Ruthless (The Completionist Chronicles Book 5) Read online

  “Yes; yes, I would.” Joe sighed and watched as the stone book in front of him started to shine. In a moment, several glowing words awaited him. “Alright… Abjuration, conjuration, divination, enchantment, evocation, illusion… necromancy? Finally, transmutation. Any tooltips, help on what these mean? No? Alright… I think I mostly understand them, anyway.”

  “I think abjuration is something along the lines of auras or buffs; conjuration means to create something; divination lets you either look at something or tell the future. Enchanting should be as straightforward as putting an effect on something; evocation… is that spells like a Mage would have? Illusion, mess with people; necromancy deals with the dead. Gonna avoid that one. Transmutation means to transform one thing into another.” He stared at the options, then touched Abjuration.

  Would you like to select an Abjuration ability? This choice cannot be changed. Yes / No.

  “Ah. Don't get to see the options, huh?” Joe thought about it for a long moment, then selected ‘no’. “I need a new way to deal damage. Evocation it is.”

  Evocation is the act of calling upon or summoning a spirit, demon, god or other supernatural agent through the power of your will, mana, and potentially various sacrifices. Choose a spell.

  Spell options available for evocation: Dark Lightning Strike. Heavenly Lightning Strike. Purge Invisibility. Radiant Ripple (locked). Searing Light. Seething Darkness. Sunshine. Zap.

  “Locked? Why is that locked?” Joe touched the spell, and it luckily expanded into a description. “Release a ripple of divine power that damages anything within fifteen feet hostile to either you or your deity. Locked, as your deity has… no divine energy to spare. Well, poo. Yet another reason to finish that quest up.”

  “Sunshine is out, only makes things glow. Might be good against vampires, but nah. Zap is a bolt of electricity, seems to be neutral. Mmmkay. No need to get the purge invis, seems pretty specific. Heavenly Bolt… can only be used in a storm? Nah. Searing light or seething darkness? Kinda already have the dark; could I combine that with the light, or would that make them both useless? No… Dark Lightning Strike is the winner here.” Joe looked over the skill description one last time, then accepted it as his spell.

  Spell gained: Dark Lightning Strike (Novice I). You raise your hand up towards the sky and issue a request to Occultatum to strike you and your enemies with dark lightning. The sky summons a massive bolt of black lightning to hit anyone within a 5+(n/4) foot radius of you, then spreads out across the ground an additional 10+(n/2) feet where n = skill level. The lightning bolt deals 10n dark damage to all affected beings OR 5n dark damage if impacted by the ground spread. Cost: 100 mana. Cooldown: 360 seconds.

  “Yeah… this would have been really handy at level three,” Joe sighed as he read the spell. If he had been using it over the last few weeks, the spell would have been amazing by now. “Ah, well… it’ll get there. At least I am able to work on it now.”

  For his sixth level spell, Joe took an abjuration option, and gained ‘Antimagic Aura’. For his ninth, he took an enchanting option; acquiring an intricate knowledge of the enchanting spellform for ‘Zone of Circumlocution’. At twelve, he took a transmutation ability called ‘Corify’. For his final level fifteen choice, Joe took ‘Knowledge (Occultatum Exclusive)’. As he stepped back from the altar, the glow faded and Joe found himself smiling happily. That had been wild.

  “Hey! That took a long time; what’s the holdup?”

  Joe yelped, turning with a bolt of darkness on his fingertips ready to be unleashed. “Crim! You scared the abyss outta me!”

  “Right, sorry. What didja get?” Crim ignored Joe’s dark-coated hand and leaned in to hear the juicy details.

  “Ah. A lightning strike, an aura ability, an enchanting ability, and a couple other things,” Joe distractedly rattled off.

  “Details, man!” Crim demanded boisterously.

  “No real point in details for most of them just yet; I’m planning to combine them with other skills.” Joe pulled open his Soul Forge and started placing abilities together. “Want to help me with that?”

  “I mean…” Crim paused, then shrugged. “Your funeral, man. Hope they don’t turn into trash. You’ll let me know if the combos work?”

