I have a WIP posted here on tumblr, I’ll put a link in the comments on the off chance your curious, I just want to talk about the power system here for a second because I can’t find a way to get it out in the world naturally. Don’t worry about spoilers if you are curious, most of this gets put out in the first paragraph
So the main power system I have is these Elemental Spirits which basically work in the same way that the Elemental Masters in ninja go work in terms of getting the power, it can be hereditary but not always. The spirits are like old gods and need a host to survive. The spirits can communicate with the host like venom and gives them power based around their element in exchange for habitation. Each of the main characters so far have one and so far I’ve introduced 10. The Elementals of fire, nature, water, ice and metal are fairly straight forward, they can manipulate and sometimes create their element. Then there’s ground and stone, which in the book are said to have unclear difference. Ground works with mud and soil while stone works with, well, stone. Then there are some slightly more abstract elements like life, death and darkness. Life has the ability to heal and regenerate themselves and others with the pink light they can create and they have little to no combat ability with the power itself. Death can use the energy left behind by the dead to create energy attacks, see who and how many people any individual has killed and with enough time speak with the dead. Darkness is the most interesting, it has to be, the host is the mc, they have control over their individual atoms, due to the fact that all of his atoms are overlapped like black holes a few hundred times over - on that note, black holes fall into his domain, I have a plan on how to use that in the future - Using his atom manipulation, he can shape shift, teleport, phase through things like the flash and spread his manipulation to others. Using this he can kind of rip off Mahito a little, although I don’t plan to use that more than once or twice.
More over, like I said, the spirits can talk to the hosts. Each elemental spirit has a different view of the hosts, life sees their hosts as friends to be protected, metal encourages the host to grow their power, stone encourages physical strength and exercise while darkness is more of a “let’s test how strong their mind is” view and for the first few months of having the host, regularly encourages self harm and other things of the sort. It does this to find a host who is mentally strong enough to withstand the pressure of being the host to the darkness elemental spirit. Once it’s decided the host has passed the test, which they rarely do, the spirit starts to guide and teach the host while occasionally dropping arcane knowledge to retest them in mental strength.
That’s about all I can say other than these are far from all the spirits I’ll introduce to the world, more include blood, storm, wind, cloud, lightning, sun, moon, luck, lava and more. If you have decided to read to the end, please please please read my wip, I’ve had this idea for 7 or 8 years now and it’s grown very slowly into what it is today. Any and all support in terms of suggestions or just a little encouragement is greatly appreciated and I’m sorry for ranting so much in this post
I have a character with a death based power and I can’t decide what his hero name would be, so I reach out to my tumblr friends and strangers for assistance
It is like 15 quintillion degrees (33 degrees C) in my country and I’m curious how other countries are doing temp wise, my phone is lowkey overheating as I type this. Anyway English btw
This is a DnD based, fantasy world with its own pantheon of gods that will be explained along the way
‼️ WARNING ‼️ (CENSORED) SWEARING, VIOLENCE, BLOOD, SEXUAL REFERENCE AND SUBSTANCE USE
Chapter I
Warlock Woes
We enter the scene at a tavern, two people, one with pink, spikey hair, tipped in a shade of gold, with a scar over his eye wearing a priest’s attire, drinking a glass of milk. The other with a dual green shaded jacket, all of the card suites on it, not forgetting a tall metal collar covering up to his chin. His hair green and spotted with yellow to look like a dice, several small pouches around his waist, drinking whiskey, the two are talking, the green dressed man clearly louder “you gotta understand Zane, we would make a great team, we just need a front liner and we’ve got a set party, there’s a bunch in this town it’d take like an hour to find a decent one”
the pink and gold haired man, seeming to be named Zane, responds “I… I understand that, Kage, but just because we can doesn’t mean we should. I mean it’s dangerous, we could get hurt”
Kage laughs “yes you could get hurt but I mean… that’s half the fun, plus you’re a healer, I’m insanely lucky, we’ll be fine”
Zane takes a long sip of his milk “fine… but the second you get too chaotic I’m going home”
Kage laughs “sure you are buddy, now lets go find a warrior”
Kage and Zane finish their drinks and leave the tavern, going into the town square. Zane looks at Kage with a puzzled face “So where do you plan on finding a warrior, I mean, you can’t just go to the market and buy one, it’s a whole person, so what’s your plan?”
Kage smirks and gets out a dreidel with an arrow shape on one side. he puts it on the ground and spins it “cmon, Luukii, gimme some help….”
the dreidel falls facing north-east, Kage picks it up and starts walking in the direction it pointed “luck is like my whole shtick Zane, what did you expect?”
Zane follows, looking confused “Wait, what? Where are you going??”
Kage looks around “look, there”
he points at a man with purple hair, an axe on his back and blue armour “he is our warrior”
Kage waves the man over “Heyyyyy! You there! You’re a warrior, right?”
the purple haired warrior looks at him and walks over “What do you want?”
Kage grins “I’m Kage, this is Zane, I’m a warlock, he’s a Cleric, we wanted you to join us on a journey, as our front-liner, how open are you to that?”
