HC: Pacifist | Ch. 264 - Nari's Axe (Patreon)

When Obsidia proudly mentioned this was Lacertia’s Assembly Hall, Roth thought he would find lavish decorations and intricate furniture. Nothing could be further from the truth. The pavement was the same amalgamation of interlocked bones he’d walked on outside. 

A few glass orbs with fireflies cast a ghostly glow, making the inside of the building feel gloomy. However, what the building lacked in finesse seemed to make up with treasures. An imposing mannequin clad in intricate armor stood at the hall's center. The armor was all leather, with pristine, hard scales covering it.

The helmet was shaped like a lizard head, making whoever wore it seem to be being eaten by a lizardman. It looked disturbing and cool at the same time. All the armor was stamped with beautifully carved patterns dyed in a shade of deep purple. The die was fluorescent, and the light from the armor rivaled that of a lightrap or the firefly lamps scattered around the hall. Now that Roth better understood how leather armor worked, he couldn’t help but appreciate its intricate cuts and beautiful stamps.

In the corner, there was also a rack with weapons: a sword, a spear, an axe, a quarterstaff, and a few others. On the opposite side was a shelf with different glass orbs filled with gasses of different color combinations, similar to the [Swamp Orb] that Roth now owned. Finally, there was a table with some ledgers and books.

“Please wait a moment. I’ll summon the elders,” Obsidia commanded.

When left alone with all these treasures, Roth couldn’t help but inspect each one. As he had imagined, the suit of armor was a treasure.

Lacertian Helmet (Epic)

Description: A helmet fashioned after the skin of a fallen swamp lizardman warrior. It’s been lined with the leather of a fallen cloud lizardman. Even in death, the great warriors still serve the tribe. This is part of a set.

Effects:

+3% to your highest stat;

+2% to your second-highest stat;

+1% to your third-highest stat;

+5% status resistance;

+100 hp.

Restrictions: Lvl. 50.

Lacertian Thorax (Epic)

Description: A chest piece fashioned after the skin of a fallen swamp lizardman warrior. It’s been lined with the leather of a lava lizardman. Even in death, the great warriors still serve the tribe. This is part of a set.

Effects:

+10% to your highest stat;

+5% to your second-highest stat;

+20% damage reduction;

+300 hp.

[Chip Slot]; [Chip Slot].

Restrictions: Lv. 50.

Lacertian Chest Piece (Epic)

Description: A chest piece fashioned after the skin of a fallen swamp lizardman warrior. It’s been lined with the leather of a tree lizardman. Even in death, the great warriors still serve the tribe. This is part of a set.

Effects:

+5% cooldown reduction;

+10 to your highest stat;

+10 to your weakest stat;

+10% damage reduction;

+500 hp.

[Chip Slot].

Restrictions: Lv. 50.

Lacertian Greaves (Epic)

Description: A pair of greaves fashioned after the skin of a fallen swamp lizardman warrior. The left one has been lined with the leather of a sea lizardman and the right one with the leather of a lightning lizardman. Even in death, the great warriors still serve the tribe. This is part of a set.

Effects:

+2% cooldown reduction;

+10% damage;

+15% crit. chance;

+10% damage reduction.

Restrictions: Lv. 50.

Lacertian Boots (Epic)

Description: A pair of boots fashioned after the skin of a fallen swamp lizardman warrior. The left one is lined with the leather of a rock lizardman, and the right one with the leather of a sand lizardman. Even in death, the great warriors still serve the tribe. This is part of a set.

Effects:

+20% movement speed;

+3% dexterity;

+3% resilience;

+10% damage reduction.

Restrictions: Lv. 50.

[Lacertian Set] effects:

If three pieces: +10% damage reduction; [Second Wind].

If five pieces: +20 to all stats; +1000 hp; [Fury of the Eight Spires]; Can be equipped at level 40.

Second Wind (Epic)

Description: No matter how many times they hit you, they can not stop you.

Effects: Passive. If you receive damage that would kill you, you recover 5% of your health and become invulnerable for 3 seconds.

Cooldown: 24 hours.

