Siege State

“Of course you had to go and uplift a skill! Tom Fucking Cutter, who has epiphanies in his sleep!”

He had been lying awake at the time, revelling in the small joys he had found lately, but he wisely kept his mouth shut. Rosa was like a fire: if you added any fuel to her, she would keep burning. If you tried to blow her out, she could flare in unpredictable directions. Better to wait. He found her tirades strangely warming, in any case.

“Well?! Are you going to tell me what options you have, or are you just going to stand there like a big, lucky goon?!”

Tom’s grin grew even wider. It was far too much fun to wind her up. He did want to go over his choices though.

Uplift threshold reached.

Skill Two (Consummate): Sweet Suffering (Passive).

Complete:Debuffs and poisons are negated, and instead give an equal and opposite buff. Buffs last for as long as any debuffs would have. Immune to disease and damage-over-time effects.

Uplift Option One:Debuffs and poisons are negated, and instead give an equal and opposite buff. Buffs last for as long as any debuffs would have. Immune to disease and damage-over-time effects.

Effect (Active).

Mana Cost: None.

Cooldown: High.

Caster can purge any debuff or poison effects from themselves and apply them to an enemy via physical contact. Damage dealt is proportionate to the debuffs or poisons purged.

Uplift Option Two:

Debuffs, poisons, diseases and damage over time effects are negated, and instead give an equal and opposite buff or heal over time. Buffs and heals over time last for as long as any debuffs, poisons, diseases, or damage over time effects would have.

Uplift Option Three:

Debuffs and poisons are negated, and instead give an equal and opposite buff. Buffs last for half again as long as any debuffs would have. Immune to disease and damage-over-time effects.

Tom relayed the options to Rosa. His options followed the general pattern for uplifts: two different direct upgrades to its strength, and one option that added a new effect. The most surprising thing about the uplift was that it was for one of his passive skills. He had gotten plenty of use out of Sweet Suffering, but he would have assumed Agony, or even Wings of Grief, would uplift first.

This was the nature of epiphanies for Idealists. They provided incredibly useful shortcuts to uplifting your skills. If you could increase your understanding of an Ideal through a sudden flash of insight, you would sometimes be rewarded.

In this case, it seemed that his ruminations on the nature of suffering had led to the uplift. For so long he had been labouring under the impression that he deserved his lot, that suffering was simply his due.

He had thought about the strange turns his life had taken. He had an encouraging mentor, who was also a great role model, and who he greatly respected. He had found a new passion in life, learned skills that he was genuinely good at, that brought him fulfilment. His mother had managed to escape the same abuse he had suffered, and had found a new purpose. He had a new, blossoming love, and perfect teammate, someone who made him genuinely happy.

He had wonderful, loyal familiars. He had become stronger. He had acquired more wealth than he thought he would ever have.

He had found a purpose in life, beyond struggling and striving to achieve a dream that was not his own. But he had only found it because he had struggled. And more than that, the struggle clarified his purpose, refined it, made all the joys sweeter by comparison.

It was no wonder it was Sweet Suffering that had uplifted, when he really thought about it. He was glad. It formed the cornerstone of his entire fighting style, and had proved extremely useful otherwise on many different occasions.

All three options he had been offered were incredibly good. He wasn’t sure which to pick.

The first option offered him the chance to add a new effect to the skill, giving it an active component. It gave him the chance to deal more damage which was nice, but it was also limited to being in physical contact to activate it, and it would rob him of his powerful buffs from the skill as well.

The second option added more breadth to the skill, allowing him to negate and benefit from diseases and damage over time effects as well as debuffs and poisons. The third extended the duration of the buffs the skill gave him.

Tom mulled over the decision. Each uplift from now on would still provide three options. The options offered at earlier uplifts were often offered again at later tiers. Because uplifts became progressively stronger with each tier, waiting to see if you could select an option later could be better. It also meant there was a possibility of missing out on it entirely.

The first option had too many limitations, for now. Needing to be in physical contact to use the active component, and needing to reapply buffs afterwards was too unattractive. When he was in physical contact with an enemy was exactly when he needed to retain those buffs. Even if it meant he could deal damage as a trade off, he would only be able to use it as a finisher. He ruled it out. Maybe later uplifts would have lesser limitations.

The second and third options were close, but the second option was the one he was leaning towards, even though he thought the third was the strongest. Gaining more coverage for a wider range of negative effects would be nice, especially for damage over time. It was a toss up, but he had high hopes for extended duration appearing again in future. If that option became any stronger, he would be unstoppable.

He made his decision. He would bank on extended duration appearing again. He selected option two, and gave it his mental assent. He turned to Rosa with a grin.

“What did you pick?” she asked, with a raised eyebrow.

“Option two: I like the increased coverage.”

“That would have been my pick too. Who knows what skills the orcs might have, but damage over time effects are common. The extra insurance will be nice.”

“My thoughts exactly.”

“The disease could be useful, but you might need to find an expert. The most potent don’t tend to last long, and the longest lasting don’t tend to be as strong. Perhaps with your skill, those that would usually kill a person would not, though, and that will let the buff continue?”

“Possibly,” Tom thought about it. It was likely, even. The buff from a poison that usually would have killed him continued after it would have, so it stood to reason that diseases would work the same way. “I’d have to be careful with it though. I’ll ask mother for advice about it, maybe, or see if she knows of any Healers specialising in disease.

