Fate Weaver’s Legacy

#086 – Mine now!

My strategy was simple.

Gun and shield.

The first time I’d faced the archer, I could only try to dodge and was too slow to do so. But now I had a shield which hopefully could block her shots. Although if they were armor-piercing as so many people in chat had theorized, I would still have to do my best to dodge.

As for my offense, I would use my gun self’s crystal shower setting.

Why?

Because this enemy was nimble, but ultimately squishy. It was easy for her to dodge one powerful shot, but much harder to dodge hundreds of little crystals. If enough of them hit, it would either cripple her enough to easily take down or just finish her off outright.

That was the idea anyway.

Sure, I wanted to preserve Ether and this strategy would use a bit of it, but it was better than risking getting poisoned again.

It was a good plan, though. I was fairly confident that I would at least fare better than my very first attempt. And if not, I could always go with the scorched-earth strat.

Did that mean that I wasn’t afraid? Hell no. I was more anxious than if I was waiting for a job interview after realizing that I hadn’t brushed my teeth.n/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om

It was so strange, too. I’d nearly died so many times already in this world, but for some reason, the stupid archer was the one that got to me the most. Probably because of the way I would have died. Stupid poison.

I was stalling.

“Okay, here goes nothing…”

I grabbed the door’s handle and opened it, revealing the familiar porch and grassy yard that haunted my nightmares.

I gripped my gun and shield tighter, stepped in, and immediately began scanning the bushes. This time, I didn’t step closer to the bushes and instead walked sideways away from the door, hoping that would be enough to activate the encounter.

It was.

A few steps later, the door closed itself and clicked and at the same time, the bushes rustled and I quickly spotted movement in them.

I tensed up and waited for the inevitable arrow to fly out. The moment it did, I lifted up my shield and dodged to the side, avoiding the arrow completely. Immediately after that, I raised my gun, and fired a shower of crystal at the emerging green-haired figure with bark-like skin.

She threw herself to the side to dodge my barrage, but a few shards still wedged themselves into her body. I didn’t give her any room to recover and shot again.

With not enough time to dodge, she instead raised her arm in front of herself and huddled behind it. To my surprise, the arm began to grow green gemstones – emeralds? – as some kind of armor, similar to what she had done with arrows in the past.

Several crystal shards still hit her bark, but a lot of them also buried themselves into the emerald.

That was fine by me.

If that stifled her ability to shoot arrows at me, that was only good news.

I dashed forward and fired off another barrage. As I did that, she pulled out an arrow with her free hand and coated it with emerald, turning it into a melee weapon. She then used it in combination with her coated arm to block or deflect as much of my barrage as possible.

She was crafty, that was for sure…

Another shot. She protected herself from most of it again, but the chip damage was settling in. My strategy was working.

That was when she hurled the emerald dagger she had been defending herself with, making me stop my advance to barely dodge the surprise attack. It gave her just enough time to produce another arrow, nock it into the bow, and fire.

Unfortunately, my earlier dodge left me in a terrible spot to dodge again and I was forced to raise my shield and hope to the Fate Weaver that it was good enough to block the arrow.

It was not good enough to block the arrow.

The damn armor-piercing arrow pierced through the shield and nearly stabbed me, but luckily the shield at least managed to cancel enough of its momentum that it still protected me, even if I now had an arrowhead sticking out of my shield uncomfortably close to my hand where I held it.

She was already pulling out another arrow, but I didn’t give her the chance and shot her again. She quickly turned the arrow into another dagger and continued to block.

This was getting a little annoying, but I had no reason to change up my strategy. Sure, it cost Ether to constantly shoot those barrages, but at least I was slowly whittling her down.

Most people in chat were in agreement that as long as I didn’t let her fire any more arrows, it should be my win.

She threw the dagger again, but since I was more careful with my advance and was expecting it, I easily dodged without letting up with my shots this time.

She continued to coat more and more of her body with emerald in a desperate attempt to shield herself, but it wasn’t enough anymore. Two more easily-dodged dagger throws from her and five more shots from me and she finally collapsed, looking like a pin cushion.

I wanted nothing more than to rush forward and finish her off, but didn’t drop my guard since so many people in chat warned me that she could be faking it.

I approached, my gun trained at her.

She wasn’t moving, but she also wasn’t dissipating into smoke.

JamieWasTaken3: yoink her skills

My eyebrow twitched.

I was really, really tempted to do that. I didn’t know what exactly her skills were, but if I were to guess, it was the poison, the armor-piercing ability, and the emerald coating. Any one of them would be a huge boon to have.

