I beg the Sovereign to refuse this plea for sanctuary. No matter how useful this species may be for cultivating the land, the juice is not worth the squeeze. Do not invite this infestation upon us. No matter your decision, know that it is my now and lasting stance that I will not give them even one acre of land on which to settle. I know that you will see sense.
-An excerpt from correspondence to Emperor Corilaise II, penned by Drais, King of Gale
High on the eastern slope of the mountain preserve Kor’Liana, there lay a forest climbing up to a bare and bald peak. Well, most of a forest anyway. Looking at it now, black patches spotting the green slope, I imagine that a good bit of it would not count so much anymore. The trees here on the slopes of the mountains were far smaller than out in the great forest that rises to meet the rock, still grand and splendorous, roots as big around as my thigh and leaves all shades of green, yellow, and the occasional red, but their trunks did not climb hundreds of feet into the air, and I cannot walk across their branches like they were a bridge. Most of all, they seem to catch fire far easier than the ones down on the flatland.
Smoke still rises from one patch recently burned, no more than twenty acres. It isn’t even my fault really that the fire started over there. I hope all the animals got out alright.
Outside of the swaths of green only slightly marred black was the peak of the mountain where the really dangerous monsters laid their claim. Where they had. I kick a pebble off the boulder I sit upon, chewing on some grilled meat, regretting not packing more spices for the trip. The pebble skips, spinning over longways and bouncing among the rocks down the side of the slope, leaving a little, smokey landslide in its wake before disappearing into the trees.
Holding the bit of meat in my mouth, it comes from some animal called a camel and I don’t know the name for that kind of meat, I inspect the straps holding my steel gloves on, looking each finger over for weathering. There certainly is some, but not so much that they won’t hold up another day.
“This is where I begin the conversation with you again,” Jess says, coming out of the ship parked on a flat bit of the mountain just a dozen strides away.
“Why bother?” I ask around the meal between my teeth.
“That’s what I keep asking myself,” she says, plopping down on the boulder like it was a cushion. I have no idea how she does that; it makes my spine hurt every time I see it–probably the reason she keeps doing it. “Then I remember that I can’t fly this ship, and that if you die doing something reckless, I will have to walk all the way back to Grim.”
“I’m not going to die,” I say. Deciding to just go ahead and spit the bit of camel back into the paper that the butcher had sold it to me in. “I can’t.”
Her scaly lips turn down into a frown, and I take a bit of satisfaction in the dig. I begin to look over my other gauntlet, far less worn and flame-kissed, but no one would mistake it for new.
“You aren’t immortal,” she says. “You don’t have that yet.”
“I don’t know. Considering what I have survived, I am secretly immortal or one of the gods has a soft spot for me. Which one do you think, Gavvis? I heard he has a soft spot for red heads.”
“Well perhaps you can spend some time with him before he ushers your soul on past the veil when you get your head staved in.”
I find myself squinting at that, considering. I’ve survived being stabbed, impaled, thrown off at least two cliffs, cut up, slapped into a stone wall, strangled, and on one occasion almost having my back broken over a golden railing, but nothing had tried staving my head in yet. “Then, I just won’t let it.”
Jess pulls on my shoulder, forcing me to look at her. Her cheeks puff up with breath, and her eyes search my face, but then she merely sighs and shakes her head. “I’ll give you an hour,” she says.
“What!” I turn to fully face her. “We said that we would wait until nighttime. There’s going to be a full moon out tonight and everything. This is supposed to be special; we only get to do it once.”
She shrugs. “You are already making me wait so you can go do this, so you can pretend that you are the big queen of the mountain.”
“Won’t be pretending,” I say.
“So, you can pretend,” she repeats. “Makes me want to just go ahead and do it on my own.”
“I can’t believe this.” I jump down from the rock, angrier than I expected I might be. “You’ve waited two weeks for me to be ready, and now you are just going to be selfish like that.”
Jess snorts, folding her arms across her chest. “I’m the one being selfish here, is it? You have nothing to gain, but you want to put your life on the line anyway and inconvenience me in the process.”
“What did I say when we first saw this mountain?” I ask.
Her eye twitches. “Something I thought was a joke at the time.”
“I said that I was going to kill every monster on this mountain. You even told me to do it, said that I should.”
“Like I said, I thought you were joking.”
“Well, how many are left?” I throw my arms wide, motioning to the silent rock and the partially burned forest.
She just stares back at me, arms crossed, thoroughly unimpressed. I don’t know how she manages to not be impressed; I impressed myself a whole lot with all the slaughter of the vile and evil.
