I immediately fell to the floor in dry heaves when we returned to Djarleen’s shop. “Clean up any messes you make, okay?” Djarleen asked in a sickly sweet voice. Gods, I wonder what she went through in her apprenticeship if she thought this was acceptable? Actually, nevermind. No, I don’t need any Gods enlightening me on that subject, thank you very much. I took a few minutes to collect myself, then headed back to Dharkiss’ shop to see if he could help me out with something.

“Welcome back sir!” The apprentice chipperly greeted me as I walked in.

“Hey, you seem to be making a lot of progress, you didn’t even need to stutter that time.” I said, excited for the kid. “Sadly though, I think I am going to need to talk to Dharkiss for a bit, get his opinion on if something is possible.”

“That’s fine, I’ll be right back with him.” He said, and disappeared behind the curtain. A few seconds later both came back.

“Angus, you’re a few days early for your bladed wire I’m sorry to say.” Dharkiss said immediately.

“Oh, no it isn’t about that. I came up with a lovely new potion, and I think I’ll need your help with a delivery method.” At my words, both he and the apprentice visibly perked up. You would almost think that they enjoyed challenging their skills to my crazy schemes or something. “See, this potion bursts into flame when it contacts air, so I can’t go the normal rout of soaking it into a weapon. I also don’t want to start the fight with throwing a vial, as that would probably put the guy on guard that something was up. Is there any way to replace a portion of a crossbow bolt with a clay vial?”

“This is why you will always be welcome around here Angus, you keep thinking of oddball things to do with normal weapons. I’m assuming this wouldn’t do what you wanted?” He said while pulling out a bolt similar to what I was envisioning. It had a small bulge, almost an inch long right behind the needle of a tip instead of an arrowhead. “Normally you would fill your bulge in this thing with whatever poison you preferred and only lose a slight bit of range. I don’t think this would do the damage you were looking for, right?”

“Yeah, that’s just not going to cut it. It needs to deliver a lot more potion, and preferably shatter the container it is in.”

“I will work on a few things overnight. Is tomorrow soon enough for you? And how many will you need?”

“Tomorrow is perfect. Is there any way to get me 50 bolts of your best design? That’ll give me some to practice with before I head out.”

“That’s doable. Come by in the morning and we’ll get you set up.”

“Thanks Dharkiss, you are the best.”

“And don’t you forget it!” He chuckled as I left the store.

After I left, I needed something to do with my time. I was out of most of my ingredients, so alchemy was out. With over half of my mana tied up for three more hours I wouldn’t be able to do much of anything with mana blades, and I still hadn’t heard back from Emily on those. My skills were all rather low, so I decided to do some grinding at the barracks. For the next several hours, I alternated between using mana in skills that required it and practicing martial moves to let my mana recharge. In the end, I was exhausted but rather proud. I even figured out a way to get the screen to display my gains to feed my ego a bit.

Skill

Previous Level

New level

Skill bonus

Hammerscythe mastery

Beginner 7

Intermediate 2

Damage increased by 17%, attack speed increased by 6%

Crushing blow

Beginner 7

Intermediate 1

Chance to inflict status effect +15%

Mana Shockwave

Beginner 1

Beginner 3

Damage increased by 3%, Durability damage reduced by 3%

Crossbow mastery

Beginner 1

Intermediate 5

Range increased by 15 m, Chance to hit increased by 15%, damage increased by 5%

Windless Trajectory

Beginner 3

Intermediate 5

+15% critical hit chance, +25% chance to hit

Mana edge

Beginner 5

Beginner 7

+17% damage, increased chance to amputate

Not a bad bit of afternoon training. Happy with my results, I headed back to the inn for some good food and rest.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

“Mornin’ Angus.” Dharkiss greeted me as I walked into his shop the next morning. “I think you’ll love this.” He said as he placed several crossbow bolts on the counter. Roughly a third of the length was replaced by a fired clay vial, and the tip had a conic iron tip jammed into a cork.

“What’s with the tip? It looks like a practice bolt, being as blunt as it is.”

“Yeah, but you can’t get good accuracy without it. Of course, with something like this you won’t get the accuracy for a critical hit, but that’s not the point now, is it?”

“Nope, I just need to be able to hit the broad side of a barn. So tell me about this baby.”

“Right, so I cut off a good portion of the bolt as you can see. I had a potter come in and help out, and we made a thin walled vial and formed it around the bolt itself. We fired it while it was attached to the bolt, so it should be secure. The cork and tip should seal whatever you fill it with, and the impact should shatter the walls.”

“Perfect, this is exactly what I need. How much for 50 of them?”

“How does 50 silver sound?”

