Chapter 12: Ch. 12 Stepping Up
We passed through the barrier and Claire started shaking when we reached the other side of the Rift. The pain hit me too, but this time I was ready for it.
"Holy shit Mr. Hundai, you weren't kidding." she said as she looked at and felt her body. Yeah that pain sucks.
I started hearing War Drums again. "Oh come on, no Orcs please." I begged to whatever gods were listening, they ignored me.
A small force of Goblins led by an Orc who had a feathered headress and a staff charged at us the moment they saw us. Groaning I called out "I have the Shaman." then as everyone nodded and got ready I locked eyes with the Shaman and grinned.
The Shaman was taken aback for a moment before it began waving it's hands around. I put my own hands forward and 4 Force Missiles shot from each of my fingers. His hands stopped and a green shield appeared in front of him.
The shield moved around his body quickly, absorbing each Force Missile it came in contact with. 'Nifty Spell' I said and pointed my crossbow at the Shaman. I hit it over and over, it's shield wasn't able to keep up with the Missiles and my Mana Arrows.
20 of the Force Missiles hit the Shaman, along with 10 Mana Arrows. The Shaman was bleeding from multiple holes in it's body. Claire put an arrow straight through it's head and it fell backwards, dead.
The rest of the Goblins had been taken care of by the rest of the party, so we sat down and took a break after harvesting the stones. I was given the Shaman's Mana Stone as well as two more stones. The Shaman had a Blue and Black Mana Stone, I grinned and tried crushing it, then got a prompt.
System Message: Cannot learn spell Force Missile as User already knows Force Missile. (Better luck next time).
I groaned inwardly at that, then did a double take 'Did the 'System' just give me sass?' I wondered as I re-read the message.
"Has the 'System' ever given you guys snarky or sassy messages?" I asked everyone there and nobody nodded, they all just looked at me like I was crazy.
Shaking my head I leaned over to Claire and handed her the Spell Stone "I would rather you have this as a backup then run out of ammunition." she looked down and then at me "I can't use it, it gives you a spell I already have."
She smiled and hugged me, then crushed the Stone. Her eyes lit up as she focused on the prompts filling her vision.
I grinned to myself as I sat there meditating. My meditation skill was 18, so now instead of every ten seconds of 18 regen, now it was every five seconds. Artisan rank in skills was awesome.
It took me a lot less time to regenerate my MP so we were able to get going quicker.
Two more Goblin ambushes later and after I showed Claire how to meditate so she could regen her MP as well, she liked Force Missile a lot, We made it to the Boss Chamber.
On the throne was a massive Orc, this one was over 7 feet tall and his arms were as large as Tyrone's legs. There were four other Orcs as well as 2 Hobgoblins. I knew we would be in trouble if we didn't do this right.
They were watching us, waiting to see what we would do. Tyrone turned his head "Odellin, you're the only one with an attack spell, think you can take out the Orc Boss?" I turned to Claire who nodded "We will both hit it with everything we have." he nodded then turned to the rest of them and began giving out orders.
"Bella, you're gonna have to stay near us, I have an idea and if it works it might drain us, you'll be our only protection" Bella nodded and stood in front of us.
"Claire, I know I literally just showed you how to use magic today so if you don't think you can do this then tell me." She looked at me oddly and I laid out my plan.
She grinned "If that works that would be amazing. Do you think we can do it?" I shrugged "Only one way to find out. That Orc is not going to be affected by a lot that we can throw at it. This might end badly, but hell we all might die anyways right?" She shook her head "Nah, your wife would kill me if something happened to you."
I laughed and we locked hands. My right in her left, her right in my left.
First thing I did was I sent a feeler into her magical aura, using my Mana and using the technique I had read about online I thought I had the hang of it. Once I was able to get a good read of her Mana I made the connection, or at least tried to.
She fought against the intrusion for a brief moment, then as if opening her hand to accept a handshake I felt our Mana combine into one aura.
Still holding her right hand with my left we turned as one towards the Boss. Putting our free hands out we moved them to within an inch apart from each other. A small ball of bluish Pink energy appeared. My Mana was Blue, hers was Pink. We started pulling back just a bit and the ball grew. My Mana was decreasing at an alarming rate.
I could see the sweat on her forehead as she concentrated. When I hit 90 Mana remaining she nodded to me, then we pointed our hands at the Orc Boss. 33 Pink and Blue orbs of Force and Energy flew out from that ball and rushed straight towards the Orc Boss.
Everyone stared wide eyed, then the Orc Boss realized they were coming for him. He pulled up his shield just as they were about to hit him. Only 3 of them hit the shield, the rest of them were able to turn in enough time to get around the shield and smash into the Boss.
There were 30 small explosions that rocked the Boss Chamber, sending the Orcs and Hobgoblins sprawling. I couldn't pay any more attention to the fight as my body decided that was enough, the last thing I saw was Claire's limp form falling on top of me.
Smith was there watching me as I woke up. He nodded and held out his hand, which I gratefully took and stood up. Claire was already up and talking to Tyrone.
