75. New Spells, New Me

  [REVOLVER Spell: HARVEST]

  [MP Cost: 20]

  [Satiety Cost (PRETJORD alternative resource): 5]

  [Spell Description: Chamber Two imbuement. Deal half of REVOLVER base AV in Zealous damage. When it hits a Mob-class Aberrant, the target becomes [Earmarked].

  [Addendum [EARMARKED]: When the target is smited, it leaves behind a unique part of itself as a consumable ingredient.]

  ***

  “What’s wrong, princess? Why’d you stop walking?”

  Serac tuned out of Pathsight to rejoin the land of the honestly living. A faint gleam remained in her eyes as she hurried to catch up with Zacko and Petter.

  “Sorry! Finally remembered to read up on my new spell, and… let me say, it does sound pretty interesting.”

  “Yeah? How so?”

  Deeper into the Hevnerskog, the pine trees grew thick and tall, all but shutting out the daylight. The forest itself seemed to have grown quieter, which only made the Wayfarers hyper-focus on their growing [Hunger].

  “Says here I can [Harvest] ‘consumable ingredients’ from the critters we smite,” Serac explained, “and given what we’ve learned so far, that can only mean one thing, right? We could cook our own food!”

  “Yeah?” Zacko said mildly, never one to count his chickens before they hatched. “Assuming you’re right, that only makes it more imperative that we find these Aberrants soon. If all goes well, maybe we could fill our stomachs before we head back to town for our reward.”

  “Hm. But I really hope the Aberrants in Pretjord are… a little more appetizing than the ones from Naraka. I mean… Jailer steaks and Flesh-fiend skewers? Can you even imagine?”

  “Hey, don’t threaten me with a good time. Right now, I’m so hungry I could eat a ghost. And that’s not a figure of speech, either.”

  Serac managed a distracted chuckle, still thinking about [Harvest] and its implications.

  “Alternative resource,” she murmured, honing in on the most ambiguous part of the description. “What could that mean?”

  “This is new to me too,” came Trippy’s reply, unprompted, “but if I were to guess, it means you could choose which of two resource types to spend. Either 20 points of MP, or 5 points of [Satiety].”

  “Huh… I guess that makes sense. 20 points of MP is a little on the expensive side, but 5 points of [Satiety] doesn’t sound too bad, as long as I manage my [Hunger] carefully. So, it’s like a perk while I’m in Pretjord; I could make myself a little hungrier in exchange for casting [Harvest]. Once I’ve moved on, though, would I have no choice but to spend MP? Would I have any use for [Harvest] in the other Realms, though?”

  “It’s a good question, Wayfarer, one I don’t have an answer to. I suppose it’s something we’ll have to learn along the way. Together.”

  Serac nodded, oddly serene. Since their encounter with Sublimity the Deva, Trippy had been ‘Shriven’ of his former self’s intimate knowledge of REVOLVER and its complex magic. It saddened Serac to be reminded of all that her sentient six-shooter had lost. Yet, she was also—a little selfishly, perhaps—heartened by the knowledge that they were in this together, learning along the way.

  Presently, however, it was Petter Svensen who led the way. The mackerel man now halted mid-skip and put a fist up next to his head—the universal signal for: stop and listen.

  Or, in the Yaksha’s case, it was to stop and read. Serac couldn’t hear anything, but she could see the scales upon Petter’s skin writhe and vibrate ever so slightly. Not with fear, but with heightened perception.

  “Is this what you guys meant by ripple-reading?” Serac asked in a whisper. She didn’t know if she needed to whisper, but it certainly felt appropriate.

  “Exactly right, Miss Serac!” Petter answered cheerfully in his outside voice. “We Yakshas—and indeed most other living things in Pretjord—can detect nearby threats or opportunities from the subtle shifts and signals in the medium we occupy. Right now, that medium is damp forest air, and this particular set of signals tells me we’re close.”

  “Close to?” Serac continued to whisper, even though Petter had soundly demonstrated that there’d been no need.

