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Core Collapse Chapter 25
🕑 Added 2024-03-29 07:37:37 +0000 UTCChapter 25
Something was bothering Rowena, Jessica was certain of it. The young Rogue was distracted. At least, when they weren’t in combat she was distracted. When she was in combat she looked like she was venting some type of complex emotion through unashamed violence.
Jessica was sometimes a little envious that her own talents didn’t run that way, but then she thought about how freaking cool it was to be able to literally melt enemies with her mind and make people see and hear things that weren’t there.
Yeah, magic was the best. And she was looking forward to hitting level thirty and hopefully gaining a new element. She was uncertain what would be best. Not that it really mattered what would be best, as she didn’t think that she had a choice in the matter.
She wondered briefly if her skill selection said anything about her, as a person. She had loved fireworks growing up, and now she had the ability to make them magically. But she’d never really been the sort of person who wanted to burn enemies alive, and yet she got Fire Mastery.
Fire Mastery really was a huge upgrade over the Napalm skill. She could still unleash waves of fiery destruction as before, but she could also use small strings of flame to distract, or unleash smaller, more condense, or more directed waves of fiery destruction.
Working together with Grant and Rowena, she was a significant force multiplier. Grant was – if this was a video game she’d call him an evasion tank. He could flicker about the battlefield and inflict damage from medium range with his enchanted blades, while simultaneously bending space to avoid reprisal attacks. It was a little unfair to his enemies; nobody expects the laws of physics to be broken so easily.
Rowena, meanwhile, struck silently from the shadows. She entered combat in Stealth most of the time, and when she Ambushed her enemy it was often immediately fatal. At least it was for the gnolls and zombies they were currently facing. A more dangerous opponent might shrug off her most ferocious ambush, but they would be the sort of enemy that a level twenty-three rogue had no business fighting in the first place.
As things stood, the enemies they were facing were above their level, but still not terribly dangerous. The gnolls relied on pack tactics, but were easily fooled and distracted by Jessica’s magic long enough for Grant and Rowena to break their cohesion. And while the zombies would be dangerous in a swarm, there weren’t enough of them spawning for that.
In fact, the monsters that Tom had Alpha kicking out were a little boring. Not that she was in the mood for anything really dangerous, not with Rory, Sevin and Antoine missing from their formation. While Antoine rarely unsheathed his blade, his simple presence on the battlefield was an anchor, as everyone knew that if they somehow got in over their head, he would be there to play lifeguard.
And Rory and Sevin were – well, they were meat-shields. But good ones. Rory in particular was an unmovable force when he got down to it. Sevin was more flexible between dealing damage and keeping the enemies at a distance with his halberd. Which he was becoming quite proficient with. Or at least, he had been before he’d left to chase dragons and knighthoods.
They came across the last group of gnolls that had spawned. At least according to Tom’s census. Three Grants leisurely walked up to them – two of them illusions – and one of the Grants stabbed the leader in the throat from a distance that shouldn’t have been possible. The gnolls charged rather than retreat from the unexpected attack.
Grant Flickered away, leaving behind the two illusions to take the charge. Rowena emerged from the shadows to Ambush one of the gnolls who had been exposed, critically injuring it before disengaging and returning to stealth.
Both the lead gnoll that Grant had stabbed and the one that Rowena had ambushed were down, but not necessarily dead yet. That still left four gnolls to deal with. Jessica decided to reduce that number, dropping about two hundred points into her Flame Mastery skill, treating it more like when it had been Napalm still, and incinerated the gnoll that was closest to her. It screamed briefly before it was simply gone.
Grant and Rowena did for the rest. Grant flickered into range and unleashed his ranged melee stabs, targeting vital areas and quickly slaying the two closest to him, while Rowena caught the other in the eye with a throwing dagger.
Grant went through the necessary task of ensuring that the enemies were truly dead – sometimes gnolls would feign death, but there was nothing feigned about the steel that Grant put in the corpses – then the party returned to the surface. Along the way, Jessica decided to probe Rowena to see what was bothering the young Lady.
“If Tom is to be believed, then my grandfather had one of my cousins murdered,” Rowena explained. “And I believe that Tom’s information source is Antoine himself, who would know the whole story. He has to my knowledge never spoken of what happened in the depths of the World Dungeon. It’s very troubling to me to know that my family has that sort of skeletons in the closet.”
Jessica blinked in surprise. “Grant, do you--”
“I don’t think this is the sort of thing that should be discussed openly,” Grant said. “It was reckless and dangerous for Tom to even let the king know that he knew this much. Ten times more so for him to do so with witnesses in the room. I’m a little peeved with him at the moment, in fact.”
“Do you think your life is in danger for the knowledge?” Rowena asked.
Grant considered, then shook his head. “No. I don’t think that Fenard is the sort of man who would kill innocents just to keep secret a forty year old plot. He is secure in his throne at this point, and whether his father secured it for him with blood or not is irrelevant at this point. It might tarnish his image, but I believe that he would bear that with magnanimity. I certainly don’t believe that he’d do anything to his favorite niece, if that was your concern.”
“It wasn’t. I know Uncle Ferdy better than that. He might swear me to secrecy, but he wouldn’t harm me just for overhearing an unpleasant truth.”
“Still, I would strongly suggest that you avoid discussing this matter with anyone, Rowena. Jessica. It’s dangerous knowledge to possess. I’d suggest that you try to forget it for your own safety,” Grant said.