The purple haired warrior looks baffled “That is a very strange way to introduce yourself, typically people make small talk before inviting them on an adventure with no particular goal in mind”
Kage looks at him mischievously “I have my goals, now do you want in or not?”
the purple haired man sighs “Sure, why not, names Argos Flint, you said you’re Kage right? And you’re Zane?”
Zane nods and Kage puts his arms around both of them “alright, boys, I say we head to Metam to find some job to help with”
Kage, Argos and Zane start walking out of town after gathering the necessary resources like food and water. Kage plots their journey on a map “Okay, so, currently we’re by the edge of Satus, which means we’re a few months walk from Metam, I think we could try some dungeons, just have some fun, y’know?”
Argos looks at him judgmentally “you’re dragging me across the map… for fun…”
Kage nods “why not? We’ll have some good stories to tell, we’ll start by going to this little town here”
he points to a spot on the map “it should have some jobs that’ll need being done, some markets to check out and most importantly, a casino and bar”
Zane grumbles to himself, Kage side eyes him “sorry buddy, I didn’t catch that, repeat”
Zane speaks louder, fear on his face “I-I just said…”
Kage chuckles “you’re funny when you’re nervous, Zane, don’t worry, I know about your distaste for my love of drinking and gambling, no fear”
Zane fakes a laugh and they get up to start travelling, arriving in a small town with a bar
Chapter II
God problems
*blind God of Tragedy
Kage gets a room in an inn, Zane goes to bed and Argos and Kage head to the bar, Argos looks at him “so, Kage, you’re a warlock huh? What level?”
Kage looks back “doesn’t matter, I’m strong enough, that’s all that does matter… What about you? You’re a warrior, what level are you?”
Argos blinks in confusion “5th, what level is Zane?”
Kage looks up slightly “Also 5th, what brought you down the path of a warrior?”
Argos looks into his drink “a cult kidnapped my family and cut out their hearts for a ritual, I want to get revenge...”
Kage flinches at the idea of ritual sacrifice “I… uh… I could help with that, I serve the god of luck, Luukii, who does this cult follow?”
Argos looks a little hopeful “oh, um… they follow Tragoedia*, why?”
Kage explains “Luukii doesn’t like cults of other gods, I can tear down the cult for him and help you along the way, a little revenge quest never hurt anyone, well, anyone who didn’t deserve it”
Argos chuckles “So what got you into dealings with a trickster god?”
Kage smiles“eh, you know, voice in my ear, voice teaches me ritual magic, I summon said voice to the mortal realm, said voice reveals their godhood, I make deal with said god, I get made a warlock, you know the drill”
Argos chuckles nervously “um… no I don’t actually…”
Kage laughs to himself “no one ever does… so, vengeance quest it is?”
Argos smiles “vengeance quest it is”
they tap their drinks together
The next morning, Kage knocks on Argos and Zane’s doors bright and early “GOOOOOOD MORNING BOYS, TRAVEL TIME”
Argos groans through his door and reluctantly rises, after hearing nothing from Zane, Kage uses a spell to unlock the door and goes in, finding him on his knees praying
Kage smiles “Who ya prayin’ to bud?”
Zane finishes the prayer and rises to his feet “Vito, the God of Life”
Kage nods “As expected, you’re a cleric of the life domain, you wanna get going?”
Zane brushes himself off and walks to the door “I’m ready, shall we get going?”
Kage leads Zane and Argos to the edge of town “our party is pretty good, only really need a rogue and maybe a second caster wouldn’t hurt but we’ll manage, alright, I’ve mapped it all out, found all of the cult gatherings to get rid of, if you’ll join us, Zane”
Zane looks confused “what? What cult?”
Kage explains “the Cult of the Blind God, Argos has bad blood with them and I have a god to serve, so dead they shall be, ready to move?”
Zane nods and follows Kage into the woods with Argos.
Chapter III
Into the Wild
In the middle of the woods, Zane sets up camp while Argos hunts for some food with Kage “So Kage, you never really gave a full explanation of… well anything. You're a warlock with the God of Luck as your patron and you don’t want to specify your level and I don’t know where your from, how you know Zane, how old you are, although you look maybe early 20s, I’ve never seen you cast a spell myself, you have very… empty eyes but a full smile, like your trying to hide a pain you feel, wanna give me some answers? Start with age”
Kage takes sighs deeply “ok, fine, you wanna hear about me, when I was 18 I made a deal with Luukii for my soul in exchange for magic after circumstances required more power than I had, I was expecting he just gave me the odd job every now and then and other than that he wouldn’t get too involved, but when I turned 24 I stopped aging, I didn’t notice at first and after a while, I thought I was just aging gracefully, then, while adventuring with an old party, I was impaled on a spear and thought I died, then the wound glowed green and healed completely, after that, my party and I thought ‘well this is sick, lets have some fun with it’ and put my head on the line whenever possible for fun, and to save their heads, I died more in those 10 years with them than I ever have since, then, I watched them all die, realised I had still not aged at all and performed a ritual to have a little chat with Luukii, apparently I’m immortal and so on so forth, anyway, that was quite a while ago”
Argos looks shocked “how… How long ago?”
