Dungeon world 5 a dungeo.., p.6
Dungeon World 5: A Dungeon Core Experience, page 6
“No apology needed,” the Necro-Wizard responded, waving his hand in dismissal. “I didn’t want to do it, but without you two helping, we probably wouldn’t have made it back in one piece. Well, I was in one piece; Fred, here, was all smashed up from the explosion. Luckily, he has that crazy ability to heal himself; so, he was all good within a half-hour.”
Fred had already sat down on his blanket again and was gathering himself for another round of Mana condensing; he responded to both of them at the same time with a snort. “It still hurt me, so it’s not like I get away without feeling all of the damage done to me. Anyway, I’ll work on Ravenne, right now. It’ll take a little bit; so, why don’t you practice using your new abilities…a little further inside the cave, though, if you don’t mind.”
“Sure; I’ve got nothing better to do. Why does it seem so bright in here?” Roady asked, moving a bit down the dark cave. While Fred and Agelstein had set up near the entrance so that light could filter in, deeper down it was so dark that Fred would need to rely on his Mana Sight to see, unless he used a Magelight spell or something equivalent. Roady, though…well, Roady wouldn’t have that problem.
“It’s because you’re glowing, buddy.”
So he was; there was a faint glow emanating softly from his entire body, and it wasn’t just the Light Mana he could see infusing his whole body. There was a sort of aura that hovered just over the surface of his skin and clothes that gave off just enough light to see at least 15 to 20 feet ahead quite well.
Fred blocked out any of the comments the big Shard had about his new glow, as he concentrated on creating another Core similar to the Light one he had just seen work with Roady. It still took approximately the same amount of time to fully create it, but it felt easier, because he knew exactly what he was doing, this time. In less than an hour, he had an Air-based Core in his hands, and he was prepared to work on the other animated corpse hanging out with them in the dark cave.
Therefore, he didn’t hesitate to get started; Roady was back from his practice with his new abilities – after hearing Fred stir, he supposed – and Agelstein looked like he was ready to be done with the whole walking-dead-friend-thing. Getting through her skin and into her heart was a bit of a challenge, but Roady had enough strength, still to use his sword to carve his way through her tough skin. It took about five minutes, and the new Light Shard had tears running down his face by the end of it; but it was done.
Placing the Air Core inside and making sure it was secure, Fred stepped back and repeated what he did with Roady earlier – though he only pulled out exactly 1,000 Unconverted Mana this time. Additionally, instead of a bright white light engulfing her, she was covered head to toe in a faint yellow glow…at least until a streak of black Power shot out and smacked into Agelstein again, causing him to scream out in pain and hold his head. Just like the former Knight-Commander, she collapsed straight down when the Necromantic Power left her body, though her torso was still upright despite her sprawled state. In fact, her grip on her bow hadn’t even slackened any—
Oh, no…
“Her bow!” Fred shouted, but it was too late. The glow surrounding her brightened considerably and blinded them all, but he still tried to stagger forward to wrestle the bow from her hands. That proved to be a mistake; as the process completed and Ravenne opened her eyes, she took one wild-eyed look at him stumbling towards her and, mid-scream, she pulled an arrow from the quiver on her back. In one fluid motion – her skill not much diminished from her loss of her Adventurer Essence – she nocked the arrow and shot it straight at Fred’s chest, piercing through his ribcage and into his heart. The impact was so strong that it caused him to step back, where he tripped over some imperceptible deviation in the stone floor of the cave.
As soon as he landed on his back, the pain from the arrow shot hit him, and he cried out in shock; his cry was overshadowed, however, by the slowly decreasing scream coming from Agelstein from his Power backlash. Fred lifted his head, even as he was suffering from the long projectile in his chest, only to see Ravenne firing at the Necro-Wizard, hitting him in the throat. Agelstein’s scream was interrupted by the arrow in his throat, and he collapsed with a gurgle and lay on his back, his hands attempting to stem the flow of blood.
