Everlast Online

CassReyes

Hey, just as a forewarning, this chapter (and likely the next one as well) is mostly going to be me listing off rewards for the Ouroboros fight, so not a lot going on - just a necessary admin chapter really to fully clarify her place in the story.

Still, I hope you enjoy reading anyway.

Liz, Nina and Gloria were currently stood outside of the king's audience room, waiting to be called in and receive their rewards for their part in killing Ouroboros's incarnation.

It was currently the day after the fight as the kingdom needed some time to resolve the more major issues of the coup; but now they were mostly dealt with and Vradora had begun it's sure to be slow recovery - now, hopefully, traitor free.

Liz, Nina and Gloria were all given clothes for the ceremony, and while they had no real defensive or power bonuses they looked nice when used as vanity items:

[Aristocratic F-Suits (D): Suits with no functional purpose beyond being regular clothes; they are however, made from expensive materials with great care and dedication]

(A/N: The F is for female; as in, tailored for women)

They had attempted to give dresses to the women, but none of the 3 were fully comfortable in them. Liz was of course wearing a dress as armour, but while she did appreciate its beauty, she desperately missed the convenience of pants - so when her new suit came and she regained free movement in her legs, she believed she would never take them out of her vanity slots; ceremony clothes be damned.

Liz had been given a nearly fully black outfit, a black blazer with silver trimmings branching over it artistically like roots growing over a woodland floor. The shirt and pants were similarly black, but with far less adornment and due to her [Dress-Up Doll] attribute, only the blazer was not transformed into a part of her body - instead becoming sewn into the fabric of her arms and back.

I really need to get rid of this attribute. Liz sighed internally. It's making me look even more childish than this tiny body makes me look.

Nina's suite was far more colourful. Her shirt was white, with a number ruffles cascading down the centre and at the wrists; her pants were solid black to contrast with her shirt and her blazer was wonderful navy blue, lined with gorgeously crafted golden buttons. It suited her exceptionally well, the buttons complimenting her yellow, feline eyes.

Last, but not least, was Gloria. She was the least period accurate in Liz's opinion. Where Nina and Liz were both dressed in mediaeval period clothing, her outfit more closely resembled that of a Georgian military officer with a similarly blue and gold coat, only with decorated shoulders as was typical for the period.

The girls were not entirely used to the clothes, but nonetheless they each looked rather exquisite.

The girls had taken some time in the night to look over the rewards they had received from vanquishing Ouroboros, those that had already been given out at least, and it was safe to say the quest was more than worth it.

All 3 had gained massive level increases from the fight. Liz having reached level 98, Nina reaching level 91 and finally Gloria reaching level 82. All 3 of the women had gained news skills with Gloria having gained 2 due to her relatively lower level:

[Bone Armour (1) (C-): User may absorb the bones of dead enemies into an isolated dimensional storage with an upper weight limit of 1 kg. The bones can then be used to create armour around the user. Upper weight limit scales with skill level. Quality of armour relies on materials used]

[Bone Armour] was Liz's new skill and while not entirely useful for herself as a mage-type fighter with a rather efficient life drain skill, it was still an excellent skill thanks to [Voodooist] that allowed her summons to tap into her bones storage - unfortunately, each summon did not get an independent storage and instead drained from Liz's personal stash.

[Deck of Cards (1) (D+): Create a deck of magic playing cards to slice through your enemies with flair. Sharpness of cards scales with AGI and skill level]

The skill Nina had received was quite interesting, it allowed her to summon 10 playing cards (at the first level) and while they looked like normal cards that she could easily use to perform tricks with, when thrown they became as sharp as blades, easily sticking into walls - damage that the girls frantically hid. There was the caveat that all the cards - thrown or not - would disappear after exactly 3 minutes and Nina would need to use more mana to summon them back again. Regardless, Nina found the skill both fun and powerful. Finally, were Gloria's skills:

[Dulled Pain (E+): Reduce sensation of pain during combat by 20%]

A simple, but effective skill for Gloria whose class easily aligned with the typical makings of a berserker.

