Harmless Human Sacrifice (Mana Devourer) - 43 (Patreon)

Markus made his way to the blacksmith only to find the boar man missing. There was an unfinished weapon sitting across on a workbench, billows filling the place with smoke, and a feeling of unspoken continuity to the place that was eventually made sensical when he noticed a certain younger bipedal boar managing the forge, much skinnier than the one he’d met before.

“My father’s in the tavern,” the young boar said, sniffling between words. His eyes looked somewhat red. “I can go and fetch him for you if you’d like!”

“Can you help me with purchasing some armour?” Markus asked, aware time was of the essence. “And with identifying these?” he pulled one of the metal alloys currently on his person from his pockets, holding it up for the young boar to examine.

“No!” the boar shook his head without even looking. “No, I’m not anywhere near experienced enough. Let me go fetch him for you, please.”

“I’ll do it myself,” Markus said, shaking his head. “You don’t need to wait hand and foot for me.”

“It’s really no bother!” the young boar insisted.

“It is to me,” Markus said. “I’ll go find him. You relax.”

Markus still hadn’t grown accustomed to the fact some people in this world seemed straight up pleasant. Less so was he accustomed to people asking to do things for him. Perhaps it was the alien nature of that feeling, or how high-strung he was currently feeling, but he wanted to handle things like this himself. He had no interest in sending people to run errands for him, and he didn’t feel fully content to sit around waiting. He felt antsy even now.

And so he went to the tavern across the walkway and dipped inside, right past a lively game of dice between a lizardman and a drunken pair of stout, gold-skinned women, past an arm-wrestle between two imps complete with cheers and the slamming of coins against tables, past a long table of workers wearily toasting lunch and resolving to drink their way through the meal rather than order any food, and finally, past a small collection of tables and barstools filled with lonely, inactive participants nursing at their drinks.

It was at one of those barstools that he found boar man. There was no music in the tavern; the sounds of merriment and argument evoked the hopeful hopelessness of his periphery, a fitting motif for an underground dive carried by the patronage of the barren, the broken, the forsaken, the morally bankrupt, the fighters, the workers, the slaves, the dreamers…

Loose-pursed, languishing, listless, they longed only to laugh and smile and shout and forget, trading coin for transcience.

None of the shit in here mattered. Not the games, the dice, the shouts, the fights—nothing. 

Markus could see the appeal.

Gimme a cocktail. Two parts vibrant, one part ennui… three parts bullshit.

He sat down besides him. Tapped him on the shoulder. 

“Hey.”

“You’re the Mana Manipulator…” Boar man looked him over where he sat, placing his large mug of thick brown sludge down on the counter and giving him a quick once-over. “You need something?”

“Yeah,” Markus nodded. “I need some gear for my next fight. I’ve only got a few hours until I’m due out.”

Boar man listened to him, and then slowly nodded. “Alright.” 

He didn’t motion to move. He eventually picked up his drink and took another long sip.

Markus felt his foot beginning to tap against the bottom of the stool. “Can we go take a look in a minute? I don’t wanna rush you, but—”

“Then don’t rush me,” the boar man said. He placed his mug down. “You drink?”

“Uhh, not since coming here.” Markus shook his head. “Again, I don’t really have time for—”

Boar man gave him a long look. “Why not?”

“Why not? Are you serious? I could die any minute and—”

“And you look like your chest is about to explode. You need a breather.” 

Markus’ eyebrows knit at the absurdity of what he heard. “I’m sorry, should I look like a fucking zombie? My life’s on the line! That tends to have most people on edge, you know.”

“You should have a drink,” boar man said.

“I’m sorry? What part of ‘fighting in a few hours’ did you not get?”

He grinned, like he was privy to some great secret that Markus wasn’t. “Oh, I got it. And I get that you’re terrified. You didn’t seem this way when we last met, either.”

“Oh, because you’re such a good judge of other people’s emotions?”

“I’m a tradesman. If I didn’t know what other people were thinking, I’d only be good for making the gear, not selling it.” He raised an eyebrow. “Besides, your hands are sweaty, you’ve got all veins sticking out of your neck, and your voice is quivering. You sound like you’re barely holding yourself together.”

“You… you can tell all that from a glance?”

Boar man barked a crude laugh. “I work with rare metals all day. Are my powers of perception really so shocking?”

Markus said nothing, disarmed by his candour, his easy and unassuming demeanour. 

“Let’s buy you a drink. It’ll help. You can pay me back with your patronage.”

“I’m not thirsty,” Markus protested.

“No one drinks in a tavern because they’re thirsty,” boar man laughed. “Let’s see… oi! Sanreed! C’mere a sec!”

