Rubble from the crumbling pillar above Jake crashed down onto him. Just looking at his mangled form, it was clear that there was no way he was alive. His limbs were contorted in ways that shouldn't be possible. Blood covered all parts of his body as even more spewed from the holes the spiked mace created. Worst of all, his face, half-flayed to the bone by one of the pillar's many falling stones. The white pearly bone on his cheek and jaw shone brightly through the mess of blood and gore that covered the marble pile and Jake's corpse.
"FUCK, NO!" I yell as I try to reach Jake, but a bombardment of rotten spikes interrupts my desperate rush, forcing me to react.
"ETHAN GET OVER HERE!" Landon shouted, "WE NEED TO MAKE A PLAN!"
I knew that I needed to go help Jake, but survival was what came first.
Sprinting through waves of attacks, I managed to reach Landon who was hiding behind a pillar, "Okay...What do we do?" I say, trying to sound calm.
"I'm sorry to say this but, we need to abandon any attempts to rescue Jake." Landon said quietly.
"WHAT?? I'M NOT LEAVING HIM HERE!?!" I say angrily, the mere thought of leaving one of the only people I have left to care about made by blood boil.
"I'm not SAYING that we need to pack up and leave, we just need to focus our efforts towards the boss." Landon said pointing at the Skinweaver,"Don't worry I have a plan for us."
"Alright, here's what we need to do. First of all you need to gain the full attention of the Skinweaver." Landon said, "This plan doesn't work if my focus is lost for even half a second."
"I can do that much…" I replied, "What are you going to do?"
"I'm going to charge up a
"Alright, let's do it then." I say as I use
As I walked into the open, my heart was focused on one thing only, bringing that hellish amalgamation down. Preparing to fight, I see five infected armed with weapons and armor made out of their own kind, "Disgusting bastard…" I thought to myself as I prepared to send their souls home. Two undead charged after me as the Skinweaver hurled a barrage of spikes. Dodging out of the way from the aerial barrage, I grab one of his own spikes and fling it into the stomach of one of the pursuing infected, tearing open its abdomen as its organs leak out of the hole that was left. But it doesn't fall, it can't feel pain so why would it stop unless its heart, brain or spine are destroyed? Charging after it, another barrage of spikes are thrown at my face as the infected swings down his hammer. Reacting within a split second, I hook his hammer with the shaft of my spear, spinning him around and putting him in a headlock, using him as a not-so-human shield. The ruthless barrage of spikes pummeled the infected, some so strong that they pierced through, stopping just short of my torso. One down, four to go.
Grabbing the maimed infected by his jagged armor, I throw his body at the nearest infected, but with no care he slices through him with a swing of his sword, "This one seems like the Juggernaut variant we fought. No matter, if I can't kill this I don't deserve even vengeance." He attacked first, his sword was much swifter than mine, but I already had experience with speedsters. Ducking under his blade, I dash in and as his swing reaches its end I hold his sword in place with my buckler. Stabbing upwards with my spear, grazing his chin but he dodges back swiftly with an uncanny somersault. I needed to end this fight soon. We rushed forwards at the same time, but he was faster. We both went for kill shots, but my blade was able to connect first. Right before his weapon was going to hit me, I made a split-second decision and threw my spear into his neck, ending the fight. Two down, three to go. Right before I began my confrontation with the other three, Landon screamed out to me.
"ETHAN GET THE FUCK OUT OF THE WAY!!" Landon called as he came out from behind the pillar and fired a shot.
"SHIT!" I yelled as I pulled the corpse of the infected over me.
The Cathedral filled with deafening explosions, followed by the sounds of raining rubble and the Skinweaver's shrieks. Once the sounds stopped, I pulled the body off of me and looked at the destruction. The three pillars near Jake's body were completely destroyed, only the base remained. The roof had a large scar in it from where the columns had been holding it up. Through the haze of the crumbling cathedral, Jake's body shone through. Though it looked almost the same, just with slightly more rubble covering him and strangely, a faint purple glow. Turning over to the Skinweaver I checked it for any damage, and damage had indeed been done. The side of its stomach where it patched up its injury was riddled with holes from the debris and many of its limbs were either pinned or broken off. But just as I got my hopes up that it was weakened, it used the dead infected near me to refill the holes and reinforce it more with parts of the stone and marble that had fallen.
