NOVEL NEXT 7 - Stormsteel
Ten minutes in the shower to clean off the crusty, stinking, dry sweat that covered me. An hour to move the couch I'd accidentally crushed down ten flights of stairs in the Phoenix heat and throw the parts by the dumpster. Thirty seconds of that to regret showering first.
And then four hours—four glorious, uninterrupted hours—to explore the Stormsteel Core before the bus dropped Jessie off.
The nearest Governing Council-approved training center was a good half-hour's walk away, so I couldn't start working on my second merged skill's components until a public bus arrived. That was fine; I still didn't know if I wanted to commit to the defensive skill I'd planned on—Flowing Stream Stance was a mobile defense combining Dodge with several other skills, including Light Armor Mastery and the active skill Dash. It'd give me solid defenses, but until I knew more about Stormsteel Core, I didn't want to commit.
The other option was Grassi's Greater Swordplay. It combined a mix of offensive and defensive skills into a surprisingly effective, but ancient, form of fencing, with an emphasis on Footwork, Riposte, and exploiting enemies' weak moments with the active skill Vital Lunge.
Until I knew exactly what I had already, I didn't want to commit, and I'd have all weekend to figure out exactly what Stormsteel Core did. I'd also have to figure out what that 'Unique Merge Effect' meant for my build.
Hopefully, it wouldn't change too much, but I had no way of knowing. Everything about Stormsteel Core was, by its very nature, unique—and the weird core hadn't made things less complicated. That meant no amount of research would guarantee knowledge until I tried my next merge.
The five skills that had gone into Stormsteel Core—Mana Sense, Skill Control, Arjun's Script, Tonya's Binding, and Stormbreak—had all left something of themselves behind in the merged skill. Until I committed the time to scribe new Bindings and Scripts, I couldn't explore those. It sounded like I'd have a restricted list of them, though—at least, if my read on them was correct. Lightning Bindings and Wind Scripts, and nothing else.
That was fine. I'd known this would happen. A merged skill was almost always stronger than an original one, but more specialized—a combination of the building blocks that had gone into it. I'd explore those parts of the skill soon.
But first…
I summoned the Stormsteel Core.
It wasn't a marble anymore.
Fencing had been the second thing to go when Dad died, right after boxing lessons. I still had my practice foil, but it wasn't a viable weapon. This was. The Stormsteel Core had taken the shape of the pistol-grip handle, round guard, and practice foil I was used to. It was all one piece—a forged and shaped piece of gray-black portal metal shaped exactly like my old foil, but with a slightly longer grip that I could get a second hand on it.
It felt perfect.
Stamina: 48/120, Mana: 126/200
It had also drained a single point of mana, and it had no blade. Just a long, thin, square-shaped piece of portal metal about three feet long, with a needle-sharp tip. The balance was perfect for fencing, but I didn't want to fence. I wanted to fight monsters.
I added another point, and the storm broke.
A razor-thin blade of lightning crackled and hissed like a pissed-off cat. It extended an inch from the metal bar on either side—still thin compared to Jeff's shortsword or most of the longswords, katanas, and cleavers delvers tended to use, but much more menacing than the fencing foil I'd just been holding. When I swung it, it cut the air cleanly. When I dropped into a lunge, it felt like an extension of my arm.
Still perfectly balanced.
Like all swords should be.
My Mana ticked down. Not quickly, but quickly enough that I wouldn't be able to sustain the blade indefinitely. But even so, no fencer would fight without a glove to protect their hand. I added five more points of Mana, one after another.
It felt like leather, but looked like portal metal. White cracks shaped like lightning covered my fingers and the back of my hand, and when I tried to let go of the Stormsteel Core, I discovered that it was all one piece. My hand felt safe, and even though it was locked around the rapier's hilt, my wrist moved perfectly.
Six mana per tick was too much for a little gauntlet, though; I'd have to find something to supplement my defenses until I could afford to keep armor and weapons both running, or rely on Stamina and the rapier's circle guard.
The weapon also made up my mind on which skill I'd be pursuing next. I unsummoned the Stormsteel Core and headed for the door. If I hurried, I could get to the Governing Council building, get my new skill and role registered, and get an hour or two of sparring in before Adam and Jessie's bus dropped them off.
The Governing Council had built almost twenty of the combination cafe, office, library, and gymnasiums most delvers used all across Phoenix. A few had stayed in their hands in the years after the Portal Blitz, while they'd sold others to the delver's guilds as they took over more and more of the political and logistical sides of portals.
One of the few GC-operated ones happened to be nearby—a squat, square building with a glass front and concrete walls. From the outside, it looked just like a rec center, complete with people working out behind the glass—except the weakest people inside ran ten-second hundred-meter dashes and could clean five hundred pounds.
A system awakening propelled a delver to the peak of human ability, but only if they were willing to put in the work. This was where half of that work happened.
Inside, I flashed my registration at the rep sitting behind a black marble desk and waited.
"Delver Noelstra. E-Rank. Here to access the library again?" she asked after checking her tablet.
