“Yeah, this sucks bud.” I said to him, even as hordes of the undead were steadily slogging up the hill toward us. This was made all the more dramatic as we could hear the sounds of Doogan and his merry band down below laying waste to zombies by the dozen.
It would totally be close to any moment in the hundreds of zombie flicks where the brave injured party is left behind to provide a distracting meal for the hungry mass of death that chased the protagonist through the alleys and forests of the world. Well, if not for the fact that Ignis was uninjured, and that I had a feeling he could kick some zombie faces in with the right help.
His eyes lit up as he read my surface intent, a trick I somehow kept letting lapse from my mind. I was sure it would stick in my head better when they picked up more power as I ranked up.
Maybe they would even use their words!
I was not leaving my little guy in the lurch without some buffs. Nope, not today.
I looked into my list deciding to burn through some of those wonderful skill points and stop hoarding them when it was time to run a Hail Mary.
Looking strictly at my list of spells I tried finding the most beneficial ones for the current task and my upcoming run, having already picked Vigor as a grab priority.
- Armor – Rank 2
- Command – Rank 3
- Create Food – Rank 2
- Create Water – Rank 3
- Cure Wounds – Rank 2
- Detect Aura – Rank 1
- Dispel Magic – Rank 3
- Protection from Evil – Rank 2
- Vigor – Rank 3
- Water Breath – Rank 2
- Water Walk – Rank 3
Command was out, as was Cure Wounds as I would not be fighting. Next off the list were the creation spells as I had had enough to eat recently, Create Water did not seem like it would be tossing in some random buff for drinking lots of fluids before I hit turbulence. Protection from Evil had some merit if I had any thoughts of the beasts below being near my level as it only worked on things my level or lower. Dispel Magic seemed more combat focused as well. Then there was Detect Aura which would presumably only let me see bad stuff better, I was quite sure of the temperament of a horde of zombies, which would mean not today.
Yeah, it would seem that I had made my choice. I wanted to get Water Walk, and my mind was rather set on it. I realized I was just trying to rationalize my choice and wasting time in the process.
One thing to note was that Armor and Water Breath were both in that tree of prerequisites anyway, so it would only be another two points down to just max them out after getting the needed level to top off Water Walk.
“Done.” I said, looking at my little salamander friend. He was just going to keep scanning the crowd of approaching corpses while I talked to myself, I guess. Some friend.
I watched the five skill points sink down the chute as my skills improved. This time I observed the feeling as the pathways of mana in my body were changed, strengthening my abilities. The closest thing I could think of would be if you were to lie down and create a puddle of warm water on your belly, near the navel and then add a little hot water to it. The warm pool would heat up causing your mind to focus on the spot as after a while it would have become static in your mind; like those pains that you get and learn to ignore. And now with that extra water added the puddle would overflow in places, creating many more little runnels of water that tickled a bit before growing cold and once again not being actively noticed.
All of this to say that it just felt weird, warm, and pleasant; don’t judge me.
First off, spell changes. Each one was small, but I was impressed overall with my choices and the results thereof.
Because, yes, they were my choices.
First off, armor was at one time just a spell for added resistance and such that I could use for myself and other people, or even on objects; now it did just a wee bit more.
Rank Three: Bonus to damage resistance will now be boosted by the Constitution of the target. You will now be able to notice a slight reduction in the inhibitive effects of this spell when applied to objects.
Rank Four: The holder of this spell will now receive a permanent bonus for their resistance to all physical damage; even falling down. This spell can now be used to reinforce magical constructs created by the caster though it cannot interact with the spell constructs of others.
It seemed as if I would be able to cast it reliably on constructs, though I was not sure what that would do to my air steps from Wind Walk I was sure I would remember to test it thoroughly later, probably. Another bonus I noticed right away was the new passive boost to my own overall resistance, a boon that I saw as a common benefit for getting spells and skills to a higher level. Although now that I was thinking about it, I really didn’t have any skills. I just had a lot of spells with my only actual skills, those ones without a mana cost, being sneak and the pierce skill for my stabbby-stabby weapons.
Next up was Water Breath.
Rank Three: Increases the ability to withstand environmental pressures and temperatures. This ability scales upward with the Constitution and Strength of the target. This spell will now actively work to maintain a proper balance of moisture for most creatures to survive prolonged use of the spell.
Rank Four: This spell now provides a permanent passive to the wielder, granting you its increase to the resistance of environmental changes in pressure and temperature beyond the lower ranks at all times, so long as shall live.
It seemed that it only strengthened the ability to tolerate pressures and temperatures, though to what extent I could not quite feel out with the spell as easily as I could my others, possibly due to it relying on other stats that I was lacking in, or that I had not yet cast it actively being that I had just acquired it.
A problem I shall be addressing soon.
Another bonus was another passive giving, without cost to me the wonderful priestess, even more resistances to the environment. It would have been nice to have that while suffering the cold of the damned caverns. Another complaint about hindsight only granting me knowledge of how to fix problems that were no longer problems.
Another bonus was the loss of a chance to wither up and die due to a lack of water for keeping the spell on at all times.
