New Horizons (Emerilia Book 4) Read online

  “Awwweeeesome. I guess this is what I get for not needing that much sleep anymore?”

  “Something like that,” Deia said.

  Dave snorted and opened up a flashing notification.

  You have gained a Class Level: Aleph Engineer

  Just making all kinds of things. For fixing Aleph tech—because it’s confusing as hell and complicated (I’m surprised your brain could handle it)—you get a whole ’nother class! Seriously, you think these things are trading cards or something? Damn well racking them up.

  Status: Level 2

  Effects: +30 to Endurance, Willpower, and Intelligence

  “Woo-hoo!” Dave laughed, doing a small jig with a giant smile on his face. Others looked over before they shook their heads and got back to work. They were used to the Dwarven Halfling’s excitable manner.

  Dave hummed out an upbeat song as he danced from side to side.

  Celebration over, Dave checked his character sheet.

  Character Sheet

  Name:

  David Grahslagg

  Gender:

  Male

  Level:

  10

  Class:

  Dwarven Master Smith, Friend of the Grey God, Bleeder, Librarian, Aleph Engineer

  Race:

  Human/Dwarf

  Alignment:

  Chaotic Neutral

  Unspent points: 511

  Health:

  12,100

  Regen:

  4.82 /s

  Mana:

  2,910

  Regen:

  12.95 /s

  Stamina:

  1,920

  Regen:

  9.35 /s

  Vitality:

  121

  Endurance:

  241

  Intelligence:

  291

  Willpower:

  259

  Strength:

  192

  Agility:

  187

  Dave looked through his character sheet; it had all passed so quickly, going from one fight and fix to the next.

  Active Skill: Archery

  Level: Master Level 1

  Effect: Critical Hit chance increases by 41%. Ranged targets take 22% increased damage.

  Cost: 10 Stamina

  Passive Skill: Dodge

  Level: Master Level 2

  Effect: 87% chance to evade objects. 10% faster when fighting more than two opponents.

  Passive Skill: Perception

  Level: Master Level 3

  Effect: 91% chance to find hidden details. 15% chance at better loot.

  Active Skill: Two Handed

  Level: Expert Level 8

  Effect: 38% armor penetration on target. Stamina costs reduced 15% while fighting.

  Cost: 35 Stamina

  Active Skill: Dual Wield

  Level: Master Level 1

  Effect: Attacks are 41 % faster. 5% chance of slowing target.

  Cost: 15 Stamina

  Active Skill: Inference

  Level: Expert Level 3

  Effect: 69% increased chance of using moves you’ve read in books.

  Active Skill: One Handed and Shield

  Level: Expert Level 9

  Effect: Weapons damage increased by 39%. Defense increases by 15%.

  Cost: 20 Stamina

  Passive Skill: Night Vision

  Level: Master Level 6

  Effect: 95% increased night vision. 30% increased vision in magical darkness.

  Racial bonus: Dwarves, even Half-Dwarves, are at home in the darkness of mines and their empires dug underneath mountains. +25% increased night vision (+5% in magical darkness).

  Active Skill: Sprint

  Level: Master Level 5

  Effect: 93% increased speed. Sprinting costs 25% less Stamina.

  Cost: 5 Stamina/second

  Active Skill: Sneak Attack

  Level: Master Level 2

  Effect: When you are undetected in stealth, attacks will hit with 368% increased damage (Massive increase when hitting Critical area). May your aim be true. Ignores 10% of opponent’s armor.

  Cost: Attack 50 Stamina

  Active Skill: Stealth

  Level: Master Level 4

  Effect: 91% chance to remain undetected (reduced in direct light). 20% easier to detect others in stealth (must be below your level in stealth).

  Cost: 5 Stamina/second

  Active Skill: Spell Formation

  Level: Expert Level 7

  Effect: You use 20% less Mana and your spells are 77% stronger.

  Active Skill: Soul Smith

  Level: Expert Level 5

  Effect: 73% less soul energy necessary for crafting with soul smith.

  Cost: Dependent on creation.

  Active Skill: Builder

  Level: Master Level 5

  Effect: 93% speed and efficiency. Creations material cost is reduced by 25%.

  Required: Tools

  Active Skill: Smithing

  Level: Master Level 4

  Effect: 91% improved quality of smithing creation. 20% chance to imbue metal with skill. Able to analyze items made of stone, iron, steel, silver, malachite, gold, ebony, and Mithril, aluminum, titanium.

