Ruthless ~ 45!

~ 45 ~

Joe grumbled as he pounded on a bar of iron so that he could get it soft enough to pull into nails. “This is stupid and I’m going to fix this entire broken buisness model and it dumb face and-”

“Hey! The metal knows when you’re treating it badly.” The smith was a player that had worked with metal his entire life before coming to Eternium, and his skill level was already near the mid-Expert rank. It would be higher, but there was so much more to metalworking at the high levels. Things such as adding in magical materials, powdered Cores, and various flames all had an impact on what you could make, so knowledge and experience was king. “I already took you in under protest, so you’d better not torture my metal.”

The smith watched as Joe turned the metal and placed it back in the fire. “Hmm. Better, but your attitude sucks. This is why I have no interest in apprentices… ugh. You know, you could always just quit.”

“Can’t do it, then you get a spot in the guild for free, and I miss out on valuable training.” Joe ‘cheerfully’ shot down the man’s hopes. The guild had promised the smith a forge of his own so long as he was able to prove his ability; which included getting an apprentice all the way to the Journeyman Ranks. That was the highest that an Expert could train someone; they needed to be a Master in order to train someone into the Expert ranks.

“Whatever, kid. All I need to do is get you to quit or reach a high enough skill level, and I think that I choose ‘make you quit’.” The man smirked and turned to walk away. 

Joe pulled the iron ingot out of the fire and nonchalantly made a comment that made the smith stop cold. “You do realize, I hope, that it is very likely that I am going to be the one that builds the forge you are going to use? An interesting part of the deal is that you were only promised a forge. Not a forge above Trash quality…”

As Joe walked out of the guild-only temporary forge six hours later, he was carrying eleven iron triangles that each increased the stability of a novice ranked ritual by two percent so long as there were a prime number amount of them. “These are so interesting! I mean, they don’t help me right now, since I need at least a Beginner set, but I’m sure that someone in the coven can use them!”

Under the effects of both the four times skill gain multiplier of his class as well as the Pathfinder’s Hall passive effect, on top of an Expert teaching him directly, Joe had been able to drop right into the middle of the Beginner ranks of Ritualistic Forging during this session.

Ritualistic Forging (Beginner V).

Joe was now able to create the items that he needed, but he needed to find a design that he could follow. He couldn’t just make random shapes and hope for the best. He either needed to find a lore skill for his forging skill, or he needed to find someone that could help him find the designs. After putting the stabilizers into the Grand Ritual Hall for any of his coven to use, Joe was caught by Bard before he could leave the building overall.

“Joe, yah gotta help me.” Bard was panting, covered in blood, and clearly had been put through the ringer.

“Lay on Hands!” After casting the spell, Joe pulled Bard deeper into the building so that they wouldn't run into any surprises. “Bard… what’s happening?”

“Ya know how ah’ve been stuck, been lookin for ah specialization that fit?” Bard wiped some blood off his face, pleased that he was no longer wincing when he did so. “Ah found one, but… there’s ah requirement, and I made ah lotta people angry.”

“What do you need from me?” Joe was ready to jump into the action, a fact not lost on Bard.

“This is… ahem. I need yah to give me permission to add Hansel to the rudimentary pantheon that yah got goin.” Bard looked at his party leader pleadingly, knowing that this was a big ask. “I’ll owe yah for ah long, long time, ah know. Still, please? There’s nowhere else ah can set up that the Bardic College can’t find and destroy.”

“That’s who is after you?” Joe winced, the guild would not be happy if he turned the largest propaganda center in the Zone against them. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea, Bard. The repercussions against the guild as a whole could be devastating.”

Bard nodded, knowing that this had been a long shot. “Ah’ll… think of somethin’ else…”

Joe watched as his teammate turned away from him, and Joe felt that the turning was going to be more symbolic than literal if he turned his friend away now. “No. Bard, to the abyss with it. What’s one more enemy? They can get in line, right?”

“Yah… yah mean it?” Bard whirled around and slammed his hand onto Joe’s chest hard enough that he got a shadowy slap in return.

Skill increase: Retaliation of Shadows (Student 0). Slapping a friend to gain the next tier, nice. Really shows your character. You have found that there are things that matter more than waiting around to get hit! Now, you are going to be able to use this skill as a preemptive retaliation! Bonus effect: When you are targeted by an attack of any kind, there is a 10+n% chance that Retaliation of Shadows will trigger for maximum skill damage against the attacker! They will still be hit by a regular retaliation if their attack lands!

“Of course I mean it!” Joe read his notification at this point, and could barely breathe. Now the skill was starting to live up to its Legendary ranking! “How soon do you need the spot?”