“Less time left now,” she says. “What’s it been…two minutes?”
I swallow the urge to growl at her. She was going to ruin my perfect day, if she had her way. Nothing for it but to be quick about it. “I’ll see you in a few,” I say, plastering on a smile.
“I’ll be waiting,” she says back in a high-singsong tone. “But I won’t wait too long.”
“You won’t need to,” I say, turning and taking a moment to find the path up the side of the mountain, starting my hike up to the cave near the summit.
“Good, because I won’t be,” she calls after me.
“I’m glad, see you in a few,” I call back down, tramping up the incline.
“Might be a new woman by the time you get back!” she calls up, having to raise her voice to be heard. “You might not even recognize me!”
“Won’t be that long!” I shout back. “You’ll probably not even have moved!”
“Oh, I’ll move alright! Move damned fine if I want to!”
I don’t even know what she could possibly mean by that, and as I find a level bit of path and pick up the pace, it seems a bit silly to keep shouting back to her now that she’s out of sight. The path was a surprise to find a week and a half back when we decided to go ahead and try the peak of the mountain. It’s an actual worn and seemingly well-trodden path that cuts through the high rocks sticking up out of the earth. Different branches snake off it like a river, each leading out to a different cave bored into rock. I catch sight of one as I walk by, the torched rock around the entrance sparking memory for a moment. That had been dangerous.
Well, they all had, I suppose. Killing monsters was dangerous after all, most of the time. First thing I did when we arrived was start blowing them apart from inside the ship, well out of reach of most of them. They got wise to that pretty quick, something I didn’t know monsters could do, get wise. In the last few weeks, I have probably shed more blood on this mountain than there is in three of me put together. Sometimes I wonder why I even wear the armor, but then the chest piece saved me from some nasty kind of spit that ate into even the stone, and I remember. Jess has done her best to keep it fixed, bringing her really had been an inspired idea, but there is only so much one woman without any supplies can do. We need to leave soon, just having a normal bath and meal would be a thing to soothe my soul, and we will leave soon, but I have one more thing that needs to be taken care of first.
Then I arrive. The sloping grain of the path up the mountain starts to level off once more, switching between huge boulders sat pointing at the sky for centuries. My staff falls into my hand, and it still requires a good deal of my concentration to activate the correct enchantment cleverly hidden in the length of its silver shaft. A network of intersecting channels, crisscrossing lines of infused mana interplaying with one another, active all along the shaft, and at the head forms a momentary circle of runes flickering a dull blue. The spellform exists for a mere instant before churning away like smoke, becoming ethereal and nothing before it even drifts a foot from the head of the staff. Now stands a blue point from the head of the staff like a spear, and only I can see it.
“First try.” I smirk at the staff, enjoying the light.
“Excellently done,” Galea praises beside me. I think she might even mean it this time.
My free hand turns over, a pebble falling out of my inventory next to me and plinking off the dirt. It would appear just a simple lump of black stone to most other eyes, but mine see it for what it is. A whisp of power rises off of it, so subtle that I never would have noticed it in the first place had Galea not pointed it out on the path a few days ago. The instant that the blue shaft of light peeling off my staff touches the stone a path coils up out of the dirt. It snakes through the boulders ahead of me, somehow finding the road of least resistance, heading toward and disappearing into the cave at the end of the road.
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“Looks like he’s home,” I say.
A tingling heat traces down through my arms, soaking into my fingers like a buzz, the anticipation of a fight. I become a grinning fool, stalking forward, magic flowing through my veins, making the thaumic leap between my palm and the metal of my staff, collecting in the reservoir chamber molded into the crown of the weapon, amplified just the barest amount as it resounds inside. I swipe my hand to the side, pulling free my second staff made of corded wood, the flicking flame in its head burning dull emerald, growing brighter as power thrums inside it as well. I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.
Charlene Devardem
Human(Level 50)
Emperor Conflux
Attributes
Vitality: 65(77)
Strength: 54(66)
Magic: 498(715)
Defense: 65(75)
Magic Defense: 58
Speed: 305(365)
Recovery: 485(628)
Perception: 55
Healing Points: 770
Mana: 7150
Stamina: 2769
Presence: N/A
The hazy line of blue crawling into the hollow of the cave before me shimmers. I still have not mastered holding the spell and wielding my essentia powers in concert yet, the strain is too much for my focus. Lamplighter’s Charge begins to buzz in my hand, and my smile only grows the wider; a lucky charge of dragonfire burns bright, carrying over twice the mana I can consistently pour into the ability. It is my staff of moonsilver I level at the darkness of the cave however, long ready to begin.