Fury of the Eight Spires (Legendary)

Description: The strength of the fallen warriors, whose leather was used to produce this armor, inspires you to greatness. You summon all your inner strength, and you die in a blaze of glory.

Effects:

+200 to all stats for 30 seconds;

You lose all your health at the end of the skill's duration.

Cooldown: 72 hours.

Roth licked his lips. After reading the description of this set of armor, his mouth felt dry. What a godly set! Even though legendary equipment was the absolute best, back in New Earth, Roth had seen sets of epic equipment that could rival the might of individual pieces of legendary equipment. He recalled that in the Helmling battle, he had worn the epic [Jurassic Set] and steamrolled other players who had owned one or two pieces of legendary equipment.

This set gave several percentual bonuses. As he went through the equipment details again, he tried to run the numbers and imagine how much stronger he would become if he wore it. As Roth’s stats grew, his forms became more and more powerful. Percentual bonuses, which previously didn’t even translate to a single attribute point scaled and translated now into dozens or even hundreds of stats. 

Since the stat boost depended on the player’s existing attributes, this equipment was suited to virtually any class. There were some direct bonuses to damage, which Roth didn’t need, but it was still better than what he was wearing.

The second thing that made this set so incredible was the set bonuses. It granted +20 to all stats! Better, it came with a berserker skill. It was a temporary boost of power that came with a deadly backlash, but the armor also came with its remedy: [Second Wind]. If players could avoid triggering [Second Wind] before using [The Fury of the Eight Spires], they could survive its backlash.

Roth glanced over at the weapon rack and was about to ignore it, but one of the weapons caught his eye. It was a polearm with purple veins that flowed across its handle and seeped into the blade. Before he realized it, he was right beside it as if drawn by a silent siren call.

By inspecting many treasures, your eyes open, and your horizons widen.

+1 insight.

Nari’s Axe (Legendary)

Description: The axehead was forged from the alien metal of a fallen meteorite, and the handle is made from a 1000-year old lizard tree. The chaotic energy flowing through the axe will trample battlefields.

Effects:

+310% damage;

+50 strength;

+5 to all stats;

+20% crit chance;

+50% crit damage;

+100% splashing damage.

It comes with the [Chaos Burst] skill.

“A l-legendary weapon,” Roth gasped. His old self would have gone crazy for this kind of firepower. Not only did it come with a berserker skill of its own, but it had 100% splashing damage. That meant that with a swing of the axe, multiple bodies would fall all around him. Did anyone know about this weapon? What were the chances of finding such a treasure in a straw hut in the swamps?

Roth’s heart raced, and he felt his face redden. He held his hand over his racing heart and realized what was wrong. After seeing the axe, memories of his days as the Slayer had awakened his dormant bloodlust. As he saw the axe, he couldn’t help but imagine himself swinging it and killing others with it. He turned his head away and walked toward the other side of the hall. The Slayer was dead. He wouldn’t let him come back. So what if this axe could wreak havoc on the battlefield? His days on the battlefield were water under the bridge.

Roth walked over to the table, trying to keep his eyes away from the axe. He decided that trying to open the books would not be well-received by his hosts, so he only checked the titles. ‘The Art of Lizardman War,’ ‘Master Nari’s Polearm Crafting Manual,’ ‘Lizardman Leatherworking Manual.’ It was a loose collection of skills and manuals. The one about leatherworking, especially, caught Roth’s attention. It would be worth getting it if it could teach him how to make such beautiful leather armor as the [Lacertian Set].

Finally, Roth turned his attention toward the collection of orbs on the racks. He examined one of them at random. Unlike his orb, which had a swirling vortex of gasses, this one only had two faint wisps of gas, red and black.

Lava Lizard Orb (Rare)

Description: A biomachine that absorbs power from the surrounding lifeforms and can create wormholes.

Effects: 

You can teleport between lava lizard dungeons and Lacertia;

Cooldown: 72 hours.

It was a worse version of the [Swamp Orb]. Not only did it not allow its user to teleport more than once every three days, but it was also limited to the lava lizard dungeons and didn’t earn him any respect from the lizardmen. As he inspected one orb at a time, he found other similar orbs related to the different species of lizards scattered over AstroTerra. He then found a seemingly empty orb. He inspected it.