“I can do that, here you go. I’ll be back to let you know how it turned out.”

“I look forward to it!”

Smiling, I headed out to the barracks area to test my new bolts. I started by filling 15 of them mostly full with water to simulate the potion. Taking aim, I fired the first bolt and was rather disappointed. The accuracy was lousy, but the worst part was that it had around a third of the range of a regular bolt. It took all of my 15 prepped bolts to get windless trajectory dialed in, and I found that firing at a slightly upward angle tended to have better accuracy. Must be the liquid throwing things off. Once I cleaned up my bolts, I headed out to do some hunting.

Once I reached the Mushroom Hot Springs, I started the slaughter of mycofiends once again. I swiftly slaughtered my way through, only pausing once I was outside the boss chamber. Here I took five arrows at a time, and split a caustic potion between them. I dropped a bit of spores in each one, leaving me just enough time to cap them as the foaming stopped. Perfect, the ingredients to create one potion was just enough for five arrows. Once I had all 35 of them set up, I looked at what I had created.

Fireburst bolt

This bolt has been filled with a portion of a pyrophoria potion. While it will suffer accuracy issues, it has gained a small bit of splash damage, joining horseshoes and hand grenades for the close counts club.

Impact damage: 1

Fireburst damage: 20 over 10 seconds

Accuracy -25%

Critical hit -95%

Heh, just what I needed. This’ll surprise that smug mushroom bastard. Before heading in, I set up my quick access potions. The first three were pyrophoria potions, the next set of three were caustic potions, and the final two were health potions on the offhand chance that I needed them. With an evil grin, I walked in to the chamber without bothering with the stealth. Halfway across the room, the mycofiend cocked its head as it studied my confident demeanor. I stopped at the base of the stairway, just within the range of my new bolts. I took aim at the face of the mycofiend, trusting that when he dodges it will still strike the throne behind him. I let him start shaking his finger in a “no, no” gesture again before firing. Predictably, he tried dodging. The look of panic on its face as it was splashed with burning potion was priceless.

It shot straight up from its throne, but when it patted the flames on its back (handy not having bones, that) the fire merely transferred to its hand. As it started dancing there, I flung a pyrophoria potion at it, and it shattered against its body and lit the entire throne level on fire. In a bonus for me, the potion would float on the little bit of water, and simply kept burning. Extremely panicked now, the boss leapt from his level to the base level with me, a few feet to my left. As the fires died, I decided to remind him that I was still here and shattered a caustic potion against its left leg, the hissing as the acid ate into its body music to my ears. It let out a high pitched shriek, and started desperately splashing water against its leg, leaving its cap open to my second pyrophoria potion.

I know I shouldn’t be relaxing in a boss fight, but there’s just something soothing about watching a mushroom that has killed you before run around with his head on fire, panic evident. I followed it over to one of the waterfalls, as it plunged its head underneath just as the fires started dying on their own. I took its distraction as permission to blast the back of its left leg with my second caustic potion, once again reveling in the panic on its face. Despite all my attacks, it still had only lost a quarter of its life. Once the acid had done its work, it turned to me with rage on its face. It had seen better days though. The left leg had a few support strands frayed open, it looked like a partially chewed through cable. The face and cap had burnt patches on its skin, and one blister had partially obstructed one of its eyes. I gave it a grin to enrage it, and hopefully have it forget about those annoying water bullets.

Luck wasn’t with me that time, as it immediately started firing at me. I managed to dodge 2 out of every five, but the water was working against my footing. Wait, there’s stone under the water dummy! Drawing my hammerscythe, I charged at the mycofiend. It didn’t expect my change in traction, as I was using [Mana excavation] on the claws in my feet. Once they cut down into stone a bit, I would cancel it. Once I was close enough, I saw the bastard lean back to give me a haymaker with its right hand. Grinning at it telegraphing its next move, I sped up just a bit. As it unleashed a massive swing, I moved to my own right, sliding past him in a crouch. I activated [Mana edge] and targeted his planted foot, right where I had thrown those two caustic potions earlier in the fight. My speed gave me enough power in my swing to slash straight through the weakened limb, and as overbalanced as it was it fell straight onto its shoulder.

As it flailed about on the floor, desperately trying to keep me in its sight, I walked around to the cap and placed my hand on it to let it know where I was. “You got me the first time, but it was a close one. This time I came prepared, and you stood no chance. I won’t make you suffer, though a part of me wants to for the loss you gave me last time. Instead, I dedicate your death to Thanatos. [Reaper’s edge].” As I finished speaking, I slammed the scythe into the cap and ripped it towards me, severing what the mycofiend used as a heart and killing it.

Thanatos finds your gift acceptable.

