ushernet Chapter 135: An Emergency Trip
Chapter 135: An Emergency Trip
Chapter 135: An Emergency TripAliandra “Where do we go?” Ali asked, turning to look at Ryn as they stood waiting in line at the Novaspark Academy of Magic. She was a little out of breath, having had to rush across town to get Ryn, and then to the bank to get money. But they had still arrived ahead of Mato and Malika.
Ali wasn’t sure what was keeping them, but given how much pain Malika was in, it couldn’t be good.
“We should go to Vertias,” Ryn answered, putting the atlas away. “It seems to be the closest major town near the northern border of the Torian kingdom with a Teleport Locus listed.”
The line moved on, and Ali found herself finally facing the receptionist. He looked harried by the sheer number of people, but he still looked up at her from behind his desk with a small smile.
“Emergency transport to Vertias for four please,” Ali said.
“Of course,” he answered, fiddling with a panel and doing a few calculations. “Professor Addlestone is available, and the fee for four to Vertias will be forty-four gold and six silver.”
Ryn gasped at the price, but Ali simply emptied her pouch on the counter and counted out the coins quickly, pushing them over to the receptionist. It was most of her remaining money, but she didn’t care – they could always make more. It was a good thing teleportation services were open again – Ali hadn’t been sure if she could trust the rumors that the Torians had been driven off, but she had seen no signs of any suppression magic on the way over.
“Here you go,” he answered, returning an invoice and a mana-signed token. “Room 6301.”
Ali nodded to him, taking the receipt and token. She remembered the way from when she had teleported out to Volle and met Naia.
“Ali, that’s expensive. Maybe I should stay behind?” Ryn whispered.
“No, I need your help when we get there. I have no idea where to go.” She hadn’t realized just how much she relied on Calen for navigation, and now that he was gone she felt lost.
Ali turned to see Mato entering via the huge doorway into the academy, and Ali’s heart ached to see him carrying Malika in his arms. Her friend, who had been so powerful in battle, was reduced to an invalid who couldn’t even walk on her own.
It took just a couple of minutes to get upstairs to the office of the eccentric professor of space magic, and suddenly they were in Vertias, standing in the center of an inscribed teleportation locus.
***
“We can rent a wagon from the district near the city’s northern gate,” Ryn said, looking up from the tourist material she had grabbed from the teleportation locus receiving room.
“No,” Ali said. “That’s too slow, I’ll fly us. Hop on.” She summoned a broad disk of barrier magic in the middle of the street and climbed up onto it. She hovered awkwardly by while Mato laid Malika gently down in the center. She itched to help, but with her size and lack of strength, she would simply be in Mato’s way. After Malika was finally situated, Ali sat down beside her while Mato and Ryn took their places toward the front and Ali set them shooting off over rooftops to the sound of startled shouts from passersby.
“Go north,” Ryn said, her nose already buried in the maps.
Ali directed the barrier out of the north gate at a healthy clip, finding an arid dusty landscape with sparse bushes and withered trees dotted about. The dry air had an unfamiliar, peppery tang perhaps from the bushes. Below them, the road wound its way northward, but it seemed only to be maintained for the first kilometer or two, and after that, it petered out into an ancient dirt track with ruts where generations of wagon wheels had carved grooves deep into the rocky ground.
“This way?” Ali asked.
“Yes, follow the road,” Ryn said, glancing up from her books and maps.
“Ok,” Ali said. Through the haze of heat and dust, the mountains slowly loomed larger as the day wore on. She hadn’t had the money to teleport her minions, nor did she have a lot of space left on the barrier disk, so, for safety reasons, she summoned a couple of emerald-green Poison Wyverns to act as an aerial escort. With nothing better to do, she also summoned a flight of Luminous Dragonets to act as extra eyes and a single Kobold Acolyte, just in case.
“I’m scared, Ali,” Malika whispered.
