[Voidknight Ascension] Chapter 116: Of Steel and Flame

Crepuscular light poured out from the dullahans’ every seam and crevice, reforging metals, mana, and cores. Where once there were dull and muted plates, were now deep-blue plates trimmed with silver and gold.

Sam felt a bit put out, to be honest, having spent so much time repairing and patching them up. Now they were good as new. Their Metal mana was greatly bolstered, and any lingering cracks he had seen before that he couldn’t quite fix were completely gone, as if they simply never existed.

Stupid sexy Ascension, he grumbled to himself.

“Don’t be sour.” Raiko smirked, reading his thoughts. “They’d have not Ascended without your work. And their connection to you is greater as a result.”

Even their greatswords were remade, which was something that particularly drew Sam’s interest. They were shaped like a very stretched out hourglass. Thicker at the top and hilt, then arcing gracefully between.

They would be fantastic for cutting and slicing, especially since the rounded bladed tip remained unchanged.

Rank Up!

The Kingdom Sil’mara’s [Regalruin Dullahan] has reached Copper Rank.

The Kingdom Sil’mara’s [Regalruin Dullahan] reaches Level 20.

The rest of the dullahan leveled and Ascended too, as if their power was linked. One by one they shone like roman candles, sending off sparks and light in every direction.

Sam couldn’t quite squash the feeling swelling in his chest of a proud father, and when he looked over at Raiko, he saw she felt likewise.

Raiko brushed tears from her eyes.

Odd that I should come to care so much for something that can’t even talk to me.

“Koooo-maaaa-chiiiiii!” cried his cat as she was magically lifted up from her resting place to spin slowly in the air.

If the dullahans’ Ascension was flashy, then Komachi’s was a laser show on steroids. Lights, brilliant and glorious, flashed in every direction.

The little cat flashed and looked… smaller, browner, and thicker.

“Is… that an otter?” Raiko asked. “I knew it!” She pointed accusingly at Komachi, but whatever she was going to say was drowned out by a trumpeting sound that echoed out from Komachi.

She revolved slowly in the air, all four limbs spread out like some sort of deity being revealed to the world, and then, without the least bit of ceremony, Sam’s cat returned.

Komachi alighted on Chompers’ lid, lifted one dainty paw, and began to groom it without a care in the world.

“What the hell was that, Komachi?” Sam asked her.

She looked up, a faint smug feline smile on her white muzzle. “Komachi had a Perfect Ascension. 50 sweet, sweet bonus stats.”

Raiko let out a noise halfway between a laugh and a strangled cry. Now her tears looked like those of somebody who couldn’t quite believe what they had seen and yet, with every fiber of their being, desperately wished it was not so.

“Huh,” Sam said, “that beats the hell out of my Ascension.”

“And the dullahans,” Raiko admitted sourly.

“Everybody seems to be hitting Copper but us,” Matt complained. “You know, if I had some skill with a blade, I’d also be getting crazy levels, you know!”

“We know,” Sam told him.

“Considering you and I,” Raiko motioned to Matt. “Spent some time being half-dead, it isn’t quite so bad.”

“I have gotten quite a few levels in Analyst since I started helping you,” Lenal admitted sheepishly. “It is… among the fastest I have ever leveled. I feel I owe a great debt of gratitude to you both.”

Sam waved away her words. “You’re helping us. It goes both ways. Let’s get some sleep and head back out tomorrow. I’d feel a lot better if we had the wall up around us, just in case something decides to wander into camp.”

“You’re sleeping down here with the rest of us plebs?” Matt asked.

“Well, my Sourcestone is down here,” Sam said, motioning to the silver chains that reflected the faint glow from the crystal. “That was my only reason for sleeping away from the group.”

Raiko looked relieved. “At least now you won’t be ambushed all alone in the night.”

“Sam, the rest of your Skyshard is still up there, is it not?” Kai asked. “Are you planning on bringing it down?”

Sam shook his head. “It can stay up there. It seems okay, and we’ve got a way to get back and forth now. Honestly, I’m pretty happy with the current arrangement. I’m not sure how we’d get a floating satellite Skyshard without having those up there, so for now I’ll keep it.”

Besides, it was a handy central-ish location where he could use [Source Chain] on other Skyshards without having to go to the outer rim of the main island.

“It does look a bit unnatural, doesn’t it? Like a big, rounded cross.” Matt was looking up at the Skyshard illuminated in the molten gold of the sunset.

“Beautiful though,” Sam said, and then bid everyone goodnight.

Komachi, atop CC, trundled after him. It wasn’t hard to find a bed, and though it wasn’t the most comfortable thing in the world, it was far better than he had to sleep on in his tent.

The night passed uneventfully with the dullahans and mandys, both pulling guard shifts on the unprotected half of the encampment.

When Sam had some breakfast and got back to work, he began to wonder if perhaps he had bitten off a bit more than he could chew.

They had exhausted almost all the logs that he had chopped down yesterday, including those from the first attempt at using a fully charged [Heavy Blade].

“At least the trench is already dug,” he told himself. That would free him up to use [Heavy Blade] to fell more trees, because they were going to need them.

