34

Logging out of Elderpyre had never felt this pleasant before. One moment, Hunter was barely keeping it together from all the stress and pain. The next, Alex was waking up in his bed, pain-free and comfortable. What’s more, it was only late afternoon. For the first time in quite some time, Alex wasn’t in a rush to log back in. So he ate a big lunch, spent some time in the yard, exercised a bit, played a few hands of poker with Bob the cafeteria guard until Officer Carpenter came in for a cup of coffee and gave them both an earful, had a long, hot shower, and turned in early.

All in all, a great evening–much better than getting smacked in the face and ribs with ancient corpses by a hulking mutant gorilla zombie-thing.

He woke up just after dawn–his internal clock had started to get used to it–and logged right back in. Predictably, he materialized in the same spot he was where he’d logged out the previous day. Not so predictably, Fawkes, Fyodor, and the Brethren were nowhere to be found. He was alone, trapped in a pitch-black vault with six dancing mummies and what looked like a fancy coat hanger–which probably was a dangerous artifact of some kind. The only silver lining in all of this was the one his Low-Light Vision cast around the objects in the vault, saving him the abject horror of being unable to see. That, and the fact that his wounds were mostly healed. His ribs felt bruised and his nose was still completely numb, but at least there was no pain.

All in all, not great, not terrible.

The Kannewik paid absolutely no attention to him. That was good. In fact, they didn’t even seem to be aware of his presence, or anything else for that matter. They just danced in a circle, same as they’d done for centuries. His poncho, tunic, glaive, and backpack had been left lying in a tidy pile next to him, which was a good sign; it meant Fawkes hadn’t left in a hurry or somehow forgotten him–and he was pretty sure she wouldn’t just abandon him locked up in there.

Much as he disliked it, what he should probably do was sit tight and wait till Fawkes and the others came back. They’d probably gone to scout ahead or secure a safe route or somethings along those lines. He had no reason to worry. They could take care of themselves just fine, those three, right? Better than he could, anyway. Looking for a way to keep his mind busy, he decided to check his notifications from the previous day. He had a buttload of them to comb through; between the whole fighting low-creatures and being unconscious, hadn’t had a chance to check them at all.

Most of them was combat log stuff; him dealing some damage, him taking some damage, him bleeding out like a stuck pig. Then there were the Skill and Ability increases–those were the interesting part. His Close Combat and Pole Mastery were now at 16, his Evasion at 4, and his Low-Light Vision at a whopping 19–that was 9 whole ranks worth of Ability growth. What’s more, his Conjure Familiar had climbed all the way to 17, and his Augmented Familiar to 14. That was to be expected; Biggs and Wedge had put in some serious overtime spamming Ill Omen and pelting the low-ogre with curses. What he had not expected was to see there was a new Ability available to him–one aptly called Toughness.

Toughness increases your Health and boosts your pain tolerance, allowing you to ignore a portion of its effects when injured. Higher ranks increase that pain threshold, as well as the Health bonus.

This was huge; not only did it sound solid, it was also a gamechanger for the way he got access to new Abilities. Until now, he’d only gotten them whenever his Insight quality increased, or, in the case of Survival and Wildcrafting, when he got one of his skills high enough. Toughness, however, he’d gotten through pure circumstance. It was like an achievement of sorts; he’d been beat up and kept going anyway, and gained access to a Ability related to just that.

Interesting.

Very interesting indeed.

After getting battered and beaten like that, higher Health and a higher pain threshold sounded exactly like what the doctor ordered, Hunter thought. He’d gained two Inspiration points when he’d when he’s anchored himself to place of power outside the Halls, so spending one to learn Toughness was a no-brainer.

Your Toughness has increased to 1. Your Health has increased to 101. Your Inspiration quality is now 1.

That left him with another point of Inspiration, as well as 600 Aether to spend on his primary attributes. He’d been holding on those thus far for fear of ruining his character build, but he was starting to regret that decision. He was in the middle of a dungeon–a high threat level dungeon, facing off with elite enemies–and was not in his best potential fighting form. That was… not okay. If he’d entered a raid like that back in his gaming days before Elderpyre, Packman would have given him an earful. Again, it came down to game knowledge; the information the game offered about how skills and abilities worked–the meat and potatoes of things, like damage calculations and stuff–was scarce to non-existent. How was he supposed to know what to invest in?

For example, what attributes did his attacks scale off? How was it decided whether an attack was a hit or a miss or, even more importantly, a critical? How were the damage values calculated? How was his familiars’ Ill Omen success rate decided?

Sadly, barring pure speculation, there was no way to get any answer to those questions.

Well, in fact, there probably was one; he still had Mystic’s Eye–the ability that allowed information to simply pop up in his head, as if it had always been there. He was just reluctant to use it, because the knowledge it provided came with at the steep price of nosebleeds, migraines, and who knows what else. Again, he was tempted to give it another go, see how it would work now that his Insight had increased a bit, but ultimately decided against it.

When all this Vale business is over, Hunter promised himself.

But not yet.

