Choking (methane, carbon dioxide, heavy metal toxicity). -30 health per second. Neutrality Aura is balancing the damage. Caution! No oxygen; gas exchange cannot function! Suffocation imminent.

“What in the abyss…?” Joe dropped his gaze to the ground, then cast Acid Spray on it. He started burrowing down, turning on Essence Cycle every thirty seconds or so. “What in here is so toxic that it is pumping out nastiness like this? I'm gonna find you.”

As he sank closer, the numbers in the column shifted. The aspect count increased as he dug lower, and finally, ten feet down, he uncovered a huge barrel that was rusted to the extreme; almost to the point of falling apart. He almost cast Acid Spray again, but something told him to take a look at it more closely instead of destroying it the easy way. Bracing himself, he eased forward and checked it directly.

Item: Barrel of Slag

Reduction value: 131 Unique aspects, 200 Rare aspects, 280 Uncommon aspects, 310 Common aspects, 543 Damaged aspects, 1,023 Trash aspects.

Reduction cost: 625 mana per second.

“That’s handy.” Calculating the size of the barrel, Joe figured that he would not be able to get everything on the first try… unless… maybe he could, if he was willing to take some damage. He deactivated his Exquisite Shell and Retribution of Shadows. When his mana was back to full from releasing those, Joe took one last deep breath of clean air and deactivated Neutrality Aura. He held his breath as long as he could, which was just long enough to refill his mana to the limit. He activated his Ritual of Reduction, and the barrel was covered in his dark blue mana.

One second… two… at four, the barrel showed no hint of falling apart, and Joe’s mana bottomed out. The pain hit his head like a Dwarven Warhammer, and he gasped. Big mistake. A whole host of debuffs scrolled across his vision, but he only had eyes for the barrel itself. Was it going to fall apart, now that he had weakened it?

Three more seconds passed, and all that happened was a large amount of rust falling to the ground. Perhaps… it had been in such poor condition already that his mana didn't do much to it? Joe watched anxiously as his mana refilled and his health dropped at almost inverse proportions. He was forced to cast Mend on himself twice, and his health was still down to almost a quarter when he finally reached full capacity.

Once more, he allowed his mana to flow out of him and into the barrel of slag. This time, it was fully reduced to aspects. He literally breathed easier after that, as the barrel was no longer releasing toxins. As soon as he had recovered enough mana, Joe quickly reactivated Neutrality Aura and sat down. His spell got to work on all of the bacteria, parasites, and damage that he had brought into himself by breathing in such foul air.

For a long while, Joe simply sat and rested, waiting for the opportunity to go out and damage himself for personal gain again. Then he heard a sound like rushing water. “What’s going on? There can't be a waterfall in here, can there?”

The ground beneath him shifted, and Joe realized what was happening: his rituals had dug far enough down that the surrounding piles were becoming destabilized. Joe scrambled up out of the hole he had put himself in and tried to run out of the area that was being impacted. Unfortunately, he had truly underestimated the far-reaching effects of his ritual.

He tumbled backward, barely managing to get his Exquisite Shell in place before he was buried under the landslide of his own creation.