Chapter 288

Rathmines Great, Dublin, Ireland - 8:45 AM

I didn’t run into anyone on the way to Albert’s obelisk. Most of them had hidden away for the event, having been told multiple times that they wouldn’t be able to do anything in the Star Spangled Shadow Invasion other than get hurt. There would be some more once I stopped being on the outskirts of Dublin, but the suburbs here had been one of the first places abandoned.

With the giant pillar of light hanging in the sky, it wasn't hard to find my destination. Sitting in the middle of the Milltown Golf Club parking lot, nearly pressed against the building, was the obelisk. It was in a fairly defensible position given that it was covered on two sides by a two story structure and the rest by small walls with bushes, which automatically made it much better than the one I had started with.

Albert hadn’t had many points to spend on defense since he had come for my obelisk almost immediately, and there was a paltry chest-high wall to jump over. It was made out of stone which made it an alright choice, but it was placed to the east to cover the parking lot’s entrance. That was an okay choice, but it was clear he wasn’t well versed in tower defense type games.

The moment I put my hand on the Washington Monument look alike, a timer appeared in front of me ticking down from two minutes. If Albert was still out there then it would have been ten, but even this seemed far too long.

“Has Mississippi started coming this way yet?” I asked the sky. Jean Hawley was usually the one to take out Albert Shaw, but he had been out of position because Sugaar had noticed my absence and sent him to capitalize on it.

<<<>>>

[[Patron Message]]

Yes, but she's taking her time. The building will stop her from sniping you outright since she’s coming from the west, but you’re completely open from the north. Judging on her speed, you have time to set up before she finds what she’ll likely think is the optimal position to attack from.

<<<>>>

I nodded. That’s what I figured she would do. Taking her out would not only provide me a very handy skill book, but a long-range defensive option for my obelisk. If this countdown wasn’t so slow, I could have set up and moved to greet her.

Since I was stuck here anyway, I reached out to Jamie.

<<<>>>

[[Guild Chat]]

Anthony: Took out Albert Shaw, the MVP from Alabama, and currently taking his obelisk. Mississippi is almost here, and I’ll head north once I deal with her. How are you looking?

Jamie: Fine, as always. South Carolina is down and the obelisk is mine. Give me one second.

Jamie: North Carolina is down. Their point will be mine in three.

Anthony: Sweet. Looks like you’ll reach the rendezvous point before I do, so be careful out there.

<<<>>>

There was no response, but I wasn’t surprised by that. I could imagine her rolling her eyes and scoffing when she read that I said to be careful. That would have been such a Jamie response.

I still had some seconds left, so I went through my gear to make sure that everything was already upgraded. There were some items that were close, but nothing was there just yet. I retrieved a coin from my inventory.

It was silver and no larger than a quarter. On one side was a five pointed star, and previously that had been it. The other side had been blank, waiting for a Patron to arrive for me. Now that I had Sara, there were a pair of wings with a halo over them filling the space. Fairly common for an Angelic sponsor, and vague enough that no one would know who she was. I snapped open its menu, which had grown larger since the last time I last took it out of my inventory.

<<<>>>

[[Item]]

MVP Token

This token is a record of Anthony Franklin’s accomplishments as Most Valuable Player. It is bound to Anthony Franklin, and can not be given away or stolen.

Scenario MVP Awards

Etson: Vespae Invasion

Atlanta: Chaos Cup

Atlanta: Uuska Absorption

Pittsburgh: Doneralego’s Demise

Pittsburgh: The Trial of the Golden Dream

Bloomington: Plastic War

Mesa: Snowberry Queen

Hanford: Nuclear Army 1

Hanford: Nuclear Army 2

Hanford: Nuclear Army 3

Sedona: The Demise of Talafraxis

Williamsburg: Atlantean Diplomacy

Emperor’s Ascent: Aries

Emperor’s Ascent: Tauros

Emperor’s Ascent: Gemini

Emperor’s Ascent: Cancer

Emperor’s Ascent: Leo

Emperor’s Ascent: Virgo

Emperor’s Ascent: Libra

<<<>>>

Fiddling with the menu a little more, I dug a little deeper.

<<<>>>

[[Notice]]

You may use your MVP Token to raise the limits on your stats or abilities beyond the scenario maximum. Spending accolades does not strike them from your token, but they cannot be spent again. You will still need to invest points to increase the numerical values to their new limit.

