Adam hadn’t noticed the lodies until they were right upon them, making the ambush quite effective, but his group was able to respond quickly.
Diwa yelled loudly, causing the two assassins to focus on her before they could fire again. One of them stayed above with a crossbow, while the other slid down the side of the mountain to reach them. Both wore faded royal-blue hoods that wound around like scarves to cover most of their faces, except for their hateful black eyes. Under rusted cuirasses they wore long-sleeved black tunics and trousers, with ti-worn gauntlets and sabatons.
They must be the forlorn assassins that Beck ntioned.
While they didn’t count as knights, they were part of the forlorn army’s elite, making their deaths worth a few points. And they didn’t need a true fla to get points from killing them, like with the knights, but they could be brought back to life, which would be annoying.
A second before the assassin reached the ground, a flash of darkness surrounded him and he vanished from sight, taking his lody with him.
Seo-Yoon aid her staff at the air, clearly still tracking him. She had switched to the Elental Tempest weapon and as Adam tried to figure out exactly where the assassin was, she created a spell pattern in front of herself and slamd it with the tip of her staff, launching a magical bolt after the enemy. She followed it up with another, swirling her weapon around skilfully to slam the tip into the floating spell once more, firing off a second bolt. Then her staff glowed brightly, stinging Adam’s eyes. A sun flare shot out of the top, causing the shadows on the assassin to vanish and turn him visible, even though it missed.
Adam didn’t waste a second and launched each finger of his raint’s right gauntlet in quick succession. He tweaked the fingers’ trajectories as they zipped through the air with speeds that nearly rivalled his Warder build’s triple-fused barriers, piercing the assassin first through the leg, exploding the flesh and fabric where it exited, with the rest hitting centre mass and the last blowing the right side of his face away.
For good asure, Chien surged forward and slamd the assassin into the ground with his war hamr, producing a loud crunch and casting forward a wave of holy magic, killing the elite.
[Forlorn Elite defeated,] announced their cubes in unison.
At the sa ti, Diwa was reflecting back bolt after bolt by doing sothing weird. Adam clearly saw the activation of her Gorgon Slayer’s mirror shield skill, but then she swapped her weapon to the Shield Wall, which pulled the projectiles to her shield, much like what he had seen Gladwyn do in a past loop. However, the Gorgon Slayer’s ability was supposed to just work once and have a ten-minute cooldown, but she was reflecting every arrow that ca, forcing the assassin to dodge his own projectiles, even as Diwa’s taunting cape was preventing him from targeting any of the others.
She’s sohow preventing the mirror skill from triggering by swapping to the other weapon after activating it. That’s a pretty cool exploit and makes Gorgon Slayer a much more useful weapon for a tank.
I wonder if the skill just stays active for as long as she doesn’t switch back.
Impressive as it was, it wasn’t enough to take out the assassin, who was more than capable of dodging the projectiles even as he fired more her way.
Adam raised his left hand to take aim at the assassin above, but then he noticed how Natalia was crouched weirdly, power humming from the mongoose chargers she was wearing.
This I wanna see.
Once she had fed the boots enough power, she swung her large katana back behind her with a fancy flourish, and then she fired herself from the ground and up to the assassin, leaving a small crater behind.
Natalia flew through the space occupied by the elite, the wind itself seeming to follow her as a haze coated the edge of her blade. Even though it looked like she didn’t even graze the assassin, since he shifted out of the way, he was suddenly sheared in half when the wind passed by him, playing with his hood even as he fell apart in two and his body slid down the ridge.
[Forlorn Elite defeated.]
With the speed she’d built up, Natalia cleared the top of the ridge before she started falling back down towards the ground, but then she activated her chargers again, cancelling her falling montum and launching herself towards the side of the rock, allowing her to skate down to the ground, where she activated the boots a final ti to land safely.
“That was impressive,” Adam praised her. “Was that your weapon skill?”
“It’s called Spring Breeze,” she replied. “It seems to hit anything that the wind created by my sword touches. And the faster I’m travelling, the bigger the area of the skill becos. The mongoose chargers really made it so much more powerful than when I used the spring boots.”
Using the conjuring stone on those two boots would probably create sothing insane for a speed build.
“Good work, everyone,” Chien comnded them all.
“I’m glad everyone is strong,” Seo-Yoon said with a big smile.
“I should have foreseen their ambush,” Adam remarked. “I can normally track enemies by their blood, but their shadow magic lets them totally conceal themselves from .”
“I can see their magic with my cowl,” Seo-Yoon said. “It’s dirty like sludge.”
Adam nodded. “I’ll need you to help keep an eye out for more.”
“Yay.”
