3rd skirmish of New Freeka

3rd skirmish of New Freeka

Year 77 Month 7

"I got to level 20 yesterday."

Jura pauses, and looks at Lausanne. Laufen's next to him, and the little girl then says.

"I got a passive ability, its called [Blessed by a Soul Tree]."

The two adults glance at each other. In a way, they are now like her father and mother, and there's a mix of pride, worry, and confusion when Lausanne says she hit level 20.

Most children never level so fast, at most around level 5 to 10 at age 8, and it is most likely due to the presence of my continuing involvement, the constant essence infused [dream tutors], [powerlevelling], and most recently the upgraded [training tree].

"Well, what does it do?"

"Erm it doesn't say much, it just says I'll get certain blessings?"

"TreeTree, any idea?"

Well, the first thing that is clear when she gained that ability, now I can see her much more obviously than everyone else. It's as if she glows in my vision, she's got a constant tooltip hovering on her, that just screams, 'look at me'.

"Well, rather than conjecture, would you mind going into the biolab and we can all find out?"

"Yeah. Good idea."

As Lausanne walks to the biolab inside the secret hideout, Laufen and Jura both look at each other.

"She's growing very quickly." Jura said with a sigh. "I fear for her."

"Me too. But I feel I should be proud. It is what Ricola would have wanted for his daughter, to be strong."

Jura pauses and then he nods. "I suppose so. Ricola would want his daughter to be competent, even though he himself wasn't much."

Laufen ribs Jura. "Hey."

"I mean, his talents were in being a village chieftain. Combat was never his strong point."

"I suppose it's TreeTree's influence then."

Well, I have been giving Lausanne every single combat related essence I generated through [dream tutor], so, it did, over a long period of time, give the necessary improvements in her understanding of combat tactics.

Lausanne walks into the pod and the vines wrap around her body, she goes in, and I take a look.

"May I?" Alexis asks, and I shake my head.

"Sorry, let me have a look at it first."

Alexis sulks. "Okay"

And well, frankly Lausanne's body is normal. She is a regular elf after all, though I could see right next to her usual soul spring, there's a small flower.

[Blessed by a Soul Tree]

[Due to long term exposure to Soul Tree's abilities the body is naturally accepting of its influence. Grants additional compatibility with various Soul Tree abilities, spells, and skills, and so they last longer, and has stronger effects]

"Oh. Sounds okay." At this point I think this isn't much, and I can't see anything else being different, so I let Alexis in on the view.

"Hmm." She too, looks at Lausanne's young body. Her soul spring is normal, and the water coming out of it is clear, and smooth, her body is well, normal, the shores covered in a thin layer of grass nourished by the mana from her soul spring. It looks like there is still some ways to go.

"It's generally normal." I say, "The skill isn't much."

"I think its not a bad skill."

"How so?"

"I think her growth rate will be even faster, since it means your training room, dream tutor and powerleveling will be more effective on her."

"Oh. That's a good point."

"You have plans for her, don't you?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, you have been investing a lot of your essences into her, more than any other elf. It feels like you want her to be something. Or are you preparing her for something?"

"Huh" Well, frankly, I didn't know why either. Somehow I got sucked into the narrative that Lausanne wanted to be a hero that I just went along with it. But thinking about it, I think I think its worth trying.

"Maybe a hero will be too hard, to stand at our level she would need access to a lot of star mana, gain the various divine blessings and unlock a cheat ability."

Well, yeah, duh, that's way too high a wall. Its like trying to climb Mount K2 after a successful hike up a gentle hill. I am not a fool to send Lausanne up such unreasonable walls.

"But I think creating a champion is a good idea. Reach the level of the demon champions, I think that's a realistic target. Perhaps she can get there when she's 30? I think she needs to learn magic next, a magic lab will do so."

Ah, Alexis trying to sell the magic lab idea again. To be fair I do appreciate the need for one, once we make progress with the volcano. But I'll keep that to myself for now. "You want to be her tutor?"

"I don't mind. I think I'll gain different skills, compared to all these research linked abilities I have now. It will help that I regain my magical abilities somewhat."

And I feel a little threatened by the idea of giving Alexis magic again. She did, though it is not her, burn down slightly less than half of the valley.

Oh.

Volcano occupation is at a stalemate. I will attempt again, once we unlock the large beetles, twice the size of rhinos, hopefully then the odds are better. At present, it takes about 200 beetles to kill one single magma golem, and I only have 2,000 in that area. 200! And there are a lot more than 10 golems. I am hoping the odds change to about 10 or so large beetles versus 1 golem, then the chances of a successful occupation of the volcano increases.

Also, back to New Freeka.

They asked for a demonstration in exchange for the jewels. And well, lets just say they have never seen 3,000 beetles march out of the forest before.

Year 77 Month 8

"Salah is coming. With a force of 50,000 men!"

