Chapter 214: Blood

Malika

Malika carefully tied the garishly painted Jambeau behind her calves, pulling firmly on the sturdy straps and laces to secure them to her smaller legs. It was not that her legs were particularly small, but she was no match for the seven- or eight-foot-tall troll warriors they had faced. At least the leather-and-bone greaves had been designed to be adjustable. She stored the Pathfinder boots Calen had bought – she would decide what to do with those later. It was just a shame she couldn’t use the boots and the greaves at the same time, but the higher-level item always took precedence. She slipped on a pair of lighter, mundane shoes so she would at least not stub her toes or get overly dirty feet – who knew what she might step on in here.

When she had first earned her class, she hadn’t quite realized how much she would be sacrificing by giving up weapons, body armor, and shields. Certainly, her class provided her with a great defensive foundation using her skills to make up the difference, but good items had magical attribute enchantments on them, and with much more limited choices, she simply had fewer options to customize her class and build than her friends. These Swift Bone-Studded Jambeau proved that conclusively, sporting four solid enchantments that would substantially boost her offensive capabilities and improve her survivability with extra endurance and a health leech effect.

Well, Mato has it worse, she thought. Being a bear – and a shapeshifter in general – seemed to come with much greater gear limitations than her monk class. He had to equip items with a specific shapeshifting enchantment or give up on the slot entirely – for all slots.

She got to her feet, hopping up and down to settle her new equipment. She had never been wealthy enough to care about fashion, but even she grimaced at the garishly painted red-and-yellow clashing designs. Are these Trolls colorblind or something? She suppressed the possibly unkind thought, instead focusing on the obvious skill of the crafter – the effect of the movement enchantment was intoxicating. Her body was lighter, and she felt much faster. She sprinted around, doing a couple of familiar agility training drills to get the feel for it, grinning as she felt her body’s dramatically increased speed. And as she fed stamina to Divine Step she discovered, to her delight and amazement, that the movement enchantment seamlessly improved her powerful movement skill too. I am faster!

“Impressive,” Calen said, nodding at her.

“Thanks!” All that remained was for her to test how effective the health leech enchantment was. Her class had never provided huge amounts of damage on each strike like Mato or Calen, but what she lacked in raw power, she made up for in speed and precision. Even if the small percentage returned only a few health per hit, she would have a powerful new tool at her disposal, and she had no reason to believe it wouldn’t be effective. The troll warriors’ style of combat had not been dissimilar from her own; their frenzied axe and tonfa strikes were obviously hasted just like hers – easily observed just by the complex interplay of the stamina energy they fed to their muscles. If the health gain worked for them, it would work for her.

“You look… loud.” Mato chuckled as he spoke. Malika whipped around, only to find Mato was teasing Calen rather than her. The half-elf seemed devastated, staring down forlornly at his similarly garish greaves; the patterns painted on his items didn’t even match between the left and right leg.

Even though she was wearing something just as… obnoxious, she couldn’t help laughing.

“Hey! Yours are just as bad,” Calen complained.

“Maybe the paint washes off?” Malika offered, seeing hope light up in Calen’s eyes. The paint didn’t seem to serve any purpose other than loudly declaring the trolls’ utter contempt for camouflage. Each piece had been unique, so she supposed that the decorations might represent personal styling or individual expression rather than tribal affiliation.

“Shall we continue?” Ali asked.

“Do we need to discuss strategy?” Malika countered. “If those were dungeon-spawned monsters, then we’re going to encounter more of them.”

“I think we should commit to focusing our damage and kill them one at a time,” Ali said. “Rather than spreading our attacks out.”

“Agreed.”

“Yup.”

“How about Mato tanks as many as he can, and we all kill whatever Malika picks?” Calen suggested.

“Sure. I can pick targets,” Malika said. It was a simple strategy, but simple seemed good, especially given how little they knew about this dungeon.

As they walked quietly along the trail, Malika couldn’t help but admire the lush, verdant forest surrounding them. She had grown up in Bakahn village, high up in the mountains, and even when she had been uprooted, she had ended up in Myrin’s Keep, neither of which had particularly impressive natural vegetation. Sure, she had visited the forests south of Myrin’s Keep, but you could walk through those, wherever you wanted. If it weren’t for the path here, they would have had to cut their way through the jungle. Even so, the beauty of the jungle was marred by the ever-present Grim Totems lining the path, a grizzly reminder that they were in a hostile dungeon that had wiped out an entire people.

