TS6 - Chapter 17

Kat threw herself into a roll, dodging to the left a fraction of a second before a perfectly spherical ball of stone zipped past her and detonated pelting her with shards of rock that opened a dozen tiny cuts on the unarmored portions of her forearms.  Without thinking, she focused on her opponent, a sphere of undulating gelatin attached to the ceiling of the dungeon, and poured mana into a Gravity Spike aimed at the center of the monster.

Only for nothing to happen.

The spell was gone, sacrificed to make space for her new skill.  Another ball of stone whipped through the air, detonating a couple paces in front of Kat.

She gritted her teeth, trying to redirect her mana directly into her domain with her new Empower Aura skill.  The gravity around her began to swell, drinking up mana, but the process wasn’t nearly fast enough.  More stone assaulted her, a cloud of shrapnel that pinged off the leather and tiny metal plates of the armor on her upper chest while savaging her face.

Instantly she was blinded in her left eye, a spike of pain erupting as cuts and gashes opened up everywhere.

Kat back-pedaled a half dozen steps, body operating solely on instinct when the monster launched another stone sphere at her.

This time her domain was up to the task.  With her mana strengthening it, the field wasn’t as strong as Gravity Plane had been, but it was strong enough to accelerate the rock flechettes away from her.  The attacks whipped past her, one drawing close enough to deflect off of the armor on her side.

She shook her head, trying to drown out the pain as she began running away in a zig zag pattern, trying to throw off the volley of projectiles that was raining down from the ceiling toward her.

Small explosions, little more than the snap of firecrackers, followed in her wake as the monster continued to rapid fire the stone spheres.  Now that Kat was moving, it was hard for the creature to keep a bead on her, giving her a moment to breathe and survey the situation with her remaining eye.

Kaleek was in the center of the boss chamber fighting a huge blob of goo wrapped around what looked like a pace tall spike of amethyst fixed into the dungeon floor.  It lashed out at him, its partially see-through gelatin turning into whips, blades, and pillars to bludgeon and slash at the desoph, trying and failing to drive him back and away from the central core of the monster.

On the flank, just under the hemisphere of slime that was slowly crawling across the ceiling to follow Kat, two spiderlike creatures made from the ooze were fighting Dorrik.  They had probably a dozen legs each, but the number changed constantly as the limbs morphed back into their main body only to sprout again with cobra-like speed.

As Dorrik parried, the monster’s limbs morphed, changing into spears and hooks before shifting and becoming diamond hard just before he managed to deflect them.  His entire body burned like a violet torch as he boosted his physical attributes with Psi, turning himself into a whirling blender of steel that moved faster than Kat and hit harder than Kaleek as he fought both of the creatures off.

He was holding his own, mostly.  There were a couple globs of the slime on the ground where Dorrik had managed to lop off a limb only for it to go inert.  Between the two of the creatures, even with all of Dorrik’s enhancements, he was being forced back, dancing and whirling from foe to foe as he slowly was pushed pace by pace away from Kaleek’s battle with the central dungeon boss.

Then, Dorrik stumbled.  One of the spiders’ incoming blade legs blurred toward him, and the lokkel warrior brought both of his swords up in a crossed pattern to block the attack, each burning with purple energy.  The monster’s limb softened, turning into gelatin right before it hit.

His swords sheared through the attack without any resistance, throwing Dorrik slightly off balance.  The second spider capitalized on the moment, leaping forward and thrusting with three needle-like appendages that grew from its main body in the blink of an eye.

Even distracted, Dorrik was still fast enough to dodge two of them.  For the third, one of his lower hands released its sword, flaring with purple light as he took the attack on his forearm.

Maybe the block would’ve been successful in an iron dungeon, and it certainly would’ve stopped an attack in a wood dungeon, but for a silver tier opponent, the Psi shield barely even slowed the needle down.