[One-On-One (1) (C+): User may designate a single target to fight one-on-one with. Afflicted targets may not attack anything else before hitting the user. Strong targets may resist; power of taunt scales with STR and skill level. Cooldown - 5 minutes]

This was a newer type of skill for Gloria as she had not yet received a taunting skill; what's more this was a rather powerful taunting skill as well. Forcing an enemy to face you without being able to attack anything else allowed for many openings.

With skills like these, all 3 women were more than happy. There was a slightly grievance though; Liz, although not really caring to compete, had thought she may overtake [Miner] as the highest level in the game, and a for an hour she did - at least until:

(A/N: Comparatively lesser rewards because achievement isn't as important as some others - but still worth an announcement)

Liz only sighed at the sight of the achievement, knowing better than to try and compete with a levelling fanatic like Miner. Though Nina was glad to be back on the leaderboard again.

Other than gaining new skills, the trio had managed to increase the level of most of their skills as well. The most notable increases were Liz's [Blood Donor], [Soul Sight], [Soul String] and finally [Leach Bolt]; each increasing to lvl-7, 92% proficiency, 23% proficiency and evolving into the more powerful and longer ranged [Leach Arrow (D+)] respectively. There was also an increase among her non-class skills with [Multitask] reaching 100% proficiency and being able to evolve.

Liz was given a few choices, but her decision was easy: [Split Mind (0%) (A-)]. The conditions for unlocking the option were to have controlled at least 5 other bodies, clearly linked to [Soul String] and once acquired, greatly assisting in controlling them as Liz could more easily handle the sensations of multiple bodies. 

Gloria was also able to increase her skill's levels and even evolve one of her skills: [Demise Slash (D)] becoming [Destruction Slash (C+)], now having greater destructive properties as well as leaving behind a minor corrosion status effect.

Nina had also increased her skill levels, though not to as great an effect as her allies. Her only upgraded skill being [Acrobatics] that simply went from E- to D ranked; still good, but not nearly as impressive.

Liz and her friends had good fun looking at their fastly increasing progress, but were even more excited as they knew these were simply the perks of increasing their level and they had not even begun to fully look at the actual rewards for clearing the quest.

First Liz looked at the items, pulling the fang from her inventory - if she could even call it that. What she pulled out was a jagged white sword, quite perfect for Gloria who had almost entirely destroyed her axe; what's more it had rather exceptional abilities attached:

[Fang of Ouroboros (S): Broken off fang of the devil incarnation of Ouroboros. +125% attack power, grants use of passive skill {Blood Seeker}]

[Blood Seeker: Directs user towards large amounts of blood. For every litre of blood absorbed, weapon's attack power increases by 0.5% with upper limit 25%]

The skill was quite perfect for Gloria who's fighting style relied on her brute force to smash her way through any enemies - it obviously given to her, and while its jagged edge and shorter blade than she was used to would take some time to adjust to, Gloria was more than happy to take it. Even allowing for a small smile behind her mask.

There were 2 other items gained from the quest and world announcement, being the familiar [Ancestral Blood] that was given only to Liz and the [Evolution Tree Guide] they had all received.

Liz was more interested in the book about evolution than anything else though, even knowing the value of [Ancestral Blood], and quickly opened it.

Inside was a single page, despite the book being so large, with a picture of an [Abandoned Doll] in their natural state - namely the way Liz spawned into ELO. Below it were 3 branching paths leading down to 3 more pictures of different races.

The leftmost picture was of a stereotypical ventriloquist dummy with the same suit, hair and face as a rather famous children's book villain.

The central picture was of a foetal looking creature being stored within a test tube; there was little more to look at than that.

The final and leftmost image was a person covered in scars and discoloured flesh - this image intrigued Liz the most, but due to it reminding her of a character from an old movie she liked, a strange movie with both christmas and halloween elements.

