Legend of the Spellthief

“Invisibility”, Logan chanted, his body whirring out of view as his quiet steps faded.

Approaching the alpha snallygaster, Logan softly placed both palms on its back and mentally commanded, “Gaia Second, Grasp”, erupting two large spikes of rock through the creature’s back and out its stomach.

Two Backstab alerts floated over the alpha, being able to catch them unawares meant the bonus 50% from Stealth Attack boosted the damage through the roof.

The alpha crashed onto the floor swiftly, the ground shaking from its weight and detritus flying up into the air. Logan’s appearing form spooked the remaining three foes even further, though he averted his gaze and instead stared at their chests to avoid an unwanted wish-granting.

Heaps of elemental blasts came from the treeline as Logan’s elementals pelted the left snallygaster, drawing its attention. Marcus landed a massive staff smack over the middle foe’s head, jumping away as he pulled that one away.

Logan picked out several daggers and began hurling them at the final monster, keeping its ire. A lovely trio of confrontations to keep the fight simpler for each party involved.

Backflipping away from a wide talon swipe, Logan landed in a slide across the grassy floor, his back hitting a tree. Fighting both his opponent and the terrain caused a rush of annoyance to strike Logan, spinning around the tree he avoided another swipe as the tree plummeted to the ground.

Another swipe came at Logan, but he blocked it with a Bowen dagger, however, the swipe also caused the earth to shake and crack, shooting upwards a group of spikes at the Spellthief.

Twisting his other hand and dropping his off-dagger, Logan just barely had the first spike hit his palm as he mentally commanded, “Spell Absorb.”

“Spell Absorption successful. Earthen Eruption charge stored. Earthen Eruption has progressed to tier 7”, a message played in Logan’s head.

Logan had to wave his hand quickly upwards to grapple another spell as a ball of fire blasted from the snallygaster’s maw.

“Spell Absorption successful. Flame 2nd charge stored. Flame 2nd has progressed to tier 2”, a message played in Logan’s head.

Logan’s eyes wandered a bit too far, almost meeting the single eye of the foe over twice his height but hunched down to bite at him. Diverting his head to the side, Logan dipped under another swipe and rolled across the floor, tumbled to his feet, and waved his hand at the foe, “Earthen Eruption”, he chanted.

A mass of rocky barbs jumped from the floor but stayed connected, missing the snallygaster as it flapped its wings to fly upwards and away.

“Flame Second, Skystrike”, Logan chanted, pulling a clawed hand back. A large mass of flames appeared behind the monster and aimed to strike into its rear, however, it merely fluttered its wings immensely, sending horrendous winds all around, dissipating the fire in the air.

Logan let out a sigh as he looked higher and warped upwards. Throwing his arms wide, Logan formed two balls of fire and let loose as he chanted, “Flame Shot”, hurtling the lower-level spells at the lower foe.

Another bat of its wings had the snallygaster shift to the side to dodge, rising to meet Logan in the sky.

Before he could attempt another trick, Logan had all four limbs grappled as the snallygaster warped in front of the Spellthief. The beast brought Logan up to its face, while Logan wrung his head back, slamming his forehead fiercely into the eye of his opponent. A loud crack was heard as the thumping of heads separated the combatants.

Falling backwards, Logan held out a hand and spoke, “Air Blast”, sending himself flying to the side, and then letting out another force of wind to spin around in the air, then upwards, to the side, and down. He danced around the foe who had the advantage in the air.

A final blast sent Logan careening to the snallygaster, warping out of existence two feet away and grappling its back. Without a word, Logan pierced the snallygaster as he did the alpha, one large stake of minerals through its back and out its chest and another that didn’t seem to go through.

Backstab text appeared again but the second shattered as the spell failed to pierce whatever spell resistance the beast had.

Twirling around in a dervish, the snallygaster pushed Logan away as its body started to glow yellow. Logan cursed in his head as his foe healed itself.

