Legend of the Spellthief

Logan scanned over his new opponent cautiously as they parted from their previous clash. He was sure Tille had lost some power from splitting in two, but it wasn’t a massive change. Was it 80%? If so, Marcus was going to have an easy time versus 20%. But, there was also the chance this split had the ability to make two powerful copies. This could be 80% while the other was 40, 50, or even another 80%.

Moving his vaskt eyes to look to his side out of instinct, worried for his friend, Logan tried to keep all his attention on his foe. Whatever the partitions of power were, both had an easier foe to fight.

“Frightened your duo will be expunged?” Tille asked with a sinister cackle.

“No. Just curious how much easier you’ve made this for me”, Logan replied with confidence.

Tille laughed further, “Oh, you’re curious about my skill? I have little worry. We are stronger apart than combined.”

“So, two halves don’t make a whole.”

“It’d be a weak strategy if I divided my resources like that”, Tille announced as she licked the wound of her left talon.

“Why not start the fight like that then?” Logan asked, hoping to buy some time.

“Everything has its con. Your decline of my bargain will be your friend’s life.”

Logan chuckled, “You must believe I think little of Marcus”, before strengthening his stance, “I trust he can kick your ass.”

“Let us see!” Tille yelled as she charged at Logan.

Logan threw both of his daggers with Dagger Toss, their edges cutting the air apart as the monster narrowly dodged both. Drawing up his frozen lord edge and the dagger given to him by Amalia, Logan blocked both of the sword swings from Tille.

“Set Outfit 1”, Logan commanded in his head.

“Set”, Fol replied.

Slashing back to send Tille away, Logan threw his daggers into his inventory and picked out two more Bowen daggers, throwing them with immense power, one piercing Tille’s stomach.

Jumping at the monster, Logan commanded in his head, “O1.”

To which Fol replied, “Changed.”

Logan had his frozen lord edge and Amalia's blade appear in his hands immediately, slamming both down on Tille’s sword while he used all of his weight to push down.

Getting reflected, Logan twisted in the air as Tille followed on the ground. Spinning, Logan slashed at the swords again to stop them from reaching him. Several strikes landed while he twirled in the air and Tille assaulted him with firmer footing.

Landing his blades on Tille’s again, Logan also planted both feet on the swords and kicked off them. Throwing his daggers into his coat, Logan let off two blasts of air to send himself upwards.

Drawing dagger after dagger from his inventory, he yet again let loose a volley of knives at Tille. In her split state, she wasn’t able to dodge or block as many, several puncturing her frame and turning her into a type of holey cheese.

The forest was a mess of crimson and stygian. Tille’s body continued to convulse and pulsate as she shrugged off the pain, some form of power healing her throughout the fight. Logan just had to outlive her.

Tille blasted upwards to follow Logan again, the Spellthief shifting his body to avoid talon swipes and blocking the swords with his dagger.

Aiming his feet back, Logan blasted wind from his soles as he rugby-tackled the monster. With a swift movement, Logan commanded, “O1”, in his head, the Bowen daggers shifted to his set blades, and pierced the monster’s inner-elbows with them.

Backstab text appeared twice as Dastardly Backstabs weakened Tille’s swordarms. Logan blasted again, hugging Tille’s body as he wrapped his hands around her back, silentcasting two rounds of Necromantic 2 Grasp, Tille had claws dig deep into the muscles of her back, her energies pouring into Logan.

Tille opened her maw wide and was about to bite into Logan’s shoulder, however, he kicked off her plummeting body before she could get a nibble in. Her body made another crater in the floor as Logan landed a few feet away in a slide.

Breakdancing to her feet, Tille flexed the daggers from her arms and caused them to fall to the floor.

The opponents glared at one another, haggard breath escaping into white mist. Blood and ink fell to the floor, the combatants having let out so much it was a miracle both still lived.

Logan was near the end of his rope. If he was fresh, it’d be a better setup. Sadly, Logan’s reserves were almost bled as dry as him. He had only three spells left prepared, and 0 MP. He’d need an opportunity to down some vials, or resort to Bloodcasting.

The Spellthief had a plan, but he couldn’t enact it just yet. Tille was so on edge that any movements from Logan would cause her to go into a defence or just jump high to dodge it.

Tille’s arms were hung low, her elbows destroyed to the point she’d want an amputation. They only worked through sheer will and forced spellforce through them. She was puppeteering herself just as she had all those who died before her.