The spearhead of the attack pushed through his arm easily before transforming into a barbed grappling hook that grabbed hold of Dorrik and yanked him off his feet and toward the spider.

Dorrik didn’t even hesitate.  His sword flickered downward, cutting off his captured arm before he could be drawn too close to the aggressive slime spider.

Kat looped around, enunciating the words to Cure Wounds as she wove back and forth, stone shrapnel scarring the floor of the dungeon as the ceiling-bound slime tried to adjust to her new tactics.

Dorrik was practically running away from his opponents, the sword held by his remaining lower arm little more than an ornament.  Neither of the two spiders was pursuing him at full speed, instead they were trying to scurry to either side of Dorrik, attempting to flank the lokkel so that they could take proper advantage of his missing weapon.

She finished her spell, letting the mana wash over her as the cuts and gashes on her arms and face began to close.  The spell wasn’t enough on its own to actually fix her destroyed eye, but the socket was no longer oozing blood and hit points, and that would be good enough for now.

About thirty paces from Dorrik and his opponents, Kat felt the three of them enter the edges of her domain.  Her gravity was still empowered by her steadily shrinking mana pool, so with a thought she was able to grab hold of both of the slime monsters and pick them up off the ground, accelerating them toward each other with enough force that goop spattered everywhere the moment that they hit.

Dorrik didn’t hesitate, lunging forward the second gravity began to shift and carving great chunks of slime off of the mangled spiders. A limb sprouted from the mass, trying to turn into a scythe blade before Kat flipped gravity, slamming both of the monsters into the ground with enough force to dent the dungeon floor.

More of the exploding stone spheres detonated behind her, but Kat had already outpaced the slow crawler that was working its way across the ceiling, leaving a lot to be desired in the attacks’ accuracy.  A flicker of her attention was all it took to alter the gravity in the rear third of her domain, transforming it so that the downward pull was almost seven to eight times normal.  It wasn’t enough to stop the spheres entirely, but the vast majority crashed into the ground at least ten to fifteen paces away from Kat, far enough that their shrapnel wasn’t even a proper annoyance.

She pounced on the mish mash of blended spiders, driving her knife into the side and activating Blade Burst.  Stamina drained from her and a second later a flash of red detonated inside the paired monsters as Kat danced backward.

They were still struggling, but a couple quick cuts from Dorrik was enough to finish them both.  Kat glanced up once at the hemisphere of ooze slowly crawling across the top of the dungeon toward her and began casting.  A Pseudopod sprang from her stomach, grabbing her backup knife with almost as much agility as Kat’s flesh and blood hands.

“Cover me!” Kat yelled, as she jumped into the air and pushed her will into the gravity surrounding her, soaring upward toward the monster.

A single arc of Psi energy sailed past her, sinking into the glob of slime without any visible reaction.  It retaliated by firing a sphere of rock at Kat, and only a sudden wrenching pull of gravity that practically ripped her arms and legs from their sockets kept her from taking the ball head on.

It exploded well behind Kat just as Dorrik shouted back at her.

“The oozes have no minds!  Psi attacks barely do anything.  Keep that one tied up while I help Kaleek.  It should become inert once the core dies.”

Kat bit her lower lip and rotated her body slightly, trying to keep the monster in sight of her one good eye.  Part of her wanted to lash out at Dorrik for leaving her to fight it alone, but he was right.  If his ranged attacks weren’t effective, he should be using his swords.

He trusted Kat enough to keep the sniper monster occupied while they brought the core boss down, and he wasn’t wrong.  Now that her domain was empowered, she had a pretty good chance against the monster so long as she kept it empowered with mana.

More rocks pelted her, but Kat was able to catch them with her mind and deflect them just enough that none of the attacks hit her.  Some came within a handspan, spinning her slightly in the air as they rocketed past, but they only detonated on contact, making her awkward flight the most effective defense in Kat’s arsenal against the projectiles.

She tried to close the distance, but the glob of slime crawled back, firing shots to cut off her approach the whole time.

