Chapter 101: Book 2: Chapter 6

Blink.

The three of us appeared in the waiting room. We were right in front of the secretary’s simple desk. The pine scent in the room was stronger than ever and the secretary’s workspace was now liberally decorated with rose-tinted glass figurines of various animals. Although the figurines were a true menagerie, I did notice that deer featured more prominently than any other animal.

Her favouritism for cervids was confirmed when I spotted that she wore a charm bracelet which had a half dozen small silver deer attachments.

Dean’s secretary glanced over the top of her half-moon spectacles at us and smiled warmly. “Back so soon, Mr Carter. I’m beginning to think you miss us,” she commented with wry amusement. “You can head on in, he is expecting you.”

“Thank you,” I told her politely and led Shana over to the door.

“It was lovely to see you again,” Shana said as we stepped away.

“Ditto,” Anastasia piped from my shoulder.

Dean’s secretary chuckled lightly as we left.

The secretary was definitely developing more personality and character quirks with every visit.

It had started with sprucing up the admittedly bland admissions office. Now her desk was becoming increasingly personalised. If what she had told us about Dean’s sudden shift in behaviour was true, then I was beginning to suspect that whatever happened to him was spreading to other members of the Framework collective. Or maybe just to her, which was possible due to her proximity to the foul-mouthed administrator.

Moments later we were in Dean’s open plan office space. For once the short scruffy man didn’t scream an expletive-laden and overly effusive greeting. That didn’t mean the air wasn’t filled with Dean’s swearing, but he was engrossed in playing one of his arcade games.

The area where he had the arcade booths had expanded, and the array of machines had increased from the classic Pac-Man types to newer, though still out-of-date kinds. Dean was standing in front of a light gun shooter called Time Crisis.

“Die, fucking alien scum,” he screamed as his finger tapped the trigger of the plastic gun frantically.

If I needed any further convincing that Dean was pretending to be unaware that we were here, his words provided it. Time Crisis did not feature aliens.

“You can cut the act, Dean. I’m not going to chew you out for your dick move yesterday.”

Dean dropped the light gun and turned to face us. I winced when he dropped it, my inner scrooge appalled at the carelessness that could lead to it being broken and needing to be replaced. But the light gun didn’t clatter to the floor as it was chained to the game machine.

“Torin, what a pleasant fucking surprise,” he called out.

 Fine, if he was going to keep up with the charade, I’d let him.

We had more important matters to deal with today and raging out every time I got battered this way and that like a cat’s toy had become tiresome.

Not to mention entirely futile.

It was the same principle of how to deal with an internet troll, best to just ignore them and carry on like they weren’t there. Dean would engage in Deanish chicanery and there wasn’t anything I could do to change that, except roll with the punches.

Besides that, there was a tugging at the back of my mind, an instinct if you will, that infused me with the feeling that I was on the right path, regardless of my seeming lack of agency. That this was something I both needed and wanted to do.

“We are here to level up and make a request,” I told him.

“How very fucking mysterious, consider me intrigued,” he chuckled back.

I sincerely doubted this was much of a mystery to him but kept shtum as Dean walked us over to his bean bag conference area.

“Still no chairs,” Anastasia observed as we tried to get comfortable.

“What’s it to you, small fry? You seem quite comfortable hitching a ride on the big fella’” Dean fired back.

“Not for long, as soon as we level-up I am back to my previous size,” she declared. Then as Dean opened his mouth for a retort she went on. “And don’t even think about suggesting Torin order me to stay this way. I know how that diseased mind of yours works.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Dean beamed. “However, have you considered re-shaping her…”

“Ana will be going back to the way she was, Dean,” I interrupted whatever lewd suggestion he was going to make. “Unless she wants to make a change herself.”

“I don’t,” Anastasia quickly confirmed.

“Okay, I get it,” he said and then he grinned with a devilish glint in his eyes and snapped his fingers.

Anastasia immediately grew back to her former size.