Liz didn't know what to do with the book and the other 2 didn't either, it was only as she inspected it that she got her answer, a system message appearing instead of a description as she had expected:

The descriptions weren't exactly helpful for Liz, nor were the strange little remarks below them. Still, being able to know her evolution conditions could come in very handy for the future - but now came the trouble: Choosing.

Each could feasibly have their own benefits for her and it was not so easy to decide upon a path.

If she could only know which of the paths was most complete that would likely determine how she progressed, but of course she didn't. Instead, Liz simply chose on gut instinct. 

I'm tired of being a doll , but I still like being a real undead. Liz thought to herself, clicking the option that had attracted her attention from the very beginning:

"It's all skills that I'm missing." Liz sighed as she looked at what she needed. First was obviously to increase [Blood Donor] to level 10, but she also needed to acquire the skills [Bone Shaper] and [Flesh Stitching], both of which she had not even seen yet.

I suppose there was that bone grimoire, but that's probably a bad idea if I want to evolve fast. Liz thought. She had taken some time to read up about grimoires, especially since she now had the money to go out and buy them - the only problem was that they were incredibly difficult to level up.

The current recommended application was to get 1 grimoire and base your entire class around it since just passing the first stage to gain more of the skills took a ridiculous amount of time. Though there were rumours of static grimoires - ones that granted all of their abilities immediately much like static passive skills such as [Voodooist] without the need to improve their proficiency.

At the moment however, Liz had no way of evolving so dismissed the menu page - instead asking the other 2 about their evolutions. 

"I have not yet reached the requirements for any evolution, master." Gloria had responded, closing the book and giving it back to Liz to keep in her inventory.

"I only had one, but I've only met one condition." Nina responded, "It seems to be the standard evolution into the werecat race. Still, the bonus ability will be pretty good."

Nina seemed disappointed at her rather lacklustre evolution option compared to Liz; but all it came down to was her regretting having not chosen to play with a random race like Liz had. 

The final reward the girls could look at before they received even more from the king were their new titles, and by god they were rather impressive:

(A/N: SOU stat is not increased through titles unless explicitly stated - CHA is - basically all stats refers to any stats that can be increased with free stat points)

All of the titles were great, especially the stat increases - but more importantly the discounts. It was especially great that despite Gloria's inability to collect titles like player's could, she seemed to have gained the effects of them as Liz saw Gloria's stats increase. Liz however, strangely found that only she had received the title [Beelzebub's Interest], while Nina (who didn't even know about the title) only received the normal 4. 

The title also had a strange requirement as well:

Didn't I kill one of his underlings? Lis wondered, she honestly felt unnerved with the idea of becoming the target of interest for a being that was likely more powerful and frightening than anything Ouroboros could do - but really there was nothing she could do about it, if the archduke of gluttony wanted to keep an eye on her she wasn't exactly capable of stopping them. As unnerving as it was.

More importantly though, I got my lost soul point back. And that message... Everything about the title made Liz uncomfortable, but again there was nothing that could be done so she simply accepted what seemed to be Beelzebub's kindness, if that's what it truly was.

The final thing Liz did was open and consume her [Ancestral Blood]. She had briefly considered using it after evolving, but the conditions needed to evolve would surely be hard to meet and the power it could grant now would be put to much better use.

Liz was quite happy with the skill, mostly enjoying the extra information she gained about the lore of the [Abandoned Doll] race.

Still, she didn’t really have a real debuff skill and so this was an excellent addition to her skill list.

Time passed as the girls waited in their suits; until eventually the grand doors to the audience chamber opened. Rounds of applause from the nobility lined up along a velvet walkway guided Liz and her friends forward. The stood before the king, all 4 falling to 1 knee as a show of respect; then the ceremony began:

"To you! Our noble heroes who had brought light into the kingdom, driving away a great force of evil!" King Geoffrey began, standing from his throne with his hand held high - a truly excellent display of theatrics that made him seem grand even as he thanked 3 random commoners for saving his life and the life of his kingdom.

"I grant thee..."

CassReyes

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