JaceVAmor
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Chapter 187: Scorched Valley
🕑 Added 2024-01-22 16:11:01 +0000 UTCCoop was absolutely drenched in sweat. He shook his arms with his wrists loose in an effort to drip dry, but the movement barely had any effect. He gave up the futile effort with a sigh. The sweltering heat generated by Huracan’s abilities lingered in the valley even after the High Priest’s demise. The baked ground emanated heat like an oven was embedded below. It seemed as though it would take some time before the temperature returned to normal, but normal wasn’t particularly appetizing in Coop’s current state, considering the tropical heat that persisted in the region. Coop fanned himself as he beheld the aftermath of the battle and planned his next move.
The air in the valley was heavy. Fragments of ash drifted straight down from the sky without even a faint breeze to carry them through the valley. Long strips of black, melted stone were scattered throughout the rocky hills on each side. The hard-packed sand ground was scarred with sooty burn marks and the entire surface was broken with narrow cracks that were illuminated with deeper flames that continued to burn underneath.
He had to give credit to the Aeromancer class; it had access to some truly impressive magical firepower as the aftermath was almost entirely caused by the splash damage of the High Priest’s abilities rather than Coop’s Strength. When Coop imagined anyone else that could have as much of an impact on such a wide area, the only person who came to mind was Charlie.
Not too far away from his position in the scorched battlefield, the stepped pyramid still stood, marred with dark smudges on its stone surface. A few thousand years of weather had prepared it for a brief explosion of combat, leaving it hardly worse for wear despite the combatants’ firepower. All in all, the fight between Coop and the High Priest was hardly a blip in the ancient pyramid’s lifetime. Coop shook his head as he moved toward the foot of the building, stepping around foot-sized craters where the battle had begun.
Coop’s steps crunched on the incinerated sand as he strolled toward the pyramid. Without the blazing fires dotting the landscape, the darkness of night almost fully claimed the area. The ground had an almost imperceptible orange glow that prevented total darkness from taking over thanks to whatever was going on beneath the surface, and the facade of the old stone structure reflected the limited light from the stars, but the pyramid was, at best, still a solid shadow amidst the gloom. The doorway at the top had an almost inviting glow except that the warm color promised more uncomfortable heat.
Piles of dusty stone rubble were all that remained of the black spires at each corner of the structure, encircling perfectly formed holes that extended deep underground. They had been unnatural mana formations inextricably linked to the levels that Huracan had consumed in order to boost his power level, and now they were reduced to non salvageable wreckage. Coop felt as though they were essential components of whatever ritual the High Priest had been using to store mana until it was utilized for levels. They appeared to have been connected directly to each other, intertwined with the foundation underneath the pyramid as if they were strange growths leaching from the main structure.
It seemed pretty clear that the High Priestess of the Butterfly Cave was employing her mushroom monster for the same job, and Coop remembered the reports from Ghost Reef that the Envoy had held an artifact around his neck before he enjoyed his boost in levels. Coop probably wasn’t the man for the job when it came to deciphering the exact mechanisms that were being developed by the Cult of Chakyum, but from his unsophisticated perspective, it just seemed like they were storing experience for later use.
His main question was simple. Why? If they were going to go through the trouble of gathering experience, shouldn’t they just consume it? That’s what he would do. Coop’s main issue with the Cult was with how they were gathering the experience, but it still seemed strange to him that none of them seemed like they were in any particular hurry to tap into the power that they accumulated.
The only thing he could think of was the warning that Shane’s party had levied on Coop when it came to triggering more settlement events. Maybe they were avoiding specific level thresholds, but if that had been the case, the Mushroom King would have broken through, and Huracan hadn’t hesitated particularly long before accessing his entire store of power.
“That’s probably not it.” Coop muttered to himself, frowning as he half-heartedly struggled to come up with a reasonable explanation.
