Hope Engine Page 17

  “Shadow Clone” was the defensive spell. I had to select a shadow, and as long as I was within 20 metres of it, as soon as I took any damage, I would be transported to that shadow, as if the me that was running around was a clone. The damage didn’t go through, but the clone was dispelled, a far as I could tell. Sounded very crafty.

  “Malign Influence” was an aura ability, extending five metres in all directions from the caster. It lowered everyone’s Luck and Mind stat by 1. It was also my first Ability that affected the living stats, as anyone inside the aura also increased the speed at which they felt hungry. Interesting.

  Finally there was the summon spell, “Summon Familiar”. It summoned a familiar. That was all it said.

  Only one way to find out what that meant, so I… noticed it wasn’t on my ability bar. Because there were only six slots, and I now had nine spells. Damn.

  I kept Shadowbolt as that was my big hitter. I replaced Shadow Skin with Shadow Clone as my new defensive ability. The summon spell was on there, obviously. Then I swapped out Corruption and Corrupted Tendrils to be able to fit in all of my new spells. They didn’t necessarily seem better, but if I didn’t try them, I wouldn’t know.

  I tried to cast Summon Familiar, but a small popup window informed me that now that I had changed spells, I needed to rest my mind to be able to use them. With sleep or meditation. Great.

  I had things to do before I could rest. The inn was looking suspiciously dark, so I’d have go and activate it in overseer mode. That was going to need mana, so it made sense to pass out my attribute points first.

  I checked my stats. After all my levelling up, I was now on 62/75. I had seven attribute points to spend, as I’d never assigned my level four point from my first situation. I gave it a bit of thought. Mind was immediately and obviously useful. I could put five points into it to get a nice, even 100 mana. That certainly appealed, but I now found myself with lots of mana and a smaller village than I had when I last levelled up. Seemed excessive. Strength, Heart, Mind, Agility, Charisma, and Luck. Strength and Agility seemed the least useful to me right now. Heart would increase my Life points, so I put two points there. Luck was obviously useful, but in such a vague and unprovable way, that I only put a single point into it. With just Charisma and Mind left, I decided to put two into Mind, bringing me up to 85 total mana, and then the final two into Charisma. I was doing much more persuasion and talking than I’d expected to be doing, so a few points into that had to help somehow.

  With my attribute points sorted out, it was time to evaluate my village. I got into my Altar, which I was thinking should probably be upgraded now, because a patch of dirt on the floor wasn’t a suitable warlock aesthetic. As I swapped to Overseer mode, a window appeared.

  “You’ve hit level 10. Name your village!”

  I groaned. They were throwing everything at me now. I didn’t know I was going to have to stop calling it “my village” at any point! Now I had to think of names, and be creative. Absolute disaster. I was tired!

  Okay, names. Brainstorm time. What was the essence of my village? It had cultists that worshipped a dark lord of entropy. It was cut into three, and if I had to break them into elements, I suppose it would be death, life, and… a shouty temple. That probably counted as physical. Being hospitable to passing guests was also high on the agenda. Man, I hated picking names! I had things to do. Ugh.

  Thanis?

  Yeah, that worked for me. It was vaguely pronounceable. Why not?

  Right, into Overseer mode, and I put a single mana into the inn, marking it as an active building to let my followers know I want them to staff it.

  I took a moment to inspect the rest of Thanis. My half all seemed to be in order. But I noticed that not all was quite right. I tracked down Horace, who froze and cowered when I selected him. His happiness stat was maxed out, and I knew why. I couldn’t help but admire the scrappy little guy, but I was going to have to talk to him about this. I commanded him to meet me by the road entrance.

  I left Overseer mode and headed there myself. Horace was standing there, wringing his hands together.

  ‘Hello, master. You look well.’

  ‘Thank you, Horace, but I’m afraid you can’t butter me up with compliments today. I’ll admit that when you said you were going to subvert from the inside, I didn’t really know what you meant.’

  His hood tilted to the side. ‘You sound displeased, master?’

  I pointed to the guards on duty. They had rotated, but they were still the same ratio as before. One Spriggan, two cultists, and three Stagodon. ‘Why are they all wearing the cultist robes, Horace?’

