Infinite Realm: Monsters & Legends

Departure

Zach looked over the screens of the Empire’s team. They were strong, most of them stronger than him, at least as far as tiers of power were concerned. One of the Classers had reached the last tier in his Class—Erik Ornn. The others were high tiered in their main focus, but none had reached the end. The second closest was Hlyanis Lur, the skill sword master. She had five tier nine skills, four tier eight, all focused on the sword. The two of them were the strongest people here, in both groups perhaps. Zach wasn’t quite sure how powerful Eratemus was, as he was here in a vessel. Though the necromancer had said that his power didn’t come from his focuses, but his formations. And Zach had no idea how to measure that.

He studied each of them as much as possible, though knowing what someone could do was not the same as seeing them fight with everything at their command. And there was no way or really a need for him to remember everything, they had talked strategy, positions and how they were going to fight. Zach knew his and Naha’s job.

It was unfortunate that they wouldn’t have any time for more than that.

As they had said when they introduced themselves, each member of the team had a specialty. Anashi Vekos was their Ethereal Expert. From her sheets, Zach could tell that she had powers that would let them navigate the Ethereal, and even avoid drawing any unwanted attention from the beings living in there. She had more powers to get in and out of it too, but that was to be expected of someone who had Ethereal as their main focus.

The skreen healer, Gentle Touch, wasn’t bragging when he said that he could heal anything short of death. He had powers that could boost regeneration to heal wounds nearly instantly, but also others that could replace missing body parts. He also had a single power that could grant someone invulnerability for a single moment.

Hlyanis Lur, the sword master, was harder to judge as power of skills relied heavily on willpower. But, her perks were amazing. Each focused on sword fighting and making her better at it. Zach had considered himself a swordsman, in a way, but compared to her he was nothing.

He took a closer look at another part of the sheets provided to them—Erik Ornn’s Oath. The pinnacle of Class, the endgame. His current—or rather, last—Class was Herald of Azure Flame, and his focus was as he said it was; fire and combustion. One of his biggest strengths was that he could combust nearly all types of Essence, he could literally make anything burst into flame. Essence was not the same as matter was on Earth, Zach knew that rules were different. Reactions between different types of Essence had similar effects, but they weren’t the same. Somehow though, Erik could cause a reaction where none should be. The only Essence that he couldn’t touch in the same manner were law and concepts. And he could combust some of them too, depending on what they were.

Still, Zach could see how powerful he was just from reading. His flames were focused almost completely on harming other Essence, destroying through fire. He had a few skills that allowed him to manipulate fire and gave him some resistances, but it was clear that he was all in on his Class.

The oath though, was the most interesting to Zach. It was an insight into what he himself might one day achieve. It was the knowledge that he could use, eventually. He read through it again, trying to see if there was anything that he had missed.

Oath of the Azure Blaze

Oath

Sacrifice

Gain

I bind my body and unleash my mind. I sacrifice all that I am to the Azure Blaze. My prowess, I give, for the might of Flame.

Lose half of your base physical stats.

Double your base mental stats.

Lose all your non-fire-based perks.

All your fire-based perks are 250% more efficient.

Lose three abilities.

Gain God of Combustion.

God of Combustion

For every fire-based power used gain a stack of Fire God, each stack lasts 15 seconds and the stack is refreshed when another power is used. Each stack increases your fire-based damage by 15%. Once you reach 15 stacks gain God of Combustion; Releasing an intense aura of azure flame around your body, granting you an additional 15x increased fire damage, and resetting all your ability and perk cooldowns.

The God of Combustion state lasts for 15 seconds and has a 30 second cooldown.

It seemed like Oaths could be a lot of different things. Zach would need to think very hard on what he wanted to do when he reached that level. But he had time, assuming that they survive this. It was still interesting to imagine. One thing was clear though, Erik was one of the most powerful people that Zach had ever met. He wondered how he would compare against him in a fight. If the man saw him coming, Zach knew that he would die. But… power did not always mean a guaranteed victory. There were things that he could do, if he got lucky enough.

They didn’t have much time to finish familiarizing with what the others could do, but Zach took advantage of every moment they did have. They gathered in one of the Citadel’s courtyards as they were getting ready to leave. Each of them was already wearing their full gear, their weapons already out.

Zach wore his black and gold armor, his rapier at his waist. He didn’t have his helmet on, but it was just a thought away. On his side was Naha, wearing her new robes, her dagger tied to a sheath beneath her forearm, while her awakened weapon was in its ring form. Vryull wore robes that were as dark as night, and held a large black staff with a round gem suspended on top of it, pulsing with black energy. Maleatus had a silver and brown light armor on, with a single pauldron on his right shoulder. Erdania wore red and gold wrappings that were barely covering her body, and Selia a long gray robe with a big hooded cloak on her back. Ryun stood next to them in violet robes with black accents, his eyes looking somewhere in the distance. From the core’s group, only Eratemus wore the same armor that he arrived in.

The Empire’s group was ready as well. Erik stood with his arms crossed, wearing a suit-like gear that resembled a uniform, on both of his hands he had straps that held round crystal focuses fixed to the palms of his hands. Caster weapons, that could focus his abilities. Hlyanis had a brown combat robe on, with her straight sheathed blade held in her left hand. Gentle Touch held a scepter in one hand, and wore leather armor pieces designed for his kind. And Anashi wore a simple white robe and carried a marble-like staff in her right hand. They were all ready.