"That was impressive to say the least. The two of you splattered the Boss all over his throne." I looked up at the throne and cringed, the back of the throne didn't exist and there was dark green blood all over the throne itself.
"How long were we out?" Smith motioned me over to the small fire they had made "Almost an hour. How did the two of you do that, Claire couldn't explain it to us."
I nodded and told them what I saw in the other Open Rift and what I had read online. "You're lucky it worked." I nodded then saw a Blinking Notification.
New Skill Learned: Mana Manipulation - Allows you to use your Mana as well as the mana around you that is 'willing' to empower your spells. Skill level automatically boosted to Artisan. (Nice Shooting Tex)
I stared for a moment, then read it again 'Okay seriously, I need to look this up. Those snarky messages are something else. However, Mana Manipulation huh? Nice.'
I finally focused back on what was going on around me and everyone was watching me expectantly. I blushed and scratched the back of my neck nervously.
I explained to them the new skill I had gotten and even Smith was surprised. "That's actually really cool. Mage type Breakers usually have that skill, but they don't normally just learn it on their own."
I shrugged as I was handed the Boss Skill Stone.
"I mean, I know you got the Shaman one, but hell it was your idea and it saved our asses. So here ya go." I looked down, this time it was a yellow and white swirling Mana Stone. I didn't even hesitate to crush it.
Spell Acquired: Necromantic Healing - Heal targets HP for Necromancy Skill Level + Wisdom.
New Skill Learned: Necromancy - Necromancy is the art of using magic to repair or destroy flesh, be it living or dead. Can be used to heal, harm or bring the dead back to life.
My eyes bugged out of my head at that, Will caught my reaction first "Bud, what's wrong?" when I explained to everyone what just happened Will laughed "So now you're worried you'll go mad and bring an army of dead to life and kill everyone?"
I nodded, then blushed with how stupid it sounded "Hey it's a legitimate worry okay, no need to make fun of me."
We all sat there for a few more minutes before Tyrone stood up and dusted his hands off. "Alright people, let's grab their weapons and head out." We did just that and I got a second Goblin Crossbow, it was Common grade as well. I smiled as I imagined myself dual wielding crossbows with blue bolts coming from them surrounded by enemies.
Will nudged me and broke me out of my day dream before we headed back to the Rift. I chuckled to myself and held a crossbow in each hand. We looted the Kobold room as well, although the only weapon worth it was the Kobold Boss' Spear which Smith kept.
When we finally got outside it was almost dark. Looking at my phone I groaned "We were in there for 8 hours, Lynette's gonna kill me." I waved bye to everyone and Claire and I headed out with Bella waddling behind us.
When we got home Bella ran up to the front door as Claire and I put our weapons in the trunk of the car, I kept a Goblin Crossbow with me though, I was going to put it on the fridge when we got inside.
Once we were inside Lynette smiled "So how did it go?" We told her everything. She just sat there listening, looking slightly horrified "What is going on to make Rifts act like this?" she asked and we both shook our heads.
Claire was looking through her phone and grabbed the remote, turning the TV to CBNC.
"We have with us today Boris Mitasov from the Russian Embassy. Boris is the leading expert on Rifts and has a theory as to the changes that are taking place. Welcome Boris." the announcer said.
Boris was a small man, 5 feet tall, very little muscle to him, somewhere in his late 40's or early 50's and bald. He pushed his wire frame glasses up his nose and nodded "Thank you for having me." he said with a heavy Russian accent.
"As to my theory, well I will say this. I believe that the increase in Rifts is due to the changes that have gone on in our own world. The opening of Rifts, as well as many humans becoming 'System' users is contributing to this. I am not saying it is bad, no no, I am simply saying it is inevitable."
The Announcer looked at him oddly. "What do you mean inevitable?" Boris nodded again "The ambient Mana on Earth has increased in the 2 years since the First Rift opened. As the Mana on Earth increases I believe more of these Rifts will appear and open sooner. However that doesn't mean it is a bad thing. It means that we must be more active in closing the Rifts before they open by themselves.
What we are seeing is only the beginning of such changes. Nobody knows what these changes will bring, but we do know what happens if a Rift is not closed. Now our time frame is five days, but we have more Breakers now than we did a year ago. We have Law Enforcement Personnel as well as Soldiers in all Countries that have become Sys-users. We have the tools needed to contain these Rifts, we just need to be proactive about it."
Lynette sighed and changed the channel to something for the kids "This is seriously gonna suck isn't it?"
I looked at her oddly "You know that with this going on you will be getting called more right?" I chuckled "Will said that we would get called to maybe two Rifts a month before the changes. If what they said is true it might become four or five times a month. So I'm not overly worried." She nodded, then we turned as someone knocked on the door.
Bella sniffed at the door for a moment, then her tail started wagging happily, so I shrugged and opened it. There was a Pizza guy standing there.
I smiled as I took the three boxes of pizza from him and handed him a 10 dollar tip, then closed the door and brought the pizza to the table. The babies ran into the front room and we all sat eating.
Weekly Power Status
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Ranking 
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