She looked completely defenseless, too…

But if using Skill Snatch left me braindead and it turned out that she was only pretending, I was as good as dead.

No need to risk anything.

SunOfABeach: cut off her arms
SunOfABeach: then skill steal

I grimaced.

Why was I actually contemplating being even more brutal than last time?

Dammit. Stupid chat. It hadn’t changed from the devil on my shoulder at all!

My mind was a whirl as I got closer. I watched her prone body like a hawk. Ready for the tiniest of twitches.

She never moved as I got into striking distance, still wary.

If she was really dead, then why hadn’t she disappeared into smoke like usual? She had to be faking.

Or maybe she was unconscious? Could dungeon monsters fall unconscious without despawning?

I kicked her bow away from her, just in case, but she still just laid there, apparently defeated.

I swallowed.

This could still have been a trap. She could have had another skill to kill me if I got too close. But was a dungeon monster really that smart? Could I even consider her a dungeon monster with what I’d seen of her so far? Her actions felt too human in so many ways.

…

I wanted one of her skills. The temptation was too big. But it was risky and I knew it.

Chat knew it too, and some of them proceeded to give me the best advice to make this as safe as possible while others urged me to hurry the heck up before she despawned if I was going to do any skill stealing.

“...Fine. Let’s see what I get,” I murmured.

Just in case she was waiting to catch me off-guard, I needed to move quickly.

I dashed forward and pinned her prone body under me while putting my gun self away and summoning my key sword to put it to her throat.

But before I could, her left hand whipped out at me and grabbed my wrist, stopping my sword in its tracks.

“Wha–”

Almost immediately, I felt myself grow noticeably weaker as my mind began to cloud. I didn’t hesitate to try tearing myself away from her with a yell, but her grip was too strong.

I dropped my shield and then summoned the key sword from my right hand to my left hand, intending to finish her off. But then she grabbed my other wrist, quick like a bullet.

“Shi– You!”

I couldn’t shake her off and I was only getting weaker from whatever the hell she was doing. At the same time, I could see the wounds on her bark-like skin closing.

She had lifestealing touch as well?! What the hell?!

I kicked her and she staggered, but still didn’t let go of me.

Dammit!

With not many options left, I went ahead and activated Skill Snatch.

Immediately, I felt the haze in my brain intensify as I was offered three choices.

One gave me the impression of squishing space, another had the feeling of converting physical energy into objects with the molecular structure of a lattice, and the last one was something about draining energies.

The last one was currently pulsing, as if active.

I snatched it.

I felt the pressure inside my head intensify for a moment, but then it abruptly stopped as something shifted.

The archer staggered but somehow still kept a grip on me.

Before she could recover, I felt for the new mental switch and activated it.

As soon as I did, I felt the Ether and Intra flow from her coarse fingers and back into me, reenergizing me.

She recoiled almost immediately, but now it was my turn to grab her and drain her dry. She flailed her hands around in clear panic and managed to cut me with her fingers – the armor-piercing skill? – but I rammed into her, knocked her over, and somehow managed to pin her arms.

I put my knees on her throat and chest to pin her further and keep away from her flailing legs and kept draining her until I felt clear headed again as her flailing grew weaker and weaker.

Eventually, she stopped moving and then vanished into smoke, leaving only a chest behind.

I sat there, staring at the chest laying in front of me in the spot where I'd been basically choking her.

lifeyO: your into strangling innocent people huh?

I twitched and grit my teeth before sending a DM to that asshole.

AotoNana: Shut up!
AotoNana: I was defending myself!

lifeyO: were you?
lifeyO: you could have just finished her off
lifeyO: but you decided to torture her
lifeyO: you must enjoy that kind of thing
AotoNana: I don’t!
lifeyO: im glad you arent on earth

I banned them.

…

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.

Stupid jerks in chat…

I was used to this kind of nonsense. More or less. But them making me out to be some kind of hobbyist murderer just…

I sighed.

Nothing.

I would just talk about it with Jane later.

“Okay… Chat… That didn’t need to be that close, dammit.” Another sigh. “Anyway. I ended up stealing her poison skill… which actually isn’t really a poison skill from what I can tell. Hold on, let me see…”

Since I didn’t have Appraisal to look at the ring, I instead opened my full status screen and stopped to look at all the innate skills I had accumulated. Maybe that was why you only had three skill slots at first? Because you could easily get innate skills?