“We’re right here with you, Malika,” Ali said. Malika had explained how her bloodline was consuming her maximum health, stamina, and mana unpredictably. It seemed even more terrifying than her domain withdrawal – at least her withdrawal was predictable and had a simple fix. Not knowing what to do, Ali simply held her hand and sped them along.
Calen
Calen stood staring at the corpse of the oversized Obsidian-Scaled Monitor Lizard, breathing heavily. It had been a rough fight; the monster’s tough, black-scaled hide had protected it far too well against his arrows. He had scratches and scrapes all over his face and arms, but he had stuck to Lyeneru’s rules and beaten it without using flight.
“Good job,” she said, descending and summoning her skinning knife to her hand.
“Thanks.” Lyeneru had made Calen hunt every monster they encountered on the way, each time giving him a different set of restrictions or challenges to achieve. While Ambush had not been one of the skills she had been looking for, he had to admit it was a far bigger upgrade for his class than he had even dreamed of. With his ability to delay his magic enhancements till the last possible moment, he was able to take advantage of the bonus to critical damage, applying it to his magical as well as physical damage. So far, he had beaten everything she had thrown at him, and the new Ambush skill was a large part of the reason for his success.
he thought as the long-awaited chime sounded. Apparently, he wasn’t half as patient as he would have liked to think.
He considered his ten points carefully. Lyeneru had recommended a little more investment into strength to help use more powerful bows. It was unlikely that she would have him fight, but if she did, he needed to invest in survivability. That meant boosting his evasion, speed, and health. Continuing to follow his carefully charted plan for optimal growth, he spent five points on dexterity and three on intelligence, placing the last two in vitality.
The Pathfinder had offered him temporary use of her mentorship enchantment and accelerated his skill advancement dramatically, and for all the help and advice, all he had to do was point in the direction of the Death Knight whenever she asked. Something she presumably had the skills to do for herself anyway. This was all for his benefit, and still, he yearned to show her what he could do. To impress her, as impossible as that sounded.
Strafe
Stamina: Magically split your arrow firing consecutively at each of the nearest foes. Split arrows are hasted taking the same time to fire all arrows as a normal single shot.
Light, Ranged, Area, Dexterity
Not as effective as one of Ali’s fireballs, but still, it was a multishot skill of a sort.
Heaven’s Strike
Mana: Use half your maximum mana to cause a huge pillar of light to strike your enemies from the sky.
Light, Ranged, Area, Intelligence
This skill was also an area damage attack, but it sounded more like a mage skill. It was ridiculously expensive, especially since mana was already such a problem for him. smiling wryly to himself he checked the next skill notification.
Mirage Armor
Mana: Bending light around you, your body creates afterimages as it moves, making it significantly harder to hit you. Evasion is increased by Reserve: 10%
Light, Defense, Illusion, Intelligence, Dexterity
“Congratulations on the level up,” Lyeneru said, coming to land beside him. “Get anything decent?”
“These are my options,” Calen said, immediately sharing his skill choices with her.
“Mirage Armor, definitely,” Lyeneru said, without even a hint of hesitation.
“Are you sure?” Calen asked before he caught himself questioning her experience. But she didn’t seem to be annoyed by his presumption. “It’s just an illusion.”
“Strafe is strong, but it has a big weakness – you cannot choose your target. I’ve seen many strafe builds locked down by a monster that can outspawn their firing rate, and they are simply unable to shoot the spawner,” she answered.
“I see,” Calen said, immediately recalling the fight against the Toxic Spitter slime in the jungle below Dal’mohra.
“Heaven’s strike is very strong, especially if you can get it to work with Ambush. But that armor will keep you alive.”
“I assume it only works against sight?” Calen asked.
“Yes,” Lyeneru said. “But the Death Knight uses sight. More importantly, most monsters use sight, and you have an advanced Identification skill. Train that till it helps you identify modes of perception and you will know which fights to run from.”