Kage sighs “doesn’t matter, time is kind of lost to me, but I can say I’ve seen more than one empire fall, so do with that what you will, about where I’m from, the name of my hometown is long since lost to the rest of the world, but if you must know, it was called Prim Domum, and about the empty eyes thing, tragedy has overrun my long life and left me fairly empty, so I try to not spread my low mood by masking a smile and speaking joyfully”
Kage continues answering Argos’ questions “Now then about the spell thing”
he takes out a piece of string and breaks off a twig from a nearby tree “unseen servant”
the twig and string glow and dissipate and Kage smiles “find a wild boar and bring it here”
Argos looks confused “um… What did that do?”
Kage rolls his eyes “I casted unseen servant and ordered it to bring us a boar, it’s invisible but give it a few minutes”
Argos looks skeptical but shrugs and leans against a tree, taking out a whetstone and his axe to sharpen it while he waits. A few minutes later, a boar levitates towards them, flailing like it’s trying to escape someone’s hold. Kage smiles and fires off a quick firebolt at the pig, cooking and killing it “told ya”
He takes the boars body in his arms and walks back to the camp
Back at camp, as Argos cuts up the boar, Kage suddenly sits up straight and looks around, Argos looks at him “What's up?”
Kage looks around more “it’s just… I feel something… approaching us…”
Argos and Zane also start looking around and Argos shrugs “I think you’re overthinking it, Kage, nothing's there”
Zane nods “while I admit, the darkness beyond our fire does make one wonder what may be lurking, I assure you there’s no reason to fear”
Kage glances behind him, a concerned look on his face
“I don’t know…. Maybe but… I still feel something lurking out there…”
Argos chuckles “What's wrong Kage, scared of the dark?”
this is followed by Kage throwing a bowl at his head, Argos ducking and the bowl flying to the edge of the fires light and Zane looking to the bowl, then Kage, annoyed “hey that’s pure silver, it wasn’t cheap”
Zane then walks to the bowl to pick it up, then looks off into the darkness “.... you know Kage, I can kinda feel that presence too… maybe you’re right- ahh!”
he is suddenly pulled into the shadows, bowl and all, Kage and Argos stand suddenly, Argos grabbing his axe “The hells was that?”
Kage summons his staff “Either a monster or a thief, does it matter, or should we go grab Zane back regardless of what took him?”
Argos nods “lets go”
Chapter IV
Daggers drawn, Cleric absent
Argos and Kage run into the shadows, Kage casts a spell to summon a flame over his hand to illuminate their path “I think he was yanked straight this way”
they run in the direction Kage points and Argos grumbles “Don't you have a Locate Person spell or something?”
Kage shakes his head “not a spell that Warlock’s learn. Wizards and Clerics mainly”
Kage takes a knee and holds the light to the ground “drag marks, no footprints, either a lightfooted runner or a flying beast, they went this way though”
They keep running and find a cave with a fire inside, they spot a figure running in from a different direction. Argos tries to go in but Kage stops him and puts a finger to his lips, guiding him to the side of the cave to listen in, they hear Zane’s voice “w… what…. What do you want from me…?”
a female voice responds “You look rich, and like a member of the clergy, I’ll bet they’ll pay me a hell of a lot for your return”
Kage gestures to Argos to wait there, before climbing on top of the cave. Kage whispers a spell “earthbind”
Argos and Kage hear the sound of rocks moving and a sudden high pitch screech, followed by shouting from the female voice to release her “let me go you ****** **** ******** *****!”
Kage drops down into the cave, to see the thief, a slightly darker skinned woman with some small scars on her face, a red streak through her black hair, halfling height and traits and a black cloak on, a plated black leather tunic underneath with red lines running down it, seeming to try to imitate a blood stream, bound in earth “watch your tongue, friend, you don’t want to offend the guy with the key to your freedom”
The thief growls “**** you, ya little *****!”
Kage grins “calm yourself, now, you don’t want to make a bad first impression, Zane I assume that shriek was yours?”
the thief scoffs “tch, yeah the prissy squealed like a little girl, pathetic”
Kage picks up Zane, seeing that he is bound in rope, before taking out a dagger and cutting him free “Now then, what to do with this thief… we could kill you, or hand you over to the guards in the next town, or just leave you here to starve or get eaten… what to do, what to do… I know! we can take you with us!”
Kage summons his staff to his hand, a double shafted staff with the two shafts wrapping around each other in some places, one red and one black, the runestone on the end being shaped like a large green D20, about the size of someone’s head. Kage uses the tip of the runestone to draw a symbol on the thief’s head, before chanting some words in an unknown language and taking out a playing card, he holds it up and lets go of it, it levitates midair and glows with a green energy, the thief disappears and the playing card, a queen of clubs, is changed so the illustration on it resembles the thief, Kage catches it midair and looks at it “gotcha!”
Argos walks in, rolling his eyes “and we plan to do what exactly with that?
