Legend of the Spellthief

The party all drew their weapons in anticipation of their teleportation, hopes high that since their numbers were low that they would not get separated as the bandits had. Drawing the 5-pointed star made of translucent green glass, Logan spoke aloud even if he didn’t need to, “Take us to Oretessu.”

A bright green light shone around the group, encapsulating their forms and minimising them into tiny specks of colour before blinking out of existence. Moments later their forms blasted outwards far from their original position, grass underfoot and blue skies overhead. A rush of wind caressed their bodies as the pressure of their appearance normalised with the locale they found themselves in.

Another set of ruins, though this was outside. Tall stone columns stood around with the remains of rock buildings laying across the grassy knoll. The party weren’t too high up, but the knoll was rather wide and most likely sat at the head of an old civilisation.

Before they could fully take in the scenery or find out where they had apparated, another cutting air hit them, but this time it was from the slash of a blade. Celsius’s fire was cut in twain by a single strike, his body roaring in anguish as it imploded into nothingness.

Darting their heads around, the party were just able to see their foe cleaving into Spark and dissipating another ally.

“Identify”, Logan commanded in his head.

However, as a few adventurers had done before, Logan’s Identification was countered by a severe shockwave into his eyes and head.

Oretessu was a tall and muscular man, 6’1” with arms twice the size of a normal man’s. Gripped in his hands were two curved and jagged swords, blue and green vein lines etched from the hilt to the tip. His spiky white hair barely moved as his body whirred into almost imperceivable motion.

A slash landed on the blocking blade of Gaemo, a sharp crack forming across his weapon. Oretessu’s off-hand blade struck out at Sincollo who only barely grabbed it in his teeth. Pulling on the blade, Oretessu somersaulted with a kick into Evén’s jaw, sending her skyward and dislodging his blade from the saeben’s maw.

“Blast Rush”, Oretessu spoke aloud as his body vibrated harshly. In the instant his foot landed back on the floor a massive crash of energy shot from his heel, propelling him upwards.

“Torn Life”, the man chanted again. This time his body had visible grey winds flow around it in a circular fashion, his body spinning like a top and then titling sideways to slash out at Evén countless times with ranged wind slashes.

Evén did her best to block the onslaught with her daggers but they were cut into smithereens within seconds, the skill landing numerous slashes into her chest.

Logan gripped tightly onto his amulet to grant him 2 MP, stared down his most recent ally and mentally commanded, “Dimensional Jaunt.”

Warping out and behind Evén, Logan placed a hand on her back and used his last ring charge to warp her away to safety.

Oretessu’s skill ended with a blast of air and a low-pitch bang, his body aimed toward the floor. “Blast Rush”, he chanted again as another explosion from his heel sent him like a meteor onto Gaemo.

Blades clashed as Oretessu’s dual swords slammed into Gaemo’s single. Both of the men’s blades then began to glow hues of red, yellow, and blue as they slammed into each other to try and land their combo skills.

Sincollo jumped into the fray with metal claws into the side of the bandit leader, his attention splitting between two foes.

Logan threw his hand high as he chanted, “Gaia Skystrike”, throwing his hand down as he formed a spike of rock behind the bandit and shot it down to the man.

The spike hit true into the man’s shoulder, blood splatting across the floor and onto Logan’s allies. However, Oretessu just shook his body as his muscles expanded an inch and crushed the stone in his shoulder.

Slashing at his foes, the bandit threw Gaemo and Sincollo off their balance for a second, spun, and drank another potion. Oretessu’s body hastened through his imbibed liquid and darted towards Logan at the far back who had retreated to ranged combat. Logan was only able to let out a few syllables before his foe was in slashing distance.

Dragging his blade into the ground, Oretessu sparked a wave of red mist as he hid his Power Strike as it slashed upwards into Logan, the blade cleaving through his left hip and through the centre of his head for 160 damage.

Logan was sent flying back at -12 HP before he regained consciousness by a wayward yellow light from Marcus. Flipping to a sliding kneel, Logan scanned the battlefield for his foe who had been engaged by the melee forces again, with Evén in tow.

“Heal Shot”, Marcus called out several times as he healed up the Spellthief far from his previous 2 points from death.

“That was fucking close”, Logan thought to himself.

Throwing his arms back skyward he threw them down as he chanted, “Necromantic Skystrike”, summoning tendrils of darkness to wrap around the bandit’s arms.

