Raze ~ 16!

~ Sixteen ~

The Monk was the first to charge, but the huge beast spun and sent him flying with a mere brushing of its gargantuan body. Joe readied a shadow spike, thinking about the terrible luck that had led to them fighting this monstrosity. Had it been here the entire time, or had it somehow dug to their location during the night?

“No one breathe this in!” Alexis called out, the only warning they got before a huge crossbow flipped up onto her shoulder and she launched a bolt that was more wine bottle than arrow. The bolt landed under the bug and released a cloud of gas that was sucked away by the steadily increasing wind. “That should disorient it, it's a hallucinogen that causes accuracy to drop by half!”

“Ya missed it's face!” Bard informed her with an odd glance.

“Scorpions breath through ‘book lungs’, under their body. I got it good.” She assured him. He nodded and charged forward, his axes landing and being just as effective as if he had struck a rock wall. Sparks flew as his axes chipped and turned, and Bard only barely managed to avoid hurting himself.

The shadow spike that Joe had cast was being channelled, and the dense armor the bug was wearing was screeching under the strain of the continuous damage. Still, the armor hadn't succumbed. A stinger shot down toward Bard, slamming into the ground next to him and retracting in an instant. Bard gasped and looked at the fresh crater. “It missed?”

“You’re welcome!” Alexis called to him.

Poppy dashed forward and sunk his rapier into an interlocking joint of the bug’s leg, dealing the first damage to this massive beast since combat began. The bug squealed, turning and *clacking* its pincers at the Duelist. In the group - though it hadn't been tested - Poppy was currently unmatched in one-on-one combat. He rolled in the air, passing over the pincer and charging forward as soon as he landed. Just before he went under the scorpion, he stopped and jumped upward. 

The bug, thinking that the human was attempting to get under and attack its less-armored underside, dropped downward to crush the foolish prey. Instead, Poppy was given a handy way to climb on top of the creature. He leaned back, focusing all of his strength on the penetrative power of his rapier.

“Solidified shadows!”

A massive force dropped onto Poppy, firmly pressing him to the back of the scorpion. It vanished a moment later, and he stood and tried again. This time, he finished his attack and his rapier drove through the plating of the scorpion and into its brain. The creature spasmed, then dropped and went limp. Poppy rolled off the bug and looked around. “What just happened?”

Exp gained: 80 (20 * Giant Scorpion x4)

Zone alert! Members of the guild The Wanderers have killed a local [animal] field boss! For the next twenty-four hours, all Scorpions in the zone–having lost their protector–will have their armor rating reduced by thirty percent! The Wanderers guild gains +50 fame with the city of Ardania!

The area alert faded, leaving only the reward for the battle in the group’s view.

For being the first to vanquish the field boss [Sheila, The Fat Tailed Mankiller] you gain +2 skill points and +100 personal and guild fame with Ardania. Exp: 450.

Title gained: Pierce the Earth. By being the first to defeat this Earth attributed field boss, your party has gained a bonus to the type of damage used to defeat it! Effect: All damage dealt now includes 5% armor piercing.

“What in the actual fecal matter?” Poppy looked at his rapier and shook his head. “You all got the same reward? Do you guys even understand how difficult it is to gain armor piercing bonuses? You need special, specific weapons and tools! Now Jaxon can punch something and he deals piercing damage?”

“What? I do?” Jaxon looked at his hands in awe. “Nifty!”

“All damage?” Alexis looked at her bolts. “How is that going to work with my poisons and such?”

“Maybe some kind of corrosion?” Joe offered, pulling up his status screen to take a look at his current bonuses, wincing as a new notification appeared.

Caution! All current title slots are filled! Either replace a title or the newest title gained will be lost! Time limit: 10 minutes.

Joe looked over his titles and tried to figure out a way to keep this new title as well as all his others. He currently had a broken title, but he wasn't sure if he wanted to use it up. Joe also had a cursed title, but that one wasn't going anywhere. He had a couple weaker titles from the start of the game, but if he could keep them, he would. The sign of a hoarder? Perhaps. “Combine title ‘Pierce the Earth’ and broken title ‘in darkest night’.”

You are attempting to combine titles! You may align them as you like, but be sure that titles with ellipses are placed in the correct position. After arranging them, you have the option to make small changes, such as adding the words ‘an, a, the, of’ or something similar to create a sentence. The fewer changes that need to be made, the more potent the effect! Good luck!

Title accepted! Calculating… Title condensed.

New title gained: Pierce the Darkest Night. You stand between your people and the darkness of the world, standing steadfast and potent where all others would flee in terror. Effect: 50% resistance to dark-aligned magic. All damage dealt now includes 5% armor piercing. The piercing bonus increases to 10% with dark-aligned spells and weapons.

“Well, now.” Joe muttered as he read over the effects. “Oh, I like that. What… I have twenty skill points to spend?”

