Eventually, Erani and I finally got so sleep. It was probably around midday when we actually dozed off. Part of dreaded trying to get my sleep schedule back on track after this, but the other part of knew it was completely fucked already, following the entire journey we’d made to get to this damned empire to begin with. So one all-nighter didn’t matter.
Besides, I got to watch the sun rise with Erani, and our delirious, sleep-deprived states were kinda like being drunk. In a way, it was almost romantic. Well, insofar as the morning after killing a man could feel ‘romantic.’ But we made it work in a weird way.
After my negotiations with the mayor, where I’d secured a heavy enough discount on teleportation that we could afford it right away, I was finally rid of my being forced to spend all my Mana on charging batteries, leaving able to go back to practicing Noxious Grasp full-ti. And because of that, it wasn’t long until I got a new Rank-up notification.
Threshold reached. Noxious Grasp XP has reached 3.71k.
Noxious Grasp Rank has increased to 19.
Due to Noxious Grasp Rank reaching 19, it has undergone the following changes:
Mana Cost: From 5.73 to 5.87
Health Drain: From 24 to 25.2
Stamina Drain: From 12 to 12.6
I looked it over once we woke up—a ti I almost called “the next morning,” but was already solidly into the afternoon. The next Rank would bring to 20, and with that would co my second Upgrade for Noxious Grasp. Of course, that also ant the Spell XP cost went up trendously for this next Rank, since it brought with it such a trendous power-up, but I was happy to pay it.
Noxious Grasp’s 20th Rank would require 7618 Spell XP. At 112 Mana/Minute, I was looking at a few full days of straight practice to get it. Of course, I’d also need two Poison Spell Crystals, but I wasn’t as worried about that requirent as I would’ve been even one day before. Because now, I had the Spell Crystals needed to Rank up a lot more than just Noxious Grasp. In fact, every single Spell I currently had waiting on a Spell Crystal—Crippling Chill, Ray of Frost, Expedite, and Curse of Echoes—suddenly had their requirents fulfilled. Well, they were assuming I was going to exploit Ti Loop to use the sa Crystal more than once. Which I of course was. I even got two Fire Crystals for Erani to Upgrade Firebolt.
Though, I was going to have to wait for my Upgrades until I had a good ti to do them. With all of my unused Ti Loops turning into free Stats, I didn’t want to waste any when I could double-dip on a single one. If I was going to go back to kill a monster a second ti or whatever, then I could use my Spell Crystals then, before I went back, and that’d save one loop. It pained to wait a little longer when I really wanted to blow them all right away, but I had to be a little more economic with my resources.
Today, though, I got to do sothing else I’d been wanting to do for a long ti. And that was get the fuck out of here, and get the fuck in to the capital city of the Barinruth Empire. I didn’t even know what that city’s na was, but it was where I wanted to be. Any place that housed Emperor Etrin himself had to be the most guarded damn place this side of Kingdom’s Edge. No more fighting off invaders myself, I could just rely on the city guards for that.
I sighed, thinking of the luxurious, free life I’d be living in just a few hours.
“What’s that sigh for?” Erani asked, lifting her head from my chest, mostly under the covers of our semi-uncomfortable bed. Though, in the soft light from our room’s window, her glowing face was so gorgeous, just looking at it would make any bed feel like the clouds of heaven itself.
“Just the sigh of a job well done, I guess,” I said with a grunt, pushing myself out of bed. I was still nude from our ‘celebration activities’ the night before, so with a thought, I cast Ethereal Armor and summoned Dark Plate, putting it on. I never would’ve thought when taking the Spell that one of its main functions would be to serve as instant clothing.
“Ah, and my lover disappears from my sight once again,” Erani mock-lanted as I went through the familiar process of strapping the different pieces to my body. “Anyway, I’m not sure if last night counted as a ‘job well done.’ By my count, we demolished four buildings in that fight with Jon.”