"Huh."

"That is quick." Jura mused, but to be honest, I think I know why that happened, and it id also why I held my cards back.

I suspect there is a mole within Yvon's council. Or maybe close to them, there is a Salah informant.

I don't know who exactly, but among the 25 of the senior leaders, all of them are talking about the beetles. Apparently none of them could keep their mouth shut after seeing 3,000 beetles, and somehow this news got to Salah, who obviously feel highly threatened by 3,000 beetles. Maybe they now saw me as a threat they needed to crush, and crush me before I got even stronger.

"Well, it could be there is just some kind of surveillance magic happening." Alexis though posits a different theory. "As far as I can tell there are no scrying countermeasures or spell barriers in New Freeka, except the forest itself which gets some scrying protection your massive [camouflage] and [mist] ability."

Jura on the other hand thinks that, "I think they just wanted to fight New Freeka and this is a convenient time, since they are still in the stalemate with Nung and Takde. I doubt they know about the beetles. The traders and merchants I speak to, seem to says Salah has been itching for a fight for some time, since the blood blizzard is significantly weakened. They just want find aomeone to suffer for the punishment and misery of the blood blizzard."

"50,000 men. What are our odds?"

"I think we can win." Jura shrugged. "But it will be a hard fight. And it also depends on who is the general."

Well, during this time Trevor pings me personally. He is my surveillance officer anyway.

"I see the enemy army in the outermost tree rings. I don't think they are suspicious, as they left the outer trees untouched. Also they have siege weapons, master."

"Are you sure no suspicions? Or are they just playing the part?"

"Any mages?"

"Yes, sire. I counted a mage corps of at least 1,000. There are multiple individuals exhibiting a rather strong presence as well."

"Okay, bring me there."

"Certainly."

With that, my vision zooms to the incoming army. Thanks to my wider coverage of subsidiary trees, I have trees really far away now, and Trevor even went through the process of decorating each tree such that they look like natural growths in the area.

And indeed, a large army is marching, comprising mostly foot soldiers of about 40,000, some cavalry, about 2,000, and the rest being a mix of the mages, healers, siege weapon operators, and their elite forces.

"New Freeka has spotted us." One commander rides up to the man that looks like the chief of this army, thanks to his elaborate armor and uniform, and a long flowing magical cape.

"Good. It seems we can go with our initial plans for now. Bombard the town with our siege machines, mages, and force them out of the town, into the open where we can slaughter them." Another man rides up to the general, and the general just smiles.

Heh. I have the countermeasure for that.

"We spotted the beetles that Waysorious fought during the last battle."

"How many?"

"500, perhaps? They are really well hidden within the trees and only our rangers can spot them with any accuracy."

"I recall Waysorious suspects the presence of an elvish archdruid."

"You agree with that assessment, General?"

Ah, the chief is a general.

"Lord Rosul's earlier expedition claims the presence of a living forest. His wizard, says there is a presence that stretches the entire valley."

"I I never heard of that." The men around the general seem surprised.

"Its something Lord Rosul shared only with our senior leaders, and it is why we have been treating Salah with such caution. And why there are 1,000 mages."

A realisation appears on all the senior leaders around the general. Perhaps they suspected 50,000 is overkill.

"Yes, now that the battle is near, it is time I tell you the actual strategy of this army."

"The King and the high council suspects the presence of a magical beast, something like a great earth tiger, or a king grandbeetle, that Yvon has somehow managed to convince into an alliance. It is likely to be a defensive pact, else Yvon would be more offensive in her dealings with us. The recently observed magical phenomena in New Freeka from our spies support this. A firestorm, then countless black lightning, all points to magical beasts, of a very high tier, that likely to have experienced a high level evolution recently."

A gulp.

"Now now, we're going to try to talk to it. First."

It is then a ranger appears, he looks really old.

"This is Master Ranger, Falklay. He's very good with magical beasts, he has the ability [commune with magical beasts], [locate magical creatures], [beast talk-no-jutsu] and [charm magical beasts]. He'll sneak into the forest first, and find the magical beast. Our invasion of New Freeka is only after he gives us the signal, if he can convince the magical beasts to withheld or ignore their defensive pact. Else, one of the alternatives is that we will have to bomb the shit out of the forest as well, then fight the beast. But we will weigh our chances when that happens."

"Siege weapons against magical beasts?" A captain asks.

"Not ideal, but if we have to fight it, we best weaken it first. High tier magical beasts are powerful, but siege weapons and magic will still hurt."

"Now that we are near, what do you think, master Falklay? Confident that you will succeed?"

"I think our chances are good. There are magical creatures, I sense a few in the forests, my senses tell me of a fairy of some kind or a forest sprite. Charming fairies will be a huge challenge, but I think I can succeed in convincing it to break the pact."