  Active Skill: Soul Manipulation

  Level: Master Level 3

  Effect: Tools you make to manipulate souls and their energy are 89% stronger. Able to use soul energy to fuel spells. 15% increase to soul energies reserves (can only be used for spells, does not act as extra Willpower points).

  Cost: Dependent on creation.

  Active Skill: Magical Circuits

  Level: Master Level 9

  Effect: 100% chance of creating better Magical Circuits and understanding them. 45% reduction of cost.

  Cost: Dependent

  Active Skill: Maintainer

  Level: Master Level 1

  Effect: 85% chance to restore durability; at higher levels, possible to increase durability, quality, and gain 10% Sharpen bonus to items that have been cared for.

  Required: Dependent on gear; sharpening stone, hammer, anvil. Better maintainer’s tools lead to higher chance of increasing stats.

  Dave had to just look around him and see all the repair bots that swarmed the badly damaged forge to know that these levels had paid off. They had started with just a handful; now they had over a thousand of the creations rushing around, repairing different systems and speeding up their ability to fix areas. There were also guardian automatons that they could call on to fight with them, greatly increasing the effectiveness of a Stone Raiders’ party.

  Each and every one of them had gained an aura detection skill—a kind of sixth sense that came from fighting hundreds of opponents.

  While the overall level gain might have been been barely thirty or so, the Stone Raiders were nothing like their old selves. Their new or improved skills, instincts, and training for fighting nearly every day for six months had made them a powerful force.

  Josh was already joking about trying out Ashal’s dungeons.

  “Dave?” Deia asked after a few minutes.

  “Sorry, was somewhere else,” he said.

  “I noticed. First, you’re getting some food, sleep, and then we can go to the mining facility,” Deia said.

  “I like that plan.” Dave smiled.

  Deia stood. The two of them held hands as they waved to the other Stone Raiders. Dave had worked as hard as any of them for two days straight. He had been the only crafter capable of braving the heat of the forge while he fixed the coolant systems and the heat regulators.

  Malsour and Induca met them on the way, having taken the opportunity to change into their dragon forms.

  Dave and Deia talked about different things. Deia sent messages to the rest of their party. They had made it through the honeymoon phase, supporting each other in their pursuits: Dave in his crafting and Deia in her leadership. They’d become so close that they found it difficult to think of living without the other.

  “If I neve
r see another metal-eating odo, I’ll be happy!” Induca finished saying as she and Malsour talked.

  They fell in behind Dave and Deia, deep in conversation.

  “They are interesting beasts, using the planet’s heat and Mana to survive. The metals down here probably tasted better to them than the unrefined ores,” Malsour said.

  “Did you really have one carted off so you could open it up?”

  “Their ability to manipulate inanimate objects, but only for the elements that they have bands on their bodies, is amazing. Those bands must take decades to build up!”

  “They’re also highly refined and imbued with Mana. I can only imagine what the dwarves are going to pay for that kind of material,” Dave interjected.

  “What are you going to do with your share of the loot?” Suzy asked as they passed an automaton fighter that was sawing through an odo.

  The odo had a massive maw, with eight clawed feet that jutted out like the points on a compass. They were meant to assist it through the ground as it consumed or pushed through anything in its path. It had a rigid body from its massive mouth to its only slightly smaller posterior. Inside, the bands had highly acidic linings that broke down the metals. The bands had different colors depending on which metals they had consumed. Each band was only formed of one singular metal. Some odo might have multiple bands of the same metals, or interspersed bands showing which metals the odo had eaten through over time. The odo could only manipulate the metal that they had bands of. The more bands, the more powerful.

  “Looks like a rigid toilet roll that’s been pinched at one end and has feet sticking out of it,” Dave said.

  “So kind of like a toilet roll, but not at all?” Suzy quipped.

  “I think the question is what to do with the loot,” Deia said.

  “Well, I’m going to keep it. I know that Suzy had been looking for a staff of some sort and I think that with the Mana attunement—if you two want it—I think I can make you magical weapons, as well as Induca.”

  They would also be getting a large portion of Mana-imbued Mithril, ebony, and other rare metals from the odos. No other party would be able to do anything but sell these expensive resources. With them, they looked first to improving themselves; anything else, they threw out. It was the Stone Raiders’ way.

  Dave already had requests from other Stone Raiders for custom work. Anna’s sword had made them all eager to get a Dave-crafted weapon.

  “I would be interested in rings primarily. A wand capable of holding a higher level Dark spell would also be nice,” Malsour said.

  “I have been holding off on new blades, though these ones’ durability has been dropping quickly due to the higher level buffs I am using with them,” Deia said.