He tried to remember how he had gained so many, and could only think that it was due to the leveling after the Wolfman War, as well as the skill points that he had gained in situations like this. Joe swallowed, trying to think through his options. Right now, he had enough skill points to bring a single skill up by two entire tiers. Did he want to do that? Or should he hold off and learn as naturally as possible? Yikes.

That was a tough call. Did he want to get better now? His inner greed raven wanted to wrap its wings around the hoard of points and screech and peck at any attempts to use them. But… was that a realistic way of doing things? Maybe it was time to bring his Jump skill up to the Sage ranks. Joe nodded when he came to that decision, that was likely the best use of his skill points. He allocated the points, and pressed accept.

Nope!

Joe stared at the system message, concerned and confused. “Nope? What in the…? No other information? That can’t be right. Let me try again.”

Nope. I see that you aren't stopping, so a tish more info for you. Getting into the Master ranks is possible by spending skill points, but moving through them requires you to form your own insight. All Masters have wildly varied techniques, even if those of a lower ranking have skills that are nearly identical. Let me condense this message: Get good.

“You’re telling me that I am going to have to actually jump to get my skill levels up?” Joe started the sentence in a fury, but by the end he had already accepted that this was fair. Drat. It did make sense; how could you be considered a Master at something if you only followed someone else’s understanding of the issue? Well… at least he still had his twenty skill points. What should he use them on? Of all his abilities, Ritual Magic was his most used and useful… but he was having trouble powering his rituals. In that case…

“Add four points to Ritual Magic, seven points to Mana Manipulation, and nine points to Coalescence.” Joe looked over his stat sheet, feeling pleased with himself. That had actually been the perfect amount of points! He was able to bring all three skills up to the next rank!

Skill increase: Mana Manipulation (Student 0). Congratulations! You have met the requirements to be considered a Student when controlling your mana! By reaching the Student ranks, you no longer have your mana reduced! Current bonuses applied to this skill: 25% spell efficiency (Maxed). Steady Flow: Increases spell stability by 10%, and reduces casting time of all mana-using skills and spells by 10%.

Skill increase: Coalescence (Student 0). Congratulations! Condensing your mana into a single point allows you to create a denser and more potent mana source! Current bonuses: +30% spell efficiency and +30% mana regeneration. You will be pulled into your inner self to attempt another breakthrough in 10… 9… 

Skill increase: Ritual Magic (Expert 0). Your ability to create, maintain, and change rituals much more efficiently has reached the ranks of an Expert! You are now able to create Expert Ranked Rituals without too much fear of them exploding! Congratulations! You have maximized the amount that you can reduce the mana and component cost! Current bonus: 85% reduction. (25% from Ritual Magic + 50% from class bonus!)

“Hold up… did that rank up just take away all the extra benefits of increasing my skill level?” Joe was about to grumble more when information on Expert ranked rituals began appearing in his mind. He knew it was just the fundamentals of the Expert ranks, but it was fair to say that these rituals were… on another level. “Hee. I’m freaking hilarious.”

“Joe?” Poppy called over as the group settled back down, “you done talking to yourself? It's your turn to be on watch.”

The Rituarchitect turned and nodded, taking a single step toward the fire before his eyes rolled up into his head and he dropped. Poppy saw him fall and sighed. Everyone else was already in their ‘beds’, pretending they didn't see what had just happened. Poppy started walking toward Joe, quickly rolling him over and checking on him. “Ugh. You did that on purpose. Somehow.”

Joe not only couldn't hear the question, there was no way for him to respond. He was deep within himself at this very moment, staring at a howling hurricane; what was now an orb of power that represented all of his collected mana. “Alright you. Time to condense!”

He exerted his willpower, and forcefully worked to bring his orb of condensed mana back to the point it had been at the last time he had achieved a breakthrough. Back then, Joe had been able to condense all of his gaseous mana into a fingernail-sized orb. Obviously his power had grown since then, even though he had since lost the ability to pull from the well of mana granted by Tatum. “Come… on!”

The Mana shrank a small amount, but there wasn't enough of a change for Joe’s liking. Why was this such a difficult process? It was just raw mana, he should be able to manipulate it freely! Joe tried to pull at the mana, but all that happened was a cloud of power drifting away from the core of it. The orb itself didn’t change. “So wild. What if I need to make my mana undergo more of a qualitative change?”

Joe pushed at his raging power, attempting to convince the orb to be calm. To be steady. He remembered that he had gained the trait of ‘Suppression Resistance’ when he was last here, and made a small realization. What he was doing right now went against who he was as a person. He wanted to be free, to be able to move and do what he wanted without the restrictions that other people wanted to put on him. What if… what if his mana was a representation of him? Was that a thing?

“Alright, mana.” Joe stared at the swirling orb. “You want to be free? I really hope this isn't a bad idea.'

 With a thought, the contained mana was released, all the mental pressure Joe had been using to shape it gone in an instant. The decompression of his power caused a thump like an artillery shell landing, and Joe was thrown out of his trance by the massive concussion.