  “Ulvknalls, miss.” Petter lowered his voice as he said this. But whether he did it out of caution or simply in solidarity with Serac was anyone’s guess. “Nasty beasts, them. I’d almost always call them a threat, but right now, I’m with you”—he grinned, revealing a set of surprisingly sharp teeth—“so I’d say this is more like an opportunity. Ready?”

  Serac nodded solemnly, then followed her mackerel guide as he waded through to the end of the thicket. This time, Petter did so with slow, careful steps, taking obvious care to avoid disturbing the surrounding vegetation as much as possible.

  The trio eventually came upon a clearing, one with a small, mossy pond in the center. This appeared to be a watering hole of sorts for the local inhabitants, as demonstrated by a dainty doe deer that presently lapped at its contents.

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Petter halted again at the clearing’s edge. Serac followed suit, not to copy her guide, but simply because she’d been struck by the deer’s beauty.

  Her erstwhile meeting with Bea Sattva had also primed her to believe all deer to be muscular, boulder-like creatures. Well, here was her first gander at a bona fide specimen that showed her assumptions to be far from the truth.

  “Oh no,” she blurted next to Petter’s earhole, again dropping her voice to a whisper, “don’t tell me this is an Aberrant. I don’t want to smite anything so beautiful!”

  “I’ve got good news and bad news, miss.” Now Petter too spoke in a whisper, in an apparent effort to avoid stimulating the deer’s ripple-sense. “The good news is no, this isn’t an Aberrant, and you won’t have to smite it.”

  “And the bad news?” Zacko cut in from the other side, his whisper roughened by hunger and impatience.

  As soon as Zacko spoke those words, ‘bad news’ descended from the canopy above—in the form of a large, furry shadow.

  Faster than a mackerel could say ‘and the bad news is’—and faster still than a deer could gallop to safety—the shadow engulfed the deer in its entirety. There came a brief cacophony of gnashing teeth, tearing flesh, and strangled, terrified yelps—then the forest quieted again.

  Just like that, the dainty doe deer was gone. In its place stood—nay, crouched—an abomination of slavering jaws, bloodied fur, and bulbous muscles.

  The thing was huge and imposing, yet it also had a strangely ‘liquid’ appearance—like its muscles could burst, its fur could melt away, and even its jaws could fall apart at any moment. In short, it looked like a wolf that couldn’t decide if it wanted to be body or spirit before coming into the world. Regardless, Pathsight recognized it as a legitimate target for smiting: [Ulvknall].

  Serac postponed her grief for the deer and unholstered REVOLVER, ready and eager to get back into the swing of things after her short ‘vacation’. But that was when a loud, animalistic growl filled her senses—issued not from the wolf-like Aberrant, but from Zacko, who flung himself into the clearing with unbridled vigor.

  Wow, hungry Zacko knows none of his usual restraints! As much as her partner’s blind charge had startled her, Serac took it as the learning opportunity it was. How will this Ulvknall react to a front-on assault? Sidestep? Block? Some kind of counterattack?

  The answer was none of the above. For just as a NINEFOLD master entered its line of sight, the Ulvknall dug itself lower into the ground, before flicking a bulbous paw and its sharpened claws toward the sky.

  The ground at the Ulvknall’s feet exploded, sending up conal sprays of dirt, grass, and muddied water. Hungry Zacko took the full brunt of the elemental shower, which forced him to brake mid-charge and cover his face.

  “Ptoop! Thpfft!” Zacko spat out mouthfuls of dirt, as tears streamed from his tightly shut eyes. “Pocket sand? Are you for real right now?”

  “Watch out!”

  Serac shouted a warning, as the Ulvknall’s shadow emerged from the remnants of its ‘pocket sand’. It now rose to its full height, puffing out its blood-soaked chest and bearing all of its claws as it engulfed its latest prey.

