Apocalypse unleashed a l.., p.28
Apocalypse Unleashed: A LitRPG Adventure, page 28
Aiden grinned. He enjoyed a bit of healthy competitiveness. When James reached into his own bag and absorbed more Essence, he couldn’t hold back his laughter any longer.
“Update, Alacrity at forty-six. I also selected a Mastery,” he said, grinning at Olivia. James looked at Aiden and raised an inquiring brow. When Aiden shook his head, the older boy squinted. “Prove it.”
His own competitiveness flared into life at James’ goading. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
It only took one mental prod to accept the prompt asking if he was sure.
“Holy shit!” James jumped onto his feet. “You can’t be serious? Forty-seven Arcana and thirty-seven Durability…”
His Secondary Attribute was higher than some of their Primary. Okay, maybe I’m a little ahead of the curve.
40
JOSH GO BOP!
“Can confirm, Aiden is a monster,” James grumbled, sitting back down.
Olivia side-eyed Aiden, her brows knitting together. She looked like she had something she wanted to say, but when she didn’t speak, he took the lead.
“Anyways,” Aiden said, refocusing the group. He turned to look at Anna. “Let’s get back on track. We’ve got a tentative understanding of Arcana and Durability, but what of Spirit?”
“It’s weird. When I compare the paths that I get from Arcana and Spirit, it’s less about any Masteries or specific abilities. It’s very conceptual. My current two paths are the Truth of Rejuvenation and Mysteries of the Vine—and I’ve got another that I haven’t unlocked yet. The further I advance, the more I understand how to control and manipulate my magic.”
“So, you still have Disciplines, right?” Aiden asked.
“Right. Disciplines seem to be a broad, overarching idea of focus instead of a hard limit. I’ve really gone all in on Nature, but I also have sun and water to support the nature focus. Both Spirit and Arcana give me different things that tie together. Mixing them creates interesting effects.”
Aiden worried about her fanaticism towards the experimental magical mixing, but she’d been fairly safe so far. He figured that the strange rejuvenating stalk that removed all their pain and soreness was a mixture of the two.
“My head hurts just trying to figure out what all of that means,” James groaned. “I wanted to be hard to hit, hit fast, and then be hard to kill if I got hit. That’s pretty much the only motivator for my selection so far.”
“That’s a good way to approach it,” Isaac agreed. “I wanted to slink through the shadows unseen.”
“How’s that working out for you?” James asked, genuinely curious.
“I’m not sure yet, but I’m sure I’ll get there with enough time.” Isaac shrugged, flipping his pocketknife in his hand again. “At this rate, I’m sure we’ll all be doing some pretty unimaginable things by next month.”
“I mean, I’m already casting giant spears of ice around,” Aiden joked. “Back on track.”
Anna cleared her throat and looked around at all of them. “Right, so Spirit is far more conceptually based. From the get-go, I realized that the two powers could be mixed, but it results in some very unstable magic. Before I had any actual abilities, I just kinda imbued a ball of volatile Spirit and Arcana with the Mystery of the Vine and tossed it at things.”
“That’s how you were doing that when we first met,” Olivia said. “I always wondered, but after the rocky ‘we don’t really know you and this situation is kind of sucky’ thing, I was afraid to ask.”
Tucking a lock of hair behind her ear, Anna looked away, embarrassed. “Yeah, that wasn’t one of my finer moments, but we all ended up okay.”
“Barely,” Aiden deadpanned. “We barely survived that encounter against the Evils.”
Isaac stopped spinning his pocketknife and coughed uncomfortably. “I really don’t like nearly dying.”
“I really don’t like healing people that nearly died,” Anna joked, but it was hollow.
“Before we get all mopey, we’re gonna go to the next Attribute. Who wants to offer what they know of Power?” Aiden asked.
“I’m pretty sure me and Josh are the only two with it—like, at all,” Cloudy said. “I find that weird, but magic is magic. Hard to pass up on one option, let alone two. We both have Spirit as our Secondary.”
