Ember Abiss: Rot Mage

The following morning Ember met up with Thorn outside the guild hall. When she arrived she noticed that thorn was carrying a canvas bag and had two staves propped against the wall beside him. Feeling excited with her new found knowledge Ember did her best to greet Thorn in common. “Hello Thorn, thank you for train…ing… me again today.” She said, a slight blush of embarrassment creeping into her cheeks from stumbling over one of her words.

Thorn cocked an eyebrow to her as he looked up to see her addressing him in his language, his surprise written on his face. “You spoke very well.” ‘Her accent is fairly heavy but that is to be expected from someone new to the language.’ He thought to himself. “I am surprised you picked that much up so fast.”

Ember looked up to catch Thorns gaze and with a hint of pride in her voice replied. “I studied all night with Willow. She is a great teacher. I still need practice and hope to do so today while we are training.”

“That is great, Willow is well respected in town for her ability to help people. She knows so much about everything… sometimes I think she must have written half of the books in her something herself.” Thorn replied.

Ember tilted her head slightly in confusion. “Something?”

“Ah… umm… Something is… the house of books? House for books? Books can be borrowed too.” He replied with slight hesitation trying to think up a good description for a library.

Ember’s eyes grew wide in understanding. “Oh! Library! Thank you!” She then paused as she began to understand Thorn’s statement. “That is too much. How could anyone know that much?”

“Ha. Having a higher level makes everything easier. Yes your stats affect you just as they are described but they each have hidden traits most people overlook.” Thorn Explained. “For Willow I would assume she has a crazy acuity skill. Acuity not only gives your thought process a speed boost but you also increase your understanding.”

‘Okay’ Ember thought to herself, ‘so my increase in acuity helped me learn faster, not just thinking speed.’ “Very cool!”

“Yes. Now are you ready to begin?” Thorn sprung forward off the wall he was leaning against. “I think we should take a job as well. We can make a little coin for you and level you up at the same time.”

“Okay!” Ember spouted energetically, “Sorry I got excited… Yes, I think that is a good idea.”

“Here” Thorn handed Ember the extra staff that was propped up beside his own. “This is for you. It is a good starter staff. Learn with this one and once you break it or it becomes too weak for you, you can upgrade to a nicer one like mine.”

Ember took the outstretched staff happily. She turned it over in her hand and gave it a quick twirl in front of her, taking in the weight and reach of the staff. “Thank you! I really like it.” She replied joyfully. She then took a moment to observe Thorn’s Staff. It looked to be made out of the same type of wood as hers but the head had a bluish crystal embedded in it. With a closer examination she saw that around the top of the staff there were hundreds of swirling and interlocking characters engraved in the wood around the gem. It was so well crafted that even if the marking had no meaning they would make for a pretty scroll design. “Your staff is very pretty. I love the scrolling design around the top.”

Thorn looked puzzled for a moment before looking at what she was talking about. “This?” he asked, pointing to the writing on his staff.

“Yes” she replied

“Ha. No this is not a pattern for looks it is magic. It is something….” seeing the confusion appear on Ember’s face with the last word he started explaining. “There is magic in the words. The words go on to the staff too give the staff that magic.”

“Oh! Enchanted.” Her eyes popped wide. “YOUR STAFF IS MAGIC!?!”

“Shhhh….” Thorn placed a finger in front of his lips. “That isn't something you freely tell people. Friends, party, and family are fine but a stranger may try to steal it from you. Some even by force…” He trailed off at the end not wanting to scare her away from meeting the nicer people around as well. “Most people are nice enough. It's just bandits and criminals to look out for.”

‘I had really hoped that bandits and the like were just in stories and anime. How am I ever going to feel comfortable going anywhere without a car? Maybe a wagon? Carriage? Buggy? I don't even know the difference between them. I think it's just size or capacity that determines the name.’ Ember thought to herself. ‘Why am I even thinking about traveling? The only travel I want to go on is back home.’

Ember smacked her cheeks, realizing she was getting lost in thought again. “Sorry. I got stuck in my head.”

Thorn chuckled at her response. “ No worries. Wait here and I will go fetch us a good job to do.”