  ‘They have pledged their service to the dark lords, master.’

  ‘Have they? Shall I ask them?’

  He looked at the guards then back at me. ‘I can’t think of a reason to stop you from doing that, master.’

  The three Stagodon were standing menacingly around a traveller as one of the cultists talked to the poor dwarf. I approached the Spriggan and the cultist, who were unoccupied, and checked their nameplates.

  ‘Hello, Teint. Hello, She Who Slays. Everything going well?’

  Teint nodded. ‘As well as it can. No one’s killed me yet.’ He seemed sad about that.

  She Who Slays screeched so loudly I had to cover my ears.

  ‘She’s a great conversationalist when you learn her language,’ Teint said.

  ‘Riiiight. Anyway, She Who Slays, I couldn’t help but notice that you are wearing one of the cultist robes that mark you as a follower of the Wooded Cult. Found religion, did you?’

  She fingered the cloth between two incredibly sharp and spindly branches that passed as fingers. She screeched again, but slightly less loudly, ending by going up in pitch.

  If only Bri was here.

  ‘Was this by your choice? Or did someone,’ I looked pointedly at Horace, ‘put it on you, against your will?’

  The twisted face of branches and leaves looked at Horace, then back at me, then over to Teint. Teint put his hands up in defeat and took a step back. She Who Slays shrugged and screeched quietly in a way that came across as an embarrassed mumble.

  ‘I see. Well, thank you for your honesty, She Who Slays. I’ll let you both get back to duty.’ I looked at Horace. ‘Oh, final question, are you a slave to Bri?’

  A loud screech, shaking branches, and an aggressive pose told me her thoughts on that.

  ‘As I thought.’

  I turned and found the dwarf had been allowed to pass. He looked rather frazzled, and perhaps I needed to tone down the security level on the gate guards.

  ‘Excuse me gentlemen. Umm, gentlelizards.’

  Horace cleared his throat.

  ‘Sorry, I mean gentlestagodon. I notice that you all have some rather too small black robes over your armour. Do you mind if I enquire how this came about?’

  Checking their nameplates, I knew these three were called Tissith, Missith, and Sissith. The cultist that had done all the talking to the dwarf was Nartok.

  The three Stagodon looked at each other, then at Nartok.

  Nartok bowed. ‘Grand Master Akuma Severo. The dark God’s favour is a mystery to all, and should not be questioned.’

  I hummed an affirmative and waved for him to continue.

  ‘It would appear that he chose to show his dark favour with dark gifts to his new dark servants.’

  ‘How very dark of him. Nartok, you are an unflinching servant in the face of darkness, I have no doubt, and so I have a question for you.’ He bowed. ‘The dark gods, although a touch more active than the light gods–’ I heard Horace and Teint share a chuckle at that, ‘they still prefer to work through mortal mediums, do they not?’

  He thought about this for a moment before hesitantly saying, ‘That is correct, yes.’

  ‘Can you tell me who the medium for this particular giving of gifts was?’

  ‘Oh. Well, I suppose. Yes. it was one of my fellow Wooded cult brothers.’

  I glanced at Hora
ce who was doing a remarkable job of looking guilty despite the fact I couldn’t see his face. ‘And is that particular member of the cult here with us now?’

  ‘Umm. Yes. Yes, I suppose he is.’

  ‘Thank you, Nartok.’ I turned to the cowled Stagodon, their snouts sticking well out from the shadow of their hoods. ‘Are you enslaved by Ixly?’

  For a moment there was no response. They weren’t as sharp as the Geeko, that was for sure. They looked at each other, then shrugged.

  ‘You see, master. Slaves to a mortal–’

  I held up a hand to silence Horace.

  ‘Let’s not jump to conclusions. They didn’t even say they were. I will talk to Ixly about it, okay? Bide your time.’

  I nodded. ‘I shall bide for a time, master. You managed to deduce it was I that liberated these four.’

  ‘Yes. A real challenge to my perception check, that one.’

  ‘And already I see the smiles on their lips, and their scales shining with new found purpose. Dark purpose, of course.’

