Chapter 257: Bounty of the Cursed Swamp (Patreon)

Author’s note: That was fun!

Will stood and faced the morning sun, cracking his back as he looked over the endless swamp. The white sun was filtering through the poisonous vibrant-green leaves and gave the cursed land a strange sort of beauty.

The rest of the camp was going about their day, keeping a modest, relaxed schedule as the proto-curses rained down on their little shelter. In the distance was the Key Site they’d cleared a few days ago in preparation for when they eventually needed to go on to the next Floor.

The pyramid was mirrored in the swamp water, although the beam of miasmatic light didn’t have a reflection.

Strange.

Once Will got the kinks out of his back, he sat back down to continue his work.

You are now a level 58 World Traveler!

Neat.

The System chimed in Will’s ear while he sorted through the pile of Relics that were being created out of the remains of the thousands of monsters they were chewing through in order to power-level.

The 13th Floor, by its very nature, lent itself well to spawning Relics with unique effects, and Will was enjoying sorting them into rough piles by effect and synergy, although many of them defied easy classification.

Will Inspected an amulet seemingly made of a mummified rat.

Amulet of Domineering Sickness

-3 Strength

- 6 Toughness

+5 Acuity

+12 Focus

-50% resistance to debuffs.

Any debuff on the User is extended. Scales with Focus.

Only one debuff may be applied to the user. Other debuffs that are applied while another is in place are absorbed, providing healing and extending the duration of the original debuff.

…That’s not bad as it seems at first glance, Will thought, setting it in the debuff synergy pile.

Being weak to debuffs and having them last longer sounded bad but if the wielder deliberately applied a minor debuff to themselves, no other debuff in the Tower could ever affect them. That was quite good.

I wonder what the least problematic debuff is? Bad breath? A cursemonger or someone trying to kill one would pay a lot for that amulet, Will thought, peeling the next Relic out of the rapidly disintegrating plant-monster corpse in front of him.

It was a blood-red hood made of fine velvet.

Hide and Seek Hood

+4 Strength

+2 Resistance

+11 Kinesthetics

+7 Acuity

+3 Focus

Hide and Seek: 1 Charge.

Single target debuff. User and target are no longer able to see each other. Other senses unaffected. Multiple targets possible at higher cost. Each target gains a 30% damage buff against user. Duration scales with Kinesthetics.

Huh. Will took off his mask, put the hood on and aimed at Travis.

Hide and Seek.

238 Charges Remaining.

“You feel that?” Will asked.

“Feel what?” Travis’s voice asked from where he’d been reading a cheap romance novel a moment before. “Will? Where’d you go?”

So he didn’t feel it, and he’s got decent Focus. Could be a good Relic for Infiltrators. Target a guard and slip past…as long as you don’t run into them.

Even if he couldn’t see him, Will could see the miasma masking Travis’s location. It was a Travis-shaped blot of concealing magic sitting in the chair and looking around in confusion.

That’s probably not what the original designer intended, Will thought, happy to take advantage of his Uru Drake Eye.

Will jotted down the miasmatic structures hiding Travis before he took off the hood and stared down at it. It had some gilded clasps where it could attach to whatever torso piece the user was wearing.

…This was a pretty good debuff in Will’s hands. Possibly worth the extra damage if he could completely cut off their ability to see him. Against some people that would be plenty, but against others, that would be nothing.

Will put it in the ‘maybe’ pile.

Loth’s bugs brought him the next creature and Will began digging through it’s guts. When creatures dissolved into miasma they always reminded him of flickering coals in a fire, except blue and without any heat.

A rib crumbled aside as Will rummaged through the monster’s torso, revealing a shiny something. Will’s fingers caught hold of it and dragged it out of the creature’s chest.

It was a palm-sized mirror on a gilded chain.

Will Inspected it.

Mirror of Inversion

+2 Strength

+5 Resistance

+4 Kinesthetics

+8 Acuity

+6 Focus

Capture image: 10 Charges.

Point the mirror at the target and capture their image. Until the end of the duration, the target’s sense of direction is inverted. The target’s state is set, and they are immune to both positive and negative effects until Capture Image expires. Duration Scales with Acuity.

Will frowned, looking at the effect. It disoriented the enemy, but ultimately protected them from all harm for the duration? What was the point?

Well, glass half full. If your purpose wasn’t to kill the opponent but to buy time or circumvent them, this would work perfectly. It also worked well as a protection device. Sure the target would be confused, but if they were temporarily immortal, who cared if they got a little seasick?

Matter of fact…

Will faced the mirror towards himself.

Capture Image

238 -> 228 Charges Remaining.

The image of himself reflected in the mirror froze in place, as though some master craftsman had etched it into the glass.

What?