Kage smiles “take her with us! Maybe one day we can trust her and she can join our party!”
the trio returns to their camp and finds it looted with a poorly illustrated picture of the thief’s face with a mocking grin and outstuck tongue left on a small scrap of paper, Kage sighs deeply “I am so glad I always carry my gold with me”
Chapter V
Into Town
The party arrives in the town of Amicus to rest from their journey, Kage borrows a 4 rooms in an inn for the few days stay in the town, Argos looks around the town for work and Zane stays with Kage “Excuse me, Kage, might I ask why you rented 4 rooms when there are only 3 of us?”
Kage grins “simple, we don’t want our prisoner tied up in the same room as us”
Zane looks concerned “....what?”
Kage takes out the card containing the thief “well how else do we figure out where our stuff went? We want her tied up so we can interrogate her, if we need torture, we torture, simple as”
Kage walks into the 4th room and gets out a chair with some rope, he places the card on the chair and draws some runes in the air with his staff, releasing the cards magic and freeing the thief, who is now sat in the chair, looking disheartened, Kage quickly ties her hands behind the chair before she gets the chance to move, he then moves to where she can see him “so, thief, what is your name? That should be a good start”
the thief sits silently, Kage stops smiling “not feeling talkative? Fine, we’ll come back to you later”
he walks out of the room, locking the door behind him
In the middle of town, Argos sees Kage at the market and approaches him “Hey Kage, what’re you doing?”
Kage puts some coin from a pouch on the counter of a market stall and picks up the item he seemingly paid for “I like to buy trinkets whenever I stop in a town so then in 200 years I can see it in a museum in a large city and think ‘oh hey. I owned that once… Hey wait a second I owned that once!’ and be angry and maybe perform a heist to get it back, I have done this several times and will most definitely do it with you one day”
Argos looks confused “oh…. Ok….”
Back at the inn, Argos and Zane stand outside the door while Kage interrogates the thief “Alright, one more time. What is your name?”
the thief sits in the chair she is tied to, dirty and starved, clearly ready to give up, Kage squints, annoyed “ok, how about this, if you have a nice little chat with me and answer all my questions, then you can eat anything you want, you just tell me what it is and I’ll go into town and buy it, sound good?”
the thief looks tempted for a second before shutting her eyes hard and staying silent. Kage sighs “do I really need to torture you to get information? I warn you, I’ve been doing this for many, many years and got very, very good at it in that time”
the thief looks scared and Kage continues “so will it be the bribe route or the torture route? I have no preference either way”
the thief tries not to show any expressions to hide her opinion and Kage grins “I’ll buy you any food you want, sit you at a nice table, have Argos feed the food to you and we can have a nice little chat, talk about each other's past, I’ll buy you something nice, too, sound good?”
the thief looks even more tempted and Kage grins even more “alternatively I could cast Toll the Dead on you until you keel over dead, then give Zane a diamond and have him Revivify you and do it all again, which would you prefer? One requires your cooperation, one forces you into it, make your choice”
15 minutes later, Kage comes back from the market with various sweet pasties, tea, and a cool looking dagger, the thief has the chair she is tied to facing a table with another chair opposite her, looking very excited
Chapter VI
A Very Very Normal Conversation
“So” Kage places the pastries on the table for the thief “Shall we try again? What is your name to start?”
The thief is now looking much happier and actually answers this time “My name is Klera DaggerTongue, I am a 6th level rogue and I stole your stuff because I’m a broke orphan. very very sorry for that”
Kage nods “DaggerTongue?.... Argos help her eat the pastries until we trust her enough to untie her. Now, next question, how did you steal our stuff while also having Zane hostage?”
Argos looks annoyed before receiving a threatening glare from Kage and doing as he was told, Klera takes a bite of the food Argos is holding up for her “well, I knocked the priest out and went back for your stuff while you were trying to find me, I’m very fast and you guys took a while to find the cave”
Kage nods as Klera takes another bite and he asks another question “Alright, where is our stuff now?”
Klera looks up “oh it’s in a different cave near the cave you grabbed me from, you want me to show you where it is?”
Kage smiles “that would be helpful, Zane untie her, I trust her now”
Zane looks alarmed “are…. Are you sure Kage? You’ve spoken for barely 5 minutes”
Kage nods “I’m certain”
Zane shrugs and unties her as he was told
Klera takes her hands from behind her back and rubs her wrists, Kage smiles and stands up “you can finish your food on the way, show me which cave our stuff is in, the magic items in that horde are priceless, if someone else finds them, then I’ll need to snap a neck or two to get it back and trust me you don’t wanna get me killing”
Klera stands up with her food and starts walking “this way, follow quick, I’m a fast walker”
Argos and Zane grab their remaining things and join her, Kage uses the Misty Step spell to teleport next to her, a playing card flutters down where he once stood “alright, lets go”
a few hours of walking later, Klera shows them a cave full of loot, Kage picks up his things and uses the card spell he used to trap Klera to contain all of his things, Argos and Zane are left to carry their own things, Klera then picks up a bag of daggers and some coin before starting to walk away “thanks for the food, sorry for the robbery and I understand the psychological torture, see ya some other day if we’re lucky”
she exits the cave before hears Kage “where do you think your going, we’re friends now, that means you can travel with us”
Klera turns around, a surprised look on her face “... really?”