Matt came up alongside him and admired the wall. “I’m surprised we haven’t completely deforested that Tile. There is an impressive amount of lumber here. If we had any Profession at all, we’d probably be done I bet.”

Sam motioned to Lenal, who was advising a dullahan under her care with its new sword. “She has a Profession. Without her Analyst, we’d not be able to make exact cuts.”

They both watched as the dullahan dropped its sword like a guillotine. It sliced through the 6-foot-thick tree trunk like a hot knife through butter.

Sam looked at the thing’s greatsword with envy, wondering what rarity it was. Surely higher than the one Sam wielded.

He quickly turned his attention back to the wall.

“Fair point,” Matt said, shoving his hands into his robe. “That woman can measure down to the millimeter. It’s uncanny. Nobody should be able to do that just by looking, but the more levels she gets in Analyst, the more she’s able to do it without thinking. You know she told me that she can tell where I am because my gait is different from everybody else’s?”

“I could believe it.”

“At least she’s putting her powers to good use. But I’d love to know what kinds of abilities she’s getting. So far, I’ve only seen what Jobs can offer and what you’ve told us of your Path. Professions probably offer something similar, but she’s able to use a lot of her things for… off-label uses, it seems.”

“Off-label?” Sam asked.

“Like her ability to analyze things, she can tell its size and weight and what-not as part of her examining something, right? But now she’s using it to mark out where each tree should go, where to cut, pretty much turning herself into a human—sorry, elven—measuring tape. Hell, I bet she could tell us exactly how many more trees we need.”

Lenal’s voice drifted up from the trench where she was dangerously close to the slicing blade of the dullahan. “65.7 trees if their diameters fall within the standard range of these. And that’s including the ones that have not been brought here yet, of course.”

“Of course,” Matt said slowly. He turned to Sam and mouthed, see what I mean?

“I get your meaning,” Sam told him, putting a hand companionably on his shoulder. “How about you go help her shift the logs around while I go get another five dozen or so trees?”

Kai joined them at the wall a few moments later. The Shaman was growing more confident in his role and with his use of Nature magic every day.

That he could get the cut tree tops to root and spread deep below the ground into the [Loamstone] was nothing short of a miracle.

Unknown to Sam at the time, Kai was also doing the same trick with the sharpened palisade walls. Something that not only anchored them strongly to the ground, but allowed them to recover some of the damage they received.

It burned through a decent amount of MP, which was what Sam did notice, since Raiko switched over to keeping [Glyph: Refresh] on the Shaman and the Swordsman.

When her MP got too low, she switched Kai’s Glyph over to herself. Literally giving herself more MP regeneration by using her own MP.

“Infinite energy,” Sam muttered.

Sam hoped that they would never have to find out just how well the wall would stand up to enemies, but he was glad to have it. There was something… human about creating walls that separated you from the wilds.

It felt homey. Comfortable.

And after finding out where that vulture monster meat came from, the walls felt all the more important. That could’ve been a full-blown assault on their Skyshard, all without any defenses at the time, if not for the mandragoras getting loose, the dullahans’ work and Raiko scouting around.

I hope I didn’t make this larger than it needs to be,he thought as he arrived at the [Forest Tile] once more. A good deal of the forest was cut back, moss growing over the stumps until there was just a blanket of green at the edge of the darkening forest.

No more Treants seemed to make their displeasure known. They either had enough of getting chopped to bits or had fled further into the forest, hoping to avoid Sam and the dullahans.

The rest of the day was spent chopping down trees, helping Chompers store them, and then finally cutting and carving the remaining trees.

When the sun began to set, the walls were finished with only a bare gap at the northern end of the encampment, though he guessed he should call it a settlement now, since it really looked like one.

Granted, it only had a domed… domicile and the Settlement Cores, but it was all theirs. And they still had a ton of wood to use if they wanted to build things.

Kai, however, was not satisfied. He came up to Sam just as the light was beginning to fade in the high-walled settlement, but while it still cast its gilt across the hills. “We could do better.”

“Why hello and how do you do yourself?” Sam said, turning to the tired and beleaguered man. “You look like you could use a drink and a bed in that order.”

“I do not drink,” Kai told him. “But yes, a bed would be nice. And a bath.” He wrinkled his nose. “For all of us.”

“Next on the list,” Sam assured him.

It wasn’t. But it was now. Sam’s eyes watered when he got a whiff of himself.

“Sweaty?” Komachi asked him.

“Just a bit, Komachi, just a bit,” Sam told her wearily.

“I need twenty more trees,” Kai told him.

“For what?”

“Camouflage.”

Sam looked around. They had nearly a dozen trees left over, so it wasn’t asking much, but it was nearly night. Even Sam didn’t like the noises he heard from the [Forest Tile] at night.

“Are you sure?” he asked, knowing full well the answer.

“Yes. You’ll understand once you see it. I can show you better than I can tell you.”

Sam drummed his fingers on the side of his cuisses in thought. “All right,” he said. He pointed a finger at the Shaman. “You’ll get this done tonight?”

“As soon as I have the trees.”

Sam looked at one of the dullahan and waved it down. “Then let’s get you some damn trees.”