Imperious, Chapter 014 - Path of the Mace (Patreon)

Anna got into the posture from before, emulating the hulking gait of the golem as she positioned her weapon. She considered practicing it as a jab but changed her grip at the last second. There was no reason why she couldn’t do the same thing with a proper swing. She licked her lips and concentrated. She didn’t actually have a skill for what she was doing, nor did she have any inkling that what she’d figured out was correct in any way. 

Intent wasn’t exactly a straightforward concept and it meant a lot of different things. When applied to martial arts, she’d heard that intent could mean just the idea of following through on a strike. Visualizing where the weapon or fist would end up after finishing the movement in order to add more power and direction to the blow. Well, that’s how she understood it anyway. She was pretty sure there were those out there who knew better, but she was going with what her gut told her.

All she wanted right now was more hitting power, the secondary shockwave would be nice, even preferable. But she would be happy just to be able to break the rock in front of her instead of her weapon bouncing off. She affixed the image in her mind, tensed her muscles, stepped forward and swung with all her might. 

CRRRACK-BOOM!

Anna felt the weapon crash through the stone, her body following through with the hit. Rubble clattered to the ground around her feet, pebbles and debris everywhere. She took a quick step back and waved her hand, the dust that the strike had kicked up threatening to get into her lungs. She coughed and squinted, trying to see through the cloud. When it finally parted, she could only smile at the results. A long furrow stretched from her intended point of impact down to the floor. Around the furrow was a small spread of cracks that put an even bigger smile on her face.

She’d done it.

A buzzing told her a notification had come in and she quickly checked it.

Quest Alert!

Path of the Mace

You have comprehended the basic concepts of your One-Handed Bludgeoning Weapons proficiency and have demonstrated a direction to take on your path. Master the basics and move on to the next stage.

Perform 1000 Perfect Swings (0/1000)
Perform 1000 Perfect Overhead Strikes (0/1000)
Perform 1000 Perfect Backhand Swings (0/1000)
Perform 1000 Perfect Jabs (0/1000)

Rewards: Common Equipment Token, Passive Skill, Offensive Skill, Skill Transfiguration

Anna’s eyes lit up. She was a bit bummed that she hadn’t earned the skill yet, but she now had a direction. She threw her fist up in the air. Fuck yeah! 

She quickly turned towards the wall again and was about to get right back to it when she heard the loud thudding of the golems approaching footsteps. She looked back at the furrow in the wall and winced. Yeah, probably a little too noisy. She figured and hurried back to her corner where she’d originally hidden from the big thing. She wasn’t stupid, fighting it directly was a terrible idea. She crouched down and double checked her presence. It was still set to the lowest volume. She wondered if turning it down all the way like this was harmful in some way, but her instincts didn’t warn her against it so she set the matter aside.

Shortly after finding her hiding spot the Golem burst into the room and paused, a low grating sound coming from it. It turned its body and approached the furrow in the wall and stopped, seeming to stare at the damaged portion of rock before in a sharp motion, rearing its arm back and blowing a hole significantly bigger than her best attack could do followed by an after shock that pulverized the debris. Anna swallowed as it stepped away from the crater it had left behind, erasing her work. That’s… humbling. She thought even as she grinned like a mad woman.

But I’ll get there eventually, she thought as fresh heat poured through her veins.

The golem took another two hours to finally fuck off again, mining for a while before going back on patrol. Anna once again observed its movements carefully, still wanting to get a better understanding of how it moved and functioned, where its power came from. When it finally left and was out of earshot she hopped to her feet and went to the center of the cavern and started swinging. She poured everything she understood into the motions, repeating the process over and over as her muscles adjusted to the sensations. She felt a light warming sensation in the back of her mind now and then, not a notification though so she ignored it.

The only time she stopped was when her stamina began to dip, when that happened she would retreat to her hiding spot and pick at some of the food in her bag before taking a quick nap. Some time after that, the golem would return and go back to its business. This became her routine for a while, sitting in a room with a monster several levels above her with enough strength to pulverize her body into paste if it ever became aware of her. It was a thrill, walking the knifes edge in order to get stronger. She observed its movements and strikes with growing interest, incorporating some of its posture into her own motions and fixating on making her strikes more pronounced and powerful over subtlety.

