Sacrifice Mage-Chapter 50: Field Manipulation

I wasn’t exactly enthused about heading back to the Guardhouse on Ring Three and trying to convince all the guards that there were indeed Scarthralls
under
Zairgon. What I really wanted was to get back to my bed, say hi to Enrico, and take a real shower.
At least I had a lot of proof on my side to make talking to the guards easier.
There were three adventurers walking through most of Zairgon with humongous chunks of vampiric Greater Brillwyrm meat. Said adventurers would also be very happy to corroborate my account, and terrible as it was, their words would count for a lot more than some human from Ring Four. Even if I had the rather decayed head of another Scarthrall with me.
So, with all that in hand and in mind, I ended up at the Guardhouse before long. For once, I didn’t get lost along the way, and I was thankful for it.
“Woah there.” A uniformed Rakshasa held up a hand to stop me. “Who are you? You look like shit.”
“Smell like shit too,” said his Scalekin companion. Then his eyes landed on the badge on my armour. Somehow, the Adventurer’s Guild insignia hadn’t melted away. “An adventurer? You should take your complaints to the guild. Us guards are for city stuff.”
Well, that was proof I wasn’t exactly a known quantity here. I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not.
“I’m Ross, the cultist,” I said. “Not here as an adventurer. I’m here about the Thralls.”
Just to prove my point, I brought out the decapitated head of the Scarthrall.
I didn’t receive any further complaints from them. Instead, they allowed me to enter the guard premises and took me straight to their commander. I thought I’d be meeting Revayne somewhere along the way, but no. It was the leader I met.
“You’re saying they’re
under
Zairgon?” The large Ogre was naturally sceptical of it. “In the dungeon?”
“I know you’re thinking that’s impossible because the Ward should have stopped them from entering, but I saw a cave-sheep there too. It was also, uh, Thrall-ified.”
She just raised her bushy eyebrows. Then I mentioned how I wasn’t the only one who had seen them and fought them, and that finally convinced her that
maybe
it was worth looking into. I referred her to my adventurer companions while also slipping in the fact that I would be notifying the guild as well.
And
that
turned her scepticism into a small scowl.
For the guards, the issues with the Thralls was just a part of their job. A job most of them were clearly not exactly married to. They’d get paid, whether the Thralls were brought in or not. There was no real incentive for them, especially since it was still a problem limited to only Ring Four.
But for the Adventurer’s Guild, Thralls in the dungeon was a potential avenue of further profit. They would most likely be making special forays to tackle the problem, and wouldn’t hesitate to bring their full might to bear. More adventurers hunting down more Thralls, stealing the guards’ credit
and
profiting off of it too.
The possibility of all that happening wasn’t a given. But Cerea had mentioned that all it would take was the Guildmaster learning about it and then whispering in the ears of a higher up to start getting legitimate posts on the job board. Maybe even gain the attention of a Councillor.
I was probably being overly optimistic, but the point was that the guard commander was thinking along the same lines too.
It would be to the benefit of the guards to stay on top of the issue.
“We’ll look into it,” the commander said. “And we’ll hold onto that too.” She pointed to the desiccated head of the Thrall in my grip. “Just leave the names of the adventurers who you worked with before you go.”
She turned to leave but my question made her pause.
“How exactly are you going to
look into it?
” I asked.
“Leave that to us guards.”
“If you take too long, it won’t matter. We disturbed the nest. There were a lot of them there, and they were coordinated. Thralls can’t turn others into Thralls, so a Scarseeker must have been down there too at some point. And if none of them can enter through the warded main entrance, then there’s obviously a—”
“This is our job.” The Ogre commander glared down at me. “Leave it to us.”
Before I could reply and state that wasn’t my point, I felt a hard tap on my shoulder. Revayne had hit me with her book, though when I looked back, her face was hidden behind it.
I sighed and subsided. “You’re
welcome
.”
The commander growled, then turned away again, more or less dismissing me. “The Zairgon Guard thanks you for bringing the matter to greater attention. Like I said. Leave it to the guards. Go be a cultist or mage or adventurer or whatever else in the Pits you fancy. Won’t be surprised if I see you in a chef’s apron next time,” she muttered.