“How did you co to possess such a power?” Chien asked Adam.
He already felt like he could trust them not to betray him, so Adam pulled off his fire glove and removed his raint gauntlet to reveal the crimson glass hand.
“What the hell is that?” Natalia asked.
Seo-Yoon was imdiately next to Adam, poking his hand. “Do you feel that?”
“Yes,” he replied. “It feels and acts like a normal hand, but it just has a special power attached.”
“It’s a gift from the Eyeless One,” Chien realised.
“Who?” Diwa asked.
“My patron,” Adam said. “She transford a legendary relic from stage six into this.”
“I didn’t know they could do that,” Diwa replied.
“She must really like you,” Natalia comnted.
“Morrligt hasn’t gifted anything like that,” Seo-Yoon said with a frown.
“The Absolutes are not allowed to alter the rules of the Trials,” Chien remarked.
If you co across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.
“She’s not big on following rules,” Adam replied.
“Sounds like soone I could get along with,” Natalia said.
“Trust , you don’t want her to be your patron,” Adam told her.
“We should take their hearts,” Seo-Yoon said suddenly, using her staff to poke the severed remains of the assassin that Natalia had killed.
“Hearts?” Diwa asked in disgust.
“They’re collectible relics,” Adam replied.
As he harvested the two assassins, Diwa, Natalia, and Chien all watched in morbid fascination, despite the fact that his power upset them.
< < Collectible Relic > >
< Heart of Darkness (Common) — A heart borne by those who gorge on darkness >
Hmm, I wonder if the knights will also have the sa hearts or so superior version.
Adam ended up harvesting the grey-purple flesh of the one that Natalia had killed, creating a sack. He filled it with half of the ears and tongues, and then plopped in one of the hearts. He also gave it two straps so it could be worn like a backpack.
Then he offered the flesh sack to Chien.
“Why ?” the Lightbringer asked with a frown.
“Because I thought it would be funny,” Adam replied.
Chien didn’t respond to that, but took the sack, nevertheless. As his hands gripped the fabric, nothing happened.
Interesting, Adam noted.
While his mana was infused into everything he shaped, it seed that it was not where his weakness to holy magic stemd from. That ant that in a pinch he could create a layer between himself and Chien, or any other holy-infused person, avoiding directly damaging himself.
It’s probably only my body and the flesh of bloodfiend creatures that have this inherent weakness, so as long as he doesn’t touch directly and I don’t use my real body and its blood, then I’ll be fine to use my magic on him.
Forlorn were weak to holy and fire magic, but it was much less severe than the weaknesses of bloodfiends, and seed to mainly be while the Forlorn Shadow controlled them.
The real question though, is whether or not the flesh of the forlorn can be brought back after I fill it with my mana and shape it.
I’m hesitant to harvest them until I know the answer to that.
As far as Adam understood it, the Forlorn Shadow’s power to reanimate things depended on whether they were actually possible to reanimate, and there had to be so point where it just wouldn’t work.
He needed to test it properly before adding their bodies to his armour or relying on them for protection. To that end, he grabbed the rest of the assassin’s body, shaping it into a floating sword and shield. While the others were clearly disgusted by his magic, the fact that he gave it inorganic shapes made it easier to bear for them, even if it would lower their effectiveness.
Seo-Yoon poked the sword and shield in turn, the only one who didn’t seem bothered. “Eww, they’re squishy!” she said with a grin.
She’s not quite right, Adam thought.
Since Adam couldn’t do anything with the remains of the assassin that Chien had crushed, he used his fire glove to burn his corpse to a crisp, which was, in theory, supposed to make it that much more difficult for the Forlorn Shadow to reanimate it. But even if they were turned to minceat, the Forlorn Shadow’s puppets would co back whole, at least according to Beck.
Their group continued through the mountain pass, moving much slower than before, with Seo-Yoon and Adam keeping watch from up front, while Chien stayed in the back, just in case more enemies flowed in from behind them.
Adam stepped closer to Seo-Yoon as they walked. “You can combine magic, right?” he asked.
“Yep!”
“I need you to combine sun fire and holy mana,” he told her.
“That will be difficult,” she said. “My only access to sun fire is from my spell, and I haven’t been able to harness its power after firing it.”
“What if I can make it?” Adam asked, holding out his right hand and showing a bright fla on the finger-tip.
“That’s not sun fire,” she remarked.
“I’m still working on it.”
“What will it create, if I combine them?”
“A true fla,” he replied.
“Ooh,” she cooed excitedly.
Natalia moved up to the front of their group, leaving Diwa behind. “You can track Heiner, right?” she asked Adam.
