"Next?" I said, standing over the shattered fragments of the bandit's warhammer. The rest stared on, several of them looking over to the hole in the snow where their now unconscious comrade was lying.
YOU HAVE DEFEATED - HUMAN BARBARIAN
SKILL LEVELED UP - PSYCHOKINESIS LVL 2
It had been a while, but the notification of a skill levelling up was welcome. It spread a smile over my face that I wasn't fully able to cover up, some of the bandits flinched when they looked my way.
"Oh, you're so dead," the woman who had threatened me before shook her head as if disappointed. "Get him!" She yelled.
All at once, the bandits charged, shrinking the semi-circle around me that they had created. Two stayed back, clearly the casters of the group with wooden staffs. It had been a while since I had engaged in a melee brawl with anyone, and I wondered how easy this would be.
Then, as if slicing through my introspection, the first blow came. A thin bandit man to my right cut towards me in a horizontal slash with his curved sword. The blade hissed through the air and his entire form glowed with a kind of blue light. Somehow he had made it to me well before any of his fellows had.
I ducked, letting my agility stat slow and speed up time as instinct demanded. His blade cut through the air above me and I flicked my right hand up, briefly touching the flat of the blade.
He stepped back, levelling the blade towards me, as if to jab, when he finally noticed that the blade had crumbled away to dust. He looked down in shock, but my attention was wrenched away when one of the two spellcasters had managed to finish chanting their spell. A blast of lightning lashed out from the tip of the caster's staff, surrounded by concentric rings of arcane writing. I straightened and held out my right hand.
the lightning collided with my bare palm and I activated my Spell Conversion skill. The lightning vanished, though to my view it had turned into motes of mana. With my other hand, I twisted the newly formed mana into the same spell that caster had just used and sent a bolt of lightning of my own out. The magical discharge launched that caster backwards and the other stared back in disbelief, it wasn't everyday you see someone catch a lightning bolt.
My attention was pulled back to the melee as a broad sword was swung towards me, its wielder glowing faintly green as they dashed.
I moved my left hand towards them and sent a gout of Lord Flame out, the pure crimson fire roared through the air, melting even the snow that it didn't touch. The bandit wielding the broad sword dodged sideways and chanted something as they approached. There was a slight drift of mana towards them before they levelled their sword at me.
I blinked, and the attacker was immediately infront of me, having covered the distance faster than even my agility could see. With dread, and a growing pain in my stomach, I looked down to where their sword was. It was buried up to the hilt in my chest.
An excruciating pain blossomed out from my chest as I glared at the bandit, who met my stare with a levelled intensity. I reached down and placed a hand on their sword, the weapon instantly turned to dust that reduced itself to less than that. I could already feel my regeneration closing up the wound, but that didn't stop the taste of blood in my mouth or the anger I was feeling. I clearly didn't know enough of martial classes, that lack of knowledge would've been my downfall had a been here near the beginning of my career.
I dropped low, striking out at the bandits chest with a double punch that sent them flying backwards into one of their companions. In the next moment, there was a hammer in my hands, pulled from my Storage as I stepped back and recuperated.
The bandits looked to be doing the same, as they helped one another up. My gaze was cast towards the spellcaster that I had struck with lightning as the other pressed their staff against their fellow's chest. To my surprise, where I expected to see a drift of mana towards them, a stream of golden light appeared just behind them, though I was still able to analyse the spell that came from this strange mana.
HEALING TOUCH
THE TARGET OF THIS SPELL HAS THEIR NATURAL REGENERATION INCREASED BY 100 FOLD FOR AS LONG AS THE USER MAINTAINS CONTACT WITH THE TARGET.
MANA COST - 1,000 PER SECOND
It was a healing spell, the first that I'd actually seen. It occurred to me that this was the first time I'd actually seen a faith job use its spells.
As the bandits around me stood, recuperating, I stared in awe at the new mana which flowed through the caster healing his fellow. I reached out, with my right hand, and tried to take a hold of the mana.
SKILL CANCELLED AUTHORITY OF -YOLEN- LESS THAN HULGROM
With the info screen, I felt my skill rebound, and on instinct, I opened the caster's status. Their name was Hyatt Westleigh, a Cleric.
What was Hulgrom, and what did this authority mean? Suddenly, this fight was no longer about skills, but again I was after information.
From my left, an arrow whistled through the air. I snatched it and made it crumble to dust before I pulled together some mana and sent a blast of concussive force over to the archer. As the invisible wave of energy smashed into the archer, two of the bandits sprinted at me from either side. One hefted a mace and shield, the other had a long glaive. Both had a strange aura about them as they moved, one formed from green energy, and the other from purple crackling lightning. They both struck at the same time.
Whatever their Mastery skill in their weapons, neither were as advanced as myself in hand-to-hand.