The next moment, he heard Roady yell with a semblance of his previous battlefield voice, “Ravenne! Stand down!” When she didn’t seem to hear him, Fred saw a few streaks of light emit from the big man, and five Bright Lynxes popped into existence in front of the now-kneeling Air Shard. Less than a second later, they jumped towards her, though Ravenne was still able to get one shot off that went through the eye of one of the Light Defenders, where it immediately disappeared, and a small blob of Light Mana appeared.
The remaining four managed to tackle the former Assassin-Spy with their bulk, sending her onto her back and clamping down on her arms with their jaws. Ravenne still struggled, though, and it was only when another Lynx appeared and wrapped its sharp-toothed mouth around her neck that her flailing ceased.
During all of that, Fred was attempting to pull the arrow out of his heart, but his movements were sluggish, and his strength almost completely gone. He knew he would eventually heal with his Mana, but unless the arrow was removed, it would become…complicated. His head rolled to his side to see Roady looking around almost in shock. “Roady… *cough*… arrow… Healing…” was all he was able to squeeze out of his throat before darkness crashed down on him – for the second time that day.
This is getting ridiculous.
Chapter 5
What…just happened?
Despite the massive changes that encompassed his life over the last few hours, nothing had prepared Roady for Ravenne to come back from death and start killing everyone. Fortunately, his practice of his new abilities, a session that he just ended a few minutes ago, was already coming in handy.
In the back of his mind, he was directly connected to the five Bright Lynxes that held Ravenne down and immobile; from what he could remember of what Chareese had told him, he didn’t think that his level of control over them was exactly normal, however. From what she – as well as Eisa and Regnark, the other Shards who had traveled with Fred – said, Shards gave their monsters (or Defenders, whatever they were called) orders, those Defenders fulfilled their orders. For Roady, though, he didn’t just give orders – he was the monster.
It was a bit confusing, at first, because he had trouble reconciling, in his mind, how to directly control one of his monster “forms” (as they were called in his Shard Status), while still maintaining his individual presence as a human. However, with some practice – and letting go of some preconceived notions of what was right or wrong – he learned how to become a Glow Sprite, at first, and then one of the Bright Lynxes. It was a frightening and wonderful experience all wrapped up in one, and he had started to think that his new existence wasn’t all bad.
Especially when he found out that he could use his centuries of experience in combat to enhance the fighting prowess of his monsters. They didn’t have the same strength or abilities that he was used to, but knowing how to control and take advantage of the flow of battle and identifying weaknesses to exploit wasn’t something that came with Ratings or Essence – it came with experience and knowledge. In fact, he had just started to control two Lynxes at the same time and had them fight each other – both controlled by him, of course – which was an amazing application of tactics and preservation of movement that couldn’t really be achieved when sparring against someone…nor when fighting against relatively “dumb” monsters who attacked with the same methods over and over and over again.
That was when he had heard Fred stirring and he hurried back to help. He now wished he hadn’t taken the time to tear her chest open, though, because she had just killed Fred and Agel. She was obviously scared and confused, just like he had been when he was brought back earlier; but she wasn’t responding to his voice. Five of his Lynx Forms did the trick, and he could see the frightened craziness start to leave her eyes.
That didn’t really help his other friend…nor Fred, he supposed. He knew the strange little man could heal himself over time, but Agelstein had been shot through the throat and was dying. Despite Ravenne likely being sent back to the G-1st-Rating, her enchanted arrows were just as powerful as they had been before she died. He had been told that they even pierced through his skin while he was an animated corpse, which just went to show how deadly they were.
We need a healer! Maybe if I rush back to the city I can fetch one before he dies.
“Roady… *cough*… arrow… Healing…” he suddenly heard from Fred’s direction. He looked over to see what he was talking about, but his eyes closed, and he seemed to be asleep. Or temporarily dead. Yes, I know he needs healing—wait.
