Wreckage and bodies were strewn across the broad ground that made up Pinion’s Point upon Daniel’s return. Fortunately, most of the corpses were those of monsters as they’d prioritized kidnapping mortals rather than killing them. It was still a devastation of the town that reached even where the Wingcraft had sheltered.
Daniel idly watched out the window as he waited for Cloak. Spinner was in the process of removing portions of her webbing now that they no longer needed a Halloween vibe, though she was keeping minute threads around the place to retain detection. They needed to put in some work too. The floor below him was trashed from the forced passage of part of the monster horde.
At least it sounded like the Blessed of Pinion’s Point would be well rewarded for being the only settlement aside from Aurus to down one of the horde leaders, so they could afford repairs. Ygazir. He thought back to the information Identify Creature had given him, and the notifications that had come once the artificial power triggered in him had worn off.
<hr>
Invested Deliverer of Subservience - Ygazir
-
System Alert: ??? has been corrupted by ???. Attempts to trigger self-annihilation failed due to entanglement of a Soul innately resisting this effect. Domain: Monster fully integrated into ???.
-
System Alert: ??? has attempted to alter an unawakened Power through use of Domain Manipulation. Fundamental Law: Immutable Soul has attempted to prevent this, but has failed. Your Defense: Charisma was unable to overcome the Will of ???. Ability: Monstrous Evolution has been forcibly awakened and is accessible while benefiting from the Effects of Ability: Beast Mode.
-
Monstrous Evolution (Evolution, Domain: Monster): Temporarily sacrifice Archetypes for an empowered form. Grow stronger to dare new heights.
-
Unbreakable* (Adaptation, Domain: Monster): Burn the essence of Magic to cling to life. Let all others break before you.
*System Note: This Power was Awakened while you were under the effect of Ability: Monster Evolution. It only functions while you benefit from this power.
<hr>
The two powers he’d acquired during all that madness along with the notifications proved he’d been infected on some level by the Origin Beast. His sole solace was that the changes were to the Spoke and Beast Mode, while Daniel himself, that is his soul, had been untouched. He was still himself. If that forced power was anything like Tak’s it could be considered a good thing in some respect, like a super-charged rage power that came at the cost of any semblance of control or memory of the events. He’d compared the Totem Warrior class, and then what Beast Mode did, to a form of lycanthropy before but this was the first power that really enveloped the concept of being cursed.
Almost as an afterthought, he checked his Settings app and saw that he had gained two advancement potential from his struggles. He hadn’t committed them yet as he wanted to talk things through with Cloak first. They both had a lot to answer for.
While he waited, he made more ammunition, experimenting with a new design. He’d tried adding the fire affix to the base spineshard enchantment a day or so ago and discovered that it resulted in ammunition that would explode when exposed to fire, instead of lightning. There’d been other things going on and he’d had a full stockpile of ammo, so it hadn’t been until now that he had reason and time to develop the theory, which included needing to change how the blast bow ignited ammunition.
With all the factors going into the end result of enchanting Daniel was sure there would be plenty of new combinations to discover, especially as he continued to gain both material and formulae. A quick pass of the bodies in the town while on the way back had already earned him three more. While none were immediately relevant, Evalyn would be very happy whenever they found her.
The first one was pathfinder, and it kind of sucked. It was essentially a compass that would either indicate north, the nearest Octyrrum-registered settlement, or a point Daniel designated while he was there. Useful for other people, perhaps, and he’d bind at least one to his room to have in case his map function conked out… but he had a pretty detailed map of Threst already.
Clearsound instrument was fairly straightforward, it amplified the sound an instrument made and gave him a base appropriate for making instruments. While he could contort the shape of another basic enchantment like how he’d made the receiver for his blast bow from the very tortured form of a helmet, a Bard couldn’t bind that as a Focus.
Lastly was silent weapon, a base formulae that made everything a weapon directly did less noticeable. It was kind of like the far-shot bow formulae he’d traded for earlier, and if you couldn’t guess what he was going to do with that then you hadn’t been paying attention. But for now, it was back to the ammunition grind and further developments to his arsenal.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.
This new round he was making had a red blasting jacket around the slug rather than a purplish one, signifying the addition of the fire attribute to spineshard ammunition. It had required the creation of another trigger mechanism to accommodate, but this went slightly easier as he was dropping the lightning affix altogether rather than replacing it.