They hadn’t walked for more than about ten minutes before Calen reappeared from the undergrowth.

“Another group up ahead,” he announced, his voice pitched low so it wouldn’t carry too far. The jungle was noisy, but it was better to not take the chance of being overheard. “Six warriors and something new – there is a slightly higher-level shaman with them this time,” Calen continued.

“Same plan?” Malika asked. The shaman was an unknown quantity.

“I don’t see any need to change the plan, just pick something and we’ll all kill it and move through them one at a time,” Calen said.

“You don’t want to do it?”

“I can use multishot against the tanked warriors,” Calen said. “And I will try using Grappling Shot for strategic control. We’ll keep an eye on that shaman for any surprises.”

“Ok, sounds good,” Malika nodded; her role easy to understand. She would need to make snap decisions in the middle of the fight but, provided everyone agreed to assist her with whatever she picked, it usually worked out well. She would just need to keep her eyes open and adjust. With Mato, and Ali’s Armored Drake and Forest Guardian, they had three tanks – more than enough to lock down a decent-sized group of melee monsters. She followed along behind Calen, eyes and senses alert, scanning the dense brush and trees for anything that looked like a troll.

She still hadn’t found anything even remotely suspicious when Calen stopped in the middle of the path, his bow appearing in his hands. He nocked an arrow in a fluid motion and paused waiting for Mato to complete his transformation, and then his bow howled its horrid scream, launching the brilliant white arrow wreathed in deadly black flame hurtling through the trees of the jungle. Birds screeched, taking to the air as one, and unseen animals fled from the disturbance in a clamor of scuttling and crashing.

The armored form of a troll dropped from a heavily moss-carpeted branch, landing on the ground with poise and grace, and then blurred into motion, tearing across the path in a rush of stamina and trailing bone spikes that sprouted from the footprints. Mato moved to intercept him with a roar and a charge of his own, the crash of impact echoing off the trees. Four more painted trolls shot out of the bush to join the fray, bone blades gleaming wickedly. Up on the other side of the path, two trolls with bright crimson shocks of hair appeared beside a large Grim Totem, the taller troll with blue-and-white face paint immediately filled the air with whizzing throwing axes, but it was the second troll that really caught Malika’s attention.

This troll was adorned with none of the bony protrusions and defenses of his comrades. He wore similar leather-and-bone armor but in his hands, he held an axe and shield of bone, painted with bright geometric shapes. As she studied his unfamiliar appearance, he took the axe to his own arm, slicing deeply and spraying his own blood into the air. But the blood failed to fall to the ground. Ribbons and streamers flowed from his wound to be rapidly soaked up by the shield and the axe until both were deeply stained red and dripping.

That guy has to be bad news, Malika thought, deciding on the spot that he would be her first target.

“Shaman,” she yelled, triggering Divine Step, and charging headlong across the path toward the shaman and his axe-throwing companion, exiting the wave of writhing roots and ensnaring magical chains that attempted to lock down the wiry bone warriors. Before she was even halfway there, the shaman tossed three totems into the center of the battlefield. Malika ignored them and punched him in the face.

Shamans, she knew, were typically hybrid-melee fighters with powerful magic to back them up. She also knew from chatting with Teagan, that attacking the totems restored the Shaman’s recharge, making it a pointless endeavor. She studied her foe with Soul Sight, but none of his abilities seemed to be using stamina so far. She needed to shut down his magic as soon as possible, so her opening flurry of attacks were all Soul Strikes aimed at his mana.

Huh? What…? Her punches had definitely connected; three times in fact. Her new greaves fed a welcome trickle of health into her body via its leech enchantment, but the Soul Strike that should have returned stolen mana from the enemy came back empty.

Nothing?

Scarcely believing it, she punched again, and this time the shaman’s stamina energy flared as he blocked her strike with his blood-soaked shield.

You have been cursed with Vampiric Hex
+12 Blood damage per second.
+25% vulnerability to bleeding.
Attackers gain health on hit.
Duration refreshed on hit with Blood damage.
Curse – Duration: 30 seconds.