With that Thorn turned to enter the guild and Ember pulled up her skill description again.

[Rot Aura: mana generation above the body's mana cap will be excreted as an Aura of the user's strongest affinity. User can choose to push mana from their mana pool into the Aura to keep it active.]

‘I didn’t notice any notable change from my aura yesterday with the training dummies… other than the horrible headache and nausea from mana depletion.’ “Ugh.” She groaned out of annoyance. ‘Mana depletion is the worst. I need to boost my mana pool as soon as I can. I really hope it isnt to hard to level up.’

“Ready?” Thorn asked, snapping Ember out of her thoughts.

“Yes!” She said with a start. “Yes…”

A short walk later Ember found herself staring at an odd orange, yellow spotted, mushroom growing on a fallen log right on the border of the forest and plain. The Mushroom stood about sixteen inches tall with an eight inch circumference cap. It caught her attention originally because of its bright coloration, but soon after she saw that it started pulsing and swelling in a rhythm.

“Thorn! What is this?” she asked while pointing out the oddly moving mushy.

“Careful! It is poison!” He alerted her. “That type is called Gutrot. It does exactly as its name suggests.” A chill ran through him just thinking about it.

“Th… that sounds horrific.” She said with a shudder. ‘Note to self don't eat wild mushrooms from another world.’

She Shook her body to rid herself of the thought. “Why is it pulsing? Is that a normal thing for this type of mushroom to do?”

“No. It is not normal and I have no idea why. You should ask Willow about it tonight, she should know why it does it.” Thorn stated.

“Okay!” Ember agreed. She stood and began to walk away when Thorn stopped her.

“Walk to the clearing and back please?” He asked her. “I think I noticed something.”

“Okay?” Ember replied curiously but proceeded to do as she was asked. After making it to the cleaning she turned back to Thorn and approached again.

“Any help?” She asked.

“Yes!” He said excitedly. “It is reacting to you.”

“What?!?” She asked in surprise, not catching her slip into English. “How is is reacting to me”

“It pulses when you get close. I wonder if it has to do with your nature affinity? That typically affects plant life more than mushrooms though.” Thorn answered.

‘Something to do with my affinity huh? Well maybe it's a blend of rot and nature? I mean fungus is nature’s decomposer.’ Ember thought to herself. “Hey, I have an idea… but I don't know what it will do. Can you stand back? I'm going to activate my Rot Aura and see how it reacts.”

“Oh! Good Idea!” He replied.

Once thorn made it a few feet away from her she began pouring mana into her skill. ‘Okay I'll start off slow with 1 Mana per second.’ She thought as she activated her skill.

[Rot Aura 1Mp/s]

As soon as her skill went active she noticed the mushroom begin pulsing faster, almost quivering. ‘Okay, so my Rot Aura is doing something to it. I just have no idea what it is yet, so I guess it's time to up the ante.

[Rot Aura 2Mp/s]

The Change was immediate. As soon as the mana consumption on the skill increased the shaking and quivering stopped and the mushroom started to pulse again, but this time slower but each time it swelled in size it would keep some of the growth. After a few seconds of running at two mana per second she boosted it one last time to five. ‘I just want to see what happens…’

[Rot Aura 5Mp/s]

The mushroom shot up another four or five inches before it stopped growing and pulsing entirely. With one last shudder of growth the mushroom began to glow dimly while it simultaneously released a dimly glowing brownish yellow fog from under its cap. The glow and haze released by the mushroom held Ember’s attention as if it had put her in a trance. Her attention only being broken by the twinge of pain slowly forming behind her eyes, growing in intensity with each mana spent.

‘STOP ROT AURA!’ She yelled in her mind in panic, not wanting to experience that pain all over again.

[Rot Aura: Passive]

“Ugh…” Ember groaned, placing her hand over her left eye. “Spores! Mother fungus! Why does it feel like a cold knife being slid into my brain through my eye!?!” She Exclaimed, yelling to know one in particular.

[Notice]

‘Not now’ She thought, swiping the message away with a swish of her hand. ‘The pain is already starting to fade. This time is much quicker than the last time. I wonder what the difference is. Status, Vitals.’

