Escape From Litchfield Page 8
Failure:It is impossible to fail this quest.
Taking a deep breath, and hoping for the best, Tamara chose Master of Gravity. She was taking a huge gamble since it was an unknown profession, yet she knew that if she could unlock the secrets of gravity, it would have a high return.
Quest:Discover your power
You have chosen the profession Master of Gravity. You are the first Awakened to learn this profession, and as the First, you have the honor of discovering how it works! Good luck, you will need it. This has a Level A difficulty.
Reward:5000 experience.
Learning is a reward in of itself.
Failure:If you fail to discover your power within a week, you will never discover it. Use it or lose it.
Name Tamara Owlkins Points 165
Status Awakened, Great Herbal Chicken, Well-Rested
Titles Director, Landholder, First Master of Gravity
Credits 15150 Health 100%
Level 33 Class Bard
Experience 77771 Subclass Drummer
Int 26 Dex 22
Str 50 Agil 24(38)
Con 36(49) Sync 63
Mana 260.0(520.0) M Regen 1.19
HP 490 H Regen 1.50/s
Armor Plate 45%, Chain 20%
Skills Cooking 50, Sonic Stun 7, Inspect 16, Perception 12, Sneak 17, Sword 22, Alchemy 21, Fire Magic 18, Blacksmith 55, Rune Magic 22, Berserker's Rage, Necrotic Nanobridge, Staff 1, Runemaster 3, Leadership 10, Trade 1, Meditation 19, Sense Magic 31, Air Magic 1
Items +1 Ring of Agility, +1 Ring of Agility, +1 Ring of Agility, +1 Ring of Agility, Gravity Sword of Fiery Ice, Space Plate
***
[Tamara: First, I need to learn to cast with my mind. Then I can work on my profession quest. Still, I have a week to finish, but I’d like to finish with time to spare!]
[Bob89: I will coach you! What can you remember about casting with your mind?]
[Tamara: Well, I remember grabbing a thread of power and twisting it into a rune somehow. It reminds me of the thread we use for meditation.
[Bob89: Perhaps start with meditation then? Maybe, instead of clearing your mind, you focus on spell casting?
[Tamara: Great suggestion! When did you become so helpful?]
[Bob89: I am always helpful!]
She rolled her eyes at his comment but wisely kept silent.
[Tamara: Starting]
Closing her eyes, the half-elf began clearing her mind of all her troubles. Her worries about Jare and Auth quieted down. Her mind let go of escape plans and new magic. After an indeterminate time, she finally let go of the pain and discomfort of her physical self. The massive pool of mana and the thread of power connecting to her personal pool resolved in her mind. It was now second-nature to pull the thread to increase her mana regeneration. Now, her task was to pull that thread into a rune instead of into her pool. Every time she grasped the thread, she could see it start moving in the direction her mind commanded, but then the thread would unravel, and her body would wake from meditation.
Tamara gained 5 levels in Meditation and now it is 24
***
The humble light rune. It is one of the more basic runes, yet it has great utility in a deep dungeon. It could be used to light the room. It could be cast out into a hallway to attract mobs. But offensively, it was lethal in a dungeon. The monsters here are adapted to the true darkness only found in caves and dungeons, so a light spell could severely hamper an enemy's sight, even after they've had a chance to adjust. The downside was that in large caverns, it could attract unwanted attention.
Tamara was highly motivated to discover mental spell casting, but her largest distraction was her complicated relationship with Jare and Auth. Auth because of her strong reaction to his hug when he had left to find help to fight Jenny and her orc army. The hug still sent phantom chills through her body. Jare, although less intense, was also a contender for her affections. He didn’t seem to be courting her, yet she knew he was interested. However, Auth has made it clear that he was interested, perhaps the warrior was deferring to Auth for the male code or something. Shaking her head, Tamara brought her attention back to her mind thread. Relationships are hard, and she couldn't do anything about it until she escaped!
[Tamara: Bob89, I can’t seem to get to the final stage of the rune. It keeps on shredding. Do you have any wisdom to share with me?]