  “Yeah.” Joe perused his large sheet of abilities and sighed. It had been getting out of hand, and a bunch of new skills wouldn't help him keep everything organized. “I’m planning to take the aura skill and combine it with two of my healing abilities. I think that they will complement each other well. As soon as I got the aura ability, a reward I gained from my skill ‘Cleanse’ went off and let me know that they had high compatibility. I’m going to use that and ‘Group heal’ to make a healing aura that dampens magic and removes debuffs.”

  “Hmm.” Crim’s tone made Joe pause. “Well… I’ve heard that order is important. If you want it to remain an aura, make sure that is the first thing added. Then I’d suggest the order of what is important to you.”

  Joe nodded, adding in Antimagic Aura, Cleanse, and Group Heal. He looked over the list and tried to decide if there was anything else he needed to add in. He decided that, since he was at an altar, he would use ‘Query’ to ask Tatum. As soon as his skill activated, his eyes landed on ‘Channeling’. The word seemed to glow, and was extra bold for a bare second. “What? No way, I use that for practically everything!”

  There was no reply, which wasn't a surprise at this point, and his skill was now on cooldown. Joe grumbled and tossed the skill into the mix. The worst outcome was that he would need to relearn how to channel, and the Mage’s College could make that happen. Joe accepted the loss of the four skills and a chunk of gold; then was notified that his skill would appear in forty-eight hours. Instantly, he felt weaker as the four skills vanished.

  “Ugh. I’m going to have to drink water again.” Joe grimaced at the thought. He had gotten used to simply hydrating himself when he needed a pick-me-up. Needing to rely on drinking plain water again turned his stomach. “I’ll need to shower too! No! I didn’t think this through! Give me my skills back!”

  “Trouble, Joe?” Crim caught Joe just before he could fall into despair.

  “Just… I’m fine.” Joe sighed and looked at his other skills. He decided to clean up some skills that he didn’t often use, though he had no idea if they would work together. With a thought, Speech, Acting, Reading, Teaching, Drawing, Staff Mastery… and after a long moment, ‘Medic’, were all tossed into the mix to see what would happen. Thirty-two hundred gold loss and an eighty-four hour wait awaited him as he pressed accept. “That helped… still have a ton of skills I don’t use though. It’s just so expensive to clean them up.”

  Crim wrote down the skills and the order Joe put them in the Soul Forge, then made a copy for himself. “Tell me more about your skills from Tatum!”

  “Swear not to share with anyone else?” Joe stared Crim in the eye, and the other man solemnly agreed. Now that Crim would gain a Warlock title if he told another person, Joe felt comfortable discussing the skills. “I got a spell called ‘Corify’, which adds a chance equal to skill level to make a creature solidify a Core upon death. Sounds cool, but if I use it on a regular creature, that would still only get me a one percent chance to get a trash-tier Core. Good for grinding it up, but it costs a hundred mana per cast.”

  “Yikes.” Crim winced. “What’s your spell stability looking like?”

  “Pretty awesome at fifty-five percent.” Joe grinned at Crim’s shocked expression. “I got a spellform for enchanting, but I’m not sure how useful it’ll be. Listen to this. ‘You create a thirty-foot-radius zone. Beings within the zone that attempt to say something rude, vulgar, or hostile are compelled to say something positive instead.”

  “That seems kinda…” Crim paused as Joe continued speaking.

  “This effect extends to any text which includes rude, vulgar, or hostile language. Creatures who attempt to make rude gestures end up making some friendly gesture. Painting
s and drawings which would be considered vulgar change to become wholesome. This does not stop hostile actions from occurring. The enchantment must be placed on an object that is not easily moved, or it will not function. Examples include anchors, spikes driven into the ground, large stones, a bar countertop, a table too large to fit through a doorway, or any permanent construction.”

  “What in the actual abyss are you going to use that for?” Crim’s face was bunched up in disgust.

  “No idea… it would have been an amazing addition to a cafeteria in my old high school, though.” Joe chuckled along with Crim, and the two of them started walking toward the exit. Joe’s eyes gleamed as he looked over the final skill he had acquired.

  Skill gained: Knowledge (Occultatum Exclusive) (Novice I). You tap into the System, searching for the secrets of this world. When you cast this spell, you gain one level of Lore in a chosen Lore skill, up to the maximum of the tier of this skill. Current maximum: Novice IX. Cooldown: 24 hours. Cost: 2,000 mana.

