Chapter 127: Curse of Carmine (Patreon)

Coop rubbed the sleep from his eyes as he made his way to the Merciful Medical Center. It was a damp morning with air so thick with humidity that a heavy rain would have been a relief. They still had a ways to go before the wet season began, when it would storm twice a day like clockwork, but the weather seemed to be in a hurry to leave the dry season behind.

The stillness of the ocean breeze enveloped the island in silence. Only Coop’s slow footsteps broke the tranquility, with neither the steady waves nor the palm fronds contributing their voices to the regular background noise found on a tropical island. The light gray stone streets glistened with moisture, but the coarse texture prevented them from becoming slippery. Droplets hung from the tips of orchid leaves, threatening to splash down as Coop shuffled beneath them. Once the sun rose above the walls, the dampness would burn away, but for an hour after dawn, the courtyard was a preview for the impacts of future precipitation.

Aside from a handful of phantoms on sentry duty, Coop was alone as he approached the southern town circle where the citadel protected the civilization shard. The succulents lining the outer border of the coffee shop seemed to be thriving despite the humidity. Coop thought they would prefer a drier atmosphere, but a whole series of blooming flowers decorated the perched planters. When he peeked toward the entrance of Laurie and Greg’s cafe, he could only shake his head that they had yet to open. Even access to caffeine was relegated to island time.

The residents of Ghost Reef were developing a schedule that kept them up late into the night, enjoying the cool and comfortable tropical nights. It was Coop’s own fault that they slept at all. Most of the residents had already abandoned sleep completely until they reached Ghost Reef and found themselves with the security and freedom to take up old habits. The few early risers basically had the entire fortress to themselves.

As Coop crossed the canal bridge, he paused to watch gently drifting mists that rose from the cool air, lingering from the night, condensing over the warmer water. The heat of the day hadn’t burned the naturally formed mists away just yet, thanks to the shade provided by the fort’s walls, and they languidly flowed out toward both ends of the canal. The giant pig was barely visible, motionless, like a looming shadow stationed dead center of the western opening.

Coop hadn’t seen any fog outside of what he summoned himself since arriving on the island chain so many months ago. He doubted the ocean normally brought any fog banks outside of a few days out of the year when a cold snap rolled through, but who knew how the natural systems had changed with the introduction of mana.

Coop let out a big yawn and took a moment to stretch and fully wake up before he moved on from the canal bridge. The additional discoveries he had made while grinding during the night had kept him out later than expected. Adding Legacy of the Mists with Fog of War and Presence of Mind into his grind rotation had established a new dimension to his attacks that kept him experimenting and refining later than he intended.

He suspected that he had already experienced the additional range provided by Fog of War, both when he fought The Ravenous Stage Boss as well as when he fought the Oathsworn Envoy. Each fight had been within his domain of mists, but they had been close enough that he hadn’t noticed the fact that his phantasms were appearing an extra dozen feet away, concentrated as he was on the fights themselves. In retrospect, the size of the Stage Boss alone should have given the synergy away.

It was only when he was left to his grind that the changes to Legacy’s range really became obvious. The results for his quest chain hadn’t been significantly better than just spear throwing, since he ended up severely restricted by his mana recovery, while making sure to keep enough to maintain the fog, but he was progressing in other ways as well.

The Primal Kites yielded an unusual amount of mana through his Reaper title, but Legacy of the Mists was an extremely expensive ability compared to everything else he had seen. Practical Application had brought the cost down to 485 mana per cast, and Coop’s mana pool was almost 19,000, but the recovery from the Kites was still mostly only in the single digits with a few generous individuals granting mana in the teens. The astronomical cost of Legacy relative to his title recovery just further motivated him to chase cost reductions.

The phantasms were essentially as strong as he was, but distinct with their magic damage, so Coop was looking at them like a force multiplier. The more he could cast, the more he could enhance his potential and magnify the effect of his attributes, and that was ignoring the fact that the magic damage was an alternative to his own physical damage and that they could attack from more directions than he could by himself.