[Bob89: Sure. What are you thinking when the rune shreds? Perhaps your thoughts are disrupting the thread.]
[Tamara: All I think about is gripping the thread as hard as I can to keep it from shredding.]
[Bob89: Try something different. How about a loose but firm grip? Perhaps gripping too hard is why the thread disappears.]
[Tamara: I’ll give that a try!]
The runemaster easily fell into a meditative trance. The pools came to her mind, and seconds after beginning, she mentally held her mind thread. The thread squirmed in her mind, refusing to stay still. It was like trying to catch a Narp Snake, which is well known for its speed and strength. As the minutes passed, Tamara gradually tightened her hold, seeking that sweet spot of strength and control to lightly steer the mental thread. After dozens of failures, she found it! She could steer it into straight lines or simple geometric shapes, however, anything more complicated fell apart. Fortunately, that was enough to draw a light rune. Gently grabbing the mind thread, she shaped it into a no-frills light rune. She held her thoughts still as she prepared to exit her mentalscape. Slowly, she opened her eyes and as expected, a ball of light hovered above her at waist height. She whooped in jubilation, Sweet Success!, but lost her concentration keeping the ball active.
Tamara gained 4 levels in Meditation and now it is 28
Tamara gained 2 levels in Rune Magic and now it is 24
Tamara gained 2 levels in Runemaster and now it is 5
Tamara has learned a new skill, Mental Rune!
Tamara gained 2 levels in Mental Rune and now it is 2
Mental Rune: This allows the rune mage to cast spells in their mind. This skill is enhanced by the deftness of the user's mind. Additionally, mental rune casting is inherently n% faster than writing runes physically, where n is the level of the skill.
Secret Quest Completed!:Discover Mental Spellcasting
Through intense training and introspection, you have stumbled upon the skill Mental Spellcasting. This allows you to cast a spell purely through thought. Spellcasting speed is at least twice as fast than normal casting. Additionally, you gain x% speed reduction for every x skill levels. This an A rank quest.
Reward:5000 experience.
Failure: This quest can’t be failed.
Tamara has earned 5000 raw experience! After bonuses are applied, 8250 was earned!
Ding! Tamara has gained a level. Welcome to level 35!
“One step at a time,” Tamara chanted to herself over and over like a mantra. Despite all her accomplishments, she still needed to figure out how to get out of the chains, complete her profession quest, and escape from the dungeon. It was overwhelming, but she took the complex task and broke it down into smaller steps. Capitalizing on her success, Tamara decided to immediately experiment with her profession. She had a deadline to meet! But how to start? No new icons were displayed on her HUD.
[Tamara: Bob89, do you have any suggestions on how to start training my professional quest? I have no idea where to begin.]
[Bob89: Do you feel any difference since gaining your profession?]
[Tamara: No.]
[Bob89: Try casting some gravity spells, maybe something will come to you.]
[Tamara: I would have thought of that eventually!]
[Bob89: Excellent! You may not be defective after all!]
Smirking to herself, she began reviewing her gravity spells. With rune magic, she could already make objects lighter or heavier. If she altered the targeting to an area, she could apply the magic to anything within it, including people. Rune magic was much easier to manipulate than verbal magic. When she d
ecoded the rune numerical system and the marks to change the targeting system, she earned the skill Runemaster. Traditional magic primarily tended to use verbal commands, but sometimes it also included body movement as well. Recalling the gravity rune, she silently altered the rune to target herself with enough magic to gently levitate her off the floor. Fixing the rune into her mind so there wouldn’t be any mistakes, the half-elf slowly began her mind rune spell. It took dozens of tries, but eventually, she succeeded in levitating.
She felt some immediate relief from staying in one position so long. Her weight had been irritating her body. Focusing on her feelings, it was faint, but she could sense gravity magic at work. Her sense magic was picking up other sensations, but it appeared she was extremely sensitive to gravity magic. In fact, gravity magic had a feeling of solidness, a taste, and a scent. Instinctively, after so much practice on mental runes, she grabbed the gravity magic and condensed it into a ball, which had an unfortunate side-effect of abruptly dropping her to the ground.
