Chapter 146: Anty Bodies

Chapter 146: Anty Bodies

Nuralie and I had eaten our fill and then separated into our own corners of the room to pursue our individual interests. Nuralie had taken several clippings of the thickly growing ferns and picked several of the glowing mushrooms for study. She had flora samples from across the Delve lined up in front of her on the table, cleared of its dirty dishes, and now covered in a portable alchemy set.

She cut into one of the large fruits we’d found on the cathedral grounds, releasing a puff of gray vapor that swirled in the air from place to place as though it were inspecting the chamber. Nuralie gently coaxed the vapor into a bottle with hands that glowed with Spiritual power, then stoppered it. She gave it a gentle shake, frowned, then sat it down. She threw a mushroom into a mortar, pressed down on it with a pestle, then poured the bioluminescent juice that came out of the fungus into a beaker that she swirled around like a glass of fine wine. She placed the remains of the mushroom into a small, low-temperature oven to dry, then repeated the process with several more toadstools.

Meanwhile, I flipped through a text on Mystical Magic. My only spell in the school was Dispel, which I knew I wasn’t using to its full potential.

Dispel

Mystical

Cost: 50% of the mana disrupted

Requirements: Mystical Magic

Temporarily disrupt the flow of mana within a spell, object, or person. This can weaken or negate spells, halt the flow of magic within a magical item, or disrupt a magical effect imbued within an individual.

The cost of Dispel is reduced by 0.5% per level of Mystical Magic.

My use of the skill had primarily focused on countering spells cast by monsters or other Delvers. I’d used it a handful of times on mana-woven objects, but never directly on a person to disrupt magical effects imbued into their body. Etja’s Nullify spell was similar, but it hit in an area as opposed to Dispel, which was single-target. I’d fallen into the habit of letting the party’s dedicated mage handle most of the countermagic for that reason. She was also just better at it; Mystical Magic was one of my lowest intrinsics with a level of 17.

I also wanted the intrinsic’s level 20 evolution, which was close enough to taste. Mystical Magic was primarily focused on the manipulation of raw mana, and its evolutions reflected that. My level 10 evo in Mystical improved my mana shaping efficiency across the board for all spells. It might even apply to techniques if I shaped those as well since manipulating stamina in that way was also just called mana shaping.

Etja’s level 20 in Mystical had significantly improved her natural perception of mana and magical effects, upgrading an inherent feature of Mystical Magic that I also wasn’t taking advantage of. Again, that was because Etja was better at it in every way. But it was about time I started leaning back into the mage side of my build, especially since I was about to be plowing all of my next level’s points into Intelligence to boost my damage. I might as well learn some more fine control over the way mana operates while I was at it.

Both Grotto and Xim had access to Mystical, but neither focused on it. Xim was whole-hog into Divine, while Grotto split his attention between Divine and Spiritual. If Etja was disabled or, as the case was now, absent for some reason, I was the only party member who could pick up the Mystical slack. We needed redundancy.

The book had some insights I found interesting, but it was limited by the Hiwardian inclination to hoard the best secrets, lest one’s enemies discover them. Having spoken with Etja about the school a few times, it seemed like the former golem was more knowledgeable on the subject–or more willing to share the good stuff–than whoever wrote the book I held.

It was a bit frustrating, but there was a list of potential evolutions that was at least useful. Of course, there was no guarantee I was offered one that was listed, as opposed to being railroaded into something silly by the System or an uncaring eldritch being. Fortune might even interfere with my evolutions, for fuck’s sake. Still, it gave me some ideas about what I might run into.

As I heaved a frustrated sigh over the lack of useful material in the tome, Nuralie shot up from her alchemy work. Her bow appeared in her hand and she had an arrow nocked before I could dogear the page I was on. It hurt me to mistreat the book so, but I didn’t want to waste time finding a bookmark. Also, screw that book, it was mostly useless.

“What’s up?” I asked, pulling out Somncres and activating Gracorvus in shield mode.

“Something living is approaching from the northern wall,” she said. I began moving into position between the archer and the potential enemy. After a few seconds, Nuralie added, “It is profane, but not evil.”

“How does that work?” I asked. “It’s something the Eschenden rejects, but that isn’t automatically hostile to life?”

“Perhaps,” she said. “It is close.” She stepped away into the ferns and disappeared.

