FMH ~ 46!

The night passed quickly, with the four of them taking turns on watch. Though it was past sunrise, the area they were in was still dark thanks to the towering mountains. The four began their information gathering mission, pausing every once in a while for Luke to check on ‘suspicious’ boulders. 

“These are all fine.” He stopped looking after about fifteen minutes, and they began to pick up the pace. The thorns and other hardy plant life in the area bent away from them as they passed, allowing passage without the group having to tear through them. “That Scuttler must have been a scout of some kind.”

“It is fully possible, as we discussed, that the enemy knows we are here.” Andre nodded as the others looked at him for clarification. “Whether it was pheromones, telepathy, or perhaps it might just be the fact that making a stone room is loud; we need to assume they will be on guard for us. Constant vigilance! Whoa! Look at that flower! I’ve never seen that before!”

Everyone else was fairly nonplussed as they watched the normally cheerfully competent Druid leap at the flower and start inspecting it closely. There was a flash of mana, which drew Luke’s eye, but in that same moment it appeared; Andre finished what he was doing. He walked away from the flower, smiling, and the flower itself seemed to stand a little straighter. “It's a Mountain Willow Wind! it has stamina restoring abilities, and I bet it would be useful to you, Zed!”

“Oh?” Zed appeared intrigued. “I do get tired…?”

“Right, well, not exactly for the medical properties. When the wind flows over the flower, it produces a crisp sound. Depending on the age of the flower, the tone will change. If you had a bouquet of them at different ages, you could literally hand a lady a singing bouquet that makes her feel invigorated as she smells them!” Andre had barely finished speaking when Zed had replaced him at the flower, now also inspecting it just as gleefully.

“There aren’t any seeds! Andre, can you grow these things at will?” Zed’s hopeful voice and desperate stare made Andre start laughing hard enough that he doubled over. “Stop laughing man; I need answers!”

“I have everything we will ever need to make as many as we want.” Andre reassured the Bard. “I think that you and I will have a very good time when we get to a city.”

The two of the high-fived, the slap sounding like an arrow landing on stone. No… wait. Luke pushed the two of them to the side and redirected an additional twenty percent of his mana to his cuirass. This boosted his chest armor, granting it sixty-two and a half points of armor. With so much defensive power, the next half-dozen arrows that slammed into him caused no damage; though his armor was getting dangerously close to breaking.

Impact! Simple crossbow bolt, piercing damage: 9!

8!

16!

14!

5!

1!

Simple Metal Cuirass. Armor: 9.5/62.5. Mana devoted to upkeep: 30% (14.79/97.35 mana. Time until armor repairs and mana is unlocked for use: 15.2 seconds!)

“Turn off robust messaging during combat.” Luke growled at his Sigil, swiping the words out of his vision. “That Enchanter must have reset the combat settings to default, abyss him.”

His glowing phantasmal armor showed the damage as cracks all over his cuirass, though Luke knew from long practice that they were just visual aids for him, and didn't actually impact the protection of his armor. He currently had greater concerns, his eyes were locked on the creatures that had managed to attack them. “Taylor. Tell me how they snuck up on us.”

“A moment.” Taylor stared at the creatures, and her massive Senses allowed her to understand them with a single glance. “Ah. Just like the Scuttler, they were a part of the stone in the pass until just before they attacked. These are ‘Scuttler Sentries’, looks like they can use simple tools and such. Their crossbows are nearly reloaded, prepare yourselves.”

Zed dove behind a stone outcropping as more bolts flashed through the air at them. The others, prepared for the attack now, used their own methods of defending against the attack. Luke slapped the bolts out of the air, Taylor slightly shifted and let the bolts fly past, and Andre allowed the bolts to pierce and therefore get collected by a swinging vine. The Druid looked at the withering vine and sniffed disdainfully. “Poisoned bolts, and a contact poison. I’ll start working up an antidote right now. Also, they use tools, meaning they must be smart-ish. Luke, since you touched them you must be poisoned, sit down and wait for the antidote or you might die.”

“I’m fine.” Luke huffed at the thought of sitting out a fight. “I love poison. Makes me tingle.”

“They’re smart enough that you’re out of the fight, Andre?” Taylor directed her question at him while keeping her eyes on the attackers that were a few dozen feet up the rock wall on either side of them.

“Hmm? Oh, not at all. They just need to die from natural causes if I attack them. Or I can bind them and you can kill them.” Andre demonstrated by linking his mind to a small shrub that was providing cover and using it to swat at a sentry. It screamed, jumped to the side, and fell off the ledge. “There, that one died from falling. Not my fault the ground killed him; all I did was scare it. Before you ask, no, I can’t grab people and throw them to their death, that wouldn’t work. Tried it, I get a warning if I’m getting too close to breaking the rules.”

