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Chapter 135 - Ashes and Orbs
🕑 Added 2024-09-17 20:00:06 +0000 UTCNate watched as Deverell looked over the notebook they had found in the leader of the mercenaries makeshift office. Frick and Kiri waited quietly and if Nate was getting a sense of his Familiar it was that Frick was staying quiet on purpose, probably unsure how to talk to Nate right now.
“I agree with you, Nate. These are probably code-words. I’ll need to take this back to the Guild and map out the delivery locations and see if we can find any patterns. Don’t expect a quick answer though. If this really is encoded, the locations might not be the real destinations either. I’m going to scour the rest of the warehouse for any other information,” explained Deverell, making the notebook vanish into his spatial storage. “Now, tell me how you were taken.”
Nate took a deep breath before launching into how he had gone to the Den, leaving the brothel and his subsequent attack. He went over how they had prevented him from releasing mana, his use of teleportation to avoid the melee attacks and then the subsequent locking of space before he was knocked out.
“Mana Suppressors,” Deverell muttered. “Three of them, you say? Well, though I doubt it makes you feel better now you’ve likely just killed half of the Mana Suppressors in the City. It’s a Class and Embodiment set up that focuses on preventing the usage of mana. They’re relatively rare because most don’t have the backing that someone like Null does and so are forced into being fragile against anything that doesn’t rely on mana. Either way, it sounds like they came prepared to perfectly counter you. Mana suppression and spatial locking…neither of those comes cheap. Did you learn something from the experience?”
Nate nodded in response. He had learned a few things. The first was that apparently he wasn’t paranoid enough. Ignoring the watcher outside of the Den of Desire because the man hadn’t been focused on him had been a mistake. He also hadn’t expected to be attacked in the middle of the street with other people around. If he had walked out under an Illusion and Mana Obfuscation runic array maybe they never would have seen him. Finally, if he wasn’t prepared, he could be defeated. The lack of his crafted runic items had left him at a distinct disadvantage. While it sounded like he could have broken the suppression had he been level sixty like his opponents, he couldn’t rule out the idea that they might have brought more Mana Suppressors in response. He may not be a small fish any more, but even if he was a big fish, the ocean was wide and deep. He needed to find a way to accelerate his creation of runecrafted items.
“What about the bodies?” asked Kiri. “There’s a noble here too.”
Nate had to admit he was a bit concerned about that. Even if he didn’t feel bad for killing Fabien, there was the question of potential reprisal. A second son of an Earl wasn’t high up in the rankings of the nobility, but they weren’t at the bottom either. An Earl could cause serious problems for him and there was a question of if the Guild would protect him. He had no doubt in his mind Aisling and Luc would, and that made him smile. As his lips turned up he felt himself relax a little for the first time since he had left the Den of Desire.
“I’ll handle it. You two should head back to the University. Don’t get seen or detected if at all possible,” stated Deverell.
Nate sensed Kiri glance at him and turned to give her a nod. He was more than happy to let Deverell deal with the clean up. He wouldn’t know where to start. What did you even do in a situation like this? It wasn’t like he could walk around with fifteen, or however many dead there were, corpses in his spatial storage. Thinking about it he realised he in fact could, but he shouldn’t. That was just asking to get caught. He supposed he could try and bury them deep in the earth. Now that they were dead and lacking most of their mana, only filled with the ambient mana that was attracted to the geometric structures within their corpses, they weren’t resistant to his True Teleportation. He could teleport them over three hundred metres straight down. But who knew if there were ways to find such? Skills and Concepts had proven to be incredibly varied. No, better to let someone more experienced handle it. Though, he might ask Deverell about it later.
It wasn’t like he was planning to make a habit of this kind of thing, but he had been targeted due to his suspected knowledge of Sigils. Caroline had no idea what Master tier Sigils he knew, and yet she’d been willing to go this far on the suspicion that he knew others. What would the nobility of Etrua be willing to do if they ever realised he knew sixteen Master tier Sigils? Of course most of those were shaping Sigils. But the Master tier Mana Sigil alone would likely be enough. This was unlikely to be the last time he was targeted, and learning how to clean up his own messes might become important. That left just one thing to handle.
