P-03. Trial By Magic, page 14
part #3 of PrimeVerse Series
I was already on my ass, so didn’t suffer too many ill effects from the attack, but the rest of my group was thrown violently off their feet. With everyone scattered and prone, the beast charged with a speed that was frightening considering its size. It was like a freight train and we were stuck on the tracks. Choo choo!
Kai was able to dodge, rolling across the dirt out of the way, leaving me as the target. Thanks, buddy.
The thing slammed his head, that was nearly as large as my entire body, directly into my entire body, which sent me flying all the way to the back of the room where I collided with the wall and slowly slid to the ground.
Ouch.
Besides making 40% of my health disappear in a single attack, the bear gave me two more injuries; a cracked rib and a fractured arm, reducing my dexterity by a huge amount.
“I’m okay!” I said, standing on shaky legs. “Just need a minute to get my bear-ings.”
Kai groaned.
“You’re unbearable, Hudson,” Madison said. I laughed out loud, doubled over from the jostling of my cracked rib, but it was worth it.
“I knew you were my huckle-bear-y.” I blew her a kiss.
“Can we please focus?” Kai asked, clearly unimpressed.
“I agree,” I agreed. “I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but our bear friend is still very much alive. At the bare minimum, we should kill it.”
The bear was still panting in place where it had hit me. The special attack must have taken a lot out of him. My pet came in and roared at it, the smaller thing looking like a baby arguing with a pro wrestler.
My pet attacked though, ripping furrows into the boss’s flesh. The boss was still catching its breath, and Kai took advantage of the situation and leapt onto its back.
Ryan had stood up and was firing arrows that left sparkles of electricity on the mega-bear’s fur. “Low on Mana!” he shouted.
Madison began casting a spell, while Kai crawled along the back of the creature who was starting to move again. He made it to the neck of the beast, and with a glowing fist, began pummeling it hard into the head of the bear, over and over, leaving trails of light after each strike.
I ran up and cast Poison on the bear, hoping it wouldn't resist the DoT. The boss chuffed and reached with its paws to get Kai, who leapt off, flipping in the air once before landing on his feet. Such a showoff.
My bear pet ran in and took a huge bite out of its overgrown cousin. The monster bear had had enough, and swiped at my summon, knocking it down and taking 30% of its health. My pet tried to get up, but the power of the giant bear kept it down and the enormous beast savaged it, biting a chunk of flesh out of its neck. Its health dropped to less than 20% and a bleed effect popped.
I backed off and started flinging Mana Arrows at it, one after another, each penetrating and doing some damage. My Mana was low, so I created a baculus and took a moment to breathe.
Kai did not let up the attacks, dancing around the bear and striking powerful blows at its legs. All too quickly Madison's spell wore off and it came after her. I guess mental spells pissed the thing off. She raised her shield in time to stop the blow, but the power behind was such that it pushed her all the way to her knees. She cried out and I ran to hit the bear, aiming for the thing’s head, hoping to distract it from attacking Madison.
The beast was relentless though, and Madison’s health was dropping faster than my opinion of Cora. “Get the thing off her!” I shouted. I didn’t know what else anyone could do but the sustained attacks from Ryan, Kai, my pet bear, and myself must have been enough to do the trick as it turned from her and stood on its hind legs again, performing the same trick as last time. It didn't grow any more this time, but it roared and repeated the same shockwave attack.
Kai and I timed jumps and made it out of the way of the shockwave, but Ryan was sent to the ground again while Madison only had a sliver of health left. I knew what was coming next and I spent the last of my Mana to DualCast Frost, creating an icy patch on the ground right in the path of its charge.
The bear lost control of itself and legs flailing in every direction, slammed full speed ahead, snout first into the wall of the cavern with a crunch like a snapping tree limb.
The bear was completely still, face smashed into the wall, but there was no victory notification, so we hadn’t beat it yet.
We renewed our attacks and stood at the ready, but before it could shake off the stun, the bear boss fell to the ground, dead.