“First off, I didn’t destroy any buildings, so my job was done perfectly well. I just cast my collateral-damage-free Curses and went about my day. You’re the one who decided to go all-in on explosions with your build.”
“So you’re accusing of deciding to fight Jon in the middle of town?”
“It was the outskirts, not the middle. Also, no, I’m not accusing you of that, Jon would be the one who decided to co here to fight us. Also also, you didn’t let get to my second point. My second point was that last night was a job well done because we did pretty much everything we needed to do, all in the series of a few hours. It wasn’t just about beating an enemy, we also got the teleportation ready to go, and we got free Spell Crystals on top of it all.”
“Oh, you said you got two Fires for , right?”
I nodded and walked over to our bedside table, digging into the sack and grabbing the two reddish orbs, and then tossing them over to her. She deftly snatched them out of the air, and gazed down at the spheres in the palm of her hand with a greedy expression.
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“You know what you’re gonna take?” I asked.
“Firebolt Rank 20 was one of the choices I didn’t have planned out from the start,” Erani said, shaking her head. “Didn’t think I’d get here so fast. And even if I did have it planned out, those plans would certainly be interrupted by now”
“Well, you’re here. But I’m tired of being here, so you wanna go ahead and leave? Teleportation center’s just around the block.”
“Already? We just woke up.”
“I’m gonna be honest, I’m kinda eager to just get out of here. Being near the border after last night is getting antsy. Don’t you feel that way, too?”
“Well, surely they wouldn’t be sending in more soldiers so soon after their previous attempt failed.”
“Never rely on your enemies being smart,” I said, stretching. “They’ll always be exactly as smart or dumb as is most inconvenient for you. I say, don’t give them a chance to be inconvenient.”
“I suppose that makes sense,” Erani said. “I would’ve liked to get so more ti with our friends, though. At least until we saw Aliss again. I liked her.”
“You barely talked to any of them,” I said with a frown.
“Doesn’t an I can’t like them.”
“Well, Sylvie’s gonna apparently be traveling back and forth, if she plans on keeping contact with us. Maybe we can hitch a ride with her one day to co see the rest again. Always good to keep our options open, if we ever need more help. Though, I sure hope that’s never the case again.”
“Don’t tempt fate, saying things like that.”
“What, you think the gods will co down and smite for daring to hope my life gets better? If they do that, fuck ‘em. I personally think I’m just as good as the gods, and that nothing bad will ever happen to , ever again.”
“Now you’re just doing it intentionally,” Erani said, rolling her eyes. Though I could also see a twinge of nervousness in her expression.
I laughed. “Well, at least now, if anything bad ever happens, we know who to bla.”
“Yeah, you.”
We walked into the teleportation center soon after, ready to leave. Though, most of the process had already been set up when the mayor had talked to them to give us the discount. So all we really had to do was walk in and hand in the remaining money owed. It’d only take a couple minutes before we would be led out to the teleportation circle, where we would et up with Ainash to be taken along with us.
Only, when we walked into the building, I spotted a familiar face conversing with one of the teleporters.
“It shouldn’t take long at all for to work up the remaining money,” Ripley said to the man. Her body was covered in dirt and gri, and she looked about as exhausted as I’d been before I’d finally gotten my bit of sleep.
She glanced over in our direction as we entered, and the mont she laid eyes on , her hand went to her battleaxe.
“Now, now,” the elderly man said, hurriedly stepping in between us, “there will be no fighting in here. If you have a dispute, feel free to settle it off of our premises.”
“No dispute between us,” I said.
“Then why’d you co here?” Ripley asked.
“I was about to ask you the sa thing. But I think if we asked each other, we’d probably end up giving the sa answers.”
“So you know about the moves our enemy is making, then?”
I blinked. For a second, I’d forgotten that, in this tiline, I’d never actually made contact with Ripley. She’d been left to fight on her own.
“I killed Jon,” I said.