The spell did well the first and second time, pulling the leader out of his flurry of blows to allow Logan’s allies to get in their own hits. It also did wonders in healing Logan.

Logan just kept pissing off Oretessu though. The leader’s eyes glowed a bright red as Logan recognised the Berserk skill. Circling the blade in his left hand, Oretessu landed a sparking pommel into Evén’s face, dazing her with Pommel Stun.

His right blade sparked with electricity as he slashed out at Sincollo, a blade beam of yellow cutting deep and shocking the saeben into a similarly paralyzed state.

Dropping both blades, Oretessu grabbed onto Gaemo’s shoulders, reined his head back, and smashed his forehead into the Fighter. Cracks of bone and teeth exploded outwards with jets of blood from both forces.

With three foes out for a second or so, Oretessu Rushed toward Logan a second time with newly grabbed blades. This time they both flowed red mist from his steel, a double strike would end Logan.

“Dimensional Jaunt!” Logan yelled.

Exploding out of existence with a wind blast, Logan teleported towards his foe. Oretessu certainly saw this coming as he spun around and slashed at his back, however, Logan had sent himself skyward once more.

“Gaia Shot! Gaia Shot! Gaia Shot!” Logan chanted over and over as he let loose a volley of three rock shards down onto the bandit.

Two of the large spikes hit Oretessu’s shoulders, almost forcing and pinning him to the floor. Logan had finally hit the man with a sickly feeling as the bandit’s skin turned a shade of green, but he instead yelled out, “Neverdie!”

The bandit’s form flourished its green hue with an aura of red, a loud thumping audible for several hundred feet as Oretessu’s heartbeat was that of a demon’s.

Logan’s descent also signed his death, Oretessu drew back his blades that glowed yellow and slashed into the heavens with large swathes of power. Logan chanted just in time with another, “Dimensional Jaunt”, appearing atop one of the columns.

He was finally out of spells, MP, and rings. Logan felt that tinge of fatigue in his head, though it could have been from the slash that almost cut it in half.

Oretessu was about to slash again as his head tracked Logan’s location, but instead, someone else’s slash hit the bandit. “Severing Slash!” Gaemo called out as his blade cut through Oretessu’s right arm.

A jet stream of blood came out in a circle from the bandit’s arm as it went hurtling to the floor. “My hand!” Oretessu yelled out incorrectly, as it was much more than that.

Spinning around, Oretessu’s relentless state retaliated with another glowing blade into the blocking one of Gaemo. This clash caused the hunter’s blade to snap in two, the pointed end going flying just as Oretessu’s arm had.

“Fuck!” Gaemo cursed as he dodged the following slash.

“Force!” Logan called out as he shot a cascading array of grey energy orbs at the bandit.

One hit into the man’s leg, faltering his attack, but with it, he knew the origin and began to dodge every one of them.

It seemed like Oretessu was far above the skill level assigned to him, being able to take so much and continue going. Was it just the Berserk and Neverdie skills at work?

Evén and Sincollo were still down, though they were resisting with their best efforts to stand back up.

“Die!” Oretessu called out as his blade glowed purple, signalling the flurry end of his combo.

The blade came down onto Gaemo who couldn’t dodge all of them, especially with his potion buffs ending.

“No!” Logan called out as he was about to Bloodcast his way in to help. But he didn’t need to as he saw another attack.

A hand gripped Oretessu’s back, the bandit whipped his head around as he hadn't anticipated another mage.

“Gaia Grasp!” Marcus yelled out, his arm becoming a bridge for a torrent of mud and stone to pierce into the leader.

Oretessu’s body took on another green tinge as he was sickened once again.

“Gaemo, catch!” Logan called out as he threw a dagger at his ally.

Gaemo spun around as he caught the Bowen dagger, continuing his spin as he swiped the final strike. The dagger dug into Oretessu’s chest as it just barely missed, or rather aimed to not hit, his heart.

The bandit coughed up sick and blood as his body finally gave out, the red glow of his eyes fading away with the falling slump of meat he had become. A loud thud sounded as the bandit leader hit the grassy floor beneath him, it was a miracle, or just amazing skill usage, that allowed him the breaths he let out against the leaves.

As the rest of the team got to the body of the bandit leader with tensed bodies and drawn weapons, Logan could see the fight was over as experience floated over the body.

Logan jogged back to the party as he called out, “He’s out, nothing else is nearby.”