Congratulations! You have defeated a hill bear patriarch!
You have gained 20 XP. You have gained a party bonus of 5 XP.
Chapter 18
“That could have gone better,” Kai said.
“But did you die?” I asked.
“We didn’t really know what to expect,” Madison said.
“You guys have some cool abilities,” Ryan said, “I really need to up my game!”
“You did fine,” Kai said. “You have a method of attack that keeps a constant stream of damage up.”
“Plus, that whole escape thing you did was pretty cool,” I said. “You made the bear forget you even existed.”
Ryan smiled and nodded. “Yeah, that's my ‘get out of jail free’ card called Vanish; it lets me get off an enemy’s hate list and I go invisible. It breaks as soon as I move, but it sure can be useful.”
“I could see many uses for it,” Kai said. “You could use it to pull, and if the pull went bad, vanish. Or if the pull went well, you could vanish to let Madison gather the aggro. Very useful.”
“I haven't really played with it other than using it to, you know, not die. Maybe in the next bear nest I can.”
“Nest?” I asked.
Madison laughed. “Loot it already!”
I looted the smaller hill bears first, getting more hides and crafting materials. When I looted the hill bear though, I hit the jackpot. In addition to some rare crafting materials, I found Bear Fur Boots, a Hill Bear Patriarch Core, and a Headband of Honey Detection.
“Two magic items!” I showed the boots and headband to everyone.
“Man, it's a shame we have to use these to create the enclave,” Madison said. “They’re some nice items.”
“We may be able to keep them, right?” Ryan said. “Maybe the blueprint won’t use them up?”
I laughed. “Yeah no, there seems to be a running theme of sacrifice in this game. I’m sure the blueprints will use them up.”
“What about your Hunch, Huddy, didn’t it say there was something in here?” Madison asked.
I snapped my fingers. “Yes! Hold on.” I closed my eyes and concentrated on the feeling my Hunch skill gave me. I felt pulled to where the boss had been when we first entered the room, a well-worn spot on the floor that must have been its preferred spot to sleep. I gave it an examination, using my Assessment skill. Before it ended my eyes focused on a place on the ground that was glowing; a small hole the size and shape of a core.
I hovered my hand over it and sighed heavily. “What did I just say about sacrifice?” I took out the bear patriarch core I had received and placed it into the divot. With a grinding noise like stone on stone, the ground depressed and with a loud clunk with each step, formed into a spiral staircase.
“This is just like what happened to me on the tutorial island.” I cast a light spell, attaching it to my chest, reminding me of Iron Man. “Shall we?”
“Will it be dangerous?” Madison asked.
“I’m not sure, but I don't think so. I think this is like a treasure room or something.” I started down the stairs, taking the steps slowly.
Sure enough, just like in the tutorial zone when I had sacrificed all my items, at the bottom of the stairs was a room maybe twenty feet in diameter. I moved off the stairs to make space for the rest of my party.
In the center of the room, filling up most of the area, was a large crystal shifting in color and texture. It appeared as an opaque white crystal at first then as we watched, one side of the crystal changed into something like granite that slowly took over the entire object, then the process started over again, this time into a pumice, then into pure dirt and so on, each new look some kind of earth or stone or metal.
“What the heck is that?” Ryan asked.
“I have no idea...” I said as I got closer to it.
“Should we... touch it?” Madison asked.
I checked Hunch to see that the familiar feeling had stopped. “Well, my hunch led me here, so my guess is that it’s safe.”
I reached out my hand and toward the weird crystal-rock thing. I stretched my palm out, keeping the smallest amount of space between it and what now looked like solid iron. “AAAAAHHHHHH!” I screamed before my hand had fully landed on it, causing Madison to scream out and Ryan to jump. Kai leapt into me, knocking me to the ground.
“Just kidding,” I winced as I stood up and dusted myself off.
“You ASS!” Madison shouted.
