The Pinnacle Warrior

“The best way to recover is to just leave it alone,” Astrid said, shrugging helplessly.

“It burns like crazy,” Rebecca said, her face screwed up in pain.

“That’s why they’re called mana burns. I’m sure Skandr could say more about the specifics of the reason for the name, but it’s good enough for me to say that it burns. The problem is, because the damage itself is from the mana, you can’t heal it with Skills or potions.” As she explained it, Astrid leaned closer, looking at Rebecca’s hand. Her palm was patterned with angry purple veins, and Astrid knew just how painful it was to have them touched. “I tried to tell you not to do it.”

“I know,” Rebecca said, still obviously uncomfortable, but not at all unwilling to admit her own culpability in her current state. “You gave me every warning, and I walked into this with my eyes wide open. I just wanted to see if I could feel how heavy it was before I had to put it down. Obviously, that was a poor choice.”

“If it was from before it got upgraded recently,” Astrid said, picking up her echostone hammer and returning it to her personal equipment storage, “I don’t think you would’ve gotten burned. Unfortunately for you, it now gives about half of your total attributes, which just is too much for any real contact with it without actively endangering yourself.”

“What would happen if somebody who didn’t have a Class yet touched it?” Rebecca asked, staring at Astrid’s equipment. “What happens if a low Bronze tier tries to hold your hand or bumps into you on the street?”

“It depends on if I’m wearing it,” Astrid shrugged. “For lack of a better way to say it, equipment is ‘intelligent’ and knows if it’s being worn. In this case, anybody can touch my armor while I’m wearing it without any issue. Since it’s giving the attributes to me, all of its mana cycling is tied into me and won’t hurt anyone else. I could even hold a baby without endangering it. I wouldn’t do that, because it’s pretty stupid to allow the baby when you’re wearing full armor, but any danger that they were subjected to would be because I was an idiot to have been wearing armor and holding them.”

“You said this hammer gives you 300 bonus attribute points?” Rebecca asked, seeming to want to look at the hammer that had just burned her. “That seems unbelievable to me.”

“There’s plenty of reasons for why it gives so many attribute points,” Astrid shrugged with a laugh. “The biggest reason is that it doesn’t have any additional special parts to it. Like, it just hits things good. Then, with it being one of the few pieces of actually Mithril tier equipment that I’ve got, it just turns out that it gives a lot of attributes.”

“The way you say that sounds like you plan on being able to continue to replace your equipment for basically every level you get,” Rebecca said, staring at Astrid. “Isn’t a new piece of equipment something that the entire party saves up for to be able to afford?”

“Yes, but you make a lot of money delving. A good way to make sure that you continue making money and don’t die is to get newer, better equipment when you can. It’s a little bit more complicated than that as to why we have the equipment that we have right now, but there’s no need to get into the specifics of that.”

“If you have multiple pieces of equipment that give you that many attribute points, you must have an awesome Class, right? Like, two rares in a row?” Rebecca asked, continuing to pay attention to Astrid specifically as they both walked between the prisoners and helped attach mana cuffs to the people who were going to be brought back to the Duchess. Apparently, it was a piece of equipment that was frequently used for criminals in the capital? Astrid had no idea about the things’ existence, as they hadn’t ever been used, to her knowledge, in Stahlstadt growing up. That was the only time she had any extended exposure to the guards of a city, and surely her mother would have mentioned something like that around her family, right?

“Something like that,” Astrid nodded as she got close to the next person. This was the Steel tier assassin that had been focused on taking out the Duchess’s army’s supporters when the Wanderers appeared. Muti had done a number on him, dozens of cuts up and down his arms, and then a gnarly bruise across his neck and going down into his armor from where she’d nonlethally but very painfully cut him down.

“Well, I’ll give you some space,” Rebecca said, stepping back. “If you’re willing to talk later, I’d be happy to continue to pick your brain.”

“Come by any time, and if I’m busy, I’ll let you know,” Astrid replied. The excitement Rebbeca’d shown about talking to Astrid had been useful in ingratiating her to the army, and more than that, very flattering, but as Rebecca had continued asking questions and following her, Astrid could see how being a name known throughout the entire country could pretty quickly result in wanting to escape from the public eye.

“We’re going to be pretty short on cuffs,” Felix said, not really looking at Astrid. He, Benedict, and Astrid were taking on the responsibility of dealing with the prisoners, though the recovering Duchess’s army was covering more and more of the duties as they got back into battle readiness, as their supporters recovered and each person made the decision whether or not to take whatever potions or draughts they had put away.

“You don’t need to worry quite as much about it now,” one woman said, stepping past Astrid and giving a couple firm taps on the face of one of the prisoners who’d been unconscious for a while. “Now that we’ve got them all tied up and we’re recovered, we’ll be fine. Are you worried about your friend, though?”

