CRASH!

‘That came from the side of the house Karie is on.’ Standing up, I rush outside. The first thing I see is Karie’s tower, toppled over. Calming slightly, I round the corner fully and spot Karie under a massive, light blue hawk. Its head meets the second-floor windows of our house

Feeling panic grip my heart, I unclip Argo and go to heave him. A feeling I haven’t experienced in a while surfaces as I find new words coming to mind. “Cast Off!”

Argo speeds through the air towards the hawk, slamming into it dead center with an explosion of high-pressure water. “Stay away from Karie you meanie!”

The water feels similar to what Crashing Wake produces based on my magical senses. A secondary effect occurs afterward and I feel even faster than usual running at the bird.

Circuit Jumping into the air with Crashing Wake boosting my speed, lightning conjures around my boot. “Thunderclap!”

With a boom and the immediate scent of ozone, I kick the bird to the side with a burst of electrified mist, cringing as it destroys some of the intricate fence Colt and Pasivier put up.

Landing on the ground, I catch Argo as he flies back to my hand. Whatever speed buff I had disappears the moment he enters my hand.

Looking down at my foot, my boot and some of my lower leg are frosted over and Argo is painfully cold to the touch. Using Pyromancy, I heat Argo back to a comfortable temperature and regard the trail of frost that coats the ground from the path the hawk’s body followed after my kick.

Inspecting the hawk finally while it shakes its head and recovers slightly, I try to get some more information on it.

Wing of the Northern Peak

Traits: Aeromancy, Cryomancy, Ice Aura

Description: A hawk that preyed on other lifeforms in the Northern Peak Dungeon Zone: Mount Katahdin to swell to its immense size. It controls the forces of wind and ice to create cutting gales that freeze on contact. Its own body is bitingly cold due to an ice aura which it can use to lash out in aura attacks.

‘Dungeon Zone? Better turn up the heat then. Lightning Cloak.’ Sparks of electricity wreathe my body as Colt appears next to me, coming down after hearing all the commotion.

“You okay, Lucas?”

“Yeah, watch out though. Anything that gets close to this bird freezes. It has Aeromancy too.” Gesturing to my frozen foot which is thawing slowly with Pyromancy, he grimaces and nods.

“Alright, more earth spells than nature or wind I guess.” Wild Magick sparks in the air around him as he charges up a spell.

The hawk flaps into the air, rushing straight towards us with high-speed winds. Dodging to the side, I pull out something I made a while ago, guidedgrasp seeds. Imbuing the seeds with mana and throwing them at the bird, vines made of magic tie around its body.

Seeing as these aren’t real vines, the cold doesn’t affect them, fortunately. They prove ineffective, however, as several blades of wind cleave them away almost immediately.

‘Well, I guess medium quality consumables don’t really stand up to par with such a powerful monster. Should have expected that.’

“Earthen Riches!” A cascade of viciously sharp crystals flies at the hawk from Colt, cutting it slightly in a few places. However, most of the crystals simply skate across its feathers.

Colt casts a Glamour and disappears from sight as the hawk flies at him, confusing it at the sudden disappearance of its “prey”.

Taking advantage of this, I swap out to Argo’s chained form and swing it down, swapping runes in Crashing Wake to a different element. ‘Galvanizing Wake!’

Electricity runs down the chain and coats Argo in a shocking aura. The bird somehow detects his descent in time and a barrier of frozen wind blocks my strike, sending Argo flying backward.

Sending a bolt of lightning at the hawk, a wall of ice appears and blocks it so I simply tug on the chain attached to Argo to return him to me.

Pulling him back to me, I go to heat the metal quickly once more so I can handle it again but a gust of wind chills me to the bone. Trying to dodge away from the bird’s divebomb attack, I find my body not responding.

Pushing with my mana to reheat myself, it’s too late. Without even being able to close my eyes in preparation of the impact, a massive, sharp pillar of earth comes up from the ground, slamming but not piercing into the belly of the hawk.

The bird screeches in anger and two shimmering spears of ice shoot down from the air, piercing through both of my shoulders. Crying out in reflexive response more than pain, the cold is numbing me, I only make a strangled noise, even my vocal cords are frozen.