Of course, she had been standing on my shoulder at the time, and apparently Dean thought it would be amusing if her clothes were unaffected by the sudden transition in size. Naturally, the doll-sized clothes burst into ribbons and the tatters flew in every direction.

With the unexpected change in weight on my shoulder, I instinctively turned my head towards the commotion and my hands reached up to grab a hold of and steady her, unaware of her incipient nakedness.

At the same time, Anastasia, similarly shocked, lost her balance and her feet slipped from her perch. Her legs ended up straddled on either side of my broad shoulder as she fell.

Which is how I ended up with a double handful of Ana’s rear assets with my eyes only an inch from her navel and my mouth very closely pressed up against her most private of areas.

“You fucking pervert!” Ana screeched in a very high-pitched tone.

I didn’t know if she meant me or Dean. Probably both of us.

Meanwhile, I sat there dumbly. The shock of the surprise had robbed me of my faculties. And if I’m honest there was a small part of me that was rather enjoying the predicament.

Ana didn’t seem to know whether to cover herself up, beat me around the head, or try and climb off.

Dean laughed hysterically and I heard the thud of him hitting the floor after he fell off his bean bag.

Shana, at least, maintained some semblance of common sense. She was quickly off her bean bag and assisted the irate squirming blonde in clambering down from her shoulder perch and supplied her with some clothing from the inventory. Shana had a few admonishing words for Dean as Anastasia clothed herself but couldn’t help her cheeks twitching with amusement at the scene.

“You did that on purpose,” Ana seethed at Dean when everything had calmed down enough that we were all seated again.

“Of course,” he replied glibly, “…because it was funny as fuck, and I am fucking funny.”

“That’s debatable,” Anastasia snorted with cold derision.

Although, in all honesty, she had taken the whole escapade with more grace and less anger than I expected. I’d feared I would have to bark orders to get the runaway tram back on the rails but that hadn’t proven necessary.

Also, she had settled into sitting as close to me on my left as Shana was on my right so perhaps after the mortification had subsided, she hadn’t been quite as opposed to where my face and hands had ended up as I’d assumed she would be.

“I sense you are here for more than just my advice on levelling up,” Dean said, steepling his fingers in front of him in a forlorn attempt to come off as an enigmatic mentor.

Ana snorted at him. “Sense, my ass. We know you watch us all the time like some creepy stalker.”

“Not all the time,” Dean retorted. “I have other interests besides you, you know.”

“What you mean is that you have other stalking victims,” she snapped back, still very nonplussed with him.

Dean opened his mouth to correct Ana again, but I imperceptibly shook my head and he wisely abandoned whatever he was about to say.

“I’m hoping you can help me out with the unexpected hurdle I’ve encountered in my recruitment plan.”

Dean stroked his chin. “Oh, yeah, there is a fairy at that prison complex isn’t there. The management of fairies and imps is not my department, but I could probably wield my considerable influence to get the fairy and her gargoyle paperweight reassigned to a prison in a different state. That ought to clear the way for you to take who you need.”

That wasn’t the deal I struck with Quinntexxis. I was supposed to get her released from her death sentence, not a change of venue for her very likely demise. For all of Quixbix’s teasing of the fairy I was confident he would be deeply upset if I chose to simply side-line and leave her to the tender mercy of the unknown.

There was also more that I’d hoped to get out of the deal but got the sense that Dean wouldn’t budge on this. Something told me any extra would mean effort on his part and if there was one thing I’d learned about the guy, unless there was something in it for him, he was a lazy sod.

“We should get the levelling aspect done before further discussions of the prison situation,” I suggested.

Dean nodded and as he had before, produced two tablets from his pockets for us to read through our choices. “Very well. You have some fucking choices to make. Level six means you get your T2 abilities. Like a lot of classes, this means unlocking your magical potential.

“Shana’s class didn’t provide many choices, the Shadepath is all about sacrificing versatility for targeted power. Torin, you have the freest rein with your selection. Your T2 ability opens a magic school for you to utilise and you can pick whichever you want except for Light and Harmonic, as you have an aversion to those two.”

