“May Sumrann sow the seeds of our victory and smile upon its harvest,” Tavio muttered as a wave of energizing light pulsed out of him.
Divine Inspiration: You gain 1 stack of Blessed! Sumrann, God of Harvest and Bounty, offers you the Sacrant of Redemption.
Sacrant of Redemption
You gain bonus Spiritual and Divine DR equal to your total stacks of Blessed.
Whenever you have at least 5 Blessed and would beco srized, Dominated, Feared, Berserk, Paranoid, or Psychotic, you lose half of your Blessed and negate the status.
You currently have 2 of 2 Sacrants prepared: Sacrant of Mortality, Sacrant of the Dread Star. Would you like to replace one of these Sacrants with the Sacrant of Redemption?
I took a mont to parse the notifications. I’d seen the Sacrant of Redemption before, back when Avarice had sold so of Yara’s holy water. Of course, the goddess herself had then upgraded it to a more potent temporary effect, and let know I could get the more permanent, albeit weaker, Sacrant if I ca and gave her a visit. Sumrann was also willing to hand this one out, it seed, and as a mber of Yara’s pantheon, I doubted he would make the offer if the Godqueen wanted to insist that I co to her temple first. Besides, we’d probably flown over a small part of Connas earlier, which ant that we’d already done the Fortune’s Folly version of ‘visiting’ by avoiding civilization completely on our way into danger.
I recognized the second Sacrant listed, the Sacrant of the Dread Star, of course. It allowed to burn Blessed instead of mana for teleports. That was handy when using several mana shapes on Shortcut, which could make the cost balloon pretty fast. However, the first Sacrant on the list, the Sacrant of Mortality, wasn’t one I imdiately recognized. The mont I realized that, comprehension bubbled up almost unbidden, and I understood that it governed the default behavior of Blessed. That is, I could spend Blessed to briefly raise my attack or defense. My understanding of the phenonon didn’t change; the na of the Sacrant was simply attached to sothing I was already intimately familiar with.
After so poking around I found a spot on my status that listed the Sacrants, but I could tell that their nature wasn’t governed by the System. The entries catalogued their behaviors, but there wasn’t anything deeper for to dive into, and I naturally understood them without the System spoon-feeding it to . I didn’t need to review the descriptions, since the function of the Sacrants ca naturally once I’d received one.
It wasn’t sothing I was willing to dive deeper into at that mont, so I moved on and considered the effects of the newly offered Sacrant.
The Sacrant of Redemption was pretty good, granting a flat bonus to Spiritual and Divine DR based on my Blessed stacks. While less flexible, a persistent defensive bonus was potentially better than the temporary burst bonus that Mortality could give . I couldn’t use it offensively, but I rarely used Blessed like that anyway. Plus, the status mitigation on Redemption was pretty solid. Losing half of my Blessed stacks all at once could be rough, but it was hands-down better than getting Dominated or becoming Psychotic.
I was keeping the Sacrant of the Dread Star, naturally. Mana was my most precious resource at the mont, so anything that helped reduce the demands on my reserves was sticking around. I went ahead and replaced the Sacrant of Mortality with the Sacrant of Redemption.
It would have been nice to have all three, and the mont I wondered how I could expand my capacity, I realized it was determined by Luck. I discarded that factoid and decided that I shouldn’t be greedy in this regard. Two Sacrants were plenty, and it was a sha there was no reasonable way for to increase that number.
“Oh!” said Etja, pulling back from my thoughts on Sacrants. “I can help out with blessings.”
She pulled out a large stringed instrunt that sat on the ground like a small table, reminding of a Japanese koto, and began plucking out a tune. She humd as she played, and my Blessed stacks ticked up again as she perford the soothing serenade. As ridiculous as the situation was, and despite our ongoing uncertainty as to what divinity was granting Blessed whenever Etja was the source, I ignored such trifles in favor of more practical matters.
I turned to raise an eyebrow at Xim.
“Normally, the best way to get blessings from is to beat stuff up,” she said. I raised my eyebrow harder, and she grinned. “Okay, I’ll spend the mana.” She rotated her scepter through the air, and her body began to glow with a soft crimson light.
Sam’lia’s Warmth: You heal for 105 HP and gain 1 stack of Blessed every 6 seconds! Healing doubled by Body of Asclepius! You heal for 210 HP!
Spirit Guide: Xim Xor’Drel has used an active skill to bestow a beneficial effect upon you. You gain 1 stack of Blessed!