“Good morning, Champ.” Emmanuel greeted him from the edge of the lobby to the medical center, pulling Coop from his distracted power fantasies. Charlie’s father was leaning against an exterior column, just keeping an eye on things. The protectiveness he had for his family couldn’t be overstated.

“Morning.” Coop responded, clearing his throat as it was the first time he’d spoken for the day.

Emmanuel chuckled at Coop’s sleepiness. It was a deep rumbling sound that underscored the man’s stature. “Thanks for coming by. Saves me a trip to go find you later. Just head toward the back of the lobby and one of the acolytes will come out to escort you.”

“Alrighty.” Coop accepted the instructions with a bit more clarity than their exchanged greetings.

Coop wandered through the golden lobby, ignoring the shadows on the ceiling as they did their best to attract his attention. He only had to wait for a moment near the back before one of the slightly reptilian looking aliens appeared through a doorway that slid down into the ground.

“Greetings, Champion Coop. You are early. If you are willing to wait, I will escort you to the ritual chamber.” The contracted alien explained in a steady voice while Coop admired the sharp features of their face. The contracted residents of the medical center were attractive in an usual way, with sculpted androgynous features, smooth skin, and absolutely no hair.

“I don’t mind waiting.” Coop shrugged. He’d rather be waiting than have to rush over lest he arrive too late for something as important as this.

The alien bowed their bald head, catching some of the golden light in a reflection, and gestured for him to follow. They led him through a different sliding door that opened as their hand waved toward it. The wall was so smooth, he had no idea how many doors there were, and if he needed to find his own way he wouldn’t even know where to start.

As they led him deeper into the facility, he found himself watching the alien while they strode through the golden hallways with confident steps, like a fashion model displaying a nun-themed robe down a runway. It was interesting how human perception triggered something with the aliens that looked human. He wasn’t as intrigued by the aliens that were simply geometric shapes, but the aliens that could pass for humans, with the only clue of their otherworldly nature being one or two features, could easily demand his attention. It must have been some kind of survival instinct from the times when homo sapiens had other now extinct rivals running around.

The acolyte stopped at another smooth wall and another door slid up into the ceiling. Coop entered the threshold while the acolyte bowed to him and made to leave. When Coop looked around the room he felt his breath catch as he witnessed the nearly completed mosaic that Madison and her assistants had been working on for 10 days.

When Madison had first explained that she would need to prepare a ritual, he had imagined salt circles, burning incense, crude runes, and maybe some wax candles. As they got started, she had shown their early progress, which revealed a much more detailed project forming, but now they had created something that Coop could only define as art.

The gradually sloped floor was covered in a swirling mandala that spiraled all the way to the flat ringed edge of the perimeter of the circular chamber. Madison was kneeling on the edge with what looked like a velvet pillow under her knees as a grain of mana formed at her fingertips. She placed the grain and continued on to the next. It was definitely tedious work, but they had crafted a swirling masterpiece that Coop was afraid to ruin with even a simple exhalation.

As he held his breath, Madison noticed his presence and looked up. She just dismissively waved her fingers at him as if he should make himself comfortable. Coop sat right where he stood and tucked his knees into his chest, afraid of making any disturbance. He tried to stay still, with just his eyes taking in the features of the room.

Jones was still in a floating gurney, spotlighted by an invisible source of light in the ceiling that could have been a skylight if not for its brightness before dawn broke. Jones was directly above the center of the spiraling patterns and looked peacefully asleep, if Coop ignored the black veins that stood out against his dark skin. Coop frowned that it had taken this long to reach the threshold of his cure, but they were finally on the verge of getting it done.

After an hour of patience, Coop began repeatedly casting Salvation from his position on the floor, making use of his time by reducing the cost of his ethereal armor skill. It was down to 38 mana even though he had focused almost all of his Practical Application efforts on mistjump, Retribution, and now Legacy of the Mists. Summoning his armor was something he did all the time, and he had made a nice amount of passive progress toward making it free, although with his mana pool increasing, even without the reductions he would be able to essentially ignore the cost.