Kage nods “Really”
Klera hesitates “Are you sure you’re not gonna sell me out to the law?”
Kage shakes his head “not a chance, couldn’t benefit us at all any more”
Klera raises an eyebrow before walking back to them “fine but if you betray me I won’t hesitate to stab someone as a distraction and run for it”
Kage smiles “Feel free to stab me if such an event occurs, now mind telling us what your end goal is for all of this?”
Klera hesitates before answering “......revenge”
Kage tilts his head “against who?”
Klera fidgeted with the dagger in her hand “a cult leader, named Ka’hem, he killed my parents in a sacrifice then tried to do the same to me”
Kage looks intrigued “What god did he follow?”
Klera’s pupils dilate as she speaks “the the cult was called the Cult of the Blind god, I don’t know what god it was”
Kage tilts his head back “what a coincidence, that’s the cult we’re currently hunting, they follow Tragoedia, God of tragedy, wanna kill em all with us”
Klera looks to him and smiles “I think the four of us will make a great team”
Chapter VII
Back on the hunt
Back in the middle of the woods, back through the town and back on a journey, the group of now 4, with the new addition of Klera, the 6th level rogue with a tragic past and a cultist that owes her a debt, is on the search for a local outpost Kage claims he’s gathered information on “trust me you three, we are in the right area, Zane, why don't you set up camp, Klera do some scouting while Argos gets food and I will be a minute, if you need something, wait until I’m back”
Kage walks into the woods and Klera watches him “well that was weird”
Argos nods “really weird, I get he’s touchy about what goes on with his life but this is… almost intentionally suspicious…”
Zane mutters “may- maybe we should just do the jobs we were given and ask about it when he’s back”
Klera steps to follow Kage before hesitating and remembering what he threatened to do to her in the inn “maybe your right”
A few hours later, Kage arrives back with firewood to see the three of them sitting in a circle “Anything interesting to report on?”
Klera nods “I found what seems to be an old campsite, a few actually, getting progressively newer the farther away I get, implying they are in the direction that the campsites lead”
Kage smiles “Good job Klera. Argos, food?”
Argos tosses him 2 dead roosters “have fun with em”
Kage tosses them to Zane “Zane you're good at cooking, you can handle it”
Klera hesitates before speaking “So where did you go then?”
Kage’s eyes bolt to Klera, momentarily fueled by rage before he gets a hold of himself and smirks “nowhere special. But if you really wanna know, my god needed a job done, so I did it. Moving on, I say we follow the campsites you found until we get to the end of the line where I imagine the cultists will be hiding”
Klera nods “the campsites moved north, the first one is just an hour’s walk that way”
Klera points into the depths of the woods, Kage looks to where she’s pointing “looks like a safe path, everyone up”
Argos groans “Wait, we’re going now?”
Kage laughs “Yes we’re going now, they won’t expect us”
Zane mumbles “but dinner’s half done….”
Kage pats him on the back “later. I’ll get us there fast”
Klera glares at him “How?”
Kage smiles “Magic”
Argos grumbles, walking into the woods in the direction Klera pointed
Kage puts his hand on Argos’ shoulder “hold it right there, I need to do one thing first”
Kage claps his hands together and chants a magic component “festinare”
the entire party feels a ripple of magic in their bodies, Klera tries to move and walks at an accelerated pace “what the- I’ve never seen a spell that makes others move quickly”
Kage grins “It's an improved version of Expeditious Retreat that I spent a few decades developing. Now let's get going”
Kage starts walking at an extreme speed towards the cultists believed location, the rest soon follow behind
About 10 minutes of walking later, the group arrives at the abandoned campsite Klera described, Kage stops by the fire to inspect it “they left about 3 days ago, I imagine they have a lot to carry and so have shorter distances between camps”
Argos looks at a log with bloodstains on in “hey… what happened there?”
Kage moves over and wipes his finger along the blood “Hmmm… a sacrifice? Training accident?”
he licks the blood, followed by sounds of disgust from Argos and Zane, Kage responds by rolling his eyes “what? I need to figure out if the owner of the blood is still alive somehow!”
Argos glares at him “and how exactly did you learn how to figure that out?”
Kage avoids eye contact “trial and error…”
Zane looks at him with disgust before Kage exclaims “Sacrifice! It was a sacrifice, the owner is dead”
Zane jumps at his sudden shout “Wha-!! Kage! Why did you need to shout!”
Kage grins “Doesn't matter, let's get moving!”
Kage continues walking north of the campsite
About 5 minutes later, Klere stops him “Kage, the next campsite is a few yards right of here, in a clearing”
Kage turns right and stops “hey guys… I think I figured out what they sacrificed a guy for…”
the rest of the party catch up to Kage and look at what he’s talking about
Chapter VIII
Fight!
The party look into the clearing where the campsite was and see a sleeping horde of spine devils, Argos exclaims “**** we can’t fight this many!”