Deep, chilling cold spreads from the icicle spears, pervading my body with more frost. My HP drops considerably as my prana fights to repair the frostbite-damaged cells.

Gathering fire-attuned mana to the area, I push back against the freezing invasion while Colt holds off the hawk by conjuring walls of earth and wind.

‘Wait, I know just what will help.’ Mentally selecting a loadout I haven’t touched in a while, the chain on Argo disappears, he’s frozen in my hand, but I have my sauna coat on. Pouring mana into it, refreshing steam coats me and heat fills my body.

Glancing down at the coat, it seems the equip feature made it appear with holes for the icicle spears. More freezing wind blows by me and I look up again.

Colt seems unaffected by the frost gathering on his body. There are certainly some perks to being made of magick.

Despite all the heat in my body now, the icicle spears through my shoulders won’t melt. Another issue as they’re frozen to the ground as well. The spears are keeping my body from healing and most of my shoulder musculature is torn and unable to repair so my arms are next to useless.

‘Well, I can’t move so let’s try a battle of wills then. I need to help Colt.’ He’s struggling against the hawk and losing ground with every spell exchange due to his true affinity, nature spells, being useless here.

“Storm’s Rage.” Wind and water swirl around me in my own personal storm, none of it actually touching me. Striking out with my aura, it clashes against the ice aura that coats the body of the hawk.

It screeches in response and I feel a pressure on my mind as it pushes back against my aura. With the mental battle going on, the storm around me picks up in intensity, emulating the battle of wills. Colt takes this moment of distraction to fire several spiral shaped crystal lances toward the bird.

With my Aetheric Supremacy, I can see that he’s maintaining a tether of Wild Magick to these lances, forcing them to push through the mystic winds that surround this hawk now. They spin at high speeds, drilling into the flesh of the bird.

It cries out in distress and I feel the magical bonds in the spears holding my shoulders break. As they’re now just normal ice, I jerk my body to break them, gasping in pain once more as my body spits out chunks of ice while the tissue heals.

Rejoining Colt now that my shoulders are fixed, I let him back off for a second to regroup his resources. Noting my own HP is dipping uncomfortably low, I realize just how much the frost effect was damaging me.

For now, the hawk is approaching and I need to give Colt a chance to restore himself as he’s looking really pale, so I meet its charge head-on with my aura once more. A crack echoes out as our wills collide.

A ring of frost gathers just around me but doesn’t manage to touch me. Focusing my will as sharply as I can, I cut through the hawk’s own ice aura, causing a large gash to appear across its breast.

Wind faster than I can even detect cuts towards me, blasting me back as its path mars the earth.

Pain and then numbness fills my body and I use Promethean to staunch my own bleeding and I down a healing potion as quickly as possible.

Looking over on the lawn near the house, Karie is frosted over, unable to move and she’s in several pieces. A seed of anger blooms in me and I stand up, filled with renewed vigor.

Taking out the first flight potion I made, I drink the final dose of it, giving myself a little over five minutes of flight. ‘I won’t need that much.’

Colt is blocking several wing strikes from the hawk with walls of earth which break after a single hit.

Activating Lightning Cloak, I speed towards the hawk with a Circuit Jump and empower myself heavily with knots. Shooting it with several bolts of lightning to buy Colt previous seconds and then changing direction, I fly high into the sky above the frosty avian. A charge builds up in the atmosphere around me due to my Lightning Cloak.

Dark clouds gather around me and all of my hair stands completely on end. Reaching out with my lightning-attuned mana, I cause a domino effect of electrical charge to build up in the sky, fueling it with my own mana.

In a thunderous boom, the world goes white as lightning strikes me. This is the intended effect though, so I allow the force to bring me streaking down toward my target, electricity wreathing both my arms and Argo.

“Crack the Sky!” The entire attack discharges into the body of the hawk, dissipating its freezing aura immediately upon contact.

The strike leaves a burning hole through its body as the remaining force causes a sequence of incredibly loud cracks to indicate most of its bones breaking.

My own body and mind reel with pain as I feel small stress fractures through bones in my legs and arms. My skin stings and has electrical burns running down it as not all of the lightning was my own.

Fortunately, I’m significantly more alive than the hawk, so I restore my uncomfortably low HP with a healing potion and let Promethean do most of the work restoring me to working order.