“I’m assuming you mean Muti,” Astrid answered, looking at her for confirmation. When the woman nodded, Astrid shook her head with a chuckle. “Even if she ends up going against a bunch of Mithril tiers, she’ll be able to hold on long enough to get out of there. There’s no way the enemies have people who can keep up with her in terms of pure attributes, and her explosive movement abilities are outstanding.”

“I have a question,” Felix said, moving past Astrid’s reassurance and speaking to the soldier. “How were you so sure that the rebel army had only sent a handful of Steel tiers in this direction? I can’t imagine there are many people who can actively spy on the rebels from within their ranks, since just about everybody is going to be stuck in a contract with the Marchioness. She can tell who isn’t contracted with her or one of her subordinates, right?”

“There are plenty of people who have Skills that let them see and scout. Skills that obscure what someone else is looking for aren’t very common to find, and there are plenty of ways to get past any of those hiding Skills. Then, there are Dungeoneers, who can read the movement of mana, more or less. If there’s anybody stronger than Steel tier moving around, it’s not too hard for a Dungeoneer to feel that somebody’s trying to be sneaky.”

Astrid and Felix nodded their thanks for the answers as the woman continued moving along. She was maybe a sergeant, not in charge of the army as a whole, but a leader of some sort.

“You didn’t get to use your new Skill?” Felix asked as the two of them were left, mostly alone. They continued to look around and try to see if there was anybody or anything that needed their attention, but it seemed like their part in this battle was largely finished.

“You know I didn’t want to accidentally kill anyone with it,” Astrid chuckled. “Not all of us have direct upgrades to passive skills we already had. How was Impenetrable Fortress?”

“Now that it’s Mithril, I think just about every one of those attacks I could have taken without even wearing my armor. We’ll have to test it more against enemies that can actually challenge us at all, but for its maiden voyage? Really good,” Felix said, smiling. “It’s a really impressive Skill.”

“I can’t wait until we can see it like that,” Astrid agreed, smiling at him.

“And when you can actually let loose?” Felix asked, and a knowing look on his face.

“Yes, I’m also looking forward to being able to see what the new Class can do. That’s not a surprise to anybody.”

The conversation died off as one of the enemy, a Steel tiers, probably the leader of the army, woke and started struggling against his chains. Felix rushed over to make sure nobody got hurt, also pushing the man down and forcing him to be quiet as he did so.

The reminder of her new Skill had Astrid smiling as she, completely unnecessarily, opened her Status for the fifth or sixth time since she’d finished her evolutionary quest.

Status

Name: Astrid 

Class: Unfallen Meteor (Mithril)

Total Level: 91 (17,202/1,000,000)

Attributes

Current

Per level growth

Power

1,438 (+375) [+360]

+40

Alacrity

832 (+180) [+832]

+15

Fortitude

1,349 (+425) [+337]

+30

Magical Potency

607 (+150)

+12

Self-Mastery

583 (+200) [+583]

+7

Acumen

361 (+85) [+361]

+5

Skill List

Boon of Potentiation

Boon of the Hero

Boon of Indomitability

Meteoric Descent (Mithril)

Meteoric Smite (Mithril)

Unfallen Meteor’s Equipment (Mithril)

Meteoric Regeneration (Mithril)

Infallible Mind (Mithril)

Unmoveable Density (Steel)

None

None

None

None

Locked

Locked

Astrid couldn’t say that she was particularly fond of the Skill’s name, but its effects were more than enough for her to have chosen it without too much trouble. Part of its function could be seen in her Status already, and its effect in combination with Boon of Indomitability had made it a shoo-in for her Skill selection. A part of her had lamented taking a Steel tier Skill, but she hadn’t been offered any Mithril tier options. With that being the only real negative effect from having spent so little time in Steel tier, Astrid couldn’t even begin to complain.

Unmoveable Density (Steel): Increases the skill holder’s power and fortitude by 25%. For a minor stamina cost, reduces the skill holder’s alacrity by 20% while generating a graviturgical aura within ten meters that forces everything towards the Skill holder.

Astrid had thought about using the active aspect of the Skill in her subjugation of the enemy soldiers, but given the fact that she was at least a tier above every single one of them, and two tiers over most, to say nothing of the vast gulf in attributes between them, given that she had only ever had extraordinary rarity Classes, she could very easily have crippled or killed people just by moving through their ranks with the Skill active.