They all looked at Logan for a second then back to the body, waiting for it to jump right back up. A few seconds passed as sighs of relief were all that came from the situation.

“Damn, he was much stronger than a rank 10. The fuck happened to him?” Gaemo exclaimed.

“Fucker had so many skills, it was endless”, Evén added.

“It was fortunate events played out this way, with you two alone, you’d have failed”, Sincollo pointed out as he looked at Gaemo.

“Yeah, no way we could have taken him if he was like this before the teleportation”, Gaemo accepted.

“He almost killed me with that one Power Strike, if not for my armour granting me a greater defence”, Logan admitted as he looked at the damage reduction of the nullafo armour.

“How’d he-” Gaemo started as he picked up the blades that Oretessu was wielding, “well… that’s how. This guy had more artefacts.”

“What?” the team blurted out together.

“These two swords, they are artefacts. I can feel the spellforce weaved into them. Logan, can you see what they can do?” Gaemo explained as he handed one of the swords to the Spellthief.

Taking the item in his hands and using Identification didn’t return much except their name, “Bloodrender”, Logan spoke.

“What? The Bandit Lord’s first weapons?” Evén asked.

“Two-hundred-year-old artefacts. Fuck”, Gaemo exclaimed.

“They are worth a fortune”, Sincollo stated.

“Maybe more in battle…” Gaemo said with a hint of wanting.

“That’s three artefacts already. What happened with this gang?” Logan asked.

“Something recent, the bounty has been around for a while but the guard didn’t know about these artefact additions. If they did the pay would be much higher”, Evén informed.

“Know anything else about the blades, Logan?”

“Sorry, that’s it.”

“Just the name huh, oh well. I can get someone at Gauntlet to examine them. If it’s alright with the rest of you, I’ll take these as my pay, you can have all the silver and items”, Gaemo admitted.

“They aren’t exactly my style, I’m fine with it”, Sincollo agreed.

“They would be nice, but I use daggers mostly. Go for it, ‘hero’”, Evén teased.

Marcus and Logan looked at one another in agreement, “Fine with us”, Logan stated.

Gaemo gave a big grin at his prizes, “Thanks, everyone. Not just for these two swords, but for helping in taking down this gang”, he said as he retrieved the sheathes from the body of Oretessu.

“Hunters gotta stick together, right?” Logan replied.

“I’ll owe you all one too, looks like I will be settling down in Gauntlet with this tight group”, Evén announced.

“Settling down?”

“Yeah, I work as a hunter in a different settlement, but there aren’t any others there. Having a team like this at my back makes my life a lot safer.”

“You’re welcome to come down to the inn”, Sincollo invited.

“I’ve been there before, it’s where I met Gaemo.”

“Speaking of which, we better start heading back. We need to sort out the unconscious bandits. Logan, know where we are?” Gaemo asked.

Logan looked around, clicked his fingers, and checked his map. “We’re really far to the south, probably a few weeks horse ride.”

“That’s quite the teleportation artefact. Take us back to that underground would you?”

“Sure.”

The party gathered back up, with the one-armed body of Oretessu bound and slung over Gaemo’s shoulder. Logan asked the star to return them to their previous location, which didn’t work at first, but when asked to teleport to his horse, Carmen, the star functioned as normal.

Sparking in and out with bright green lights, appearing next to his horse, Logan felt a shaking in his hand. Pulling the star up to his eye level he saw it had cracked all over.

“What happened?” Gaemo asked.

“It… broke?” Logan announced as he looked over the artefact. Some parts of the star had fallen off due to the cracks and the Spellthief could tell its power was fading.

“Was it overused? Perhaps it hadn’t recharged fully since teleporting that bandit gang”, Evén theorised.

“Whatever happened, it’s lucky we were able to get back before it did”, Gaemo said.

Logan stared at the artefact for several seconds, a glimmer of anger boiling inside. His eyes widened slightly as he saw a new window pop up to the side of the item though.

“You lot go ahead, I’ll look over this for a bit”, Logan asked.

“Sure, we’ll get to the first group and start stripping and carting the unconscious ones.”

Leaving Logan to his own devices, with Marcus also heading back into the underground, the Spellthief investigated the artefact and the window that came with it.

“This artefact has been destroyed, a special option is available due to the requisite class of Spellthief. Do you wish to absorb the ebbing spellforce? Yes / No.”

“Is there any reason not to? This must be something similar to Spell Absorption, why else would it only be open to my class?” Logan pondered in his head.

