Defying Gravity

[Rickter]

There came a moment when Rickter realized another underlying concern that Ivar suddenly had, and it dawned on him too, that any regular mage would've undoubtedly grown somewhere close to tired by this point. It was another logical reason why the climb remained incredibly challenging for others, between the Kinetics and Negation used to bring them up, as well as the capacity to suppress aether itself with his wards...

All of which would've been very taxing were he not a master of his craft at this rate. "He's fine pal, Rick's a fountain of aether!" In a way Patrick wasn't lying either, and it covered the fact he was also a Demigod in turn. Regardless, the wolf quickly nodded before their situation then escalated, and the Voidsent Vulcans brought urgency to their little mining excursion moments after. In combination with an orderly fashion, Patrick swung first with Ivar to follow, and then Rickter added in the final swing with a hefty pull with his own weight. The clangs of the picks against the cluster created the sound of breaking glass, as cracks cut through portions of the shards before a few of them chipped off in turn.

"Good work!" He commended knowing that it was still too soon to celebrate. "Start from the top, work our way down to the base!" It was good that they got a few shards off from just that first turn of swings, but if they kept their combined efforts focused on one area, then all three men could easily harvest the entire cluster if they were quick enough. Thus, Patrick breathed in deeply before bringing his pickaxe overhead, and striking it down to clash into the upper tier of the cluster's center. Once Ivar went next Rickter repeated the process, smashing his pickaxe firmly into the cluster to knock more of the Illumite loose.

Chunks of the top actually broke off and drifted downward into the next below them, the three working in unison to mine the cluster as the Voidsent continued testing the shields of his lodestone. The wolf considered embracing Dominion to further enhance his strength, but considered against it since he would've likely damaged the vein in which the cluster had grown from. If he did that then he potentially risked releasing all the aether within the Illumite at once, and that would be counterproductive to the reason why they came here. Still, they were making steady progress when they went at it with another round, breaking down another lofty chunk as the Illumite shards floated into the aether net he left in place.

"Good work!" He complimented further with a glance up past his shoulder, inspecting the horde beneath them as the shields continued to fizzle and pop from their aggression. "We're about halfway through this cluster, keep it up and we can call it a day!" He really would've wanted to mine at least one more before going, but as it stood they were pressed for time already. One look at the negation lodestone and he could see some of the Pictographs wearing out as is.

"Hi ho, hi ho, it's-"

"Patrick, not right now mate." The wolf quickly interjected as he went in for another hefty swing, breaking off another chunk from the center of the cluster.

"Just trying to lighten the mood, my guy." The Atinoran remarked with a casual glance at the Vulcans overhead, before heaving his pickaxe overhead to smash it into the Illumite once more.

"Dialogue" Monologue
"Patrick"
"Common" "Synskrit" "Norvaegan"

[Ivar]

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Ivar dared to look up towards the hostile skies between swings, where blackness circled and screeched. His fear dissipated with every swing of the pickaxe which left him feeling empty inside. Now that he was at his destination swinging at the shards the only emotion he felt was sadness. Sadness that there was a veritable treasure trove of shards just waiting to be mined but it was clear that they didn’t have much time left.

Despite Patrick’s confident response Ivar didn’t believe that things were going to stay cheery for long. He simply could not fathom how Rickter could keep things up for much longer. Of course, had he known about his divinity he’d certainly feel differently.

“Gotcha! Ahhh!” Ivar shouted when he was told to work top down. He couldn’t help but shout with every swing. He was clearly the weakest physically of the three and he was giving his swings 110% of his effort. He didn’t think he’d ever worked harder in his entire life.

A shower of sparkles erupted from the point of impact, shards of illumite tumbling away from the cluster in a brilliant cascade. Ivar marveled at the raw power they were extracting, the raw power that sat within these radiant shards, that gave light even in the darkest of voids. The next swing followed shortly, echoing the previous one with a matching intensity. Ivar could feel the rhythm building, a dance of precision and force between the three men as they systematically harvested the cluster.

Ivar couldn’t help but smile and laugh at Patrick’s antics. “There’ll be plenty of time for singing when this is all done. We should go out for some drinks if my arms still work enough to be able to lift a glass.” Ivar could feel the strain of their efforts seeping into his muscles, a steady burn that seemed to echo the intensity of the situation they were in. His arms were under so much strain that they had figuratively turned to jelly.

“What do you think, can we get one more cluster?” he asked, “could we blink and swing in quick succession so we don’t have to fly up there?” He pictured himself free falling into a portal which would exit right in front of the cluster. He theorized that he could probably whack the shards with quite a bit of force if he could time it right. Then again, it was probably stupid to try this for the first time.