Madison and her assistants continued for another few hours while Coop meditated on his own projects. The previous priorities he set in the aftermath of the siege were winding down, with them being on the cusp of curing Jones, the phantoms coming back sooner than later, and the settlement upgrade just days away. After those, he had three Slayer titles lined up. The Primal Kites, Primal Serpents, and Ancient Devourers all awaited his grinding focus. Exploration of the mana well was just beginning, with only the first stage tested and revealing itself to be a lucrative experience and credit farm with some minor opportunities for treasures. Then, there was Chakyum to deal with. Ghost Reef was on other peoples’ radar after the first settlement event, and their first visit had already ended up adding to their problems.

Coop knew he would need to be proactive when it came to dealing with those types of threats, the ones that came from other humans, or they would further complicate themselves. He wasn’t completely against turtling up in Ghost Reef, but it wasn’t only for his sake that he should squash challenges toward the settlement. His top priority was to make the settlement a safe place. The less time humans spent concentrating on fighting each other, the better.

In the worst case scenario, the Eradication Protocol would be coming as Mana’s judgment concluded. Everything he did would essentially be in preparation for the assimilation breaking down under the pressure of mana’s one purpose.

He shuddered at the thought of Icons of Mana leading armies across the planet with the intention of wiping humanity out. Ghost Reef’s unusual siege event, leading to overlapping waves, which in turn created a permanent mana dome that trapped excessive amounts of mana on the island, led the Icons of Mana to have a false start. The Icon jumping the gun gave the Avatar a chance to deliver an early warning, but in terms of preparation, Coop’s goals didn’t change.

He had to decide how to prioritize, but no matter which direction he went, he knew that staying ahead of the curve with his own progression was key. If possible, making sure his allies could also find paths to develop themselves was an equally valuable pursuit. Ghost Reef couldn’t just be a sanctuary, but also needed to lean into advantages and provide opportunities for the residents so that they could fight for their survival.

“Coop. Are you ready?” Madison spoke while Coop had his eyes closed and he did his best to organize his plans.

He opened his eyes, determined to knock one more thing off of his to-do list. “I’m ready.”

“Good. Let me explain how this is gonna go.” Madison faced the completed mosaic. “Once we initiate the ritual, mana will be siphoned from ley lines and flow along the pattern. The cursed mana will be forced to follow the torrent and leave Jones behind. Since it’s a blood curse, it will seek to return or find a new host. We’ll remove everyone from the room and you’ll need to deal with the cursed manifestation.”

Coop nodded along. The simple instructions as he understood them was that he needed to beat a monster up. “Any tips for the fight?”

Madison looked a bit anxious before she answered. “Don’t let it get in your blood.” She paused before she reassured him as much herself. “You’re so much higher level than the host, it really shouldn’t be a problem, but be careful anyway. If you want, I can get Emmanuel to do it instead.”

“Nah, I want to do it.” Coop reinforced his position. As far as Coop was concerned, doing something like this for one of the residents was his primary job as Champion. Ghost Reef’s management was essentially delegated away at this point, and he was just the heavy hitter that rolled out on behalf of the settlement whenever it was necessary. He had fallen into the exact arrangement that Jones’s faction had anticipated for the Champion of a settlement at the start.

“Let’s get this over with. Don’t bother me for at least a week after this.” Madison insisted to Coop’s amusement. “Make that a month.” She adjusted seeing Coop’s lackadaisical attitude rear its head.

She stepped forward and waved her hand in an intricate pattern as she began the ritual. When the first mana grain was triggered, a needle-like beam of light shot toward the ceiling. The first light was immediately followed by a cascade of others, like dominoes knocking each other over, each individual bit of mana joined the symphony of lights. Since the room was slanted toward the middle, the lights all converged in the center of the ceiling, where the spotlight was already casting gentle golden light down toward Jones.

Once every light was activated, they started dimming and pulsing in a rhythm that extended from the edges, inward, before repeating. The thin beams of light continued their pattern and the room gradually collected wisps of vaporous colors that could only be clouds of mana. The pattern pumped mana into the room until it felt like staring into the center of a nightclub’s dance floor with one too many fog machines going off.