Kat managed to draw a bit closer, but not enough to bring either of her knives into play.  Worse, as she drew near the dungeon boss the speed of its attacks only grew even as her time to react to them slipped away.  By the time she was forty paces away, just outside the monster’s range, it finally managed to land a lucky shot.

The second the sphere entered her domain, Kat knew that she wasn’t going to be able to fully divert it in the fraction of a second she had left before it reached her.  If the monster had fired even a handspan to the left or the right, her gravity would’ve been able to arc it around her, but the ball was zipping straight toward her with the speed and purpose of a heavy crossbow bolt.

She didn’t have time to think.  Kat reacted.

Her Pseudopod flashed up, barely managing to hit the ball of rock.  The stone exploded, once more pelting Kat with razor sharp flechettes, but this time she managed to get her arm up in time, protecting her face with a heavily enchanted bracer.

Gravity pulled her to the side, yanking Kat hard enough that it knocked the wind out of her.  Another two balls of stone flew past, each a pace or so behind her sudden movement as the monster struggled to track her.

Then, it froze.  After a full second of immobility, the entire monster fell from the ceiling with a loud ‘slorp’ before plopping to the dungeon floor.  With her good eye, Kat looked down.  Apparently Dorrik had managed to tie up the limbs of the monster’s core, giving Kaleek a chance to hammer his greatsword through the slime and shatter the crystal inside.

She winced in pain, more from the soft tissue damage caused by her sudden dodges than from the handful of small cuts she’d earned since healing herself.  Gingerly, she lowered herself toward the ground, aiming for the dead dungeon boss and the rest of her party.

About five seconds later she touched down.  Dorrik was crouched next to the monster, poking the rapidly dissolving shards of crystal that were still floating in the now inert slime of its corpse.

“That was miserable,” She complained, debating whether or not to waste the mana on casting Cure Wounds again.  Technically the dungeon was over, but there was no way to know whether or not there would be some sort of monster or hostile party just outside the dungeon portal.  Given that her mana was hovering around half full due to the way Empower Aura hogged power, the brief respite from the spell might not be worth the risk, no matter how small.

“Yep,” Kaleek agreed before looking up at her.  His furry muzzle burst into a massive grin.  “I know you can’t see yourself right now, but you look like crap Kat.”

“Thanks,” she said with a grunt.  “I’m still not used to fighting without gravity magic so I ended up taking a couple of hits that I should’ve dodged.  The domain modifiers are incredibly powerful, but they’re also incredibly limited.  I can’t do anything unless something is inside my domain and losing my strongest long range spells is quite a bit to adapt to.”

“Worse,” Kat continued, sighing deeply.  “Even inside my domain the actual powers seem fairly limited.  I can push things fairly hard with gravity, enough to cause problems for a baseline human, but at our level, five to ten gravities of force is disorienting and disabling, but not nearly enough to actually do damage.  It’s incredibly useful when I’m within knife range to toss people around, but beyond that it really only slows and hinders enemies.  I’m stuck debuffing rather than actively dealing serious damage.”

“Don’t worry,” Kaleek replied, his voice strangely serious.  “Keep your eyes on the prize.  If you stick with it, the end is in sight.”

“Again, thanks,” Kat responded, landing and walking over to the two of them.  “Once I level up my domain a couple more times it’s going to be stronger than my gravity magic was, I can already tell that, but it’s frustrating to lose ground like this.”

“As long as you keep your gaze fixed ahead, you can do it,” Kaleek said, his voice cracking slightly.

She squinted at him with her one good eye.  Kaleek’s whiskers were twitching and his shoulders were shaking slightly as he struggled to hide a chuckle.

“Are you making fun of me for losing an eye in that fight?”  She asked, raising her one good eyebrow.

“Yes,” he replied, grinning back at her.  “I one hundred percent am.”

Kat rolled her eye, crossing her arms and squaring her shoulders as she faced the chuckling otter.