“What about the Orbs and Caroline and Fabiens spatial storages?” he asked, using True Teleportation to teleport the twelve orbs that had formed onto the table in front of him along with an amulet and a ring.
Farsight of the Runic Artist told him what each of the Orbs was and he pointed each out to Deverell and Kiri.
Stat Orb (Rare)
Willpower x1
Strength x2
Endurance x3
Constitution x2
Agility x2
Stat Orb (Epic)
Magic Control x1
Skill Orb (Epic, Level 4)
Gem Structure Refinement
“Pretty obvious who the Skill came from,” commented Kiri with an angry glare at the orb sitting on the table.
It warmed his heart a little and helped with the pain he was holding down to see how his friend cared for him. On an academic level, he suspected if it wasn’t for his high Intellect Stat helping him to process the trauma, that right now he would be a blubbering mess. As it was, he was keeping it together, but that didn’t mean he was going to ignore Luc’s advice after he got back from the Fourth Hell. He was going to talk about what had happened. Whether it was with Frick or Kiri or Aisling after she returned from her own Dungeon run, he was going to take the pain and fear inside of him and let it out. He would not let it fester, slowly poisoning him. Perhaps there were people out there that could go through something like this and shrug it off as the price of doing business, but he wasn’t one of them.
Given how much time he spent thinking it was easy to forget that others didn’t have his Intellect and therefore his speed of thought. Barely two seconds had passed since Kiri’s comment and he’d already gone through the entire decision tree for what he was going to do about his experiences.
“They’re yours to do with what you will. You two earned them. With your own blood, sweat and skill. Split them however you want. Do so here and now. As for the spatial storages…take what you want from them but nothing traceable, if possible. Then head back to the University,” Deverell cautioned, before the Dagger Dancer took his leave of the office, moving back out onto the warehouse floor to start cleaning up.
Nate glanced at Kiri but before he could say anything she answered, “Half each and you take the skill orb. I’d like the strength, agility and willpower orbs. One of endurance ones as well. Anything in their spatial storage is yours.”
Nate nodded. It was how he would’ve split the Orbs. As for the spatial storages, he’d handle them next. They quietly absorbed each of the orbs, increasing their stats. Nate held onto the skill orb to use back at his room as he wasn’t sure if it would synergise with any of his existing skills. He had a suspicion it would since it sounded like a lesser version of his original Improve Material skill. What would happen when he added a far lesser skill to the mix?
Going through the spatial storages he found a small fortune in mana gems and gold coins in Fabien’s which he added to his own spatial storage. There were also what looked like some letters and other random junk but he left those not wanting to worry about taking any evidence with him. Caroline’s was another story, as the Enchanter’s storage was small and only contained three things. A small bar of Epic quality manerium, an Epic quality emerald with an affinity for water and a notebook. A quick glance told him it was her Sigil Tome, the very thing she had sought from him. Storing the tome in his spatial space he was finally ready to leave the site of his torture.
He looked at Kiri and through silent agreement they started teleporting back to the University, Frick slipping into the spot on his Class Core that housed his Familiar Contract for the journey. Nate took the time to spin up an Obfuscation and Illusion runic array to conceal himself and a secondary one for Kiri as they teleported in tandem. He had started to understand how Kiri’s own stealth skill worked and as it was Willpower based, it functioned by using her own soul energy to effectively convince her opponents that she wasn’t there. Thinking about it, it was more like a mental skill than a magical skill. That made sense since it apparently cost her soul energy to use. While it made her insanely effective against anyone with low willpower and no soul protection, it had absolutely no effect on anything without soul energy. That meant the enchanted wards around the University might sense her. Might, because her Soul Shift skill didn’t use mana either. It wasn’t like his True Teleportation skill which used mana to manipulate space, letting him overlap two locations and move from one to the other. He wasn’t absolutely certain, but he was starting to wonder if her skill let her move through the Spiritual Realm. That of course just begged more questions about how that would be possible. Did that mean the Spiritual Realm overlapped the Material Realm? She had never mentioned seeing anything when she did it to him, which meant she wasn’t seeing anything on the other side. She just moved a portion of her soul energy to her desired location, then snapped to that location. Either way, however her Skill worked, they weren’t taking any chances about being detected.