Grunting when she hit the ground, Tamara lost her concentration and the gravity spell dissipated. Paying close attention, she cast another gravity spell. Concentrating the magic into a ball again, she began to rotate the ball. When she aligned the gravity correctly, she was able to create a strobe of force effect as the ball rotated. Gravity was a force with direction and power. She could sense and manipulate the magic to direct the force. Interestingly enough, levitating using gravity magic wasn’t using anti-gravity like how the gravity engines worked. The gravity magic was simply directed to counter natural gravitation. She condensed the gravity ball, adding more magic as the ball absorbed all the magic she could handle.
It would be amazing if condensed gravity could affect the future. She watched the ball fade as the last of her mana was used up, however, her mind was thinking about the possibilities. Could she make a window to see the near future? Perhaps, if she combined the Remote View spell, she could open a window into the future. What if she had massive amounts of power, like that generated by a fusion reactor... How far could she see? Grinning to herself about the possibilities, she fell asleep.
***
Tamara was a cheater, and she knew it. Not long after her experiments with Gravity magic, she realized that she sensed natural gravity. It was just at the edge of her senses, barely noticeable, but she did notice it. And she grabbed it and manipulated it into a ball, just like she had before. Only this time, she was levitating not because she was countering gravity, but because she had condensed the natural gravity affecting her into a ball. It cost no magic to do this. She was such a cheater!! She experimented with throwing the balls into the walls of the dungeon. The walls were strong, so she wasn’t able to do any discernible damage, but she could tell an armored opponent would have a terrible day if hit by her ball. The downside of using natural gravity was that it had a tendency to dissipate once it left her area of influence. She found that if she condensed the natural gravity into a ball and placed a shell of gravity magic around it, it would leak less energy.
Tamara gained 2 levels in Meditation and now it is 30
Tamara gained 2 levels in Mental Rune and now it is 4
Tamara gained 2 levels in Gravity Magic and now it is 2
[Bob89: Cheater!]
[Tamara: I know. But still! I wish I could use natural gravity beyond what’s affecting my body. If only I was taller or bigger! Magic is all about the numbers.]
[Bob89: You get free levitation without doing a thing! Free gravity balls that can tear up low-level creatures, and to top it off, you can use a low powered gravity-based flight spell because you are weightless from your *free* levitation spell. Cheater!]
[Tamara: Yes, but I’m your cheater! Who’s the most awesome host ever??]
[Bob89: OK, you got me there. You are the best.]
[Tamara: Also, I can only use gravity affecting my body.]
[Bob89: Your body and anything you are wearing. I think there must be a way for you to cheat that too!]
[Tamara: I’m not sure if I understand how gravity works. Why would wearing something large like a cloak be better than something heavy?]
[Bob89: Natural gravity is a force that affects all mass the same. If you recall, weight is mass times gravity. Naturally, the only way to increase the natural gravity is by gaining more mass. But since everything you are wearing seems to affect your powers, there are two possible conclusions. Either your outfits affect your powers, or a set area around you, similar to a bubble, is affected by your powers.]
[Tamara: OK. So. Buy a cloak.]
[Bob89: Yup. Buy more cloaks. A big one, a weighted one, and maybe different colors. We can test them all! As it is, you can create a 1 inch gravity ball at about 36 gravities. This would tear holes in a normal person but leave their armor undamaged. Increasing that power might be one cloak away! Also, speaking of gravity, you haven't finished your subclass quest yet!]
Her unconscious mind chose that moment to give her some inspiration, and Tamara's eyes lit up as she realized that she had the key to creating the sound barrier. She had the rune spell correct, so what she had been missing was her intent. Magic seemed to be linked into whatever mechanism was used to interpret her thoughts and feelings. That meant she had the runes correct, but she needed to shape the air. Her desire was to stop vibrations from moving outside the air wall, so she needed to create the rune and imagine how the molecules of air would not vibrate due to energy transfer.
