27. Visage


    [Designation: VISAGE]


    [Instrument Class: ERUDITE]


    [Anchored Realm: MANESFERA (+3)]


    [Item Description: What does it mean to wear a mask? In a way, it’s a commitment to a narrow set of duties and expectations; you strip away your own face in order to take on the immutable persona of another. That persona could be a soul, a god, a fantastical creature, or even an idea, but whatever it may be, it’s not you as you know yourself. Yet, in another, very real sense, a mask can be freeing. By shifting into that second ‘you’, you leave behind the burdens and misgivings of the first. You breathe life into a new reality, one in which your choices are redefined, your dreams relived, and your sins reclaimed. Who will you, Wayfarer, be when you put on that mask: the dreamer or the sinner?]


    ***


    “You wanna know why I don’t like to wear VISAGE?”


    When Serac finally did ask (and not without some trepidation), Zacko had been surprisingly forthright with his answer, with none of his usual glibness or circumlocution. The answer itself had been just as surprising, not only for its simple logic, but also for its manifold implications.


    “I suppose there are many reasons, but if I were to boil it down to one, it’s because I don’t want to go further into debt. You see, VISAGE’s proprietary resource is Karma; I need to spend Karma to use its powers. Yup. You can say I drew the short end of the transmutation stick.”


    That explains so much! Had been Serac’s first thought. It even explains why Zacko was always so keen to partner up. He can hold his own with the NINEFOLD DAO, but he needs another Wayfarer to pull out the big guns on occasion. Occasions like fighting a boss with upwards of 3,000 HP…


    “Wait, hang on.” Serac had frowned as she gave voice to her second thought. “You still managed to level up to 16, so you were still earning more Karma then you were spending, right? What happened? Where did it all go wrong?”


    The shadow that came over Zacko’s face then had told Serac that she’d stumbled onto ‘ghost’ territory.


    “Let’s just say I ran into a situation where I ended up draining a metric shit-ton of Karma… and with nothing to show for it. It’s a boring tale. Nothing that would strike your fancy, and irrelevant to our goals.”


    Serac hadn’t pressed further. If she and Zacko hadn’t yet progressed into the opening-old-scars phase of their partnership, then so be it. Besides, even this bit of truncated confession had been a marked improvement over the boasts about wine and women.


    “I get why you bring it up, though,” Zacko had continued then, “and you don’t need to twist my arm. Against an enemy of Ashvanaga’s Mitigation profile, I can’t be too precious about my Karma. I mean, I’m still in the negatives, so what’s a few thousand more, right?”


    Zacko had said this with one of his not-so-winning winks. Serac had tried to smile back, but she could see that her companion’s ghost hadn’t fully left him. In truth, it’d been something of a relief for both of them when they shifted fully to the ‘strategy’ portion of their talk.


    “Alright, I think I know exactly how we’re going to take out the Ferryman. But for this to work, we’re gonna need to pull off a ‘role reversal’…”


    And reverse it they did.


    Presently, Serac the scrawny gunslinger jumped in front of the living castle, while her muscly Manusya partner ran off to the side. For their strategy to work, Serac had to start out as the ‘tank’, drawing aggro while Zacko prepared his big VISAGE-empowered attack.


    On this second attempt at Vetala-Ashvanaga, Serac knew not to waste her bullets (or her Stamina!) on the castle wall. Instead, she concentrated on staying front and center of the castle, keeping herself aligned with Vetala’s ‘eye slit’ as she backpedaled at record speed.


    The green bar of her Stamina drained at a steady rate, but not so fast that she needed to worry about it running out at an inopportune time. Besides, she was waiting for specific cues for her to move into the Stamina-expending phase of her fight. Cues like—


    A pair of pale, blobby faces poked out of the parapets above, one for each of the front battlements. Jailer adds. The Jailers wasted no time grabbing two of the javelins that lined the parapets and chucking them in Serac’s direction.


    Just two javelins. I can ‘tank’ them. I have to.


    “Start off by letting the Jailers’ javelins hit you,” had been Zacko’s instruction to her. “One might be enough, but preferably two to be safe.”


    “Yeah, I get you,” Serac had responded with a sigh. “I don’t like it, but it’s what I have to do to maximize the damage from [Catharsis].”


    “That too, but there’s more to this. Remember the end of the last fight? How I got skewered by the damn things? Well, right before I died, I noticed that the javelins proc’d [Bleed]. My guess is they’re coated with Vetala’s magic.”


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    “Procked bleed?” Serac had looked at Zacko like he’d grown a pair of horns. “Seriously, man, does everyone in Manesfera talk like this, or just you?”


    “In this case, Wayfarer, the Manusya has employed the appropriate terminology,” Trippy had come in to perform his glossary duties, with aplomb and much to Serac’s chagrin. “[Bleed] denotes a status effect in which the afflicted soul continually loses a small amount of health, proportional to their maximum HP. It comes under the umbrella of various DoT—or ‘damage over time’—effects that are recognized under Pathsight. ‘Proc’, on the other hand, is something of a slang that has entered the vernacular of Wayfarers who are active in the current Kalpa.”


    “I swear, this Kalpa and their newfangled lingo are doing my head in.”