Xim and Pio shared a Leadership evolution, it seed. The cleric’s skill hit everyone in the entire cabin, and Pio did a quick cast of another AoE heal that triggered four more stacks of Blessed. The healing didn’t do anything since we were at full health, but the skills still triggered secondary effects, and as a result I was getting my ass Blessed off.
After a couple of minutes bathing in a variety of divine glows and relaxing amidst the sonorous mutterings of soft prayers and life-changing plucking and strumming, I was capped. I now had an extra twenty-six DR against all Spiritual and Divine damage, a way to negate a variety of debilitating debuffs, a resource for teleporting without spending mana, and an infectious lody that I’d catch myself humming for the next several weeks.
While the Blessed stacks flowed, Baltae and Guar moved to the front and displaced Lieutenant Augustin, who didn’t have much he could do up there since our hamrhead had abandoned us. Tavio asked that I direct the pilot through the Closet portal, where he could focus on contacting the capital with his slate. It would keep the Level 3 Copper safe if things got dicey again.
Baltae guided Guar’s mana shaping as the beefy Littan placed his hands on the front windshield and began summoning a translucent barrier attached to the nose of our craft. The construct had a rounded body, slightly elongated and tapered like the lower half of a raindrop. There was a brief mont of turbulence as the barrier locked into place and started catching the wind, but the flight smoothed back out after a second. Once that was done, Baltae spread his hands and cast Telekinesis on the entire vessel. The mage’s spell suffused the craft, and a gentle pressure gripped every inch of its materials.
The mont the spell took hold, Varrin began accelerating at a casual pace compared to what he was capable of, which still left most of us hanging diagonally off of straps and handholds. Etja and her koto simply began to float, the serene mood of her performance striking a contrast against the groan and rattle of our tal tube. Her volu rose with the roar of the wind, which grew for a full sixty seconds before the acceleration leveled off.
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Over the next few minutes, so other buffs made the rounds. I ensured Life Warden was up on Etja while Xim used a new skill she’d picked up called Lifeguard. Despite the similar na, the skill was different enough from Life Warden that it didn’t infringe on my intellectual property rights.
Lifeguard
Divine
Cost: 20 mana
Requirents: Divine 40
Grant an entity you can touch the buff Lifeguard. Whenever an entity with Lifeguard is reduced to half health or lower, they heal for an amount equal to 10 tis your CHA and lose the Lifeguard buff. If an entity with Lifeguard would be reduced to 0 HP, they are instead reduced to 1 HP before Lifeguard activates.
Xim had a Charisma score of 70, aning the skill’s default healing value was 700. That was doubled to a mighty 1400 for myself, which was almost enough to take from half health back to full when it triggered. The buff didn’t have a duration, so Xim had already given Lifeguard to everyone in our party ahead of ti, but she graciously dolled it out to the Littans as well. Aside from the healing, it was also one-shot protection, which everyone appreciated.
I started to realize that when this many Delvers were pre-gaming together, things could start getting a little silly. This feeling struck hard when Guar began handing out the most glorious pastries I’d ever encountered. It was so kind of fruit tart, still warm to the touch, beautifully presented, and it slled absolutely fucking delicious.
“Pre-combat carb loading?” I asked him.
“That, and more!” he said, clapping on the shoulder. His gauntlet landed hard enough against my pauldron that half the cabin’s occupants flinched from the noise. “My whole party contributed to making these. Just make sure to eat the entire thing.”
I’d been raised to believe in good manners, so I dutifully ate the scrumptious treat.
You gain the buff Monuntal Macros! For the next 9 days, all food you consu is 4 tis as filling and will leave you well-fed for 9 tis longer.
You gain the buff Breakfast of Champions! For the next 9 days, your stamina and mana pools are increased by 25.
You gain the buff Tryptophan! For the next 9 days, whenever an activity or cooldown calls for an 8-hour rest, you may complete that activity or cooldown in 2 fewer hours.
You gain the buff Daily Apple! You can consu Daily Apple to negate one instance of Slowed, Immobilized, Paralyzed, Stunned, Stupefied, Blinded, Deafened, or Weakened. You can only have one instance of Daily Apple. Once Daily Apple is used, you must rest for 8 hours before gaining it again.
That was a lot of effects loaded into one delectable goodie.
Xim’s eyes widened as she popped the final bite of her own pastry into her mouth. “This is the best thing I’ve ever eaten,” she said, licking so fruity filling from her fingers.
Etja kept playing her Koto with three hands as she ate her pastry with the fourth. She looked over at Nuralie between bites and asked, “Can you make your potions taste this good?”