Coop shrugged as he reached the bottom step of the pyramid, not overly burdening his mind with speculating the motivations of people that at least straddled the line of insanity. He figured the real answer would probably be something simple enough to be easily overlooked, like maybe they were simply sandbagging. It would be a slight twist of irony if the strategy that the profession masters of Corozal had applied to stay out of the Cult’s crosshairs was also being employed by the Cult itself. Coop wasn’t someone to look down upon being underestimated. That was essentially the secret ingredient that his passive skills generated when levels were the public facing information that everyone used as a baseline.
Maybe there would be answers at the top of the pyramid. He rather hopefully wondered if he would find some clues to indicate how to find Chakyum as well. At the moment, the plan was for him to work his way closer to the Yucatan settlement, eliminating any Priests and High Priests along the way, but anything that provided more clarity for his enigmatic main target would be welcomed. Unfortunately, Huracan didn’t seem like the type of guy to take detailed notes or maintain proper correspondence with his colleagues, so Coop doubted he would find anything of note. Of course, he’d take a look anyway.
The steps of the pyramid were worn to the point of smoothness, making them feel slightly unsafe. They were also abnormally large, forcing him to take a few steps across before lunging onto the next step. It was like the original architects were ten feet tall, or the pyramid wasn’t meant for people in the first place. He supposed it really was a monument to the gods.
With each step, the temperature was notably cooler. The remaining heat seemed to be emanating from the sand as it dissipated in the night air. By the time he reached the top, he was ready to revise his assessment of the tropical climate. The temperature wasn’t uncomfortable. In fact, the air outside of the valley was actually refreshing, demonstrating a similar effect to walking out of a sauna. He took a deep breath, enjoying the moderate temperature before stepping inside of what had seemed like the gate to Hell.
Instead of horrors, he found himself standing inside of a small room that would have been best used as a modest shrine. The interior walls displayed simple patterns outlined with ancient paints. In the center, there was a small flame, hardly stronger than a single candle, glowing inside of another black stone brazier. It had been carefully tended, elevated above a pit that was dug within the temple at the top of the pyramid. Against the opposite wall was a black metal throne. Coop scoffed at the image of Huracan sitting around, tending to the flame. The man hadn’t seemed like the type to thoughtfully meditate in isolation. Coop peeked into the pit and after struggling with the dim light, realized the pyramid was completely full of ashes, like a giant urn. Charred bones occasionally poked through the piles, but Coop was immediately disgusted with what the pyramid had been filled with.
He snuffed the flame out, ready to destroy whatever the High Priest had built, and when the light went out an inhuman, spectral screech filled the tiny temple, escaping from the open threshold into the night. The sound echoed across the valley and over the savannah, and for a brief moment Coop readied himself for another fight with something infinitely more spiteful than the Cult of Chakyum. The strange energy that he had felt when he entered the High Priest’s territory had grown exponentially stronger before finally dissipating. The buzzing hadn’t been a result of Huracan’s power, but had been emanated from the cultivated flame itself. The High Priest had been dabbling in some strange power with all the mana he had gathered.
In the darkness, Coop thought he could see shadowy forms escaping into the sky. It would have been something he dismissed out of hand if he had not seen something similar when he defeated the Envoy of Chakyum. Once they were gone, the uncomfortable sensation that swept across the savannah seemingly disappeared completely, returning the area to normal. Coop breathed a sigh of relief that he hadn’t accidentally triggered another boss battle. But a fleeting thought struck him, and on a whim, he checked the leaderboard, concerned that he might be empowering Chakyum each time he defeated one of his priests. The High Priests kept reminding him that the guy was supposed to be the literal incarnation of death, after all. If that was the case, why wouldn’t they join him in death?
