Forge of Eternity: Alpha Testing, page 18
“I wouldn’t have thought of that,” Uri shuddered.
“We should move it anyway after the tunnel is done,” Deacon said looking at the equipment suspiciously. “I’m not going to test it, but I have a feeling that would probably be harmful to me.”
“You learning anything?” I asked, walking closer and leaning over Gavin’s shoulder.
“Actually, I was awarded the Arcana skill which represents my knowledge of magical theory. The description said knowing the theory behind how spells operate will eventually grant me flexibility to alter them. The skill’s direct application is rather vague. Sounds helpful nonetheless.”
“Well, you convinced me then,” I reached my right hand between the tunneling device and the wall. It felt like putting my hand into a slowly flowing river of sand. Closing my eyes, I concentrated on the sensation and tried to feel for the mana like I was casting a spell. Something seemed to connect with my efforts, and I felt a deep shock in my hand. The sensation was not unpleasant, it just left my hand numb and heavy. I resisted the urge to pull away. Instead, I tried to regain feeling in it by force of will, channeling more mana into the area. More of my arm started to get numb and I squeezed my eyes tighter in concentration.
“Lady Amalie,” Gavin started tentatively, “I believe you may want to stop before you do yourself more harm. Your hand appears to be turning to stone.”
I immediately opened my eyes and tried, unsuccessfully, to stop channeling. I pulled my arm away from the beam to break my connection with its mana, successfully cutting off the mana flow. My right hand had a dusty texture, clearly visible in the glow dust. I cradled it in my other hand, feeling cold stone against my undamaged palm and absolutely no sensation in my right hand. I took deep breaths to stay calm. Checking my HUD and notifications did not improve the situation.
Earth-Tainted Mana (Debuff) - Foreign mana in your body is slowly turning your flesh to stone. Effects will worsen until foreign mana is removed.
You have unlocked the Arcana skill.
Arcana is a reflection of your practical knowledge of magical theory. Advancement in this skill introduces greater degrees of flexibility in spellcasting, allowing you to alter spells on a fundamental level.
Your Arcana skill has increased to level 1!
“Uh, Gavin, can you remove debuffs?” I asked, watching the stone texture slowly crawl up my forearm.
“I can certainly try,” Gavin said, extending his hand.
Gavin Outbuffs heals you for 0 (15 overheal)
Looks like I’m at full health, so that’s good at least. I checked my stats and noticed my mana was sitting at 280 out of 252. That was 28 points over my maximum mana. What I was feeling in the beam was clearly Earth mana, and when I attempted to move my mana around I must have given it a path to flow into me. Fascinating in a way, but more frightening at the moment. There were five unallocated stat points from my leveling and I dumped three into Intelligence, raising the state from 21 to 22. My maximum mana increased to 264, but now my total mana showed 292. That was not as helpful as I’d hoped.
“Okay, it’s not a damaging debuff, but it’s slowly petrifying my arm. Looks like I absorbed mana above my maximum threshold and this is the result,” I said, talking myself through it and providing detail to the concerned-looking party members. “I think if I just burn off this excess mana I should be okay.”
“Don’t knock any support beams down, but you could just throw fire down the tunnel a bit, right?” Deacon suggested, his voice surprisingly calm.
“That isn’t the worst plan,” I said, moving awkwardly up the tunnel. “So long as I don’t set anything on fire it shouldn’t chew up any oxygen. Magical fire includes its own oxygen. It’s gonna get hot though.”
I fished my wand out of the robe, having more than a little trouble with the task using my left hand, and aimed the wand at a smooth section of wall. Firebolt cost 15 mana, so I’d only have to cast it twice to get back under my maximum mana level. Even though holding the wand with my left hand was strange I managed to stay on-target and away from any structural supports. The two-second cooldown ended and I fired again, getting back in the safe zone.
The debuff remained.