    “You’re literally one of the newest Wayfarers of this generation,” Zacko had teased without missing a beat. “Accept your fate and get with the times, Serac. And while you’re at it, did Trippy also explain to you why you should let yourself [Bleed] in this fight?”


    Trippy hadn’t. But the answer had come to Serac in an instant, unaided.


    “It’s to do with my Realm Boon, isn’t it?” At the same time, she’d subconsciously pulled up the relevant info from Pathsight. “TRIBULATION: For every negative status effect on self, the Rakshasa receives a universal AV buff of 5%. I assume [Bleed] counts as one of these negative status effects?”


    “Bingo! 5% doesn’t sound like much, but against a boss with 3,000 HP, we need all the help we can get.”


    Serac could certainly agree with all of that. Agreeing with theory, however, didn’t make practice any less painful.


    [165!], [165!] -> [330!]


    [Wayfarer Status Effect: BLEED]


    [TRIBULATION active: current buff at 5%]


    One javelin went clean through Serac’s flank, and the other into her thigh. Gritting her teeth through the pain, she quickly used a PULVERIZER punch to break off the shaft that stuck out from her thigh, lest it affect her ability to perform the next phase of her tanking duties.


    For this was the most difficult part of her fight. The castle rumbled ever towards its destination, and the Jailers upon its ramparts continued to fling [Bleed]-coated javelins at the Rakshasa gate-crasher. And instead of fighting back, Serac now turned her full focus to making sure she wouldn’t get hit again.


    [4!], [4!], [4!], …


    With every second that passed, Serac lost more of her HP to the [Bleed] effect. Physically, it wasn’t so much painful as it was discomfiting, like she was becoming weaker and more light-headed with each passing second.


    While her red bar continued to tick down, she was more concerned with her green. Because she couldn’t afford to lose any more HP, she also couldn’t block the Jailers’ attacks with PULVERIZER, meaning her only recourse was to sidestep and dodge. Not an easy ask, with two Jailers aiming for one Serac.


    Each instance of active evasion lost her a discernible chunk of Stamina. She would be forced to stop and recover before long, and that would spell disaster. Unless…


    Please hurry, Zacko. I was never cut out to be a tank, and I don’t think I can hold out much longer…


    “You did an amazing job, Horn-girl! And now it’s my turn.”


    Finally! But Serac’s relief at hearing Zacko’s voice quickly turned to bone-chilling awe as she saw his face—no, his VISAGE.


    The wooden mask that bore the likeness of a laughing Buddha was now imbued with a purple aura. Purple like a violet flower. Purple like an amethyst jewel. Purple like… royalty.


    Oblivious to Serac’s lifetimes-spanning recollections, the Buddha’s laughter took on a menacing glare as it imparted its magic to its wearer. Zacko’s every well-defined muscle now coursed with the same purple energy that radiated from his mask.


    It was power that’d taken every painstaking second of a Rakshasa’s turn at ‘tanking’ to charge. It was power that its Manusya wielder had paid dearly for, with the currency of his self-worth.


    [Dreamer Aspect: THE SIXTH DAO—HAMMER OF JUDGMENT]


    A leaping headbutt. A NINEFOLD master’s signature Poise-break technique, now imbued with Erudite energy and amplified to its maximum potential.


    Serac’s whole vision flashed with a bright purple light, just as her eardrums ruptured from the resounding crash of stone vs Buddha. And just like the last time a reckless man ran head-first into a rumbling castle, the castle lost, coming to a complete stop at Zacko’s feet.


    Except, this time, the castle did more than just stop. Zacko’s headbutt had left a physical imprint on Ashvanaga’s front wall, in the form of an impact crater and chunks of crushed debris that now fell around it. And now, the entire structure keeled over.


    Yes. That was the first thing that came to Serac’s mind as she observed the phenomenon in real time. It was the height of lunacy to attribute such a phrase to a castle of all things, but it was also correct beyond all doubt.


    Serac knew this because she’d seen it happen before. She saw it with Porky the Jailer after she’d hit him with three unimbued bullets. She saw it with Bayu the Warden after he’d taken Zacko’s [Cudgel] square in the head. And now, she saw it with Ashvanaga as it lost all its castle-y functions along with the entirety of its Poise.


    You can Poise-break the opponent, thereby bringing any brute—no matter how large or how powerful—to their knees.


    Right again, Trippy. If only he could’ve been here now to witness the Poise-break of the largest, most powerful brute this side of the Sanzu River.


    But now wasn’t the time to cry over spilled soul. No, it was time for Serac the gunslinger to step back in—and take full advantage of this Poise-break for the ages.


    By Serac’s vague estimations, something like 15 to 20 seconds had elapsed between the time she’d suffered [Bleed] and Zacko had finished charging his [Hammer of Judgment]. Through it all, her HP had continued to tick down by [4!] points per second, which, combined with the damage from the javelins, had brought her health down to a bit over half.


    This was the moment she’d been saving her HP for. With Ashvanaga down for the count, its castellan was a sitting duck. And as Serac raised a fully-loaded REVOLVER, she thought she saw Vetala’s slit-framed eyes glint with discernible fear.


    Aim, lock, and:


    [Chamber One: CATHARSIS]