  “Overall, I think this was worth doing. Thanks for the advice, Crim.” Joe stared at his final skill, eager to test it out for himself. “Gotta go find somewhere private…”

  Chapter Four

  “I have a dungeon I’d like to have the group run through.” Jess ambushed Joe as he walked out of the Temple, and she was clearly still upset about his reaction that morning; if the way she slapped a sheet of paper onto Joe’s chest was any indication. “Since you are a guild officer, I sent a couple people to secure it for us.”

  “Oh, nice!” Joe looked at the information on the paper, then frowned. “Oh. Totally unknown what the interior is like?”

  “Yeah, I want to use it to train up my new class.” Jess taunted him with the fact that he had no idea what her class actually was. “Hurry up; everyone else is already gathered.”

  “Are you seriously going to ask me to help you train your class, but not tell me what it is? Nah. Tell me, or you can work on it without my help.” Joe leveled a stare at her. He was also a little salty about their previous interaction.

  “You suck. Fine… I’m a Necromantic Logistician.” Jess waited for a reaction, but only got a blank stare in return. “Alright… I guess you have no idea what that means, so I didn't need to be so secretive. Basically, I am a support class necromancer, and I get experience for setting up trips. I can also use my raised creatures to scout out a dungeon or unknown area, and I can draw up a map. After the area is cleared, I get experience for how accurate my map was.”

  “Oh.” Joe searched for something to say, but came up empty. “Neat. Yeah, we’ll go ahead and do this dungeon in a little while. I am just on my way to meet with Aten. Can we go to the dungeon tomorrow?”

  “Sure can. Everyone is already waiting, but I’m sure they’ll be fine with disappointment.” Jess gave a thumbs up as Joe scowled at her, “At least that’ll give me more time to set up the trip, which means more experience in the long run.”

  “Silver linings everywhere.” Joe walked toward the Guild Hall again. He had no idea why Aten had waited till he left to call him back. It was either a power play, or something else was going on. He was brought directly to Aten’s office, which was now an actual enclosed room with only Aten in it. “Hi, Aten. What’s going on?”

  “Close the door?” Aten waited for the door to latch before waving at a seat in front of him. “Alright, man… we need to talk about the direction of the guild and what you want to see going forward. I probably don't need to tell you this, but you really upset a few people earlier when you basically told them that their ideas were outdated and useless in this new world.”

  Joe stared at Aten for a long moment before exploding, “Abyss those debuffs! I wasn't trying to say anything like that, I was trying to point out that we needed to look at things in game terms!”

  “Debuff…? Oh… this ‘Hammerwords’ thing you were describing that no one else knows about?” Aten rolled his eyes. “You need to stop blaming other things and take action to better yourself. If this thing really does exist, then to fix it, you need to work on your charisma score, right? Take that skeleton man with you when you do, will ya?”

  “Where is training available for charisma?” Joe ignored the slight and leaned forward eagerly. “I’ve been trying to figure it out, but the only thing I can think of is the Bard’s College.”

  “They have a good program, but you can raise charisma by doing anything non-combat that is used to bring joy to others. Even if it isn't very good. Dancing, singing, art, carving, sculpting, pleasant conversations… stuff like that. Anyway, that isn't why I brought you here.”

  “Do tell.”

  “Alright, I’ll get right to it.” Aten took a deep breath and leaned back. “I need you to really focus on getting your next Specialization. We need to get ahead of the crazy amounts of people on… ah… Midgard… and start making a base of operations in the next Zone.”

  “I had planned on getting stronger as fast as possible, but what’s the deal here?” Joe narrowed his eyes. It was sounding suspiciously like Aten was trying to get rid of him. “Getting pressured to keep only the extra-friendly folk around?”

  “Nothing like that, Joe.” Aten arched a brow, clearly understanding where he was coming from. “We know exactly how useful it is to have you around, and we certainly aren't going to throw you away for personal politics. No, what I am worried about is the absolute lack of resources that is going to be hitting the area. We have a food source secured, but when was the last time that you tried to buy up a Core?”

  “I haven't needed to in a while.” Joe thought for a moment and checked his storage ring and codpiece mentally. “I still have a half dozen common Cores, and one that is worth about five thousand experience. I forget the name, and I don’t want to pull it out and check it.”