If she was in an actual fight, she didn’t care about being subtle. Sneaking around with her presence down was about as subtle as she was interested in getting.

She wasn’t sure how long it took, but eventually she felt a buzz and a tingle as she threw her arm forward in the final perfected jab.

Quest Complete!

Path of the Mace

Rewards: Common Equipment Token, Passive Skill, Offensive Skill, Skill Transfiguration

Several rapid-fire notifications followed.

Skill Transfiguration

Your skill; One-Handed Bludgeoning Weapons (Common-Base) has been transfigured to Maces (Common-Base).

Maces (Common-Base)
You have begun to focus on your method of using bludgeoning weapons, your path taking you down the way of the warrior as you take up a mace in your hand and use it to crush your enemies.

It was a little interesting that the rating of the skill was still ‘Common-Base’ whatever that meant. That meant that the rarity of the Maces skill was not that much different from One-Handed Bludgeoning Weapons, or at least the difference was so negligible that it wasn’t worthy enough of being put in the uncommon category. She supposed that made sense. She moved on to the next notification.

New Skill Acquired!

Power Strike (Common-Base)
You may now expend extra stamina and a small amount of mana to deliver devastating strikes against a target, dealing enhanced damage.

A fucking attack skill, finally. From the description the main resource used was stamina but it seemed that mana was involved in martial arts as well. She wondered what the purpose of the small amount of mana was but she tabled that consideration for now. She’d figure it out eventually and she wanted to see what else she’d acquired.

New Skill Acquired!

Resounding Blows (Rare-Base)
By emulating the abilities of golems you have developed the ability to deliver aftershocks with your attacks. All melee attacks you deliver with a mace deal half damage as a secondary aftershock. The aftershock may provide a small amount of knockback to lighter targets. This effect is passive.

Anna’s eyes sparkled. She couldn’t help herself, she threw her fists into the air and let out a whoop of victory, quickly silencing herself and rushing over to her corner just in case. She grinned at the notification. This was some kind of specialization skill, probably not the one that was supposed to come with upgrading to Maces. Man that feels good, she laughed inwardly. A rare skill and it's a passive damage enhancement. Score!

She reveled in her sense of victory for a little while before calming down, she had one more notification to go over. She opened the notification and before she could even read it, it vanished and a small flat piece of stone fell to the ground in front of her. She looked down at it quizzically. It was as thin as a drink coaster and about the size of one too. It had several engravings on it that seemed to blur a little as she concentrated on them out of curiosity. She snatched it up and used identify.

Common Equipment Token (Common-Grade)
Crushing this token will provide you with a single piece of equipment relevant to the quest that was completed to acquire it or relevant to your existing skill set if a more suitable piece of equipment exists. Bound Quest: Path of the Mace.

That meant only one thing.

She crushed the token without hesitation and it dissolved into powder. A moment later a small flash of light filled the cavern, reflecting off the gemstone piles on the ground before fading. The not-so-subtle moment was punctuated with a loud thunk as something heavy hit the ground at her feet. It was a mace, not a cudgel, a long thin handle and a heavy weighted head. The head was adorned with six flat protrusions that she thought were called flanges. She picked it up and was surprised at how comfortable it felt despite being far more top heavy than the cudgel.

Flanged Mace (Common-Grade)
A heavy flanged mace designed for battle.

She eyed the flanges and found that while they weren’t super sharp, they definitely would have puncturing power added to the bludgeoning force they delivered. All in all it was a huge upgrade to her current weapon. Her gauntleted hand tightened around the handle and she got to her feet, grinning ear to ear. Now I just gotta test it out.

THUD THUD THUD

Oh look, a test subject. She thought as she shoved her old cudgel into her bag.

She backed up into the corner a bit more and waited as the Golem lumbered into the room, its hulking form pausing at the center of the room and looking down at the spot she had been standing in when she’d completed her quest. It turned left and right, once again not spotting her thanks to her nearly erased presence. She waited patiently for it to give up on its search and return to the wall where it had been mining before. She licked her lips and slowly crept around the outer part of the room to get closer, her eyes fixed on its legs. 

