Mage Tank

Chapter 117: Delayed Evolutions

“But, before I decide anything, tell me more about the Delve,” Sakra said. “Where is it?”

“It’s on the other side of the continent,” I said, trying to sound casual. “Between south Timagrin and Davah.”

“In the ocean?”

“Yes.”

“It’s on the seafloor,” said Nuralie.

“I don’t think we’ve confirmed that,” I said.

“There’s nothing else there,” said Nuralie. “No islands. The waters have been well traveled.”

“We don’t know that for sure.”

“It’s called Saekongr’s Crevice, Arlo,” said Xim. “Not only is it at the bottom of the sea, it’s probably even deeper. It may be inside of a crevice, for example.”

Xim sighed in exasperation.

“C’mon, are you guys even trying to be persuasive?”

“Why does it need to be me?” asked Sakra.

“These Delves are extremely difficult,” I said. “From what we can tell, they only allow the best parties inside, and none have ever returned.”

“Except for God-King Ayamari,” said Sakra. “Who you say defeated the one that’s level 30 and above, and who is supposed to be the most powerful creature on the planet.”

“That’s our theory, at least. Also, Ayamari’s status as the strongest is unclear since the avatars appeared.”

“Do you know how long the Delve should take?”

“We do not,” I said. “Are there any Delves that take longer than a week, though?”

“The Mimic Delve had no time limit,” said Varrin. “It’s possible that we could have spent longer inside.”

“Sure, but it only took as long as it did because we were careful. Even then, it was just a few days.”

“Your concept of ‘careful’ is questionable,” said Nuralie.

“What kind of Delve is it?” Sakra asked. “Know what’s inside?”

“No idea,” I answered.

“The name usually gives a hint. Who is Saekongr?”

“Good question. We should look that up.”

“Umi-Doo made no comment on the name,” said Varrin. “And I could find no information about who Saekongr was during our time off.”

“It may not even be a person,” Nuralie added.

“If the entrance is underwater,” said Sakra, “the entire Delve might be submerged. That would make many of my abilities difficult to use.”

Deijin was the Eschen god of the sky, so the concern made sense.

“There’s oxygen in water,” I said. “Hydrogen as well.”

“What?” said Xim.

“They’re both gases when they aren’t bonded.”

“Sky is a concept,” said Nuralie. “It is not as simple as an elemental composition.”

“And everyone who has entered has died?” asked Sakra.

“Not that many have gone in,” I said. “Also, no one knows for sure what happens to people who get trapped inside of a Delve like that.”

[They perish,] Grotto thought to us.

“Is that true every time, though?”

[If they are trapped, yes.]

“Well, mystery solved.”

“It wasn’t a mystery,” said Varrin.

“Your request is that I abandon my post as one of the three pillars of Eschendur while we are being invaded by a hostile nation,” said Sakra. “So that I can travel halfway across the known world, dive to the bottom of the ocean, and single-handedly take on a Delve for anyone level 10 and up. A Delve that has killed everyone who has ever entered.

She took a breath.

“The reason I’d be doing this is so that the Delvers of the world will receive unknown benefits to use against the ambiguous threat posed by these avatars, which have so far not had any impact on my country.”

“We have some evidence that Orexis tried to inflame the hostilities between Eschendur and Litta,” I said, grasping at a bit of intel Umi-Doo had shared with us long ago. “I also wouldn’t say that the avatar threat is ambiguous.”

“What are the avatars trying to accomplish?” asked Sakra. “Why are they trying to accomplish it? How long do we have until they do? Where will they strike next? Who leads them?”

The questions hung in the air, and I felt like we’d shown up to a test that we hadn’t studied for.

“Sakra,” said Nuralie. “The avatars may not have encroached on Eschendur yet, but whenever they have risen in the past, they decimate all of society.” Pause. “You have said that the Zenithars will not fight the Littans directly. Zenithars Zula and Dal are more involved with the leadership of the monasteries, aside from Skyharbor. The brief loss of your leadership will certainly be felt, but the war effort will function in your absence, will it not?”

