Chapter 16 #4
“Marena.” Garrett’s voice shifted into something firmer. “One hand. Move one hand.”
Nothing.
He looked at Alsen. “Can you help her somehow?”
Alsen ran the math. His flight wasn’t nearly stable enough for him to fly to her, stop, take her, and back across. It was still more of a reinforced leap than a flight.
But he had to do something. “I’ll try something.” He pulled on his power. As far as he understood it, Marena’s problem was mostly in her head. She had the physicality to pull herself across.
He pushed the air, forming motes of wind around himself. He had them float a few feet underneath Marena. With a focused thought, he had the motes burst into a semblance of a platform. The wind moved in a large square underneath her, visible to the naked eye.
“Marena,” Alsen called. “There’s a barrier under you. You can’t fall.”
She looked down. The platform was roughly invisible, but it produced enough wind for her to feel the difference.
One hand moved. Then the other. Slowly, painfully slowly, she crossed. Her arms were trembling so badly by the time she reached the ledge where Garrett waited. He caught her hand the second she got close enough and pulled her across.
She landed on the floor, covered in sweat, panting.
Alsen dropped the platform spell and immediately felt the chill of magical overuse bloom in his chest. Not severe, but noticeable. Sustained spells took a lot of power, especially when maintained away from himself.
“Thanks,” Marena whispered, still shaking. “Sorry.”
“My turn,” Theron shouted. He caught the rope and started pushing himself across.
The first third went well. Then, he froze for a moment before he continued. He moved a lot slower for the rest, especially the last third. Both Garrett and Alsen came to catch him, each from one side of the pillar.
He stretched out a hand from the rope. They both caught him and pulled him onto the solid ground. Theron also paled, his entire massive form shaking. “Thanks,” he whispered.
“All right,” Sonja said. “Kitten promised me a kiss on the other side, so I’m going over now.”
Luna glared at her. “I did not.”
With a chuckle, Sonja caught the rope. With only Luna holding the rope stretched from that side, it didn’t hold stretched.
Due to the pillar being too close to the ledge, the people who made it across couldn’t help but stretch it from their side.
Or, well, they could pull it fully by themselves sideways from the pillar, Alsen reasoned, but the hold on the other side wasn’t nearly as solid as around the pillar.
It could hold the weight of one, but probably not of multiple people pulling on it.
But Sonja didn’t seem to mind all that much.
She moved fast. Hand over hand, legs locked, body hanging beneath the rope like she’d done this a hundred times.
Knowing her, she might have had. The rope swayed with her movement, but she compensated instinctively, shifting her weight to dampen the oscillation rather than fight it.
She reached his side in about five minutes. Covered in sweat, but she didn’t need help getting off the rope. “Come over here, Kitten,” she shouted the second she stabilized on the ground. “I’m all yours and waiting.”
Luna slapped her face with her palm, but then caught the rope. It slackened now, hanging over the abyss.
“Wait,” Garrett shouted. He caught the rope by the pillar and pulled it to them. “We can pull the rope taut for you.”
“Don’t,” Luna and Alsen shouted.
Garrett let go of the rope, looking confused.
“The hold won’t hold with too many people pulling,” Luna added. “Plus, I’m fine on the loose rope.” She caught herself.
“Wait,” Alsen shouted. “Give me a second.” He stepped to the ledge, pulled on his power, and jumped, propelling himself with wind.
This time, he had more control. He didn’t overshoot the mana spend all that much, so he flew across barely beyond the ledge.
He tripped on the landing, tumbling over the floor before Luna caught him.
He got up. “Thanks.” He walked to the rope, caught it, and pulled it taut. “I’ll hold it.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Can you?”
“I’m a strength build,” he said low enough only for her to hear.
She nodded, caught the rope, and pulled herself across. Alsen felt the strain on his muscles, but they held. Luna got across in a couple of minutes.
When she landed on the other side, Alsen let go of the rope. He walked to the ledge and jumped, propelling himself. With even better control, this time. He flew across and landed on his feet, finally without tumbling over.
The chill of magical overuse spread through most of his body now. “I’m juiced out,” he said. “So, I could use a bit of rest.”
“We all could,” Garrett said. “Plus, this is a good spot. Only one entrance to guard.”
Provided nothing crawled out of the chasm. Alsen didn’t say that, getting ready to roll out his sleeping bag.
They broke camp. Garrett lay down by the entrance, clearly intending to keep watch. Luna found herself a spot by the wall, chasing Sonja away with a glare when she tried to come close.
Alsen and the others gathered around a spot near Garrett. They took out food, Theron distributing everyone their portion. Alsen needed all the rest he could get. He hadn’t yet exhausted himself all that badly, but he had maintenance to do.
As he sat, he pulled out the System menu. At level twelve, he could finally take the level ten passive. He punched it in, choosing strength and speed as the main stats, and endurance and intelligence as side stats.
Afterward, he pathed the points to the level twenty stat passive, as those were really juicy. That took three more points.
He had four points to spare, and the next Archmage skill was at level twenty. He needed to multiclass.
Sure, he could wait for late levels, but unless he wanted to take both the archmage skill and the stat passive at level twenty, he wasn’t going to have enough places to spend his points.
Even then, that would take five more points, so six in total from where he was, and he was going to have sixteen to spend.
What was there at the archmage level twenty as a skill?
Name: Spell storage
Effect: Store a spell for an instantaneous cast
Limit: One stored spell at a time.
What a waste of points. He would never have the spell he needed in it, anyway, and it would cost him six points.
He could easily level two classes at the same time. Then again, that was most likely the point of a skill tree with over thirty specializations. Luna planned her build across three or four classes.
Alsen looked over the classes. One caught his eye for stats alone. Berserker. It had a stat passive at level one, and then a passive that gave a plus one hundred into one stat at level thirty. That looked great.
But it was too one-dimensional. His current build was:
Strength: 90
Dexterity: 10
Intelligence: 20
Endurance: 20
Willpower: 10
Speed: 30
Charisma: 10
An extremely one-dimensional build. Sure, he could stack everything into strength, but he already had the problem of hurting himself with his own spells. All the wounds he had sustained in this adventure were from his own magic, and he couldn’t pretend it wouldn’t happen in the future.
So, he needed to diversify. But into what?
The side class should obviously be chosen to make up for what he lacked, so either a defense-oriented class or something creative. He wasn’t sure what, and he needed to rest.
He closed the System menu, leaving this for after the dungeon.