She’d come up with a plan to deal with them a while ago.  Her first step was going to be disabling it by destroying one of its legs. She knew that it could swing its arm fast and pivot pretty well so she would have to get some distance after the initial attack to avoid being pulverized in the follow-up. After that, she would come back and whack it again at the arm joint and retreat once more. It was a bit scummy, but to be frank she didn’t care. It was way higher in level than her and she wasn’t taking any chances.

She crept forward, taking slow steps to make sure she didn’t make enough noise to alert it. She wasn’t sure what it’s threshold was but she hadn’t been caught while walking so far. She moved up to a spot behind it and a little to the left, her mace gripped tightly in her hand. She wouldn’t get many opportunities to simply wind up before a hit like this so she took her time getting into just the right spot before pulling the mace back and up. She triggered power strike and felt her stamina dip and a kernel of heat appear in her veins, she brought the weapon down in a fierce arc.

BOOM-BOOM!

The first strike created a crater in the golem’s leg, not breaking all the way through but dealing a significant amount of damage. The aftershock that followed took the leg clean off. She didn’t wait to see what happened next. Kicking as hard as she could she retreated from the golem as it swung its torso around in a wide haymaker, its enormous forelimb ripping through the air right where her own torso had been. She watched with wide eyes as the rocky weapon passed just inches from her face, her grin only getting wider. Holy shit that was close! 

BOOM!

The golem teetered and fell, crashing to the ground. It tried to flail its arms and pull itself to its feet but only fell back down again. She watched it struggle for a while before it finally went still and she readied her weapon. That was when she realized she forgot something about the golem. It was made of rock. The same kind of rock all around her. In just a matter of seconds rock began to form at the base of its shattered joint. It was regenerating at a visible rate. Shit shit shit, no time to get careless! She reprimanded herself and raced over to its nearest shoulder.

She brought her mace up and down, crushing its shoulder with another power strike and darting back as its only good arm tried to reach for her. She hurried around outside of its reach to a good angle to approach its other arm and waited for it to stop flailing. She kept its leg in clear view and saw the old leg crumble into pebbles as the new leg continued to regenerate. The busted had started as well. She frowned and darted towards the only remaining arm the moment she saw an opportunity. Power strike.

Disarmed, literally, she hopped onto its chest as it kept regenerating. She wasn’t sure exactly how golems worked in reality but based on what lore she remembered from games in real life she decided that looking for a core was probably the best direction to take. She brought her weapon up and back down on its chest. Power strike, Power strike, Power strike, Power strike.

Only after using power strike for the seventh time and feeling her stamina waning on next-to-nothing did she finally see something glimmering inside of the caved-in chest of the golem. It looked like a monster core, but there were engravings on it. She reached down and ripped it out just as its leg had finished regenerating, its arms well on their way. The moment she did, the entire body crumbled into nothing but scattered rocks.

You have slain Lumbering Mines Golem, Level 6
Bonus Experience Gained
Additional Experience Gained for slaying a dungeon monster.
6 Iron Credits Gained

Slay 100 Creatures. (4/100)

Oh hell yes! Extra-extra experience! Now that’s more like it! She didn’t level up, she was pretty happy with the results. On top of that it provided progress towards her forest quest which meant that the dungeon counted as being part of the forest. That was good. She glanced down at the carved core in her hand next and used identify.

Inert Golem Core (Common-Grade)
The core of a golem, this core has been rendered inert after being forcibly removed from its body. It is unusable in its current state. An engraver may be able to restore its functionality.

She twirled it between armored fingers, Neat. I’ll hold onto it. She thought and stared for her bag when another notification appeared.

Hidden Quest Alert!

Truth of the Lumbering Mines, Part 1

Something is hidden within the Lumbering Mines, uncover its secret and gain its benefits.

Acquire 50 Inert Golem Cores (1/50)

Rewards: Access to the Next Quest Stage, Experience

Anna’s eyes lit up. “Say less,” She chuckled and walked back over to her bag.