Rushing over to Karie, I use Pyromancy to clear away the frost from her body. Once her clay is unfrozen, her recovery aspect activates and the body begins to reform.

Relief fills me. ‘She’s okay.’ Watching with my magical senses, even the enchantments I added seem to reform, if somewhat slowly. The ambient mana in the air drops somewhat, so I begin supplying my own, what I can spare at least, to help her repair faster.

Eventually, her body is completely reformed and her eyes flicker to life. “Lucas?”

“Karie, are you okay? What happened?”

“Bird on tower. Crash.” Her voice reflects her melancholy at the destruction of her tower.

“Oh, it’s okay, you can build an even bigger and better tower, right? I can get Colt to supply you with some better materials too.”

“I can what?” Colt walks over, dusting frost off of himself. “Are you okay, Karie?”

“No. Tower gone.” With how mournful her voice is, one would think her entire family just died.

“Oh no. It’s okay, you can build a better one next time, right? I can get you some really high quality stone and wood to make it from too. Okay?”

She looks up at him, the light in her eyes flickering brightly. “Better… tower?”

“Better tower.” He smiles at her.

She trills happily, similar to how Argo does when he’s excited. Looking down at the anchor in question, I can sense his own nervousness. “You have anything you want to say, Argo?”

“I… I am glad you are okay, Karie.”

“Called bird meanie. Thank.”

“Of course! That bird was a big meanie!”

Laughing, I pat Argo. “Yup. You’re her hero now.”

“Lucas, I am sweating with nervousness.”

Realizing my legs feel wet, I push the anchor off my legs. “Ah, gross! Argo! How are you even doing this?”

“I do not know, Lucas! The message told me I can do it!”

“What message? Do you receive Construct messages?”

“Yes! That is the one! Golems receive messages too! Mine said I have ‘assimilated hydromancy’ from you, Lucas! Now I am more like you!” Argo trills happily, a small stream of water gathering around the anchor.

“It’s weirdly… attuned. Something about your magical properties must be affecting the water you produce.” Taking the bottle of water I gathered earlier, I note that there’s less in it than previously.

“Huh, that’s weird, the water must decay over time. Or just evaporate easily.” Going to put the bottle back in my hold, it won’t come off my hand.

“Uh oh. Colt? Help. The bottle is stuck to my hand.”

“How is it stuck to your hand? You didn’t get super glue on it like that time in 3rd grade, did you?” He attaches a few vines to the bottle, avoiding touching it himself and pulls.

“Oh god, Colt. I think I just realized the trait this water has that I couldn’t see before. It must be ‘anchoring’ because the water came from Argo. This bottle is anchored to me.”

“Hooray! I made the bottle magic!”

“Argo it’s stuck to me now, this isn’t a good thing.”

“Hooray! I did a bad thin- wait. Oh no.”

Eventually, after a lot of trial and error with several considerations of just cutting my hand off and letting it regrow, we find that it obeys similarly to the magical metals I make. I simply have to will the bottle to stop being anchored to me.

Basic panic appears to be the root cause of not coming up with that solution earlier. Now that the panic is over, Construct notifications about the fight flood in.

Level up! For combining elemental forces with your anchor techniques and learning a new Skill, your Talent: Adept Anchorist has reached (20/50)!

For reaching your fourth Talent milestone in Adept Anchorist, you have been awarded applicable stat points to Strength, Endurance, Dexterity, Willpower and + 120 XP. In addition, you have been granted the Perk: Ocean’s Bounty.

Level up! For combining elemental forces to overcome an enemy and learning to work with the environment, your Talent: Adept Mage has reached (5/50)!

For reaching your first Talent milestone in Adept Mage, you have been awarded applicable stat points to Intelligence, Attunement, Willpower, Insight and + 30 XP. In addition, you have been awarded one Perk Point! Perk Points can be only spent on a Perk that came from the associated Talent.

You have gained the resistance: Cold Resistance (1/100)!

You have gained the resistance: Conductivity Resistance (1/100)!

Congratulations, Lucas Creo! Through further affinity with your main combat Talent, you have acquired the Skill: Cast Off!

Wing of the Northern Peak defeated! 6456 XP awarded!