  Serac acted first, because she saw that Zacko couldn’t. She shot from the hip, leaning into a self-taught technique she was starting to trust more and more. The unimbued bullet failed to hit the mark, but it didn’t need to. For its flight—and the threat it carried in the form of ‘ripples’—had made the Ulvknall check its attack.

  That was all the delay Zacko needed to get back in the fight. Eyes still red and streaming, he nevertheless settled himself into a wide, stable stance, from which he unleashed his trademark high-DPS Dao: [Cestus].

  The NINEFOLD master’s fist buried itself into the tuft upon the Ulvknall’s chest. The ensuing impact produced an oddly muffled sound—almost as if the combatants were submerged in water. Zacko looked visibly put off by the lack of feedback, but that didn’t stop him from following through with his combo: [Fan] under the chin, then [Cudgel] to knock the beast back down to earth.

  Poise-break! The whole forest shook as the Ulvknall’s towering frame dropped to the floor. It’d gone back into its crouching position, but now absent any menace, as it could only wait to receive its smiting blow. Zacko promptly raised his fist to oblige the beast.

  “Wait!” Serac shouted again, then flinched as her partner spun towards her with wild-eyed rage. “Sorry! It’s just that I happen to be on Chamber Two right now, and I really want to try out my new spell!”

  Zacko let out the snarl of an animal denied its kill. Despite it all, he held his fist in check and jerked his head towards the beast at his feet, as if to say: hurry the fuck up!

  Serac didn’t need to be told twice. She took the briefest of Ksanas to attune to her own [Hunger], concentrating on its desperate, obsessive, and almost zealous energy as she squeezed the trigger.

  [Chamber Two: HARVEST]

  [196!]

  [ULVKNALL Status Effect: EARMARKED]

  REVOLVER’s base AV, converted to Zealous damage, then reduced by half, then amplified again by the critical multiplier on a Poise-broken opponent. It was yet another instance where Serac was just happy to let Pathsight police its own math. This latest hit brought the Ulvknall’s beefy HP down to its last chunk.

  Serac also glanced at her Mana bar to check that it was still full. So, that’s how I opt to spend [Satiety] instead of MP, eh? Better get used to it so I can replicate it every time. Finally, she turned her attention back onto her partner, who’d been chomping at the bits to finish off his smite.

  “Okay, thanks, you can go ahead now!”

  Zacko’s impatient fist came down before Serac could even get her words out. The wolf monster first went limp, then began to dissolve into Souldust.

  [560 ?]

  Not too shabby for two bullets’ worth of work, one of which dealt half-damage and the other didn’t even find its mark. Yet, on this occasion, Serac was far more interested in the physical fruits of her labor.

  Sure enough, the cloud of Souldust lifted, leaving in its wake a ‘unique part’ of the Ulvknall for a gunslinger to harvest. As for trying to identify what it was… the exercise left Serac scratching her head.

  “Eugh,” she uttered her honest reaction to seeing the bloody, rubbery, fleshy blob that hovered in the air previously occupied by an Ulvknall. “What even is that?”

  “By Tyr’s jaws!” A colorful swear, courtesy of a mackerel man who suddenly jumped into the frame. Petter hovered over the hovering blob, waving his hands about like he didn’t know what to do with them. “That, Miss Serac, is Ulvknall liver. I’ve only seen it once in my life—and only from a fair distance, while standing on my dad’s shoulders. This’ll fetch a king’s ransom at the marketplace; I’d stake my life on it!”

  “Really?” Serac eyed this so-called treasure with more than passing skepticism, then turned her dubious gaze onto her even less remarkable six-shooter. “I knew I could count on REVOLVER to keep me safe, but I never thought it’d let me eat like a king, too!”

  “How about less chattering, more smiting?” Zacko cut in, his mood showing nary an improvement since his latest smite. He jerked his head again, this time towards the far end of the clearing, where more furry shadows emerged from the thicket. “However rare or valuable that thing is, looks like there’s more where it came from.”

  “Perfect!” Serac’s face split into a savage grin as she turned to face the mob. “I’ve been itching to test out my other new spell, too!”

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