“What rules?” Taylor wasn't waiting for an answer, at least she wasn’t waiting on an answer before attacking. She sprinted toward the stone wall, not slowing in the slightest as she reached it. Then she was running straight up the pass wall as if it were still flat ground, utilizing one of the effects of Fissure to ignore the fact that she was defying gravity. The others saw her become level with the attackers, and a huge wave of ice settled over them before shattering and killing a dozen of the creatures easily.

“Mm. Nice boots.” Luke stated approvingly as he watched the Mage move. Seeing that there was an entire wall of enemies still, he took action. Though he wasn’t as directly mobile as Taylor, his huge Body stats allowed him to grab outcroppings and hanging root systems and swing up the wall as if he were a gorilla moving through dense forest. In moments, Luke was at the top and slamming his fist into the first of the sentries.

Zed started throwing his voice, keeping the others updated as his Sigil gave him information. “Taylor managed to destroy eight of those things with a spell called… Shatter Shot? Luke just killed his first… third… fifth… right, he's getting them pretty good. Oh! Andre! Luke just took a bolt to the head! No, wait. He’s okay somehow, keep fighting. Luke, what was that?”

“Stay calm and give us updates that matter!” Taylor ordered him harshly.

“Not used to ranged fighting.” Luke grunted angrily as he caught a metal crossbow and squished it with a quick squeeze. “Everything so far on Murder World was either melee or a mind-bending magic type. I can block things, but I’m used to fighting things that are there, not so much things that have been coming at me for a while.”

“Treat the arrows like they are snakes, then!” Taylor’s command passed through Zed, and Zed saw Luke actually pause for a moment before continuing with his rampage. Then, oddly, the Murderhobo was somehow better at slapping the bolts as they came toward him. 

“How? How did that help him…?” Zed quizzed Andre, even as the Druid pulled back a huge vine and released and arrow at the opposite end of the long ledge that Taylor was fighting on. The arrow hit the wall far above the stone-covered ambushers, and exploded into fine particles from the force. “Also, how can you miss so badly?”

Andre laughed at the question, kicking Zed playfully as he crouched behind the stone. “Tell Taylor to send fire into them real quick, would ya?”

Zed did so, and a blast of fire instantly flared out, turning into a concussive wave as all the spores and particles caught and exploded. In an instant, Taylor’s side of the pass was free of monsters. She took a running leap, stayed in the air far too long, and landed a dozen feet behind Luke. Andre winked at Zed, “She helped Luke by making him think of arrows like… hmm, ambush creatures. Taylor said ‘snakes’, right? They pop out, and you need to kill them or get bit. She was just putting the fight in a frame of reference that he understood, and that seemed to have been enough for him to catch on to the new type of fighting.”

Though he wanted to understand the topic more fully, Zed held off. The main reason was that combat had ended, and he had gained Potentia. Lots of Potentia.

48 Stone Sentries defeated! Potentia distributed based on participation! Andre: 400. Taylor: 1,600. Luke: 1,200. Zed: 900.

“How… why did I get so much?” Zed’s hands were trembling as he opened up his status sheet and looked at what the top line was telling him.

Cal Scan

Level: 4

Current Etheric Xenograft Potentia: 1,311/800 to level 5!

You are able to increase in level! Do so now? Yes / No.

Level up initiated! Integrating Etheric Xenograft Potentia into host! You have one level to use, where would you like to add the bonus? Body / Mind / Presence / Senses.

“Presence, Sub-Characteristic Charisma.” Zed felt the Potentia drain from his Sigil and into his body, and he fell to the ground in ecstasy. When his eyes reluctantly fluttered open, he looked at his abridged status.

Current Etheric Xenograft Potentia: 511/1,300 to level 6!

Body: 4.5

Mind: 7.5

Presence: 24.5

Senses: 4.5

Health: 100

Mana: 158

Mana regen: 2.3 per second

“I knew travelling with all of you would be worth doing.” Zed looked up at the three faces glaring down at him. “What?”

“Zed. We had no idea if there were more enemies around.” Taylor reached down and pulled Zed to his feet. “Did no one ever tell you that you should only level up in a safe place?”

“Ah… no. I guess I’ve never been in an overly dangerous place…?” Zed’s excuse fell flat.

Taylor shook her head and walked on, keeping her lips sealed tight. There was no need for her to rant or rave about his thoughtlessness. Andre went with her. Luke closed in on Zed, “You know that there is a physiological reaction to each sub-characteristic increasing, yes? You increase your Mind, you pass out as your brain resets itself. Senses? Prepare for pain and such. Body? Get ready to feel like snakes are coiling around you.”

“Thanks for the tip and the imagery, what’s on your mind?” Zed quizzed as they joined the others in the hike.

“You just did Charisma, with your clothes on. Know how I know?” Luke pointed down. “Charisma going up makes you feel real nice. Might wanna calm down before you chafe.”

Zed flushed a bright red and hoped that Taylor had been too focused on his poor timing in leveling to… examine the area.