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[Rickter]

They worked with a synergy not unlike what a pack would if they were on the hunt together, each one of them taking their turn to strike to crack and even shatter the crystalline structure. Each pop of broken glass told Rickter that they were one step closer, slowly but surely, to breaking down their quarry and hauling ass before danger threatened to close in. By now other Illumite clusters started to radiate from the Voidsent that tried to close in on it, at least the ones that were well outside the borders of Rickter's protective barrier.

Even so, the light of the dragonshards shone bright enough to keep the shadows at bay, reactively bursting briefly with light each time a creature assailed them. The shadow Vulcans were no different in this case, as each time they assailed the shield itself, Dawnlight would cast them asunder back into the darkened skies below. It was how Rickter programmed the Pictographs after all, but he also knew, that it wasn't a guarantee which would last for very long either. As much power as he could generate within those lodestones, they were a finite solution that gradually wore down.

Still, Ivar seemed to be in better spirits what with Patrick trying to lighten the mood. Not that the wolf could blame the Atinoran, in times like this when the pressure was on, it was his calling card to try and display a little bit of humor. It's what made Rickter appreciate having him around, apart from being a rather dependable guy when one really needed him. "Make no mistake," the wolf huffed in between drawn-out pants, "we go out for drinks you can bet breakfast is on me." What he wouldn't give for some fresh hot steaks from the High Hopes right about now.

"I love drinks as much as I love food, so I won't turn down either for shit!" The Atinoran enthused as it was his next turn to strike, the pickaxe chipping more of the Illumite down toward the shaft of the crystalline structure. At this rate, they were going to clear one node of dragonshards quicker than he expected, but they were also closer to the base where the Illumite grew the thickest in quality as well. Which meant they'd really have to work a bit harder to chip it away.

"Doubtful." Rickter quickly shook his head as he took his next strike after Ivar. "As much as I'd like to test the limitations of my own personal magic, the Vulcans are too many and are corrupted by the Void at this rate. Our best bet is to just finish mining this one, and leave before the lodestone loses its power." He looked over once more to see the status of the ice crystal stuck to the rock. The pictographs were starting to fade in and out with their shimmering, a clear indication that the Vulcans had severely tested the threshold of his shieldwork.

Perhaps it wasn't the failure in his Negation entirely, but the Scrivening itself that needed more work... Either way, they were now pressed for time, and when it was his next turn to strike; Rickter didn't feel inclined to waste any more time. I hope this works. He prayed to himself as he reached deep within himself, urging for Dominion to fill his being while he took the deepest breath he could manage. The wolf felt a sense of concern stem from his Bondmates, but he assured them with clarity that everything would be alright. That he had the situation, mostly, under control given the circumstances right now.

Thus with a mighty swing from over the shoulder, the wolf growled as he thrust the pickaxe straight down into the center of the mined cluster. The resulting sound ended with a shoulder tensing pop as he feared he might've struck the aether vein itself, only before he relaxed a moment after to find no reaction had taken place. "Whoa ho! Good one!" Patrick complimented as the wolf wrestled his pickaxe free, breaking yet another hefty chunk out from the cluster. That was when the shields surrounding them started to blink a few times, which led the wolf to look straight to the lodestone, and then to the array of fireworks generated by the Voidsent assailing the barrier itself.

"Shit... Finish that off quick Patrick, Ivar, chart a course through Slipspace back to the Manor if you can." Patrick looked at the wolf as he turned away from the node, a nervous look in his eyes when he realized what Rickter was about to do. The Atinoran didn't waste any seconds in carrying out the order he was given, smashing as much of the cluster core as he could to chip what remained of it away. Meanwhile, as Ivar carried out the instruction that the wolf gave him, the barrier finally waned as the lodestone's pictography weathered away.

The moment his defenses wore down, Rickter released his pickaxe behind him, both hands raised before him to release another wall of aether.

"Dialogue" Monologue
"Patrick"
"Common" "Synskrit" "Norvaegan"

[Ivar]

.

Ivar cursed their luck and the damned birds. They couldn’t just fuck off? He was not a religious man but in this moment he wanted nothing more than for the demigod Talon to appear and strike down the darkness with his holy light.

“Okay, I’ll make a portal,” Ivar said when the time came.

Ivar reacted quickly to Rickter's instructions, his focus sharply transitioning from their mining task to the impending threat at hand. He gently tossed the pickaxe to the side and threw out his hands dramatically and focused as hard as he could to navigate the slipspace. It was hard to concentrate when it was clear that their defenses were failing.

A cold sweat trickled down Ivar's back as the tension mounted. The energy around them was electric, the air thick with the unspoken fear of what lay beyond their fleeting shield. But Ivar forced himself to push those thoughts away, his focus solely on the task at hand.