“Rude,” she said.  “I wouldn’t make fun of you if you lost all of your fur or something.”

“You absolutely have,” Kaleek replied quickly, Dorrik nodding seriously behind him.

“I apologize MIss Kat,” the lokkel chimed in.  “Of the five times Dorrik has lost his fur due to acid, poison, or in one case boiling viscera, you have made fun of him at least three of those times.  I believe I joined you for one as well.”

“That doesn’t change the fact that its rude,” Kat responded, a hint of her smile curling the corners of her mouth.  “There’s a big difference between the current situation and the times I made fun of Kaleek.  For example, in those other cases, Kaleek was the one that looked ridiculous.  Right now, I’m the one that looks like an idiot.  See?  Night and day contrast.”

That earned a laugh from Kaleek.  He tipped his head back, both hands on his hips as he shook his head.

“Fair enough,” he said jovially.  “I will admit that usually I’m doing something to get myself into the scrapes you make fun of me for.  Still, I have to take chances like these when they come along.  Outside of his ruinous conversations with Jaalin, Dorrik is too perfect to  make any real mistakes and you don’t make all that many.  I’d be an idiot to not get a dig in when I get my chance.”

Dorrik sputtered, trying to deny the accusations about him and Jaalin, but Kat just shook her head as she responded.

“I’m not saying the eye puns aren’t funny.  They were.  I’m just warning you to expect retribution the next time anything happens to you.”

“I would expect nothing less,” Kaleek said with a happy cackle.  “Now let’s grab our rewards and get out of here.  This boss didn’t even have the decency to leave a proper body for me to vent my frustration on.”

He paused for a second before grinning.

“Actually, I don’t know that I need any corpse desecration induced catharsis,” the desoph continued thoughtfully.  “Things have been pretty relaxed lately.  Some of your people gave me a map and I’ve been swimming around some big waterfall named Niagara.  Pretty refreshing actually.  Before this I hadn’t taken a proper vacation in almost five years.  I think the stress was starting to get to me a bit.”

“Have you considered therapy?”  Kat asked, quirking her solitary eyebrow.  “It seems like you have quite a bit going on.”

“Tried it,” Kaleek grunted back, shrugging as he turned and walked toward the dungeon altar.  “It helped a bit.  The tower helps more.  Decided to stick with the tower and I haven’t had a meltdown and started eating household pets yet so something must be working.”

She laughed, unable to help herself.  Kaleek touched the altar and disappeared in a stream of rainbow colored light.  Dorrik walked up to the altar before turning back and addressing Kat.

“For the record.  I am very calm and measured when talking to Jaalin.  It is just that she is an impressive woman and sometimes I let the moment take hold of me.  I apologize for any discomfort it may have caused.”

Without any further ado, he touched the altar as well, leaving Kat alone in the dungeon.  She just stood there for a second, reaching up to touch the smooth skin where Cure Wounds had healed over the gaping hole where her eye socket had once been.

It had been close.  So very very close.   The tower had increased Kat’s physical resilience, but not to the point where she wanted to test her eyeballs against shrapnel.

Maybe she had been leveling too fast.  Sometimes it was hard to keep herself grounded as the new attributes and abilities overwhelmed her like a tidal wave.  She could feel herself growing more powerful, but at the same time her enemies were growing stronger too and Kat couldn’t help but wonder if they were growing faster.

She sighed, walking toward the altar.  Her worries almost didn’t matter.  Maybe it was that they didn’t have time for Dorrik to properly research dungeons anymore.  Maybe it was because Kat wasn’t stopping to grind skill levels and marks against elites so that she was properly equipped for each and every run.  Maybe she wasn’t used to her growing attributes.  Heck, maybe it was just a bad matchup.

Regardless of the cause, she couldn’t stop.  If Mr. Jackson hit level twenty four before her, he would turn Earth into a Stallesp puppet state, and Kat was almost certain that his first action would be to use the aliens’ power to wipe Grocorp off the face of the planet.