“We got about sixty seconds left on the Eschengal portal,” I said.

“You speak as though you know our inner workings, child,” said Sakra, her carefree demeanor dropping. “You do not. While I appreciate your plight, this is not a matter that I can decide alone. The avatars are distant, while the Littans are within our borders.

“I will discuss these matters with the other Zenithars, and we will decide my course in our roles as Triarchs of this nation.” A gust of wind took her outside of the Closet, her fellow Deijinon having already left. “Until then, may the winds be at your backs, and the skies above you clear.” She took a breath, her body language becoming relaxed again as she gave us a smile. “Good luck!” She waved at us as the portal collapsed inward. “Don’t die!”

The portal blinked and disappeared, leaving me staring at a wall.

“Could have gone better,” I said.

“Could have gone much worse,” said Varrin.

“Eh, I think she wants to do it,” said Xim. “She just needs to deal with the Littans first.”

“There are many demands on the Zenithars,” said Nuralie. “There is a reason she stopped Delving at level 15. Her time is precious.”

“I hope she comes around before Eschendur faces a tragedy like Timagrin,” said Varrin.

“Or before the avatars target the Zenithars themselves,” said Nuralie. “They are a significant power in the world.”

I sighed, then picked up one of the blankets Nuralie had dumped on the ground.

“No time to be gloomy,” I said, holding some of the cloth up to my chest. “Anyone here pick up Tailoring recently?”

*****

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We set out from Nuralie’s village after securing the pauper’s camo to my body with rope, belts, and sashes. I kept my armor on beneath since I wouldn’t be moving much while Shog carried me, reducing the chance of the plates clink-clanking.

Nuralie took the lead with Grotto on her shoulder, while everyone else stayed inside the Closet. They would take the time to work on their skills but were ready to come out at a moment’s notice if there was trouble.

I didn’t have much to do. My mobility was limited while wrapped tightly in Shog’s embrace, and it wasn’t like I could practice any flashy spells. We were taking a slightly circuitous route northwest intending to outpace the legion before turning directly north to make our way to the Delve near the country’s center. That would give us at least twenty hours of travel, so I had time to burn.

I decided to finalize a couple of build decisions I’d been putting off while keeping my Soul-Sight up and my eyes peeled. I had evolutions available for both Heavy Armor and Shields but had procrastinated committing to anything since I wasn’t confident in what my build needed. Between my near-death experiences with Yaretzi and the Littan sniper, survivability was beginning to become an issue, so I felt that I couldn’t put it off any longer.

I had a level 20 evolution for Shields and a level 10 evolution for Heavy Armor. Level 10 was a less significant evolution, so I focused on Heavy Armor first.

The initial option might have been helpful with our current stealth problems, but I doubted that it would have made a difference with the sniper.

1) Lightweight Alloys: Heavy armor you wear becomes light as a feather and no longer affects your movement or mobility. Additionally, any sound made by your armor is substantially reduced.

It was a decent buff for anyone who wanted to focus on heavy armor while having a relatively low Strength score. While the Madrin plate I normally wore wasn’t as heavy as frozen steel or dark iron, it was still heavier than regular steel. I’d be lying if I said it didn’t weigh me down. It hadn’t had too big of an impact on my combat mobility, since I could use Shortcut for positioning. Still, that tactic would become unavailable if I used the reforged Reckless Shortcut for a big teleport and put the skill on cooldown. The extra speed and easier time dodging would surely be helpful.

As far as the stealth component, I didn’t really care. Being able to move while undetected was an advantage, but it wasn’t something I was ever planning to focus on. In most circumstances, I wanted to be seen and heard. Our current situation was a rare exception, and I felt that using an Evolution for such a circumstance would be a waste. Besides, it’s not like the sniper heard me from over a mile away. He just saw my beautiful face and sought to destroy it out of jealousy.