It was so frustrating when assholes made me bark out a reluctant laugh even as they annoyed me. “Yeah, no, I don’t think cooking insects and mushrooms is in my future, thanks.”
Before I left the guardhouse, I chatted with Revayne a bit. She was a lot more responsive than her superior officer. It sure didn’t
look
that way, what with her eyes only occasionally peeking over the rim of her mystery novel. But weirdly, I could tell she was paying real attention. Maybe I had spent enough time with her to know how she worked.
“We will most likely investigate the dungeon itself,” she said after hearing my full tale. I appreciated that she was reassuring me. “Although, that will involve some red tape, since we’re guards, not adventurers.”
“Yeah well, the point is not giving the Thralls too much time to recover and disappear somewhere else.”
She nodded. I wasn’t sure if we would have talked more, but some other guards arrived and asked for her attention about investigating a different disturbance somewhere on Ring Three, and we had to part for the time being.
“I would like to discuss more,” she said, lowering her book for once. I was always surprised she didn’t have weird tan lines masking her with how she had the book up literally all the time, but then again, this world hardly had a sun to begin with. “About the cave-sheep.”
That was a strange topic, but I figured there was more to it than that. For now, I waved farewell and left. I stretched as I started on my way back to Ring Four.
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I was really looking forward to that shower.
Everybody at the cult was happy to see me back safe and sound. Escinca greeted me by saying he’d cook some extra beetles to celebrate my safe return. Sreketh ran off to get a towel and robes and soap and shampoo, none of which we had except for the cult robes. The two other men—I scolded myself for not asking their names—offered me a massage once I was done.
I thanked them all profusely, stating none of that was going to be necessary. I just wanted to rest.
The shower was a slice of heaven after the dungeon. It wasn’t an actual shower, since all I did was carry a few buckets of water from the well and dumped them over myself. But beggars couldn’t be choosers. It made me wonder if the plumbing on Ring Two was more sophisticated.
I wasn’t hungry, but I attended dinner so I could keep everybody company and tell them about everything I had gone through. Mainly the Thralls, of course.
There were other things I’d have liked to discuss, but that was the pressing issue I wanted to get out of the way before I actually took my rest. Escinca naturally grew more worried, but I also reassured him about how my fellow adventurers would help and that the guards had been alerted too.
The others let me go easily, understanding folk that they were. Aurier was still busy at the smithy and Hamsik was of course not around.
It was strange. I couldn’t exactly go to sleep because my improved Vitality didn’t actually make my body feel tired. Most of the exhaustion I felt was a mental thing. Like I needed time to process everything I had gone through. Needed to let the images of how I had stuffed myself inside the gullet of a Brillwyrm to kill it from the inside flow through me so it kept feeling less and less… unnatural.
At least Enrico was there to keep me company, glimmering softly in my room.
I did get some sleep eventually. Checking the number of days I had left before mana implosion was like a switch that turned on my drowsiness. A whole week left. All the Sacrifices I had performed over the last day or so really had pushed off the countdown.
It felt nice. Relieving.
It felt like another sign of my growing power.
After I woke up the next day to the soft glow of my friendly sprite night-lighting up my room, I headed down to one of the more… dilapidated sections of the temple. There was a lot of debris and broken masonry strewn about.
I began practicing. Gravity coursed through me, the sensation of weight shifting like a slow-moving river inside my body.
Just like at the dungeon, I practiced focusing the mana into tiny lines, so thin that each strand was barely visible under the naked eye. But there were a lot of them. I had more than enough mana to push out a small puddle of the thin strands. Then I focused on attaching their ends to a small area on the floor, trying to make them stick without relying on my other Affixes.
As I worked and concentrated, I heard someone approaching. Sreketh arrived with a broom, swiping at everything in an early-morning cleansing ritual. I was pretty sure Escinca wasn’t making her do it, especially not at this hour. Which meant she was here to gawk at me.
“Have you even been to this section of the temple before?” I asked her, slightly amused as she stared at my Gravity threads.
“Sure have!” she said brightly. Her eyes had turned to slits, which I took as a sign of interest or excitement or something like that. “I went exploring through the
entire
temple on my second day.”