Anyway…

Name: Nana Aoto
Title: Immolator
Race: Human
Skill Points: 5

Racial skill:
Streamer

Innate skills:
Quick Fetch (Golden gate key)
Minor Hydrokinesis (Gift of the Weeping Phoenix)
Featherfall (Gift of the Weeping Phoenix)
Aquaport (Gift of the Weeping Phoenix)
Combination Breath (Dragon Blaster)
Immolate (Immolator)
Skill Snatch (Sealed ring of the larcenous demon queen)
Essence Sap (imitation) (Sealed ring of the larcenous demon queen)

Other skills(3/3):
Phoenix Blessing [CURSED] [FREE] [TEMPORARY]
Heat Vision
Soulbound Item
Armsmaster

“...Hmm. Yeah, here. Essence Sap. An imitation, actually. Huh. Can I…? Here we go.”

[INNATE] skill: Essence Sap (imitation) – Slowly drain Ether and Intra of any target you touch to recover your own.

Upgrade: Poison Touch
Upgrade: Essence Drain
Upgrade: Spore Sap

I blinked.

“Oh. Upgrades. Right, makes sense. Wait, poison touch. So, it is poison!”

I quickly opened up descriptions of all the sub-skills.

Poison Touch - Essence Sap leaves a lasting drain on the target even when you aren’t touching them anymore. You won’t recover any Ether or Intra sapped this way.
Essence Drain - Essence Sap works much faster and saps Tempor as well. Does not recover your Tempor.
Spore Sap - Use a variable amount of Tempor to use Essence Sap through any object you touch. Tempor used depends on the size of the object and your distance from it.

My eyes went wide.

“Wait, what? But how did… Are you telling me she used both Poison Touch and Spore Sap on arrows the first time around? And the armor-piercing skills on top of that?! That’s cheating! What the heck?!”

I said that, but as a gamer, I had to admire her build.

Stay at range, dodge attacks with mobility, and whittle enemies away with poison, using the armor-piercing skill to make sure the poison actually landed.

I let out a sigh and looked at the chest sitting right in front of me.

I shrugged and casually put my hand on top of it.

“Get poisoned. Checkmate, mimic,” I declared.

JamieWasTaken3: utterly destroyed
JamieWasTaken3: gg mimic
trelipideliberitation: never stood a chance

I actually couldn’t even activate that skill on the chest, but chat didn’t need to know that.

“Anyway, let’s see what I get from this clusterfff…feeerromagnetic thing.”

FouxMoux: why are you even trying to avoid swearing?

I sniffed as I opened the chest.

“I’m not gonna swear! I’m trying to keep my stream family friendly!”

Inside the chest was a log that was shaped suspiciously like a severed arm of the archer. It even had sap leaking out of it like blood.

I slammed the chest closed again.

FouxMoux: but you swear anyway
FouxMoux: during fights and stuff
JamieWasTaken3: family friendly loot moment

Why was I still trying so hard not to swear? Maybe because it reminded me of being a normal streamer. Of when my biggest worries were figuring out another silly word that started with ‘F’ that I could use.

My stream had long stopped being family friendly. What with the constant violence, several near-death experiences, and me just blurting out swears in tense situations anyway.

I sighed and then shrugged.

“It keeps me sane,” I truthfully said. “Or saner, I guess. I’m not gonna let this world destroy my humanity, okay? And I have to do… something that reminds me of my old life, at least. To keep my sanity. So why not continue my endless quest to find replacement words for the word ‘fuck’?”

JamieWasTaken3: omg she swore
trelipideliberitation: whoa breaking character
RetconRanger: I like that you are doing that.
RetconRanger: Don’t let that world break you.

I cracked a tiny smile.

“I mean, for the word ‘fog’! Yeah! You guys must have heard wrong!” I said with a smirk as I opened the chest again and tossed the wooden arm into my backpack without looking at it.

“Anyway!” I stood up as the chest vanished. “We did it, chat! And I still feel full of energy thanks to that refill! We’re good to keep going!”

I was a little low on Intra because of how expensive the Skill Snatch was and my Tempor reserves were probably also pretty low, but other than that, I was good. Good Ether reserves and no injuries, thanks to me draining her.

I grabbed my shield from the ground and eyed the arrow rammed through it that hadn’t disappeared. Then I shrugged, pulled it out with some minor difficulty and put both the arrow and the shield into my backpack.

“New stuff! Finally! Feels like I’ve been stuck on this one for way too long. Time to face the fourth boss of this place!”

With a bit of determination, but mostly trepidation, I turned around and walked to the door, steeling myself for my next opponent.

I grabbed the handle, took one last breath, and then opened it.