Right before I could kick up to reach the surface, my instincts screamed of danger. That’s right, I was underwater where the Shadow couldn’t touch me. But as soon as I poked my head up in the darkness, the Shadow Titan would probably grab me and pop my head off like a cork.
Instead of swimming straight up, I moved around the lake a bit, to the shoreline where I could lie on my back and push my torch out of the water. Hopefully my Spellburst could work underwater. I mean it should, right?
I made the arcane signs for fire and watched as the stick immediately burst into flames. “Yes!” I blurbed out underwater, watching as the flames danced on the torch. I slowly emerged from the lake, careful not to allow the liquid to touch the precious giver of light.
“Urggg,” I moaned as I immediately realized my bone crutch was way on the other side of the lake. I’d have to literally crawl to get there. Or hop. But much to my surprise (and elation!) I discovered that the small L’Gara that had acted as the bait for the Shadow Titan’s trap had, in fact, expired before reaching the shore. Without the regeneration ability, the beast must have suffocated before it could get into the water. A small price to pay for a Titan that could theoretically create thousands more. But…hey, a monster corpse was a corpse, right? And that meant I’d be getting one more aspect point out of the deal! Enough to make my strength permanent!
Chapter 36
The Shadow Titan had stopped attempting to kill me after that last effort. If two L’Gara in the water couldn’t take me down, I suppose it figured that there was little reasoning to try with anything else. Perhaps it understood that I grew stronger with each beast I killed. Regardless, I found no difficulty on my way back to the village, relying on the arrow I had left there to guide me.
With the harvesting of those two L’Gara, I had gained two aspect points, granting me a total of three. Enough to turn my extra strength permanent. With mere focus, my bonus went from being dependent on wearing a charm to innate. The little indicator on my Hunter’s Profile that noted my strength was temporary faded, replaced instead with a 4. A beautiful default strength of 4.
Best of all, that charm slot was now freed up. After all, the other two were highly situational, based on the presence of water. So which new charm should I choose as my go-to? I had taken to wearing the Glurp charm because of the amorphous trait, so that was certainly going to stay…
After a moment of scanning through my charms, all the while hobbling through the forest, I settled on the Lurbia charm. That large shelled beast had a few abilities that were just all around useful.
Aspect of the Lurbia:
Tremorsense (0/3): You can pinpoint the position of objects or individuals in motion up to 100 feet away without seeing them.
Reinforced (0/5): Reduces all health damage by 10% to a minimum of 1%.
Frostlung (0/3): Your lungs become frigid and cold, capable of releasing bursts of freezing air that slow targets. Vulnerable targets become frozen in place for 1 minute. Each use lowers your internal body temperature by 2 degrees. Be cautious of inducing hypothermia.
Reinforced would be my go-to for now. With Amorphous reducing my weak points to nothingness, my armor and Giantslayer abilities reducing enemy damage, Reinforced would more or less turn me into a tank of a human being. I’d be like a mighty gate, unmoving and unbending, soaking up blow after blow as if it were nothing.
In a pinch, I could switch to Tremorsense when vision failed me. And I could use Charm Trick to activate Frostlung, granting me the power to freeze my enemies (as well as cool down soups when they were a bit too hot for me!) Overall, a higher amount of utility past simply enhancing my strength stat.
“About time you got here,” Trig said as I approached the camp. I was surprised to see that he was outside of the caverns, a wide mischievous grin upon his face.
“All is well, I take it?” I asked, limping towards him. He was quick to take hold of me and lead me into the village to take a seat on a nearby bench.
My eyes widened as I limped into the village. There were at least six of those crab-monster bodies lying about, completely decimated. Their hardened black carapaces were missing large chunks of chitin and their heads were caved in almost completely.
“Don’t panic, no one died,” he said as he helped me sit down, then knelt to examine my stump.
“What happened?”
“Well, in short, turns out Mr. Blue has these crazy mental powers. I know, hardly a surprise, but after a little bit of time, we realized that these monsters couldn’t tell the difference between his voice and the Shadow Titan. So they took orders from the Vessel easily enough. And for some reason, the Titan didn’t bother trying to take control of them again. So we just ordered them to stroll out in the open, one by one, and I cut them down with my mana bombs and melee stuff. Tons of meat for the people here, plenty of ingredients and check this out!”
Trig pulled down his shirt collar a little to reveal a smooth, red carapace, made out of the same chitin as the crabs. “I can armor myself at will now! I er…hope you don’t