Wing of the Northern Peak dropped: 3 Sparks, 72 Glints, 2 Gleams, and Northwind Cloak.

Level up! You have achieved level 25, you are awarded 5 unallocated stat points, +80 HP, +130 MP, +2.8 HP regen, +4.8 MP regen, +34 Strength, +51 Endurance, +20 Dexterity, +53 Intelligence, +55 Attunement, +48 Willpower, +12 Charisma, and +26 Insight. 379/10720 remaining until level 26.

Perks:

Ocean’s Bounty

Description: The bounty of water is yours now. Submerging yourself in water increases your regeneration rates, scaling with how much of your body is submerged. Your mobility in water is also improved to some extent; you will experience less drag. HP and MP Regen increased by 0.5. +0.5 HP and MP Regen per level up.

‘Huh. I wonder if that decreased drag stacks with Dermal Denticles. Maybe I should visit the ocean soon. But… there’s probably a lot of really terrifying monsters in there, so I might just save that trip for another time. Come to think of it, how are my parents ever going to get back to Maine? The ocean must be teeming with huge monsters.’

Feeling somewhat sad at that thought, I try to move past it. ‘Let’s see what Cast Off does. Skills.’

Skills:

Cast Off - (Level 1) - Throw an anchor with improved power. It’s landing will cause a burst of high-pressure water. In addition, you will receive a speed bonus until the anchor has been retrieved.

‘Well, that’s exactly what I expected. Now I’m curious about what the cloak I got is.’

Taking the northwind cloak out of my hold, the cool, feathery, powder blue garb appears in my hand. It’s not an unpleasant cold, though my body is still chilly from the fight. A quick use of my sauna cloak brings me back to a comfortable temperature. Turning back to my new cloak, I Inspect it.

Northwing Cloak

Quality: Very High

Traits: Northern Peak’s Blessing, Ice Aura

Description: This cloak made from the feathers of the Wing of the Northern Peak constantly emits a cool aura around it. This effect can be disabled with a mana input. When channeling mana through this cloak, it generates a protective field of wind around the user that can slow or deflect projectiles.

Equipping the cloak, the cool feathers help to counteract the heat produced by the sauna coat. ‘I can probably use this sauna coat now even though it’s summer. This cloak feels so smooth!’

Running my hand down the feathers, they’re extremely pleasant to the touch, yet they also feel protective. Recalling how most of Colt’s projectiles simply skated off the hawk’s feathers, I wonder if this cloak will have similar defensive properties.

Curious, I turn to Colt. “What did you get, Colt?”

“Oh, you’re gonna love it, it’s super cool.” He winks at me.

-1

‘Goddamnit.’

“I got a weapon. It’s… pretty interesting. It’s called the Northern Peak’s Talon.” He produces a pale blue sword from his storage, showing it to me. Upon further Inspection, it turns out to be a rapier. The hand guard is an ornate bird motif where the feathers surround the hand and the beak leads into the blade.

‘Inspect.’

Northern Peak’s Talon

Quality: Very High

Traits: Northern Peak’s Bite

Description: This rapier contains the power of the Northern Peak, allowing the user to stab with its biting winds. These winds contain incredible cutting force as well as bitterly cold temperatures which will freeze those struck by it.

“Wow, that’s super cool. I got this fancy cloak.” Twirling around in it, he nods in approval after reading the Inspection message.

“Looks fancy, it’s so smooth too.” He revels in the feeling after taking it in one hand.

“Yeah, it feels amazing. So, are you gonna use the rapier?”

He takes a moment to think about it. “I’ll try it at the very least. It’ll finally be a weapon Pasivier approves of I’m sure. He’s so particular about that kind of thing. ‘A Fae should use only the most elegant of weapons.’” His impression of Pasivier makes me laugh.

Detecting motion out of the corner of my eye, I spot a group of people coming around the side of our house.

“Everything okay? We saw that hawk fly over here and came as quickly as we could.” Gabe approaches me from the crowd of people. Adreanell, Becky, Cassandra, and Mary push their way through the crowd too. Well, Becky does most of the actual pushing.

“Yeah, we’re fine.” Gesturing to the giant bird corpse behind me, they nod. “One problem though. There’s another dungeon.”