“It’ll have to wait for now anyway. I wouldn’t even know where to start finding any diseases that potent to pick up.”

Tom decided he needed to do some more thinking about it, and definitely get some expert opinions before he deliberately gave himself any diseases. He thought back to the Grey Moss Scorpion venom, and the Thought-Painting frog poison. Even if a disease triggered his Sweet Suffering, it might not end well for him.

“Enjoy it while you can, Tom. Soon I will get my first uplift, and it won’t be long then until I completely outstrip you.”

“You can strip me whenever you like,” he said, waggling his eyebrows.

Rosa stopped, her mouth open, about to say something. “I’ll …keep that in mind,” she said, flushing bright red.

Tom snickered. He was not a particularly sexual person himself, but he would’ve thought someone with as coarse language as Rosa would be able to handle some randy banter a bit better.

“What direction are you going to take your skills with your uplifts, do you think?” he asked, giving her an out. She took it gratefully.

They talked for a while longer, hashing out the directions they hoped to take their skillsets in future, then moved to discussing team tactics. The two of them would make a highly effective pair once they learned to fight with each other.

Their skillsets were each awkwardly weighted, but complementary. They covered each other’s most glaring weaknesses, and also amplified each other’s strengths. Tom would allow Rosa to deal damage unhindered by presenting a tough to remove, difficult to ignore threat. Rosa would be able to quickly take care of any enemies that Tom would struggle with, or thin out any crowds that threatened to overwhelm him.

They both had utility skills, and both had useful abilities for crowd control. They just had to learn to fight in concert with one another, learn each other’s skills and idiosyncrasies in battle until they were seamless.

Rosa’s preferred weapons were bows. She had fought with an enchanted recurve bow that her family had commissioned for her upon graduating the Academy, and being accepted into the Guards, seemingly their only concession to using their prodigious wealth to help her. She had unfortunately lost it during the orc raid.

Honeyfield had only a few bows in his ring, both extremely simple, and non-enchanted. Rosa said she could make do with them until she found something better. She selected a pair of enchanted duelling daggers from his stash too, which were her usual backup weapons for melee. They were obviously meant to be wielded in a pair, one being slightly longer than the other.

She buckled them about her waist in their sheaths. Tom made a mental note to have Scriber review the enchantments on them. Anything that Honeyfield used might have enchantments that were dangerous to their user. Taking wounds seemed to strengthen the man, after all.

After Rosa had chosen weapons, they redistributed their belongings between their storage skill and storage ring. The space in Rosa’s ring was much bigger, but also didn’t guarantee freshness for foodstuffs. They swapped things about accordingly, making sure they each had enough to survive in an emergency.

They were eating lunch when the two hunters returned from the other bases. Hunters in the southeastern portion of the Deep made their bases in small, close together groups. The region tended to have more rock, stone and earth golems, and both tougher predators and prey. They often grouped up when they found a threat too resilient to face alone. It was apparently after one such hunt that these three had been captured.

It was unnerving to Tom, thinking about how far the orcs had been ranging. He and Val had spent so much time in the Deep in the last year. At any time, they could have run afoul of the orcs, just as so many other Hunters had. What if a party with an Idealist had come across them after his drake hunt? Or when he had been stalked by the canny panther with shadow abilities? He shivered.

Soon after the two hunters returned, people from the other camps began filtering in in groups. This would be the first of their weekly meetings, where they would discuss strategy, gather any intelligence discovered, and recuperate.

Tom greeted his mother warmly when she arrived, and she congratulated him on his uplift. She professed to not knowing much about diseases when he asked her though, the area not being her speciality. She was acquainted with several Healers who could help though, if they ever got the chance to return to the city. She promised to make introductions.

Val and Scriber were not long behind, and Cub too. Tom and Rosa got a chance for a decent talk with them while they waited for everyone to arrive.

Rosa asked Scriber about the enchantments on the duelling daggers she had, and he immediately told her what they did. He had enchanted them himself. They had the usual, strength, sharpening, durability, and self-repair runes, and aside from that, runes that lowered any wounded enemy’s resistances to being debuffed, and stymied any cleansing.

Tom breathed a mental sigh of relief. They would not wound Rosa when used. In fact, the enchantments on them were relatively well suited for her. They would help with her applying burn effects, and make them more difficult to remove.

Tom also noticed Scriber eyeing her plain bow where it was propped behind her. The enchanter offhandedly mentioned something about archery to Val, which drew Rosa into a discussion about bows. Tom noticed him paying quite a bit of attention to her as she waxed lyrical about her preferences with the weapon. He chuckled to himself. He would bet she would have a new one to replace the enchanted one her family gave her sooner rather than later.

For that matter, he also noticed a few mice investigating the plain bow. Tom was hit with a wave of nostalgia. It seemed like years ago that he had first met Scriber under Val’s oak, when he had had a very similar conversation with him. It seemed obvious what Scriber was up to now, but then, you didn’t expect someone to simply enchant your gear for free.

Tom looked around, taking in the industrious people setting themselves up all around the cave. Enchantments, Idealist-made equipment, Healing.

The orcs thought they’d had success with their raiding. Tom was eager to see how they dealt with the better part of one hundred, fully-equipped Idealists in their backline.