Oddly, the thought was comforting.  A gentle thrum of adrenaline pumped through her system as she paused in front of the altar.  For too long she’d sat at the top, uncomfortable and struggling to watch her own back as her enemies conspired in the shadows around her.  Now?  Her perch wasn’t so secure and there wasn’t time for indecision.  Kat didn’t need to waste time on political maneuvering or trading favors.  All she needed was to either kill Mr. Jackson in secret or reached level twenty four before he did.  A tall order, but a simple one.

She reached down, placing the palm of her hand on the altar.  It glowed for a second before the world turned into a rainbow blur and the windows popped up, indicating that the dungeon was complete.

Congratulations Adventurer!  

You have completed the Silver Tier Level Twenty Dungeon, Squamous Depths

Three of Three party members surviving.  Good Job!

Assigning awards:

Fortitude + 1

Reaction + 1

As soon as Kat popped back into existence in the catacombs of the ancient ruins that served as her most recent dungeon’s home, a blinking notification appeared in the lower right corner of her vision.  At last, another skill level Evolved Gravity Aura I.  It was growing with frustrating speed, only seeming to make any progress when she was actually in a silver dungeon.

Apparently the skill was picky, and ordinary or even elite enemies didn’t seem to actually do anything.  Only by pushing herself against a floor guardian or silver dungeon boss was Kat actually able to level the ability.  That meant the weakness caused by Kat’s loss of her gravity spells had lingered far longer than she’d like.

She shook her head, opening the prompt.  Whining and cursing her fate didn’t do anything.  There was an advance on the table here and now.  That would move her one step toward eliminating the weakness from her missing skills that was gnawing at her like a toothache.

You have reached Level 3 in the skill Evolved Gravity Aura I, please select a first tier Aura Modification

Empower Aura

Expand Aura

Intensify Aura

Manipulate Aura

Shape Aura

Compress Aura

Nothing had changed the second time she leveled up the skill so it was hardly surprising that there weren’t any surprises the third time.  Part of her was a little disappointed that she wasn’t getting new options with each level up, but the other was relieved.  With her ordinary elementalist skills, Kat would pick an option and then lose the option of selecting it again.  Evolved Gravity Aura felt like it was designed for her to stack her picks on top of each other, specializing and customizing her domain until it fit her skillset like a glove.

A quick glance over her options left Kat with the urge to recreate her previous choices.  Empower Aura let her spend mana on her domain like a spell to increase its size, strength, and shape, a useful ability to be sure.  She wasn’t sure if picking it a second time would let her use her mana more efficiently, spend more of it at once, or some combination of the two, but given how much mana Kat had just sitting in her pools, she felt like she should probably put the resource to use.

Her other recent choice, Expand Aura, was pretty straightforward but useful.  It made the domain bigger.  Given her issues with not having ranged attacks, bigger was important.  She might not be able to replicate Gravity Spike’s range anytime soon, but every extra pace of radius she earned, brought each of her enemies a pace closer to her being able to strike them directly.

Finally, Kat forced herself to push both of those options aside.  No matter how much she expanded her domain, it couldn’t become a ranged spell or be invested in her crossbow bolts like her other magic.  At the same time, as powerful as empowering her domain was, it took a second or two to ramp up, and during that time she was vulnerable.

Instead, she picked Intensify Aura.  Almost immediately she felt understanding flow into her mind as the tower fed her information about her new skill.  Once again, there weren’t any real surprises.  The ability simply increased the strength of the gravity that Kat could assert within her domain but a noticeable amount.

With a final glance, she checked her status.

A tingle of discontent went through her as she looked over the modifications to her gravity skills, but she suppressed it immediately.  Her domain would make her stronger in the long run.  There was no doubt about that.  Kat just had to pick up the slack in other areas in the meantime.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -  
<-Previous<-

Index

->Next->