For now, he had to work with what he had at hand; speculation, educated guesses, and conjecture. He lit a torch he found in a sconce on the room’s wall–the gloom was beginning to get to him–and started asking himself some questions.

What was his top priority?

Making it out of his Elderpyre-fueled prison stint with his wits intact and with as little mental trauma as possible.

How would he manage that?

By suffering as few injuries and deaths as he could–though that hadn’t been something that he’d been exceptionally effective at so far.

And how would he manage that?

Easy.

One; he would try stay out of trouble.

Two; if he absolutely had to get into trouble, he would try not to get hit.

Three; if he absolutely couldn’t avoid getting hit, he would try not to get hit hard.

Four; if he absolutely couldn’t avoid getting hit hard, he would try to be able to survive it.

And five; if we absolutely couldn’t survive, he’d try to make his death somehow count, glean some kind of advantage.

Seeing how he was locked up in an ancient underground vault chock-full of monsters, dancing mummies, and dangerous artifacts, staying out of trouble was kind of out of the question–at least for the time being. Letting Fawkes drag him along to investigating massacres and looking for lost friends in ancient burying grounds wasn’t exactly safe, either, but it was arguably safer than going his own way. Sooner or later he’d get in some kind of trouble, and the swordswoman wouldn’t be there to help him get out of it in one piece.

Not getting hit, on the other hand, was a sound strategy. He was already kind of doing his best; he had invested in his familiars, had gained a weapon with a long reach, had learned an Evade skill, and was more or less trying to be tactical when he had the chance to.

Not getting hit hard, on the other hand… that was trickier. He would keep an eye out for some armor or a shield or something, sure. Other than that, the relevant options his skills and abilities gave him were close to none. If there was a way to build his character like a brick wall in Elderpyre, he had yet to figure it out.

Surviving hard blows was a bit more straightforward. He’d already taken his fair share like a champ–so much, in fact, he had gained a special ability to show for it. In this case, boosting his survivability was cut-and-dried. To be able to take more punishment before giving up the ghost, he’d have to boost his Health.

And not surviving… well, he hoped it wouldn’t come to that. Not again, or at least not anytime soon. Transient or not, the memories of pain and fear and dread were enough for him to shudder.

That was that, then. That’s where he should invest that Aether. But what about his Insight? He had one more skill he could learn on the spot, and half a dozen to choose from. Out of those, the ones that looked the most promising were Craft Spirit Charm and Mystical Phenomena. He pulled up the descriptions for both of those and took a look to refresh his memory.

Craft Spirit Charm allows you to create charms and trinkets out of natural resources, as well as infuse them with mystical effects and qualities. Higher ranks reduce the chance of your Spirit Charms being infused with negative effects and allow the use of more advanced effects and recipes, according to your Insight quality.

Mystical Phenomena allows you to utilize your Insight quality to subtly manipulate the laws of the cosmos, ever so slightly affecting the outcome of events as you see fit. Higher ranks allow you more substantial manipulations, and reduce the risk these manipulations have to draw unwanted attention.

Both sounded equally useful, each one in its own way–and both descriptions were equally nebulous when it came to actual details. What’s more, both had some vague drawback: spirit charms infused with negative effects on one hand, unwanted attention on the other. Whoever had penned the wording of those descriptions should be flogged, Hunter thought.

Mystical Phenomena sounded cooler, sure, but Craft Spirit Charm was the way to go if he wanted to play it safe. A charm with bad juju was one thing; drawing the attention of something that even vaguely related to “the laws of the cosmos” had some cosmic horror vibes Hunter had absolutely no intention of messing with.

Lacking any concrete information about those, he could weigh the pros and cons all day and not reach a decision. He might as well get done with it right away.

Your Craft Spirit Charm has increased to 1. Your Inspiration quality is now 0.

By combining the reservoirs of latent power found in bones with spiritual essences and other mystical objects, charms, and materials, you can craft Bone Charms with unique effects on your attributes, skills, and abilities.

By tying a dead person’s hair into an elaborate knot and infusing it with some of your own mana, you can create a mystical charm that can provide resistance to spells and help ward off curses. The power of the protection depends on the person to whom the hair belonged. Once its power is expended, the charm turns into fine dust.

“Tiffany’s tits!” Hunter exclaimed, and his voice echoed in the vault chamber. The descriptions were a bit on the dubious side as always, but he had a gut feeling he had struck gold with this one. If Craft Spirit Charm worked the way he suspected it worked, it would be an excellent way to use all the dead thing parts and essences he’d been low-key hoarding.

Tasteful? No.

Creepy? Yes.

Worth it? Absolutely.

Anxious to try his new toys, Hunter rifled through his backpack, looking for potential materials he could use. He still had clumps of Blackbriar, Ancient Bones and Ancient Antlers from that shambler he’d fought when he first came to Elderpyre, Giant Spider Web, Glands, and Chitin Plates from the arachnid back in that barrow, and numerous pieces of Warped Flesh the low-dwellers had dropped. He also had essences from all of those creatures, wispy strands of spirit-stuff that were barely even solid.