Appearing in his room Kiri vanished immediately as Frick popped out. He had thought she might stay to see how he was and for the barest of moments he felt a stab of hurt. That feeling disappeared as Kiri returned holding a blanket and pillow.
“Stick to your side of the bed,” she stated with a smirk, though he could see her worry hiding beneath the bravado.
“It’s okay. You don’t have to…” he tried to explain.
“Fuck that. I saw what they were doing, Nate. You’re my best friend. Like the brother I never had but always wanted. I have never been…” Kiri choked up as she tried to talk. “...I was so angry it was like the world turned red and I couldn’t see anything else. If it was that bad for me, how much worse must it have been for you? I’m not going anywhere. Now make room in the bed. We can talk. Or not. Whatever you want. But I am not going anywhere.”
Nate held back tears and nodded, rearranging his cloud concept imbued bed so that Kiri could have half. He lay down, robe still on, barrier still hovering over his skin. Kiri got herself arranged on her side of the bed and Frick finally piped up.
“I’ll keep watch, Boss. You just try and sleep.”
“Or talk,” suggested Kiri, making herself comfortable and sighing happily at how amazing his bed was. “Whatever you want.”
“Sleep, I think,” he answered. He knew it was sort of a lie. He wanted to sleep, but he doubted he would any time soon. But though he intended to talk about being tortured, he wasn’t ready. Not yet.
To distract himself, he absorbed the Skill Orb, a notification appearing as he did so.
Skill Synergy discovered between your Gem Structure Refinement (Epic) Skill and your Conceptual Material (Mythic) Skill. Subsume your Gem Structure Refinement (Epic) Skill to gain 1 Levels in Conceptual Material (Mythic). Proceed?
Walk your Path. Reach your Goal. Become One with Mana.
He was completely unsurprised that the Skill he had acquired was a lesser form of his own Conceptual Material Skill. Still, a free level in his Skill was worth having and though he recognised there was a future possibility for the Gem Structure Refinement Skill to potentially synergise with his plans for his Metal Shaping Skill, he didn’t need it for his plans. He selected proceed, glancing at the Skill Level up notification before bringing up his Status sheet.
Conceptual Material 33 > 34
Dismissing the notification and his Status he started thinking over the events of the evening, replaying them in his mind as he questioned himself. What could he have done better? How could he have protected himself? Were there ways to deal with these kinds of issues in the future? An idea was forming as he finally succumbed to sleep.
*************
Waking up to the first hints of sunlight peaking in under the door he found that Kiri was still sound asleep. Frick glanced at him and gave him a toothy smile even as the Spirit channelled Conceptual Material into his barrier bracer. The little blue goblin clearly knew what Nate was most interested in.
Carefully getting out of bed he was surprised when Kiri just snored and rolled over. Moving to his table he began to draw a complicated rune. Getting tortured was a powerful motivator to make sure nothing like that ever happened again. His issue, as far as he was concerned, was his durability. The moment his external defences had failed he had been effectively taken out in one shot, his jaw broken and knocked unconscious. The Life Drain runic array had fixed him up, but that was treating the problem, not the cause. While he had been held he had considered if he could use Conceptual Material on his own body.
He had ultimately arrived at that being a terrible idea simply because altering his molecular structure would likely have a cascading biological impact and probably kill him. When Evindal returned he intended to ask the elven Mage since he had a class related to Life. What had it been again? Lord of Life? A Legendary Class. If anyone would know, it was him. But that limitation hadn’t stopped him from considering alternatives. His captors hadn’t been able to affect his internal mana. That meant that while he couldn’t project mana externally, there was nothing to stop him from activating runes internally. He even had the perfect Sigils for it. Reinforcement and Durability.