Will lowered the mir-

Will’s arm raised. He tried to lower it, but his arm just raised more, hyperextending his muscles and leading them to cramp as his body strained, seemingly trying to twist his arm so far backwards that it threatened to dislocate.

Strangely there was no pain, just an odd sensation of pressure in his muscles.

Okay, I got this. Just raise my arm.

Will carefully attempted to raise his arm, causing his body to haltingly stop trying to twist itself into a pretzel and return to where it had been before.

When Will finally got his arm back in front of his face, he decided to try and stand.

Okay standing would be straightening my body, so instead…curl up?

Will got about halfway up before he lost his balance and toppled over.

Thankfully he was aware enough not to try and catch himself and make things worse, falling face-first into the muck.

He was going to carefully stand back up until he breathed in some water and dirt.

That prompted him to flail, which accomplished nothing.

After some struggle, Will was able to flip himself over to discover the rest of his Party standing over him, their expressions concerned. There were some minor details that were concerning, though.

Travis’s vest was buttoned in the opposite direction. Loth’s monocle was on the wrong eye. Other minor details were reversed. Their bodies seemed to move in inexplicable ways.

Interesting. Is my consciousness in the mirror? Is that why I perceive everythign backwards?

“?yako ouy era ,eduD” Travis asked.

“This is a really good debuff.” Will said, staring up at the black sky from where he lay on his back in the muck. He didn’t dare try to move.

They frowned and glanced at each other, the apparition’s bodies moving in strange, unnatural, backwards ways that seemed effortless to them.

“?gnihtemos ro ekorts a evah eh diD .driew saw tahT” Travis asked, glancing up at Loth.

“.flesmih no ffubed fo dnik emos desu ylbaborp eH” Loth replied, bending down to Inspect the mirror in Will’s left hand.

“?yako eb annog uoy era ,hcnul gnitae ot kcab og annog er’eW” Anna asked, leaning down over him with a worried frown.

Will slowly, carefully, gave them a thumb’s up, his hand trembling as he struggled with all the reversed inputs. He didn’t quite understand what they were saying, but it sounded concerned.

“.enif eb ll'eh ,hE” Travis said with a shrug, standing up.

The three dispersed, leaving Will alone while he lay on his back, trying to get his fingers to work properly.

After a few minutes, Will gradually began to regain control over his body, learning a few key points in the process.

It was a powerful debuff, but the longer it was used, the easier it was to recover from. Even after a couple minutes, Will was beginning to regain more than half of his control as his mind adapted to the changes.

So using this on the same person over and over again was a no-no. That also meant that using it on oneself could potentially allow the user to fully adapt to the altered state and take advantage of the immunity to negative effects – which included damage – to achieve a sort of temporary immortality…which came with its own problems.

If the mirror was stolen or broken, an over-reliant user would be helpless for quite some time while their body readjusted to the new ‘normal’. More than enough time to kill them.

Seemed like a good way to get overconfident and die. Will himself was the exact kind of person someone like that would get killed by.

Eventually the debuff expired, and Will carefully rose to his feet, his movements uncertain as his mind was unsure the new ‘normal’ was truly back for good. For about an hour afterwards, he found himself jerking in the wrong direction every now and then.

Well, that was crazy, Will thought, putting it in the ‘maybe’ pile. The effect was double-edged, but it was strong.

I wonder if I could combine it with some kind of buff that shortens the effect and allows their body to learn quickly. Make it so that the target adapts instantly, but when the effect expires, they’re already completely adapted, and stuck like that.

That would make the target nearly completely incapacitated, without being immortal, changing it from a two-sided effect to a simple powerful debuff.

Food for thought.

After a moment, Will moved it to the brand-new ‘powerful effects to maybe use with Sourdough’ pile.

They had lunch, cleared out some more Monsters, and Will went back to his work sorting Relics eventually finding an interesting hammer whose business-end looked like a shrieking face.

The Shrieking Hammer

+8 Strength

+5 Resistance

+2 Kinesthetics

+6 Acuity

+1 Focus

The hammer shrieks in the wielder’s voice as it is swung, its volume increasing based on the amount of damage that will be dealt by the attack. If the wielder has any sonic or language-based Abilities, the shriek carries their effects to the appropriate targets.

“Oh wow, I found one for Jason.” Will mused, twirling the hammer around his finger, listening to the faint sound of his own voice as it spun. It sounded like he was being tortured somewhere very far away.

Ew. Presumably that sound will be much closer when used in combat. The effect is good, but the vibe is…

The prophet had a language-dependent effect where he cussed out his enemies, debuffing them and dealing psychic damage.

I could use this as the centerpiece effect to Sourdough a good Relic for Jason, Will thought, setting it aside in the ‘keep’ pile. As long as he’s okay with listening to himself get tortured.