Kage shakes his head “YOU can’t. WE can. Get your head in the game, who wants to start the fight?”
Zane mumbles “uh… Um, Kage, I was, I was just thinking, I was just thinking, what if we just ignore them? Why do we need to fight them”
Kage sighs “Oh Zane you sweet summer child, if we don’t get rid of them now, they’ll wake up and attack the nearest village, which we can’t have now can we”
Zane looks down, Klera walks up to one of them, dagger drawn. Kage grins “loving the confidence Klera!”
Klera cuts the neck of one of the sleeping spined devils, it screeches as it dies, waking the rest of the horde, which all fly up, preparing to attack. Argos turns to Kages “Hey Kage, how can you be so sure that these guys are actually summons and not just some strays from an open portal to hell?”
Kage rolls his eyes “isn’t it obvious? Just look at them, they’re radiating blood magic, nothing about them is natural, these are summons”
Kage dodges a spine that flies at him “and the fight begins”
Kage takes out a sliver of glass and crushes it to cast a spell “Cloud of Daggers!”
a cube of spinning daggers fills the air above the party, appearing just in time to shred the tens of spines flying at all of them, one spines devil flies through the cloud, being shredded just as instantly.
Zane looks surprised “using cloud of daggers defensively? A strange technique indeed!”
Argos jumps up, dodging past the cloud of daggers and slicing through a spined devil with his axe “Would you stop yapping, we have work to do!”
a spined devil tackles him and he falls to the ground covers in smaller spines “.....ow”
Kage picks him up while still running “hey, you see how the body of the one you took out is dissolving”
Kage jumps over an attacking Spined devil and drops Argos off in front of Zane, Argos then responds “ooooooh yeah they are summons”
Kage smirks “....told ya”
Klera stands surrounded by three dead and dissolving spined devils and three others about to attack her “could I get some help here maybe?”
Kage summons his staff and points it at the spined devils “eldritch blast”
4 beams of green energy shoot from his staff, three take out the spined devils attacking Klera, one splits off and kills a spined devil that tried to get a sneak attack in on Kage
Zane finishes healing Argos who immediately cuts down an attacking spined devil “Do you know any offensive magic??”
Zane stutters “n-no! I studied at a school dedicated to the God of Life, we were taught strictly against violence!”
A spined devil tries to get a hit in on Zane, but is cut down by Argos, who shouts to Kage “Hey! You're supposed to be stupid old right? Bet that comes with a decent number of spells, wanna do a little more maybe?”
Kage snickers “what? you in a rush?”
Argos growls “Yes I’m in a rush! Let's get on with it!”
Kage looks around, many of them are huddled in a group but there are about 10 strays flying around looking for an opening to attack “fine then”
Kage takes out a snake’s tongue and a piece of honeycomb from his bag “Mass suggestion”
the ten spined devils flying away from the group look at Kage, who speaks a sentence of power “huddle with the rest of your horde”
the stray spined devils do as Kage commands and fly to huddle with the rest of their horde, Kage smiles “Now then…”
he takes out a vial of black powder from an unknown crystal “Circle of Death”
The horde of spined devils all writhe with pain and drop to the ground, dead and beginning to dissolve. Kage looks at Argos “Happy now?”
Chapter IX
Just keep moving
*drinks
Klera collects the daggers she’s thrown as Zane finishes healing Argos and Kage checks to see if anything was dropped by the spined devils “lets see… anything I can use? Aha!”
Kage rummages through the dissolving corpse of a spined devil and pulls out a small pouch that seems to’ve been strapped to it “lucky this thing didn’t get damaged!”
he opens the pouch and pulls out a small vial of blood, he inspects* it “this blood… belongs to a mage… an ice mage from the northern lands…. 22 years old… male…. 5th level…. Alive” Zane looks at Kage with some mix of disgust and intrigue “You can figure out all that from a vial of blood that small!”
Kage shrugs “Yeah, I’ve been alive for a while. You pick up a few tricks in that time, actually, Klera, one of your relatives taught me that trick”
Klera looks at him with confusion “how do you know they’re my relatives? Which relative?”
Kage shrugs “DaggerTongue isn’t exactly a common name, actually she was a good friend of mine, her name was Marola but we never referred to each other by our first names”
Klera’s face grows even more confused “What? What did you call each other?"
Kage smiles “well, this was around the start of surnames becoming a thing, so a lot of people had nicknames as their last names, thats where I got mine ‘QuickRoll’ and I gave Marola hers, she was also a rogue like you, I imagine it’s a family thing, she also had quite the mouth on her so DaggerTongue it was. She was a member of my….. Third party?”
Klera looks at him with shock “How old are you?”
Kage chuckles “older than most but not as old as some, old enough to see empires rise and fall but not old enough to remember the Rise of the Gods, but the specifics aren’t important, we should keep moving”
Kage stands up to continue walking north towards the next campsite
Klera catches up to Kage and asks him some questions “Hey, Kage, if you were friends with my ancestor, does that mean you would’ve helped her get some of my family heirlooms at some point?”