“Ok,” Calen answered. She seemed incredibly knowledgeable, understanding the nuances of the skills even for a class that was not her own. It made sense though, she had a wealth of experience he couldn’t hope to match.
“If you disagree, you can swap it out after we kill the Death Knight. Or better yet, replace your Motes of Light skill, unless it advances well. If you pick Mirage Armor, you have a decent shot of surviving the Death Knight – at least, with me there to help you.”
“You’re going to let me fight?” He bit his lip.
“A small role,” Lyeneru said, smirking. “I’ll admit I was a little skeptical of your light affinity at first, but that is one of the best defensive skills I’ve ever seen on a silver rank.”
For a brief moment, it was all he could think of. Nothing else mattered. It was nigh impossible to untangle the excitement and pure terror that rose within him. The Death Knight was a terrifying foe, and he was going to go up against it. He just hoped he didn’t mess it up and embarrass himself in front of her. Well, he’d be too dead too fast to be worried about the embarrassment.
Oddly, the macabre thought eased his anxiety and Calen found himself actually smiling – smirking, even – as he filled his final class skill slot.
“I’m ready,” he said.
“Let’s hunt!” Lyeneru let a rare grin show. “Trust me, after this fight, you are never going to want to disable that skill.”
Malika
Malika drifted in and out of consciousness, vaguely aware of the passage of several days upon Ali’s flying barrier and her continued presence beside her. Her moments of lucidness were dominated by frantically checking the cumulative degeneration of her bloodline which progressively consumed her life and energy, and her bouts of shooting pain and visual distortion.
Malika tuned out Ali’s reassurances, not because she didn’t care, but because she found it almost impossible to concentrate on the words while the jolts of pain punctuated each terrifying notification.
The world faded to black as she passed out once again.
Malika came to, but this time something was different. The wind on her skin was gone and she lay on the ground by a rock.
Somewhere up ahead, voices were arguing. Ali, Mato, and Ryn – her constant companions for the last several days – were all conspicuously absent. She groaned as she sat up, finding her body to be weak and unresponsive, but she dared not heal herself lest she trigger another round of painful notifications and the further deterioration of her bloodline.
She crawled around the rock and stared out at a confrontation. Mato stood out front with his chest puffed up, blocking the path as he gestured emphatically with his hands. Beside him, Ali levitated on her barrier while Ryn took cover in the back. Several large wyverns circled menacingly in the air.
But Malika had only eyes for who they confronted. She gasped.
Out in the center of the dilapidated road were three people dressed in plain homespun robes. She squinted to try to make out the details. The two monks standing deferentially to the rear wore the colors of disciples; a slender woman with black short-cropped curls and a stocky mountain of a man with a shaved head. At the front stood a dark, weathered monk wearing a brown robe. His arms were folded across his chest, and adorning the left side of his face were the ornate runic tattoos signifying his station as an Elder.
Malika did not recognize the man, but she pulled herself up to her feet to get a better look.
His piercing blue eyes fixed on her the moment she emerged.
“Child of Ahn Khen,” he spoke directly to her. “I am Elder Rezan, we have come with great haste from Kezda in
But he simply took her strike, his body absorbing her damage without even flinching.
With a sudden rush, his energy surged to a pure incandescent white in her sight, warping and shifting as it drove flashes of pain through her mind. As if in slow motion, she saw his fist blurring, splitting six ways to strike her torso, head, and chest simultaneously. She saw it, but she could not even move an inch in the face of his power and speed.
One of the legendary martial skills detailed in the Nine Paths of Ahn Khen.
He released a powerful surge of energy through his fists, blasting through her body and catapulting her into the air. There were several loud cracks, felt more than heard in the distance, and a tearing sensation in what felt like the core of her mind. Her vision shimmered, the world receded to a tiny point of light, and her pain faded.
Ali screamed.
Malika never even felt the ground as her awareness left her.
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