He couldn’t afford to make a mistake, not when the stakes were this high. Time seemed to stretch and warp, each second agonizingly long as he worked to construct the portal. Navigating through the Slipspace felt akin to traversing the strands of a cosmic spiderweb, each thread a connection to a different place, a different moment in time. The world around Ivar was a disorienting rush of colors and emotions, the regular laws of physics having no place here.

His concentration locked on the mental image of the manor's front door. The image acted like a beacon in the nebulous void, a reassuring presence amidst the endless chaos. Despite the uncertainty and danger, Ivar felt an odd sense of calm. His hands moved rhythmically as he focused and eventually he felt the slipspace yield beneath his will and finally a path formed in response to his command. With a final surge of energy, he willed the portal into existence.

“Alright I’m ready to go!” Ivar shouted at the top of his lungs.

It was a fairly wide portal, plenty big enough for the three of them to step through at a moment’s notice. It exited outside the manor, several meters from the front door. Ivar stepped through and realized he was now standing in the small pond they had. “These poor fish,” Ivar thought as he reached back through the portal to grab the pickaxe along with whatever else would be handed to him.

Once they’d transferred everything through the portal Ivar would close it, hopefully before any shadow creatures could pass through but that was up to how fast his companions were.

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[Rickter]

As soon as Rickter erected the barrier that would protect the group from Voidsent, the eruption of Norther Lights poured from the palms of his hands with violent pops and sparks of fireworks. Vulcan after Vulcan after Vulcan, he rebounded every one of them with as much aetheric backlash as he could generate, hoping the force of it would push the majority of the horde back as Ivar worked. Patrick finished what he could before leaving some of the Illumite cluster's base where it was, and focused on the aether net which contained all of their impressive haul.

The net had floated further away than the wolf anticipated, just out of reach for the Atinoran when he stretched an arm out for it. "Damn!" He uttered with a quick glance at Rickter, struck with awe-inspired wonder before he focused on the task at hand. Patrick knew that the wolf had his entire focus on keeping the horde at bay, which meant there was little to no time to second-guess what he could do next. The Atinoran thought to jump for the net, but remembered the reach he had with his own pickaxe, therefore used it to pull the netting down (or up in this case) closer to his position.

Ivar expressed that the portal had been opened finally, and for a moment, Rickter felt relief knowing that they might actually pull this venture off. Patrick wrangled the net closer and pulled it so that the outer rim would fold over the shards, leaving a hefty haul of Illumite in the net when he reached to grab Rickter's floating pickaxe as well. Handing over the loot firsthand, Ivar was given the dragonshards to place somewhere aside at the moment, before the tools themselves were next to cross the threshold back to the manor. Once those were finished, Patrick turned to face Rickter once more, a stout look of determination in his eyes as he called out to the wolf.

"Okay, Rick!! We're good to go!!"

Thank the fucking Gods!! He prayed through clenched teeth as he pondered how he was going to move next, since he had to remain steadfast against the Vulcans which still assailed the barrier. For intelligent creatures, it was like the Void had turned them completely belligerent against their very nature. They were keen to leave the group alone just earlier, but now, it was as if they aggressively sought not just the men but Rickter in general. Like shadows drawn to the aether... Time to leave then! He thought to himself with one final weave of aether into his shields, ready to cast one last hail mary as a bit of a 'fuck you' to the creatures at hand.

As quickly as they were depleting his aether reserves, the wolf had it in him to incorporate one last layer into the makeup. A ward that incorporated not just aetheric backlash but Kinetics in turn, which when activated, generated one wicked pulse of aether toward the horde itself as soon as the next Vulcan hit. Aether that flowed into the very space surrounding Rickter himself, and out into the open beneath the underside of Terra Nimbus, causing everything to slow to a halt as though time itself nearly froze. Feeling the strain of a severe headache root into his mind, the wolf quickly pulled away from his shield to bolt for the Atinoran, the two jumping through the portal threshold together in unison.

The release of his barrier also released the Deceleration ward he cast out into the open, letting all the shadowy hunts fly once more as the portal itself came to a close. Upon their landing through the portal, the wolf had never been so glad to feel water welcoming him home, even if he would stench of pond upon pulling himself onto his feet. "Okay," Patrick started with prolonged pants, "next time we go up there, let's make sure we don't have to deal with those things again!"

"Hopefully not any time too soon!" Rickter agreed with a minor wince in his expression, markedly relieved that they were finally back on his front doorstep. He looked to Ivar next with hope that everything made it through, the tools he wasn't so much worried about, as he was the Illumite haul and the wellbeing of his comrades. "All good mate?" He checked with drawn-out breaths, admittedly a little woozy after that last stunt.

"Dialogue" Monologue
"Patrick"
"Common" "Synskrit" "Norvaegan"

[Ivar]

.