By spending one accolade, you can increase one stat maximum by 2. You can do this up to ten times per stat.

By spending three accolades, you can increase one class ability’s maximum by one. You can do this up to four times per ability.

Would you like to use your MVP Token?

Yes

No

<<<>>>

I already knew what I needed to spend them on, so I hit Yes. Out of the 19 MVP awards I had received, I used 18 of them to increase the maximum limit of six abilities. Since I still needed to spend the points, it cost me almost 4,000 to increase their level from 6 to 7.

<<<>>>

[[Notice]]

Your abilities have been upgraded.

Abilities

Push (Willpower) lvl 7: You may manipulate an inanimate object no more than Willpower*11 lbs. so that it is pushed away from you.

Pull (Willpower) lvl 7: You may manipulate an inanimate object no more than Willpower*11 lbs. so that it is pulled towards you.

Lift (Willpower) lvl 7: You may manipulate an inanimate object no more than Willpower*22 lbs. to lift it off of the ground.

Drop (Willpower) lvl 7: You may manipulate an inanimate object no more than Willpower*22 lbs. to accelerate its fall.

Flight (Willpower) lvl 7: Use the power of your mind to fly, glide, or levitate. You may move in any direction at 70% of your running speed.

Shield (Wisdom) lvl : Cover yourself in a barrier with an amount of hit points equal to your Wisdom6. Hit points recharge at a rate of Wisdom1.6 hit points per second after 5 seconds of not taking damage. Broken shields cannot be reactivated for 30 seconds.

The following ability has automatically been upgraded.

Split (Focus) lvl 5: You may affect 5 different objects instead of only 1.

By raising your Warmind abilities, you have learned the following abilities.

Push Level 7 + Pull Level 7 + Flight Level 7 + Shield Level 7 = Empowered Body

<<<>>>

“There we go,” I whispered with a grin.

Not only was Empowered Body necessary to get my next Warmongering Mystic piece, the belt, to drop, but I also raised everything required for Split. It was the only ability I had where I couldn’t increase it directly. The only way to do it was to pay the price to make Push, Pull, Lift, and Drop higher level.

I flexed my fingers, suddenly feeling a lot more connected with my own flesh. My body moved more fluidly, which was saying something considering how experienced I was, and reacted faster to what my mind told it to do. Not willing to leave it at level 1, I spent 620 points to increase it to the usual limit of 6.

<<<>>>

[[Ability]]

Empowered Body

Level 6

Your body is bolstered by your psychic energy. Increase your Strength by 22% of your Willpower and your Dexterity by 22% of your Wisdom.

<<<>>>

I raised my fists and threw a few punches. My speed and power had increased by quite a bit. Psychic energy flowed through my body, and I basked in the feeling. It felt like I was one being, like I was whole again.

Many of my items increased my Dexterity so I was able to dodge things easier, but it wasn’t anywhere near the amount I put into my Warmind stats. Strength had been put on the back burner for a while because I had barely needed it and was still my lowest stat despite the big boost. It just didn’t stack up with the rest.

Since the Warmongering Mystic set increased Willpower and Wisdom and ignored everything else, this was an absolutely welcome buff. The only thing I could complain about was that Empowered Body didn’t increase Constitution, but I had a good few items that focused on that stat already. Not only that, but I had Shield and Force Fields for protection and both were essentially extra hit point pools when you got down to it.

Snapping my fingers, I retrieved the Staff of Raphael and pulled up my Status screen so I could look it over.

<<<>>>

[[Status]]

Guildmaster Anthony Franklin

Class: Warmind

Race: Half-Angel (Dormant)

Patron: (Hidden)

Guild: Sol Ligatus

Patron Kills: 1

Player Kills: 8

Points: 37,310

Stats:

Hit Points: 1,524/1,524

Mental Points: 2,778/3,154 (300/300)

Strength: 116; Dexterity: 156; Constitution: 127; Wisdom: 210; Willpower: 201

<<<>>>

A shiver of excitement went down my spine as I looked them over. Mental Points over three thousand and every stat was over one hundred, with the ones I used the most over two. Once I got the Belt of the Warmongering Mystic as my third place prize, it was only going to improve from there.

By the time I was finished, I received the notification I was waiting for.