Day 87
1. Coop (Level 177)
2. Hai Yun (Level 120)
3. Reina Kitawa (Level 119)
4. Akari Kitawa (Level 119)
5. Charlie Seraphin (Level 115)
6. Camila Alvarez (Level 115)
7. Ix-Hau (Level 112)
8. Banshee (Level 111)
9. Platinum (Level 109)
10. Alex Nova (Level 107)
The leaderboard was back to normal. There was no sign of the secretive leader suddenly exploding with levels. Ix-Hau maintained his spot near the top, but the rest of the names seemed to be from representatives of other forces. The Cult of Chakyum might have been capable of taking over the leaderboard again, with its Priests scattered throughout the region, sitting on enormous fonts of experience, but for now, they seemed content to continue as they were.
Coop checked his skill options while he remained inside the pyramid. He leaned against the edge of the doorway as he shifted his focus to the system notifications. It had been a long time since he had a proper skill selection where he wasn’t sure what he would take. The last few options had been the final pieces of the frame he had begun at the start. The skills hadn’t required much consideration beyond deciding what order he would grab them.
In the past, he remembered desperately seeking options to fill gaps in his build. However, at this point in his progression, he felt like his build was in really good shape. The specific deficiencies he had been fighting to exceed were hardly worth lingering on. The gaps that he had felt in the beginning had diminished by the sheer force of his stats. His personal firepower, for example, was well-beyond what he had hoped for, with the additional flexibility in stats provided by Mindbender and the multipliers that phantasms represented. Then there was his lacking area damage skills, but they could easily be covered by the phantasms or hidden by his Fog of War. His mobility skill wasn’t exactly available on demand, but mistjumps were more than enough for him to match up with the best examples he had seen elsewhere. Huracan had been able to literally fly like a superhero with bursts of superheated wind, and yet Coop believed he would have been able to win in a race against the High Priest just by throwing his spear and teleporting. Coop’s defenses were more than adequate, especially against magic damage, and his durability was beyond reason, especially after topping it off with the siege event reward. Finally, his combat endurance had most recently been boosted with the Devourer title being consumed by his Reaper title, increasing the bonus recovery upon defeating enemies all the way to 10% of their resources.
But Coop was burying the lede. When it came to his skills there was one that he had been keeping in his back pocket. His most recent skill upgrade, Inheritance of the Mists, was a trump card that he hadn’t been forced to break out. The skill itself had almost infinite potential. The scaling was based off of his stats, but the actual details depended on the apparition that appeared. The first apparition had been a lighting lord that insatiably consumed his mana like a man dying of thirst with absolutely no regard for its host.
Due to his first experience with Inheritance, he had a weird feeling toward the skill. On the one hand, it was ridiculously powerful, to the point that it would be perfect for overwhelming his opponents with the sheer force it could present. The problem was that it was unpredictable. It was possible that the apparition wouldn’t be an offensive multiplier when he needed it to be, and the consequences for using the skill were severe. The first apparition had only left him after draining both his mana and health down to their limits. The thing had essentially threatened Coop before leaving him as if he was an inadequate vessel that needed to be strengthened before he could properly wield the power granted by the skill.
With all of that in mind, Coop wanted to reinforce his baseline combat abilities even further. Inheritance would remain his trump card, but his focus would be on becoming strong enough to deal with any issues that arose, even without ace skills. He needed to reinforce himself before he would be capable of utilizing the skill anyway. Not to mention that his original strategy had been to concentrate on raising his baseline and avoiding power spikes so that he would always be at his peak potential rather than relying on cooldowns and the limitations they created.
There was always room in his build to add more utility and if he had to pick a weakness, it was still in his in-combat recovery. His Reaper title contributed an incredible amount to his overall sustainability, but it could only kick in when he had enemies to defeat. A one-on-one battle, like the one he just had with Huracan, was where he would have benefited if he had more ways to either recover his resources, or alternatively, ways to negate resource consumption in the first place.
At this point, his skill options were reduced to six. It seemed like the Path of the Mistwalker had only just begun, and yet he was closing in on the end. Assuming it operated in the same way as the base Revenant skill choices, the final choice between three would be the skills with path offerings. If it was the same, Coop would be selecting another path at the next level threshold, which was less than 25 levels away.
“So soon.” He mumbled to himself.