[Name: Ember Abiss

Title: None

Race:Human

Age:23

Level:1

Class: “Locked”

Affinities: Rot, Nature, Void

Lifeforce: 50

Mana: 40/80

Ki: 50]

‘Okay, so the first thing is that i only used half of my mana pool this time instead of almost all of it. I’m going to assume that to be the reason my headache settled so quickly, but it doesn't explain the intensity of the pain though. Did I drain it too fast?’ Ember thought to herself, rubbing her temples. “Ugh…” she groaned. “I'll have to do more testing. More science… yay!” she said sarcastically.

“Science?” Thorn asked using the English word he heard.

“Oh, I Don’t know the word in common. Hold on.” Ember said, quickly delving into her old memories from high school chemistry class. “Uhhh… it is like studying, but it's the study of everything, not just one field. Oh and it isn't just reading about it but you re…re…research? Yeah. You research, test, and observe the results. Ah! One more thing… it has to be repeatedly tested too! Or at least repeatable.”

“So what are you going to Science? He asked, putting the same amount of sarcasm on the word as Ember did in the beginning.

“Ehehe” she scratched the side of her head nervously. “Mana Depletion… or more exactly what made it feel worse now when depleting less mana than i did yesterday.”

“I can answer that one.” Thorn replied happily. “Willow told me that the rate you spend mana causes the intensity to grow while the amount of depletion is affected by the amount of mana consumed. Simply put, if you force more mana out of your body than your mana channels can handle it hurts. Slow and steady rate to empty and you will have no issues to minor irritability. Push your skill to its maximum output and it is like swallowing too much water at once. It hurts going down as your throat stretches, well depletion is like that, it hurts going out when your mana channels stretch as well.”

“Thank you. I can understand it when you put it like that.” Ember replied. “Can you explain what happened with the gutrot? She said pointing over at a pile of rich black soil where a large gutrot rot stood surrounded by smaller freshly sprouted Gutrots. “Wait…” She looked around again, still not seeing the log and one big mushroom. ‘It can be? Can it? Did I… rot a log? Or did my aura cause the mushroom to rot the log?’

Thorn started laughing when he saw the confusion on Ember's face while she searched for the disappearing log. “Very useful. Waste disposal. Magic.” He forced out between laughs.

Ember looked at the pile of freshly decomposed soil and then back to Thorn. “Stop laughing. I might not have combat use but I'm sure I could at least make a profit selling fertilizers.” She said with a smirk. “Seriously though, do you think I caused that or do you think I forced the mushrooms to do it?”

“I’m not sure but I think we should test it again later. We still need to find three more life dew flowers.” Thorn reminded her. “Let's go a little deeper in. I’m starting to think the perimeter may have been picked clean.”

Ember looked at him nervously. “Do you think it will be safe? Willow told me not to go deeper than the new growth.”

Thorn chuckled, “It will be fine! I'm level five. I've never run into anything over level three just inside the ring of new growth. Besides, the only beasts to watch out for in this area are slimes and bunnies.” Thorn reached out and took Ember’s hand into his own before pulling her deeper into the woods, stopping only to pluck a few gutrots for Ember to test with later.

As they ventured deeper into the woods Ember remembered the notice she got from her system earlier and decided now was as good a time as any to check it out. ‘Metatron, open notice.’

[Notice]

[Rot Aura level 1 has reached experience threshold]

[Rot Aura Level 1 > Rot Aura Level 2]

[Rot Aura: mana generation above the body's mana cap will be excreted as an Aura of the user's strongest affinity. User can choose to push mana from their mana pool into the Aura to keep it active. Rot Aura while in passive mode will slowly decompose anything within range based on the excess mana generated. While in active mode the rate of decomposition is determined by the amount of mana supplied.]

‘Metatron what is the rate of decomposition? Is that like the damage per second that it can produce?’

[Rot Aura Level 1: Passive - 1 point of rot damage per second per 10 mana generated.

Active - 1 point of rot damage per second per 2.5 mana per second while casting.]

[Rot Aura Level 2: Passive - 1 point of rot damage per second per 10 mana generated.

Active - 1 point of rot damage per second per 2 mana per second while casting.]