"Shit…" I mutter to myself, grasping the situation, "WE'VE GOT TO BRING DOWN THE BUILDING IN THIS LAST ATTACK OR HE'LL KEEP GETTING STRONGER!" I yell to Landon.
"I KNOW!" Landon continues,"YOU KNOW WHAT FUCK THE PLAN! STALL HIM FOR AS LONG AS POSSIBLE AND I'LL BLAST HIS UGLY HEAD OFF WITH ONE SHOT!"
"GOTCHA!" I say, grabbing my spear and readying for the infected.
I had killed two out of the five, but during the explosion the Skinweaver made tens more. Turning back to Landon, I see he has problems of his own. Turning my head back to the Skinweaver, I can tell just by his body language that he was treating us as mere toys. "Us? TOYS? Who does he think he is to treat us as his playthings?" I tell myself, my rage overflowing as three infected charge at me. Before the first could even swing his sword, I launched my spear into his face and jumped on top of it to boost myself. Dashing off my spear towards the other two, one tries to hit me with an axe, but I parry with my buckler, and jab him in the face with it. His nose breaks as it collides with my buckler, but I keep going. I grab the edge of its breastplate and pummel its face in with my iron buckler till it was an unrecognizable mess of blood. I back up, grabbing its axe from its shocked hands and decapitating him with it. Turning around to another infected about to stab me, I hurl the axe through its head, its two halves splitting sideways and spilling gore like a cut tomato. Two down, a lot more to go.
Landon was in a predicament of his own. He hadn't gotten a backup weapon from any of the quests, so he was having to use his bow close range. Two charged directly at him, quickly drawing his bow he racks an arrow and sends it into the throat of one of them, but the other gets too close to shoot an arrow at him. He tried to dodge, but it was too late. The infected's sword sliced straight through his forearm, severing his hand and a portion of his wrist.
"HUAAAAGH!!!" Landon cried out as blood spewed from where his hand had been. The infected tried to attack Landon again, but he kicked him away, clutching his stump. Landon grabbed his bloodied shirt with his one remaining hand and tore a piece off, then tied it tight around his arm at his elbow to stunt the blood loss.
"You bastards…" Landon seethed as he stared, shaking madly with rage at the infected as more of them circled him, "Each and every one of you will die by my hand…"
Despite the fact that Landon had dropped his bow and lost an entire hand, his spirit wasn't broken. Having no weapons, Landon had to improvise. Looking around, Landon grabbed an arrow from his quiver and used it as a dagger. The infected began to charge him, swarming him in a raging current of festering flesh. I needed to go help him out, but tens of infected I had to face blocked my way. They needed to die. Slowing down my breathing, I took my old javelin throwing approach, reeled back, and launched the polearm faster and stronger than I ever had before. It soared through the air as fast as Landon's powershot, and ripped a hole through three stumbling infected, before it slowed halfway through the fourth. But just before it lost all of its power,
"L-LANDON!" I screamed with terror. This marked the second time I lost someone I cared for. A rage greater than I had ever felt before began to bubble deep inside of me.
Landon slowly turned his gaze down at the horrifying sight of a blade sticking from his abdomen, covered in his own viscera. His eyes shook violently, uncomprehendingly as a slow trickle of his blood flowed from his open mouth. He buckled down silently, slipping down to his knees off the rough knife that pierced him, his blood and soft lumps of meat spilling from the vital tunnel bored through him. He grasped desperately, uselessly, trying to reinsert his slashed organs and pooling blood, and fell.
While I was staring at Landon's collapsing body, an infected appeared to the side and tried to stab me, but my instincts and rage took over my body. As tears streamed down my face, I tore the blade from the infected's hands, its arm coming off still gripping the blade, and snatching the walker up by the throat. I slammed him to the floor with more strength than I thought possible, flourishing his own blade and decapitating him. Blood spewed from his neck as I was covered in a rain of his blood.
"You…YOU MONSTERS!! NONE OF YOU ARE MAKING IT OUT ALIVE, YOU WILL ALL SUFFER AND CRUMBLE UNDER MY WRATH!" I yell out to them.
