Haeros Dungeon - Chapter 9 preview (Patreon)

Whilst we wandered, I called up my  status screen. It had been a bit since I had gone poking at it, and the addition of the new pendant was changing things for me. The time I’d taken to help firm up the little “engine” of my skill within my mind was beginning to showcase its usefulness too, as I could almost see the readings that were beginning to become part of the complex machinery of my soul.

Right now, though, I was more sixteenth-century tinkerer than a proper engineer, no matter how complex the initial imagery I utilized had been. No readings, no pressure valves, no onboard computers to help manage the flow of potential.

Skill: Conserve

Level: 13

Potential: 17%

Target: Self (Only)

Siphon Level: 8%

Extrusion Control: Low

Number of Vaults: 2

Vault 1: Health

Conserved: 211.74 days

Vault 2: Momentum

Conserved: 41.9kg·m/s

Connections: 3

Limit: 97.8% (Conserve Skill Draw 36.1%)

Connection 1: City of Haeros Command Core

Draw: 8.7%

Benefits: Minor increase in Recovery, Trivial increase in Agility

Potential Increase: 0.05-1.1%

Connection 2: Aeres Academy Frost Core

Draw: 22.9%

Benefits: Minor increase in Cold Resistance, Minor increase in Durability, Minor increase in Recovery, Trivial increase in Strength

Potential Increase: 0.3-2.1%

Connection 3: Party Spider Core

Draw: 9.9%

Benefits: Minor increase in Balance and Stability, Active Skill: Wall Clinging

Potential Increase: 1.1-1.4%

Equipment Draw: 20.2%

A quick glance made me grimace at the limit level for my equipment. I needed better equipment, and more time to synchronize with my equipment and decrease the draw that they had on me, or just more space in my core itself. Any of the three things would help, but after adding all my equipment together, I was bumping against my maximum and it was not an overall good feeling.

Sort of like being too full. If eighty percent was where you should eat and most people ate till about ninety or ninety five, anything at or just over a hundred was the equivalent of walking out of an all-you-can-eat buffet after a marathon three hours, meat sweats and all.  Viable for a short period but distracting and, considering there was no quick fix like the body working extra hard at digesting, potentially damaging.

I’d asked our teachers about selective over-burdening and they had pointed out connecting and disconnecting was jarring on the soul. So, that was not even possible, nor did it do much to aid the body in gaining the necessary space either.

Like so many things, you could just go the long, hard way. Which, more often than not, was slow.

A tug on the information line pulled up my equipment list, which was just as extensive, if not more so, than my status screen.

Heavy Leather Gloves of Brawling

Benefits: Self Repair, Minor increase in Durability in protected area

Synchronization Level: 41%

Draw: 0.3%

Elemental Stone Bracer of Durability

Benefits: Moderate increase in Durability, Minor increase in Toughness

Synchronization Level: 31%

Draw: 0.7%

Pendant of Trivial Confusion

Benefits: Projects a short-range field of confusion around wearer affecting all with aggressive or violent intentions

Synchronization Level: 37%

Draw: 1.1%

Enchanted Mixed Salamander Leather Lamellar Armor

Piercing Protection: Moderate (High-Moderate)

Blunt Force Protection: Low (Moderate)

Cutting Protection: High-Moderate (High)

Additional Protection: Fire Resistance (Moderate)

Draw: 7.3%

Small Dimensional Pouch of Holding

Benefits: Self-Repair, Increases internal dimensions by 2.74x

Synchronization Level: N/A

Draw: 0.9%

Stayza Gauntlet of Rending

Piercing Protection: Low

Blunt Force Protection: Moderate

Cutting Protection: Moderate

Additional Abilities: Increased piercing and rending damage, Minor increase in speed

Synchronization Level: 28%

Draw: 4.8%

Pendant of the Busy Trader

Increases overall momentum, gifting the wearer a minor increase in speed.

Momentum Increase: 7%

Synchronization Level: 16%

Draw: 3.1%

I really wanted to get the dark sight ring, but with the way my soul was stuffed right now, I had chosen to leave it behind. Instead, I’d put money into the enchanting of my armor, such that while it stayed flexible, it was significantly more protective.

It amused me, a little, that it had words like “high” or “high-moderate” in the system, when I knew it was currently reading it based off my level and energy density. In time, when we dropped lower, the armor would become as useful as paper, as creatures gained skills that allowed them to rend it apart with a single swipe of their hands. Then, even tougher material, and even more powerful enchantments, would be required and those would start saying the same; while the notices on my armor would drop to “low” and “trivial”.

In the meantime, the two pendants had a tendency to clink together and annoy me, even when I tied them off in different sections so that they didn’t bounce about too much. Meant that I’d gotten a few bruises too when I took a punch into the chest, but worse – it increased the total draw of both of them and was interfering a little with my synchronization rate.

I was rather tempted to give up the Pendant of Trivial Confusion, since it had rarely offered much help in my fights. Some, but because its effects were subtle it was often hard to tell when it was working and when it wasn’t. This uncertainty had kept me holding onto it.

Well, that and the next floor.

In the meantime, as the day grew dark and we grew weary, the team started ascending the hills as we searched for an abandoned residence to crash in. What we found, rather than an abandoned one, was something none of us would ever forget.