  “That was about what I was expecting.” Aten nodded sagely, rubbing the beginnings of a moustache. “Everyone has a small personal stock, but the cost of Cores has doubled in the last few days due to the sheer demand for them. But it isn't just the Cores. Most resources have skyrocketed in price, which reminds me; thanks for the heads up on that a while back. We were able to buy up a lot of stock while it was relatively low-priced, so we’re not suffering like some other people we know.”

  “Basic supply and demand, Aten.” Joe bobbed his head. “Happy to do it, but what are you getting at?”

  “I need to give you an order, Joe. As Guild Commander, I need you to gain your next Specialization, get to the next Zone, and prepare a safe haven for The Wanderer’s Guild. If possible, I need you to start sending resources down to us so that we can get more people to their second Specialization.” Aten looked Joe in the eye. “I would go myself, but my next Specialization is tied to the ability of my Guild and… ugh… Towny McTownface’s town rank.”

  “What of the other guild officers?” Joe pointedly demanded. “I want to spend a good deal of time consolidating power here and making this town into an amazing city, and that’s hard to do when I’m splitting my focus so heavily.”

  “The officers that I think can manage it? They are getting the same task.” Aten leaned close and lowered his voice. “You know as well as I do that of all the people in the Guild… only a small percentage of them will use this opportunity as it should be used. Most will squander it, and resent us as we become powerful. Luckily, they will be in no position to affect us. The bankers, the lawyers, the trust fund kids that are our investors? They’re likely staying on Midgard forever. So this is an order, but also a massive show of faith in your ability to make it happen. Get out of here and make it to the next Zone. I’ll follow as soon as I can, and that is where our really talented people will group together.”

  Joe left the Guildhall with his mind weirdly whirling. Aten was giving out a secret task only to competent people? Should he trust that? Believe it? Or should he look into guild politics more deeply? No… if Aten thought he needed to go, he would take it as the compliment it appeared to be. Joe decided to ta
ke this as a turning point in his development, and realized that he needed to answer a major question. Essentially, “What do I need for my next rank up? Status.”

  Name: Joe ‘Tatum’s Chosen Legend’ Class: Jumplomancer (Actual: Rituarchitect)

  Profession: Tenured Scholar (Actual: Arcanologist)

  Character Level: 15 Exp: 134,813 Exp to next level: 1,187

  Rituarchitect Level: 3 Exp: 5,940 Exp to next level: 60

  Hit Points: 330/330

  Mana: 1,590/1,590

  Mana regen: 30.7/sec (Base 27.91/sec increased by gear)

  Stamina: 295/295

  Stamina regen: 5.67/sec

  Characteristic: Raw score (Modifier)

  Strength: 31 (1.31)

  Dexterity: 40 (1.40)

  Constitution: 38 (1.38)

  Intelligence: 106 (3.06)

  Wisdom: 77 (2.27)

  Charisma: 31 (1.31)

  Perception: 60 (2.10)

  Luck: 30 (1.30)

  Karmic Luck: 0

  “Alright… looking good… but I have a long way to go before I can rank up. Sheesh. I need a total of forty-five thousand class experience, and I have only five thousand nine hundred and forty. I need to figure out how to boost that by a lot.” Joe looked at his skill list, and his eyes landed on Knowledge. He shivered in anticipation, pulled out one of his two Mana batteries and held it to his chest. “Knowledge.”

  You have activated ‘Knowledge’. Which Lore skill would you like to use Knowledge on?

  “Ritual Lore.”

  Invalid target. Skill Ritual Lore is at Apprentice II, and skill Knowledge can only affect skills up to Novice IX.

  “At least I know what it looks like.” Joe muttered, putting away his now-spent Mana Battery. “Gotta go get myself some lore skills.”

  He tried to think of what to do next, and came up empty. When in doubt, head to the library. As Joe walked toward the Pathfinder’s Hall, he closed his eyes and listened to the magic in the air. His destination tolled in his ears like soft thunder as his Magical Synesthesia skill kicked in. All around him were the quieter, sharper sounds of enchanted equipment, but none of the screeching that he had started to associate with spells being cast.