Grabbing the decapitated head, I throw it at an incoming infected, pushing it back and stunning it. Dashing forwards, I raise the blade up and split the infected cleanly in twain, running through its severed halves as its gory insides splatter across my shirt. Two more infected came after me, but my anger surpassed my exhaustion. I threw my sword into the shoulder of the farther one and weaved a swing from the closer one. Ducking low, I grabbed the infected by his leg and lifted him up with one arm. I flung him into the floor, cracking the stone floor as his body contorted into broken pieces. Dashing forwards to the one with a sword through its shoulder, I knock him back with a solid boot to the chest, caving it, as I grab the sword from his shoulder. I run after him and run the blade cleanly through its neck. But the cost of my rampage was finally getting to me. Turning towards the Skinweaver, I throw my sword as hard as possible but he bats it away easily with a flick of one of its lithe limbs. He counters simply with a barrage of needles, too exhausted to dodge, I hold the blade's flat before me huffing heavily. It wasn't enough, nowhere near. Three pierced through my legs, pinning me to the floor while multiple ran through my chest and arms, and a larger one went straight into my stomach. That's when it dawned on me. Even if Jake and Landon were still here, it would be difficult, if not downright impossible to survive this fight. As I begin to accept my fate, a scorching wave of heat and pure power hits my back and a booming voice resounds across the desecrated cathedral hall… Jake's voice. I was certain that after what happened to his body he couldn't have naturally been alive, he… he shouldn't have naturally been alive, yet there he stood, with his stupid, defiant grin shining through the haze even though half his face had been shredded to the bone.
"Hah…hehe. I'll have to admit Skinweaver, that was a pretty underhanded strike." Jake chuckles, absolutely wrecked and bloodied yet slowly rising from the rubble, kneeling on one of his powerful, reforming legs that snapped freakishly back into place and strangely… on fire, "But there's something you don't seem to understand… You really think after everything you've done that I'd lay down and die from that one pathetic blow?"
The Skinweaver turns to face him, his demented face contorting into a horrible display of fear for the first time. It launches a vicious barrage of spears and spikes, but they all dissolve into ash as they come within Jake's radius, soon a small purple flame began to his encompass his chest.
"SINCE I'VE BEEN DEAD, SOME THINGS HAVE CHANGED…. FROM THIS MOMENT FORTH, SKINWEAVER, YOU WILL BEGIN YOUR DUEL WITH THE HERALD OF GLORY! I AM THE AUTHORITY OF PRIDE!" Jake booms as he rises with a large barbaric grin spreading across whatever skin he still had on his face from the previous fall.
While Jake was monologuing, the Skinweaver took the chance and prepared a titanic, squirming ball of bleeding flesh, hurling it with immense force at the small glowing human. But even that was burnt to ash by the small flaming aura Jake had obtained.
"You… You think after what you've done you'd be able to simply smother out my rage; harm my pride?" Jame asks the Skinweaver, slowly standing up.
Once he stood at full mass, you could see the destruction that the mace wrought across his body. His body was riddled with deep, bloody holes, and most of the bones throughout his body were completely shattered, but he stood tall. As he began to walk forward, a long purple cape of flames sprouted and draped from his shoulders, licking and flickering against the floor behind him. Suddenly, the massive violet aura of scalding fire surged, engulfing Jake in suffocating heat. The Skinweaver, sensing this new power, flung the rest of his reserve of rotting spines at Jake, but it had no effect. Just by coming in contact with his flames, every infected thrown burst into smoldering ashes.
"You think any of these miserable blows could equate to even a fraction of the rage I feel?" Jake yells at the Skinweaver as he keeps advancing further.
"And you've had your own share of fun it seems." Jake says as he looks towards me and Landon, "But it's time I repay you, I mean, I did promise that I'd feed you your own heart. I hope you're hungry!"
Jake vanishes and reappears 20 feet from where he stood and vanishes again. The Skinweaver tries hopelessly to slow him down but all his defenses turn to ash. Within a single second Jake flew through the distance that separated them and began his own attacks.
"It looks like you weren't so gentle with my friends… So I'll pay you back for that as well." Jake tells him, a sinister grin instantly appearing on his gruesome face, half of it beaming with a skeletal smile as his skin noticeably grows and reforms around the bone.
