[Voidknight Ascension] Chapter 135: Poisonous Pick-Me-Up

Matt placed his hands over Raiko’s claw wounds and began to focus. Not his usual half-assed attempt, but something that Sam had rarely seen of late on his face. True concentration.

As Matt worked, Sam watched and waited. He went to the stairs at the other end of the room and peeked up. He couldn’t see anything. But he stayed there, standing guard as it was, because he had nothing else to do.

And he needed to feel like he was doing something.

This was the only time that Sam wished he was something other than a Swordsman. He was useless.

He heard plenty of noises but couldn’t make out what was going on. Half of it sounded like monsters, the other like machinery.

“Done,” Matt said, holding up a twisting, gelatinous globule of purple liquid suspended above his palm.

As they all watched, the poison seeped into his palm. The exposed veins on his hand and arm turned bright purple and began to glow as the poison spread through his body.

The look on Matt’s face, however, was not one of abject pain and suffering. Thankfully, it also wasn’t one of sheer bliss. Instead, he had a thoughtful expression, as if he were reading an interesting book.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” he said. “This is a nifty poison!”

“What about Raiko?” Sam asked, hurrying back to her side.

“Oh, she’ll be fine.” Matt flapped a hand in her general direction. “I’m sure I got it all. She probably would’ve been okay, but this poison is super nasty stuff. It paralyzes, causing decaying damage to internal organs, and induces a comatose like state. Not quite forcing you to sleep, but really close. All while it does its dark work on your innards.”

Komachi fainted face-first into Chompers.

“And you just… sucked it up through your palm,” Sam said, rousing Komachi.

“Yep. Kinda like grape drink, to be honest.” Matt tapped the side of his head. “Poisonmind, remember? Besides, as an undead necram, poisons actually heal me. I’m in tip-top shape right now!”

“You’re what?” Lenal squeaked.

Matt looked over at her. “Zombie cat’s out of the bag, I guess.”

“I thought you were just a standard undead!”

“Normal undead, Necram.” Matt made a weighing motion with both hands. “What’s the difference?”

“A lot, actually!” Lenal’s voice seemed unable to climb down from its high perch.

Sam gathered up Komachi and Chompers, bringing them over to Raiko’s side. “She’ll be fine,” he told them. “Just give her a bit to wake up.”

For some reason, Sam couldn’t help but think of them as his cat and dog. As odd as that seemed, it also felt the most fitting.

And since there were a few seconds to spare when they weren’t fighting, Sam took a moment to look over his [Status] and then had to double-check his notifications for that last fight.

Not only were the gargoyles incredibly strong, they must have given a ton of Experience to level him up so much. And since they all had been part of it, he could only guess how many levels Lenal had received.

Judging by her horrified, yet distracted, appearance, Sam would guess she had Second Order Jobs to pick from.

He couldn’t imagine going from First Order to Second Order in less than a day. Hell, it probably took her just a few hours once she started using Matt’s hand-me-down wand.

Sam shook Raiko. “Come on, we have a job to do, remember?”

She groaned.

That was a good sign. “If you don’t get up, I’ll put Komachi on your face.”

No response that time.

“Machi does have to take a dump,” his cat muttered threateningly, apparently momentarily over her nervousness about the matter.

Sam picked up his cat and set her on Raiko’s unconscious-seeming face. The cat, like cats across the multiverse, spread out like a furry liquid.

“She hasn’t bathed in a while, too,” Sam said to the others.

Raiko woke up, coughing harshly. “What in the ashen hells is that stench?”

“Komachi!” his cat proclaimed proudly, then continued in a deep voice, “is the new smelling salts.”

Sam laughed, mostly out of relief. He hadn’t realized just how much he’d been holding his breath, waiting to see if she’d be okay.

Not that I’m doing much better. Getting more HP has only made my current Health look that much more dire.

With all the levels, and most notably 2 Voidknight levels, Sam’s HP had exploded from just over 3,000 to 3,890. He still had 4 bonus points to spend and knew that he could push likely himself over 4,000 if he spent all of them, but then his MP would be even further behind.

So, like the last time, Sam dropped all 4 points into Mind. They weren’t done here, and there was nothing he could do about his HP for now. The Void wounds were resistant to healing and would just have to close up on their own.

He winced as he got up, a burning pain radiating out from the wound on his chest.

Raiko pushed Komachi off and gingerly sat up, taking slow but measured breaths of slightly cleaner air. Apparently, it wasn’t stench-free enough, so she pushed Komachi a little further away.

Chompers bumped his side into Raiko. She patted his lid gently, which the mimic seemed to quite like by a number of his back paws—if you could even call them that—stamping like a dog getting a good scratch.

Checking his Status once more, Sam was more than happy to see the massive improvements. Both his base Strength and Vigor were over 200 now, and Agility was over 100, with Dexterity not far behind.

With those 4 Mind points, he was now at 1,293 MP. All well and good, but he still wished a level up meant that your HP and MP were healed, or at least partially recovered.

Hell, he’d even take having current HP and MP reflect the change in maximum by staying the same percentage. But wishing was pointless. He was just glad to have something to look forward to when he was healed up.

His skill ups were equally welcomed, especially the improvements to [Armored Aura]. He could only guess that it helped defend Raiko from even worse damage.

“Well,” Raiko began to say hoarsely. She removed a waterskin from her Inventory and took a long drink, emptying it. “That was awful. Like my own little personal hell. Tons of levels, though.”

“I already have my Second Order Job,” Lenal muttered quietly.