Logan breathed in deep and let out a loud command enhanced via Boom Voice, “Gabtrak, hyse. Meer Lord ast ire!”

The Spellthief’s voice carried into the forest, whatever birds hadn’t already scattered flew from canopies in the distance. The departure was soon followed by stampeding feet as Logan utilised his Call to War skill.

“What the below?” Tille cursed as she weakly drew up her blades.

Logan threw several more daggers at Tille, dipping into his weaker supply. Tille could only defend at this point, cutting at the Dagger Toss-infused blades. Shortly after that, goblinoids of various types came charging through the exterior of the prism. Clubs and claws, swords and shields. The army had arrived.

Being so far from where Logan had been before allowed a bigger pool of goblins to call on, and it worked wonderfully. As Logan was running out of daggers, the first of the goblins jumped at Tille to smash her down.

With hurried kicks, Tille dispatched the would-be kill-stealers, their bodies flying off into the distance.

Logan darted towards Tille, sliding underneath a hobgoblin and jumping over a few scouts. Landing in a slide, Logan gathered his frozen lord edge and Amalia’s blade, putting them into his inventory.

Tille slashed through the club of a hobgoblin, segmenting it and its wielder with ease. Formins gave her a bit of trouble with their heightened speed but went down in single hits too.

Pulling vial after vial from his inventory, Logan was guzzling the restorative liquids down his gullet.

“Get the fuck off me!” Tille screamed as she stabbed one blade into the ground, supported her right arm, and slashed into another circle with a black aura. The deathly slice cut countless goblinoids in half.

Logan hung in the air for a second after jumping high to dodge the slash. Each use of that skill meant another Logan didn’t have to deal with, although that offensive had ruined his army of goblins. No more were coming any time soon.

Logan landed deftly as he picked up another two daggers that littered the floor by now.

Tille waved her hand over the corpses, her blood continuing to soak what she aimed at. Both hers and the blood of her foes started to float upwards, starting slow they quickly sped to an insane speed towards Tille’s form. Soaking into her muscle underbody, Tille took on a dark red and black aura.

Her green eyes slowly turned to face Logan, a second wind of sorts overcoming the monster who was taking far too long to kill. Stabbing her other blade into the floor, Tille clasped her hands together and pulled apart, a strange static surrounding her body and exploding outwards with black bile as her hands became outstretched.

“Thank you for the meal”, Tille praised devilishly.

Logan cast Haste once more and darted towards Tille. Starting his assault with a blaze of fire and heated obelisks, Logan jumped high to avoid a swapping dual-slash and shot down more sparks of lightning that crackled across his foe’s armaments, Logan continued to batter Tille’s weapons to set up for later.

Sprinting together, Bowen daggers collided and shattered against slipstream swords, Logan stopped Tille’s wrists just before the swords hit him, Tille forcing him to duck as they continued anyway.

Forming his frozen lord edge and Amalia’s blade, Logan parried more slashes, the force of which felt like Tille was back to full strength.

With his last ditch effort, Logan chanted, “Skin of Ice”, coating his body blue before returning to normal. Parrying several more blows, Logan saw cracks all across the bone swords that Tille employed.

Throwing his daggers back into his inventory, Logan pushed two clawed hands toward the monster’s chest.

Tille’s two swords came swinging down as her right talon darted to pierce Logan. A trio of strikes to end her quarry.

Two cracks and three punchy punctures echoed through the forest. Then another, and another, another… twenty punctures total as Logan’s shoulders bled from shattered bone swords, Tille a porcupine as twenty Bowen daggers had been telekinetically forced into her.

The monster was a mess of steel, her attention had only been on Logan, not the battlefield covered in tree trunks, corpses, and all the daggers Logan had thrown previously. His ammunition was in plain sight, allowing for this “Dagger Hell” technique Logan had used.

Tille’s bones creaked as the blades junked up her joints, blood poured profusely from the wounds and her mouth, her green eyes bleeding black as she fell on her back.

Logan fell to his knees with 27 HP remaining, the damage reduction from his armour and resistance from his spell had let him survive the final attack.

Shaky hands pulled vials from Logan’s inventory as he drank back up to strength. A smattering of fog persisted in the Spellthief’s mind, even with the resistance he had built up to spell fatigue, he could feel it in the distance. At his best guess, he was just over halfway fatigued.

Logan spat out blood, his skin pale with the veins popping to the surface. Having had to Bloodcast his Telekinesis spell as he lacked the MP for it, Logan had reduced his maximum HP quite a bit.

