Mage Tank

I read through the notifications, digesting the offered Active Skill and frowning at the morbid series of Slaughterhouse achievements. I wasn’t going to argue against getting a few extra skill levels, but the System rewarding mass murder felt like an ugly incentive structure. ṞãΝòʙË𝙨
Then again, the entire situation with Delves granted power for killing shit, so it wasn’t a divergence from the norm. There were
ways to clear Delves without ruthlessly executing everything in one’s path, but violence was the most commonly used method for conquering Delves. I wasn’t sanctimonious enough to give the achievement any further scrutiny. I’d have been a hypocrite otherwise.
The Active Skill, Cloak of Blighted Frost, was an interesting ability. However, the first thing I noticed was that I couldn’t even use it. It required a Physical Magic skill Level of 40, whereas mine had just jumped to 29. The notification let me know I could add it later, but I would need to do some serious work on Physical Magic before I could slot it. During that time, my twelfth Active Skill slot would need to stay empty and available, since twelve was the maximum number of slots I could have during phase two.
Otherwise, the skill wasn’t quite a fit for me. It imposed Toxicity stacks, dealing Poison damage, which I wasn’t geared towards. The Toxicity hit hard and fast but was also cleared rapidly by the target’s Fortitude.
Assuming I had a Physical Magic skill of 40, and my target had a Fortitude of 20, they’d only take 20 Poison damage from the 40 Toxicity. After that, their Toxicity would drop to 20, which meant they wouldn’t take any damage.
However, Toxicity was a stacking debuff. Six seconds later, if the target stayed in my aura, their Toxicity would go up to 60, deal 40 damage, then the Toxicity would drop back down to 40. The damage would continue going up by twenty every six seconds. If the target had higher Fortitude, the damage dealt would be much worse.
On the other hand, so long as the target was Poisoned, they’d be Slowed and become vulnerable to Cold damage. My Elemental Barrier could do Cold damage, so that would get a boost. Cold damage dealt by Elemental Barrier also applied Slowed, and if a target was Slowed from two sources, they became Immobilized.
Both effects centered on myself, so it was a soft combo. When both were up, the target would become Immobilized and unable to leave the range of my skills while they built stacks of Toxicity and took Cold damage that dealt an extra 50% damage from the vulnerability applied by the poison. It wasn’t bad, and thinking about that synergy made it a lot more appealing than it had been at first glance. Still not quite my thing, but I kept an open mind about it.
I sent it over to Nuralie to get her professional opinion.
“It does not generate a lot of Toxicity on its own,” she said. “But I think it is a good skill. I recently took a passive that adjusts the timing on my poisons to be something like this.”
“Yeah? Doesn’t the Fortitude resistance make them less effective?”
“In a sterile environment over a long enough time interval, yes. However, nothing we fight survives long enough for a one-hour, or even a one-minute poison to matter much. Most of the effect is wasted.” Pause. “This type of quick-acting poison collapses the total damage into a much shorter period.
“I reviewed the average length of our fights, along with the estimated Fortitude ranges of enemies at different Grades against my continued scaling into Toxicity. Unless we change our group tactics toward ambushing targets and then leaving them to die from debuffs, my poisons should be several times more effective with the faster timing, even with Fortitude granting more resistance.”
“Is that all the passive does?” I asked. “Change how fast your poisons tick?”
“No. It also adds Acid damage when I poison a target that is unaware of my presence.”
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“Oh, so in addition to making your poisons stronger, it also makes your poisons stronger.”
“Yes. And now that my poisons are stronger, my next goal is to make stronger poisons.”
I chuckled. “Where’d you get the passive from? I haven’t had anything new offered since the Descent.”
Nuralie glanced around furtively. “I received it while I was in Eschengal after we left the Descent,” she said, voice barely above a whisper. “I brewed it.”
“You
” I asked, leaning in and trying to match Nuralie’s volume.
Nuralie glanced at Xim, who was staring off into space looking at her menus. She turned back to me, voice still low. “The Abandoned Grimoire has methods for storing spells in potions, similar to how wands work. There are also ways to adjust the spells alchemically, including altering their durations. There are other formulas that can permanently change the body or imbue skills directly onto the mana matrix.” Pause. “I combined the techniques, trying to see if I could custom craft a passive.”
“That worked?”
Nuralie also leaned in closer. “No. When I got frustrated, I used my Revelation of Distinction on the book, looking into its history. I experienced many techniques of the witch who created the tome.” Pause. “She did not always document her methods. That gave me enough insight to create what I wanted.” She watched my expression, seeming to sense my next question. “It still counts towards a passive slot.”
I moderated my disappointment. “Yeah, okay, that makes sense. The System is mainly just imprinting abilities on us. If there isn’t enough capacity in our souls, we can’t add anything else. Still, that’s an interesting ability. Could you make other passives, if someone else had something they were specifically looking for?”
