Legacy of the Fallen (Ascend Online Book 2) Read online

  Stealth – Level 11 – 12%

  Wordplay – Level 11 – 81%

  Perception - Level 13 - 75%

  Tradeskills:

  Blacksmithing – Level 13 – 12%

  Carpentry – Level 13 – 51%

  Cartography – Level 2 – 3%

  Tailoring - Level 12 – 9% (One level gained while offline!)

  Cooking – Level 5 – 54%

  Herbalism – Level 11 – 4%

  Leatherworking – Level 13 – 77%

  Mining – Level 11 – 1%

  Leadership Skills:

  Increased Health Regeneration – Increase amount of Health Regenerated by 6. (6/10)

  Increased Mana Regeneration – Increase amount of Mana Regenerated by 5. (5/10)

  Increased Stamina Regeneration – Increase amount of Stamina Regenerated by 6. (6/10)

  Increased Movement – Increase mounted and unmounted speed by 7%. (7/10)

  Spells:

  Flare

  Light

  Blink Step

  Shocking Touch

  Lesser Shielding

  Flame Dagger

  Jump

  Racial Ability:

  Military Conditioning (Passive) – All defenses are increased by 5%, and total hit points are increased by 10%.

  Traits:

  Open Minded – Accepting of racial differences and radical ideas, you have learned to accept wisdom and the opportunity to learn no matter what form it takes, allowing you to make intuitive insights where others would give up in frustration. Grants a substantial increase in learning new skills, and the ability to learn all race locked traits, skills, crafting recipes, and abilities that are not otherwise restricted.

  Re-Forge – You have learned the basics of how to recreate a broken relic and are able to bring back some of its former glory. This skill will function across any and all Tradeskills you acquire.

  Improvisation – Your study of goblin craftsmanship has given you the insight to make adjustments to standard and learned recipes by replacing required materials with something else. E.g., Replacing metal with wood in an armor recipe will create a set of wooden armor instead of metal. The higher your level in a Tradeskill, the more changes can be made and the fewer materials they will require.

  Ætherwarped – Due to high exposure to Raw Æther, your body has undergone unpredictable changes! You have gained the following Sub-Trait(s) and Abilities as part of your condition:

  True Sight – Your eyes have been enhanced by exposure to Æther to the point where they are able to pierce through natural darkness and all facets of magic to see things as they truly are. This ability replaces Arcane Sight and can be suppressed at will. When this ability is active, the player’s eyes will visibly glow a bright blue.

  Mana Void – Your body’s hunger for Arcane Energy has become ravenous, turning your appearance gaunt as it desperately craves more and more mana in order to fuel your metabolism. For as long as you have mana, you do not require to eat or drink. However, if your mana reaches 0, your body will immediately begin to consume itself at a rate of one hit point for each second in mana deprivation state, per second, until mana is restored. All mana regeneration is permanently reduced by 100%.Mana Leech – As a result of prolonged contact with an [Annulment Sphere] your body’s hunger for mana is so powerful you are now able to leech mana from any object or creature that you come in physical contact with, regardless of intervening armor or clothing that is not specifically designed to block the flow of mana. When this ability is activated mana will be leeched at a rate of 35 mana per second, any mana leeched will be added to your current mana pool and any excess mana will be lost. This ability scales with Class Level and Intelligence.

  Familiar:

  Name: Amaranth

  Type: Ætherwarped Puma

  Level: 13

  Relationship: Fanatically Loyal

  Familiar Abilities:

  Mental Link – The magical bond linking you and your familiar has created an intimate mental link between the two of you, allowing each of you to communicate mentally between one another for a distance of up to one mile, regardless of intervening objects. Magical wards, however, will block this form of mental communication.

  Soul Bound – During the familiar bonding process, you have anchored the being’s soul directly to your own. Should the familiar be slain in your service, you will immediately suffer a 10% penalty to all attributes and skills for the next 24 hours until the familiar is reborn. Should the familiar survive your death, it does not suffer any penalties but will be compelled to travel to your place of rebirth as quickly as possible.

  Looking over my sheet carefully, I spotted the level I had gained in Tailoring while I was offline, my newly gained memories matching the skill increase with preparing the burlap canvas needed for the temporary tent. I also noted small skill increases in both Leatherworking and Blacksmithing, a result of Léandre needing my Avatar’s skills to help create rigging and fastenings to attach the canvas to the support timbers that held the entire tent aloft.