With one swing, Jake tears open the injured side of the Skinweavers waist. It screams more terrifyingly and louder than even the Skrieker from the second quest, but he didn't stop. Slowly, blow after blow, he tore out pieces of its repaired flesh, spraying blood, gore, and entrails everywhere. Despite its pain, it held on, clinging to its will to fight. Using its dozens of arms, it batted and bashed and clawed at Jake but not a single blow landed, and its limbs sizzled and turned to ash. Its cries grew louder and louder as Jake began to crawl into the crevice he clawed out next to his stomach-mouth. But all it could do was scream. Its working limbs were cauterized stumps and no matter how many spikes it launched, Jake's aura burned them all to a crisp. After many long minutes of visceral screaming, Jake finally clawed his way into its stomach, but his flaming aura was beginning to fade. Noticing this, he ripped through its stomach. Slowly and agonizingly, he crawled, paving the way in blazing flesh as he made his way up. By the time Jake reached its chest cavity, the horror's voice had given out and was unable to scream. Once Jake crawled through, he reached its heart. With both his hands, he tore it out, showering him in blood. Grasping tightly onto the rotting organ, he kicked at the arms that held its chest together until they gave way. Crawling back out, he turned to me, held out the still-beating organ and laughed maniacly. Still laughing through gritted teeth, he crawled up its body until he reached its face. The Skinweaver stared in silent horror with its singular bulbous eye, truncated and unable to do anything in defense at the small form gripping into its flesh. Using one burning hand, Jake pried open its mandible and with the other he forced its own heart inside of its mouth. Its panicked eye widened and jerked frantically twisting and twitching, as if trying to escape from it's cavity, looking for any solution as blood dripped from its socket.
Jake glared pitifully at the wretched horror, "Now swallow…" and with the rest of his power Jake slammed its jaws together, bloody chunks spewing from between the shattered, jagged teeth of the monster. The titan's heart was utterly destroyed and its skull mangled beyond repair, hanging limp from its neck.
"Huh… How's that for an ending…" Jake exhaled as his weakly glinting flames extinguished in a puff of smoke. Losing his consciousness and grip, he fell tumbling into the rubble as the colossal skinweaver wavered, then bent backwards, dead as its body arched, planted into the floor in its pooling innards, what remained of its stumped limbs hung from its crooked torso like the branches of a cursed willow. I tried desperately to crawl to the recently resurrected Jake, but I too passed out. As I did, I couldn't stop praying that we would all make it.
After the dungeon closed and we were transported back to our reality, I felt the vibrations of someone walking by. They began to talk but I couldn't hear them properly. Forcing my eyes open, I catch a blurry glimpse of who would hopefully be our savior, a tall figure in a long, white, collared jacket with puffy sleeves and a coattail that dragged ceremoniously behind them, donning a sharp, dark cap with a shiny lapel shadowing a face that was covered by a black half-mask. They carried what looked like lots of heavy, camo-green baggage hanging around their waist and tight black leggings fashioned with a small hatchet strapped tightly to their right thigh. Their long hair flowed from under the cap and over their shoulders, draping cleanly behind them and down their chest with a single, flashing, crescent earring dangling from their earlobe. As soon as they stopped talking, they turned to me, hooking their radio to their hip and resting their hand atop it. They paused, as if thinking, then tilted their head to the side questioningly. After they assessed the situation, I felt them pick me up from the floor, seeming to notice my consciousness.
The figure sat me up on a wall and held me to it by my shoulders, "Don't worry, docs' gonna patch you guys up real good, just try not to squirm too much while I get you and the others over there~"
Disobeying the strange voice, I tried to speak and move, thinking, 'The others? That means Jake and Landon are here… and hopefully still breathing.' but the shock and exhaustion from my injuries left me immobile. They tossed me onto their shoulder, bent down for- I'm guessing the other two, and carried us for what felt like hours, but that was probably because I would sporadically fade in and out of consciousness. Eventually I stopped counting and my blurred vision finally faded to black, flopping helplessly on the shoulder of a complete stranger.
I couldn't tell how long I had been asleep, but I was finally stationary. Shifting slightly, I could tell that I was on a mattress, but every little movement sent sharp pangs of pain down my spine. Slowly opening my eyes, I scanned the room for any information. I was laid down in one corner of the room while Jake and Landon were laid in the middle. Through my blurred vision, they looked like they were fine, at least for now. Then I hear footsteps.