He still wasn’t used to his new status as a Shard, and one that had healing in fact: so he had completely forgotten about his Special Ability. Crouching down next to his feebly struggling friend, he gripped the shaft of the arrow and pushed it through, while at the same time activating his Healing Circle ability. He felt the white light that characterized his new “Mana” stream out, and a large circle – about 15 feet across – appeared on the floor, encompassing everyone in the cave. It glowed with a soft, pulsing brightness, and he could feel an energy pass through him.
Roady immediately saw a change in Agelstein near him, as well; the blood almost immediately stopped pouring out of his neck wound, and the torn edges of skin started to knit together quite rapidly. In less than 30 seconds, the wound was completely healed, though his friend still looked quite pale. Probably from the gallon of blood that poured out of him. Regardless, he was alive, if not fully recovered quite yet.
Looking over at Fred, he expected the strange dungeon man to have healed and woken up, as well; but there was no change that he could see, other than a stoppage of blood leaking out from his chest wound. Ah! Roady didn’t know what was wrong with him since his…death…but he was forgetting the obvious things now. He scrambled over to Fred and rolled him onto his side, before pushing the arrow through and out of his back; the arrows that Ravenne shot were designed to cause major damage if they were pulled out, so the only way to get them out was to push them through.
Roady’s Healing Circle, coupled with Fred’s natural regenerative powers, was enough to fix the smaller man quickly; twenty seconds after the Light Shard pushed the arrow out, eyes that were cloudy with anguish opened and looked at him. “Did you…save him?” Fred whispered; his strength was obviously still low, but returning quickly as the pain from his wound faded.
Glancing at Agelstein, Roady saw that he was looking much better already; so much so that he was sitting up and glancing around in shock. “Uh…what happened?”
“Ravenne shot you because you were entirely too loud with all that yelling about your head. I can’t say I blame her, because it was a bit over-dramatic; you’re just lucky that I’m a healer now,” Roady replied, trying to lighten the mood from the near-tragedy that just happened.
“Thanks—”
Another voice cut his thanks off, however. “Uh…can someone tell me why there seems to be some large cat with its mouth around my throat?”
It sounds like she’s back with us, finally. With a thought, Roady got rid of all of his projected Forms, and all of his Bright Lynxes disappeared. The Light Mana of which they were composed shot back into him, and he felt his reserve of the strange power fill back up. His ability to make his monsters—Defenders—disappear upon command was another difference compared to some of the other Shards, who needed to touch or be near what they created to reabsorb them. Despite only having a couple of these Forms, the whole thing with them seems a bit overpowered.
When he thought about controlling more than five of his Forms at once, though, he instinctively balked at the idea. That must be what the “Current Command Threshold” is on my Shard Status. That, he assumed, was the downside of his new abilities: He could only control up to five of his Forms at a time.
“Sorry about that, Ravenne. You were a bit…distressed as soon as you came back to consciousness. You nearly killed Agelstein and Fred, in fact,” Roady told the Assassin as soon as she sat up, now that she didn’t have one of his Lynxes at her throat. Actually, former Assassin is probably more like it.
“Oh, no – I’m so sorry! I didn’t know what I was doing, I swear!” she apologized, before crawling over to Agel and checking him out. She continued to apologize incessantly while the Necromancer told her he was fine, despite blood being everywhere: on his skin, clothes, and all over the floor.
Fred finally stopped her apologizing with an apology of his own. “It’s not your fault, Ravenne – it’s mine. I forgot to take your enchanted bow away from your animated corpse before I brought you back as a Shard. If anyone is to blame, it’s me.”
“I’m…a Shard?” she asked, confused. Roady – along with Fred and Agelstein – explained what had happened, including her whole stint as an animated corpse courtesy of their resident Necromancer. Fred then explained the same sort of things that he had told Roady about her Shard Status and what exactly it meant to be a Shard; she wasn’t as intimately familiar about the whole situation as he was because of Chareese, so she had a little more to learn.