I focused on the wall, holding Gracorvus up and morphing Somncres into a throwing hammer. I kept a good distance from the wall, giving myself room to take advantage of my ranged options. I heard a shifting, scraping sound ahead of me and felt a soft vibration in the soil at my feet.

A hand made up of 3 segmented digits and covered in chitin burst from the stone. It grabbed the surface of the wall and pulled. The rest of its body quickly followed, revealing a masculine, bipedal creature covered in the hard exoskeleton of an insect and the color of red clay. Two antennae swished through the air, angling around the room and bobbing in opposing up-and-down motions. A set of four translucent wings stretched out and flicked off dust and dirt before sliding beneath a hard covering on its back. Its features, however, were disturbingly human.

I held back on attacking, giving the creature time to emerge and study the room with dark eyes, its black irises and pupils formed from small, honeycomb patterns. I was hesitant to open hostilities with a creature that Nuralie hadn’t been able to identify as evil, especially after seeing its face. Whatever it was, it definitely wasn’t human, but it looked intelligent. I went ahead and identified it.

Deletar, the Doomed Aspirant: Abomination, Grade Fourteen.

All things considered, the name and creature type didn’t sound very friendly.

“Hello there,” I said. “You gave us a startle.”

I maintained my combat stance, hammer primed for a throw and Gracorvus held up between us. I was willing to see if this thing wanted to talk, but I was also ready to squash it at the first sign of aggression. It finished appraising the room and then looked at me.

“I am Deletar,” it said. As its mouth moved I could see sharp, serrated mandibles hidden within.

“I’m Arlo,” I replied. “Well met. May I ask what you’re doing here?”

The creature’s head twitched.

1) 14 Emerald Chips

2) 1 Insectoid Essence

3) 1 Longsword of the Bluewren

Party Leader has set chip and currency allocation to: Even Distribution.

You receive: 7 Emerald Chips.

Party Leader has set item allocation to: Master Looter.

Party Leader receives all other rewards.

“Seven chips!” I said. “Loot split 2 ways goes a lot farther than 5, eh?”

“Perhaps we should start a side venture,” she said dryly.

“A & N Exterminators. If you’re infested, we’re invested!”

“When bugs become squatters”–pause–“then we come to slaughter.”

I chuckled, then pulled out the sword to inspect.

Longsword of the Bluewren

An heirloom that has been passed down for generations and thought to be lost with the disappearance of its wielder, Deletar Bluewren. This sword is made from an alloy of Frozen Steel and Madrin, making it highly resilient and receptive to mana.

Requirements: STR 20, AGI 10, INT 10, WIS 10

Effects:

1) Beneficial spells and techniques that target or buff this weapon are 25% stronger.

2) Negative spells and techniques that target or debuff this weapon are 25% weaker.

3) +20 Mana, +2 Mana Regen

My humor dissolved as I studied the item.

“Bluewren is one of Hiward’s main houses,” I said, tone somber. “It says the owner was Deletar Bluewren.” I looked down at the insectoid creature we’d just slain.

“Was he corrupted somehow?” asked Nuralie. She looked like the idea made her ill.

“No idea. But this is certainly something to loop Varrin in on. If Deletar is one of the Delvers that disappeared inside this Delve, then if someone gets stuck in here for too long or fails a challenge...”

I trailed off, leaving the thought incomplete. Neither of us wanted to consider the idea that we might become the insectoid pawns of whatever twisted Delve Core ran this place. I felt my pulse quicken as the notion settled, but not out of fear, out of anger. It was one thing for a Delver to die within a Delve, it came with the job. It was something else entirely for the Delve to twist them into a monstrous slave.

Deletar had even kept some level of his prior intelligence, making whatever happened to him all the worse. He’d said that he had to kill me in order to escape. Were there more Doomed Aspirants wandering the halls of this place, fallen Delvers who sought to kill those who entered for a chance at salvation? Even if they could escape, would they remain trapped in such a twisted body? It was perverse.

It was made worse by the notification we received.

Delve Objective Updated:

Your group has successfully navigated the trial placed before you, but your allies have yet to emerge from their own. The time for your allies to complete their challenges has run its course, but you may extend that time limit for so long as you survive.

Time until you are challenged by the next camp of Aspirants: 16 hours.