2) Resilient Alloys: Choose 1 class of damage from the following choices. You receive 1 point of damage reduction against that class for each level of Heavy Armor.

• Physical

• Spiritual

• Divine

• Mystical

• Dimensional

After having spent a long time considering my weaknesses, I thought that this option was more in line with what I needed. At first, I wondered whether I required more pure defense. I had a massive health pool and incredible regen, which already made me a tough cookie to crack. However, my mitigation was trash.

High health was pointless if an enemy could carve you up with a butter knife. If I protected my health pool, each point of health would become more valuable, since it took more effort from the enemy to eliminate it. Having a substantial amount of flat DR would also make me invulnerable against weaker enemies and attacks, removing the threat of death by a thousand cuts.

The problem was deciding what class of damage to select. Physical damage was the majority of what I ran into, even in Delves. Kinetic damage such as slashing, pierce, and blunt were Physical but were already being mitigated by my armor, shield, and good old-fashioned dodging. Elemental damage like lightning, fire, and acid were also physical damage types that bypassed some of my traditional defenses. Metal armor didn’t help much against a lightning bolt, for example.

Doubling down on Physical would significantly improve my defense against common magic types while also making it more difficult to harm me with normal weaponry. However, Physical was the easiest defense to improve, whereas the other damage classes were more difficult to get flat reduction against. Normal armor did nothing against the other classes unless it had specific weaves.

Like Physical damage resistance–which benefited from Speed, Agility, and Fortitude–different attributes helped against the other damage types as well. Wisdom granted resistance to Spiritual damage and Fortitude granted resistance to Dimensional. I was already focused on those attributes, so I was already building my defenses there. Mystical had no attribute-based defense, but Mystical was also the school with the least offensive options, so it wasn’t as big of a problem to defend against with specialized items.

Divine resistance, on the other hand, was governed by the accursed Luck. Luck was my weakest stat, and I had no plans of putting any points there if I could avoid it. Its bonuses were nebulous and unpredictable, and I still had training stats that could shore it up another handful of points. I had no idea how to train it, aside from crossing paths with deific entities that could destroy us on a whim, but putting points there before it hit 10 still felt like a waste. The min-maxer in me couldn’t tolerate the idea.

Divine was also something the party was consistently running into and would likely continue to run into. Tavio had used Divine skills, Yaretzi had used Divine skills, and another member of that party, Gharifon, was in contact with at least one avatar. He probably had Divine skills coming out of his butt.

Speaking of avatars, they were all Divine in nature, and the heavens knew that we were on the shit list of a couple of those folks. Further, the level 30+ Delve allegedly closed by Ayamari was replaced with a stone monument covered in Celestial text once it’d been beaten. Celestial was the language of the Divine. The Delve we were about to crash was a sister Delve to that one, and it even had a damn god in its name: Deijin. I’d bet my left nut that it had all sorts of Divine crap inside.

Maybe that wouldn’t be a very serious bet, since it would grow back, but it would still be a symbolic gesture of my conviction.

What I’m getting at is that Divine would probably be the best class of damage to choose since it was one of my lowest defenses, it was difficult to find sources of resistance, and we were walking a path that would probably result in a variety of entities trying to smite the crap out of us.

It seemed like an easy choice, but the third evolution option was very tempting, and the main reason that I’d spent so long deliberating.

3) Receptive Alloys: Choose one piece of heavy armor you have equipped. Increase the potency of all mana weaves on that item by 1% for each level of Heavy Armor. This effect can be swapped to a different piece of heavy armor once per day with one minute of concentration.

This option was the most versatile. The variety of weaves available for armor was endless. At Heavy Armor 100, I could double the strength of the weave. By the time I’d made it to that level, I would probably have access to some damn strong weaves as well, making this evolution even more effective. Plus, I could swap it around depending on what I ran into or what other evolutions I eventually chose.

However, it was kind of bad for me at the moment. I didn’t have any heavy armor with good weaves. It was possible that this evolution would be the strongest choice at high level, but it was probably the worst of the three options with my current setup.