He didn’t have the slightest idea what any of those materials did, or how rare and useful they were. He’d have to find out the old-fashioned way; trial and error. Trying to create a Bone Charm was as good a place to get started as any. Not too eager to waste any of those harder-to-get materials like the Essence of an Ancient Shambler, he decided to experiment with one of the half-dozen-or-so Ancient Bones and the more freely available Warped Flesh and low-dweller essences.

Unsure of how the specifics of the crafting process worked, he sat cross-legged on the cold stone floor, gathered the materials on front of him, and summoned his mana. Knowledge flooded his mind, instructions to a ritual that he felt he knew as intimately as the back of his hand, but had somehow forgotten and was just now starting to recall. The same thing had happened back when he’d first tried to cast Conjure Familiar. He’d trusted those strange impulses then, and everything had gone well. Even more confident in them now, and reasonably so, he let them guide his actions and set to work on creating that Bone Charm.

First, he knew he had to create a transmutation circle, whatever that was. He cut his thumb on the edge of his glaive, mixed the blood with the dirty brown-gray wisp of non-matter that was the Essence of a Low-Dweller he had decided to use, and used the sticky paste those two produced as paint to draw the circle on the floor. It had to be perfect, or at least nearly so.

Hunter’s skills in arts and crafts hadn’t improved much since kindergarten. Hell, the most artistic thing he’d ever done was draw anatomically improbable penises on his school’s bathroom stall doors back when he still was a pimple-faced teenager. Still, he somehow managed to finger-paint an almost immaculate circle on his first attempt. It was as if an invisible hand was guiding him, making sure he wouldn’t mess it up. Then came the occult symbols; runes and sigils and triangles and curlicues, each one more abstruse and mysterious than the next.

When he felt his connection to the circle tug at his mana and feel him with coldness and clarity that was almost glacial, he knew this step of the crafting process was almost complete. Still guided by some otherworldly instinct, he took a knife from his backpack and grabbed the Ancient Horn. It was a weather-beaten human tibia, the shin bone of the dead huntsman whose remains had been encased within the shambler’s body. Hunter started carving it, etching shapes and scratching off imperfections, giving it a shape that felt right. It was a slow and deliberate process, but Hunter was so absorbed by it that he hardly noticed. He was focused on the task with a fevered intensity that felt almost uncanny.

Finally satisfied with the bone, he set it down in the circle and picked up a piece of Warped Flesh. It looked and felt like the world’s most disgusting meat jerky; Hunter could almost feel the energy trapped in it beating with its own pulse, whispering to him in a tiny voice and language that were far too alien for his limited mind to comprehend. He poured some of his mana straight into the flesh, and saw the muddy lines of the transmutation circle come alive with a weird radiance. The Warped Flesh started melting into strands and wisps of luminous, tan-colored cotton candy, slowly wrapping itself around the carved Ancient Bone. Soon, there was nothing left of it.

“Hmmm. More.” Hunter heard a voice rasp – his own voice, he realized. “There is room for more.”

He repeated the process with another piece of Warped Flesh, and then another, and then another. When the fifth piece had dematerialized into thin wisps and seeped into the bone, he stopped. The Ancient Bone, now an almost finished charm, had reached its capacity for holding the energies of the low-dwellers’ flesh and essence. It was time for him to complete the process, tie any proverbial loose ends, and see what he’d managed to create.

Instinctively shaping his mana into a funnel, he drained every last drop of energy the circle held and pushed into the bone, forming a seal that would make all the changes he’d made to it permanent. Something was off, he could sense it. There was an unease gnawing at him, the same unease he got every time he saw a painting hang crooked on a wall. Still, there was nothing he could do to correct it. Not anymore. With a final push and a mental flourish, he cut link to the circle and picked the now-finished charm up to examine his handiwork.

You have created a Wasting Ancient Bone Charm of Warped Flesh.

A whole cascade of Skill and Ability Progression flooded the HUD on the top-right corner of his vision, confirming what he’d suspected all along; the Ancient Bone he’d used as a base for the charm must have been a very high quality material, much higher than what a total Craft Spirit Charm newbie was expected to work with. Even being partially successful at completing the crafting process was enough to boost his Skills and Abilities through the roof.

Your Craft Spirit Charm has increased to 2.

Your Craft Spirit Charm has increased to 3.

Your Craft Spirit Charm has increased to 4.

Your Craft Spirit Charm has increased to 5.

Your Craft Spirit Charm has increased to 6.

Your Occultism has increased to 7.

Your Occultism has increased to 8.

Your Occultism has increased to 9.

Partial success or not, Hunter was exhilarated. It wasn’t just about the final product, the Bone Charm. The process itself, though exhausting, was… Well, he couldn’t describe it, not exactly. Point is, it was rewarding. It got his blood pumping, and his brain full of sweet, sweet endorphins. Like a runner’s high, but without all the running and sweating and chafing.

Smiling beside himself, he looked at the finished item in his hands, and then at the small pile of materials that was peeking from inside his backpack, all but begging to be turned into charms.

He had a lot of work to do.