During the trip we had discussed our levelling options with Quixbix, and it had been both revealing and a little frustrating. The revelation was that Ana and I had classes that were referred to as Boundless. This meant if we had the class points, we could continue to improve our class up to A-grade in the sixth tier and beyond.

From the sixth tier onwards, there was only a single grade in each new tier.

This was in stark contrast to Shana’s current class tree which would top out at the B-graded Shademistress Sniper. If she made it to level one-hundred and twenty there would be no further tier-based abilities available unless she switched to a new class.

Although Dean hadn’t mentioned this when we were picking her class, Shana wasn’t losing out. A person’s character aptitude didn’t only affect what they could get at character creation. It imposed a tier ceiling that was incredibly difficult to breakthrough. Shana with a High aptitude was limited to the fifth tier. Those who were lucky enough to have an Immense aptitude, like me and Raven, could go all the way up to the eighth tier.

Also, you couldn’t shift sideways into a Boundless class, you would have to drop down to the start of the tree and work your way back up through the tiers. Paying the upgrade costs to shift back up through each tier with every fresh level gained. Whereas Shana could shift sideways into any other non-boundless B-grade class when she reached the end of the Shadepath class abilities.

The frustrating element was that Boundless classes could almost be described as personalised. Unlike regular classes often, though not in every case, we wouldn’t know exactly what we were going to get. Quixbix knew that the second-tier ability would likely be a magic based one for both of us, but not precisely what, so his suggestions for what I should go for were very generalised.

The imp knew that the Corsair tree usually unlocked magic in tier two and the third tier probably focused on command abilities. The only constant for Dungeon Corsairs was that the T4 ability was their dungeon ship tier. Bewond that, we were truly in the unknown. Partly because high-tiered characters hoarded knowledge about what they could do. And partly because what circumstantial evidence Quixbix was aware of, denoted a wide variation in capabilities amongst those who had evolved their class into Dungeon Corsair Lords and above.

My daydreaming was broken as Dean started talking again.

“Due to your class, crazy eyes,” Dean beamed as Anastasia scowled at him. “You have less choice, you need to pick either the Life or Death schools for your enchanting, but not to worry you get access to the other as your T3 ability at level eight.”

That was a nice bit of insider knowledge. Lifeforce Enchantresses were incredibly rare and Quixbix’s knowledge of their capabilities was sparse.

“Any advice?” I asked as I took the tablet from him.

“For you, take one of the schools that you already have an affinity for. If you don’t all you’ll get is the ability to use any spell scrolls from that school of magic which is a bit shit and becomes absolutely fucking worthless in the long term. If you have an affinity, you’ll get a choice of a cantrip you can cast at will as well as the scroll thing.”

We’d only had a few spell scrolls drop and they had all been unusable.

There were three kinds of spell scrolls.

The most expensive and difficult to create were ‘open-cast’ scrolls. Open scrolls could be used by anyone regardless of their class, affinities, or aversions. The caster just needed enough mana in their pool to empower the casting. The upside of this type of scroll was that anyone could use them. The downside was their effects were static. It didn’t matter if you had gear, a class, path, harmonisation, or a species bonus that would improve the spell; it would only be as effective as what was dictated on the scroll.

Apart from the mana used, the scroll’s casting was considered separate from the caster. Hence why they were open and usable by anybody.

The middle ground version were the ‘unlimited’ scrolls. The name meant that they could technically be used by anyone like open-cast scrolls. However, these were channelled through the caster of the scroll. If you had no affinity for the school, there was a chance of failure, and the scroll’s efficacy was reduced even on a success. It was even worse if you had an aversion to the spell school in question. The potential upside was because you were the one casting it, any of your bonuses were also applied.

The final type was ‘limited’. Limited scrolls only worked for those who had full access to the relevant spell school via their class or harmonisation. A natural affinity was not sufficient.

Most of the scroll drops we’d received were from the Fomorians and had been water-school scrolls of the limited type. We had no one who could cast them.