The shaman’s stamina surged more powerfully, an intricate flow of energy that poured from his heart and outward through his muscles and into his weapon. His axe sliced across her ribs, biting deeper than she had expected, and causing a large gout of blood to spray across the shaman’s armor.

You have been afflicted with Bleeding.
+10 Physical damage per second.
Physical – Duration: 1 minute, 20 seconds.

Malika pulsed a heal. The curse and the bleed were not enough damage to be dangerous yet, but she couldn’t afford to let herself get low with so many enemies on the battlefield. But that wasn’t what worried her; the blood still gushing from her wound was not slowing down – and it spiraled away in thin streamers through the air, sucked into an ominous-looking totem in the center of the battlefield.

She leveled a high snap-kick at the shaman, catching him in the side of the head, but again her Soul Strike only flickered, returning no mana.

It has no mana? None? How is it casting? Health?

She had seen it use stamina for both the block and the axe strike, so he wasn’t concealing his energy somehow. Unless he was somehow immune to mana drain, Soul Strike returning nothing meant he was empty. Her only reasonable conclusion, unlikely as it was, was that this troll had no mana at all. But flying blood and curses didn’t come from nowhere – and she could tell he hadn’t used stamina for those. She switched her Soul Strike to attacking his health instead, noting with satisfaction that Ali’s minions had just arrived to assist her, and Calen’s flaming arrows were already whizzing past her ears.

Malika instinctively dodged the hellfire breath from a warg, stepping in with a quick combination of punches before darting back out of range. The shaman reached out with his hand, and ribbons of blood erupted from his forearm and the blade of his axe, lashing out across the distance to strike her chest. She staggered back, choking from the impact of the potent blood spell, but it hadn’t stopped at her, punching clean through her body and jumping between her and a warg, piercing through the demonic wolf’s body on its way through to the nearest Hobgoblin. The fuck is that?

“He’s healing!” Ali’s voice came clearly to her ears, carried over the din of the battlefield right as Malika’s notification informed her that she was still cursed, and the duration had just been reset to thirty seconds again, and she was now bleeding even more profusely.

This thing needs to die. Now. The nearby bone-clad warrior switched from throwing the short gray bone axes and lashed out with a set of freshly grown bone tonfa blades. Malika channeled stamina into her Divine Step, accelerating her speed to her maximum as she unleashed the powerful driving combination of kicks and punches from the eighth form. She gave up entirely on stealing mana, instead empowering every strike to sap the shaman’s health, but he was annoyingly effective with his blood-soaked shield, and every time she hit it, or the shaman’s axe hit her, the Vampiric Hex curse was refreshed.

Suddenly the shaman yelled something, and Malika’s high kick passed through a cascade of blood as his body collapsed into a crimson puddle, entirely gone. Malika stared in surprise, but the troll warrior next to her failed to capitalize on her distraction, charging off to the center of the battlefield. Malika whipped around, frantically searching for her foe, only to find the shaman’s body reforming out of blood beside his totems.

Shit! Malika tore across the battlefield, chasing down the shaman as it and three of the warriors charged at Ali’s Acolytes.

But before she could reach them, the shaman arched his back, unleashing a ragged, bloodcurdling shout toward the sky. Blood erupted from his chest in a massive fountain, splitting into ribbons that soared out across the battlefield to anoint the brow of each troll. The blood coalesced into dripping crimson runes that floated like a grim crown encircling each troll’s head.

“Watch out!” Ali screamed, but nobody could have missed whatever this spell was.

As one, the trolls roared in a feral rage, snarling and beating their weapons together. Blood-red eyes fixed upon her, while streams of blood trickled down their faces, dripping off their tusks.

Moving with unprecedented speed, the Trolls unleashed a shocking onslaught. Ribbons of blood skewered three Acolytes in a line while the bone warriors stabbed and slashed with blurred blades of gleaming gray bone, contributing Kobold blood to the gruesome crimson mist hanging in the air. In a flash, three of the four Acolytes crumpled to the ground, leaving the last one standing alone and trembling inside a cracked and battered bubble of golden magic.

The shaman yelled again, his voice harsh and hoarse, and they all shot off towards the Forest Guardian, leaving Malika scrambling to catch up again.

“They’re hasted,” Malika yelled. And they’re using our strategy. There was nothing to be done, so she charged after the shaman again.