The army tries again, and the second, third volley of attacks similarly left only some damage on the shields.

"What do you mean the bombardment is not working?" The ranger shouts through his message, as he flees. He seems to be getting caught in more spiderwebs as his concentration strays, but he is much faster than Jura, so Jura struggles to catch up.

The old ranger is halfway out of the forest now, and frankly, I don't plan to let him live. So, the moment he slows down, as a bit of spiderweb catches him, I would unleash a few root strikes at him.

And it would be blocked by that small buckler, or some other leg guards that he has, or the magical chainmail he has under his shirt.

Nothing fatal, but its wearing him down. Each of my root strikes are filled with paralysis and poison, and the entire forest is releasing a kind of poison, a mix of Trevor's abilities and my [poison field]. Its nothing lethal, especially over such short periods, but every little bit of the poison and paralysis is slowing the ranger down.

And he takes in some antidotes, which rejuvenates him momentarily

Another volley from the siege and mages. No effect, thanks to shield generators.

"General, its not working. Strong wooden barriers are blocking our attacks around the forests and those shields can take hell of a beating.."

"Ahhhhh!" A slight panic in the camp, as a group of beetles, about 300, emerge behind, attacking the siege machines and mages. They manage to destroy a few siege machines, but it is a trained army, some soldiers are already onsite to protect them and so they quickly reorganise. The mages redirect their attacks on the beetles instead. Each beetle, with their thick armor and the recent volcanic adaptation (which grants tiny amounts of fire resistance) can endure 1 fireball, so the mages need 2 shots to kill them.

Additional fighters rush to protect the mages and siege machines, and the numbers are sufficient to overwhelm the 300 beetles. However it is enough, as that delayed and distracted those ranged attacks, and gives Trevor and me some breathing room to regenerate some of the weaker [shield generators]. There are some variation in the enemy, siege machines operated by higher levels men, and some stronger mages, who accordingly deal more damage.

Back to the old ranger, Falklay, I send more spiders after him, and he demonstrates his competence as a forest ranger, cutting through the spiders as if they were nothing. But he is increasingly exhausted, and he realises it, knows what the plan is.

Every time he slows down, a root strike would appear somewhere, and I know I am gradually wearing him down.

"Going somewhere so soon, old man?" Jura finally catches up again.

"Tell me, those root strikes, from you?"

"Ah. No." Jura attempts to slash his head off. He ducks.

"That's a shame." He somehow dodges and put some distance between himself and Jura, and throws some small knives. It hits the wooden barriers around Jura, and then explodes. "They're not going to stop, are they?"

It knocks Jura back a little. "I really hate explosive attacks. Keep getting them." He jumps and tries to close the gap with the old ranger, but the old man is still too fast. "And no, you'd be a fool to assume those root strikes will run out."

He shoots a few arrows, but Jura gave me the opening I needed, two root strikes fly towards him as he tries to aim midair. He manages to react in time, but the root strikes breaks his shield buckler and armlets.

"...oh dear." The old man flinches from the impact of the root strikes, and he smashes into a tree. Before he manages to recover from the impact, I quickly activate [constrict].

Vines emerge from tree he's on and entangles his legs, and then injects a poison through his skin.

"Oh no." He then realises he is done for, as the vines quickly wrap around his entire body.

Jura lands right in front of him. "Well, looks like the bombardment stopped. I think they are busy now."

"Kill me." The old man said, "As a soldier, this day will come eventually."

"Oh? That's not for me to decide."

He stares at Jura. "You deny me this right?"

"Oh come on. Your country burnt my village and you want to play honorable? Please, did you somehow think I am in charge?"

"Then who is?"

Jura thinks for a while. "I almost answered you there, but, that... is a secret."

A root appears, with the strongest paralysis and sleep poisons I have, and stabs him right above his heart, through the damaged chainmail. With that, the poisons spread quickly, and he loses consciousness within a few seconds.

-

The mages and soldiers, after a long 2 hour battle, defeat the group of 300 beetles but with quite a few casualties.

"General Akbar, Falklay lost consciousness." An adjutant reviews the magical artifact linked to Falklay's arm.

"What." The general is deep in thought.

"Should we resume bombing?" Another of the general's assistants ask.

"My gut feels tell me it is no point. You saw those shields, they take just a little damage from regular attacks and ordinary fireballs. We'll just wear ourselves down doing the same thing. Get the mages to group together for a [grand fireball], and fling some oil barrels into the forest."

Well, that's no good.

So before that happens, I activate my attack. Multiple tunnels appear throughout their camp. It's a function of my [root tunnel] ability, and from them, thousands of beetles stream out, horns blazing, charging into the soldiers.

From above, they appear like a horde of ants that just got triggered, and a black tide sweeps out of those holes.