Instead, Daniel would use Invest Affix on that individual component, which he likened to taking the safety off the weapon. Before, anyone could pick it up and fire it because all the pieces were in place. Now it would still shoot anything with a red jacket, but to shoot purple jackets he would have to swap it to shoot lighting by instilling that affix. Depending on how other damage types worked, this would also future proof the design and allow him to use other colors of jackets too.
The point of all this work was to revive the spineshard/lightning affix combo and create explosive rounds that didn’t have the maximum range penalty of lightning bolts. He’d still have to be careful to keep the magazines in a dimensional space as they’d explosively react to two different kinds of elemental damage, or being dropped on something considered a target. That was also a concern if he ran into something with a strong enough elemental attack to get through the insulation of his weapon, but you couldn’t protect from everything. Not even yourself.
“If Star could see you, he’d weep,” Cloak commented, the god appearing out of nowhere as before.
“Am I doing something wrong, or do you mean what just happened?” Daniel asked over his shoulder, sensing through his enhanced hearing the god relax. He wasn’t being as aggressive as he was back when Soraso had implied the god had lied. “I’m getting better, but this… this impulsiveness. It’s more of a problem than I thought.”
“You formed a dangerous bond,” Cloak replied with a hint of condescension. “Those always change people. It’s a deeper magic than our system.”
“I had control of it before… mostly. There was the hulk stomper. I guess, I guess I’m just going to keep throwing myself into any situation that’s not obviously suicidal until this is over. Is that what you’re saying?” Cloak didn’t answer, an uncertain look on his face. Daniel decided there was no point dancing around the real topic. “What the Origin Beast did to my Spoke, how bad is it?”
“I don’t know,” Cloak sighed, and the god seemed more tired than he’d ever been as he took a seat in Daniel’s somewhat spacious room. It was about three times the size of the one he’d initially enchanted in at Hagain Village and had a decent balcony that was still covered in webs. “My best guess based off of your description is that the god added its domain to the Spoke so you would act as a relay for it as you do for ours. That’s part of how they work. At certain times each of us would instill each other’s godseeds with our domain through a Proxy.”
“If the Origin Beast is already infecting Threst with its system I guess it’s not that bad,” Daniel ventured hopefully, though Cloak’s defeatist attitude didn’t waver.
“Perhaps. It will make the future difficult, but this shouldn’t be possible. Our systems directly conflict.”
Daniel obviously didn’t know either, but something Cloak had said struck him. “If each god has to instill this godseed with their domain, how did you work in Grave’s domain into mine after he died?”
“You have-“ Cloak began, but then paused as he looked to the side and thought deeply. The Proxy he inhabited still limited him mentally as it did physically, but he seemed able to handle it well like an expert at a game returning to the tutorial. “Oh. Oh, I see the shape of his plan now.” Cloak came out of his ponderings grinning fiercely, at the edge of laughing. “I take it all back. It may damn us all, but at least it damns him with us.”
Daniel didn’t like the spite he heard in the voice. “What about the domain? My Spoke can influence power acquisition. We’re in trouble if people start gaining monster domain powers.”
“The Druid class is already based on altered concepts from that,” Cloak said, waving away the concerns as his sudden good mood continued unabated. “One of the ways we mitigated the passive encroachment from sharing this world with them. It will enhance the native monster population, but not significantly more than everything else going on.”
“Then why are you so happy?”
Cloak considered his answer before giving it. “Someone took a great amount of care to make you into a key. You no longer fit the lock they wanted to break.”
Guessing that’s that ‘he’ Cloak keeps mentioning. It’d have to be Hammer, Star, or Hourglass as long as this god isn’t playing an enormously convoluted game. Which he could be. “You didn’t tell me you got in contact with your church.”
Cloak’s smile faded. “No, I didn’t.”
“So now that I’m not your only hope it’s back to me needing to know nothing?” The latest round he’d been working on clattered onto the desk and Daniel turned to fully face him. “Or are you about to try and wipe out what I do know so you can pretend this is the first time we’ve met, like you just did with Willow?”
Cloak stiffened at the return of hostility in Daniel’s voice. “I’ve told you before about my purpose in this world. It is how I have lived for millennia.”