A ball of ghostly blue fire sails out of the end of my staff, its luminance so diminished that it hardly illuminates the cave as it disappears into the dark. Two seconds pass before a detonation resounds from the black, a quake passing through the earth beneath my metal-clad feet, followed quickly behind by a roaring cry that cannot have come from a throat made of flesh. I feel it first as tap up my leg, its origins deep in the stone; then another tap, harder, following close behind. The taps become a slow beat, picking up pace, growing stronger with each repetition. Something in the dark bellows once more.
Another, smaller ball of blue dragonfire peels away from the head of my staff, pulsing out and vanishing into the dark. I continue to fire blindly, listening for another bellow as the pounding of some great unseen feet picks up in rhythm. The detonations of the bolts in the darkness become chaos, some sailing all the way to the end of the cave, some detonating on unseen obstacles inside, and a rare few slapping in the approaching monster. The pebbles littering the clear space in front of the cave entrance begin to dance to the music of the footfalls, loose gravel sliding down from the slope further up, dust falling from the cave entrance where the light can reach. Another roar cracks out of the cave, the sound so loud that it almost forces my eyes closed in a flinch.
A bulky hand of stone is the first thing to come lunging into the speckled light of the cavemouth, a three-fingered mass large enough around to crush a bull’s head between its fingers, leading up to an arm still appearing from the dark. The rest of it is kept in shadow, a windowed square of black with blue text written upon it appearing in the air, distracting. I flick Lamplighter’s Charge up just the barest amount, a mass of green fire sailing forth so hard that I stumble back a step despite the set of my feet.
The green flame carrying a corrosive payload detonates against the center of the emerging mass of monstrosity, the flash of light from the detonation too much for me to look at. The monster does not roar out its pain, not that I could have heard it over the deafening crash, and it feels as if the entire mountain shakes in that instant of green light. Hardly any time passes at all before the round mouth of the cave collapses in a heap of dust and rubble, chalky smoke launching forward and rushing over me in a wave that leaves me sputtering and my mouth dry.
I wave Lamplighter’s Charge, the green fire on the staff scraping away the dust, and stare forward through the haze toward the entrance of the cave. It has become a mound of tan stone, stacked so haphazardly you might imagine that a fifteen-year-old boy had been set to the task. One precarious stone gives way, bouncing down the pile, hopping this way and that, before clattering still at the bottom. Everything was still for a moment, everything but me.
With a momentary channeling in the head of both my staves, I rush toward the pile. As I come within ten strides, it explodes outwards in a spray of rocky shrapnel. One large piece bounces off my temple, making me stumble and whirl as I am forced to a standstill or lose my feet. One great arm made of stone sticks up from the pile of rocks. Another explosion of pebbles sprays the air to my right, a cone of deadly debris, among them pebbles of onyx bleeding red power in their wake. With a final flying of stones, the monster pulls itself free of the rubble and stands just outside the cave.
Its shape is the most vague thing, like some child scribbled their amorphous imagining of what a monster made of stone might look like. Its body is one huge piece of tan rock, heavily weighted in its bulk to the right side, lacking a neck or head. Two arms emerge from the central boulder on both its craggy sides, each ending in a huge three fingered hand. Its legs look more like petrified tree trunks than anything that should allow it mobility, the left far more gnarled and skinnier than the right. Right in the middle of the boulder that is its body, a huge hole as long across as my leg reveals the dusty cavemouth behind it, and floating in the center of that hole is a ball of stone, perfectly spherical, made of smooth and shiny onyx.
Stone Elemental(Level 76)
The elemental pulls itself from the rubble, rocks scattering away from it like dandelion seeds. Patches across its boulder-like body are a different coloration, spots of dull gray clinging to it, a thin layer of ice forming in the discoloration. My silver staff fires again and again, hurling blue balls of cold flame into its front. There is no home for the fire on the stone, all dragonfire is at its core fire no matter how aspected–go figure–but more spots of freezing gray start to polka dot its body.
It swings an arm in my direction as I add balls of green fire to the blue, trying to bring it down with a mixture of corrosion and cold. The swing is as inevitable as death, but it is slow. I move aside, dancing away, my mana burning down as my assault continues. Ice clings to it and pocking holes start to mar its tan exterior, but the damage is superficial. The elemental stumbles forward from the stones, each step more ponderous than the last as the cold seeps further and further into it. Two of its great arms spin forward, trying to snatch me up, but again I dance aside.