Will found another interesting sound-based Relic later that evening. It was a pair of clasped demonic hands, not in prayer, but around some invisible thing, as if they were choking something…

Choker of the Stolen Voice

Oh, it is actually choking something…It’s choking you. Will thought.

+2 Strength

+12 Resistance

+2 Kinesthetics

+4 Acuity

+7 Focus

User’s voice-based Abilities no longer register as being caused by the User.

Trace-back effects register the Choker of the Stolen Voice as the origin of the Ability. XP for kills made with voice-based Abilities is negated.

…How? Will thought, inspecting the Relic.

This was ostensibly a way to prevent Thorns damage from tracing back to the user and killing them. It was the sort of Relic one might want when they were taking on someone like Frederick Wyrd or The Rotwitch.

But how did it work? It directly interacted with The System in a very strange way.

Will had no use for the effect itself, but he absolutely wanted to study how it worked. It related to targeting and how the System differentiated one person from another.

And where does the XP go? Will wondered. Maybe studying it could even give him some insight into what exactly XP was.

Will dropped it in the ‘to study’ pile.

 Maybe I can steal the effect and use it to create an attack Ability that dodges responsibility for the attack. Would be good for fighting Thorns builds, and for slaughtering thousands of people without the System catching on to who is responsible and revoking my Lord status.

…Not that I’m particularly eager to do that, mind you. Just the first use is fine, Will thought, pausing as he studied the another Relic.

Boots of the phantasm

+6 Strength

+4 Resistance

+14 Kinesthetics

+8 Acuity

+3 Focus

+15% audiovisual dampening while hiding.

While hiding and unobserved, the user may become intangible at will. If discovered while intangible, the user immediately becomes tangible and takes a large amount of damage.

Neat. Will added it to the Rogue Archetype pile. The damage on discovery downside was bad, but a proper rogue build wouldn’t get discovered, so there was only upside for someone if they were sneaky enough.

The next Relic was a leather pouch with six crude-looking nails inside. Despite their rough appearance, they were rather sharp.

Agonizing Nails

Any creatures pierced by these nails share damage and debuffs amongst themselves.

No stat boosts? Is it not a weapon? Will did some testing and discovered that it didn’t fill a Slot on the body. It was a consumable ammunition.

I can think of a couple ways to use that right off the bat. Will thought. But I bet Loth can use them better.

“Loth, got one you might like!” Will called, tossing it to Loth, who snatched the pouch out of midair before glancing down at the pouch.

“Oh yes, I like these very much.” Loth said, strapping the pouch to her belt before returning to her own loot sorting.

The next ring had a stylized stomach as the crest, while the rest of the ring was braided gut. He’d almost missed it, given its strange organic shape.

Well, that’s gross, Will thought as he Inspected it.

Ring of the paralyzed Stomach.

+5 Strength

-4 Resistance

+3 Kinesthetics

+4 Acuity

+10 Focus

80% resistance to Debuffs

User no longer gains nourishment from food.  User cannot remove ring.

So, you just…starve to death? Will thought. You could only wear the ring for a short time before you had to cut off your finger, but…80% resistance to debuffs was very strong, and probably good enough to make this a decent piece of backup kit in case they came across something particularly nasty.

Climbers were strong enough to sacrifice a finger when the alternative was death.

Besides, they can always get it back.

Will added it to the ‘save’ pile and kept going, discovering a pair delicate of glasses with round, blackened lenses.

Veil-piercing Lenses

+1 Strength

+2 Resistance

+2 Kinesthetics

+15 Acuity

+10 Focus

User can see beyond the physical realm.

Being faced with the unknowable causes damage to the optic nerve, gradually leading to blindness.

The Abyss does that mean? Will thought, taking off his mask and donning the glasses.

The world darkened as the black lenses made everything appear shaded…except the miasmatic structures floating around.

“Eh?” Will grunted, lifting the lenses up.

The world brightened.

He put them back on.

The world darkened, Miasmatic Structures floating around in stark contrast, the constant fog of raw miasma was pushed back a little bit, too, which made the clarity a bit higher than normal, too.

Still, Will wasn’t actually seeing anything new.

Maybe I’m the wrong user?

“Hey Travis, try these on.” Will said, approaching the lounging illusionist.

“Sure, what do they do?” Travis asked putting them up to his eyes.

“They let you see something you can’t normally see, I guess…oh and they make you go blind eventually.”

Travis ripped the glasses off his face and glared up at Will.

“You see anything?” Will asked.

“Yeah, some weird clumps floating in the air.” Travis said, handing the glasses back.

Well, I guess it makes miasmatic structures visible?

Will added it to the ‘to study’ category. It might be a handy tool for studying miasma in the future.

And if the lenses damaged his optic nerves, he was fairly sure Aspect would repair them. Maybe even better than they were before…

…probably.