Markus gave up arguing with the man. It was pointless. 

Fuck it. Guess I’ve got the Robust passive for a reason. I can handle one drink.

Wasn’t long until he had a mug filled to the brim with the same brown deluge as boar man’s cup. He took a sip, trepidation against his lips, only to find that the nectar of the ale was tolerable, a lot less bitter than he’d expected.

“Better?”

“I’ve only been sat here a minute, why the hell would I feel better?”

It was a lie. Just the act of being able to sit down and be anything resembling a normal person for five seconds was a veritable weight off of Markus’ shoulders. The feeling contended with his encroaching combat, the two things wrestling for control of his brain, but the blacksmith seemed content on butting in and pulling him away from his ruminations, clearing his throat with a gruff grumble.

“Do you ever switch off?” boar man asked him. “Y’know… mentally clock out. Have a daydream, or an aimless wander.”

“It’s not like I really get a chance,” Markus said. “How am I meant to? My life’s frought with near death experiences and nearer death experiences. Switching off means letting my guard down.”

“I don’t switch off,” boar man admitted. “My life’s a lot simpler than yours, and yet this is the only thing that makes it slow down.” He lifted his mug in testament. “It’s my answer. Doesn’t gotta be yours, but you need something, or all of that energy’s gonna slam you straight into a brick wall.”

“I can take care of myself just fine,” Markus lied. 

“You weren’t this worried when we last met. You didn’t seem it at least. What changed?”

“Nothing.”

“You make friends here? Meet people you care about?”

“That’s not why,” Markus said. “The situation changed. The things that I have to do to survive, the things I’ve already had to do, the choices I’ve made… I dunno. It all just feels different to me now. Making friends has nothing to do with it.”

“...but you have made friends.”

Markus felt his eye twitch. “What’s your point?”

“That you should talk to them when you’re feeling this way.”

Markus sipped his drink. This stuff was pretty good. Like a craft beer but with more kick.

“Maybe it’s hard,” he finally said, fishing the words from about a third of the way down the glass.

“Because you have to be strong for your friends? Or maybe for yourself?” 

Markus didn’t answer. He drank deeper. What the fuck did this guy know?

“Or maybe you just don’t know how to talk about this.” He shrugged. He took another swig. “I don’t know much about your situation. I know that pretending to be fine when you’re not can be damaging, though. I know you’re twice as likely to die today if you go out there pretending you’re fine.”

“Talking is bullshit,” Markus professed, slamming his drink a bit harder than he meant to, its contents sloshing. “Talking isn’t going to make me hit any harder or tank more shots or dodge faster or make my magic more potent. It’s just a waste of time. That’s all we’re doing here. So how about we finish up, go to the armory, and you get me my shit.”

He pulled out his purse of strange silver coins. “Look. I can pay. Let’s just stop wasting time.”

“There’s a time for being strong,” boar man said.

Markus growled. “Are you even listening to me?”

“And there’s a time for being honest. Be honest with yourself.”

He stood on those words, downing the rest of his drink. 

“Alright. Let’s spend your money.”

Markus finished his drink and followed the man out. He almost wished he could stay for another.

***

When the pair of them returned to the armory, boar man told his son he could go home, which was met by multiple questions to the beat of ‘are you sure’, and a visceral sigh of relief from the son after boar man insisted for the third time that he was absolutely fine and didn’t need any more help.

Strange dynamic. Markus pondered it as he was outfitted.

The boar identified the metals he’d brought with him as elundite, also known as silent sky, and fischor, a metal used primarily for jewellery.

The silent sky was apparently forged in high mountains using a partially eroded ore that had attained lightweight and flexible qualities from its environment, the cliffs of its origin continually struck by lightning as well as being battered by winds and hail. Purportedly, it was superior to steel in almost every way.

The red crystal Ember had recently found a home in was known as a Selsor Crystal. They could house and transport souls while allowing them to be detached from their physical bodies, and could be used to great effect in people smuggling, making them an invaluable item in the use case of both people-smugglers and escorts of VIPs. 

The crystal’s colour determined its Grade. Markus’ crystal was so rare that boar man dropped to a whisper upon seeing it and insisted on checking it twice despite how infallible he claimed his appraisals were.

B Grade, untarnished. A treasure worth easily a thousand gold pieces, capable of housing all but the most powerful creatures existent on Firellia regardless of size, though maintaining a maximum capacity of one at a time.

Fucking good find. As for the green gem, the blacksmith was actually stumped. It didn’t look like anything he rightly recognised, and he said it was outside his area of expertise. To Markus, it looked like a peridot, or something to that effect. Maybe an emerald? He wasn’t sure. He didn’t know gems very well.