“I managed to turn them into a gummy form, but I am still working on the flavor,” said Nuralie. “Waiting for gravity to pull the liquid into my mouth was too slow.” Pause. “If soone with the Cooking skill prepared ingredients, would they maintain their effects when utilized in my Alchemy?”
“Only if your potion counts as a al,” said Baltae. “Or maybe if the chef’s al also counted as a potion?”
“You can add butter to anything,” I said. “Easy calories.”
“One cannot add butter to a potion and say that it is food,” said Baltae.
“Agree to disagree.”
“I will undertake further research,” said Nuralie.
It was about this ti that Madel reappeared in the cabin, covered in dried blood. The sticky viscera had the downy remains of feathers caked in and stained her cape in splotchy patches.
“You look like shit, sister,” said an eerily familiar masculine voice from behind us. I turned to see myself scarfing down one of Guar’s fruit tarts.
“Lieutenant,” said Captain Pio to Madel, ignoring the second . “Are we flying into trouble, or did you take care of it?”
“The forr, Captain,” said Madel.
After a mont of consideration, I raised a hand, and watched myself raise the opposite hand in perfect unison. I frowned, and my clone also frowned at the exact sa mont.
Madel studiously ignored us alongside Pio. “I encountered two additional species of avian mana monsters a mile outside of Krimsim’s walls,” she said. “Grades eleven to twenty. They are nurous enough that sightlines to the city are obscured.”
“That’s a lot of birds,” said Guar, his golden eyes flashing with excitent.
I reached out and plucked my feathered cowboy hat from my inventory. The double mirrored the motion, and sohow produced the exact sa hat. The little boots dangling from its brim even clacked together with the sa pleasing woody sound.
We put the hats on and we looked myself up and down.
“Hey, I look pretty good,” I said.
“I an, I’d fuck ,” I replied.
Captain Pio turned to Tavio. “Should we have Lord Ravvenblaq slow our approach once he has a visual on the new enemies?”
Tavio ran a hand along the fur of his scalp. “How fast were they?” he asked Madel.
“Fast, but slower than ,” she said, then looked up at the ceiling in Varrin’s direction. “Slower than we are moving right now, as well.”
“And there were still too many for you to maneuver through them to scout the city?” asked Tavio. “You could not teleport past them?”
“My teleport range is short, and like Guar said, it is a lot of birds. I could have gotten past them with a little ti, but felt it more important to bring you my report before you encountered them yourselves.”
Tavio humd in thought. “If we slow, they will have an easier ti swarming us.”
Captain Pio’s whiskers pulled back slightly. “Colliding with high-grade monsters at our current speed would be unwise.”
“Arlo’s spell is still active and has a knockback effect,” said Tavio. “This vessel has mana weaves for Physical DR. Consecrate is enhancing that, along with Baltae’s Telekinesis, and Guar’s Shield Walls.”
Captain Pio turned to her stout subordinate. “How much damage can your Shield Walls take?”
“Two thousand,” Guar replied. “Each. I got all three of them up there.”
“What about Lord Ravvenblaq?” asked Pio.
“He’s got the best Physical defense in our party,” I said. “He’ll be fine. If anything, stopping and giving the birds a chance to hit him with a different damage type would be more dangerous.”
“That is true for our vessel as well,” said Tavio. “We need to breach that blockade and get a look at the city to see if it is still standing. If Sergeant Baltae is correct about there being so kind of Alpha, we need to identify it as well.” Tavio looked past . “Specialist Cezil.”
My copy whipped his head towards the major, the wooden boots clattering about. “Yes, Major?” the other asked.
“Stop fucking around and take the pilot’s seat. You have the best eyes.”
“Aye, Major,” other said, giving a boot-rattling salute. Then the duplicate marched towards the front of the plane, my body smoothly transitioning into the red-eyed Littan mimic.
“Moving through the flock that quickly, there is a chance that we will hit friendly air support,” said Captain Pio.
“I can assist,” I said. “I assu the air support is other Delvers?”
“Correct,” said Pio. “They will be mounted on hamrheads.”
“I can filter my Soul-Sight to spot them through the enemy. I’ll relay that to Varrin, and he can dodge them if needed.” Pio nodded reluctantly, and I moved up to join Cezil at the front, who was lounging in the pilot’s seat. She gave a smile and a wink when I knelt beside her.
“So, like, are all of your clothes fake too?” I asked her.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” she said.
I tilted my head to the side as I got a psychic update from Varrin, and our path angled down slightly. Then I focused out through the windshield ahead of . Pio was still trying to convince Tavio that this move was unwise.
“No more ti for debate!” I shouted back into the cabin. “Brace for impact!”
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