6.44 - Duels and Mage Cores

6.44 - Duels and Mage Cores

There was once a thriving city in the endless crater. Jan stood at the edge of that crater, following the line drawn for him by his skill. Rain poured overhead, pooling in spots near the edge of the hole before falling down the edge like an endless waterfall. The pool that had collected in the bottom was vast, soon to be an impressive lake if the rainfall continued. He found a seat on a rock, looking down at the shattered mask of Twist. It would be easy to pull the trigger now. But that was an act that would provide no closure.

The masked elf stirred eventually. Pushing himself to a seated position and casting aside his broken mask. The scarred features of an aging warrior greeted him. Twist nodded, rubbing his head as though the fall had only given him a bump.

“How long have you been waiting for this?” Jan asked, gesturing with his revolver.

“Not as long as you would think,” Twist said, rolling his shoulders. He checked his hips, finding his weapons there.

“We thought you were on our side, you know. Thought you were one of us. Should’ve never trusted an alien.”

Twist scoffed, looking up to the sky above. A bolt of lightning streaked across the clouds as the rain ran down his face. “Does it even matter? You won. There. Is that what you wanted to hear?”

“No. I want to know why you joined Death’s side. Why did you open the Gate?”

Twist released a heavy sigh, falling back into the mud. “Because I thought my people could survive. A hope that we wouldn’t become fuel for this transition.”

Jan leaned in, training the revolver on the elf. “You don’t listen. You’ve never listened. That’s what we stopped, you idiot. We put a pause on the whole damn thing. That’s why we’re here!”

“You’re lying. Again.”

“Why would I lie?”

“Well, the Gates helped, didn’t they? Your friends were in trouble, and you helped them. That should make us even.”

“It doesn’t and you know that. What you brought to Earth cannot be forgiven. None of this would have happened if you didn’t.” Jan considered if he wanted a fair fight or not. There was something within Twist that could be redeemed, but he was too damn angry. If the elf did nothing back then, they could have been spared sixty-thousand years of shit for this world. That deserved a little blood. “Come on. Just like the old days.”

“A duel?” Twist asked, scoffing. “I can’t believe you’re going to try setting terms.”

“Yeah, a duel. Like I said, I think your people are somewhere. Maybe the queue they were talking about. We can talk about it after you’re full of holes.” Jan rose to his feet, preparing to fire. Twist was always fast. He tightened his grip on his other weapon. That Throk guy was a genius. “Ready?”

“Fine. Ready...” Twist vanished. Jan pulled the trigger on the modified sawnoff he held in his coat, facing backwards. The elf went flying back from the force of the magically enhanced weapon.

“Same old tricks,” Jan said, stalking toward Twist. “You gotta work on that, buddy.”

Twist groaned, rising to a seated position. The pellets hadn’t pierced his skin. But it must have hurt. He growled, launching himself toward Jan with his weapons sweeping out.

“The first tier should be almost the same.” Theo quaffed a Health Potion, the burns on his forearm fading in an instant.

Salire blinked from the ground, her face covered in soot. “Throk isn’t going to be happy we blew his equipment up.”

“We can afford to scrap ten old stills.” Theo kicked at the pile of Drogramathi Iron. “Small-scale tests are going to work best for now. That might just be the key.”

“It wouldn’t make the first step pressurization, would it?”

[Wisdom of the Soul]

It is impossible to conclude what the Tero’gal Alchemy Core would want for a first stage of distillation. More than likely, your focus should be on controlling variables before or during the distillation process.

“My magic cheating pop-up said we should control variables before or during.” Theo shrugged, not completely sure what it wanted him to do.

“Perhaps we can use something to draw out the impurities beforehand?”

Theo thought about that for a moment. His Drogramath Distillery Specialty changed to Tero’gal Distillery Specialty, and the description changed with it. If only perfection was accepted during the process, she might have been right. But he found it hard to reprogram his thought process. He had been using Drogramath’s alchemy since he arrived, and had only entertained the other forms of alchemy to distribute recipes to others.

“When you’re creating a salve with the standard form of alchemy, you create and bind a paste with the reagent. Let’s move forward assuming our reagents are twice as volatile, and our skills won’t help us.”

“Worth a shot,” Salire said, withdrawing ingredients from her inventory.

For the first test, they added more iron shavings than they needed. The resulting explosion was less impressive than the last, so they tried it again. This time, they used hunks of iron, rather than shavings. Ground Spiny Swamp Thistle Root went into the still with Purified Water and an equal chunk of iron. The idea was to use the iron as a gathering agent, rather than a catalyst. When this also caused an explosion, the pair took a break for discussion and theories.

Theo listened to the ideas Salire had, but found his attention drawn far in the distance. He felt something, although it was difficult to describe. He dismissed the chill running up his spine, turning back to his work. The working theory was that Tero’gal’s alchemy would be more ‘perfect’ than Drogramath’s version. That meant impurities had to be removed before or during the first phase of distillation.

“Reduce the amount of material going into the still,” Theo said, pushing himself to his feet. He worked a knot out of his back by stretching, tilting his head to either side until he heard a satisfying pop. “We’ll introduce iron at a two-to-one ratio.”

“Think it’ll work?”

Innate Skills:

[Sensitive Weaving]

Effect:

[Ward Mastery]

[Willpower-Fueled Ward Propagation]

[Sympathetic Effects]

[Intuitive Nodes]

The only skill that hadn’t experienced a change was Intuitive Nodes, since that was a Tero’gal skill already. Looking back on it, Theo should have realized this was the way forward for him. When all his skills began showing up related to Tero’gal, he should have noticed he was soaking up a lot of the energy from his old realm. He went down the line, looking at how every skill had changed.

[Ward Mastery]

Tero’gal Mage Skill

Legendary

Subverts the nature of your wards, allowing you greater access to effects and the ability to place them on any item, person, monster, surface, etc.

Effect:

When casting your warding spells, you may apply them to anything.

Understanding the property of an alchemy effect allows you to add that effect to a ward.

This skill had evolved from Surface Application, and the change was welcome. It was less specialized in the description, but Theo doubted the effect would be much different. The restrictions on the length his wards would last on various surfaces was gone. It made direct mentions to alchemy this time, which might allow him access to more powerful effects.

[Willpower-Fueled Ward Propagation]

Tero’gal Demon Mage Skill

Rare

Infuse your wards with willpower, creating a feedback loop.

Effect:

Increases the length of your wards based on willpower.

The change here was simple. Instead of fueling his wards to last longer in general, he now fed them his willpower. Which meant his wards would last forever. This evolution was an upgrade no matter how he looked at it.

[Sympathetic Effects]

Tero’gal Demon Mage Skill

Epic

Allows the user to link the effects of their spells.

Effect:

Your spells can now be linked to work together. This operates outside of the spell crafting system, and must be done by an ad hoc basis.

Linked spells will produce new effects, increased durations, instability, etc.

This skill had evolved from the Linked Wards skill, which had previously allowed him to connect two wards. Now he could connect two spells, not just wards. That brought something up in Theo’s mind. This core wasn’t focused on just wards. It had a specialty in wards, but if the descriptions were accurate, he could now cast spells like a normal mage. Perhaps a mage fueled by willpower, rather than hard work and study, but a mage nonetheless. The alchemist had a sudden need to cast a bunch of overpowered spells.

“Perhaps best if I move somewhere safe,” Theo said, looking around at the people praying in the temple. “Can’t just go exploding the temple.”