And then there was Water Walk, a fun favorite.
Rank Four: This rank increases the ability of the passive to keep you dry, so long as you wish to be dry; it will not hinder your ability to be wet when you wish to be wet. Your movement speed and balance will also increase slightly when surrounded by water.
I had some vague memories of the first time I used this spell, and I would have loved an increase in balance when trying it out. I was fairly sure my new skill would even impress the birdbrain overhead, though I was very curious as to how he had been able to conjure a massive rock to drop from above…
Focus!
I was rather glad I had snagged this as a spell upgrade as I noticed the increase in movement speed there at the end as I was quite sure that I could make use of it in this downpour. Rain to count right?
I was just about to drop my last skill point into sneak, just to see if there was some subtle boost to movement speed or balance to be had when I remembered that I had neglected one other spell.
Vigor.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
Rank Four: The decrease in stamina regeneration caused by exhaustion and overuse are now lessened. You will never fall below sixty percent regeneration of stamina regardless of stamina spent, this effect can only be negated by outside mechanisms such as curses, poisons both mundane and magical, or sickness.
It looked like another solid win for team all-nighter. Lower stamina cost and increased regeneration even while dead on my feet, this would make a great many things in life so much easier. Though I may want to keep in mind that it did not yet make me a marathon winner, not yet.
There may have been better choices available to me, but I could not quite see them at the moment, and I was sure I needed a nap as my rambling thoughts were back there starting to nag at me and ask me questions about my choice of hat while making me grand escape.
I had to get moving.
With all these unimportant thoughts in my head, I took a moment to center myself before bending down to my little Ignis.
I popped off a series of spells, having to wait roughly five seconds between castings as I felt the mana bottling up inside me when I tried forcing them all through at once. I spared a brief thought for whether or not spell cooldowns was a thing before coming to the obvious conclusion that of course they were.
Water Walk, Wind Walk, Armor. I chose the first spell to keep the little guy dry, as the rain hissing on his body looked as if it may have been painful; if not at least annoying. The second spell should give him some more mobility, and the third would let him shrug off a few more attacks or ignore some of the impact damage at least.
Nearly twenty seconds casting spells for my little friend with a cost of fifty mana made me feel a little better about abandoning him here to the undead. Yeah, I was still aware that he would be back the next time I summoned him even if his body were ripped to shreds by an undead swarm but that had to hurt, right? Why let them make him suffer, it was best to even the field a little.
I looked at my mana bar, seeing it tick up quite a bit faster than normal and smiled. I had to be regenerating nearly one thousand mana per hour now, at least five times my normal rate. That big revelation caused me to strike upon another idea, something fun. I pulled up the relevant line in Conjure Elemental Spirit.
Rank Three: Summoner can now control a larger number of Elemental Spirits. Allows the caster to summon two elementals per rank, this does not allow you to summon more than one Elemental per cast. Elementals are now stronger than previous iterations. Caster can increase the Elementals power by investing twice the mana at the time of casting.
I pulled a few more torches from my stash of random summoning materials and quickly held them out to Ignis, it was time to get him some new friends.
Ignis, being as bright as he was caught on quickly and pulsed a small gout of flame toward the torch ends before he jumped forward to engage the approaching enemies.
I channeled the mana into the torches one by one, making sure to double the input. I didn’t bother imbuing my own essence into these ones as they would serve as backup for Ignis and something about cutting myself while surrounded by the undead seemed like a bad idea, so I was not going for the full imbuement.
I was also mindful of the casting time before my next spell would be fired. It somehow seemed to stretch a bit more for this spell as aside from the one second of extra channeling to get the extra mana out I was in a bit of a fugue state for nearly twenty seconds where another spell would not manifest.
This gave credence to my cooldown theory, though it seemed to differ with each spell. I remembered that Create Food had almost no time between the cast and being that it was the spell I had used most I could kind of understand how I had not noticed this before.
Focus!
Mana: 184/316.
I watched as my mana began ticking up by one or two points every ten seconds or so and smiled again. I loved the Turning.
I pointed a hand at Ignis who was currently slapping a zombie with his tail while clamping his mouth around the head of another, a bright red glow emanating from his mouth all the while and grinned. The three salamanders I had summoned launched themselves at the zombies that were moving to assist their brothers in death tackling the problem head on.
These three salamanders were maybe a foot shorter than Ignis, but they moved with speed and precision quickly digging their large talon into decomposing flesh and helping my friend cause mayhem.
It warmed my heart to see them melting hearts and brains for their glorious benefactor. Ignis looked at me as if to say I was wasting time and I had to agree, it was time for me to leave.
“I’m counting on you to make ‘em pay.” I started saying before a flash on the battlefield caught my eye. Down below where the Doogan’s party was making steady progress toward the mansion I saw another flash, and another. I located the source and stared as I saw the slender man, an elf by the looks of it weaving in and out or a crowd of zombies and striking them with a large bow staff.