Then, [root field], [poison field] and then [root surge]. The field of roots slow down the soldiers, the field of poison weakens them, and the sudden surge of a wide area skewering of sharp roots from beneath the ground kills hundreds of unprepared regular soldiers, while harming some of the elites.

"General, we are under attack! By a massive beetle force!"

"How many?"

"Maybe three thousand? It's throughout our position and I have not gotten a good count, even our lookouts are under attack and they've not responded-"

Before he finished the sentence a root strike emerges from underneath the camp the pierces the man through the chest, splashing some of his blood onto the general's face.

The general is armored with enchanted gear and probably has numerous abilities to protect himself, so I decide to first pick off the rest of his men. It's probably too much effort to kill the general now.

He draws his sword and lifts it up, and it glows with lightning. And he then pierces the ground with it, and I feel some electrical zaps. It stings a little, maybe like a small numbness. But no matter, I have plenty more to go.

Another adjutant runs over, "General, the siege machines are under heavy attack from the roots emerging from the ground, and almost all of them has been destroyed."

Together with Trevor and Dimitree, we unleash multiple root strikes on various positions of the enemy army, picking on the mid-tier 'elite' forces, who are stronger than regular soldiers, but has limited defensive abilities against multiple root strikes.

"Retreat and stay away from trees!" The general shouts, with some kind of skill, carries his message to his entire army.

"General, our elites are falling-" Another root strikes pierce this assistant's legs, but fail to deliver a lethal blow.

"I know, the enemy's targeting those stronger than the beetles. This is a trap, and the longer we stay the more we are going to lose." He shouts, and activates some kind of skill.

The skill spreads out to the entire army, all the soldiers, those lightly wounded and even the heavily wounded, experience a sudden rejuvenation in their energy, their bleeding stopped temporarily although the wound remains, and their steps turn into large, quick strides, unhindered by the [rooting field] or the [poison field].

They retreat.

Our kills, mine, and those of the beetles combined, is probably about 3 to 4 thousand, though many, many more are injured. The beetles got most of the kills, and also suffered the most casualties, as I focused on the mid tier forces, and I think I got about 400 or so kills.

Frankly if the battle went on, it'll probably result in heavy casualties on both sides. The beetles are less effective than I expected, and that's due to the general's passive buffs for his entire army.

They flee for as long as the general's ability lasted, and that brought them quite far from New Freeka.

And for now, the battle is over. I think the general will return with more firepower, but that is a worry for another day.

[2 levels gained! You are now level 132!]

[You gained a new skill : Serpentine Rootstrike]

[Poison field and rooting field upgraded]

[Shield generators upgraded]

Oh. Best part of any battle.

Spaizzer

Layers

description

additional notes

soul core

the true immortal entity that gets reincarnated and lives life.

artificial souls do not have this core

core shell

inner soul

memories and very few skills are stored here, and depending on the condition of the soul, this means some ppl get reincarnated with them. most inner souls do not survive the reincarnation process, so in the case of heroes, special protective measures by the gods are necessary

soul contracts are at this level. memories of spells and rituals are here.

inner soul & outer soul barrier. reprsented by the soul "shell"

outer soul

where experience, levels gained are stored. produces life force and mana. Some rare skills are stored here. Titles are stored here as well. Also contains a blueprint of the soul spring

demonic soul contracts exist at this level. heavenly blessings also exist here. level caps also eexost at this level due to restrictions in the size of the outer soul of artifical souls

soul-inner body barrier. Represented by the "soul spring"

takes life force and mana, and releases it into the inner body. may have certain filters or amplifiers which alter lifeforce and mana released into the inner body. Most learned abilities exist here, as something (either a brick, a runic alphabet etc etc) on the soul spring.

destroying the soulspring is like sealing one's abilities, as it means the body's production of mana and life force slows to a trickle, and the skills learned are "disabled".

inner body (mental and spiritual realm)

a personal 'space'. this is the "mana pool" and the "life force" pool. its usually a mix of both, and the size of this grows together with levels, amd also the experienced gain. Some passives, curses, abilities exist in this space.

gods may create special "wellsprings" that grant extra mana. certain personal tragedies and burdens, nightmares will also manifest here. familiars, summons, eidolons make a connection at this level to borrow, or share the mana and lifeforce with the host

inner body and physical body barrier, represented by the "shore"

absorption challenges manifest on the shore. it may suggest why certain organs are more adept than others, as it takes in more lifeforce naturally

Certain skills, such as disabling abilities exist in this level. Such as disable-hands, or "chakra sealing" abilities here. Mana drain from enemies creates leaks at this level.

physical body, represented by the land which borders the shore.

the part which actually interacts with the outside world. experience, foods and what the person experiences in life is then absorbed here, and it is then carried by the inner body to then be absorbed by the outer soul

physical damage taken here

skin (physical body - external)

external environment