  ‘Of course. I’ll look into it for you. Anyway, Nartok, Teint, She Who Slays, Tissith, Missith, and Sissith, keep up the good work. Oh, umm, go a bit easier on the visitors, please.’ I pointed at the Dwarf who was still standing where I last saw him, nervously pulling at his beard. ‘They don’t seem quite right once you’re done with them, okay?’

  They all grunted an affirmative.

  ‘Right, Horace, we’ve got Spell Crafting to learn, and an inn to inspect. Let’s go!’

  Chapter 24: The Emissary

  When we passed the dwarf, he had been sitting on the ground, still looking rather confused. I made a mental note to build a small rest stop for those weary from the road. Or from my guards’ thorough searching technique. At the very least, I could have a fallen tree placed there.

  We entered my hut, ready to learn the intricacies of Spell Crafting.

  ‘So, what do I do?’

  ‘To craft a spell, master? Oh, I have no idea. I’m no mentor like the little girl.’

  ‘Oh. No, I suppose she was rather unique. All right, guard the entrance while I figure this out. Ixly said it it was intuitive.’

  I looked at my list of spells in their menu, and selected Shadowbolt. As soon as I did, my vision pulled out in front of me, much like it had when I had crafted the shovel. I was now viewing myself from two metres away. My face was wrapped in concentration, and my right hand was held held loosely in front of me, palm up. Hovering above it was the spell Shadowbolt. Curved and blunt at one end, trailing back into a spike at the other. It gave a faint glow, and it was a miasma of swirling purples and blacks inside an unstable dark flame.

  Similar to the shovel in crafting mode, my spell now had two access points coming from it. Small boxes that I could interact with. One linked to the blunt front end, and the other to the spiked rear. I selected the front.

  I had two modifiers I could apply. One of them increased the damage by 50% and cut the range in half. The other tripled the range and granted Bombardment to the spell, but lowered the damage by 20%. That must have been what all the casters had been using when I was fighting The Eastern Shadow. As I selected each one, the shape of the Shadowbolt changed to show how the modifier would affect it. The former made it shorter and thicker, while the latter stretched it out and curved it.

  I mumbled to myself, ‘Still nothing that could make me melee or a healer. That must come later. Or on different spells.’ It was odd to be able to see my face move as I said it.

  ‘Master, the modifications you view can be researched, or acquired from the grimoires of slain enemies.’

  ‘Thank you, Horace.’

  I looked through the rest of my spells. They all had very similar effects. I could modify damage, range, duration, cast time, area of effect, and add special abilities in some cases – like adding Bombardment to Shadowbolt, which allowed it to be fired without line of sight to the target, and added an arc to the spell. The DOT spells, like Corruption, had a third slot that could be modified, and my summon spell had four. All of the mods gave a buff to one attribute, but had a countering negative effect. None of them were a no-brainer buff, only giving plus to damage, or the like.

  Interestingly, among all of the possible effects I could socket my spells with, the “minor shadow gem” was one of them. They were in my pocket still, even though I’d forgotten about them. A way to defeat The Eastern Shadow? A way to get myself converted into one of them? When I checked the effect of adding one to my Shadowbolt, it apparently did nothing. Nothing at all. What a waste of pocket space they were turning out to be.

  ‘Horace, I had been told that it was possible to change my specialisation. If I wanted to be a tank, I could do that, right?’

  ‘I know many things, master, primarily regarding the plans of the dark gods, but unfortunately I do not understand the user interface of a player.’

  ‘Where’s a construct when you need one?’

  ‘She is long gone from this place, unfortunately, master.’

  I left the Spell Crafting interface without changing any of my spells. The default caster setup suited me until I knew how to change spec. I wanted to play around as a tank or a healer.

  ‘Okay, let’s check out the inn. Maybe a drink will calm my nerves.’

  ‘The Bubonic Beer is rather pleasant, master, yes.’

  ‘Eyes be damned, Horace! Didn’t Bri help us with something more, you know, not poisonous?’ I checked my hunger and thirst levels and realised that the tutorial levels were truly over. ‘But, you know what? Apparently, I’m about to go and willingly poison myself, because I need to eat. Let’s go. Before I start taking damage.’