  Before closing my character sheet, I couldn’t help but glance over some of the other skills that I had learned and worked on over the last month, seeing just how much they had grown since my first play cycle, and how happy I felt to no longer be undertrained.

  I was confident with several weapons now, having taken the time to train with both axes and daggers, in addition to maintaining my sword and unarmed skills. The extra effort spent learning the new weapon styles paid off almost immediately as I managed to learn the second rank of both Power Attack and Sneak Attack while training the two skills, without having to spend any precious Class Skill Points to unlock those abilities.

  I’m so happy I lucked out on learning Unarmed Mastery too, I thought, seeing the Ability appear on my character sheet. I had learned the skill during a particularly desperate fight last week in the wolverine-infested plains to the south of Aldford, while the party and I were grinding our way towards level thirteen. We had spent most of the day clearing the vicious creatures from the plain when we accidentally walked past a burrow containing a level fifteen, Rare-ranked, Wolverine.

  I still remembered its wicked howl as the massive beast suddenly launched itself out of the burrow, killing Constantine outright and slicing one of Sierra’s arms clean off her body before Drace managed to get its attention. Everything after that was a blur of blood, terror and fur… at least until I found myself being held in the air, impaled on a set of razor sharp claws and desperately pummeling the creature’s face as I tried to keep myself from ending up in its mouth.

  Good times. I smiled to myself, remembering that the wolverine’s silver fur was drying on a tanning rack, waiting for me to gain a few more levels in Leatherworking and a supply of potent alcohol before I tried cutting and tanning the hide, then hopefully crafting it into something useful.

  Dismissing the sheet from my vision with the wave of a withered hand, I walked over to my armor, my eyes checking over the equipment that hung from the rack. I gently ran a hand over the [Blackened Iron Chain Shirt], inspecting it for any broken links or damage from the battle with the bandits. Finding nothing, I called up the item stats, which appeared in my vision.

  Blackened Iron Chain Shirt

  Slot: Chest

  Item Class: Relic

  Item Quality: Good (+15%)

  Armor: 100

  Armor Type: Light

  Strength: +3 Agility: +3

  Durability 160/160

  Under Layer: [Quilted Gambeson]

  Weight: 3.5 kg

  Favored Class: Martial

  Level: 13

  As much as I loved my old Webwood armor, this definitely provides better protection, I thought as I lifted the shirt off the rack, revealing a quilted gambeson that the armor was sitting on.

  While Re-Forging the chainmail shirt, I discovered that Ascend Online had chosen to emulate a much more realistic and in-depth armor system than I had originally assumed at first glance by all
owing players to wear special types of clothing under, or on top of their armor, via two special sub-slots called the Under Layer and the Over Layer.

  These two new slots allowed for players to further customize or enhance the armor that they wore by wearing special types of clothing that provided minor benefits across a variety of equipment slots. In my case, I had chosen to wear an arming jacket, also known as a gambeson, as an Under Layer to provide an extra layer of defense and comfort while wearing the chainmail shirt.

  As for the Over Layer. So far, I discovered that it was possible to wear a thick layer of furs, which I imagined would help prevent hypothermia from setting in while exploring colder environments, though given the rather warm weather we’d been having around Aldford of late, wearing a layer of furs on top of already sweltering armor was a great way to bring on a serious case of heatstroke.

  The only downside to this feature was that not wearing an Under Layer wasn’t a viable or comfortable option for those who wanted to wear heavier types of armor. Adding in a touch of realism, players who chose not to wear an Under Layer with heavier armor would quickly experience chafing, rashes and be generally miserable as the rough and heavy armor rubbed their skin raw.

  Luckily enough, the statistical benefits of wearing an Under Layer was attractive enough on its own that the penalties rarely came into play. Setting the chain shirt down on a nearby empty rack, I reached for my gambeson, seeing its description fill my vision as I pulled it free from the stand and slipped it over my shoulders.

  Quilted Gambeson

  Slot: Under Layer - (Chest, Arms, Shoulders)

  Item Class: Common

  Item Quality: Fine (+10%)

  Armor: 25

  Durability 120/120

  Weight: 1 kg

  Favored Class: Any

  Level: 13

  Buttoning the jacket closed, I took the time to straighten it carefully before pulling the chainmail shirt over my head. Feeling comfortable with how the armor was hanging off me, I turned back to the armor rack, and with practiced ease, equipped the rest of my armor, checking each item for damage or wear as I put it on. Carefully reading their descriptions as they flashed by my eyes.