The primary use of ‘limited’ scrolls was to round out the casting repertoires of spell-based classes. Give them the ability to cast utility spells that were only useful in limited circumstances without wasting an ability allocation on it.

The three schools I had an affinity for were Chaos, Dark, and Frost. If I picked one of those, I’d be able to use the limited scrolls for that school and get an inherent cantrip. If I picked a school for which I didn’t have an affinity, all I would be able to do is cast limited scrolls and unlimited scrolls without fear of failure. But, and this part was critical, gaining access to a spell school did not grant you the affinity for the school, so even though unlimited scrolls wouldn’t fail, they wouldn’t be empowered either.

Quixbix concurred with Dean’s assessment that in the long run gaining access to a non-affinity spell schools would be detrimental to my development. When you had money, procuring strong open-cast scrolls for schools you had no affinity for wasn’t as problematic.

My choice came down to which of the three schools I wanted to pick. It wasn’t a difficult choice to make. Dark and Frost were both minor affinities while Chaos was major, making Chaos magic the natural preference.

Another factor that influenced my decision was that Shana had a major affinity for Dark, so that already made her the optimal choice to cast Dark attributed spells, should we come across any. Plus, moments before we came here, I had unlocked Frost Harmonisation, allowing me to evolve that side of my arsenal via another avenue.

That just left the decision on what cantrip to take. Again, Quixbix had given me some general advice but even though we assumed I would get something like this at level six, the precise list of spells I could choose from would be pure guesswork and would likely have been influenced by my experiences and proclivities.

Turns out I had a choice of three.

 

Chaos Dart (major)

Type: Offensive (Ranged)

You are reading story Corsairs & Cataclysms at novel35.com

Cost: 50 mana

Description: Fire a magical dart at a single target.

Damage: Variable (10-100 Chaos)

---

Haze of Befuddlement (major)

Type: Defensive

Cost: 50 mana

Description: A friendly target is surrounded by a haze of befuddlement. Those trying to attack them must pass a check or suffer a sudden loss of comprehension as to what they are doing. Effects of befuddlement can include hesitation, disruption to spellcasting, poor aim, or weakened attack. The haze has six charges which are used when an attacker is successfully befuddled.

Duration: One hour or when all six charges are expended.

---

Physical Chaotic Surge (major)

Type: Enhancement

Cost: 50 mana

Description: A random physical stat is increased by the range 5-20. Can’t be cast on the same target for 30 minutes.

Duration: 3 minutes.

 

I was actually a bit disappointed. These were some of the basic Chaos magic spells that were available. Quixbix had mentioned each of them and gone over their strengths and weaknesses.

Physical Chaotic Surge was a no go. It was far too random to be relied upon.

Chaos Dart wasn’t bad, and it would be nice to have some ranged magical damage, but I’d already surrounded myself with people who had that capability in abundance. With my limited mana pool, I’d be restricted to three casts and if they all were on the lower end of the damage spectrum it wouldn’t contribute much.

Haze of Befuddlement was the frontrunner. It was something that could help keep us alive. The effect on attackers was variable but Quixbix had assured me that it would include one of the options relevant to the attack in question. So, somebody trying to stab me wouldn’t only suffer from spell disruption which would mean nothing in that situation.

Its greatest flaw was that if the attacker passed their check, they would be unaffected and unless the attackers were monsters Quixbix wouldn’t be able to tell us they had passed.

 My selection of Haze of Befuddlement was interrupted by a system message.

 

*** Your patron goddess has chosen to expand your selection of possible cantrips.

Summon Rift Beast has been added to your list.

Please be aware if this cantrip is not selected at this stage it will not be made available at a later time. ***

 

“Hello,” Dean said, his eyes lighting up with interest and mischief. “Somebody’s getting special treatment.”

I ignored his verbal prodding and opened the spell on my tablet to review it instead.

 

Summon Rift Beast (major)

Type: Summon

Cost: 175 mana

Cooldown: Variable (dependent on grade of beast summoned)

Description: Summons a random beast from the rift in a spot of your choice within two hundred metres. (Must have line of sight to location)

Duration: 24 hours or until the beast is slain.