“Do you already know what you’re going to pick?” Raiko asked, interested.

“It was very productive,” Kai agreed. “But we should move along. The noise up above has suddenly ceased.”

Sam hadn’t noticed. Now that Kai pointed it out, he felt the enveloping silence from above as well.

That’s not a good sign.

“I haven’t picked my Second Order Job, and I’m not sure I can get more Experience until I do!” the Analyst wailed.

Sam recognized an ad hoc committee in the making when he saw one. “What’re your options then? Do you want to stay as a magic user?”

“Yes! I don’t want to get close to anything. There’s Apprentice Wizard, Veteran Mage, and Academic to choose from.”

“The first two seem like obvious advancements from Mage,” Matt said. “I had those as options too, though tailored to my Water mana attunement. Why not pick Apprentice Wizard? It seems to be a good boost, right?”

“Which ones have the highest stats?” Sam asked. “That’ll give you an idea of their relative strength. But even then, you should still pick the thing that calls to you most of all. The Shard seems to adjust to the way you fight and handle yourself, but you haven’t had much time fighting so far. It could be wrong.”

Lenal gave this a moment or two of thought. “Apprentice Wizard and Academic have the highest stats, respectively. Both are at 12 points total. I’m liking the sound of Academic though….”

“Academic does sound more specialized,” Raiko said.

“It fits your Analyst Profession by the sounds of it,” Sam said, trying to hurry things along without potentially stunting Lenal’s future growth with bad advice. “Why not pick it?”

“Because Wizard gets a lot more spells!” Lenal said excitedly. “And I already have Analyst. What if I’m just doubling down on the same thing? Shouldn’t I be spreading myself wide?”

Matt coughed genteelly into his hand then looked at the others. “Nobody? Seriously? So I guess we’re just not going to ever do ‘phrasing’? Cool.”

“Specialization isn’t a bad thing when you have a group to support you,” Sam told her. He gave Matt a dirty look. “But in the end, you should choose what you would like. I’m level 26 Swordsman and I still haven’t gotten a Third Order Job yet. You’ll likely be stuck with that Job for a while yet as the levels slow down dramatically past level 10.”

“Jobs aren’t the same as Professions either,” Raiko added. “Whatever it gives will be tailored more to combat than your Analyst.”

The sleeve of Glyphs on Raiko lit up, shining through the armor. She pressed her liquid gold covered hand to her side, casting [Glyph: Refresh]. It wavered for a second as the Ninja struggled to maintain the spell, but then it solidified.

“Who wants the next one?” Raiko asked of the group.

Kai raised his hand. “I’m running low, and I can only imagine what awaits us above.”

“You are a healer,” Raiko said thoughtfully.

“I’m good,” Matt said. “Eating poison apparently also helps me to recover MP! You all should also be undead. We can be Necra-pals!”

“Not happening,” Kai said sharply.

“Kai or Komachi should have the next Glyph,” Sam said. “They are both indispensable. If I run out of MP, I still have my big muscles and a bigger sword.”

Raiko stared, a little too long.

“Not much to see with all the armor,” Matt said, elbowing Raiko gently. “Eh? Bet you wish he had skin-tight nano-armor or something?”

“Matt, I swear,” Raiko began threateningly. “Did you eat my poison?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Firstly, thank you. Secondly, did you know that I’m cursed?”

There was a long pause. “I do now, ma’am.”

“Yeah, I’m not helping you with that now. Could be messing with you, could actually be dire.”

Matt saluted smartly. “Understood, ma’am. I’ll just go fuck myself, shall I, ma’am?”

“It certainly sounds like you want to.”

“Okay!” Lenal said, oblivious to the happenings that were unfolding around her. “I picked Academic! Let’s go.”

Sam was the first one to the bottom of the stairs, Kai lingered around Raiko long enough to get a [Glyph: Refresh], and then everybody formed up into positions as Sam activated [Tactic: Delving] again.

Komachi was power-napping on top of Chompers. He wasn’t sure, but it seemed like that helped her MP regeneration.

With his hand on his colossal greatsword, Sam took the steps carefully, fully aware that none of them were in great condition anymore except for Matt, who wouldn’t likely be getting anywhere near the front lines of battle if he didn’t have to.

Not that Sam could blame him.

The stairs, like those below, were far longer than should have been possible. They led out onto various floors, each with a small landing and a door. Rooms had been ransacked and left abandoned, but there were no signs of people until they reached the end of the stairs, where a powerful mechanical hum reverberated through the very stones of the tower as they got closer.

It felt a little like standing on top of one of those old-timey electric football toys. He had to keep shifting his feet. They felt like they were about to slide off the stone steps at any moment.

Sam shouldered opened the door and drew his sword in one smooth motion, falling into [Power Stance]. What met his eyes was a scene that he couldn’t fully wrap his head around.

The room was clearly a workshop or laboratory of some sort.

Magical implements covered the walls, various tools were shattered on the ground, and in the center of the vast space was a… the best Sam could tell it was an engine of some sort.

A cylindrical piece of metal and crystal that gave off a steady mechanical hum and pulsed with mana. Each pulse of mana fed into numerous cables littering the ground like ancient roots.

And then Sam saw the bodies. Countless torn and broken bodies wearing what looked like stereotypical wizard robes. Long, opulent, and beautiful, but now covered in blood or tattered and burned.

Lenal shouldered her way through, wailed at the sight, and ran toward one body before she was jerked back by Sam. His wrist clamped on her’s like an iron manacle, because he had just seen the cause of all the devastation.

And it was sitting on the other side of the large room.