As Ivar watched Rickter erected yet another barrier against the encroaching Voidsent, he couldn't help but feel a surreal sense of security. Here he was, just a few feet away from danger and yet he felt completely safe. It was a strange contradiction, one that made him feel simultaneously anxious and reassured.

Any fear he had was not so much for the creatures themselves. Surely they were formidable but with the collective might of Kalzasi, they could be dealt with. His fear was for the repercussions of his actions. He was sure that if he let that horde into the city, he would end up paying the price one way or another. Thankfully his companions were quick and he was able to close the portal before any nasty creatures could slip through.

"We're all good," he affirmed, managing to sound more composed than he felt. "We made it through without any unwanted... visitors." His eyes flicked back to where the portal had been moments earlier, a shudder running down his spine thinking about how close things had gotten.

He pulled out one of the illumite shards, the peculiar glow of the stone reflecting in his eyes. "We really should do this again sometime. You’ve proved that your method is effective and with these shards, we should have a better chance of keeping those things at bay. That is to say unless there’s something even more dangerous out there to worry about”

His gaze landed on Rickter and Patrick, the corners of his lips forming a grin. “So, how are we splitting all this? I’m fine if you two take the lion’s share of them. Honestly I’m just happy to have been able to tag along.” He supposed he should have hashed this all out beforehand but he hadn’t even thought about this until now.

Regardless, he would happily accept what was offered to him and if they were in the mood to eat and drink he would join them until he’d eventually pass out from exhaustion.

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[Rickter]

The look of sheer relief on his face became evident when Rickter saw Ivar had the aether net full of Illumite shards. It had been a rather large gamble on his part, but it looked as though it paid off rather well in the end. Regardless of the quality a good number of those dragonshards would be put to good use, that is, once Rickter had taken the time necessary to implement the proper protections into their aetherial makeup. Patrick admittedly chuckled aloud as he and Rickter waded out of the pond, the Atinoran bending down to pickup the tools that had been left on the ground.

"If ever we plan another venture, I certainly know who to reach out to for a fast getaway." The wolf admitted rather impressed, pleased even, that Ivar really came through when they needed him most. No doubt the young Traverser had learned a lot, both about himself and about the dangers which they braved today.

"Well, it just so happens, that there's a lot worse things out there than Void corrupted Vulcans." Patrick remarked with all three pickaxes hoisted over a shoulder, their wooden handles resting in the nook of his inner elbow.

"Aye, and depending on how much high-grade Illumite we just harvested, a lot of townships and villages along the lakeside are going to need them." Rickter admitted plainly before he realized just how weary his casting made him, a slight bend found in his knees as he held himself up through sheer determination. The work would hardly seem to end for him though, given he had another project to handle now. At Ivar's inquiry on splitting the loot though, the wolf could only chuckle softly even in his worn-out state. "You helped us out after all."

"So it's only fair you get your share of the cut!" The Atinoran finished with a friendly pat on Ivar's shoulder. "Whaddya say, Rick? Breakfast with a few strong drinks?"

"I can ask the servants to whip something up. Though, I might just nap while you both eat your fill." He remarked with a careful and steady approach for the door, determined to get out of his wet clothes and into the comfort of his bed. Though that would be after they inspected the Illumite shards brought back from their haul, that way, the wolf not only knew what they would split between them and Ivar; but what he also had to work with by the time he felt better rested.

"Dialogue" Monologue
"Patrick"
"Common" "Synskrit" "Norvaegan"

[Paragon]

R E W A R D S

Name: Rickter
XP: +10 XP

Name: Ivar
XP: +10 XP

Note(s): Reading the build-up to this event was fun. Congratulations, I think some rewards are in order. You have successfully mined the following Illumite Dragonshards:

Minor Illumite (x8) - Standard dawnstone properties. These crystals are potent enough in their aetheric potential to be able to sustain most Novice level enchantments when put to magical crafting.

Average Illumite (x3) - Standard dawnstone properties. These crystals are potent enough in their aetheric potential to be able to sustain most Apprentice level enchantments when put to magical crafting.

Greater Illumite (x2) - The two crystals classified as Greater Dawnstone have the standard illumite properties in addition to the following property:

-This greater illumite crystal is capable of expelling the full potency of its stored aetheric potential. In this blinding burst of light, all manner of Dread Mist corruption up to Category 1 will be dispelled in an area of up to 100 sq. ft. Additionally, the burst will dispel any of the following effects up to Journeyman level tier magic: illusions, disease (natural and unnatural), aetheric corruption, mind altering effects (i.e. Mesmer), and will either repel or destroy lesser undead (i.e. mindless wraiths, shambling skeletons etc.). Expelling the crystal's aether in this manner depletes the crystal for a total of 72 hours.

Superior (x1) - This potent dawnstone pulses with warmth and gentle sunlight. Its properties, however, are something to be discovered.

You will need to decide amongst each other how to divide up your loot.