Although it wasn’t a particularly flashy skill, the flat bonus to her Power and Fortitude had drawn her eye. Then, in the few times that she’d tested the active aspect to the Skill, she had seen just how effective it was. On the other hand, having spent so little time between evolutions, her Skill variety and quality being offered was almost embarrassingly low. Fortunately, she got this Skill that would continue to work well with the new fighting style of the Unfallen Meteor, so she couldn’t complain.

“Looks like we have no more cuffs,” Benedict said as he walked nearby. He continued to use both of his primary Skills at the same time, focusing entirely on healing their allies and slowing their enemies with Song of Victory and Voice of Liberation respectively.

“I think we’ll be fine, so long as nothing unexpected happens,” Astrid replied. “And no, that isn’t me wishing complications into existence.”

Benedict jokingly glared at her as she cut off his opportunity to tease her, but he didn’t push the issue. Instead, he asked, “How long do you think it’s going to take for Muti to get back? And do you think it’s going to be her or Skandr that shows up first?”

“I’d guess that Muti will take about two hours total,” Astrid said, looking around and feeling useless. “As for the communications with the town? I have no idea what the goal is in talking to them in the first place. Do they want to get them to come back to where the Duchess is? Or are they just checking in on them? Who knows. Aaron didn’t tell me anything and I doubt he would have even if I’d asked for specifics. So no guesses there.”

Benedict made a grunting noise that didn’t quite make a whole lot of sense, but Astrid didn’t care to question him. Ever since they’d gotten back into Humanity’s lands, he’d been off, staring at the terrain around them, going surprisingly and uncharacteristically quiet all the time. Astrid figured she had a pretty good understanding as to why he was reacting that way, but it didn’t make him any easier to deal with.

Instead of getting into some long discussion with him, or trying to poke at him until he would reveal how he was thinking about being back home, but forced to continue fighting, at least for a little while yet, Astrid just looked around. The other soldiers, now that they were saved from certain death or enslavement, worked relatively well together, though it was obvious that they weren’t men and women trained for years in warfare. Instead, they were simply people who had signed up for the war and hoped to be able to protect themselves and their families.

Minutes passed in what was a blissful quiet, and Astrid reveled in it. Or at least, she’d like to think that she did, when in reality, her anxiety continued twisting in her stomach. She was going to run into Greely again; how was that going to be? He’d helped the party immensely with getting them entrance into the Verdant Sanctuary, guiding them in Purcell, and more. He was actively assisting the same side that they were going to support, so he could be counted as an ally.

However, Astrid had lost all of that previous deep-seated respect for authority that she’d always had growing up. Instead of being willing to blindly follow any advice from somebody in a leadership position, the thought of being told what to do had Astrid a little bit twitchy. She couldn’t help but laugh at herself a little bit as she made that realization, though, given that she had very literally just signed up to join in a war. She wasn’t going to be in charge of anything, other than her party, and she knew it.

At least she didn’t need to listen to any commands just yet. Instead, she found somewhere flat she could take a chair out of her spatial pouch, and got comfortable. As the army got more and more control over their enemies, there was less for her to do, and she allowed herself to try to relax past the nerves thrashing in her belly.

***

“It took me less time to go in the vague direction of an army, find that army, ensure that the battle is won in the favor of your Duchess, then return here over one hundred kilometers away, than it took for simple conversations to take place so close you can see the location of the discussion?”

“That’s about right,” Astrid laughed as Skandr made his way up the hill towards where the Wanderers sat.

Muti continued scoffing about the inefficiencies of the prattling politicking, and Astrid couldn’t help but feel at least some measure of agreement with the opinion. She didn’t fully agree with Muti’s opinion that the strong should simply dictate everything that happened, but surely it wasn’t necessary for an entire two and a half hours to have been spent with Aaron and his delegation speaking to the village chief.

“How was it?” Benedict asked as Skandr drew close enough to speak with a normal tone.

“I’m actually the person that slowed us down the most,” Skandr said with an apologetic laugh. As he drew closer, he looked more and more pale. Considering what he could do with Warlock’s Constitution, Astrid felt the hair on the back of her neck stand up as she stood and summoned her armor to come once again. He waved his hands in an attempt to calm her and the others, continuing, “The villagers need to stay here to keep working to keep feeding the country, so I decided to test out an enchantment that I’ve been working on for my evolutionary quest. It should help them fend off a single attack, it just took a lot out of me to do it. Was able to finish one of my requirements, though. Finally.”

The rest of the party made sounds of acknowledgment and encouragement, and he sighed dramatically. “That’s only one of the three, but at least I’m catching up  to you all.”

“I’ll need another week or so,” Benedict said, shrugging as Aaron approached. He and the rest of the Wanderers went quiet as the commander grew near.

“We’re going to retreat to the Duchess’s command center,” Aaron said without any preamble. “Will you be joining us?”