novelzi 118- Arsenal Upgrade
118- Arsenal Upgrade
Vraxious—The Ravenous Grove
Vrax was finally settled into his workshop. Away from the distractions of his new home. He couldn’t hear Red’s drunken sobs from the Ancient Inn. The wails of a troll being chased around the edges of the city were finally stifled as well by his ever-thirst walls.
The booming explosions of whatever the fuck Torvald was doing in the city, we're also blessedly gone. Now he could focus on his work. On making sure he was ready for the most dangerous hunt of his life.
Vrax looked over at Lux’s Tree; it was happily residing in its spot in the center of the chamber. Lux was out hunting thankfully. Adapting Lux more was on the list of preparations, but near the bottom; he was saving that special event for last.
His new spear was planted into the soil right next to Lux’s tree, and that was on the to-do list as well. Adapt something specifically to put into the spear; dandelions were a top contender, but he felt like that might be a waste of their destructive potential. For now, though, he was going to work on one of his most iconic creations.
First Vrax pulled his trusty ever-thirst cape from his shoulders and set it down on the workbench. He had tweaked it slightly here and there over his travels but only to make it a tiny bit larger or make the roots slightly stronger.
He had nearly two hundred more mana than when he first crafted it and an achievement that made adapting plants less mana intensive. He figured that should be enough to make it savagely more effective than it was before.
Alright now, how in the hell do I go about this? Its main strength is how it drains foes and is damned merciless while doing it. More reach would obviously be helpful, but I also want it to offer some measure of protection to me. Every layer of defenses I stack up improves my odds of not getting cut in half from a single swipe of some bullshit I really wasn’t ready for.
I mean...normally it's stuffed under my cloak... How about I just say "fuck the normal cloak" and make a full Everthirst version? Would save me a chunk of coins, gods know how often those keep getting slagged.
Vrax pulled off his tattered trusty mottled grey and green cloak, hanging it from a nearby wall hook so he could use it as a reference.
Alright... So the first thing I need to do if I want it not to be horrifically uncomfortable is make the cowl and shoulders much, much smoother.
Vrax began channeling [Adapt Life] into his ever-thirst cape. First he grew the top out more, adding more overall mass to work with. Then he focused on just the top half; if he wanted it to feel and look like a normal cloak, he needed the roots to be as fine as cloth. So he began painstakingly splitting the roots into smaller and smaller clusters, going from one root bigger around than his thumb to thousands as fine as a hair all along the top half of the cloak. It took him hours to get it the way he wanted, and in the end it looked fucking horrifying.
The top now writhed like tens of thousands of silk-like worms waving gently in striated patterns, reaching out without purpose. With a shudder, Vrax threw it around his shoulders and then started the tricky part.
He closed his eyes and channeled once again, imagining the tens of thousands of hungering strands weaving themselves together to form a cowl and then pulling together around his shoulders.
It worked. He ended up with a dark brown cloak; the top looked like it was woven from some unknown magical thread, and every single strand quivered slightly. It trailed down into the bottom of the cloak, having the normal thicker roots still trailing from the back like a cape.
Ha! Well damn, this thing looks trippy. I still has plenty of mana to make it actually more deadly as well.
[Mana 190/306]
He set the cloak back onto his workbench, and the top eagerly unraveled again back into the shifting strands. He focused down onto the cape that trailed off the back.
Vrax started by taking the Roots and forcing them to condense and grow over and over again. It would be noticeably heavier, but it shouldn’t be a problem with his increased strength. They would be nearly as strong as metal now.
Then he started in on a change that had been inspired by Jonathan’s fighting with vine whips. He picked two specific roots, one on each edge of the cape. He lengthened them to nearly four times their original length, making sure they bunched themselves back up when not in use so they wouldn’t drag.
The longer roots should now be able to strike out over twice as far as he could reach with his spear. But other than being stronger and having more reach, he hadn’t done much for overall lethality.
[Mana 146/306]
Slight thorns are a given, but what would help against tougher foes... Oh...that's diabolical. I don’t know if I have enough mana, but I’ll give it a shot.