  The two small huts near the edge of the village now looked even more dilapidated than they had before, as the torches of the inn mixed into the ethereal glow of Bri’s grove, and the bright fog lights of ixly’s swamp.

  There were a few travellers walking along the shabby path from entrance to inn. The dwarf from earlier was leaving, the poor guy, and a few humans and elves were heading inside. As Horace and I closed on the inn, I saw a new traveller appear on the road from between the trees. He must have been a fire mage from how bright he was glowing, as he stood out even from here. But it didn’t look quite like flame. There was no flicker.

  ‘Horace. Let’s check the inn another time. I want you with me for a moment.’

  ‘Of course, master.’

  We walked along the path, the lights I had set up along it alternating between white and purple, just to keep it nice and warlocky. It boosted the happiness levels of the cultists when they got reminded by these sorts of small things.

  The stranger on the road was alone, walking at a relaxed pace.

  ‘Do you see what I see?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes, master. They stand taller despite their protestations. The freedom of the Wooded Cult suits these other races.’

  ‘Focus, Horace.’ I pointed to the bright man. ‘A man there, on the road.’

  ‘I see him now. That is most peculiar, master. A torchbearer spell, perhaps?’

  ‘I don’t believe so. He isn’t glowing. His light doesn’t touch anything around him.’

  ‘Yes, yes. It’s more like he is untouched by the darkness of the night.’

  ‘Ugh. I really wish I was wrong.’

  ‘Your curse is eternal truth and knowledge, master.’

  Horace and I lined up next to the gate guards. She Who Slays was carefully arranging vines in Teint’s robe. I didn’t know what that was about.

  The undarkened stranger turned off the main road, and approached the gate. He wore a white robe, and his skin had a faint sparkle of gold to it. He stopped several paces in front of me, and spread his arms wide, showing he had no weapons.

  His voice was nothing remarkable. A touch high pitched and snooty, perhaps. Like If Horace was a learned scholar and didn’t always sound as though someone had kicked him in the throat and he was gasping for air.

  ‘Freedom to all, brother
s. I greet you as the host of the question, the emissary of the answer, and the confused face of someone that does not know what is happening. ’ He chuckled lightly. ‘I see all of you are confused onlookers, but worry not, for I am here to turn you into hosts of the question. For I am the emissary of The Eastern Shadow!’

  Silence. Other travellers on the road stopped turning towards my village. The Eastern Shadow had a reputation.

  I spoke up with the biggest question, and quite frankly, one that I had to have answered before I could really focus. ‘Why are you called The Eastern Shadow? You’ve got no shadows.’

  ‘Haha! Perhaps you are a host of the question already, young player. Our progenitor originated in the eastern ocean, off the coast of Tulgatha, and we are a metaphorical shadow. If you stand against us, that is.’

  ‘How underwhelming.’ I looked at my minions around me. The Stagodon seemed impassive, but had weapons unsheathed. My cultists had all adopted their battle ready pose, hands in their sleeves, ready to pull knives. She Who Slays was slowly spreading her feet into the ground around her, and I had no idea what that meant. ‘Emissary, you should leave.’

  ‘Why is that? You do not want the answer to the question?’

  ‘We have no question for you. I’ve seen what kind of answer you bring to bear, and the death that incurs.’

  ‘Player, I urge you not to look at the middle of another’s journey. You are at the beginning of yours, and to think you know the course taken to reach violence is naive. I wish only discourse. Allow me to stay a night at your village, to talk to your people, and to talk to you.’

  ‘If I refuse?’

  ‘Then I shall not stay the night at the delightful Thanis.’

  ‘And you’ll never return?’

  ‘And I shall never return, for am I am an entity of discussion, and the time for that will have passed.’

  ‘I see. And that will always be the answer, won’t it? If I refuse you, the time for discussion will have passed, and your armies will raze my village. Right?’

  ‘You are correct, but not in the way you believe. There are options open to you, and combat need never be entered with The Eastern Shadow. I urge you to give talk, peace, and freedom a chance.’