“So, just like Roady, and Chareese before him, you should already be holding enough Air Mana to access your Status. All you have to do is think ‘Shard Status’ and it should appear,” Fred told her. Roady could see her eyes widen as her new Interface appeared, and then—
Shard Status
Ravenne Florens
Elemental Origin: Air
Shard Level: 2
Next Mana Threshold: 250 Air
Air Mana: 100/100
Defensive Options
Air Barrier (Base Cost: 2 Air Mana per 10 seconds)
Wind Tunnel (Base Cost: 7 Air Mana per 10 seconds)
Swift Atmospheric Compression (Base Cost: 15 Air Mana per 10 seconds)
Sharpened Air-row Barrage (Base Cost: 25 Air Mana per 5 seconds)
Special Abilities
Flight (Base Cost: 5 Air Mana, Base Upkeep Cost: 1 Air Mana per hour)
What? For some odd reason, he could see Ravenne’s Shard Status. “Your surname is…Florens?” Roady asked, surprised at how…pretty it sounded. The Assassin was always so reserved about her personal life that only a few people likely knew even that much about her – and those people were, in all probability, his half-sister and the Allroads Council. “Florens” doesn’t really sound dangerous and suited to an Assassin, I guess; I can understand not wanting to spread that around. Just like “Winston” doesn’t really suit my own personality.
Her mouth formed an “O” shape, before she hastily asked, “How do you know that?”
“You can see her Status, can’t you?” Fred mused, already knowing something about it. “I think it might be because you’re both…connected…to me at some deep-down level, as well as with the new technique I used in constructing the Core I used to bring you both back as Shards. I can see Chareese’s, as well, so it’s more than likely that you’ll be able to see hers if you think about it hard enough.”
Roady tried, but nothing happened. “I don’t think it’s working.”
He could see Ravenne scrunching up her face in thought, before she shook her head in defeat. “I can’t see it either, though I was able to see yours, Roady. So…you’re a healer now, huh?” she asked with a slight chuckle. Roady snorted and didn’t deign to answer; the evidence was plain to see on his Status.
Fred sighed. “It might be the same issue I’m having with accessing my territory and all that, so don’t be too concerned at the moment. The important part is that you’re both alive and well, if changed quite a bit, so now we can head back to Allroads to get all of this figured out.”
The thought of going back to the city was slightly frightening to Roady. I was always there to protect Chareese from everything, but being kicked back down to a G-1st-Rating means that I can barely even protect myself. He hadn’t really thought about his loss of Rating and his superior strength and confidence that went with it, but the prospect of facing his half-sister without being that bastion of strength was unsettling, to say the least. What will she think of what I’ve become?
That wasn’t even considering all of his friends inside the DAS and the Allroads Government. He wasn’t being modest when he admitted that he had been a well-respected leader amongst them; but now, most of the qualities that made him that leader were gone. Who follows a healer, anyway? It wasn’t as though he didn’t think they were important, because they were; his own life had been saved plenty of times in the past by a timely heal from hundreds of different healers, of course. It was probably his former Class talking, but he didn’t really respect those who didn’t get into the thick of battle like he did…or like I used to. Even Chareese, who had many healing spells in her repertoire, frequently fought alongside him on the front lines, despite the danger; some healers, however, stayed out of direct combat as much as they possibly could.
Roady resolved not to be one of those healers. His ability to project and control Forms already helped to ensure that he wouldn’t be like that, but he needed to work on his Adventurer Rating to build himself back up to what he used to be, as well. There was no reason he couldn’t be another Knight-Commander, even if it took a couple of centuries.
There was no point in delaying the inevitable, however, so he got everyone moving; despite his death and miraculous resurrection as a Shard, he was still the de facto leader of their little group, and it was time to get back to the city.
The walk to the southern gate took less than a half-hour, because everyone was eager to get within the relative safety of the walls. He used the term “relative”, because he knew that if all of the monsters along the border were to attack at the same time, the walls of the city wouldn’t do much to prevent a slaughter of millions of innocent people. There were so many monsters that could fly over or burrow underneath those stone barricades that the walls were practically useless. They were designed to hold back armies of humans, not massive hosts of monsters. Regardless, even if the defenses were “paper-thin”, the illusion of security was still there – and important to the millions of people inside.