Kage shrugs “depends, what kind of heirloom are we talking about?”
Klera takes out an intricately carved knife with inscriptions written in an ancient script “my family’s had this for 900 years, it always comes back to you when the owner summons it”
Kage inspects the knife “yeah I enchanted this old thing, about 5 years into my quest with Marola. Not my best work. It was a birthday present, I made her like 5 and she broke 4 of them, so I reenchanted that one to be semi unbreakable”
Klera does a double take “Wait wait, you made my knife? What does this script say, the language is forgotten”
Kage takes the knife “yeah I carved this after she broke the other 4 knives I made, it says
‘Noli id frangere, Stulte, hoc ultimum est quod tibi dabo.
- Quickroll’
which roughly translates to
‘Don't break it dumbass, this is the last one I’m getting you
- Quickroll’
why?”
Klera looks devastated “w…what does ‘Stulte’ translate to?”
Kage looks confused “That's ‘dumbass’, why?”
Klera drops to her knees “that’s… that’s what my family have been calling it…”
Kage bursts out laughing, stoking Argos to try and see what the commotion is about “what happened?”
Kage speaks through laughs “she… her family… they’ve been calling their sacred family heirloom… an old word for Dumbass!”
Argos starts laughing too, which is followed by a blushing Klera shouting “We thought it meant something like
‘I title this knife ‘Stulte’ by the name of my clan
-Quickroll’
or something!”
Kage and Argos can barely hear her over the sound of their laughter, Klera blushes even more and stabs Kage in the gut out of shame “Sh.. shut up!”
Kage keels over the stab wound, Argos looks shocked, then angry “What the hell Klera! I thought we could trust you”
Klera realises what she’s done and goes to help Kage “**** sorry! It just kind of slipped out!”
Kage stands up some more, coughing slightly “it’s… fine, look”
his wound glows green and once it stops, the wound is gone “See, it’s gone. Marola stabbed me quite a lot actually, it was like our equivalent of a slap or a punch in the arm’’
Klera and Argos sigh with relief as Zane catches up “what happened?” Kage shrugs
“oh nothing much, Klera stabbed me but it’s fine” Zane looks at Kage with concern for a moment before realising how little injured he looks and deciding it’s best that he doesn’t intervene
Chapter X
Well hello
The party arrives at the next campsite and look around to find any clues as to what the cult are planning, Kage pulls a Mage’s staff from a wrecked tent with a light blue runestone in the shape of an upward pointing icicle with a royal blue, metal shaft, wrapped in a fine silk from about 5 inches below the top of the staff to about 2 feet from the bottom of the staff.
Kage sighs “looks like they were attacked or for some other reason had to leave in a hurry, this isn’t the kind of stone Tragoedia has his disciples bond to so it seems that the ice mage I mentioned is still travelling with them, probably not by choice. Anyone find anything else?”
Zane comes up behind him “I found a chest of something, it’s locked though, Klera can you pick the lock?”
Klera takes some lock picking tools out of her cloak and takes the chest “a fine lock. They wanted whatever’s in here to stay in here pretty badly”
Kage hovers over the chest “oooo interesting, there could be anything in there… a magic item? Something important to their god? Riches? Instructions? Oooooh so fascinating!”
Klera gets the chest open “got it! Looks like… junk?”
Kage takes the chest “hmmm…. Oh I know this, it’s a summoning charm, a mage can attune to one of these and summon a variety of creatures using blood, and so long as they have this in hand, those creatures will obey them, but you can’t seize control of creatures by taking it, they just stop following orders if the attuned summoner isn’t holding it, I imagine those spined devils were summoned by this, it seems to have demon blood in the little component holster, probably spined devil blood”
Zane looks at the summoning charm “Isn't it inhuman to force control over other creatures?”
Kage shrugs “Hardly, they only exist because you forced them into being and they’ll only exist so long as you choose to keep them in being. I can perform summon spells too, just without this trinket, can’t you?”
Zane shakes his head “it’s not mortals place to create life, that honour belongs to my God Vito”
Kage rolls his eyes “Fair enough I guess, but anyway, lets keep moving”
Kage uses his card compaction spell to store the mage’s staff and the summoning charm and continues walking north
The sun starts to set as the party arrives at the final camp, many, many cultists are settled at this camp and Kage has cast Invisibility on everyone to hide them while they sneak around. Looking at the camp, the party can see about 30 cultists wandering around the camp, two large tents that seem to be for storage or perhaps a map, maybe a group meeting, as well as several carts, one of which has a cage on the back about big enough to fit a person however not comfortably, they unfortunately cannot see if anyone is inside the cage as it has a tarp over it.
Kage whispers “I say we wait till nightfall and then sneak in to free whoever's in that cage, probably the ice mage that this staff belongs to, then we kill these guys while they’re asleep”
Klera nods, though no one can see her nodding “agreed”
Kage nudges everyone to a clearing a decent distance away and drops the spell.
Zane sets up the camp while Klera, Argos and Kage strategise.