Before Nuralie could answer, I felt a presence beside us. Nuralie and I were practically nose to nose at this point, and we turned in unison to see Xim standing over us.
“I fucking
it,” said the cleric. For a moment I thought she was getting the wrong idea, but then she leaned down, placed a hand on either of our shoulders and said, “Super Alchemy!”
“No,” said Nuralie. “It is not–”
“Shhhhh,” said Xim. “Let it happen. It’s Super Alchemy. Come. Come. Tell me all about your genius.” She took Nuralie by the arm and led the loson away.
I was confused by the interaction, but let it go. It seemed that Nuralie had been through an entire arc of personal development while she was in Eschengal, and apparently Xim had been involved on some level. The cleric had been in the Third Layer at the time, so I wasn’t sure
she’d been involved, but I got the feeling I was only seeing a small piece of that social picture.
Nuralie’s skill potions sounded somewhat similar to how I modified my abilities through reforging skills. Rather than peering into the soul with Soul-Sight and doing it manually, she’d found a way to craft potions that made the changes when imbibed. We’d need to exchange notes on the different paths some time.
I put the Cloak of Blighted Frost skill aside and examined the juicier rewards I’d earned from the Delve. First, I slapped my new stat points into Fortitude and Strength and took a look at my adjusted numbers.
I had the total stats of a Level 24 Delver with another half Level on top. My total intrinsic Levels added up to 262, which was right on target for a Level 13 Platinum, according to Varrin’s formula. Diplomacy and Smithing were low-hanging fruit if I wanted to grab a couple more Level 20 evolutions. All Smithing took was some time and materials. Diplomacy was more difficult, but it seemed to be doing fine on its own. As long as I kept interacting with power players on the global stage, it would keep going up at a decent clip.
I was also seriously considering grabbing Woodworking or Wandmaking as my eleventh intrinsic. I could pump out 10 Levels and grab the first evolution the same way as Smithing, by holing up somewhere and putting in the work.
Of course, the tastiest steak on the table was reaching Dimensional Magic 40, which let me pick a new evolution. So far, Dimensional hadn’t disappointed. Level 10 gave me the Pocket Closet and Level 20 gave me Checkpoints, which I could use to create semi-permanent portal locations. I had one in Eschengal, one in the Xor’Drel tribe lands, and one at the Littan fortress in Eschendur. Reaching Level 40 allowed me to place another if I so wished. I’d need to start thinking of a good spot.
Maybe my underground mini-mansion back in the Hiwardian capital?
Ha.
Honestly, it was a good idea, but I didn’t expect the universe to allow it.
Anyway, everyone in the party was busy with their own progression or being interrogated by Xim on their legendary skills, so I cracked open my Dimensional Magic evolutions and took a peek.
The first option was
. Something I shouldn’t have been surprised to see, and yet, somehow, I still was. Before I’d even gotten a chance to think it through properly, Grotto had abandoned his tips-and-tricks session with Throne and started to make urgent demands. I thought the little dude was about to have an aneurysm.
[
]
[
] I felt a buzzing in my head. [
]
Everyone else in the party showed various expressions of irritation, and then turned to me.
“Grotto is making demands,” said Varrin. “Loudly.”
“Shut up!” shouted Xim, looking at the ceiling. “We’ll take a look, Grotto! For the sake of the gods…” she muttered.
“I do not want to take a look,” said Nuralie. “It is an Arlo evolution.”
“I don’t think this one will melt any brains,” I said. I bit my lip. “Buuuuut maybe it’s better I show you each one at a time. In case there are any… incidents.”
Varrin stepped forward and made a ‘bring it’ gesture. I shared the evo, bracing myself in case his eyes started bleeding like the last time he’d looked at an evolution option offered by this entity.
I watched Varrin’s eyes scan from side to side and didn’t detect any ocular hemorrhaging. After a few seconds, he grunted.
“You should take this,” he said.
“You haven’t even seen the other options!”
“Now I’m
curious,” said Xim. “Show me.” I sent her the evolution, she read it through, then swiped her hand through the air to dismiss it. She crossed her arms and furrowed her brow, then gestured to bring the description back up and read it again. She batted it away again and went silent.
The physical motions were completely unnecessary.
I sent the notification to Etja while waiting for our cleric to reboot. “Oh, neat!” she said. “It’s like an avatar’s ability, but better.”
“Hold up,” I said. “What do you mean by that?”
Etja tapped a finger on her cheek in thought. “Well, you got a notification for two Deific spells Hysteria used. One was Passion Imperium and the other was Dramatic Exit. The System told you that they cost Hysteria some kind of divine favor. That means the spells took a resource for the avatar to use, probably a really valuable one.”
She shrugged and gestured at the notification. “This one doesn’t take anything. So, it’s kind of… better than what an avatar can do.”
I blinked and thought that one through.
El Presidente Arlo Xor’Drel, Better Than an Avatar.
It had a nice ring to it.