<<<>>>

[[Congrats!]]

The Alabama Obelisk now belongs to you. You may purchase upgrades from the defense menu.

Defense Point acquisition speed increased to 2 per minute.

For owning two obelisks, you have unlocked the Electric Fence and Sawblade Turret upgrades.

<<<>>>

Cracking my fingers, I got to work. I was going to take care of Jean before I left so that she couldn’t take the obelisks I left behind, but that didn’t mean that someone else wouldn’t wander down here to take them. Given that I knew Jamie’s was well defended, I was going to make sure this one was, too. If anyone skipped it so they could go and check the Florida obelisk, then I’d be able to double back before they managed to take it over.

The menu for the upgrades was pretty simple this early on. For each obelisk I captured or player I defeated, more options would show up. Right now they were set into two categories, offensive and defensive.

Clicking on the latter first, I was given the option to set up sandbag barriers, small bunkers, and a few walls ranging from barbed wire fences to spiked palisades with gates. This was where the newest electrified upgrade was. It wasn’t what I wanted, however. I didn’t need to get fancy with it, so I selected the first one a few times. It also helped that they were the cheapest.

The illusion of a sandbag barricade appeared in front of me. It was see through and green, indicating that I could put it down on the ground there. If I tried to put it somewhere it couldn’t go, like inside a wall, it would turn red. It was a fairly intuitive system and I recognized it from games I had played before the system arrived.

I set up three of them, molding them into semicircles, and placed them equidistant about fifteen feet away from the obelisk in a loose grouping. It would take a massive area of effect attack to take them all out, but the things I was going to place inside were fairly sturdy.

Switching to the offense menu, there were even fewer options. Most of them were turrets. There was one for a rifle with a range of thirty yards, a submachine gun at ten, and a saw blade launcher at five. None of them were what I was going for.

<<<>>>

[[Turret]]

Tesla Coil

Cost: 15 Defense Points

Deals consistent electric damage to up to three hostile players within 15 yards.

<<<>>>

I set up three of them, each one nestled behind a sandbag barricade. They were low to the ground, barely a foot tall, and were well hidden behind cover. The turrets had a wide base to keep them from falling over and a disc on top, which thrummed with the sound of electricity coming through.

Even if people suspected that the sandbags were hiding something, they still had to get close unless they had an area attack, and even then I’d still be warned when they were destroyed. I spent ten points on a submachine gun turret, but didn’t place it yet.

Walking to the building, I Lifted one of the bushes they had planted near the entrance right out of the ground. The roots snapped as it came away, and I Pushed it as hard as I could across the street. It went flying into someone’s backyard, well out of sight.

That’s where I put the submachine gun turret. It was shorter than the bushes and had a single barrel pointing out of its dome-like head. The thing didn’t move, but I knew it was actively scanning the area. Albert’s lone wall and the three sandbag barricades meant that it didn’t have much line of sight, but I meant for it to be a nasty surprise, which was why it was hiding in the bushes.

<<<>>>

[[Patron Message]]

Jean is getting set up to the north.

<<<>>>

Clapping my hands together like I was removing dust from all the hard work I just did, closing the warning out at the same time, I smiled. “And now I can start heading towards Tennessee,” I said.

I turned to face the city and, with my eyesight enhanced by my Absolute Awareness passive, saw something shift on a rooftop far away. That was Jean getting prepared. Jamie wasn’t the only one capable of sniping in the Star Spangled Shadow Invasion. I activated Shield the very moment a spike of stone entered my Aura.

Taking it head on wasn’t my intention, however. With my newfound speed, I side stepped, reached out, and grabbed it out of the air. It scraped against my Shield, dealing some damage as I was pulled backwards. With a grunt of effort, I dug my feet into the parking lot pavement and spun using Orbit.

The projectile was only a few inches away from the glass building by the time I managed to control its momentum. I finished my spin like a champion, drawing on my experience with mortars and artillery weapons from back when I had classes dedicated to them, and loosed the stone spike.

It ascended in the air with Push and Lift in Jean’s direction. I didn’t bother checking to see if it was going to aim true, but that didn’t mean I called it a job well done and let it be. The Spell Sniper was probably shocked, and I needed to get closer if I wanted to win. I shot forward on my Heelies, intent to make the best out of the short period of time where she wasn’t actively shooting me.