CC5 ~ 16!

16

“Cone of Cold!” Joe directed the freezing blast at the two-headed vole that had burrowed out of the trash and jumped at him. He had been attempting to stay away from fire or electrical-based attacks, since he was hoping to avoid blowing himself up again. The vole took the final attack and fell, so Joe walked over to its body and stomped heavily at the base of its necks, breaking the frozen portion open and retrieving a single Trash Core.

He had learned something interesting after fighting a few of these: if he followed their tunnels back to their nest, there was almost always at least an Uncommon item stashed nearby. Of course, if they were not near enough to their nest, Joe would just be wasting time searching for it. It was a good reminder that monsters were supposed to have treasure, and natural monsters tended to hoard it instead of carrying it on them. Though he struggled to keep it in his mind, Joe needed to remember to play by game logic before anything else.

Skill increase: Cone of Cold (Beginner V).

Joe had been traveling toward the center of the landfill for the last day, and monster attacks were becoming more and more frequent. He had defeated several raccoons, skunks, and voles now, but he was expecting to see stronger creatures soon. He had been making good time and figured that, within a few hours, he would be directly under the main portion of the city.

*Boom*.

He looked to the side as a house-sized ball of trash dropped from the ceiling and slammed into the landfill. Just after the enormous sound of the impact, something roared a challenge, and a section of the landfill went up in flames, a fire that reached all the way to the top of the chamber and illuminated the ceiling. It was strange to see a dark sky filled with open pipes, but he was becoming more used to it.

Another thing Joe had found was that whatever the shielding was between sections, it only contained items for a little while, though fire was confined until it was suffocated. He could cast spells between the different sections, and there seemed to be no limit for how far anything other than fire could travel in a straight line.

The downside to the bellowed challenge and plume of fire was that he was pretty sure that it would be the most profitable destination. There was an adage that the most dangerous things tended to give the highest rewards. If that wasn't the most dangerous thing in this entire junkyard, Joe didn't know where to look for it. A nearby sound dragged him out of his thoughts, and he cast a Cone of Cold without looking. “These voles are starting to bother me.”

“Brooo…” a deep voice groaned at him. Joe flinched to the side and almost fell over at the unexpected voice. His eyes shot to the area he had fired his spell, and he found a bearded Dwarf covered in a rime of frost.

“I’m so sorry! I didn’t know anyone else could survive in here…” Joe rushed over to help the Dwarf, but as he got closer, he began noticing that large chunks of its body were missing. “You… aren’t alive, are you? Intrusive Scan.”

Name: Zombified Dwarf.

That was all Joe needed to see. He re-cast Cone of Cold, which set off the new bonus to Retaliation of Shadows for the first time. A shadowy version of himself appeared just as he began casting and followed his motions exactly. The regular spell, and the secondary spell hit at the same time.

Damage dealt: 112 (168 cold damage resisted). Zombified Dwarf is Brittle!

“It’s dead; of course it’s resistant to the cold.” Joe sighed as he tried to decide what spell to use next. On the positive side, being brittle had made the zombie very slow, since its body was frozen stiff. That gave him a few extra moments to decide how he should handle the situation. If a Dwarf as a zombie was anything like a living Dwarf, it had a massive amount of health that he would need to whittle down. Cone of Cold was simply not going to do it, not when the vast majority of the damage dealt was flat-out ignored. “What was that… sixty percent cold resistance?”

He started going through his spell list, searching for anything that he could use to destroy the creature without potentially blowing himself up. He briefly considered using Acid Spray, but he had a test that he wanted to run after the Dwarf was defeated. Looking up, he oriented himself by inspecting the pipes that were just barely visible on the ceiling. He had discovered earlier that a pipe would be open at the exact center of each section in the landfill.

Damage taken: 1,400!

Exquisite Shell: 946/2,346

Though his body did not take any damage directly, Joe went sailing away from the massive haymaker that he had just taken to the face. He was moving so fast that one of the section barriers blocked his movement, and he stopped as painfully as if he had hit a wall. Two hundred more points of damage came off his shield, and the zombie was already almost on him by the time he got back to his feet. “Enough of that!”

He stepped through the barrier and cast Dark Lightning Strike on the zombie, happy that he no longer needed to drop the spell on his own head to use it. The lightning hit, followed by the expected methane explosion. It was nowhere near as violent as the original mix of hydrogen and methane had been, but it still cooked the Zombie Dwarf for eight hundred damage. The blast also sent the Dwarf flying… directly at Joe.