 

“You would be absolutely insane not to take that,” Dean cried loudly as I finished reading its description.

A shiver ran down my spine which I had come to associate with my Preternatural Insight skill telling me he was being less than truthful.

Shana and Anastasia abandoned their intent discussion. Ana tried to snatch the tablet from my hands, but I whipped it away and glared reproachfully at her. She put her hands up in silent apology and I handed the tablet to Shana instead. The pair of them read through the details quickly.

“You have to take it, you have to,” Dean urged me while hopping from foot to foot in unadulterated excitement.

“The description is a bit vague,” Shana mused.

“I saw that too,” I added. “More importantly it completely fails to mention how much control I would have over the summoned rift beast or describe what a rift beast is”

My observation licked the Preternatural Insight skill into overdrive, and suddenly I was gaining glimpses of inspiration as to how the spell functioned, a look under the hood, if you will.

The spell could summon literally any beast from the rift, wherever that was. The control I’d have over the summoned beast pitted my domination and willpower against the strength, willpower and general disposition of what came through.

What were the chances that beasts that came from a place referred to as the rift would be cuddly and happy go lucky monsters? Slim to none.

“Dean, you just want me to take this because of the absolute mayhem casting it would cause,” I accused, inferring his true intentions.

“What?” he gaped and tried to follow up with a plausible justification, but he visibly withered under the combined gaze of the three of us every time he tried to start.

“Alright,” he confessed. “I admit part of my enthusiasm is to see a bit of murder and mayhem. But hear me out, this really is a great opportunity. The Shattered Goddess must love you or she wants to see you die in a hideous fashion. Probably both, knowing her.

“This is a custom cantrip, you can’t get this anywhere else. By all rights, it shouldn’t even exist. High tier summoners work for decades, maybe even centuries to get access to summoning spells for rift beasts and the version they get is exceedingly complex, difficult to cast, and resource intensive.

“The entrance to the Shattered Goddess demesne is within the rift. It is part of what makes her demesne unassailable and so fucking dangerous to visit. There are some seriously overpowered monsters roiling around in there and you could summon one for a pittance. Shit, even the smallest gribblies in the rift have to be at least N-grade. We are talking an instant fucking win, people.”

“Yeah, until the Chaos Dragon I summoned and can’t control turns its crazed eyes on us and fucking annihilates every particle of our beings.” I retorted.

Dean remained upbeat in the face of my disagreement. “Okay, you’re not wrong. Casting it at your current level six would be a bad idea as a lot of things that could come out would laugh at your pitiful attempts at a control check and be as likely to kill you as your enemies, or both, and then every other person in a ten-mile radius.

“But that will change as you get stronger, though. And while you could be super unlucky and summon rift beasts from the highest tiers, the chances remain low. It’s unlikely you’d get anything much stronger than the mutated crawdad and you handled that well enough.”

“Don’t remind me,” I warned him.

“Plus, unless I’m mistaken, and I’m never fucking mistaken,” he went on as if I hadn’t spoken.

“That’s just as debatable as your claim to be a funny guy,” Anastasia interrupted.

 Dean, no more perturbed by the blonde’s sass than my earlier warning, continued. “This spell can be customised in the future as you pick up the next T3 bump to your character at level twelve, eighteen, etcetera. Reducing the risk and making it a more surgical attack rather than a scorched earth, last-ditch Hail Mary.”

I glanced down at the display and the feedback I received told me he was right. If I took the cantrip today I could mould it later in a variety of ways. Specifying a grade range for the summons, improving my chances of winning the battle to control the beast, or even the ability to potentially dismiss the creature back to the rift if it turned on me. Any change would increase the casting cost of the spell, though.

Dean’s sales pitch really got me thinking about taking the spell and prompted the unbidden thought of me dropping an upper-tier beast into the centre of Grand Rapids and then sailing out of range of its wrath at top speed while it wrought untold destruction on Luca’s centre of power. Then going back when the spell came off cooldown and doing it again until there was nothing left.

