Trouble With Horns

“Tami, this place is similar to that ruin we found in the mist place,” Dawn said, pulling me back from staring at my character sheet.

“Huh?” I blinked, staring uncomprehendingly at her.

Giving a little sigh of affectionate frustration, she gestured to the hallway we were in. “It’s an Aurelling tunnel of some description. Same as those ruins. Which means that the legion barracks we just came from was probably built here with knowledge of this place.”

Kimmy, who had been quietly listening until now, perked up. “Oh! I overheard one of the scholars the steward hired saying something about the shipment manifests. He was saying how strange it was that the legion needed so much paper, ink, and cleaning equipment. Makes a lot more sense when you consider that the Aurellings were like, way old compared to the Parcosian Empire. Maybe they were studying the place?”

As interesting as the origins of the damp, musty passageway were, I zoned out of the conversation in favour of staring at my character sheet. I was level 38 now, and things were looking a teensy tiny bit neglected.

My stats were a little… all over the place. I’d maybe forgotten to assign any points since level 31 or so, and uh… yeah. Wow. I now had 210 attribute points to place. That was just over a third of the total points I’d ever gained from levels because of the way CORA did leveling. I think exponential was the word.

God, that was so many points to spend. But what if…

Surreptitiously, I glanced at Dawn, making sure she was still talking to Kimmy, then quietly shoved 105 attribute points into Strength, and 105 attribute points into Speed. There we go! Problem solved.

OH god. OH GOD. TAMI. WHAT ARE YOU DOING. BALANCE IT OUT MORE OR YOU’LL… FUCKING HELL! WITH YOUR GAUNTLETS, YOU HAVE—

I swiped away the notification with a grin, and went to look at my— oh. Huh. I wonder how fast 1426 speed would be? That was the total after revving my gauntlet’s engines, which increased my total speed by forty percent and my strength by twenty.

Well, just to be safe, I opened my ability editor and skipped over to the long forgotten Momentum Transference skill I’d made so long ago. Okay… I could do this.

My eyes immediately went blurry under the sudden weight of so many options for nodes. Fuck. Um…

Careful not to disturb the lore nerds, I muttered under my breath, “Show me all the nodes that allow me to shift or alter velocity and kinetic energy.”

To my delight, talking to my menu turned out to be a thing I could do! Things moved and shifted, until several were enlarged and highlighted, while the unimportant nodes dimmed and shrank.

One in particular caught my eye, and I opened it to have a read of the description.

Velocity Siphon.

This node allows for the collection of movement energy for use within an ability.

Okay, that was exactly what I needed. I already had ways to convert my movement into lightning, because of my race, but this would give me a lot more options. Which, speaking of, it was time to look at the Storm skill tree again. I bet there was all kinds of fun shit to unlock now.

I had more than enough lightning spells, but there was more to a storm than the flash.

Dark Clouds.

Allows for the creation of storm clouds when the environment and atmosphere can support them.

Wait, hadn’t I already created some clouds a few times? Had that just been a side effect of my abilities? Strange.

Adaptive Darkness.

Shadows you create can buff friendly targets or debuff enemies. Effects are variable based on the intensity, size, energy, and power of the shadow.

Foreboding Pressure.

Fear inducing debuff. When used on other players, it simulates physiological effects of fear only.

Rolling Awe.

Inspiring buff. When used on other players, it induces effects similar to adrenaline and confidence boosting substances.

Staggering Thunder.

Micro-stun debuff requiring a sound-based activation node. Fixed time of 0.2 seconds. Increases intensity of debuffs already applied to enemies. Radius of debuff dependant on intensity of input sound/ability.

Satan’s sumptuous slippery nipples. This was going to be a whole lot of fun to work with.

****

We crept as quietly as possible through the hallway, following the path that the steel-laden carts would have taken if we’d not fucked up their handlers. The further we went, the stranger things became.

The explosions were an ongoing thing, but the echoes of shouted instructions and the clank of metal on stone were new. Oh, and there was the little detail of the clanking footsteps heading our way. It was hard to tell how far out they were, but the worker who had escaped had evidently done his duty. Too bad this lightning demon had a whole bunch of new toys it wanted to try out.

Rounding a corner in the large, ancient passage, the sounds of mustering troops suddenly became less of an echo and more of a reality.