"No, ma'am. I recently merged a skill, and I'm here to change my registration and start working on my next set," I said. "I also need the 'Extremely Hazardous' flag removed from my file."
"We can do that. Please share your system page, and let's see what you've changed."
User: Kade Noelstra
E-Rank
Stamina: 85/130, Mana: 140/200
Skills:
2. Dodge (E-07)
3. Light Blade Mastery (E-06)
Open Skill Slots: 4
She stared at her screen for a moment, then shook her head slowly. "You did a Unique skill merge? What you had before must've been pretty bad."
"It was." Luckily, GC reps didn't talk about specific skills out loud unless it was necessary—and never in a crowded room. Delvers usually wanted at least some privacy about the specifics of what they did, so they were trained to talk in general terms.
I waited for her to review my skill list, then check the merged skill for anything that would be concerning. The whole time, my fingers itched to tighten around Stormsteel Core's grip. I wanted to fight. To test out my new power.
"And your new requested role?"
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
"I'm building toward spellblade, so probably a striker/fighter hybrid. In the long term, I imagine I'll be able to fight a sustained fight fairly well, but my Unique skill incentivizes offense over defense right now, so if I have to choose, striker."
"Alright, Mr. Noelstra, we'll get you re-registered and in the system. Do you want to make yourself available for E-Rank and low D-Rank portals?"
Portals were the other half of the work. You could learn a skill and improve your Stamina and Mana through training, but leveling and ranking skills up required portal clears. Some people thought it was the system's way of rewarding delvers for fighting—or forcing them to do it when they didn't want to.
I didn't care. Clearing portals would get me the fights I needed, and it'd keep my family safe. "Yes. Do you have any dummy rooms available? Preferably ones that can fight back?"
The rep checked her tablet again. "Not right now, but there are a few E and D-Rankers looking for practice bouts until general hours start. I can send you to the sparring room, if you don't mind fighting against people."
"That's fine." That was better than fine. A person could cooperate, but they could also be clever.
She handed me a black square of plastic with a digital compass on it. "Follow that. Lethality is set to fifty percent in the sparring rooms by default, so you can go all-out against people your rank or higher."
"Thank you." I took the chip and headed into the mazelike building.
The first person I asked was just watching the sparring rooms—bunkers, really, set down in reinforced concrete with thick Plexiglas windows for observation. So was the second. But the third, a tank with a gigantic hammer and tiny buckler, was willing to fight, and D-Rank.
Close enough.
We filed down the stairs, stepped through the humming energy barrier that reduced our damage to less lethal levels, and took up positions on either side of the circle. These sparring rooms drained an E-Rank boss core every week to operate; without dungeon clears, training wouldn't be possible. Not like this, at least.
"I'm looking to test some stuff I just learned and lock in my next merge's skills. The merge is a swordplay style." I said.
"Got it. I'm a brick wall. You can beat on me for a while if you need to," the tank said as he lowered his helmet's visor. The hammer swung, and his armor glowed red-orange for a second. "I'm trying to trigger my hammer's buff."
"Shall we, then?" I asked, summoning the Stormsteel Core and firing up the blade.
My opponent nodded, and I let the battle trance take over.
A perfectly flat room. Enough space to move, but not enough to run. The enemy: chainmail, massive sledge, tiny shield.
I moved. A lunge that cracked the air—back foot placed, front facing the tank's chest. My sword cut the air. The hammer slammed down; I jerked my body to the side to avoid it, but his armor glowed again, and the sword's tip bounced off his mail harmlessly.
Or at least, it started to. Then lightning arced from the electric blade, and the Stormsteel rapier sliced into the tank's breastplate. A thin stream of blood shot out before the disgusting smell of ozone, burnt skin, and leather all mixed together filled the air.
I stepped back. "Sorry! I didn't realize it'd—"
"You're sure you're an E-Rank?" the tank asked half-jokingly. He stripped off his armor, which was already repairing under the sparring room's myriad Scripts' and Bindings' effects. I stared at the blackened wound across his pec.
It was a good eight inches long, from his sternum to his side. The skin had clearly been cut, and so had the muscle below it. But there wasn't anywhere near enough blood; the Stormsteel Rapier's lightning blade had seared and melted his flesh as it passed, cauterizing the injury.
I winced. His healing was already working on it, but to do that to a D-Ranker…yikes. "Yes. I'm a one-merge E-Rank. The sword's my merge. Let's turn the damage reduction up."
"Good idea. Thirty percent of real should be fine. You're hitting like a D-Ranker—that's a good sign for a striker. Whatever's in that merge must be something special. That was a good blow, but it's the only one you're going to get." The tank started putting his armor back on while I fiddled with the control panel. Then we squared up again.
I nodded. "Ready. Do you have a full set of merged skills?"
"Yep." Then it was his turn to move. I barely got my sword up in time to redirect his hammer. The huge steel head slammed into the floor by my feet and rebounded up as I tried to riposte again. My opponent's armor glowed, and once again, my blade caught nothing but deflecting force.
Then the buckler slammed into my stomach. I doubled over, lungs and stomach burning. Nothing had broken, but even so, that had hurt. As I tried to catch my breath, I realized my mistake.