Kage uses his staff to draw a crude map in the dirt “ok, so, when night falls, Klera can sneak in from the north and unlock the cage, then take the prisoner to Zane, Zane can heal them while the rest of us slaughter the sleeping cultists, sounds like a plan? Any adjustments?”
Argos shrugs “Sounds less like a plan and more like repeating what we already were gonna do but yeah, sounds good”
Klera nods and Kage looks at the sky “I give it two hours to nightfall, Klera can you run back and get the food Zane was prepping before we left? If I give you a boost with Expeditious Retreat you can get there and back in half an hour”
Klera nods and stands ready for Kage to cast the spell “festinare”
Klera runs off into the woods and about half an hour later, she gets back with the food Zane was making, sets it down for Zane and sits back with Argos and Kage.
The party finish dinner as night falls and Klera sneaks around to the far side of the cultists camp with Zane, meanwhile, Kage and Argos make their way to one of the larger tents seeming to be used for storage, they see a single guard out the front of the tent, Kage fires a single Mind Sliver spell at the guard, knocking him out. The pair make their way towards the tent and Argos decapitates the guard on his way past.
They get inside the tent and see several crates, Kage pries one open and finds many vials of blood, each labeled with a species “Gods… they really like summoning, huh?”
Argos pries open a different crate and finds summoning charms “these ones attuned to someone?”
Kage inspects them “no, these look like spares” Klera pushes the tent door open “job’s done, you’re right, it was the ice mage, we got him, now lets kill these ******s”
Kage smiles and the three split up in different directions.
Kage enters the largest sleeping tent and finds a single sleeping cultist, seeming to be high ranking, he readies a witch bolt to hit them with “Hey, big guy, wake up!”
the cultist slowly stirs “what the.. Hey wait a minute who are-”
Kage fires the spell through the cultists head “heh… pathetic”
Kage walks out of the tent, takes out another vial of black powder and points his staff at another tent “Circle of death”
sounds of pain emerge from the tent as the cultists inside die by his spell, he checks to see how the other two are doing “hey Klera, where’d Zane go with the mage, I wanna check up on the guy”
Klera points to the camp they had set up “back at camp, me and Argos can handle this”
Kage nods and starts walking “I trust you, him less so but you I trust to handle this”
Kage walks back to camp and sees Zane healing the wounds of a young man dressed in a cyan robe made of fine silk that had been severely ripped and seems to’ve had intricate patterns on it before being damaged, his collar is made of a fine silver that holds his robe down to his skin, he is wearing boots and has dark brown hair with a single streak of light blue.
Kage sits down on a log next to him and takes out the card where he’s storing the staff “this yours, friend?”
He extracts the staff from the card and hands it to the mage, who thanks him “Yes, that’s mine, thank you… I was worried the cultists still had it”
Kage smiles “I’m Kage, a warlock, this cleric is Zane, although I imagine he’s already introduced himself, the lockpick who got you out of that cage was Klera and we also have a barbarian with us named Argos, what’s your name?”
the mage fidgets with his staff “I’m Pago FrostJaw”
Kage flinches at the name FrostJaw and Pago continues “I’m a sorcerer, my family has had a long line of sorcerers, I’m 5th level, I got snatched by those cultists while on a diplomatic mission alone, they took my blood, they beat me, I don’t know why, they didn’t try to get information or take me to my family for a ransom…”
Kage sighs “they needed the blood of someone with a lot of magical prowess for their summons… we have Argos and Klera slaughtering them now. Did you hear any useful information while they had you in a cage?”
Pago thinks “I think I heard something about a temple…. A few people were moving out in…”
he turns north “that direction. They took a lot of those big wooden crates with them and I think I was going next, is that useful? I know it’s not much”
Kage smiles “That is plenty, Pago, and where I was hoping to go anyway. Plus, the FrostJaw family manor is in the Frost lands, so we would be taking you back that way as well. Pretty much, by pure coincidence we need to head that way for about a dozen reasons and fate has aligned for that to be the only direction we need to go. Once Argos and Klera get back i imagine we can head out”
After Argos and Klera rejoin the group, they give Pago some food, Zane casts Mend on his robes and makes sure everyone is fully healed before they set out to find the next town.
Kage checks his jacket to be sure all of his various pouches and satchels are still intact before walking on “alright gang, onward, to my favourite city, Ludere!”
Question: what would happen if Toga turned into someone like Hagakure or Hawks? If she turned into Hagakure would she be invisible? Could she fly as Hawks even if she can’t use his individual feathers? With mutation quirk, I imagine she can look like them but can she use the secondary parts of her quirk? Like if she was spinner, could she stick to wall? How would it work? Can’t stop thinking about this now that I’ve had the thought
I currently have 937 prestige chips built up should I choose to ascend.
I've been on my run for 733 days and have 5.385 quadrillion cookies per second. I am thinking about ascending. I don't know how quickly I'd be able to get back to where I am and haven't ascended in the past due to worry of being able to get back to my current point.
Would I benefit from ascending? pls give me step by step instructions on what to do. preferably in a way so simple a toddler could understand (I'm not good at instructions but also need them to function)
Mentally Ill Writer @mentallyillwriter55 - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
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