Sell you a Bridge chapter 82 (Patreon)

The Cathedral August 13th 2010 11:00 PM EDT

We  left Reggie and Kit behind on this trip, but since there was no real  boss on the fourth floor just the three of us were more than enough. We  took the portal down and as we walked I had to marvel at how my body  felt. Every muscle was humming with energy after a healing potion to  patch up the soreness from my transformation and I felt more flexible  and explosive than ever thanks to my dexterity. Zee however, was staring  at me. When I caught her looking she blushed, and my raised eyebrow got  me a response. "You look different."

Artemis  gagged again. "Oh gods, I didn't think this through, now I'm, stuck  down here third wheeling it while you two have your epic love story  without even Reggie to be a mood killer. What have I done?" She paused,  cocking her head a bit as she finally looked at me. "Well shit. You're  right, he does look different. Like he was always jacked like that,  though maybe less cut, but his face isn't as plain as before. Sharper  cheekbones, squarer jaw. Nothing too different but somehow way better  looking overall. I guess the weird evil god blood made him hotter." She  shrugged. "Kudos I guess. I always thought it sucked you were so boring  looking with a body like that."

Zee  glared at her. "He was not boring looking. He was unassuming." I winced  because that was basically the same thing but she didn't notice and  barreled on. "Besides, he was always handsome on the inside." She gave  me a sneaky little grin. "And he has...other very impressive attributes.  Still I like the new look. I'll spell a glamour charm for you that will  fade over time. The difference is subtle enough that if we introduce it  over a few weeks it'll just seem like a natural change." I hadn't even  considered how everyone else would react, and I gave silent thanks for  Zee.

Artemis  looked genuinely disturbed. "Ok first of all ew. That's basically my  brother you're talking about, it's one thing to suspect he's packing  heat and another thing for you to outright tell me." She generously  didn't mention that I'd almost definitely used my powers to make my dick  bigger, though I think we all knew it. "Second of all that's a good  point. Shame we can't do the same. It would be nice to show off all  this-" She gestured down the length of her body. "But our charisma is  too high and changes too much per level for that to be safe I think."

It  was and it did. At level five (we'd been funneling all the experience  from the fourth level of the dungeon to the girls since I was already  level six) Zee had eighty charisma and Artemis wasn't far behind at  seventy one. My girlfriend only dropped her glamour when we were alone,  and even I had trouble dealing with it. Lucky that devil transformation  would push my looks up by a large margin, because I didn't want Zee to  feel like I wasn't good enough. Logically I knew that was unlikely, but  hey, insecurities aren't logical.

I  shook off my train of thought. "As nice as it is to be hot now, that  isn't why we came down here. We're here to test my new powers." As I  expected, they bled into my old ones quite a bit. I could feel the  shadows around me and step through them at any time, but I could also  become one with them, allowing for much further travel than this ability  should grant by combining it with my shadow form. I could see how this  would be a huge asset to me in so many ways, but I could also feel how  insanely draining it would be on my points.

For  the moment I had fifteen points to burn. It would last me through a  fight or two maybe, but I needed some levels to keep up with the upkeep  and still get my devil form in any reasonable amount of time. Which  meant investing a bunch of my upcoming points into grinding down here  until I had enough in my my income to get that done. I put that out of  my mind for now, it would be weeks or months until I could manage it  anyway. For now I was going to test my new abilities and see what they  could do, which meant I needed targets.

Luckily  unlike Zee's spells my shadow porting gave me the flexibility to take  down even magic immune enemies. Even if my shadow manipulation couldn't  put them down I could just appear behind them and stab the shit out of  them. I turned to Zee. "Hey baby, can you find me some monsters to  stomp? I want try everything out." I'd have to be economical about it  sadly. My shadow manipulation's power usage scaled with the points put  in. Theoretically I could create huge powerful shadow constructs that  could smash apart everything in my path.

Doing  so however would cost dozens if not hundreds of points depending on the  size, so it wasn't really useful until I massively increased my points  generation. There were some much more subtle things I wanted to try out  though, uses of the power that even the magically immune skellies and  zombies should have problems with. Zee shot me an excited grin. "Sure  thing babe, in fact, I can do one better." She murmured a series of  backwards words too low for me to hear and the light in front of us (the  weird omnipresent glow that surrounded everyone in the dungeon) dimmed  slightly.

The  diverted glow funneled down into a physical form, condensing to form a  glowing white rabbit. Zee shot me a wink then shooed the bunny away and  it streaked off at top speed, which for a rabbit made of light was  pretty damn fast. Seeing our looks of shock Zee shrugged. "It has no  offensive potential, it's just an illusion, but it should be plenty to  draw in some demons for you to fight. Plus since it's light it can't get  hurt, so no risk to my sweet fluffy buddy." She cooed the last part and  I grinned at my big softy of a girlfriend. Maybe I should try to get  her a rabbit with my power. Something to think on.