Well shit, I said, raising my hands to my face in frustration. Thankfully the impact of my petrified hand didn’t do any damage, this was embarrassing enough without braining myself accidentally. Seems like the taint wasn’t just in the overcharged mana. If it spread elsewhere did that mean I was supposed to drain all my mana? Or just enough that my remaining mana diluted the taint? Getting down to zero with Minor Firebolt wasn’t going to happen fast enough. At 15 mana per cast, with a mana regen of about 5 per second, I couldn’t do math fast enough in my head but it didn’t feel like I was going to drain my mana before I became a statue. Fire Blast could drain my mana in about 6 casts but I didn’t think the tunnel walls could sustain that much force.
I cast the Firebolt again, this time I attempted to feed more mana into it than the spell needed. There was no effect from the effort. I tried again. Each time I cast the spell I tried to feed a little more mana into it, failing to see results. I was going to be at this for a while, and I could feel the stiffening of my right elbow as the stone claimed more of my arm. I fired off the spell again and just as the effect began to fade I force more mana into it in frustration. Apparently, that was the key.
The spell began as it usually did, except the mana draw redoubled at the end. The spell persisted for another second and the Firebolt changed in intensity where it struck the wall. There was a notable feeling of physical and mental exertion I’d only felt to a lesser degree when casting a Fire Blast. Now that was interesting. I checked the logs to confirm what I was seeing.
You have gained a new Ability: Focused Channeling!
Forced Channeling - Not all spells are meant for continuous use, but that isn’t going to stop you. At the cost of mana efficiency, you can emulate channeling for many spells.
You have increased your Arcana skill to level 2!
The inefficiency was exactly what I needed. I repeated the process with no break between repeated spells. I lost track of how many times I re-cast the spell, clenching my teeth in concentration. My head was pounding and I could hear each heartbeat as a deafening swishing sound in my ears. When I hit zero mana I unclenched my jaw, staring numbly at a deep fist-sized hole in the wall with glowing edges. I was dripping sweat from proximity to the heat and the effort of maintaining the spell.
You have gained an Achievement: Traumatic Education!
Traumatic Education - Learn a new Ability through misadventure, pain, or great personal risk and survive.
Out Of Mana (Debuff) - You overtaxed your mana pool. You cannot cast spells again until your mana has fully recovered.
Neat, I’ll check that out later though. I wiped my forehead absently, happy to see my hand was back to normal. I then backed against an unaffected section of the tunnel wall, laughing as I closed my eyes to recover.
“Amalie, kinda need you over here,” Deacon yelled, heading in my direction. “We’ve got incoming!”
Deacon - Swarm
I tracked Amalie as she hurried up the tunnel, following the impact of her footsteps on the stone floor while I kept my eyes on the boring device. Randomly shoving your hand into unknown magical effects is a categorically bad idea, no matter how you look at it. Not that I could judge her on that, considering my own track record of questionable choices. This was not an opportune time for bad decisions though.
If she turns into a statue, this next fight is going to be rough. As our only ranged offense, her role was vital to keep the enemy from whittling us down at a distance. Hopefully, this wouldn’t be an issue, the locusts we encountered wouldn’t be terribly threatening to a full party and we did manage to survive with just the two of us. On the other hand, the bugs had a day to replenish their losses and I was soaked in some sort of locust bait.
I felt out into the wall where the machine was boring its tunnel, trying to gauge how quickly it was working. Every pass chewed about ten feet deep into the stone, already nearing the edge of my standard tremorsense range. At this pace, we’d be reaching the cavern in a matter of minutes. It would probably be best to stop the machine, check on Amalie and start it back up when we’re certain she’s able to fight.
“Gavin, turn it off,” I pointed at the valve he’d used to start the beam. He nodded and spun the valve counter-clockwise. The metal handwheel wobbled, then clattered to the floor. The machine continued chewing away at the wall.
“Seriously, Gavin? How?”
“One moment, allow me,” he said, retrieving the wheel and fitting it back on the valve stem. He attempted to turn it again, slowly and deliberately, but the ring kept slipping off the post. “I believe we have a problem.”
“No shit? Let me take a look,” I leaned over from the opposite side of the device and held my hand out for the wheel. There was a small protrusion of jagged metal in the center where it should have connected to the stem. The valve stem was broken as well, the rounded top refusing to interlock with the rough edges of the handwheel. I tried turning the stem with my fingers, but there wasn’t quite enough material to get purchase.