"I can't believe these guys are still alive. I mean you healed them pretty good but- Wait, holy shit- Nathan… One of em' is up!" The man dashed back to the door, leaned out into the hallway, and shouted with a hand cupped next to his mouth. He was huge, probably around 6'6" and incredibly muscular, maybe in his mid twenties, clearly ex-military just by looking at how he held himself and his sharp, clean outfit. A tight fitting t-shirt and baggy cargo pants didn't help hide any bit of the hunk of muscle that tilted halfway out the creaky door.
"Which one?" I hear another guy shout out as rapid, clacky footsteps come running in.
"The one that had the giant hole in his stomach," He replied, "I mean they all kinda did but… Anyways, the one with the middle part."
"Coming!" Nathan replied as he ran through the hallway and into our room.
"I'm amazed this one's alive… What's your name?" Nathan questioned with a friendly look.
"I'm…" I stop to clear my throat and rasp out a basic introduction, "I'm Ethan. The one to my left is Jake and the one in front of me is Landon."
"Ethan, good to know!" Nathan says, pulling out a notepad and writing something down, "I'm Nathan by the way!"
"So… what on god's green earth happened to you three?" The menacing soldier questioned.
"Hey!" Nathan nudged the towering figure, "At least tell 'em who you are before you grill 'em."
"Oh, yeah. Sorry," The big guy apologized, "I'm Axel."
"Good to meet you, Axel." I paused, "And for what happened…"
"You don't have to tell us if you don't want to." Nathan told me worriedly.
"No, I should… you saved us after all." I glanced nervously at my two friends who lay in their cots, "After our third quest, a system window popped up and gave us an opportunity to get stronger. We decided to choose it and… we barely made it out like this. Even before stepping into the boss room, bodies were piled tens of feet high." I described, words coming out of my mouth faster and faster, almost tripping over each other, "We tried to ignore them, but… there… we even saw kids… dead kids left butchered and skewered in the street-" Hesitating slightly, I continue, "But we had to keep going, we had no other way out."
"Jesus-" Axel tried to speak but I kept talking.
"And then… the Skinweaver. It was tens of meters tall and was a horrifying, unholy mess of tangled flesh. It had dozens of limbs and used the bodies of the dead to attack us. We were winning at first, until Jake… died. We started losing, overwhelmingly so, Landon lost an arm and… was stabbed straight through from behind, but Jake somehow came back, and then-" I paused, racking my brain, trying to remember the order that the recent events had unfolded, "Then I blacked out, and woke up here…"
"Oh my god…" Nathan muttered, putting a hand over his mouth. Just imagining what we'd fought left horror engraved into his expression, "How did you even survive whatever that was?"
"Honestly, I don't know myself. After Landon and I were barely hanging to the brink of death, Jake somehow came back to life with overwhelming strength and turned the whole, towering flesh monolith to ash. We won't know how he did it until he comes back to his-"
"I've been up since you guys started talking." Jake cuts me off, raising his upper body up off of the bed and rubbing his eye.
"Same here." Landon says annoyed, "You couldn't let me sleep even a little longer?"
"All your dumb shouting woke me up…" Landon said, wincing as he massaged his formerly severed arm, then bolting up in surprise, "How the hell is this thing back?"
"That would be my doing." Nathan replied, "Before this whole thing started, I was training to be a doctor, so I got a skill that lets me heal others."
"Even severed limbs or giant holes?" Jake questioned as he felt the scars that the mace left.
"Well with a little help from the system's level up heal feature, and some luck with the dungeon spitting out your arm, I managed to get you fixed." Nathan said as he grabbed a scalpel and drew it down along the length of his forearm. Carefully placing the scalpel down on a cart, he hovered his palm above his arm and summoned a green aura that soon drew the blood back into the cut and flawlessly sealed the wound.
"Thats incredible…" Landon remarked, turning his wrist around following the scar that was left.
"We still haven't answered the elephant in the room, Jake. How the hell did you survive… that?" I questioned.
"While I was gone...I wasn't necessarily dead." Jake said, swallowing the lump in his throat as he continued, "It felt like I was somewhere else."
"Somewhere else?" Landon questioned,"Did you see the pearly gates and get denied?"
"Rude… But no, I didn't see god. But what I saw was probably stronger than a god…" The room fell silent as Jake continued, fidgeting, "I was brought to a throneroom, all of the walls were lined with purple and golden banners, and at the end of the hallway was his throne."