He considered whether or not to reveal the truth, but after a mont he nodded affirmative.
“We should find him,” Natalia said. “He has the orb of insight, so he could steal our loot. The mont soone starts hogging all the items, everyone else starts acting irrational. I’ve seen it happen every stage before this one. I’d like to avoid it, since we’re all getting along so well.”
“Let’s gut him!” Seo-Yoon said with a manic giggle.
“I can lead us to him,” Adam said, trying to ignore the Spellcaster’s insane outburst. “But let’s try and convince him to work with us. I think I just spooked him because I knew about his power.”
“I don’t trust him,” Natalia remarked. “I don’t want to kill him, but we may not have a choice.”
Adam shook his head. “We can’t kill him. The Forlorn Shadow will just resurrect him to antagonise us later.”
“The Forlorn Shadow?” Seo-Yoon asked.
“How do you know that?” Natalia added.
Since Heiner already had knowledge of the orb of insight, Adam decided to tell the truth.
“A ti-looper told .”
“Ti-looper?” Chien asked, he and Diwa having co closer to join their conversation.
Before Adam could explain further, he noticed that there were lodies coming towards them at speed. He held a hand up and they got into formation, Diwa and Chien up front, Natalia in the middle, and Adam and Seo-Yoon in the back.
They waited for two long minutes without seeing what it was Adam was sensing, and it was clear that Natalia and Diwa were both losing their patience. But just before they could say sothing, the sound of hooves caught their ears, and they imdiately corrected their postures and raised their weapons.
“I think they may be friendly,” Adam remarked. “But don’t let your guard down.”
Although the lodies didn’t sound like those of the forlorn, there were no guarantees that made those they belonged to friendly, especially not since they were each filled with cold determination and violence.
Adam prepared the fingers on his left gauntlet to be projectiles, just as the sounds of hooves manifested into a patrol of six knights in yellow tunics and chainmail. They each carried lances and shields, with swords strapped to their hips.
“Halt!” announced the rider in front as the horses ca to a sudden stop.
“We’re not forlorn,” Adam called back.
The n glanced over their group.
“Quite right,” said the guy in front. “How did you bypass the goblin camp?”
“We eliminated them,” Adam replied. “We also took out the two forlorn assassins who ambushed us inside the pass.”
“So that was you then,” he remarked. “We were drawn to the sound of fighting, assuming the forlorn had engaged with the goblins again. Did you deal with the hobgoblin lord?”
“We did,” Chien answered.
“Did you burn his body?” the man asked.
Diwa looked at Adam, clearly wondering how he’d known to do that.
“They were blessed by the power of the First Light,” Chien replied.
At that, the man’s eyes widened and his fellows whispered in his ear.
“You worship the First Light?” he asked.
“I do,” Chien said proudly. “Her angel speaks to .”
“That is welco news. The old priest has been looking for help rekindling the holy fire.”
< < Quest Unlocked > >
< Restore the Fla >
< Help the Church in Old Town rekindle the True Fla >
< < Optional Stage Objective > >
< Help the Church rekindle the True Fla across the Forlorn Kingdom >
It seems that the First Light may make things a lot different in this stage from how Beck explained it, since he said we had to visit the Old Town church to get this quest.
Since they still had to go to the church, it didn’t look like they’d saved any ti this way, but Adam was sure there’d be unique interactions because of Chien’s patron.
And possibly a target on our heads, if the Forlorn Shadow is actively hunting down First Light worshippers.
Since the riders were eager to bring Chien to the church, they let themselves be escorted through the last of the mountain pass. Once they neared the end of the serpentine path, they reached a guarded checkpoint where archers watched them from the ridges up the sides of the mountain, their crossbows ard and ready.
Beck had said that their first encounter with the Old Town guards would be here, but clearly things weren’t following the sa script as what he had experienced.
As they exited the mountain pass with their escort, they saw a seemingly endless expanse of green roll out before them, with a lone mountain in the middle and cliffs running down along the north and south, hemming them in. To the east was a distant and dark horizon. Tainted and foul lodies flowed from that way, but it was impossible to separate them into individual tones, given the distance.
If we just head that way we could go straight to the Forlorn Castle and end the stage as soon as possible. That’s what Elia advised.
Given everything he knew about the stage now, Adam understood why she’d recomnded the strategy.
To the north was a cluster of many lodies, amongst which was the bright blip of Adam’s disconnected blood that floated around inside Heiner’s head.
At least he hasn’t left the settlent, Adam thought.
Their escort paused and helped each of them onto the back of a horse, then they set off at speed, bringing them towards civilisation.
< < Settlent Discovered > >
< Old Town >
User Comments
0 comments from readers