“Gavin, can we remove the battery?”
“We could, but I can’t guarantee it’ll turn on again.”
“Why not?”
“I felt an ignition spark of sorts when first turning the wheel that did not continue after the initial quarter turn. If we remove the battery I doubt we will be able to reignite it without that wheel attached. We may be having a spot of bad luck here.”
“Well shit,” I sighed, looking over my shoulder to see a piercing line of fire further up the tunnel. Checking my party icons showed that Amalie was at full health still, so that was a plus.
“Alright everyone,” I looked around to ensure I had the party’s attention. “We’re probably going to be breaking through to the cavern shortly. We’ll leave the tunneling machine until Amalie comes back. If she turns to stone we’ll just leave it running until we figure out what to do with her. Hopefully, that’ll keep the bugs away.”
“We aren’t going to tunnel too far or anything just leaving it on?” Uri asked.
“There’s no way it has infinite range, I doubt that’ll be an issue. I’m going to stand near the hole and keep a lookout for bugs, be ready.”
I walked over and placed my hand on the wall, feeling for the furthest edge of the tunnel my senses could reach. Closing my eyes helped get a little clarity, I could feel the hum of the beam running through the rough channel in the rock.
“Shouldn’t you have your eyes open if you’re keeping a lookout?” Goodwin asked, shifting from foot to foot behind me.
“Not here,” I shook my head, losing some of my focus during the conversation. “I can see further through the rock. Now quiet and let me concentrate.”
“In the interest of staying on your good side, I’ll assume that makes sense,” he said, drawing the words out with suspicion. “I’m going to keep my eyes on the tunnel just in case. Can’t hurt right?”
I grunted in agreement and tuned him out. The gentle hum of the tunneling beam was soothing through my tremorsense, and if I was going to be keeping lookout anyway I decided to let it take all of my attention. I was never one for meditation or other traditional passive relaxation, but this was nice.
“Oh what hell man, I thought you were going to warn us,” Goodwin yelled, his pitch an octave higher than normal.
I took a step back and opened my eyes in time to see a blast of fire from one of the locusts impact the tunneling machine, blinding me with a white flash as it detonated. Fighting in dark conditions with creatures that spit fire was getting annoying. The sudden absence of a hum in the newly bored tunnel allowed me to sense the movement of the locusts for the first time through the earth. Dozens of locusts marched steadily through the tunnel, the sound of chittering now audible.
“Keep me between you and the tunnel,” I yelled, drawing my sword and slashing down where I could feel the closest bug land.
You attack a Mountain Locust Drone for 10 points of damage.
“If anyone has an area of effect ability, now would be the time to use it,” I said, looking around and blinking rapidly to try to remove the afterimages of the initial explosion. “Kill anything that makes it past me.”
Gavin picked himself up off the tunnel floor and start running my way, staff in hand. Two more balls of fire flew from deeper within the tunnel, striking against the wall behind Gavin and smoldering where they connected. Pulling the remains of my shield onto my arm, I bashed the wounded locust aside and stepped closer to the newly created tunnel. I felt Goodwin shift in position and attack the damaged enemy before edging closer to the wall on my left. Phelyya and Uri were close behind, falling into position. Two more locusts emerged, skittering up the tunnel ceiling toward us, their metallic chitin reflecting our glowing forms. I could feel another dozen or so at various points along the tunnel, but it was hard to estimate accurately with other things going on.
Fighting them at the tunnel entrance would offer us a good opportunity to keep them bottled up. If we could keep them in place, Amalie could do that fire explosion thing again. It might cause another cave-in, but it would definitely be enough to complete the quest. And it could buy us some time to keep Ferventus from poking around deeper in the mine. I took a deep breath and charged, swinging high above me for the glowing maw of the closest locust. It jumped directly at my face, wings buzzing as it dodged the strike. At the last second, I got my shield in the way and the creature latched on immediately.