"Who's throne?" I interrupted.
"I-I couldn't tell you who it was, but he was strong. His throne was made out of hundreds of thousands of different weapons, all of them worn as if he himself had plucked them from a battlefield." Jake paused to regain his breath, "When I reached the foot of the throne I was able to meet him. Except for the helmet, which sat on the armrest of the throne with his hand placed atop it, he wore a full suit of black armor , full with golden plumes, chains… everything, and huge twin war-axes strapped to his back."
"What did he look like?" Landon questioned.
"I don't know. His face was covered in a black mask, all you could see was his hair. He stood up, and the pure pressure he'd put out forced me to my knees, like I was some insignificant serf." Jake said, clenching his fists.
"But he told me this, 'Your pride rises higher than anyone else's I've seen on this plane of existence. A flickering ember in a sea of ash if you will. But you are fading, I don't wish to watch my kin fall, and so shamefully at that. So I am giving you the Authority of my Pride. Destroy all that stands beneath you and don't make me regret this.' And then I was back."
"Jesus…" Was all I could manage to say, "But how did your broken body fix itself when you came back?"
"Remember the skill that I had received that said the conditions weren't met?" Jake looked at me and Landon as we nodded, "Well all I had to do was lower my Vitality or Endurance to 20% for it to unlock."
"Wouldn't falling that low just basically kill someone?" Landon questioned.
"Disable, not kill. Unlocking the skill makes me faster and stronger, even ignoring my Endurance stat, but it makes me lose my rationality." Jake adds in a guffaw ,"Pairs real well with my Authority though."
"Basically I became too single-minded to even think about pain, all I wanted was to kill that ugly thing." Jake said, his laugh dying down to a quiet chuckle.
"Speaking of, what does your Authority do?" Landon questioned.
"It turns my pride into the purple flames you saw. Basically whenever I fight something that I feel is weaker than me, which is a LOT of things, my Pride takes its form." Jake tells us as he stares at a cockroach on the floor. Within an instant, purple flames began to envelope his arms.
"And the more prideful I feel, the stronger the flames become, which is why the Skinweaver's attacks couldn't touch me- I didn't think he was worthy of being able to attack me, so my flames burned stronger and I dissolved his attacks." Jake said, reaching down and touching the insect, which instantly burst into a tiny ball of flames that soon si to ash.
Axel who had been quiet this whole time finally spoke,"You might be walking right now, but that much pride can drown you...I know."
Jake turned his head towards him with a puzzled look,"That won't happen, not to me at least."
"I've known people who were certain they were above the world...but every path they walked, misfortune followed." Axel swallowed hard.
"Yeah, I know." Jake said bluntly.
"If you know then why be so prideful, what's the point of an ego if you-" Jake cut Axel off.
"I know because of my friends." Jake said, looking at me, then Landon," My paths don't burn because I have Ethan and Landon to stop me from doing so."
"...Well as long as you know the path you walk then that's fine by me." Axel said, sitting down on an empty bed.
The room felt heavy, but Landon cut the silence, "You know we still haven't checked what we got from the dungeon right?"
"Oh shit!" Jake said enthusiastically, "That fucking quest better of given me some good loot."
We all opened our System windows and started assigning our stats, but thanks to the quest we were given 5 extra points to assign.
Ethan Turner: lvl 4
Stats: Strength: 12 +1: Endurance: 8 +1: Agility: 9 +2: Vitality: 10 +2: Instinct: 8: Wisdom: 10: Charisma: 2
Jake Ferguson: lvl 4
Stats: Strength: 12 +3: Endurance: 9: Agility: 9 +1: Vitality: 10 +2: Instinct: 8: Wisdom: 6: Charisma: 1
Landon Constantine: lvl 4
Stats: Strength: 6 +1: Endurance: 8: Agility: 10 +2: Vitality: 7 +2: Instinct: 8 +1: Wisdom: 7: Charisma: 8
I decided to put three points into Strength, two into Agility, one into Endurance, and two into Vitality. Jake put four into Strength, three into Endurance, and one into Vitality. Landon put three into Agility, one into Strength, one into Endurance, and three into Instinct. Next we checked out our new skills.