“Dude, not cool!” Ryan shouted.
Kai looked at me and smiled. “You got us, hah hah, that was funny.” He then grabbed my wrist and drug me to the crystal-rock hand first, I tried to pull away, but he was stronger and I couldn't stop him from placing my hand directly onto it.
Congratulations! You have found an elemental crystal of earth!
You have gained attunement to earth.
Congratulations! You have learned the skill Earth Manipulation.
Elemental Controls in PrimeVerse are different from skills. While skills may gain levels through use, Controls do not. Through the use of Elemental Controls, a user can manipulate the very elements around them to great effect. They can shape or summon the element they are attuned to. Elemental Controls are not leveled the same way as skills, they can only advance in level by touching more elemental crystals.
Audeo – Earth Control has been increased to level 10
Congratulations! You have achieved a milestone ability in Earth Control – Summon Earth: You may summon 1 sq ft of compacted dirt or sand.
Congratulations! You have increased your Audeo skill!
“Sweet,” I said, “I got a skill!”
“You did?” Madison asked. “What’d you get? Wait, never mind.” She moved forward and placed her hand on the crystal, followed by Ryan and Kai.
“This is weird,” Ryan said. “I thought I already had attunement to earth, but I didn’t have this manipulation skill...” his eyes went vacant as he read something I couldn’t see.
I opened my character sheet and saw that there was a new tab called Manipulations. Selecting it opened a window titled Earth Manipulation. Hovering over that brought up a tooltip.
Earth Manipulation -- Allows the user to manipulate the element of earth. Grants 1% per level of attunement to effectiveness of all skills or abilities that use the element of earth, including resistance. The owner of Earth Manipulation has -1% per level of attunement to effectiveness of all skills or abilities that use the element of water, including resistance.
“This is awesome!” Ryan said, “and your Audeo thing is super helpful if we can only increase this ability by finding more of these crystals, that's a nice little shortcut.”
Kai held up his hand and concentrated. A swirl of dust formed into a block of dirt in his hand, then quickly fell apart to fall to the ground. “Hmph, it is an interesting ability, although I can see limited use for it in a combat situation.”
“Dude! It’s like never-ending pocket sand!”
He looked at me like I had suddenly grown a horn out of my head. “I do not know what that means. I can imagine good potential uses for it as the skill gets better, although it uses Stamina, which competes with martial arts and physical combat.”
“And basic things like running,” Madison said. “I see what you mean, it would have to get a lot better to be used in combat, but maybe there are other ways to use it?” She reached a hand out above the ground and concentrated, causing a furrow to form in the compacted dirt. “I could see this being helpful for farming, at the very least.”
“I’m sure there are plenty of uses for it,” I said, “but the really interesting thing is that if this exists, then that means there must be control skills for the other elements too: fire, water, air... even light and darkness. More stuff to discover, and my Hunch can lead us to them!” They seemed unimpressed, but I was excited by this discovery.
Ryan seemed happy, too, as he summoned piles of sand, letting them fall through his hand to the ground. “I could see lots of uses in the village for this. Think you'll make the trip back and forth to get everyone to level 10 in this?” he asked me.
I frowned. I guess I had forgotten that little aspect of having Audeo. “Ah, yeah. I guess I could.” At least it would give the adjudicator lots of new class options to unlock for reincarnating viators. “But not now. Now, we continue our hunt!” I walked up the stairs and made my way out of the small cave.
Standing on the hill, I focused on my Hunch again but got nothing. “I’m not sensing anything nearby, should we keep going up?” I pointed up the hill we had been climbing, which was turning into more than a hill.
“I could scout around again, see if I can find anything,” Ryan said.
“I’m up for a little exploring,” Madison said, “let's keep going up!”
Ryan shrugged and with no further suggestions we continued climbing. There was something nice about exploring. No pressing enemy on our heels, just the ability to see what was out there. We continued this way for the rest of the day, occasionally running into another hill bear or some smaller animals, but no more nests and nothing popping on my Hunch.