The glaive, I sidestepped, lightly pushing the blade to the side. The mace, I guided with the ball of my heel as I dodged. The two weapons collided in the space I had occupied a moment before. The mace clashed against the flat of the glaive, but neither weapon broke. Instead, they rebounded, the owner of the glaive, spun the weapon, so it's deadly blade was angled towards me.
I dropped, purposefully sliding my feet out from under myself and lying flat on the ground as the glaive sped overhead. I slammed my elbows into the ground, launching myself into the air about ten feet. There, I righted myself and unleashed a wave of paralytic magic towards the bandits, I poured thousands of points of mana into the single spell, so when it hit, the effects were immediate. The purple energy of the spell flashed as it hit the bandits surrounding me, and I was flooded with messages.
YOU HAVE DEFEATED - HUMAN RANGER
YOU HAVE DEFEATED - HUMAN FIGHTER
YOU HAVE DEFEATED - HUMAN DUALIST
YOU HAVE DEFEATED - HUMAN ELEMENTALIST
YOU HAVE DEFEATED - HUMAN SAMURAI
YOU HAVE DEFEATED - HUMAN FIGHTER
The only one left was the Cleric.
I turned to the lone bandit, as his fellows dropped, paralysed, into the snow. He stood, almost hopping from one foot to the next, and leveled his staff towards me.
Those same gold ribbons of mana began to gather in the air about the Cleric, they began to flow through him and I detected the intent of the spell.
GOLDEN BOLT
THS USER FIRES A BOLT OF HOLY ENERGY TOWARS THEIR TARGET. A BOLT THAT HITS ITS TARGET ALLOWS ATTACKS AGAINST THAT TARGET TO INFLICT TWICE AS MUCH DAMAGE. THIS EFFECT IS NOT ABLE TO BE STACKED.
MANA COST - 2500
As the Cleric finished his chant, rings of golden arcane script appeared around his staff before a streak of golden light fired from it. I lifted Mjolnir and threw it straight at the bolt, simultaneously activating Deep Traversal. The world was swallowed by darkness as I emerged from the Cleric's own shadow, just behind him.
He just managed to sidestep Mjolnir as it smashed through his spell, and landed in my hand. The Cleric further jumped as he noticed how close I was, but he was too slow. I brought Mjolnir down with deadly speed, smashing his wooden staff as I lunged forwards and lifted him with one hand by the neck.
Dread filled the man's eyes as I glared at him.
"What is Hulgrom?" I demanded.
"What?" The man choked.
"Hulgrom, what is it? Answer me and I'll spare you and your friends lives."
"He's a God," the man spluttered, "God of War and Battle."
Gods, of course. This was a fantasy world, there had to be real gods if there were faith casters, that's where they would get their powers from.
"This, Hulgrom, what is he to you?"
"My god, I'm one of his clerics." The bandit frantically scratched at his collar and managed to pull out a pendant with a carved symbol on the end. The symbol was of a buckler shield with two spears crossed in front of it. I was smart enough to figure out that this was the God's symbol.
"Thanks," I said, before hitting the Cleric with a paralyse spell. The man flashed violet, and his muscles seized up.
YOU HAVE DEFEATED - HUMAN CLERIC
I dropped the man to the snow, and attempted to catch my bearings. The snowstorm, appeared to have calmed down a bit and I could see around a hundred metres through the snow fall. To what I assumed to be my west, just as the valley started to climb upwards, was a cave.
Whoever's cave that was, I would've bet money on it being the bandit's. So, I strode straight towards it, stepping over the unconscious body of the Barbarian that I first hit as the snow melted from my proximity.
The cave's entrance was wide, around ten feet high, and twice as wide. With my ability to see perfectly in the dark, I could see that the cave wound to the left. After following the curve, the cave widened out partially, but the walls took on a glassy look to them, smooth and reflective. With the help of my intelligence stat, the reason for the sudden change came swiftly. At the corners of the cave, lay huge lumps of rock, shaped almost like piles of mud. Molten slag, my mind told me, the walls themselves were black obsidian glass, clear evidence that the cave was magic-made. Most likely it was the bandit elementalist that had launched that lightning bolt at me before.
This cave was their main haunt then, even I could tell that the air was noticeably warmer in here, thanks to a temporary enchantment that hung in the air, like the permanent one that was embedded in my cloak. In the walls were little coves melted out where bedrolls were set up, and there was a cooking pit in the centre. In the corners of the cave, were piles of loot and chests, mostly gold and other valuables, but some equipment and weapons were visable as well.
What took my attention mostly, was the cage to the far end of the cave. It was, like the cave walls, formed from a dark obsidian that glistened in what little light drifted in from the curving cave behind me. Within that cage, looking around in what would be pitch darkness to her, was a woman.