Both Sigils were Journeyman tier. That was probably good enough for anyone else, but not for him. Not after what he had gone through. Master was the minimum he was willing to work with if he was going to be engraving a runic array onto his own bones. Drawing out the Reinforcement Sigil he focused on it, activating Conceptual Insight. The skill immediately gave him feedback and he knew that he would need another week before the skill had enough…conceptual energy? Was that even a thing? Whatever energy it needed to forcibly reveal the improved form of the Sigil.
That was fine, though he did wish he had a way to speed it up besides levelling the Skill. To distract himself he started doing up the basic design for the runic array, figuring out what he needed to include in it. The Power Sigil was a must, so that he could overcharge it with mana if he needed to push the rune beyond its nascent capabilities. He would use Reinforcement and Durability while Conceptual Intent would let him make himself the target. There were questions if he should be making his whole body the target or just say his skin or bones. That would require some testing, but fortunately he could alter the Conceptual Intent applied to the rune after it was finished. He supposed the same was true for the rune itself. Conceptual Runic Creation should let him alter the runes even after they were engraved in his bones, at the cost of a little pain and mana. The thought of a little pain made him snort. The sound was enough to finally wake Kiri who stood up, stretching and moved over to join him at his table.
“How are you feeling?” she asked, clearly intentionally interrupting him from his rune drawing.
He thought she was probably right to do so. He was intentionally focusing on anything he could to distract himself from going over the evening's experiences again.
“I’ve been better,” he answered honestly. “But I’m doing okay. I’m going to want to talk about it. With you, I mean. But I’m not ready yet.”
Kiri nodded her understanding before she got a small smile on her face, “I never got to give you your present!”
His eyebrows went up slightly. She had mentioned a present to him in the aftermath, but they had been so focused on figuring out what was going on and getting Deverell that it had ended up glossed over.
He sensed Kiri flex her Soul Storage and then she was holding a paintbrush in her hand. Farsight of the Runic Artist activated, immediately telling him what he was looking at.
Brush of a Thousand Paints (Epic)
Stats: N/A
Features: Mana Imbuement (Epic), Spatial Storage (Rare), Self-Cleaning (Rare)
Mana Imbuement: This Item is Enchanted to absorb excess mana, storing it inside the spatial expanded space. Stored mana will naturally improve the quality of any paint stored within.
Spatial Storage: This item is Enchanted with a spatial storage space. Storage space has been customised to facilitate storing up to one thousand different liquids in specialised containers. Containers linked to Mana Imbuement Enchantment.
Self-Cleaning: This item is Enchanted to clean itself. Channelling mana into the tip of the paintbrush will increase the speed of this enchantment.
Nate was amazed. It was the ultimate paintbrush as far as he was concerned. No longer would he need to set out twenty or so buckets or jars of paint. He could simply store all his paint supplies inside this one item. It was the perfect gift. Perfect, and expensive.
“I love it! But Kiri, how did you afford this?” he asked, still staring at the brush and starting to explore the internal storage space.
“Girls gotta have a few secrets,” she replied with a smirk. “It’s my way of saying thanks. For everything. And just for you know, being you.”
Nate felt himself start to tear up a little and wiped his eyes with his sleeve. Kiri saved him by flashing a sardonic smile which made him laugh.
“Thanks, Kiri. And about what you said last night…I think of you like that too. The sister I never had…” he said softly.
“Exactly. We’re family!” Kiri stated, cutting through any awkwardness he felt.
“What does that make me?” piped up Frick.
“Our perverted asshole cousin that we tolerate,” quipped Kiri, rolling her eyes.
The three of them devolved into laughter and Nate, for the first time since he was taken, felt like everything was going to be okay. He wasn’t alone.
Comments
Beggar of Freedom
Divines bless your kind heart!
GoodMornin2U2
Thank you for the chapter ^_^