“Use the roots to entangle them,” Calen yelled, blanketing the area with a powerful multishot volley of arrows that each trailed glowing chains.

“On it,” Ali said, and brambles and vines burst anew from the ground around both Mato and the Forest Guardian.

But to Malika’s surprise, none of the trolls slowed in the slightest, sprinting through the rampant growth of roots and vines as if it wasn’t even there, crashing into the enormous elemental with powerful strikes and slashes. The guardian retaliated, but the warriors seemed relentless, tearing bark and wood from Ali’s favorite monster with animalistic ferocity. Blood streamers lashed out from the shaman again, bursting through the trolls this time. But instead of hurting them, it seemed to rejuvenate them, spurring them on to greater feats of athletic violence.

“Fuck, they have a Free Action totem,” Calen said, snapping off an arrow that uprooted a blood-drenched totem.

Free action. The totem had to be how the trolls had ignored the roots and vines that were normally so effective at locking down melee attackers. She could only guess at the function of the other two totems, but just by the resilience of the trolls, she would wager one of them was healing them. The bloody one.

As expected, the moment Calen destroyed the totem, the shaman dropped another, their forces barely experiencing a hitch in their momentum.

The Forest Guardian was powerful enough to slow the trolls sufficiently for Malika to catch up, and she announced her arrival by kicking the shaman in the back of the head, staggering it. She kicked again, but apart from blocking with its shield, the shaman ignored her, attacking the Forest Guardian with unrelenting strikes. To her immense surprise, the Guardian dropped in a ground-shaking crash, sliced up and dead. It mattered not to the trolls that the monster had had healing magic and a regeneration aura, they had simply burned through it all in a matter of moments.

She unleashed a kick to the shaman’s face, powered with Soul Strike, and finally got its bloody-eyed attention.

“Calen, Fury! Ali, we need to kill this shaman now! Bring the spiders!” Malika didn’t have to wait. Calen’s magic rolled across the battlefield in waves of intense pulsing light, and she could immediately feel the additional damage enhancing every single one of her punches. Brilliant coronas of mana that flickered across her knuckles as she punched. Ali’s minions charged, and Calen’s bow howled, sending volleys of hellfire-enhanced arrows to pierce leathery troll skin as they single-mindedly tore through Ali’s minions one at a time. The battlefield erupted into chaos as magic detonated all around her, and she dodged frantically. Ali was pulling no punches, dropping hellfire fireballs right on top of her and the shaman, clearly relying on her resistance, dodging, and healing to keep her safe.

Bloody streamers of the shaman’s magic pulsed and lanced through the battlefield, arcing across the gaps, jumping between friend and foe alike as the shaman went all out, like a conductor wielding crimson ribbons of lightning. Malika pulsed her healing continually, taking at least as much damage from Ali’s fire minions as from the shaman’s bloody axe and spells, but she didn’t relent, pushing her martial arts and magic to their limits, unleashing combo after combo, the white-and-blue of her soul magic creating eerie flickers inside the infernal black of hellfire and the roaring furnace-red of dragon’s fire.

“Malika, dodge!”

Huh?

Ali’s voice came to her from above. Malika risked a glance upward, a little puzzled to see Ali flying above the battlefield. There was a brief shimmer, a ripple of mana, and the gigantic form of an Armored Drake appeared, suspended impossibly above the battlefield. She had barely enough time to register her shock and trigger Divine Step to dive sideways before the enormous monster smashed into the ground, crushing three of the troll warriors and the almost dead Hellfire Warg they were attacking. But the shaman’s blood ribbons shot forward, piercing through the wreckage, and incredibly, the three trolls crawled their way out from under the enormous bulk of the drake, their shattered bone armor rapidly regrowing, their blades reforming, and broken limbs straightening with violent crunching snaps. The blood streamers pulsed relentlessly, arcing through all of them in rapid succession again and again.

Malika ignored the highly improbable survival miracle she had just witnessed – there was nothing she could do about it – and attacked the shaman with renewed fury. While it was casting its streamers of blood it couldn’t block her attacks nearly as well, and she sure as heck could take advantage of that. She landed a kick that knocked the taller shaman sprawling to the ground, and the two Abyssal Stalkers materialized from some invisible shadows to strike it while it was open. The once airborne Armored Drake stepped on it with a powerful stomp, stabbing its talons right through the shaman’s chest.