You gain 10 favor from offering an acceptable death.

You gain 10 favor for killing your offering with [Reaper’s Edge].

Total favor: 27/100

Respawn rate reduced!

You have killed the progenitor of the mycofiends infesting this area. As a result, their respawn rate will be drastically reduced until a new progenitor is created.

Oh, that’s nice to know. I vaguely remember getting a notification about 7 favor for my weekly kills, glad I didn’t have to wait 15 weeks to get the favor I needed. I also hoped that second notification would be enough to finish the quest for Khaliss. Walking up to the body, I tried to loot it.

Unable to loot

This kill has been offered to a God and can’t be looted.

Aaaand there’s the catch. Oh well, he probably didn’t have anything worth looting anyway. Instead, I headed towards the throne looking for loot. I didn’t see much, but there was an odd crack running just underneath the seat portion. I used a thin mana blade and ran it along the inside, jumping back as the front fell forward with a splash to reveal an iron treasure chest. I slowly pulled it out, expecting it to be trapped but my luck held out. Inside was a bowling ball sized crystal I hadn’t seen before and a skill book. I greedily identified both.

Medium mana crystal

Prized for their beauty, medium mana crystals are the favored centers for powering building defenses.

Mana: 1250/1250

Yeah, I could see the beauty in it. Not only did it look like a faceted bowling ball of bluish glass, the mana at the center looked like a spiral galaxy as it slowly turned on an axis.

Water mastery skill book

Reading this book will advance the user’s skill in a water based skill of their choice. The skill increase decreases the higher the user’s skill is.

Holy shit, that’s a badass skill book. Now I just wish I had a water based skill to use it on or access to the auction so I could sell it for a pretty penny. Either way, my time in this area was done. I still went through and picked up as many of the caustic mushrooms as I could, those potions were rather helpful. Finally finished with my mushroom revenge, I started wandering back towards the city. I hadn’t gone too far when I was distracted by a crashing sound.

Turning down the tunnel I thought I heard it from, I slowly made my way towards the thundering sound, having to wait for echoes. Eventually I came to a wide open cavern. My darkvision couldn’t penetrate the entire cavern, but what I could see was a floor covered with shattered stone. Staying near the wall, I started creeping around but jumped at a blast that struck the wall 15 feet from me. “What the hell?” I murmured, as I hadn’t seen anything. The stone just shattered, and there was a small depression with cracks radiating out from it. I turned to where I thought the blast would have come from, and slowly crawled forward, hoping any future blasts would move over my head.

The monsters I came across were absolutely gorgeous. Imagine a blue lobster as tall as a human, with one oversized orange claw much like a fiddler crab. It was doing battle with a toad of the same height, brown pebbled skin with two stubby horns coming off the top of its head. As I watched, the toad gave a mighty flipping leap, landing feet first onto the ceiling. In the moment before it fired back towards the ground, lightning was collecting on the horns. The force of his jump cracked the stone of the ceiling, and it came rocketing down horns first.

Not idle, the lobster gave a flick of its tail and used an air pressure wave to jet backwards out of the area of effect of the toad’s attack, just in time. With a tremendous explosion, rock shards went flying and lightning snaked out of the impact crater, and the toad rolled to its feet. The lobster’s carapace was more than up to the task, as the stone shards simply shattered. It then snapped forward with its oversized claw almost faster than I could follow, but was well out of melee range. That didn’t stop the toad from getting slammed by some invisible force that sent it tumbling. Dazed, it took just a bit too long to regain its senses. The lobster darted forward, and its oversized claw clamped down on the toad’s throat. As it slowly strangled its prey, I identified both of them.

Thunder-ram toad

Lvl 22

Though an earth based creature, the thunder-ram toad utilizes an electric ramming technique to stun difficult prey that it can then consume at its leisure. Many a foolish adventurer has underestimated the speed these creatures can produce with their overpowered back legs.

Cray-claw

Lvl 25

A variant of the giant crayfish, the cray-claw has an oversized pincer that has several specialized uses. Instrumental in finding a mate, it also uses it to crush any enemy foolish enough to enter melee range. It also has adapted the ability to line the claw edges with mana and unleash a powerful ranged force bubble. With the high defense offered from its shell, this is not an enemy to be treated lightly. Overwhelming force from multiple party members is highly recommended.

Oh joy, two titans that out-level me by six levels are duking it out right in front of me. Yeah, I want no part of this fight, and quietly crept away in a strategic withdrawal. You are still allowed to be scared out of your mind in a strategic withdrawal, right? Either way, I quietly exited stage left and made haste back to the city. I just hope I don’t meet up with a human sized centipede here in the Underdark, they have way too many legs to be giant sized.