Focussing on this shit felt better than thinking about his feelings. All that bullshit about being honest with himself, about being vulnerable, what did it help?

You know what helped? A flame retardant leather cuirass, bolstered by metal straps around the shoulders and metallic linings along the sides and arms, alongside the mystic pair of metal greaves he’d snagged before.

Apparently, said greaves had a renewable enchantment within them that increased the user’s lightness, allowing them to weather more dangerous falls and move a little faster.

This enchantment would apparently wear off over time and would eventually need to be replenished by someone capable. Markus asked if he could simply pour more mana into them, and the blacksmith said that when it came to renewable enchantments, only those with the proper enchanting skill should attempt to replenish said items. 

The reasoning he gave concerned the enchantment itself. Apparently, it was easy to alter the core properties of an item when placing mana into it. He gave the example of Markus’ imbuements and how they carved new runes over weapons. He said that regardless of how Markus could control his mana’s potency and type, if he were to indirectly put such an imbuement into his greaves, there was a good chance the enchantment might break.

All the more reason to befriend an enchanter and learn to do this shit himself. He didn’t just wanna be able to renew his enchantments, either. He wanted to make his own.

His new outfit and his appraisals combined cost him about a hundred of those silver coins, leaving him with the vast majority. Markus enquired about the F Grade stones while he was there, curious to see if they might be worth attaching to imbued weapons and selling later, and found the answer to be favourable, even if the value he could expect from such weapons was closer to 25 gold per than the aforementioned 80 minimum.

Then again, they were talking about an entire two stones worth of difference, so he supposed it made sense.

Markus felt a little better once he left. He couldn’t explain it, but he hadn’t exactly planned to ask about the metals or the stones while he was there, nor to talk about anything that involved making plans for the future. Not when he thought he wasn’t gonna survive today. Not when everything felt so pointless.

And yet he’d asked. And he’d known while he’d been asking that he might be making plans for a future that didn’t exist for him, and he’d done so anyways.

Was that optimism, or some helpful frivolity in the face of everything dark and dismal and foreboding that soon his way came?

Could be either. Maybe both. He was glad he asked, though.

That beer had been somewhat potent for just a single drink. He was glad he had Robust to help break it down, and combined with his Meditation, he wasn’t really feeling the effects for long. Which was good, seeing as he still had a fair bit more planning to do.

The Dark Knight class let him amplify his spell casts once per cast, at a cost of double mana, and made him sponge elemental attacks at a higher rate as a tradeoff.

This would usually be a disadvantage, as who wanted to be hit harder as a cost of being able to hit harder?

Well, Markus drank mana, so for him it wasn’t quite a straight disadvantage. If anything, it was just another benefit.

Dark Knight was listed for him as a subclass under Otherworlder. It had its own level, currently 1, and could eventually be combined with other classes to form new ones. He’d pick a second class later. Right now, he was pretty determined to use what he already had at his disposal.

Skills, levels, classes, Paths, passives, Masteries, his weapon… 

[Malichor Blade (Tri Core 6): 55 points available.]

[Weapon Grade: D]

[Mana: 15/720]

[Sharpness: 65 (+50)]

[Affinity: 90 (+50)]

[Versatility: 35]

[Durability : 70 (+50) ]

[Control: 20]

[Core: 15]

Holy shit, it’d been a second since he’d looked at this. Not only was Intensity II giving him a +50 in three stats because his Spirit was 250 now and it gave him 2 points in those stats for each 10 he had in Spirit, but those bonuses would quadruple to +200 when he was under severe turmoil.

Combined with Dark Knight’s spell bolstering and Empower and some of his other tricks, Markus was beginning to envision that he might be capable of some pretty fucking baller feats when under duress, assuming he used his Malichor Bladea as a conduit.

He needed to put more points into his weapon. He dumped more into Core and Control. 

Core was integral to increasing the weapon’s mana. It had a powerful core and he wanted to be able to generate more mana within it. 20 more points in Core raised the weapon’s Mana Capacity to nearly 1400, effectively bringing the weapon’s capacity to more than that of an F Grade Essence Stone, ignoring the fact that his weapon generated its own mana. 

Control was needed if he was going to be able to use the weapon properly. Unfortunately, Malichor Frenzy I dictated that while he gained Control and Sharpness in spades for attacking with the weapon, putting points into the weapon’s Control attribute cost twice as much. That meant that sticking another 20 points into Control only brought his base Control up to 30, and that was even including points he’d spent increasing the weapon’s control while he’d been grinding the dungeons below.

Looks like he was doomed to be a slow starter for now, and ramping up with a flurry of attacks was the name of the game if he wanted to gain access to his weapon’s full benefits in combat.