Finally. Malika registered a profound relief at the soft chime sounding in the back of her mind.

Your group has defeated Blood Shaman – Troll – level 74

She glanced around taking quick stock of the wreckage of the battlefield. They had killed the shaman, but their forces were decimated. Troll warriors with bleeding eyes and runes floating around their heads were charging at Mato and the other Trolls he was already tanking. In the wake of their passage, three Acolytes, the Forest Guardian, all the Hobgoblins, and both Hellfire Wargs lay dead.

At least the totems are gone too, she thought.

“Target?” Calen shouted.

“On it,” Malika yelled back. As she charged to help Mato, she saw the telltale powerful surge of stamina flowing through his body that signaled his most powerful defense skill had been triggered. Last Stand. She was well aware that, other than a single Acolyte, she was now the last healer on the battlefield. Three Acolytes and a Guardian, and still the trolls had just steamrolled everything. Mato had his own restoration magic, but against six angry hasted trolls, that wouldn’t be nearly enough.

“This one,” she shouted, flipped high over the head of one of the bone warriors, connecting with an airborne punch, and landed beside Mato. Blocking an uncannily fast blade strike, she placed a hand on Mato’s shoulder and poured a good chunk of her stamina into healing his battered body. She switched back to her chosen troll and kicked it hard in the chest, making it step backward into the cleaving claw strike of one of Ali’s Armored Drakes. The troll immediately downed a potion and began regrowing the bone armor that the drake had just shredded.

These trolls are insane! But just as she had the thought, the floating blood runes faded, raining to the ground as drops of blood, and the trolls’ eyes returned to normal. She healed Mato again, just to make sure he was going to survive the expiration of his Last Stand, and then she set to the task of fighting the, now merely tough and dangerous, troll warriors one by one.

“I’ll get the wargs back up,” Ali announced.

Behind Malika, two Hellfire Wargs resurrected in a shattering explosion of a hellfire fireball, but even with them, the two Armored Drakes, the Abyssal Stalkers, and her and Calen, the fight still took forever. The troll warriors proved again just how incredibly durable they were, but without the power of the shaman’s blood magic, it turned into a long, drawn-out battle of attrition, with the trolls eventually falling to their perseverance and determination.

Your group has defeated Bone Warrior – Troll – level 63-67 x6

“Well… that was insane,” Mato said, as he shifted back to Beastkin once the final troll collapsed.

“You can say that again,” Calen panted, mopping his brow. “I’m never going to be able to listen to the bards singing about heroes defeating hordes of trolls single-handedly again.”

“That’s for sure,” Ali said, landing next to Malika. “Six warriors and a shaman almost destroyed us.”

“What the heck was that thing doing?” Malika asked. “It had no mana, but it was casting magic constantly. Was it using health or something?”

“Yes,” Ali answered, studying the dead shaman speculatively. “I couldn’t see any mana, but its health dropped every time it cast anything. It was definitely using blood to power its magic – usually its own, but it was using yours for a while there.”

“And what was that spell it used? The floating blood runes and bleeding eyes? Haste?”

“I think that one might be Bloodlust,” Calen said. “I’ve read about it. If that’s what it was, we got lucky.”

“Whatever it was, they definitely hit a lot harder and faster with those nasty floating runes,” Mato said.

“The shaman was a real piece of work. He hit me with bleeds and a vampiric curse that healed whatever hit me,” Malika added, sharing her experience with the shaman’s abilities. They would need to come up with a much better plan if they were to encounter more of them. “It’s also very good at blocking. I think next time we should all use our most powerful abilities and just take out the shaman as soon as we start.”

“Agreed.”

“Yes.”

“Definitely!”

Malika breathed in and out, finally relaxing a little. The battlefield was a mess, pools of blood everywhere, a massive crater where Ali had dropped an Armored Drake, and broad swathes of scorched brush and trees, some still flickering with small remnants of hellfire. After a moment she remembered to check her notifications.

Soul Monk has reached level 64.
+10 attribute points.