Joe jumped back, but he needn't have worried. The undead hit the barrier and crumpled just as he had done, sliding down to the ground where Joe blasted with a Cone of Cold, and again, until he saw that the brittle status had come into effect again. “Just die again, abyss it!”

“Corify! Dark Lightning Strike! Cone of Cold!” Joe sent spell after spell at the Dwarf until it finally stayed down. He stood over the corpse, panting for breath and waiting for his Mana to regenerate. It didn't take long. Joe reached out and attempted to reduce the zombie’s corpse. He wasn't certain if it was going to work at first, but then mana blasted out of him and drained him dry over the next three seconds. Neutrality Aura went down, as did his Exquisite Shell. The body didn't fully disappear, but it did break apart into large chunks after his Mana had faltered. A few notifications appeared, as well as a quest alert that made him cringe.

Experience gained: 1,215.

You have gained a Special aspect: Zombified!

New aspect crafting tutorial available: ‘Special’ Aspects.

Quest alert: Dead and Dumped (Unique). Someone in the city above has been shirking their duties in proper disposal of corpses and has been tossing them into the landfill instead. It is unknown how long this has been going on for, but the restless dead have become a serious threat in the underground. Find a way to destroy all of them and stop more from being dumped. Reward: variable. Failure: a potential Dwarven Zombie outbreak right in the capital city of the Dwarves. This will give a huge advantage to the Elven nation.

“That’s just… great.” Joe looked eagerly at the new tutorial, only pausing for a moment to see the cost. “Five hundred reputation with Tatum? Is this because the system is giving me knowledge, instead of me seeking it out myself?”

Reputation increase: Tatum +50.

“That’s clear enough.” Joe shrugged and took the offer anyway, pausing only to reactivate Neutrality Aura when he had enough Mana. The debuffs he had accumulated in the last few seconds started to vanish, and another notification appeared.

Thanks for your purchase! Current reputation with Tatum: 3,542 (Friend).

Starting tutorial now!

Once more, Joe found himself in a misty world, but this time, a green flame coalesced in front of him. He waited for more instruction before trying anything or reaching out for it. The system seemed to approve of that and launched into an explanation as soon as he settled in to wait.

Special aspects are just that! Special! They are a… flavor of magic that has been added to something, which can be found in certain types of crafting material. They are often—but not always—found in Unique items. Special aspects can change the function of a craft, just like adding modifiers in normal crafting. As an example, consider the effects of adding alchemic or enchanted components to a ritual.

You can have access to up to five different Special aspects no matter how many containers you have for them. If you want a sixth, you must release or use one of the others. Just as with normal aspects, you will need to create a crafting tool specific for the Special aspect in order to use it! For the purposes of the demonstration, you will have enough aspects, a workstation, and the knowledge of how to create a simple dagger. Do so now!

Joe decided to get started right away and attempted to make a hammer out of the green aspect that has been given to him, which appeared to be a copy of the ‘Zombified’ aspect he had just gained. No matter what he did, though, he was not able to shape the aspect into a hammer. The tutorial came through when he was just about to give up.

As you can see, a Special aspect by itself does not work. You will need to combine the aspect with whatever rarity of aspect you want to use it with! Try again!

Rolling his eyes, Joe pulled together Uncommon aspects, as well as the zombified aspect, eventually managing to form an ingot hammer that shone a sickly silver-green. Using the aspects to craft the hammer went smoothly, even without guiding the process as carefully as he normally did. A new design formed on the striking plane of the hammer, a stylized Dwarven face. Joe got to work immediately, forming a dagger with uncharacteristic ease: surely an effect of the tutorial he was in.

When he finished crafting the weapon, the hammer he was using shattered and its shards vanished. Joe lifted up the newly-made dagger, letting out a low whistle as he read over its abilities.

Zombified Stiletto (Uncommon Special). A dagger designed specifically for killing Dwarves, this blade hungers for the flesh and blood of what it once was. Effect: Adds 50-80 piercing damage on strike. +20% damage when attacking a Dwarf. 5% chance to raise a slain Dwarf as a zombified thrall. 1% chance to raise a slain Dwarf as an uncontrolled zombie. Note: This weapon is highly illegal within areas controlled by the Dwarven Oligarchy.

Tutorial complete!

Joe was once more standing in the landfill, his hands empty, but his mind full of plans for the future.