He turned his focus to some of the skills he had been offered. A few of the previous skills that had nabbed his attention when he first viewed them were available again, including Brocken Spectre, Vaporform, and Infusion, though all of them had been less appealing than upgrading his Retribution and Salvation abilities at the time. The foggy ghost punch ability, Brocken Spectre, was the first of the returning skills. It could add to his individual firepower, but he thought it was the least appetizing contender. Then there was the pair of mist skills, Vaporform and Infusion, that Coop had a better appreciation for selecting, given the system’s inclination for ability mergers. He further justified his interest because he was walking the Path of the Mistwalker; of course he should be taking the mist skills. He was entering the final stages of the path before he would be starting a new one, so it was his last chance to double down.
The first of the two mist skills was Infusion. Wounds that he received while under the effects of the skill would have their damage, and any other negative effects, temporarily prevented by a protective mist. The ability relied on an internal reservoir that Coop believed would actually be based on his mana. His experience with the apparition had clued him in on the idea that his health could be depleted in favor of mana, so why not vice versa? If that was the case, he thought it would be another ability that scaled into insanity with Coop’s passive stat scaling, adding another layer of defense that was similar to the damage conversion of Mind Over Matter.
The other was the ability called Vaporform. This one didn’t have the same potential for being exaggerated by his stack of attributes, but it still sounded like a powerful addition to his build. When the skill was activated, he would become incorporeal. Simple. To Coop, it sounded like a toggleable ability that he could easily integrate into his current bag of tricks, and more importantly, didn’t seem to add to the pressures he was placing on his resources.
While Coop wasn’t dying to push his build in any particular direction at the moment, he felt like Vaporform offered the most bang for his buck. He had previously identified his in-combat recovery as his most glaring weakness, and to his mind, Vaporform would add a way for him to negate damage which in turn would reduce pressure on his mana pool rather than add to them.
He scratched his chin and reviewed the rest of the options for a second time, but of the six, the other three just didn’t fit into his vision for his build.
Brocken Spectre would have worked best if he had never taken Retribution, which granted him the ability to conjure his weapons. As it stood, Coop thought the two skills would overlap in their roles. Brocken Spectre would have enabled a proper monk-like brawler that duked it out with his opponents with combined physical and magical melee attacks, diversifying his damage and multiplying his potency in ways that he had already covered in his current build. While it could still be used with the skills he had already taken; there had been more than one occasion where it would have been a neat trick to reveal in the middle of the fight, it certainly wasn’t playing to his Revenant base strengths. Maybe Huracan would have been defeated after Coop’s first right hook counter attack if it had been followed up with a magical fist of fog, but in the end Coop relied on his flexible weapons rather than his knuckles.
Infusion was an ability that he would welcome, something akin to a security blanket on top of his layered defenses, and it was also something that would prevent his combat capacity from being diminished in longer skirmishes. If he and an opponent had the capacity to chip away at each other, Coop would be the one who remained undiminished through injury. Adding Infusion would make Coop a truly undying brawler. But, he was leaning toward Vaporform as it would help him prevent damage rather than power through it.
Coop would be happy if either Brocken Spectre or Infusion appeared among his path choices. If he tried to imagine what potential builds they would lead into, he found himself happy with either route. Both leaned into his skirmish focused personal combat style, albeit in slightly different fashions: the first giving him a potential finisher, and the second a kind of stamina boost that would keep his engine going at its maximum no matter his state. Putting aside the future choices, but banking on either of the two, he selected Vaporform and accepted the skill for his current choice.
“Lose yourself. Find yourself.”
Comments
Amadhe
I like Vaporform. Infusion was interesting too. Ultimately, I think I personally would’ve picked Infusion and then Vaporform later, but that’s just a me thing. Both are good. (Insert meme from Road to El Dorado)
Samuel Lévesque
The skill selection was very confusing. You really should list out the choices. We're not gonna go back and reread old chapters to remember what was what.