The level-up is nice, but… After what she had just experienced, Malika felt that a single level might be a little stingy. Nevertheless, she dutifully distributed four points each to dexterity and wisdom, dropping the remaining two into endurance. That should do for now. Let’s recheck these…

Martial Artist has reached level 32 (+2).
Soul Strike has reached level 40.
Healing Mantra has reached level 38 (+2).
Divine Step has reached level 33 (+3).
Clarity has reached level 17.
Soul Sight has reached level 20 (+2).

As she studied her skill increases, her chime sounded once more and her eyes widened as she took in the message.

Requirements met for skill advancement.

Mentor: Rezan Jin
Soul Strike has reached level 40.
Soul Sight has reached level 20.
Dexterity has surpassed 580.
Wisdom has surpassed 380.
Defeat a monster with more than 50,000 health.

Soul Strike gains Soul Echoes.
(You may Soul Echo up to 4 [skill/10] attacks. If you pay the cost of the attack again within thirty seconds of landing the Soul Echoed hit, it deals any inflicted soul damage a second time.)

Mentor: Rezan Jin
Soul Strike has reached level 40.
Endurance has surpassed 390.
Wisdom has surpassed 380.
Defeat a monster without mana 10 levels above you.
Has the Mana Strike ability.
Has the Health Strike ability.

Soul Strike gains Stamina Strike.
(Strike directly at stamina. Stamina leech.)

Choose one advancement.

I really struggled against this shaman, she thought as she stood over the bloody corpse of the troll, reviewing the fight in her mind. She had been unable to disrupt his magic by attacking his mana, and after talking it over with Ali, she was certain he had been spending his health, using it to fuel his crazy blood magic.

It was clear from her Soul Sight that he had not had a particularly large pool of stamina to draw from, and at the very least, his melee strikes and blocks were dependent on stamina. If she could deny at least those abilities, perhaps the shaman would be less of an overwhelmingly dominant force on the battlefield. The difference in power between the first group they had fought and this one was unreal – the addition of just one shaman had caused the challenge to skyrocket from difficult to nigh impossible.

“Deep in thought?” Ali asked, floating up beside her.

“I got two advancements for Soul Strike,” Malika admitted.

“That sounds fantastic,” Calen said.

“I’m not sure how to choose,” Malika admitted. Both options presented a unique solution to the problem of the shaman.

“What did you get?” Ali asked.

“Here.” With a thought, Malika shared the two choices.

“Oh, hmm, that is a tricky choice,” Calen said, whipping out his notebook on cue. “A complete suite of resource denial tools, or…”

“More damage?” Ali asked. “Soul Echoes looks good, but it seems complicated.”

“It’s damage and control,” Mato said.

“What do you mean?”

“It would allow her to bunch up damage and inflict it all at once – a way of bursting down monsters faster than they can react with healing or potions,” he offered.

Ali nodded. “Aha, I get it.”

“I think it offers a lot of choices,” Malika said, considering the implications. “I could keep burning the echoes to increase sustained damage, or I could save them up longer to create bursts of bigger damage.”

“I think it’s cool,” Mato said. “Once you’ve punched someone, you can just stand there without moving and they get punched again.”

“Are you thinking of taking it?” Ali asked.

“Actually, I’m leaning toward the stamina drain one,” Malika said, grinning at Mato’s vision of striking without even moving. Calen was right, it wasn’t an easy decision though.

“You’d give up the damage?” Mato asked, looking a little surprised. “I thought you’d love the versatility and surprise factor.”

“I do… it’s just… well, my damage doesn’t really matter a whole lot with Ali here packing an entire raid group of minions. Stamina drain could have taken care of this shaman promptly – the same way we took out Alexander Gray. That seems more useful for the team.”

“That makes sense,” Calen said, pinching his chin. “It would have been different if you were a slow, big hitter like Mato here, but you’re going a different route with your build.”

“True enough,” Mato nodded. “And I see what you mean about the shaman – eating his stamina would have been very helpful.”

“Yes, that’s why I’m thinking of taking it,” she admitted. “Against these guys, it would have been worth it.”

“As long as you like it,” Ali said.

That settles it, Malika decided, accepting her newest advancement. It seemed to be in theme for her main magical support skill, rounding out her abilities to deny her opponents their resources instead of doubling-down on raw damage, no matter how interesting. And with that, she scanned her updated skill description.