“I noticed you were punching that Evil when we found you. What method do you use to punch hard enough to do any damage?” Aiden asked. Several others nodded in agreement, their interest piqued.
“I have the Metal Discipline and Spirit as my Secondary Attribute. I chose The Way of Shaping, Layered Reinforcement, and True Might as my paths. I can guide my power to my knuckles, reinforce them a few times, and then hit with a metric fuckton of force.” She beamed as everyone oohed and ahhed.
“Okay, so that sounded like a lot of Discipline and Spirit influence. What does Power do?” Aiden asked.
“True Might is a purely Power-focused path. Without it, my punches would do nothing. The metal manipulation is just to stop me from splitting my own knuckles open. I did that the first couple times, and it was not fun in the slightest. Power itself makes everything physical a bit more explosive.”
Josh ran over, carrying his bat. “Look at this!”
His bat had gained several additional layers of different metal—only the gods know from where—that rounded the tip with several spikes. The augmentation looked very crude, but…
He put so much into it. Aiden could feel its new power from here. “Josh, can you share your bat—”
“Bartholomew,” Josh interrupted.
“Right, can you share Bartholomew’s Status with us?” If the bat grew to the point Aiden could literally feel the power oozing off of it, then Josh had to have gone all in on it.
“I guess so. Give me a second here,” he said. “There we go.”
Name: Bartholomew, the Basher
Rarity: Rare VIII
Attack: Physical, Bludgeoning
Boost: Power Sink XXVIII, +14 Power, Brute Strength I, Resonating Strikes I, Growth Weapon I
Before Aiden could ask, Cloudy was already standing before Josh, examining the weapon. “What even… how much freaking Essence did you dump into that thing? What do Brute Strength, Resonating Strikes, and Growth Weapon do?”
He beamed as she gushed over the bat—well, it’s more like a spiked mace now.
“I’m curious to know too,” Isaac said. “I’m not big into bashing things, but I’d love to know how the Boosts developed.”
“Well, Brute Strength gives an Attribute modifier. I gain an additional twenty-five percent towards my Power. Resonating Strikes means that if I hit something, the force can’t really be entirely mitigated. Last but not least, Growth Weapon means that Bartholomew will become truly legendary in time.”
“That’s not very specific,” Isaac grumbled. “Any more details for us peons?”
“Well, if you must know, Growth Weapon allows the form to adapt and grow to suit my needs. Not only that, it’ll give me other Attributes the more I upgrade it.” He oozed happiness and pride while wielding the weapon.
It made Aiden think of a father with his newborn—an analogy he’d heard often but had never truly experienced. “What about Power Sink? It looks a lot like my Arcana Channel ability.”
“It’s fairly simple. I just have to focus on Bartholomew to give him a big boost to damage. I’ve got a few abilities for my Momentum Discipline that allow me to increase acceleration, slow an attack to increase the potential energy at the moment of impact, and a couple of other things.”
“Josh go bop,” Ian joked, chuckling at his own joke.
“Josh sure do go bop,” James laughed.
“Anything else we want to touch on then? I think Power can be summarized as a physical multiplier, but I can’t quite confirm that,” Aiden said, raising a prompting brow toward Cloudy and Josh.
“What?” Josh asked.
Cloudy nodded toward Aiden, “Pretty much. It enhances force application from what I’ve experienced. It can get pretty dangerous if someone isn’t careful of their Durability or have some kind of supporting magic.”
“Makes sense,” he nodded. Looking over everyone, he considered his group.
Josh seemed like a pretty decent fighter, even if he was fairly hot-headed sometimes. From what Aiden could tell so far, he even seemed like a pretty good guy. His heart was in the right place when he got angry, so he couldn’t be faulted for that.
Even if it’s frustrating to deal with.
Cloudy was a bit of a question mark. She seemed amenable one minute and then completely muleheaded another. He couldn’t quite figure out where their friendship had gone. He felt like their years of history didn’t mean much once the school turned into a death trap.