10 more Affinity brought the weapon’s Affinity up to 100, but an unmodified 50. Even still, this had an immediate effect:

[Scornful Strike I unlocked! 45 Versatility required to slot this skill. Please increase your Versatility, or unmark an existing skill in order to affix Scornful Strike.]

Okay, shit. What did this even do?

[Scornful Strike I: Every 4 minutes, you may channel 50 F Grade Frost Mana and 50 F Grade Spirit Mana into your weapon, causing your next strike to deal bludgeoning damage and knock opponents back, also inflicting Freeze I on opponents no more than twice your size or lower. Durability of weapon affects skill cooldown, while user Affinity and Arcana each affect potency and threshold or freezing opponent.]

Huh. One big attack, and a guaranteed Freeze on an opponent, assuming they weren’t completely massive. 

Maybe a situational pickup, but so far, Markus had fought about as many massive things as he had small, so there was a decent chance it could be useful. If he had to guess on his next opponent, he’d assume ‘big’, as even though the papers he’d been given on the creature didn’t specify size, it sounded big, but the knockback and damage themselves might be a crucial extra thing to have on the battlefield, regardless of the Freeze status.

So it was that he grabbed that shit and invested the necessary points to slot it straight away.

That said, he immediately got a prompt the second he learned the skill:

[Forget existing skills Scornful Strike I and Acid Slash I and forge a new Compound Skill? 85% chance of Common Compound Skill, 13% Rare, 1.6% Epic, 0.3% Legendary, 0.1% Transcendent.]

Yeah, no. Those odds sounded dogshit. Even the 13% on a Rare compound was a total crapshoot. He never used Acid Slash, really, but that didn’t necessarily mean it was bad, and he hadn’t even gotten to try out Scornful Strike yet. 

That being said…

He remembered the factors that increased his chances of getting rarer compound skills. They included his Arcana and Affinity, both of which had gone up, as well as his existing levels within a skill…

He decided to pull up a previous option for sake of comparison, now that his stats had increased. He was curious.

[Forget existing skills Detonate I and Triple Strike I and forge a new Compound Skill? 65% chance of Common Compound Skill, 24% Rare, 8% Epic, 2.7% Legendary, 0.3% Transcendent.]

Damn, 1 in 300-ish chance at a Transcendent ability, huh? Who was feeling so generous all of a sudden?

Markus wasn’t gonna cash that in just yet, he could increase the odds further before he span that wheel. Hell, part of him was intensely aware of the fact that his Sharpness, Affinity, and Durablility bonuses DID quadruple if he was under enough stress, and considering that, he almost wondered if it were possible to artificially engineer a combat situation in which he was able to max out his Affinity and then from there roll to combine skills.

Sounded incredibly risky if he fucked it up, but he’d been put in a hostile and unfair world with nothing to go off but the exploits he could come up with. It was something he was more than willing to give a try once.

And, well, once was probably all he needed to either find out it worked or get murdered. 

Hmm. Maybe he could trick his passive into activating during training. He’d rope Cyrus into that later if he got a chance.

When Rika popped up again later, it was in the middle of Markus filling a couple of his remaining Essence Stones.

“Hey!” Rika started, waving with her right top hand as she strutted in, looking sweaty. “I worked double-time to get all my deliveries sorted. Wanted to see you before you fought next.”

“Hey…” 

Markus thought about it for a moment. He looked at her. Could he…

No. 

There was something better he could do than talk.

“Hey, can you do me a favour?”

“Probably. I’m pretty good at favours.”

“Okay…” Markus scrawled down a handful of words on a piece of paper, making sure to make them nice and big and as legible as he possibly could.

On the back, he hesitantly scrawled down some more words, hurriedly forcing them onto paper.

What had started as a few seconds soon turned into a couple of minutes, then a few. Rika raised an eyebrow, peering over him.

“What’s that say?”

“Don’t worry about that. Just look at the big words on the front.”

Rika nodded. “Okay. Can do.”

“Good. Now, go look around in the library for any books with words on them that look like this. Grab them and bring them to me. As fast as you can, okay?”

She didn’t need telling twice. She grabbed the piece of paper and legged it.

Markus had written six words on the front of the paper.

Those words were ‘magic’, ‘contract’, ‘demon’, ‘mana’, ‘soul’, and ‘summon’.

With those words, Markus was hoping he could learn at least something about how the fuck to get out of his predicament, assuming Rika could grab the right books.

On the back of the paper, he’d written her a note.

It’d be a long time until she was able to read it, he was sure. But if he did die today, he hoped she’d keep learning to read just so that she could.