“Ah, crap, even I haven’t explored the entire place.”
She giggled. “What are you doing with that?” she asked, pointing to the deep purple threads.
“Trying to train myself to get a new Affix.” I focused back on my task, though weirdly, I felt capable of multi-tasking at the moment. The things I was trying to do with my Aspect felt automatic. Rote enough that I could converse. “Don’t tell me you’re here because you think being close to people with Aspects is going to grant you one too.”
Some of the scales on Sreketh’s face turned a shade pinker. “Um, it looks interesting.”
I laughed softly. “I don’t blame you. It’s… helpful to have strong Aspects. You got one as an Acolyte, right?”
“I got Ritual. Already performed my first one!”
“Good!”
I still wasn’t sure how the Aspect of Ritual exactly worked. More talks with Escinca were obviously needed. But one thing at a time. There was still some time before I ranked my Path of the Acolyte up to Silver.
Time was hard to tell. I wasn’t sure how long I spent lightly chatting with Sreketh and training up Gravity. Eventually, something clicked into place. It happened when she asked about the Aspect from my Acolyte Path that I was ranking up.
“Sacrifice…” I said. “Hold on a moment.”
I focused on the effect of my Aspect. Soon as the fine threads emerged, I concentrated on them and Sacrificed them.
[ Sacrifice
You have Sacrificed 1 [Minor] Cast of 1 Silver-ranked Aspect. Windfall bonus activated.
Reward
: Effect of next cast is raised by 3x
]
Effect boosted by
three
times. Not two, like it used to be. I grinned. Then I repeated it. Again. And again. Just as I had at the Mage Guild.
When I finally decided it was enough and tried it one last time, it worked. It actually worked.
I channelled Gravity into fine strands once again, focusing it into thin, hairlike threads. I tried to bring out as many as I could. More and more and more, pushing my mana capacity to the limit as I felt the familiar hollowness of mana exhaustion.
What emerged from my hands was a veritable
flood
of the thin threads I had been trying to work with for the past day. They swam into the target area, forming a pool of crackling and sparking violet energy the size of a trashcan lid. I didn’t even need to get close to feel the endless tug from the circle of Gravity.
The Weave confirmed that I had finally done it.
[ Affix Unlocked!
You have acquired a new Affix for your Gravity Aspect.
Affix
: Field Manipulation
]
[ Rank Up!
Your Gravity Aspect has risen by one Rank.
Gravity
: Silver II
]
Ha, I had even gotten a rank out of it. Likely because working Gravity enough to culminate in the new Affix and the constant powerups due to Sacrifice had helped.
There. I’d been waiting just for that to check my status as it had been a while.
[ Ross Moreland
Profile
Race
: Human
Weave Access
: Full
Universal Language Approximator [Sovereign I]
Paths
Path of the Newborn Star
: Iron VII
Path of the Acolyte
: Iron VIII
Core
Mana Implosion
: [Unawakened]
General Attributes
Vitality
: Iron IX
Power
: Silver II
Agility
: Iron VII
Path Attributes
Spirit
: Iron VI
Fervour
: Iron VIII
Aspects
Gravity
: Silver II
Infusion
Siphon
Field Manipulation
Sacrifice
: Iron IX
Windfall
Emulation
Time until Mana Implosion
: 6 days
]
My mouth stretched wide on its own. The sight of the blue screen sent a nice, wonderful feeling of immense pleasure at seeing just how much progress I had made since the last time I had checked my status.
“What’s got you smiling?” Sreketh asked.
I beamed at her. “I got a new Affix for my Aspect. You helped! So thanks, Sreketh.”
“Oh! Um, you’re welcome.” She fidgeted with her cult robes. They were kind of large on her, since we didn’t have robes that fit young teenagers. “Say, do you think I could become an adventurer like you one day?”
I blinked. This girl was ambitious. Then I smiled at her again. “Well, I got told that since I was a cultist and a mage
and
an adventurer now, I could become a chef next if I wanted.” Sreketh hissed out a small giggle at that. “Considering you’re now a proper cultist, you’re on your way too, wouldn’t you say?”
Sreketh beamed back at me. Then nodded.