Affinity Orb (Legendary)

Description: A biomachine of lizardman making that can help you meld different parts of yourself.

Effects: It lets you fuse affinities. Breaks upon use.

“Fuse affinities?” Roth exclaimed. “How so?” He hadn’t heard anyone ever say anything about mixed affinities. Could he fuse light and nature? What kind of benefit would that grant him?  For this item to be of a legendary grade, this was a potent effect.

A distant memory came to him, one that came from his very start in the game. He looked up the forums for a transcription of the opening cinematic, and surely, there it was.

“The rock that fell from space... We now call it Astro. It changed us. It changed everything. We later found out that the rock was made of congealed reality. The elements of creation fractured when the impact occurred, and now the world is divided. Maybe one day we will again unite reality and bring peace to the planet.”

The opening cinematic mentioned that the elements of creation had fractured and that they hoped someone would be able to bring all of those elements together someday. This had to mean something!

Roth paced excitedly as he thought of the implications. If a player could unlock every affinity in the game and then use this legendary item, they could win the game. Or, it would allow them to unlock some earth-shattering achievement that would make them unstoppable.

This orb should be his top priority if these items could be bought with mother scales. He felt tempted by the armor and the leatherworking manual, too. What were the chances he could afford all three? 

On the one hand, he didn’t even know if he could use the set of lizardman armor. From the sound of it, it looked like they had just used the leather of lizardmen who had fallen in battle and used it as a suit of armor. He had no idea whether his ecotailor restrictions would allow him to wear it.

Roth heard someone approaching the hall. Lizardmen were tall and heavy, and the bony spire wasn’t sturdy. Their heavy march shook the spire and the hut and made it easy to tell a group of them was approaching. Obsidia first came in, followed by seven other members of the lizardmen race. They were all black, but Roth noted how each new arrival had a different insignia on their armor. One of the symbols he was able to recognize. It was a rock and a lizard, the symbol he had on his [Flag of the Rock Lizard Lair]. That meant that the elder was representing the rock lizards.

All of them entered the room and sat on the floor. Obsidia was the only one left standing. Roth took the hint and took a seat next to the other lizardmen.

“Hello. Hi. How do you do?” He greeted every lizardman in the room politely and in flawless lizardspeak.

The elders are impressed with your good manners and fluency in their language.

+10 reputation with the lizardmen.

“Meet the lizardmen elders, Martyr,” announced Obsidia. “Each of them used to be a four-legged. They made the pilgrimage, grew stronger, and now reside with us in the Swamp Spire.”

“Greetings, elders,” Roth said respectfully.

“This is the martyr who has single-handedly done what we’ve tried to do unsuccessfully for many years. He has brought peace to the four-legged,” Obsidia praised, drawing approving looks and nods from the elders.

“Many lives have been spared,” commented a lizardman elder with an insignia of lightning and a lizard.

“Up until now, only after we earned our black scales could we overcome the envy and resentment and all sit together in peace on the bones of the Swamp Spire. But you’ve managed to widen the peace to the entire circle of the spires,” another elder commented.

“You’re welcome,” Roth said, embarrassed. Had everyone come together just to sing his praises? They almost made it sound as if he had stopped some kind of civil war.

You’ve brought peace to the lizard lairs and, in doing so, to the spires.

+100 reputation with the lizardmen;

+10 nature affinity.

Would you like to trade [Friend of Cloud Lizards], [Friend of Tree Lizards], [Friend of Rock Lizards], [Friend of Sand Lizards], [Friend of Sea Lizards], [Friend of Lava Lizards], [Friend of Lightning Lizards] for a reward from the lizardmen elders?

Roth stared at the notification. He could have exchanged any of these titles for a new zoomorph form earlier, but since [Lizard Form] only granted hp regeneration, he hadn’t bothered. Just what kind of reward would this exchange grant him? 

“Yes,” Roth declared.

Ch. 263 - Lacertia

INDEX

Ch. 265 - Jackpot