“But not always.” Daniel stood up and shut the balcony doors, even though he was sure Cloak was already muffling the room. “This isn’t the first time the System has triggered a Collapse, is it? This isn’t the first time a god has died.”
“You’ve remembered?” Cloak exclaimed, the previous edge in his voice changing to urgency. “That conversation with Star was close to the end, you’re nearly to-“
“Remembered? No, I just figured it out.” Cloak opened his mouth, and-
???
“Thank Fortune,” Cloak gasped as he snapped Daniel out of the Unidentification fog. “It’s getting worse, but you haven’t fully lost the memories. Even so, you shouldn’t have been able to come to that conclusion unless the effect Torch put on you is settling.”
“But I’m right?”
“What does that matter?”
“You’ve been lying to your entire civilization about basic historical facts!” Daniel shouted. He knew Cloak’s justifications for doing so and didn’t care. The bond had nothing to do with this. He’d seen Willow and the rest talk to Cloak’s vessel after he’d revealed himself. Between that and his torture at the hands of the monster god, he’d become done with how they could run roughshod over their ‘lessers’. “Everyone here is thinking this is the end of everything because this is the first time the Spokes have ever failed against the Crest. Ignore the fact that this time is different because something happened to the rest of the gods, I know that didn’t factor into the Collapse. Why keep it a secret that you can recover from this!?”
“I don’t see why you’re so upset,” Cloak replied defensively, not directly answering him. “It’s not your history or your world. Surely you understand why keeping some information secret is important. It would all fall apart if the world learned what happened during those memories you have still yet to recover! The same would be true if they learned a countless number of unfortunate realities. It is my divine purpose to shroud that which should never be seen. Unfettered, absolute transparency at all times is neither a moral nor a realistic good.”
“You’ve still taken it too far,” Daniel shot back, but he knew arguing was pointless. The balance of power and perspective between them was too slanted to come to an agreement. “And it just proves that I can’t trust you. I don’t even know if this is you or someone pretending to be you like with Soraso. There’s no way you maintained each illusion in that conference.”
“Like it or not, we are stuck together. Unless you would see this world burn.” Cloak advanced on him, a shimmer in the air rising around him that didn’t form any one solid image, though Daniel could make out vague aspects of blood, death, and carnage. “Who would want to know this world has fallen more than once? More than a hundred, a thousand times? To see all of this and still persist is as noble as anyone should be expected to be! We could be Tyrants of our own right if we had the will.”
“Aren’t you?” Daniel stood his ground. Cloak was brimming with divine fury, but he had nothing on the Tlara of old. The charisma of his vessel was just too low to put enough force into the words to overcome Daniel’s higher attributes. “Ignore everything you’ve done before this Collapse and look at it from my perspective. Aren’t you just ordering me and my friends around, taking their memories, and telling me to trust you or the world dies?”
The visions around Cloak faded, but his eyes grew hard. “We aren’t moving past this impasse, then. It’s not like we need to coordinate anymore, I can do more good working through my church than moralizing with you. I’ve told you enough times what you need to do for you to know the answers you seek. After witnessing one of the horrors of this war return I can’t find the patience to continue shouting into deaf ears.” Cloak’s voice broke toward the end, regardless of how he tried to stop it. He appeared legitimately disturbed by what the monster gods had done today, and while that did change Daniel’s mind slightly, it didn’t change his decision.
“Alright.” Daniel gestured to the hallway door. “You may have your reasons, but your methods suck. I don’t care if it’s arrogance, stress, or just you. This isn’t how you treat people.”
“No,” Cloak scoffed. “It’s how you save the world.” He walked to the door but stopped before reaching it, instead grabbing a stone on his waist. It was clearly telling him something, but he’d blocked the words from Daniel’s ears. That proved pointless as he turned around, bitter surprise in his frown. “That was one of mine in Aurus. That Hero in charge of Apex Flight is putting pressure on Soraso about the ruins and because of the panic people are backing him.” He explained this dryly, though Daniel could tell there was more to it. “The gestalt could only get them to back off by promising action.”
Daniel could read all he could need to on Cloak’s face. “Us!?”
“Your friend Murdon still doesn’t have a full team, and you were the second pick. They’re giving you two weeks to prepare, and then you’re going in.”