Realigning himself with a blast of air, Logan was about to follow after his foe with another distracting technique, however, it apparated in front of his face, its eye primed into his.

Logan had tears form in his eyes, and a rush of fatigue hit his retinas as a headache washed over his forehead. With research and planning ahead, Logan had the thin film he had applied earlier explode across his eyes, a magical item that protected him against a single gaze attack.

Looking upwards quickly, Logan warped away as his defences were stripped away. Logan’s cloak fluttered in the wind as he got higher and higher. Rubbing his face quickly, the Spellthief applied a Clean mick to fix his eyes. Picking out two more films to apply, Logan was about to put them in like contact lenses, but had to warp to the floor to avoid another torrent of flames from below.

Almost shoving them into his face, Logan applied the magical items and dodged a crashing foe before he was flattened. However, with his attention on his aggressor, he missed the forming of flames behind him, dealing a dangerous 56 and 59 damage to Logan.

Warping atop a tree as more fell to the floor from the conflict, Logan downed several potions to recover from the attack, jumping from his perch as the tree accompanied the others on the floor.

More swipes came at Logan, this time they brought spores and dandelions with them, covering Logan’s face in a sleepy mess. Logan praised his earring that allowed him to survive that certain attack, but it wasn’t a certainty.

Shaking his head side to side, Logan warped away again to make some distance from the quick foe. The Spellthief was now dipping into his MP resources to teleport as he used up his rings and signature bonuses.

As Logan began to change his approach to the fight, his mind disturbingly and abruptly shifted to a new scene.

Logan stood tall on a beach resort, sand between his toes and the sun beating down on his exposed upper body. The laughter of families surrounded him as a sticky-sweet vapour from nearby ice cream vans accented the air. Minute droplets of water dripped down Logan’s body, having just come back from a refreshing swim in the sea.

Looking around, Logan was back on Earth. Blue, white, red, and pink parasols protected those who lay on blankets. A cooler opened nearby, the clinking glass alerting others that “drinks are on”, happy footsteps against flowing sand moving away from Logan.

The scene was serene but sinister. Logan was about to smash it apart with a clenched fist if it wasn’t for a hand clasping his shoulder.

Turning to face the hand, Logan’s gaze was met by his father. A balding man with the happiest smile you’d ever seen. As he opened his mouth to speak, Logan only heard a muffled breath, as if his father was speaking through a thick door asking Logan to let him in the house.

Flexing his hands, Logan forced whatever spellforce he had left to flow through his body. A rush of wind flew from his shoulders to his fingertips, a circular wave erupted from his feet. As his power zoomed around, a shattering of glass collapsed the fake world, returning Logan back to his senses.

Logan was impaled on a tree, his feet barely touching the floor. Blood had been pouring from him for some time, a gash across his face having rendered one of his eyes inoperable. Choking out phlegm and blood, Logan tore the rocky thorn from his body and fell to the floor on his feet.

Liquid poured from Logan’s eyes, the protection only reducing the effect of the mind-controlling demon. Thwarting the forced wish, Logan was able to keep himself alive. The trick of the snallygasters was that they granted wishes no matter if you wanted them or not. A simple look would sign the contract, no matter the penalty. Pulling into your psyche if you resisted, Logan could only block the sightline or have a backfed spellforce to stop the effect.

The snallygaster whose mental control was broken charged at Logan again, aiming a wide crushing slam with both front limbs. The Spellthief’s vaskt red eyes ripped open as Logan smashed the backs of his wrist against that of his foe’s, stopping the attack before it hit. As the two beings clashed as such, incredibly destructive winds flurried around, cutting apart leaves, and grass, and even cracking the nearby trees and ground.

Opening his palms, Logan let loose two flurries of his own rocky spikes, piercing the monster through the chest and causing them to fall to the floor in a slide. Their larger body lay still in the mud.