Zach looked around the corner of the courtyard where the core’s team gathered, seeing Eratemus standing next to his remaining unopened container, his undead warriors surrounding him.

The necromancer called out for everyone to gather around him, the Empire’s team as well.

“Before we leave,” he started. “There are a few things I have for you.”

Zach tilted his head, intrigued, the sentiment was shared by everyone around them.

“I’ve made these for you,” he raised his hand and started pulling out small bundles out of his storage, by the time he was finished there were eleven bundles around him. Each of them was identical, at the bottom were four hexagonal plates, each the same size placed one on top of the other, around a meter in diameter and wrapped with silk ribbon. On top of that were four smaller bundles of the same type of hexagonal plates, only smaller, likewise bound with ribbons. And over them was a single plate placed into a set and attached to a string, like an amulet.

“Formations?” Hlyanis asked.

Eratemus nodded, and Zach noticed the fine engravings on all of the plates. They were so finely made that he could barely see them on some angles.

“For each of you,” the necromancer said. “The larger ones will create a suppression field in between them. They have a large range and will work best when placed in a square formation. The effect will cut off the area in between the plates off from the outside with barriers, and will drain power from anything inside. I have tested them against the enemy monsters and they do work. All are interchangeable so you don’t need to place each by yourself, four different people can place one of theirs and they will work. They will activate automatically when four are placed in range of each other on the ground.”

Zach walked over and touched the gray metallic plates at the bottom, noticing that they were cold to the touch. The plates on top of the big ones were each in different color.

“The other four are more offensive in nature,” Eratemus said. “The first, green set, will activate when all four touch the ground. They will manifest a hard light construct that will fire light spikes at any monsters around you. I’ve keyed it so that it will only attack dome monsters, so you don’t have to worry about them hitting allies. The blue set is four individual formations. Throwing a single plate will activate it upon impact, it will implode and draw in anything within a two-meter radius into a singularity. The yellow set is a healing formation, also four individual ones with one charge each. They can repair nearly any wound, simply place them against your flesh, and it will heal you. The last, white plates are soul protectors. As long as you hold them on your person, they will protect you against a single soul attack each. In case that you are killed, they will prevent the dome monsters from being able to pull your souls back into the real realm. Though only if at least two aren’t depleted.”

Zach blinked. He had prepared for his immortality, he placed two of his three pillars. One was in the Ethereal, in the Island of Dungeons, second was in a plane of earth and wind near the Golden Coast where they had met Dracael’s fleet. And the last he was yet to place, though he planned on doing it on their mission. If he managed to place it close enough that he could reach it in case of death, it might prevent him from losing too much time. Still, Eratemus seemed to have planned for more, and Zach for one was thankful. He could see that others around him were too, though many had soul protection powers too. Zach did think that his could be sufficient to protect him from the dome monsters soul attacks, and if not… He did retain some powers in his soul form.

“And lastly,” Eratemus said, pointing at the amulet formation on top of each bundle. “A mind protection formation. I know that most of you have some way of protecting your minds, but the enemy forces have shown to be constantly using some kind of mind influencing attack.”

Zach reached over and picked the amulet up, looking it over. He didn’t understand the formation, but he wasn’t going to reject it. He pulled it over his head and tucked it in beneath his armor. The others did the same.

“Thank you for the gifts,” Selia said, and the others mirrored the sentiment.

The mood around him was somewhat subdued, probably because everyone was nervous and eager to get started.

They spent a couple of minutes gathering Eratemus’s formations and placing them inside their own storages. Zach kept the soul protecting ones tucked around his waist, as well as one of the healing ones, just in case.

Then, as everyone was getting ready to move out, Eratemus walked over to his unopened container. He placed a hand on it and it flashed with light, then it opened.

For a moment Zach couldn’t see anything in the dark interior, and then two glowing orbs appeared. They moved, and sounds of metal hitting the ground echoed out of the container until a creature walked out. It was… majestic. Zach immediately recognized what it was, a griffin, though it looked slightly different than what he expected. Its feathers were black and had a sheen to them that told him that they were metallic in nature, its beak was sharp and also looked as if it was made out of metal. It had horns on top of its head that curved backward, its lower body had white fur, and its talons were long and looked more like blades. There was no mark on the creature, nothing that would indicate that it wasn’t alive, but just one look into the glowing eyes made it clear that it was in fact dead.

It had a harness and a seat on its back. Eratemus walked over and slid his sword-staff into the holder on the side, then he climbed up on top of the beast. For a moment, light flashed as he took a seat. Zach frowned, it went by so fast that he almost missed it, but then he realized what he had seen. Every metallic feather on the griffin was engraved, each was a formation, even the talons had them.

He could only imagine what Eratemus had done to the corpse of the beast, how he had improved it.

The beast moved, walking toward everyone, its movements unnaturally smooth and precise. The rest of Eratemus’ undead gathered around him, walking in formation, each fully armored and armed.

Zach shivered at the sight of glowing eyes.

“If we are all ready, it is time,” the necromancer said.

Anashi raised her staff and hit the ground. Space ripped and a way to the Ethereal was opened.

They gathered and walked through.