But  my thinking doesn't last long, because the dungeon is crawling with  creepy assholes and the light bunny did its job as well as we could have  hoped. The little rabbit came speed hopping down the tunnel, dragging  about a dozen fallen ones behind it, and I couldn't help but grin. The  light from the rabbit lengthened the shadows around it, making it the  perfect distraction and boost for me in one convenient package, and I  wondered if Zee had done that one purpose. The small horde of demons  came barreling toward us, and as soon as they saw our forms they  switched targets.

Which  provided a perfect opportunity for me as they looked up and away from  the ground. I'd been waiting for this power for a while, and I'd had  some inkling of how rough the power scaling might be, so I'd gone out of  my way to come up with a few economical but effective concepts for how I  would use the ability to get the most effect out of the least power. As  the demons ran toward us I reached out to the shadows, not around or  above them, but the ones case by their feet, and with a single point of  power, I turned those shadows into a slick frictionless substance.

Of  course I was only able to manage about a one foot area with that single  point, but that was the risk of running in a crowd, if one went down,  so did everyone behind them. Spread out in a thin line, that one foot  area managed to wipe out four of them as they fell squealing to the  ground, with the ones behind then smashing into them in a stampede of  tangles limbs and screaming anger. With another ten point expenditure I  pulled on the massed shadows under the pile of demons and connected them  to the shadows on the ceiling above me.

Aside  from the point cost, I felt a genuine strain from moving so many across  even a small room but with just that effort of will, demons began to  fall from the ceiling. With my new fifteen points of dexterity and my  unsheathed tanto I reacted like greased lightning, my sword flashing out  to cleave apart bodies before they even hit the ground. I managed to  dismember ten of the bastards before they even hit the ground, and  cleaned up the last two or three as they lay stunned on the ground.

I  felt amazing. This was it. The point when I finally started becoming a  real threat. My other abilities had been useful and impressive, but this  was that one last thread that tied it all up into a pretty package of  death and destruction. I was a legitimate power in a fight now. Not just  against normal run of the mill thugs, but against actual supervillains.  I turned to grin at Zee and Artemis, who were grinning back, clapping  in appreciation at my quick and brutal execution of a dozen tiny demons.

Of  course I couldn't count on it to be this easy every time. I had tapped  into quite a bit of my power and let them get awfully close before I did  it, but still this was proof of concept. I couldn't wait to get my next  batch of points in an hour and get started merging this into my combat  style. It would waste some power, but you had to spend money to make  money and the more points I used perfecting my training the quicker I  could level up and increase my points income some more.

As  soon as I sheathed my sword Zee tackle hugged me with a gleeful squeal.  "That was amazing baby! I felt some of that power use since I was  paying attention, and that first bit was barely a whisper. Using the  shadows to create an oil slick was brilliant and so economical! I wonder  if I can come up with some new low power high impact spells like that? I  could fight for so much longer!" I neglected to point out that due to  her absurd magical power she didn't really need to do that, she was  having fun so I wouldn't ruin it.

In  point of fact based on her character sheet Zee's medulla jewel  increased her mana per level from the three that Artemis got to a full  five. My girl was rocking a full seventy five mana, neck and neck with  her magic power, and she had a decent mana regen rate, recovering five  mana per minute. Not the worst thing considering mana regen in Diablo  didn't even exist. We suspected it was another side effect of the  medulla jewel since Artemis didn't have a mana regen at all, though to  be fair she also didn't really use mana much.

We  ran another mob, though I had to get more physically involved here  because I didn't have the points for another mass teleport. I ended up  managing to use the oil slick technique on myself to move at blinding  speed between enemies, and combined with my ability to control my  movements with shadow manipulation and my reflexes I was skating around  shredding through all the demons that I could find. By the time I ran  out of points I was only about ten minutes from a refill, but I decided  to head home instead.

We  took the town portal back up to the tower and Zee headed home after a  kiss goodbye, eager to work on her new ultra efficient spells and  needing to be home before her dad was. I, in the meantime, waited until  my points came back up and decided to test my most exciting new ability.  I shifted myself into shadow form, feeling that this made the cost of  shadow porting minimal, and then used the ability, visualizing the  shadows under my bed as I did so. It sapped a full ten points moving so  far, even at a one percent cost from being in shadow form, but after a  moment of disorientation I appeared in my room. I resumed my human shape  and slumped down on the bed. This was going to be so much fun.