I fail to notice its other arms until it is nearly too late. There is a glow from its lower sets of arms, hard stone fingers flashing a muddy red as they clench tight around fistfuls of stone. Its lower arms snap forward, flinging the stones at me in a spray of shrapnel infused with its magic. A hail of jagged shards ping into my breastplate, cutting into the gaps of my armor at the elbow and waist, the mass of the stones knocking me from my feet. One stone snaps into my cheekbone, knocking my head to the side, almost ruining my balance as I roll back up to my feet. Lamplighter’s Charge is away in the dirt, the head of green flame slowly dying. The shadow that falls over me is the only warning I get to spin out of the way.
Forgoing my peppering assault of chilling dragonfire, I roll away, spin to avoid a wide swipe, tumble away to make distance. Damn, this thing is just too resistant to fire.
Charge begins to build in my moonsilver staff, the head almost seeming to glow orange and white as I pour as much power into it as quickly as I can manage. The elemental comes on, chasing me across the dirt before the cave. Its feet seem almost to flow through the gravel like it is wading through shallow water while each step grows more and more precarious for me. I nearly slip on a loose patch of earth, my eye busy looking through my inventory window. The distraction nearly costs me my life, an animated hand of stone smashing into the earth just in front of me.
“It’s worth it,” I reassure myself. Ripping a package of yellow gizzards out of my inventory, all bound in a steel net I had Jess make for me a few days ago.
An elemental’s greatest strength is its amorphous nature. Its lack of supporting physiology requires magic to intercede in order to maintain the superstructure of the animation. As such, they typically enjoy astounding defenses and magic defenses, especially against magical attacks that have poor interactions with their native affixes. All of my delving into enchanting, perusing the books I purchased in Grim during the downtime on my little personal expedition, has made it quite clear that stone will in almost all cases triumph over fire. It is one of the most basic and well-known affix interactions. Given the sheer power and singularity of their affixes, elementals are also prone to very specific weakness as well.
I hurl the bundle of thunder lizard gizzards at the elemental, work that required weeks of targeted hunting and delving into the art of butchering. The stone elemental ignores the package flying at its body just as it has done to every attack I have made against it so far. Its four arms climb skyward, its intent to crush me in one motion that I cannot avoid. The bundle of gizzards bounces off its front, and in the slight moment following contact, I raise my staff.
A mass of burning orange dragonfire riven through with the chaotic white of the growth affix collides with the bundle. The lightning-affixed mana inside the gizzards combusts and combines with the intense fire mana in the dragonfire in compliment, the growth-affixed mana only serving to catalyze the reaction. My vision goes white, the heat of the explosion kissing my face. Just as it is understood that stone will defeat fire, it is known that lightning will crack stone.
The world returns to color, a whine left in my ears that begins to fade even before I can see clearly again. A spasm of stone in front of me draws my attention. The stone elemental spasms on the ground, a quarter of the great boulder that is its body shattered and missing, the hole running straight through the creature broken. It lays on what you might call its back, only three arms remaining, burning and molten fluid seeping into the cracks of its stone.
I waste no time. As it kicks and thrashes on the stone, I leap atop the monster, seizing the sphere of stone that floats in what had once been a perfectly circular hole. The entirety of the monster shudders as I grab ahold of the core, and a gibbering whine vibrates through the air as I begin to wrench it free. The monster’s thrashing becomes so terrible that I need to discard my remaining weapon to steady myself on its chest, pulling against the magical force that keeps the core trapped in the elemental’s center, hoping against hope that it does not regain enough of its senses to bring a hand down atop me and flatten me.
Spit bubbles through my lips while I pull. Not for the first time, I wish I had invested more focus into increasing my strength. I haul on the core for what seems like a full minute, and then, with a sudden pop, the sphere of stone comes free. The ground rushes up, knocking the air out of me as I fall on my back. I breathe, looking up at the sky, moving my hand around to pull my staff from the middle of my back after having fallen on it. A window appears in the air in front of me.
You have defeated Stone Elemental(Level 76)!
You are unable to gain further soul reinforcement until progressing to the next rank
I laugh, a puff of dust falling away from my face, and hold up the stone elemental core in front of me, putting it between me and the sun. Idly, I kick the corpse of the elemental with a boot, turning into pink smoke that condenses and spirals away. “Well,” I tell the stone core, turning it over in the light, finding it oddly light considering what it is, “I guess that makes me Queen of the Mountain.”
Finally, I am ready. I have done everything I set out to. It is time to become rank two.
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