As the day turned into night, we got a fire going and cooked some meat we had looted. Madison was experimenting with the Earth Control ability and was gouging out chunks of the ground. We watched as she molded one of the small chunks to form a compacted dirt cube. With some coaxing, we all did the same.
I pushed my Earth Control ability into the ground and felt the small area I could manipulate, I pulled it up, a neat square lifting out of the ground. I could sense the dirt had some small rocks in it and a lot of air. Concentrating, I squeezed the dirt together, pushing the air out and forcing it to compact. I was left with a square of compressed dirt, almost as hard as a rock, if a little crumbly.
“I wonder if we could use this somehow to help with defenses at the village,” I said. “Can you guys help me and make a few more? I want to test how strong they are.”
They looked at each other and with a few shrugs began using our new ability alongside me. We worked together and eventually came up with twenty bricks of varying toughness and crumbliness. I put them together in a vague brick wall-like pattern and stood back to look at it.
“This looks kinda tough. Kai, do you think you could break these?”
Before the last word had even left my mouth, he slammed his forearm into the top-most brick. His arm crushed right through the first brick, shattering it in a spray of dirt, but stopped at the second, eating his momentum. Kai grunted then, making a blade out of his hand and channeled Mana into it. His hand lit up blue, and with another sweeping attack, he plunged his hand into the bricks, this time going through fully half of them before stopping.
“They are strong,” Kai said, “although I probably could have gone through all of them if I had given it my full strength.”
“That wasn’t your full strength?” Ryan asked the question I was thinking as well.
Kai smirked in response.
We experimented more that night. I found that I couldn’t make things much bigger than I had before, but through concentration, could make lots of different shapes out of the compacted earth. We even discovered that we could take hard stone and mold it like clay or soften it almost to mud, turning it into gravel when the power was released.
We had all burned through our Stamina bars and took it as a sign that it was time to rest up. We sat around the fire Ryan had made, enjoying our surroundings. PrimeVerse was nothing if not beautiful. The towering trees above us glowed orange as the remaining sunlight fell over them.
It had been an interesting day, fighting all kinds of beasts, gaining new abilities, exploring deep into the hills. I was excited to see what the next day would bring.
Lucky me didn’t even have to wait that long.
Chapter 19
We must have climbed high enough in the hills for the zone level to go up, because the thing that came out of the night was not something any newbie should have to deal with.
We were lounging around the fire, minding our own business and watching it like primitive man before the advent of other light-emitting things that would capture your attention. Madison and I were next to each other on a faux couch we had made from dirt blocks, with Ryan on the other side of the fire on a seat he had made and Kai between us.
Ryan had been playing with the fire like a kid on a camping trip. Getting various long sticks to poke at it and spread it, pulling out the stick to wave around the embers and make glowing light trails, just having fun with it. He had the stick in the air, a large flame atop it, when a flying creature the size of his face, landed on his face, wrapping large cloth-like wings around his head and slammed a stinger-like protuberance into his chest.
He screamed, I screamed, Madison screamed, and Kai leapt into action. He jumped across the fire, grabbed the stinger thing and ripped it out of Ryan’s chest, which sprayed a gooey fluid out like a loose hose.
Ryan was slamming his fists into the thing, but his hands of fury were met with a chitinous fuzzy shell that had no issue taking the beating.
I cast Light above the kerfuffle, my floating orb giving off enough light for us to see what was attacking. I almost regretted my choice; I’d much rather keep that thing in the dark. I shuddered.
Completely enveloping Ryan’s head, was what must have been the most unholy amalgamation of a mosquito and a moth. Giant, dusty wings with swirly patterns, an oversized fern-like antenna, and six long legs ending in something sharp enough that they were all solidly anchored into Ryan’s sides. The body of the thing was long and skinny like a mosquito but furry like a moth and ended in a long, prehensile stinger-like appendage with a needle-sharp end.