I spun to bring my shield arm in line with the party and extended it, presenting the locust. Someone made a perfect attack on the creature, dislodging it from my shield so I could bring it up to repeat the motion if needed. The other locust did not engage as expected, spitting a glob of fire down on top of me instead of jumping like the first one. The burning, napalm-like flaming spit stuck to my shield, instantly catching it ablaze on my arm and dealing a negligible amount of damage. Well, the shield was on its last legs anyway.
“Slow,” Uri said, letting me know he cast the debuff on the creature. I nodded, stabbing it in the glowing maw and following up with a shield bash from my blazing wicker shield.
You critically attack a Mountain Locust Drone for 15 points of damage.
You attack a Mountain Locust Drone for 9 (5 Fire, 4 Physical) points of damage.
You have defeated a Mountain Locust Drone (level 2) experience withheld during combat.
Oh, that spell is perfect for lining up shots on faster enemies, I wonder how many times he can use it in a row. A forceful skittering sound echoed from the smaller tunnel, accompanied by loud scraping. I stepped forward, closer to the new tunnel’s entrance, to get a better view of the inbound swarm. All the smaller locust drones had significantly increased their speed, making me glad Uri hadn’t tried to slow any of them yet. As I watched, eight more of the mountain locust drones flew past me into the room at full speed, landing on the wall and orienting themselves in a panic. The impacts following them were heavy and forceful, similar to how the bear’s charge felt in the forest, and there was a burning white light approaching.
“Okay, new plan, things are going to get hot at this tunnel entrance and we need range, fall back to Amalie’s position and hope she’s alive,” I said, throwing my flaming shield at a locust and turning to run. When Amalie was in sight, clearly still alive, I yelled, “Amalie, kinda need you over here! We’ve got incoming!”
She didn’t make any effort to sit up from where she leaned against the wall on the floor. That was not a good sign. I could feel the party keeping pace with me, and as soon as we hit Amalie’s position I activated the Instant Earthworks to provide temporary cover.
You activate Instant Earthwork, time remaining 29 sec.
Would you like these defenses to dissipate violently or safely?
“Everybody below the wall,” I said, selecting the option for violent dissipation. I checked Amalie’s icons in my HUD, found that her health was fine, but her mana was essentially empty. Well, glad I gave up the advantage of the tunnel mouth for the possibility of magical artillery.
“We have less than 30 seconds of cover, less since the locusts can just climb over it when they reach us,” I said, pulling her up to a crouching position. “How long before you can do one of those giant explosions?”
“I’ll have enough mana in about 10 seconds, but I have a debuff that prevents me from casting anything until I’m back at full.”
I groaned and tapped my fingers against the flat of my sword, taking a couple of precious seconds to think. “How long until you’re back at full?”
“About a minute,” Amalie said, steadying herself without help.
“Goodwin, protect Amalie and keep her alive,” I said, pointing at her as I approached the edge of the earthworks. “Phelyya, Gavin, kill the smaller bugs and keep them off me. Uri, we’re going to go dance with the big one. We have to keep her busy for 30 seconds, then get distance.”
“The big one?” he asked, right as a bowling-ball-sized glob of white-hot locust spit sizzled against the outer edge of the barrier, baking the clay into a hardened chunk.
“Uh-huh, the one that can do that, apparently,” I said, pointing at the hardening chunk of wall. “The walls are going to come down in about fifteen seconds, it’ll knock back anything on the ground around us. Do you have enough mana for one slow and two hastes?”
“Yeah, need that now?”
“No, when I call for retreat haste us and slow the locust. Keep at least that much mana in reserve.”
Uri’s lips pressed together in a thin line but he nodded. I could feel some of the locusts closing in on the edge of the barrier as the sound of insectile communication and buzzing wings reverberated louder in the tunnel. The countdown showed seven seconds left as the first of them landed in the center of the ring. Everyone took a hit at it, save Amalie, and it died before the countdown hit zero. The earthworks shattered out in all directions, a faint sound of broken pottery issuing from the burned side. I could feel the locusts as they were carried along in the wave of dirt and stone, several impacting the walls. A handful were still closing in, flying just above the height of the blast, putting more distance between themselves and the queen.