Logan fell to a knee as he drew out more potions from his inventory to heal his wounds, spitting out a glob of blood after downing the liquid. Standing up, Logan warped away.

Apparating atop the back of another snallygaster, the one accosting his elementals whom only Celsius and Fahrenheit remained, Logan dove two daggers on its back. MP Theivery text appeared in blue, stating Logan stole two lots of 8 MP from his foe.

As the Spellthief kicked off his target’s back to avoid retaliation, his quest alerted him to having drained one of the snallygasters to 0 MP.

Kicking off the floor to further debilitate this foe, Logan slapped both of the monster’s winged talons and mentally commanded, “Status Disturbance”, removing the earthy aura around both and dispelling the Infuse buffs they had. A solid punch into its chest with a further command had its whole body seemingly slow, a Haste effect being the last to remove.

With another objective complete, Logan drew up two daggers and thrust them into the monster’s wings, Celsius and Fahrenheit blasting it in the back with their ranged effects. With the last assault, the beast fell to the floor.

Logan had a few missteps as he regained his footing, the fight wasn’t overly long but it was draining. Twisting his head around, Logan spied Marcus in the background pulling out a rocky spike from his own foe.

Slowly returning to his ally, Logan downed another potion to make himself feel better after the conflict. Celsius and Fahrenheit moved to group up the bodies for Harvesting, while Marcus healed himself and dragged the corpse behind him.

“Kept your wits then”, Logan asked through harsh breaths.

“Yeah. These monsters really wanted to give me a staring contest”, Marcus chuckled as he wiped blood from his mouth.

Logan looked to the side as he saw his quest complete, “Seems we’re done here. Probably the second fastest quest I’ve completed.”

“Suppose we earned a rest before heading back, yeah?”

Logan fell on his rear as he pulled out a waterskin, “No arguments here.”

The yellow experience numbers were a calming sight as ever, Logan looking into the sky as another quest passed him by, leading to some time off for the last parts of the year. The man’s breath painted the air a thick white as his body temperature was far higher than the climate. Even so far away from Gauntlet, it was still cold, but not enough for any signs of snow just yet.

With some downtime before heading out, Logan accepted his quest rewards.

“Quest - Eradicate the Snallygasters, has been completed. You achieved 4 additional objectives during the mission and as such your rewards will be increased. Distributing rewards…”

“The reward for your quest completion is as follows:

Spellthief’s Edge Lv21*5

Spellthief’s Garb Lv21*5

95 gold coins

As you had the aid of a partnered NPC, they shall be granted 5,323 XP.”

Logan passed 46 gold to Marcus for his aid, as usual, before putting on the new garb and putting his new Spellthief’s edge in his left hilt, the right still holding the frozen lord edge. The armour in particular was an amazing boost to Logan’s defences as he had been relying on the set he had gained all the way back at the frost monarch’s cavern.

Having both of these appear at legendary quality also meant they would keep pace well into the next level, and possibly 23 too. At least their additional effects would be useful for some time to come.

The danger of getting them was comparable though, Logan was wise to have bought up defences against the enforced wishes. Would those creatures really have been able to grant his desire to be back with his father, and in good health?

As Logan stood to take what he could from the corpses he felt a rush of wind at his back, as well as that of a tightening wire around him.

Whipping around, Logan just barely blocked a massive kick with his arms, sending him hurtling into a tree and destroying it on impact.

“Logan!” Marcus shouted as he was similarly hit away.

Two sword swings saw the two elementals burst into light, their cores cracking into nothingness in the air.

“Prism Censure”, the attacker finished chanting, their tone gravelly and demonic yet with a hint of feminine pitch. A pair of talons finished strange movements with a pointed clash, a small prism forming in the middle of their limbs that quickly expanded greatly, covering easily several hundred feet.

Two long bone blades teased the dirt below as the four-armed creature breathed out a cloud of white smoke, a grin past both ears as she stared glowing green eyes at her quarry. “PC, time to die.”

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