The cloud of mana swirled with the pattern, slowly gaining momentum, until it was twisting around the room and up towards the ceiling. The mana continued to flow until it was a veritable torrent. Coop watched in awe as an inverted whirlpool formed, guided by pulsing spotlights, leading the mana up until it started the cycle again.

In some ways it reminded Coop of the mana well’s coral colony and the core chamber, but this was a more focused vortex of pure mana. Madison and her assistants had carefully crafted the pattern to create a mana concentration that visibly climbed while the Stage Boss had simply splayed itself into a mana bath to be washed in the magical energy contained within the mana well. The mana well was basically a separate pocket, established by the seed of mana that formed the zone in the first place, but Madison’s vortex was the real deal.

Coop was mesmerized by the swirl of mana until his concentration was broken by Madison and her two assistants guiding Jones’s floating gurney out of the torrent and through one of the invisible sliding doors. Coop’s eyes were drawn back to the center of the room, now with its central focal point absent.  In its place, a cloud of pitch black shadow and blood red smoke was condensing, forming a recognizable humanoid shape beneath the net of pulsing lights and swirling mana that rose to the center of the ceiling.

Coop raised his ethereal shield, ready with his sword, as his opponent gradually condensed and lowered itself into the middle of the dancefloor-like arena. Coop’s Fog of War filled the room, gliding along with the mana, thickening the vortex with a density that refused to be canceled. Coop could create a thin fog bank that extended for a square mile, a single chamber would be packed with his mists no matter how much turbulence disturbed the formation of his domain. As soon as his opponent seemed to finish forming, Coop applied Presence of Mind to inspect its aura.

[Curse of Carmine (Level 33)]

[Unbound Curse]

[Manifestation of Blood and Mana]

Coop advanced on the cursed manifestation with his shield at the ready. It raised clearly defined arms into the air and gaped a silent screaming challenge. Its hollowed out eye sockets had locked onto Coop with clear, ravenous hunger. The curse had taken Jones’s form, except it was pitch black with vivid red veins beating throughout its body in a grotesque display of human anatomy.

Coop flexed Presence of Mind, creating a misty decoy of a swordsman attacking the curse’s flank from the fog. The curse didn’t flinch, locked into a creepy staring contest with Coop, but it did slam the black mass of a foot it had formed into the ground and a crimson circle appeared around it, lined with black spikes that shot up in an effort to intercept Coop’s feint.

Coop acknowledged the reveal of an ability, and continued to advance. When he was in striking distance, he lunged forward, teeth clenched, and swept his blade at the manifestation’s neck. He double summoned Legacy of the Mists at the same time and two phantasms appeared behind his opponent, one on each side. The first sliced toward where a heart would be and the second sought to separate the torso from the legs with a lumbering strike.

The manifestation raised its black mass leg to summon its crimson circle, but Coop was already in his backswing, stepping backwards, before the pitch black shadow foot touched the ground. A regular level 33 simply didn’t have the Agility to spar with Coop.

Black smoke leaked from the decapitated neck, shooting out like a broken fire hydrant until a diagonal slice from one shoulder to the opposite ribs slid off of the remaining torso and exploded against the ground with another exorbitant amount of black energy cascading out like an overfilled water balloon. Then, the rest of the torso fell forward, leaving the waist and two legs to disintegrate into mana smoke. All of the black mana joined the torrent, rising to the ceiling like the eruption of a volcano.

A crimson-lined circle remained on the ground, where the manifestation had attempted to fight back against Coop’s opening salvo. When the circle suddenly burst into bright red light, Coop took another step backwards. The center of the formation turned an impossibly dark black, so deep that it seemed to suck the light out of the room. It was actually absorbing the mana torrent, driving it down from the ceiling into the circle.

Destroying the low level curse manifestation was far too easy. Coop raised an eyebrow, watching the manifestation’s death throes, and prepared for something else.