Ethan Turner:
Lvl 4 skill: (Calming Hands: Passive): Using any Spear or javelin type weapons automatically brings your focus to a heightened degree, leading to more concentration and refining your weapon skills. (+5 Wisdom). Lvl 4 skill: (Basic Spear Technique: Passive): You now know the basic ways to use a spear type weapon. Once you begin to adapt this skill into your own, you will begin to receive special skills designed on your technique. Lvl 4 skill: (Weapon Summoning: 5 uses): Once you have begun a fight, if you lose or throw away your weapon, you are able to recall it three times. The amount of uses increases with level until level 15, when you have infinite summons. Lvl 4 skill: (Spear Cleave: Passive): When your weapon slows down when hitting hard material such as concrete, bone, or metal, increase your power for two seconds. 50 second cooldown. New! Lvl 4: (Projectile Defense): Rapidly spinning your spear in front of your body, deflect all attacks from projectiles (The projectiles MUST be from an enemy with a weaker Strength stat than you). 1 minute cooldown. New! Lvl 4: (Multi-attack): Strengthen your arms to let out a volley of slashes and stabs. 5 second boost. 3 minute cooldown.
Jake Ferguson:
Lvl 4 skill: (Heavyweight Champion: Passive): Strength and endurance is multiplied exponentially with each level at the cost of your imperceptibility. (+5). Lvl 4 skill: (Basic Great Weapon Technique: Passive): You now know the basic ways to use a great weapon. Once you begin to adapt this skill into your own, you will begin to receive special skills designed on your technique. Lvl 4 skill: (Counter Hit: Passive): After parrying an attack, your opponent is stunned for 0.7 of a second. Stun increases by 0.10 seconds per level. Lvl 4 skill: (Bloodlust): After your Endurance or vitality are below 20%, you enter an enraged stat which lowers your Wisdom dramatically, but drastically increases Strength, Agility, and Instinct (+6 to the stats mentioned). This skill ignores Endurance once you enter the Bloodlusted state. (The Authority of Pride): Once you enter the bloodlusted state or fight an enemy multiple times stronger than you, gain a purple aura of flames that covers your whole body. In this form, attacks will dissolve into as after coming in contact with you. The aura gets stronger the more prideful you become. (You are able to use the Authority as you please, but is stronger in the forms mentioned). New! Lvl 4: (Bunker Buster): Using the Authority of Pride, swing your weapon with 50% less power, but your Aura attacks them from within. 1 minute cooldown. New! Lvl 4: (Lions Pounce): Putting your strength into your legs, dash forward for three seconds with an agility boost. (+3).
Landon Constantine:
Lvl 4 skill: (Fleetfoot: Passive): Ramp up in speed the longer you run, maxes out at +5 Agility. Lvl 4 skill: (Basic Archery Technique: Passive): You now know the basic ways to use an Archery type weapon. Once you begin to adapt this skill into your own, you will begin to receive special skills designed on your technique. Lvl 4 skill: (Basic Planning): Create a 3D model of your surroundings to create a plan/map that you and your allies can see. Lasts for 5 minutes. Lvl 4 skill: (Powershot): By holding back the bowstring for three seconds with your best capability, fire off a much more powerful shot. Holding it for longer increases the power. 25 second cooldown. New! Lvl 4 skill: (Counter Domain): Whenever a hostile enemy that you cannot perceive or are unaware of gets within 7 feet of you for the first time, you will feel their hostile intent. (1 counter an hour). New! Lvl 1: (Basic Dagger Skills): Have the basic understanding of how to use a dagger. Once you begin to adapt this skill into your own, you will begin to receive special skills designed on your technique.
Because we were inside of a building, we didn't test out our new skills, so we opened our loot chests instead. Opening my chest, I pulled out a set of Blacksteel Greaves: +2 Agility, +1 Strength: C+: Forged by a smithy of an old world, this equipment will strengthen your survival. As I attached my Greaves, another system window appeared for me
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Landon was next up to open his chest, and he grabbed an White Scale Dagger, +2 Agility, +1 Vitality: C+. Forged in the Jungle of a distant planet, this dagger was forged from the scales of an apex snake.
Last up was Jake. Reaching into his chest, he grabbed White Orc Leather Breastplate, +2 Strength, +1 Vitality: C+. Created in the coldest region of another planet, this will strengthen you and protect you from the elements.
We all put on our gear just as another quest popped up in front of us. This time we were ready, nothing could stop us.