“Yeah, I don’t think that’s happening,” Jessica muttered.
“Indeed, I don’t think I can,” Rowena agreed. “But I can avoid speaking of it further. Jessica, I’m sorry to have brought you in on this secret.”
They emerged from the dungeon and separated to refresh themselves after their exploits. They were met on the way to the house by the butler, who informed Jessica that a visitor wished to make her acquaintance at the soonest opportunity. Jessica was curious as to who would want to meet her … but she was also sweaty and dirty from the dungeon, so she decided to wash and change clothes first.
The name Ubu Urban meant nothing to her, except that she vaguely recalled that it was the name of Vella’s tutor. Jessica had spent a bit of time with Vella while she’d been staying at Weaver Estate before. The studious little girl had followed her around a bit, and Jessica had thought it was rather sweet. She hoped that the young Mage was doing well in her studies.
Jill brought her some warm water to wash with. She didn’t take a full bath; that would take too long, and anyway she was just getting rid of the sweat. She wished she could take a shower, but Emil’s plans for installing plumbing hadn’t happened yet. So she made do with just a warm, wet rag.
Once she felt refreshed, she allowed Jill to guide her to the sitting room where Tom, Ubo, and Vella were waiting.
“Hello, I guess you were waiting for me?” she said. “I’m Jessica Small.”
“Ah, excellent!” Ubo said. “My name is Ubo Urban. I understand that you’re new to this world, so I don’t expect you to be familiar with my family, but we are something of the experts on the arcane mysteries. I was, to be rather blunt, rather hoping to be allowed to study your Skills, young lady.”
Jessica’s eyebrows rose in surprise. She hadn’t been expecting that for some reason. “Are you sure? I mean, I really don’t know how they work at all. They just do. I don’t think it’s something I can teach you.”
“One can learn quite a bit about fishing by watching a fisherman work, even if you’re unable to do so yourself.” Ubo said. “It’s much the same with sorcery. There’s a significant difference between a Mage and a Sorceress, you see. It’s rather frustrating that while I must spend countless hours dedicated to my craft, your own abilities simply come to you in a natural and instinctual format. I’m afraid that there’s very little I could hope to teach you, but there’s a great deal I can learn by observing your use of your magic.”
“What’s so different about them?” Jessica asked.
“As you are well aware, sorcery comes from Skills,” Ubo explained. “I assume that you have some form of fire skill? Conflagration, perhaps?”
“It started out as Napalm, which I guess isn’t a word to you, but yeah it was a fire skill. It’s evolved into Fire Mastery (Adept),” Jessica explained.
“Is that so?” Ubo asked, sounding surprised. “I wasn’t expecting a mastery skill on someone who has only been in this world for a few months. You must be truly skilled in your arts.”
Jessica blushed at the flattery. “I don’t know about that. It helped a lot when Emil set up the magic room for me so that I could actually see the invisible parts of my skill at work. Before that I was just pushing mana through the skill and fire came out the other end. I don’t think I’d have managed to unlock Illusionist if it weren’t for the practice I’d done in that room.”
“Illusionist?” Ubo asked.
“It’s my second subclass. At level ten I got a sound skill, and at level twenty I got light. After a bit of messing around I managed to unlock Illusionist.”
“I see,” Ubo said. “This magic room, is it in this manor, or somewhere else? I’d very much like to see it.”
“We converted it from one of the ballrooms,” Tom explained. “We can show you, it’s this way.”
As they walked through the hallway, they became aware of a breeze. When the opened the door to the ballroom turned mana-illumination rooms, that breeze became a howling wind. Inside the room, a whirlwind was spinning around Emil, who was trying furiously to take notes as the paper he was writing on continued to flap.
“Emil, what are you doing?” Tom shouted, and the engineer/Ritualist looked up. He snapped his fingers, breaking the magic that was supporting the whirlwind ritual. A burst of air pushed out from the center of the ritual, causing everyone to take a step back at the sudden pressure.
“Sorry. Was I disturbing anyone? I wasn’t expecting that spell to get so violent, it was supposed to be self contained,” he apologized.
“No, I’m sorry. If you were working, we shouldn’t have interrupted you,” Tom said. “We’re just here to show Ubo the work you did to make mana glow in this room.”
The room in question had hardwood floors, but massive sigils had been painted on it with a paint that was supposedly washable. The butler had about gone apoplectic when Tom had given the permission for that. Likewise, the walls each had large ritual magic symbols painted on them. Immediately Ubo entered and began studying them.
“Fascinating,” he said after a few moments of examination. “It’s a textbook example of the mana illumination ritual writ large, yet it appears to be done completely free-hand. I would very much like to meet the Mage who did this for you. It’s a work of art.”
Emil coughed. “Who is he? I think I like him.”
“It was you?” Ubo asked, turning to Emil.
“It was nothing. It’s a pretty simple ritual, the complicated part was making it encompass the entire room.”
“Indeed. The common ritual is designed for a floor mat for a student to practice on,” Ubo agreed. “Not many practitioners can afford to dedicate an entire room to a project like this.”
“Yes, well, I’m thinking about duplicating the work, if you’d like to observe me work,” Emil said. “Tom, is it possible for you to set up a secure room for me inside the dungeon? I have some ideas that I need to test out, and it would be best to try them in a place where it won’t matter if something explodes.”