Part of me shied away from such an act.

Luca and his people certainly deserved such a fate but the thousands, if not tens of thousands, of innocents he had under his thumb that would suffer a similar ignominious demise, did not. But then there was another, deeply more pragmatic, part of me that whispered what if I started to run out of time and hadn’t broken him sufficiently.

Better to have the spell and not need it, than to need it and not have it.

Pragmatism won out. Dean grinned savagely before I’d even spoken, leaving me once again to wonder if he could read my mind.

“Fine, if I take this, then I need you to help me out with my current Quinntexxis situation. And I don’t mean transferring her. If you want me to walk around with the equivalent of a nuclear bomb at my fingertips, then I want more from you.”

There was no reason not to use Dean’s desire to see me take this spell to my advantage.

“More in what way?” Dean inquired.

“I want the fairy and all the resources under her control shifted to Stormblade Harbour,” I said without hesitation.

Dean smiled widely at my demand. “You devious bastard. You want those sentinels,” he laughed.

“Yeah, plus the contents of the armoury, and those mana generators as well.”

We waited a moment as Dean pretended to ponder my request but we both knew he wanted me to take the summoning spell too badly.

“I can pull some strings, I suppose,” he finally said. “Fair warning about the sentinels, though. You won’t be able to take them raiding with you. They are purely a defensive force. Unfortunately, the guy in charge of the fairies and imps is a proper dick. He has a massively inflated sense of his worth to the Framework and he won’t cooperate, so we’ll have to work around him. That will make this a slightly risky proposition.”

“Oh, in what way?” Shana asked with interest.

“Well, because he’s being an obstructionist twat, he will invoke regulations we can’t simply ignore. Principally, that Stormblade Harbour is a lawless settlement. We can’t complete the transfer of assets from a facility for lawbreakers to a place with no laws directly. Not unless you changed your settlement governance, which is not advisable as that would fuck up your current deal with the Shattered Goddess.

“What you will need to do is allow another settlement, one that isn’t lawless to be the recipient of the goodies and then have that settlement cede control to your faction, at which point you would absorb them and inherit everything.

“However, the risk part is that the leader of this settlement will immediately gain access to the fairy, the sentinels, and the armoury. The fairy would be theirs until death, but you couldn’t take her anyway being Notorious. And transferring the contents of the prisons is a one-time deal.

“To complicate matters the settlement leader can’t have an existing allegiance to the Shattered Storm. They would have to be genuinely independent so you would need to trust that they wouldn’t use that one-time transfer to summon the sentinels and order them to keep you out so they could keep everything for themselves. Which is why this is a bit risky.”

That did complicate matters, but I was sure I could come up with something.

“Does that mean Quinntexxis and the sentinels will stay at the prison until I find a trusted leader.”

“That’s right. And you don’t have forever and a day to get your ducks in a row, either. If there is the slightest hint that you are going to drag your heels or not follow through the asshole in charge of the fairies and imps will use it as an excuse to box Quixbix. He can’t separate the two of you as you are enmeshed but he can mute and blind him.”

“I thought that guy didn’t want me to do this. Quinntexxis is convinced he wants her dead.”

“I never said he was logical or consistent, he’s a fucking asshole. He likes to drop giant turds whenever he can because that is what he was made to do.”

“Okay, I can work with this. Ana, are you done?”

“Yes, Torin. I’m taking Life enchantments first. We probably need that the most considering how often you let things chomp on you,” she needled, but her smile was warm, not mocking.

I could get whiplash from the rapidity of her mood swings.

“Until next time,” I told Dean.

Blink.

You can find story with these keywords: Corsairs & Cataclysms, Read Corsairs & Cataclysms, Corsairs & Cataclysms novel, Corsairs & Cataclysms book, Corsairs & Cataclysms story, Corsairs & Cataclysms full, Corsairs & Cataclysms Latest Chapter