Chapter 48.3

“It should be working fine,” Mia replied, ignoring her.  “At the moment, it’s just a randomized, Class-based spell attachment.  And you haven’t spent any points toward improving or controlling it. Fear and nausea could easily overpower such a weak effect.”

“I got over it,” Arx mumbled under her breath.

Distracted, I reached up to begin stroking one of her horns.

Spell attachments?  I had never given it much thought, but now that Mia had drawn it to my attention, there might actually be quite a bit of potential to the idea.  Never mind uplifting emotional boons, what if I could actually influence their combat acumen?

There was a certain economy to a fight, after all.  As a spell caster, there was only so much I could accomplish in any given moment.  If I could passively attach even minor buffs to them with each spell, that would eventually have a huge impact.

It was rather like discovering I had one of those MMO skill-trees waiting for me in the background—except I had to make up the tree as I went.  And every point spent to improve it was one spell less in my overall arsenal.

Damn it.  It was not the first time I bemoaned the open-ended nature of this system, and it would not be the last.

“I’ll have to give that some thought, Mia.  Although, now that we’re on the topic, I actually have quite a few questions about how my Class is supposed to work—”

Mia let out something of a panicked squeal.

“—which I will be asking later.  Go ahead and show us what you have for now.”

“Uh huh… well, first off, Lynnria, I have taken your poison idea and—”  She paused.  “I’m sorry.  Would you prefer this conversation to be private?”

Lynnria was still trembling a bit, but she shook her head.  “No.  We talk our skills out for the good of the Clan.  Right?”

“How else’d ye do it?” Jax asked.

“Liiiike I uuused to,” Arx slurred airily.  It was then I realized I was still rubbing her horn.  And her mouth was beginning to hang open.

Jax eyed her for a moment.  “Aye… that’d put a right boak on it.”

Boak?  As my hand fell away, Arx unconsciously tried to follow it down—and she collapsed to the floor.

“Um…” I gave my head a quick shake before refocusing on Jax.  “I thought that one had something to do with vomit.”

She glanced up at me for a moment before returning her stare to her floundering sister.  “Aye?”

Fair enough.  “Go on, Mia.”

“Uh… yes.  As I was saying, it is not possible to intentionally poison yourselves for your own benefit… with skills, anyway.  However, per our Lord’s suggestion, I have been toying with the ideas of Life Energy storage and contamination.”

I suggested contaminating our Life Energy? That did not sound right.  Although, I had to suppose the description of Life Berries could be interpreted that way.  If someone else ate them.

Mia continued, “Now, creating a set of Energy Storage Runes was fairly simple.  Once you give me the go-ahead—”

“Hold on,” Jax interrupted, finally tearing herself away from the spectacle of Arx crawling across the floor.  “Why ain’t ye doing the bit with them blue cards?  Now that we’s all connected-like, I been wanting to see what the Master’s been on about.”

“But… you can’t even—gag on a dick!”  She pulled away to make a series of popping noises before finishing her thought, “Can’t even read!”

“You could still read ‘em to me.”

“But…!  That…!”  Mia let out an exasperated growl.  “Never mind!  You don’t have the architecture for visuals.  I would have to install it during your next torpor.”

“But I’s Boundary-locked, ye eighth-copper slag!”

“Be grateful I’m even considering the idea, you… you ill-mannered… woman!”

Jax’s jaw worked to one side, probably trying to decide how to react to such a poor attempt at deliberate insult.  Eventually, she went with, “Not a woman.”

“Female, then!”  Mia sighed tiredly.  “I’m not even sure how I would replicate our lord’s architecture, and even if I could reverse-engineer it, the whole thing would have to be adapted to your unique physiology and mental landscape.  You have no idea how much work you just dumped in front of me on nothing more than a whim!”

“Let’s call it a flex-goal, then,” I suggested.  It was best to nip this argument in the bud before it started getting out of hand.  “Besides, I can think of a number of uses for them having something like that.  Teaching Jax to read, for one.”

“For them? Meaning you want…?”  Mia groaned in defeat.  “Yes… my lord.  Of course.  I’ll just… add it to the docket, then.”

“I’d rather ye taught me yer ownself, Master,” Jax whined, pouting just a little.

Uh huh.  “Sure.  If you can manage to keep your hands off me for longer than five minutes at a stretch.”

Her little act dissolved instantly.  “Point.”

“May I continue, please?”

I found a little footstool to rest on before waving her on.

“Now, as I was saying…”  She paused.  “Blast.  With you idiots interrupting me all the time, now I’ve gone and forgotten.”

“Something about storage and permissions,” Lynnria provided.

None of us bothered to refute the ‘idiots’ part.

“Ah, yes!”  She cleared her throat.  “Once you agree to taking the skill, you will be provided with a set of instructions which will allow you to engrave a small circle into your flesh… which sounds bad, but really it’s just a bit of scratching.  Nothing gruesome.  Any Life you collect can be harvested and stored within indefinitely, however for now, you are still restricted in what types of Life you may harvest.  Extracting it from animal remains or vegetation will require secondary skill purchases.”

“And before you ask, I don’t know how much you will be able to store at a time.  I wasn’t able to set any parameters for that, so it may well be unlimited.  Although, it may cause some… swelling… if it gets to be too much.”

Lynnria gulped.  “Swelling?”

“Fuck a table leg,” Mia agreed.  “Naturally, skill level will play a role in that.  As well as the density and purity levels of the Energy once extracted for use.”

I nodded along with the description.  “Well, aside from the swelling bit, that all sounds pretty useful.  It would be really nice to have some Energy stores built up before going into a Dungeon.”

Starving to death was an activity rather recently and emphatically scratched off my bucket list.

Lynnria pulled out her Earthen ‘Bow’ and began stroking it thoughtfully.  “Yes, it does.  You haven’t mentioned a duration for the ability, though.”

“Again, there isn’t room to specify.  I assume not very long if left unused, however the Runes should persist indefinitely once Life is inserted.  And I would expect a need to reapply if emptied.”

“That’s all well and good,” Arx said from the nearby high-backed chair she had managed to pour herself into.  “But this was supposed to be some sort of poison ability.  She needs something to fight with besides that little stick.”

“Yes, I was just coming to that,” Mia replied.  “Once extracted again, the Life should present as a form of dense liquid—again depending on skill level and the amount you have crammed in there.  Besides just consuming it directly, you can use it as a form of blood-contact poison.”

“Meaning we’d have to rub it onto a blade or an arrow,” Lynnria said for clarity’s sake.

“Or your claws, yes.  The effect of the poison is undetermined.  However, inserting a foreign and condensed Life Energy into someone’s bloodstream has the potential to induce any number of reactions.  Weakness at a bare minimum.”

“That being what you meant by contamination,” I said, understanding finally.