Vrax quickly added some thorns to the overall cape, slight ones that wouldn’t kill anything but would certainly help with its grip on things, and then he waited for a while to let his mana top off again.
Vrax settled down into a chair and stretched his hands over the cape. Adding Talents was always challenging, and he didn’t have a ton of mana to work with here; each change was getting more and more expensive. So if he messed this up, he would probably knock himself out.
Ha, I bet if this works, I'll be the only crazy bastard alive who is wearing a hungry cloak with its own talent.
[Adapt Life] Danced from the tips of his fingers as he attempted to write a new rule into the world. Vrax pictured how the ever-thirst sought out the moisture of his foes, how it pierced his enemies, searching to drink their very lifeblood.
The image of blood washing over the root, but instead of just drinking it, it grew. A cascading branching cluster of fine roots racing outwards to drink more, faster, not slowing until there was nothing else to be taken.
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Vrax locked the image of the ever-thirst, explosively expanding inside a target as his mana coursed into the plant. As before, there was a palpable throb of power, like gears locking into place or the last brick of a structure being fitted in. The draw of his mana abruptly ended, and the new Everthirst cloak gained its first Talent.
Ha...there you go, buddy. You deserved a real upgrade; you have been with me for the entirety of my real adventures so far.
[Talent Granted]
[Reaching Roots]
When exposed to blood or similar vital liquids, this entity will use a portion of a target's essence to rapidly grow branching fine root structures that will multiply endlessly until the source of vitality is dry.
[Passive]
Vrax stood up and stretched; he had been hunched over his cloak for far too long now, and everything was getting stiff. He aimlessly wandered around his workshop, tracing his hand along the gently trembling walls while he considered what he should create or adapt to put into his spear.
His first instinct was to simply take a vein diver and try and do what Lux had done, giving it the ability to expand, Violently. But honestly that probably wouldn’t work against larger monsters or tougher opponents. He needed something that could survive acidic blood. Or inside a human who had quaffed a fireblood cleansing potion. Like the damned paladins kept doing every time they saw dandelions in the air now.
The potions were expensive and hellaciously unpleasant. Making you feel like you had lava poured into your veins briefly, but they did a damned good job of murdering the hell out of the dandelions. Vrax had been hesitant to make them even more resistant to counter it simply because he really didn’t want a dandelion to accidentally get loose in a city and then have no way to actually get it out of people before they died.
he was leaning towards taking some small simple organism and making it into a flesh-tunneling monstrosity. Vrax stopped suddenly and walked back towards the rays of light shining down from the iris above Lux’s tree. He knelt next to it and began shifting his hand through the thick earth until he felt a small, soft, wriggling shape on the tip of his fingers.
He pulled the small dangling earthworm up to eye level. It of course wasn’t quite normal being from the Forsaken Lands. Instead of a pinkish red normal earthworm, this creature was jet black with a pair of beady, red, pupil-less eyes that served no real purpose.
It even had a small stinger like a bumblebee might. Vrax dropped it quickly when it went to sting him. He didn’t know if its poison was actually strong, but he sure as shit didn’t want to find out either.
He quickly jabbed a finger down coursing with [Adapt Life] and added a quick swirl of green to the surprisingly feisty earthworm to get it to a more manageable temperament. Vrax carefully picked it back up, making sure to avoid the pulsing stinger.
He pulled it right up next to his face. “Now little guy, how about we make you into something that makes the very gods weep with fear?” He paused, and the worm squirmed slightly. “Yeah, that was a bit melodramatic even for me, but it was kind of epic. Now stand still.”
There was a light knock on his curtained door, and Jonathan strode in. He took one look at Vrax with the demented smile on his face, green mana swirling in the very air around him, and the beady-eyed worm in his palm. “You know it can wait.” He slowly backed out the door and made a hasty exit.
Vrax Shrugged and channeled [Adapt Life] Into the humble creature. The very first thing he focused on was making it so it could survive inside of hostile organisms' bodies. The dark flesh was changed into almost microscopic interlocking scales made of chitin. They were so fine that it almost looked like the worm's body was now wrapped in some kind of shimmering liquid that moved impossibly.