Before any further rest could take hold, Logan ran over to the hole in the ground where Marcus had been abducted, picking up daggers in his path as he went. Sliding down the slope to the chamber, Logan scanned the area for his ally.

Marcus was slowly limping towards Logan, blood soaking his ripped-apart robes, one of his arms had several deformities across it as if it had been continually snapped and broken. Logan ran to catch his friend before he fell to the floor.

“Marcus, stay with me, buddy.”

Marcus coughed up blood onto Logan, “Hah, no worries, this is nothing.”

Logan laughed, scared, “You won, right?”

Marcus moved to sit on the floor with the aid of Logan, “Was there any doubt?”

“Sorry, I couldn’t get to you in time to help.”

“Hey, you had your own issues to deal with. We just shared the load of the fight, that’s all.”

“Did she say anything to you?”

Marcus took a vial from Logan’s hand and drank it, “Nothing of note. Seems she was the weaker of the two copies though”, he answered as he spluttered the end of the potion.

“It seems like she was the last rung of the ladder for the recent business we’ve been dealing with. But I got the insinuation she had side allies who didn’t see things the same way she did”, Logan announced.

“So”, Marcus began as he cracked his arm into position, “we have to worry, but not immediately.”

“Probably just more Below PCs, I had guessed there were some anyway. If she was a partnered monster, and Krekka was maybe another, we’re looking for at least one, maybe two. She was the monster of a dead PC.”

“She not related to Quayvan? From your description, those talons of hers seemed to be the same?”

“They were the same. The whole sunsilt bolt situation was engineered by her hands I’d wager.”

“Quayvan wasn’t a partner?”

Logan shook his head, “I doubt it.”

“So, who’s this Ahren? Someone who wants to stay anonymous?” Marcus asked, a bit worried.

Logan thought for a second before replying, “That he is.”

Marcus stood at the aid of his staff, “That’s fine, I trust you. I believe what you tell me and don't think about what you don't", he assured.

Logan stood too, waving a hand over himself as he used Clean to make himself look fresh. “Let’s see what she brought with her. Is her copy still around?”

“It didn’t melt away, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

Marcus led Logan into the underground, seemingly a domicile of an older species of ground-dwelling creatures. The copy of Tille was battered and bruised, several parts of her exoskeleton were crushed and snapped backwards. Marcus certainly ensured she’d stay down, but then, his Strength was far above Logan’s with his enhancements.

“Identify.”

“This corpse is protected against identification abilities. The following is all you can assess:

Name: Tille. Level 23. Copy / Demon / Skullbeast.

Many markers depict she drank blood and ate the flesh of humanoids. At least one skill shows her being a partner to a Player. Her abilities and components are weaker than the main body as this is a copy.

Notable Components: Heart, skull plate.”

Logan sighed, “Cons indeed. It seems splitting like this is a permanent measure. Even at two, they were easy enough for the both of us to handle singularly.”

“Can’t tell how strong this one was?”

“At my guess, I fought an 80%, you fought a 60 to 70% copy.”

Marcus tutted, “Couldn’t have been a simple 50-50, ay?”

“If she lacked an ability to reform, this is quite a detriment to her overall combat prowess. She slowed enough for me to keep pace easier, and hit her simpler”, Logan continued as he looked over Marcus, “It’s good she didn’t know our true capabilities. She seemed unaware of my Telekinesis, and you, your… whatever you were hiding was.”

“Like I told her, I was fortunate to have my fight blocked from your sight”, Marcus laughed in pain, “I suppose it’d be better if she were fighting just one of us with two of her, seven limbs would be unmanageable at her speeds.”

“No weapons”, Logan thought aloud as he looked over the corpse, “I take it she was fighting unarmed?”

“That she was.”

“I broke her swords up top, so no loot there”, Logan announced as he cut out the copy’s heart and prized the plating of bone around its head.

“I guess she couldn’t handle my chains and your spells”, Marcus chuckled to himself.

The pair returned to the surface, Logan cutting another heart and skull plate for his collection. There wasn’t much else of a reward to be had as the monster didn’t carry any bags or wear anything of note. It seemed the true reward would be the lack of attacks, as they now lacked her direction.

Moving both corpses together, Logan set them alight to remove any components he couldn’t use and to remove the chance of something eating her remains for more power. It was also good insurance she’d not get revived.

At the end of it all, both Logan and Marcus were fully tapped out, and so decided to rest some distance away until tomorrow before they could warp back to Gauntlet.

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