The hammer was a shield, and the buckler was the weapon.
"Sorry," the tank said.
He wasn't.
"You're good. Want to keep going?" I asked. I still had Mana and Stamina in the tank, and now that I knew what I was up against, I knew how to…not win. The sheer number of skills he had and my lack of armor put me at too much of an advantage to win. But to learn some of the skills I wanted? Yeah, I could do that.
"Of course." The hammer went up, and I backpedaled, trying to focus on the shield. It was going to be a long spar, but I wanted to learn as much as I could.
And then, I wanted a different opponent.
I limped back home with a few minutes to spare before the bus was scheduled to drop Jessie off. It wasn't enough time to clean up or cool down, so I sat in my sweat-covered clothes and thought over the two hours of sparring I'd just done.
My ass had gotten kicked. I had bruises on my bruises from the D-Rank portal; whenever I thought I'd figured out that tank, he'd pulled something new. It was almost worse when I fought an E-Rank shadow mage in a 20% death match, though I'd managed to stay alive until she ran out of Mana. Barely. Her spells had been ridiculous; she'd left big, square welts across my entire body that took minutes to heal even with my delver's regeneration.
The only thing that had saved me was her panic when I stabbed her in the chest.
But I'd also learned a new skill—part of Grassi's Greater Swordplay. And that had made it all worth it.
Parry
A tank might block attacks, and a striker might decide the best defense is a good offense, but masters of their weapons know that a well-timed redirection can leave opponents open and off-balance. Increases the speed and precision of parrying with melee weapons.
Upgrade Effects:
1. Each rank decreases the Stamina cost of parrying.
2. At C-Rank, magical attacks can be parried.
Parry was the defensive part of the merged skill; it gave me an option besides dodging and, if I got good enough at it, would set enemies up for counterattacks. Since I wasn't going for Flowing Stream Stance right away, I was happy to have learned Parry so early. It also had a rare C-Rank upgrade—not that it was part of what the merged skill would become.
I hadn't gotten any offense, though. Not Riposte or Vital Lunge, the active skill at the center of Grassi's Greater Swordplay. And until I had that, I had to rely on Stormsteel Core's damage. That was probably enough; even at twenty percent, the electricity blade had left the shadow mage shaking when I finally caught up to her and landed that first hit. And it had hurt the D-Rank tank.
The bus pulled up, brakes squealing, and a ramp extended from the back. Jessie rolled out, and I waved.
"Kade, you smell…pretty real," she said.
"Thanks. I've been working out."
She shrugged, and we headed inside. "So, we've got a field trip in history two Wednesdays from now. There's an old Hohokam ruin in the center of Phoenix, and it survived the Portal Blitz. Mr. Farrier wants me to come. I told him no, but it's a good chunk of my grade…"
"And?" The elevator dinged, and we got on board for the sixth floor.
"And you know how I feel about field trips. At best, they're too much walking and too much time away."
"Away from the computer? It might be good for you to get out."
"All my friends are online, and you sound like Dad."
I pretended that didn't hurt, but it did. I was doing my best. We both were. But sometimes, it just hit you harder than you expected. "I know."
I sat on the floor across from the TV, leaning against the thin wall as Jessie tinkered on her laptop.
Her show was on, too—she was monopolizing all the electronics.
Jessie had always been a computer person. It wasn't just that it was easier for her to exist online; she had a talent for them—and a passion. Mom had been worried about that—almost as worried as she'd been about my sister's unsolvable joint problems.
"I'm hungry," Jessie said, breaking the silence.
"I've got something cooking."
"Great." For a moment, the tapping of her fingers on keys was all that interrupted the TV and the hum of the refrigerator. Then she coughed once. "So, the portal was rough, huh?"
"Yep."
She waited. "Do you wanna talk about it?"
"Do you wanna talk about therapy?"
Jessie's eyes narrowed, and she went back to playing around on her computer while I returned to the notebook I was scribbling in.
I'd had to buy a new one. The old one had been full of torn pages, Bindings and Scripts that I couldn't inscribe with Stormsteel Core, and scribbled out build ideas from a year ago. The new one was smaller—a back-pocket pad of paper and a half-sized pen. But then again, Bindings and Scripts weren't as important to my build anymore.
Right now, I was working out of the same book I'd used for Tonya's Binding and Arjun's Script. I'd checked it out of the library at the training center, and I'd been poring over it ever since. I'd found three symbols in the whole thing worth copying: a lightning trap Binding and two wind Scripts—one for movement speed and one for deflection.
"Whatcha working on?" Jessie asked.
I pushed myself off the floor and walked over, then showed her the symbols I'd been scribing into the notebook. "Scripts and Bindings. See, this part is the trigger for a lightning trap, and the long tail binds it to an object when I rip the page out. There's an activator, too—that's the part over the perforations. Unless I tear the page, the trap won't trigger."
The computer snapped shut, and Jessie stared at my scripts and bindings, then at the pen in my hand as I added more Bindings and Scripts to the pages. I was going to be ready the next time I got a text—or when the Governing Council put out an all-delver bulletin in my neighborhood.