Soul Strike – level 40
Mana: Enhance a Melee Attack with your soul magic, striking directly at the health, stamina, or mana of your opponent. A portion of this health, stamina, or mana is returned to you. Your Attack gains +463% [40 + skill + wisdom] additional Soul damage. Range: Touch.
Soul, Melee, Support, Wisdom

I’ll need to fight even more strategically, she thought, but that was no problem – she already seemed to be heading down that path, and, as Ali had so eloquently pointed out, she enjoyed it more. Was it the challenge factor? An unexpected linkage with her bloodline skills? She began gathering up the gear the shaman and the warriors had been wearing, storing most of it. None of their group used shields, or the hybrid dexterity-wisdom armor, or axes.

But this… She examined the final item, turning it over in her hands speculatively. It was a gaudy bracelet of polished bone beads the shaman had been wearing, and the smooth finish gleamed as she held it up to the light.

Ancestral Spirit Beads – level 64
+57% to mana regeneration.
+11 Vitality
+29 Dexterity
+42 Wisdom
Requirements: Wisdom 224
Quality: Uncommon
Value: 12 gold, 87 silver
Hands – Charm

Appraise has reached level 18.

These are good. Very good, and uncommon grade at that. She ran her fingers over the beads. They would be great for her, but she had the Flamecaller Bracers, and she knew Ali was still wearing a level eleven bracelet from some Goblin shaman.

She probably won’t get much out of the Dexterity, but it’s still an amazing upgrade for her, Malika decided.

“Hey Ali,” she said. “Can you use this?” She walked over to where Ali was beginning to deconstruct the remaining trolls and handed her the beaded bracelet.

“Wow!” Ali said as she examined the bracelet. “I’d sure like to try!”

“Perhaps try to wrap it twice around?” Malika suggested as Ali struggled to figure out how to wear a bracelet designed for a creature more than three times taller than she was. With a deft twist, she helped her friend wrap it twice around her wrist. She didn’t even have to ask if it worked, the beaming smile on Ali’s face was all the answer she needed.

“Pretty garish,” Calen said, patting Ali on the shoulder. “Welcome to the fancy-dress party.”

At that, the tiny Fae laughed so hard she had to wipe tears from her eyes.

***

Name: Malika Yu
Race: Human
Titles: Street Rat, Rift Warden

Active Buffs: Perfect Body, Soul Armor, Enlightened Evasion, Well-fed

Class: Soul Monk – level 64
- Martial Artist – level 32
- Soul Strike – level 40
- Healing Mantra – level 38
- Perfect Body – level 24
- Soul Armor – level 30
- Enlightened Evasion – level 32
- Divine Step – level 33
- Second Wind – level 20
- Clarity – level 18
- Soul Sight – level 20

General Skills
- Dancing – level 10
- Calligraphy – level 3
- Lockpicking – level 5
- Appraise – level 18

Aptitudes
- Languages: Common, Ahn Khen
- Bloodline (Ahn Khen): +45% to range and power of Bloodline skills
- Mana (Affinity): Soul
- Relentless (Class): +100% to Stamina Regeneration
- Relentless (Class): You can pay for any abilities with stamina instead of mana

Patrons & Tithes
- Mentor: Rezan Jin

Attributes
- Vitality: 154 (+39)
- Strength: 125 (+65)
- Endurance: 403 (+238)
- Dexterity: 590 (+363)
- Perception: 98 (+23)
- Intelligence: 72 (+23)
- Wisdom: 383 (+196)

Equipment
- Head: Ruby Hairpin – level 40
- Hands: Flamecaller Bracers – level 44
- Feet: Swift Bone-Studded Jambeau – level 60
- Ring: Gold Guild Ring – level 60
- Ring: Seal of the Quartermaster – level 40

Armor: 1016
Physical Damage Reduction: 36.18%
Evasion: 1404
Dodge: 43.92%
Resistance: 976
Magical Damage Reduction: 35.26%
+20% to Fire resistance.
+2% of your damage is returned as Health over 30 seconds.
+15% to Movement speed.

Health: 1540/1540
Stamina: 2418/4030 (1612 Reserved)
Mana: 3830/3830

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https://www.patreon.com/DungeonOfKnowledge

https://www.scribblehub.com/series/1135403/dungeon-of-knowledge

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/80744/dungeon-of-knowledge-raid-combat-litrpg

A/N: Malika passes on Terry Pratchett’s Déjà Fu.