  “I know I said a staff would be cool, but I’m more interested in heavy Mana-imbued cores, especially for steel, which takes so long to get it to retain any kind of Mana. It’s the best metal to use for my creations,” Suzy said.

  “Heigh-ho party!” Steve said, waiting in the teleport room.

  “Hey, Steve.” Dave waved and yawned.

  “We off to the mining facility?”

  “Nope, food and rest. Some of us need sleep,” Deia said.

  “Okay. Mind if I go off to do some hunting with Dwayne, then?” Steve asked as the teleport activated.

  They stepped through without a second thought. The teleport pads had become familiar long ago.

  “Sure, just don’t get too banged up,” Suzy warned as they walked out into an identical room. They waved to the Stone Raiders waiting in the different control rooms on the second floor. Trap runes lined the room. If someone needed to fall back and brought something with them, either the traps or the different Players would kill it before it could do much damage.

  “Ah, I’ll be fine.” Steve waved, as if it would be an impossibility.

  “You said that before I had to replace your leg. Three days ago,” Dave said.

  “How was I supposed to know that the damn log with legs would try to eat my foot?”

  “When we said, ‘get out of the way, you idiot—it eats metal’? I think it would be around that point.” Suzy nodded to herself.

  “Sorry, can’t hear you. Automatons don’t have ears, you know? Hey, Dwayne!” Steve said, looking at the party that was organizing. By their members and numbers, it looked as if it would be quite the battle.

  “Hey, Steve.” Dwayne looked to the rest of Party Zero. “Everyone else.”

  They greeted him as they headed out of the teleport room and into the central tower that had become their home. They headed into the mess, greeting different people before grabbing food and sitting down.

  A large open window showed the rest of the city that had become their home base after they’d liberated it from an army of the undead, a few moles, and a Lich Lord. It was shaped like a hollow cylinder to increase the available living space, which was only possible by the centrifugal force created by a gentle spin and gravitational runes along the floor. When they had arrived, the city had been in darkness; only the tower that they had arrived in had any sort of power to it. Now, entire regions of the city were lit up as power stations, workshops, mining facilities, forges, and every major system had come online. Even with the lights coming online with different systems, the sheer scale of the city was still hard to understand. The lights barely illuminated the massive contained city.

  They talked about this and that, their plans for the materials, and then what they thought could be their next mission after the mining facility.

  “I think that it’s going to be a combat mission,” Malsour said.

  “What makes you think that?” Suzy asked between bites of her burger.

  “We’re finishing off all the maintenance issues and only going into the areas where there is little resistance. I think that there is a large concentration in one or more of these last few facilities we need to clear,” Malsour said.

  “I’m nearly at Master with one handed and two handed. I hope we can get in enough trouble for me to level those up,” Dave said.

  “Have you put thought into advancing to level 50 so that you can get another class?” Deia asked.

  “Not just yet. I really want to try to go for the classes I know I can get on my own merits, though being level 50 does have its benefits. It’d take a lot more deaths before I lost my classes and the longer I stay at level 50, the more my body will get used to it. I think it’s about time I started using those points. It takes me days of fighting just to get a few levels. How long is it taking you to get skills, Suz?”

  “It’s slowing down by a lot, but if I was to try out fighting, I think that my stats would still increase for a bit. I think you’re reaching the realm of diminishing returns. It’s hard for you to gain any kind of stat points by just training so you’ll have to resort to using the stat points that comes with gaining a level to increase. What level are you, anyway?”

  “Technically I’m level 10 still, but I’ve unlocked level 113,” Dave said.

  “How many stat points have you spent of your unlocked levels?” Deia asked.

  “Fifty-four.”

  Malsour whistled. “That is a hell of a lot of stat points.”

  Dave opened his interface and pulled up his level.

  Level 113

  You have reached level 113; you have 511 stat points to use.

  “You could say that.”

  “How many stat points do you have already in your character sheet?” Deia asked.

  Dave switched over to his character sheet, tallying it up. With his increased Intelligence, he could easily remember multiple things, his memory becoming almost photographic.

  “One thousand, two hundred and ninety-one, which is the same amount as someone who is level 258.” Dave took a moment for his brain to understand what he had just said.

  “Damn,” Suzy said.

  “Looks like Josh might not have been joking about us being able to take on dungeons in Ashal,” Deia said. “I hadn’t
realized how strong we had all become down here.”

  All of them sat, lost in their own thoughts.

  Dave spread out his aura detection skill, checking the aura of all those around him. Few were trying to hide it; some did it unconsciously. He used Malsour as a reference point, knowing that his actual aura was ten times what he was letting out.