Tamara entered her mindscape and drew her Sound Barrier runescript. As she drew the last stroke, she imagined the molecules of air staying still, instead of bouncing around. After completing the workspace, she levitated the same metal piece and dropped it. Success! Tamara jumped up and down and danced by herself with happiness!
Pulling out the portable anvil and tools, she began to place her tools in an area around her. She was a craftsman. She preferred the tools in certain positions to maximize her time and efficiency. There would be no confusion or hesitation as she worked, her body knew the positions of her tools, and they were, in turn, an extension of herself.
The half-elf willed her armor into her dimensional storage space, then willed it back into her arms. Fortunately for Tamara, soulbound armor can be instantly worn or taken off with the right mental call. Otherwise, the tight-fitting ensemble would need a can opener to take off, since the chains were compressing against the armor very tightly.
She began to methodically assess the damage and even took some time to check the areas strained by the chains. She still wanted to take off the chains, but she had a nagging feeling that they were being used to keep track of her. She didn't want any extra attention from Jenny. Not until she was ready at least.
Ever since she woke up, she's been seeing glimpses of magic, not simply sensing it from all around her. And she was sensing something magical about the chains binding her. She sensed magic from her own enchantments, but they seemed much more subdued than the other enchantments she'd seen.
Because her armor was a mixture of chain and plate mail, she could shift the plates into different positions to account for the chains. Repairing the chain mail links was far easier to repair than the plate sections, but fortunately, she had several spare plates and even a spare suit of armor. Her sword had been scorched and nicked, but a good polish and sharpening store restored it to perfect condition in a matter of minutes. If she got desperate for material, she was still carrying some of the spare equipment she made for Jare in her dimensional storage.
Tamara gained 2 levels in Blacksmith and now it is 57
After she finished repairing her gear, she began browsing through Sol's spellbook. She noticed a spell for Resist Elements magic along with a Resist Magic. Wondering if they would stack, she casted each one and casted a fire dart on herself. Sure enough, they stacked. In addition to her natural fire resistance from the Fire Magic school, she had 51% resistance to fire. She laid the damaged plate section to the ground and cast Flame at the plate piece using her left hand.
Once the metal reached the right temperature, she used her right hand and a hammer to mold the metal. It worked in a manner, she was able to mold the metal into the correct shape, although she lost a decent amount of shielding. The problem was that the metal was too malleable, and she needed to hammer it down to introduce the small flaws in the formation to allow the outside to harden properly. Suddenly, she had an epiphany! Perhaps she could use nanocells in armor to help with the hardening process. She had a glimmer of an idea, but it needed to cook a bit longer in the back of her mind.
[Tamara: If I wanted to integrate nanocells into an armor design, what can they do?]
[Bob89: Normal nanocells can do set functions which includes: moving, expending power, and communicating. Set function means instructions or a pattern that they can repeat over and over. As I mentioned before, a pure nanocell armor only looks solid. Even pure iron, which is relatively soft, would be better. Hardened steel even more so.]
[Tamara: I'm letting some ideas cook. I feel that we can do something.]
After testing her flame theories, Tamara began thinking of designs for getting Sol prepared for the dungeon dive ahead of them. She recalled that he had a tattered robe, a simple wood staff, and no potions, rings, or amulets in sight.
Pulling out the leftover materials from Auth's robe, she determined that there was enough material to make a new cloak for Sol. Since she had already made a robe for Auth, she had a number of new ideas on how to improve on the original design. Going into design mode, the world faded away. She picked Auth's robe as the template. She added some new pockets for easy retrieval of items like wands and potions. Next, she added two gem slots, since her Blacksmithing skill had evolved to allow it. Technically, she could add another gem slot for her own armor, but modifying an existing item after it was forged was an overall bad idea unless you wanted to melt it down and start over. After finishing the slot, she saved the design and began creating the item in earnest. Due to having Auth's leftover materials and completed pattern, the robe came together very quickly.