The time he’d spent gushing over her felt—he didn’t even know how to describe it. Meaningless? Trivial? Irrelevant?
Taking away his emotional baggage toward her, she was strong willed and a solid fighter as well. She had a lot of similarities to Josh. Two peas in a pod.
Ian was a bitter harder to pin down. He was skittish, but he’d started to crack jokes and participate with everyone. So, progress there. With Durability as his Primary Attribute, Aiden hoped the younger boy would grow a bit more confident as it raised and things stopped being so scary to him.
Come to think of it, I have no idea what Disciplines he has or his Secondary Attribute. Maybe I’ll have to chat with him a bit later.
Isaac loved weapons and shadows. He wanted to be some master assassin archetype. He was fairly friendly, if not a little awkward from time to time, and Aiden enjoyed talking weapon enhancement with him. He hoped the shadow mage would find a new weapon that suited him better.
James. Aiden honestly felt like the wrong person had got the Destiny Quest. James was far more easy-going and really knew how to pacify people when he wanted to. He knew what to do—or at least exuded a friendly confidence in all his actions befitting the image of a leader Aiden imagined.
When the older boy noticed Aiden staring at him, he tilted his head and raised a brow. Aiden nodded toward him, moving along to Anna.
And promptly skipped past to Olivia.
His beloved sister beamed back at him. “You have your thinking face on, Aiden. What’s up?”
“Now that I looked at everyone, we’re all fairly different. We’re a versatile, balanced group…”
“We might be able to do this,” Anna finished. “We might be able to survive the next—”
“Eighteen hours and some change,” Josh called.
Aiden raised a curious brow. Is he watching the clock at all times? He got that pretty quickly.
“Right. We might be able to survive to complete the Quest,” she said hopefully. Everybody mulled over what she said, and each one came to terms with what that meant. “Aiden, you were talking about shifts earlier. What do you propose those look like?”
He thought it over, but the answer was fairly obvious. “Olivia and James—because they have to recover from using Essence—with Ian and Isaac on the first guard rotation. Three hours. Everyone else should take the time while away from guard duty to find some real-estate inside the Town Hall. Upgrade and rest is priority, okay?”
“Aye-aye, captain!” James said, mock-saluting with a silly grin.
Olivia yawned widely. “A nap sounds really good right about now.”
“Sure thing,” Isaac said, grabbing Ian’s arm. “Let’s head in now and get you upgraded, my friend. We’re gonna make a great team, you and I.”
Aiden watched them walk to the edge of the mountain path, intrigued. Wonder what brought that on?
“So, the rest of us are heading inside, right?” Josh asked.
Aiden nodded, standing up and patting himself off. Anna followed after him when he headed inside. Olivia stayed with Cloudy, shooting a couple of glances his way until they were out of sight.
“Wanna see something cool?” he asked her.
“Always,” she answered, her interest piqued. She hooked her arm with his, grinning up at him as he squinted at her. “I’ll be a good girl, Aiden.”
“Please, for the love of the gods, don’t say things like that.”
41
THIS IS MY HOPE
“Where are we going?”
“I wanna show you something.”
“I’m starting to feel like you just wanted to be alone with me, Aiden.”
“That could be part of it, but I do want to show you this too.”
They crossed the final step onto the fourth floor, revealing the large podium with the semicircle of earthen chairs.
“Woah, this looks super official,” Anna said, walking forward to run her hands along the back of the chairs. “They’re very solid, but I don’t think you brought me up here to show me the upholstery. Where’s the real prize?”
“You’re a bit too sharp for your own good sometimes,” he said playfully, taking her hand and leading her to the side door next to the podium. Pushing open the door, he looked back to see her bouncing in place. “This is what I wanted to show you.”
Taking her hand, he led her inside.
He moved as close as he could before the notifications blocked his vision. In the center, the Town Control Hub waited. “This is my hope.”