Taking a look around and clicking his fingers, Logan was unable to find any onlookers. Deciding it best to accept the offer, the Spellthief affirmed the selection. A wave of wispy purple smoke shot out from the cracks of the now four-pointed star into Logan’s palm, just like his absorption skill.

“Absorption of item successful. Calculating reward…”

“Dimensional Jaunt and Teleport have been learnt. Dimensional Jaunt has progressed to tier 2-tier 3-tier 4-tier 5, Teleport has progressed to tier 2-tier 3.”

With the essence taken from the glass object, it cracked even more and shattered to pieces on the floor. Dust breezed between Logan’s fingers as he processed the outcome, investigating his spells to find what had changed.

“No additional casts but double the distance and triple the targets. A great boost, that would let me teleport a whole party at a time, if it wasn’t for all the stuff we’d be taking back to town right now. Teleport is a bit out of my reach currently though, I’d need to be level 24 for fourth-level spells”, Logan calculated in his head.

Looking at Teleport, in particular, Logan would be able to shift his party 144 miles at level 24, pretty much the entire distance to the ice cavern.

Surprisingly, and very disappointingly, Logan did not learn any portal-style spells or ones that would allow him to return to Earth. Even though the artefact had those effects Logan could not obtain them. Was there a level limitation? Or something surrounding his tier of Spell Absorption? Either way, this outcome left the Spellthief quite deflated.

“Could I absorb the kaevock?” he wondered.

Picking out the other artefact in his possession granted no window asking if he wanted to absorb it. The major conclusion was that the artefact had to be heavily damaged or in the process of being destroyed. Was it worth it to gain some extra power? The risk was that Logan couldn’t learn the spells that made up the kaevock. It seemingly had more to do with unlocking than anything else.

As it stood, this artefact could open up specific dungeons and doors, and was rumoured to be able to unlock tomes. That was a good enough reason to keep it intact, if Logan was to proceed deeper into the ice caverns who knew if there were further doors inside?

Placing the tumbler lock back into his inventory, Logan collected the pieces of the previous artefact as Gaemo needed to hand it in., Logan then descended the stairs to aid in the moving of the still-living bandits.

It took almost three hours to shuffle the bodies to the entrance, tie them up so that if they woke they wouldn’t cause many issues, and finally sieve through all their items. The crates took an especially long time as they had to catalogue what items needed to be handed back at the guardhouse.

The haul was quite amazing, Logan and Marcus being able to swap out their current attribute-boosting trinkets for pristine variants. Several spell rings were also up for grabs that Logan and Marcus shared amongst themselves. Logan shifted around his rings, gaining three Flame and two Lightning on his left hand, and moving the Immediate summons and Dimensional Jaunt rings to his right hand.

The rest of the intake went to the other members as well as to sell back at Gauntlet for the final money split. The Oni-Noni Gang had done a hell of a lot of work in their time together, their sheer numbers alluding to the forces they could take on if they had the advantage. It was a shame so many of the tomes were required to hand in, but Logan and Marcus got a fair shake already.

It was a slightly appealing sight to see Oretessu tied up within the cart with his single arm, the severed one already having grown over the stump due to the classed beings’ design of keeping the person fit to fight. With him, there were 17 unconscious bandits, a good number to gain information from back at Gauntlet.

Gaemo and the rest of the hunters didn’t have to worry much about the bandits escaping, as their skills did help in combat but mostly bolstered weapons. With the casters at the back of the convoy, it meant the captives had little chance of escape.

Leaving the entrance to the underground, the party closed the doors and threw over a pile of leaves to cover it up. It wouldn’t be good for passersby to fall in, nor let another group take it over. The door dedicated to Madamra was also a curiosity that the G-Hall might be interested in as a possible dungeon.

The creaking of the wood from the carts gave a new noise to the group’s return trip, they were mostly silent on the way here but with the added weight of their take, it sang the song of its people.

Logan glided his hand over his face and chest, investigating yet another scar to add to his collection. The Power Strike from Oretessu had almost killed him, and it left a deep scar from his left hip and through the centre of his face, almost separating his nose. Anyone looking at him could swear he tussled with a bear.

With the culmination of scar tissue, he continued to feel stiff in his movements, which Marcus was easily able to see as it worsened. “Will you be buying regenerative services at the church for those?”

“Yeah, I can’t move as easily as before. It’d be a well-spent 2 gold.”

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