For the first time during my adventures in CORA, we came face to face with real Pagutum soldiers. Not random auxiliaries, nor players who'd chosen the faction of bigotry, or even spies with arm bands. Nah, these were honest to god Pagutum regulars.

Their armour was on the lighter side. Black leather sewn together with red stitching, and steel plates to cover the most exposed areas. Over the top of the functional portion of the armour, they wore a tabard of a radiant purple and red eye set against a blank field of dark grey. Finally, leather reinforced peacoats protected them from snow that didn't exist anywhere close to our current location.

As one, the Pags came to a halt, while an imperious looking woman with dark hair pulled back in a severe bun eyed us up. Unlike the others, she was without a sallet helm. Her shoulders also sported gently glowing red and purple stitching. She had to be some sort of officer.

Barely missing a beat, I drew my fist back, ignited my gauntlet's engines, and punched forward. Stormcloud and lightning twisted together into a spiral and rushed forward, slamming into the woman. Sound cracked, reverberating in the enclosed space. As one, the enemy froze. It was just a tiny moment, but it was satisfying all the same. Until, that is, I saw that the woman had blocked my attack with a spell shield.

"Whoa, that was cool!" Kimmy muttered from behind me. I hoped she was talking about the lightning and not the casual shield that could block my spell.

Golden light swirled up around me, whispering and warm as it embraced my hands. Magical power flooded into me, and Kimmy said, “Do it again Tami!”

Striking my fists together, I took two skipping steps and wound my fist back to throw another Storm Beam. At the same time, the mage officer lady was shifting sideways, one hand pointed out towards me. Red energy slammed into a hastily created golden shield, snaking over to create a beautiful sunset glow.

My beam missed the mage, since she’d sidestepped my shot, but that just left her troops open to the full force of my lightning. Moisture from the clouds coated their armour, skin, and the short sabers they wielded. Sparks arced between them all, and I supercharged the air with the final flick of my wrist that finished the spell. Thunder roared, lightning cracked like a whip, and half a dozen Pags were thrown backwards, smoking and screaming.

Dawn rushed past me the moment my spell had finished, an attack of her own rising in foreboding waves of heat over her hand. A rapidfire hail of fireballs rushed out to strike the enemy soldiers, but only a few got through. The rest struck the hastily erected shields of the mage.

She huffed in frustration, and turned to me like, Well? Are you going to go and punch her for me?

Rolling my eyes, I turned back towards the squad of Pagutum soldiers and crouched, building momentum. Focusing my gaze, I zeroed in on the mage, then spread my awareness out to encompass the large passage we were in. Did this count as a place that could sustain a storm cloud? Only one way to find out, I guess.

The officer woman had already begun to bolster her comrades, and with an order, she called, “Cut the inhuman scum down, men. Let’s get back before they leave without us.”

“Aye, Magicer!” they chanted as one, stepping forward to carry out her orders.

Their charge had barely reached two meters forward when thick mist began to swirl into existence throughout the hallway. Oh hell yes! It was working! Unfortunately, my mana was less than adequate for the job of forcing clouds into the hallway. It wasn’t like I used it for much else, so I guess that was okay.

In a flash of lightning, I was among the mist, my fist connecting with something hard. It held, for just the barest moment, then shattered in a spray of red mana. I saw a flash of terrified, whitened eyes, and then blood burst in all directions.

Crack, crack, crack. Broken bones, demolished scraps of armour, and the thunderous boom of sound that my shockwave created. Everything was a blur, and then suddenly, I hit something very hard. Chips and chunks of stone flew everywhere, and my arm went instantly numb. Surprisingly, it didn’t break, at least according to my health sheet.

Oh, nevermind. It didn’t break because I was funneling self-imposed kinetic energy back into my aura of lightning. So, right at that moment, the world was seething with sparks of wild electricity.

Dazed, I tried to pull back to look around, but my arm was stuck in the wall. God fucking damn it. Hissing with effort, I braced a foot on the shattered stone wall and pulled as hard as I could. More stone crumbled away from the poor, abused masonry, and I looked down at my gauntlet with mounting sadness.

I’d just ruined my gauntlet. My poor rocket gauntlet was in pieces!

Pouting, I turned back to look at my girlfriend, my friend, and the carnage that had once been an entire squad of Pagutum soldiers. “Dawn! I broke my punchy…”

QuietValerie