Anna reached forward, but her hand pressed flat against an invisible barrier. “That one looks far more intricate than those on the first floor. Have you checked the second or third floors to see if there are any more?”
“I haven’t,” he admitted, running his hand through his hair. “When we first got here, I felt drawn to the Hub. I didn’t realize it at the time, but looking back on things, I felt almost compelled to come directly here. I was hoping you’d search the other two floors with me.”
“Wasn’t it you that just said ‘upgrading and rest are priority,’ or does my memory fail me?” she said, sticking her tongue out. She looked back at the Hub. “I’m glad you brought me here. I hope this does what you want it to.”
“Just have to last until tomorrow, then we’ll be able to know for sure.” He wistfully rested his hand on the invisible barrier blocking his access to the thing he very much wanted right then and there. “It’s so close.”
“Yet so far away,” she continued. “That’s okay. Until then, we’ll just keep resting up and upgrading.”
“About that,” he started. He clicked his Pen nervously, imbuing it with his Water Discipline for a change. A whip of water flowed and solidified, the length reaching nearly a dozen feet. “How strong do you think V’Yenya was?”
“Oh.” She bit her lip, her brows scrunching. She even closed her eyes to help her focus. “From what I can remember, his knowledge of magic was leaps and bounds above what we know. He said his people have always had the system, so that’s to be expected.”
“But what about his personal power? If things don’t go well next week, I want to know if we’re royally screwed or not.”
“I get it. You want to prepare for the worst outcome, but I’ll be honest with you,” she looked up into his eyes and grabbed his hands in hers. “They mean us no harm. Even if we had a month, V’Yenya would still be strong enough to kill all of us, so don’t even think about it.”
He sucked in a breath, surprised by the sheer power hidden within the friendly looking alien.
“Not to mention Nin’Yala. She’s even stronger than he is,” she muttered. He could hear respect, awe, and even fear.
“That’s—” There were no words to articulate the feelings Aiden felt growing in his chest—a feeling of hopelessness, of being overwhelmed by the world around him, but he squelched that bud at the root and focused.
No shit they’re strong. They’ve had the system their whole lives. He didn’t like the implications of Anna’s message though. She may not have meant it, but it sounded like the subtleties of a threat had bloomed in the back of her mind.
He shrugged off the doom and gloom that started to take his thoughts again. The time to think about whether or not The People were actually wolves in sheep’s skin was not now. For now, he would enjoy the, he checked his watch, two and a half hours before guard duty.
“Do you think they’ll be able to handle anything that comes?” he asked. It nagged at him when he’d first split the groups, but he hadn’t thought much of it. “Like, what if they start to get overwhelmed?”
“Do you want to head back down?” She turned toward the door, raising a brow at the large earthen barricade setup. “Now that you’ve shown me your hidey hole, I don’t think there’s much reason to stay up here, unless…?”
He grinned at her faux demurity, leading the way back out of the room. He gave the place a quick look, imagining the day that people filled all the seats. That would be a day to see.
Stepping down the stairs, they made their way down to the third floor. Searching around revealed six Hubs—two on either side of the two staircases and then one at the end of either hall sequestered away in a little private space.
“I bet there’s even more down on the second floor,” Anna said, her hand pressed against another invisible barrier. “I wonder what the difference between the Hub types are. This one seems to be focused on resources, but it doesn’t specify what.”
“There’s so many of them,” he muttered. Looking around at them all, the bannerstones all contained different tools. “I’m gonna have a lot of fun figuring all of this out.”
“I’ll be right there with you. This is totally my thing,” Anna agreed.
“Really? I thought creating exploding vine bombs was your thing,” he said, looking away as she glared back at him.
A comfortable silence settled over them as they continued to search the rest of the third floor, eventually making their way down to the second floor.
“Peculiar.”
“What is?” he asked, admiring the craftsmanship. He’d yet to observe the Hubs, but Anna had, and she seemed confused.