Now it was her turn to look surprised. “He’s dead? Would’ve thought he’d have given more of a fight.”
“He definitely did.”
“Well if you killed him, he couldn't have.”
“I’m just gonna ignore that. Anyway, if you’d like to hitch a ride with us, it wouldn’t be a—”
“I’ll stop you right there and say I’m not going with you.”
I raised my eyebrows. “You sure?”
“I don’t want you knowing where I’m going, or when I’m going there. The less you have the ability to co and bring your enemies to my doorstep, the better.”
“You aren’t going to have trouble paying for teleportation?”
“Thankfully, I claid a bounty handing in my fellow prisoners. Apparently, so of Jon’s other captives were border guards who went missing, or sothing. Anyway, I won’t be having any money troubles.”
Oh, right. I’d forgotten that was our original goal in all this. Well, not an issue now. “So you did get captured by him, then?”
“Yep, thrown in this holding cell, guarded by a bunch of Classers, locked down with Enchanted shackles, the works. But I broke out.”
“How did you—”
“I’m sorry, did you still need ?” the elderly man standing beside us looked between us awkwardly.
“Oh, right,” I said, “I’m here to use your teleporters. My na’s Annor, you should have a note from the mayor regarding .”
“Ah, right this way.” The man imdiately walked off, leading us away.
As we followed, I heard Ripley shout from where she’d been left, “So am I just supposed to wait for soone else so I can keep talking with them, or…?”
It took a bit of ti to get there, but eventually we were left standing in the middle of the teleportation circle. It was massive, dozens of paces in diater, and placed out in the middle of the wilderness—presumably because they simply couldn’t fit sothing of this size in the town proper. Thankfully, that made it possible for us to bring Ainash along, despite not having a license to bring her within the town walls. So she stood alongside us without issue.
“Do you have anything to declare?” One of the teleporters said, holding a piece of paper in his hands. “Dangerous items, or items that could be perceived as dangerous? Other than the monster, of course. We’ll be sending this information through with you, for the security team on the other side.”
“Well, we’ve got so Enchanted stuff, but—”
“What Enchantnts?”
“Uh, just so Spell Crystals, as well as…” I dug into my bag and grabbed the arm attachnt I’d gotten from one of Jon’s soldiers. It was switched off—with no way to switch it back on, from what I could see—so it looked like a little ring of tal and not much else, currently. “This thing. Which, I have no idea what it’s Enchanted with, or what it really does, or how it does whatever mystery functions it has. It’s just Enchanted.”
He frowned. “...They may not let you keep that.”
Erani looked at , frowning, too. “You never told you had that. What is it?”
“One of the limb things from last night,” I answered Erani, who only looked more confused at my answer, but regardless I looked back at the teleporter. “If they don’t let keep it, there’ll be problems.”
“...And a statent like that will only cause more problems,” the man muttered, writing sothing down on his paper. He looked back up at once he was done. “Nothing else, then?”
“Just the stuff we already discussed,” I replied.
“Father, will I see Human settlent now?” Ainash telepathically asked as the teleportation circle began to whir to life. Markings on the ground began to glow blue, and a faint magical hum could be heard growing steadily louder.
“Hopefully,” I replied.
“Will miss Goblins,” she said. “Need to co back and see them soon! Will train them good enough that they can co to Human settlent, too!”
“...Hopefully,” I replied again, with less conviction this ti.
“So,” Erani said, “you ready to see the big city? It’ll probably make a place like Carth look like the boonies.”
“I’m just hoping it lives up to the hype.”
“If you’re ready!” one of the teleporters shouted over the hum.
“Ready!’ I replied.
“Ready,” Erani said.
Ainash gave an enthusiastic wave.
And then, with an explosion of sound, my surroundings disappeared before my eyes, and I was suddenly standing sowhere totally new.
“Welco to Precipice,” a gruff voice said. “Try not to cause trouble.”
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