Vrax moved on to the eyes next. They might not serve a purpose now... but he knew from experience that most often the most important organs in a body were the hottest, so he added a far-reaching, temperature-sensitive vision to the miniscule creature. It changed the dull red eyes into malevolent shimmering clusters that Vrax added a slight green light to because thematic consistency was important for the legend he was busy building.
[Mana 208/306]
Now that it was tougher and could at least navigate some, he needed a way for it to enter the enemy's flesh and move around inside. Hopefully Vrax would do most of the work with his spear of actually getting it in. He started right on its tiny ringed mouth.
He turned it into a horrifying little triangular beak shaped like an arrowhead that opened outwards so when it opened it could force itself deeper. Then, taking a touch of inspiration from Duchess, he added three fine, very strong tongues with bladed tips that could pierce ahead and be used like a pulley if it needed more brute force.
Vrax stepped back and set it down. It was already much livelier, thrashing around on the ground, clacking its beak open and closed, and touching the earth around itself with its tongue, searching for prey.
A small field mouse had the utter misfortune of peeking out from behind the tree. The worm locked its green slits onto the mouse, and the tongues shot out like a fisherman's cast, wrapping around the mouse. Vrax wasn’t expecting quite what happened next. The worm pulled so hard it and the mouth were both flung airborne, and the worm's beak burst straight through the mouse, damn near popping the thing midair.
“Oh wow, okay... definitely working as intended.” Vrax scooped the little monster back up from where it was gorging on small chunks of its prey.
I still need to make it so it can hurt larger prey... And to be honest, what this guy has that none of my other creations do is poison... What...would happen if I gave this guy a poison talent...that could really let it punch above its weight class when inside scary things?
Vrax wasn’t super sure how to go about this, so he started thinking about all the worst poisons he had encountered in nature. Of course there were plenty of snakes that had venom that would turn blood to jelly. Spiders that necrotized flesh—there were even some that caused flesh to burst... That’s it.
Vrax thought back to an effect a rare tree had near the Sourceless Falls. It sheds seeds that if they fell on you would burrow inside and burst, using adventurers' mana for fuel. It wasn’t exactly a poison, but...it was a good concept to build from.
Vrax channeled [Adapt Life] one last time, trying to make a Talent specifically for the worm's stinger. He imagined the poison suffusing an area of the body, sinking in, and slowly spreading through tissues, just waiting to be ignited when it came in contact with mana of any kind.
Vrax was really hoping it would work the way he planned and synergize with his smites, letting them burrow in and then explode when the miasma crossed over pockets of poison. Although calling what he was trying to make poison was a very, very loose definition of that term.
[Talent Granted]
[Mana Volatile Secretions]
This entity's poisonous secretions are extremely volatile when exposed to sufficient amounts of concentrated mana.
Well, short, sweet, and to the point. Damn, if this little guy hops into a mage, that fucker's dead the next time he tries to cast a spell. Now what should I call you? Something like Magebane Worm would sound cool and be appropriate. Yeah, I'll go with Magebane.
Vrax put the newly adapted worm into his menagerie so it would start making copies of itself and sat back in exhaustion in his chair. Using that much mana for that long had really drained him. He was just closing his eyes when a soft, polite knock fell across his door.
Vrax opened his eyes with a sigh. “Yep, come on in.”
Stereos walked in cautiously, looking around the room to make sure he wasn’t about to step on anything too dangerous. His arms were stacked with scrolls. “You asked to be notified the moment I made progress?”
Vrax’s tiredness evaporated, and he stood up in excitement. “What did you find?”
Stereos set the pile down on the nearest clean table that didn’t have anything wriggling on it. “The scrolls do indeed contain the records of Vurune followers’ hunts; it seems that’s a common trial for classes derived from him. More excitingly, this scroll.” Stereos pulled one of the oldest and least ornate scrolls from the pile. “Contains the records of the beasts that were hunted in an attempt to impress Vurune. I would like to make it clear, however, that most of these hunts ended with the aspirant being eaten, or melted, or, in one case, turned inside out and simultaneously frozen.”
Vrax was practically vibrating in excitement. “Show me the monsters...”