  Blackened Iron Armguards

  Slot: Arms

  Item Class: Good (+15%)

  Item Quality: Relic

  Armor: 23

  Armor Type: Light

  Strength: +1 Agility: +1

  Durability: 90/90

  Weight: 1 kg

  Favored Class: Martial

  Level: 13

  Blackened Iron Cap

  Slot: Head

  Item Class: Good (+15%)

  Item Quality: Relic

  Armor: 34

  Armor Type: Light

  Strength: +1 Agility: +1

  Durability: 60/60

  Weight: 1 kg

  Favored Class: Martial

  Level: 13

  Blackened Iron Greaves

  Slot: Boots

  Item Class: Good (+15%)

  Item Quality: Relic

  Armor: 40

  Armor Type: Light

  Strength: +1 Agility: +1

  Durability: 80/80

  Weight: 2 kg

  Favored Class: Martial

  Level: 13

  Blackened Iron Chain Gloves

  Slot: Hands

  Item Class: Good (+15%)

  Item Quality: Relic

  Armor: 23

  Armor Type: Light

  Strength: +1 Agility: +1

  Durability: 70/70

  Weight: 1 kg

  Favored Class: Martial

  Level: 13

  Blackened Iron Chain Pants

  Slot: Legs

  Item Class: Good (+15%)

  Item Quality: Relic

  Armor: 57

  Armor Type: Light

  Strength: +1 Agility: +1

  Durability: 80/80

  Weight: 3 kg

  Favored Class: Martial

  Level: 13

  Blackened Iron Shoulder Guards

  Slot: Shoulders

  Item Class: Good (+15%)

  Item Quality: Relic

  Armor: 28

  Armor Type: Light

  Strength: +1 Agility: +1

  Durability: 80/80

  Weight: 1.5 kg

  Favored Class: Martial

  Level: 13

  Fur Mantle of Swiftness

  Slot: Back

  Item Class: Magical

  Item Quality: Good (+15%)

  Armor: 19

  Agility: +4

  Durability: 80/80

  Base Material: Fur

  Weight: 1 kg

  Favored Class: Any Martial

  Level: 12

  With each piece of armor I put on, I felt my strength and agility improve, the minor bonuses of each item adding up.

  Without a doubt, I probably have the best all-around set of armor in the Town. I couldn’t help but smile with pride as I inspected my gear. Working from the seemingly endless pile of broken chainmail scraps and armor fragments we’d recovered from the Tower, I’d managed to cobble together a set of armor for myself, my friends, and Freya’s group, giving all of us a rather substantial advantage over the other players in Aldford.

  Which we thankfully haven’t been forced to show, I thought happily, looking back on the last few weeks. All the Players have been eager to help out and carry their own weight, plus the memory of Graves is still reasonably fresh in everyone’s mind, so no one has tried to make a scene.

  I couldn’t help but check over my Attributes one more time, after having equipped all of my gear. I always enjoyed seeing the contrast between my regular unarmored self and my fully equipped self.

  Attributes:

  Strength: 53 (64)

  Agility: 43 (58)

  Constitution: 40

  Intelligence: 48

  Willpower: 18

  Almost two levels worth of stats added to both strength and agility, just from gear alone. I waved a hand to dismiss the character sheet information from my vision and turned back towards the forge, intent on cleaning up my mess before setting out for the day. That’s almost double what my old Webwood Striker armor set gave. Though, in fairness, this armor set is a tier higher in rarity in addition to being three levels hig- oh! That reminds me. I need to check on Razor!

  Pulling my trusty blade from its sheath, my heart sank as I realized that it had seen better days. The bronze metal no longer carried its old bright sheen, and numerous battle scars now adorned the length of the sword. I had done my best to repair the weapon, smoothing out chips and completely replacing the hilt and wrapping, but it was a losing battle at best. As much as I hated to admit it, it was only a matter of time before I was forced to retire Razor, in favor of a more durable weapon. Unfortunately, the core of the blade was simply too worn and damaged for me to melt down the blade and try Re-Forging it for a second time.