He swung it from side-to-side striking blow after blow upon the mindless horde while behind him a rather short man, was tossing streaks of electricity from his palms. I saw bolt after bolt striking the oncoming denizens of death, leaving them smoking and in some cases smoldering. Most that went down stayed down, but still some clung to un-life and got back up.
It was enough to make me think that healing was not what I should have been focused on until I looked at Ignis and realized I would not be trading my little companions for anything. I would still be getting some lightning spells in the future though; it was far too impressive not to take that route.
That aside, I now noticed one other figure. I had missed him before because he stood directly behind Doogan. He stood there looking imperious and confident even as he took a spot safely behind the wall of muscle that was my guild master. He was just standing there one moment and the next he was lifting an odd staff into the air as if he were the great Gandalf and they were trying to snag up his hobbits. I laughed a bit before he brought the staff down and was surrounded in a dome of bright white light that vaporized every undead creature within twenty paces.
Maybe the lightning could wait until I had THAT spell.
I looked at where Ignis and his followers were taking down the undead in smaller numbers and then to where Doogan and his two friends were cleaving into the masses as they made their way up the road, twitching limbs and piles of ash were the only things they left at their back.
“Hey Ignis, change of plans!” I pointed down the hill as he looked at me, a molten glob of bone mass dripping from his mouth. “Get down there and help them when I leave.”
He nodded, causing some red-hot drool to drop to the ground and shook his head spraying the ground with hissing liquid. I wasn’t sure but there was no way that he was displaying normal power for a spell of my level to have summoned him, and I spared another few moments to remember the little notification.
Be aware that all spells and skills are empowered during this time. Yet even as you are empowered the Monsters of this world are similarly empowered.
I also had to think that my spells may have been being unfairly influenced by the gods, but I was not about to start complaining about TK being overprotective.
The sky rumbled above me as if in answer.
Yeah, purely coincidental.
I conjured a step and took to the air, summoning and stepping along as I gained altitude. I felt amazing to be able to build speed and add to my momentum without the fear of hitting a rock wall, or the ceiling. My steps came faster, and I remembered to start casting my own spells as I climbed. I felt my speed increase as the Water Walk passive took hold, proving that the rain did count for the movement bonus, I also had to focus less on keeping the rain from my eyes by manipulating the wind.
I cast Vigor to give myself a temporary increase to stamina regeneration as I climbed, feeling the strain as I rose above the ground.
And then I cast Water Breath for the increase ability to ignore this icy rain, as well as to see if it would cut down on the need to buffer my face as the wind speed increased. Was it silly and unnecessary? Maybe. Did I care? Nope, I wanted to avoid those wrinkles in the future and having my face stretched out by the wind at high speed was not a risk I would take; I indulged.
I was making great progress in climbing above the melee below and I took the chance to look back.
My eyes went first to the hilltop I had emerged onto, and I grinned as I saw the wall of fire descending the hill to leave a trail of smoking ruin in the wake of my little trooper. He was tossing small gouts of flame at random zombies while lashing out with his tail at any he got close to, melting the flesh from their legs and causing them to fall.
His three subordinates were similarly busy, jumping into the air like flaming geckos before landing atop a wandering corpse only to engulf their heads in an inferno as they breathed a first-sized ball of fire into their faces before riding the body down and bounding off again.
It was amazing.
I saw Doogan and his crew making steady progress as they hacked, smashed, and sawed their way through the ever-growing crowd even as I saw larger groups of the undead closing on their location from every direction. I wondered at how the hell anyone could have summoned so many undead and what the mana cost would be for such a thing for a moment before my eyes locked onto the elf and his friend, a friend I was going to assume was a gnome. He was far too short, and he had magic; duh.
The gnome was just standing there waving his hands in the air as the elf released arrows and beat things with his bow, the string somehow removing itself mid-swing and reattaching itself like magic as the bow bent the other way around the head of a zombie. It was odd, but somewhat mesmerizing.
I stumbled for a moment before I remembered I was supposed to be leaving, catching myself with a newly created step below the one I had missed.
I heard a caw above me and laughed as I was finally flying with my feathered companion. He was flying just above me, drifting lazily from side to side between wing beats as if demonstrating his obvious prowess.
“Showoff!” I shouted, thoroughly enjoying the feeling of the wind flowing by.
“Caw!”
“Can’t you use words?” I shouted, while probing the Forum for his consciousness.
“Caw!” was the word that resounded through the forum a moment later.
I sighed internally, this moron just had to be, well, a moron. He really needed to work on that sense of humor.
“Mean.” He said, his voice echoing across the Forum, our own special communications space. I could pick out the sense that we could drop to a sub-level of the skill and have a more private conversation and did that, as I knew we still had one other person linked to us, and I had no idea if he could access this particular skill. He also looked really busy, almost frantic when I saw him in the Soul Vault earlier.
I found myself offering a prayer for his safety before I took another glance behind us. We had made some good distance; the mansion was beginning to become a blur behind us as we progressed down the river. The mass of ant-sized undead visible as a wave moving toward a central goal, all converging on the place where I knew my friend Master Doogan was.
As I was thinking about changing my plans and damning the consequences, the world was engulfed in light.