“I have everything I need.” Bard was deadly serious, and highly focused. “If we get to the Temple, I can take ah spot right away.”

“If?”

“Yeah, I had ah ton of assassins and the like after me.” Bard sighed deeply in relief that Joe was going to help. “I lost ‘em for ah bit, so… they’re prolly at the Temple waitin’ for me?”

“I assume that you were intentionally waiting to tell me this so that you had a higher chance of getting me to agree?” Joe gave Bard a piercing glare, to which the powerful Skald simply chuckled and admitted that Joe was onto him. “What do you need to do?”

“I have a small golden idol; just gotta drop it on an altar and it’ll do the rest.” Bard started hustling toward the temple area, and Joe hurried to catch up to him. “Jus’ so yah know, these guys sent Alexis ta respawn.”

“What?” 

“Yap. They told me tha’ I either hand over the golden lute, or they’d kill ‘er. They had captured her and a bunch of em had a sword to her neck.” Bard growled at his memory. “She tol’ me that I better finish the quest no matter what, then press one o’ her mystery buttons and vanished behind a wall of poison. I saw her go grey on my party setup, but I know she took a bunch with her.”

“Juggernauts, clear the temple area. If anyone refuses to go, cut them down.” Joe called loudly. He knew that he didn’t need to shout, but he did want to give fair warning to anyone that was listening. There was always a Juggernaut in the Temple area, and he had no issue with waiting a few minutes while any issues were dealt with. “No one attacks my team and gets away with it.”

“That was a warning blow. You will not get another.” Hearing the inorganic voice of the Juggernaut, Joe pulled Bard to the side of the door just before it blasted open and chunks of person were tossed through. Bard looked at the mess, then looked at Joe with wide eyes as the sound of a blender came from the next room over.

“Yeah, it considers an attack where they don't die instantly to be a ‘warning’.” Joe shrugged as he explained. “I’m not a huge fan of that, but what am I going to do when that tells me it won’t change?”

Joe waved at a Juggernaut that stepped heavily out of the Temple area and scanned the room. It's helmet locked on Bard, but Joe gave an order to let him through. After a brief pause, the Juggernaut nodded and spoke. “Twenty-two hidden presences are approaching at high speed. While these people are fools for assuming that anything can be hidden from the sight of Occultatum, they are spread out and may enter the area through various means to circumvent the rules.”

“What… what is it saying?” Bard swallowed nervously as the purple-glowing Runic Juggernaut loomed over them.

“As in, you can’t understand the words, or what he is getting at?” Joe wondered idly.

“The meaning. The words are… very clear.” Bard shuffled along the wall so that he wasn't trapped by the huge figure.

Joe started walking normally, pulling Bard along with him. “He said that there were people in stealth coming through the Pathfinder’s Hall, and that they were too spread out to deal with easily.”

As soon as they were in the Temple proper, they rushed to one of the two remaining open altars, and Bard pulled a golden lute out of his bag. “Thank goodness. This sucker is heavy, and the blasted thing can’t be put in a spacial bag!”

“Bard, is it stolen?” Joe stepped away in case the lute started to scream or something. “I’ve only seen quest items gained in unsavory ways not be able to be stored in spacial gear…”

“Only technically stolen.” Bard grumbled as he slammed the lut onto the altar. “It’s the artifact of a deity, I had a quest from him to move it. People’s ‘property rules’ can eat a giant turd.”

The altar started shining a dark red, thendeep brown. A deep, bone-chilling feeling came from the altar. Both Joe and Bard were forced to take a step back as the chill suddenly changed, and a raging pillar of strange brown flame exploded from the altar. A deep, sonorous laughter came from the flame, and a wave of fire rolled off the altar and swept through the Temple and into the Pathfinder’s Hall, only parting to pass by Joe and Bard; who stood there with concerned expressions.

Screams echoed into the Temple as people caught in the flame were reduced to ashes; only staying alive long enough to feel as they were purified in the most literal sense. Joe swallowed deeply, and glanced sidelong at Bard. “Are you sure this was a quest from the deity of bards? Not an evil god that tricked you into getting onto our pantheon?”

“Joe, if I were tricked, how in the world would I know?” Bard managed to get out as the flame started collecting on top of the altar.

“Brown flames, sudden murder of a bunch of people?” Joe turned his attention to the flames once more. “Any of that making alarm bells go off?”

Bard didn't get a chance to answer as words shook the air around them, clearly originating from the altar that had just been activated. 

“Freedom! Hundreds of years of being stifled, and now I! Am! Free!”