I decided to stick with the philosophy of picking something that would help me survive right now, and that would remain useful at a higher level. I bit the bullet and picked the second option, granting myself flat DR to Divine damage that would grow with my Heavy Armor skill. It was only 13 points of DR right now, but Heavy Armor would be easy to train up to 20 and would keep advancing as I kept taking hits. The only reason that it was so low is that I’d picked up the intrinsic a bit late.

With that decision made, I moved on to Shields.

1) Reactive Shielding: Whenever you block an attack, deal Force damage to the attacker equal to the level of your Shields skill.

Simple, easy, useful. The effect applied to any “attack”, which I believed meant that it would trigger even when hit from range or with a spell. The damage type was Force, which was Mystical damage and was therefore difficult to resist. It didn’t do much damage, but it was a passive bonus that might make an attacker think twice about blasting me with chip damage. It might even encourage them to drop their high-damage trump cards instead, which I was in the best position to absorb among the party. However, it didn’t do much in the way of making me an unkillable, spell-slinging meat wall, so it didn’t get me excited.

2) Dynamic Immunity: Choose one of the following status effects. A blocked attack cannot apply that status. You may select a different effect once per day with one minute of concentration.

• Stun

• Bleeding

• Fear

• Weakness

• Paralysis

• All sensory debuffs, such as Blindness or Deafness

• Toxicity

• Silence

• Berserk

• Fatigue

• Ignited

• Immobilized

• Mesmerized

• Paranoia

• Psychosis

• Slow

When I first saw this list, I hadn’t even been aware of several of the listed statuses. For example, Mesmerized was fairly rare but would cause the affected target to treat the effect’s source as an ally. It could completely change the course of a battle. The ability would also apply to any blocked attack, so it wouldn’t just work for me. It would also activate when I blocked for an ally, which I did fairly frequently with Gracorvus flying around the battlefield.

The problem with the ability was that it would work best if I knew ahead of time what statuses would be most common in the situation I was heading into. Some were fairly ubiquitous, like Stunned and Toxicity, so there were options that could be kept active as a general backup. Still, it was an evolution that might be completely useless half the time. It also didn’t help when the status came from something I didn’t–or couldn’t–block. It was very circumstantial, which wasn’t my style.

3) Spell Breaker: You may block any type of spell, reducing the damage by 5 plus an additional 1 per level of Shields. If the blocked spell is Physical, this DR is in addition to your normal block DR.

Broad-spectrum mitigation against casters. The evolution did not apply to magic, only to spells, but spells were a significant chunk of attacks. It would make me much tankier against Physical spells, and give me some protection against spells that normally bypassed armor. Most schools had something along those lines, but Spiritual and Dimensional were replete with spells that ignored general protective gear. Martial techniques wouldn’t be affected, but techniques that completely ignored armor were uncommon since they were usually layered onto physical attacks.

I’d hesitated on this choice primarily because I’d been considering how to buff my damage output based on guidance from Varrin and Xim. If I wasn’t a threat, enemies would just ignore me for softer targets. Reactive Shielding would add some damage to my build, but I decided that it wasn’t enough to justify bypassing a good defensive buff. I’d let my offensive intrinsics pick up the slack, and invest more into Intelligence to shore up any deficits. Somncres and Gravity Anchor had already done a lot to improve my fighting style anyway.

I picked Spell Breaker and felt the burden of indecision melt away. Unfortunately, I was immediately beset by new worries, as I spotted an impressive soul in the distance.

At first, I thought it was a powerful Littan Delver who was a league above any I’d seen thus far. But as I studied the soul, I began to think that wasn’t the case. The owner might be even more dangerous than a Littan powerhouse.

The soul was potent enough to place them somewhere in the mid-20s. That alone would make them dangerous, but the true threat was the number of Special Delves they’d completed. The soul was flooded with violet striations. It was a density I’d only ever seen within one other entity: The Mimic.