Apocalypse Redux

Chapter 59: Skalli

“Desert Amphitere, Agility somewhere in the forties, Strength and Fortitude in the thirties, Perception somewhere above fifty, Magic Power and Regen practically nonexistent. Primary weapon is a secondary tongue with a pointed spike at the end that can pierce magically reinforced concrete. No generated loot, but the sharpened tongue is removed upon death and floats before the person who dealt the final blow like all other Event loot.” Isaac slumped and let himself fall on his ass, carelessly tossing the pointy, razor-sharp bone spur into the corner with all the other stuff they’d gained that wasn’t particularly valuable or fragile. Well, he made sure no one ended up skewered, but that was about the extent of his caution.

“And now we’re done.” he sighed “Every creature from Tier 1 to 4 as well as all Tier 5 but one fully analyzed, including Stats, loot, abilities and weaknesses, all available in an understandable format. Finally.”

The fights themselves hadn’t been that bad, but constantly doing so, while paying full attention to every little move their foe made, all with precisely zero foreknowledge about its capabilities … that had worn even on Isaac. He was no stranger to summoning and fighting for hours on end, but that usually included some downtime while his mana recovered. That, or he was simply going through the motions while he killed things summoned by other people to level them up in turn, but that was pretty easy too. Just doing the same motion over and over again.

But here, they were cycling out the summoner and whomever was in charge of crowd control to maximize the use of their mana regeneration and he had to pay attention to all the monsters instead of being able to effectively switch his brain of while he did the same thing over and over again.

The only reason no one had gotten seriously hurt was that they outpowered the monsters by a significant degree. Raul, Amy and Patrick all had a vast library of copied [Skill] that could exploit any possible elemental weakness, Karl could not only twist the concrete that surrounded the monsters on all directions but also fix any damage the room took, so they didn’t have to hold back. Then there was Isaac, with a blade that could crack practically any defense.

With a lineup like that, the nutty [Alchemist] that had come back with Patrick and Professor Bishop with his lifetime of hunting experience and the high levelled [Skills] related to it hadn’t even had much of an impact.

“I suppose the real question is if we continue to, say, Skalli?” Bishop asked “What is that thing, anyway?”

“It’s a wolf from Norse Mythology. In some versions, it’s the one who eats the sun, in others, that’s Fenrir. Point is, according to myth and legend, this thing is meant to be apocalyptically powerful.” Isaac responded “It’s weird that it’s only Tier 5 despite all that, that’s for sure.”

“It’s summoning cost is only 250, that’s the minimum for Tier 5, right?” Bishop asked.

“Assuming that summoning cost is a measure of danger level would be dangerous even if the [System] wasn’t created with ill intent.” Patrick argued.

“And making those kinds of assumptions with regards to the [System] would be presumptuous.” Chandler threw in, not even bothering to raise his head from where he was examining some monster’s insides “It’s done plenty of good and the bad it’s brought can all be traced back to it being poorly handled. I’m not going to deny that it’s incredibly dangerous and the ‘evil [System]’ idea does have some merit, but let’s not assign evil intentions without proof.”

“But assuming something is safe for lack of proof that it isn’t is a fast way to the grave.” Bishop said sternly.

“The thing is, if it were that easy to lay a trap, humanity would already be extinct.” Bailey corrected “If it were possible to summon a monster that strong with barely any mana, then we’d all already be neck deep in dragons, sea serpents and krakens. In all situations we’ve seen, there’s a correlation between summoning cost and power, there has to be a reason for that. Assuming the evil [System] hypothesis is one hundred percent correct, wouldn’t we be able to summon dragons for no cost and the first starry eyed dreamer to called upon one, we’d all be dead by now. There’d be no reason to put a single trap into the summoning system if it were possible to turn the entire [System] into a trap.”

“So, just assume that everything is safe? That seems overly risky.” Raul muttered.

“No, but true safety is an illusion anyway.” Bishop scoffed “We’ll be as careful as the situation warrants it, but assigning attributes such as being a trap to monsters at a whim isn’t productive.”

“It’s not random, though. The name indicates its strength is at an apocalyptic level, even if its mana cost indicates otherwise. But the correlation between mana and power is clear. This thing is going to be Tier 5 and slightly more powerful than normal because it’s an Event monster, but it should still be beatable.” Isaac threw in his two cents. He’d normally have been a hell of a lot more careful, but he knew the correlation was indeed true and that breaking the truisms from the other timeline wasn’t possible even in this one.

The mana spent to summon a monster was actually what summoned/created the monster, no one had been precisely sure which it was, but despite that, the mana used was needed. You could not get an apocalypse level enemy for 250 mana. Sure, there were some, like all those bloody Space Elementals that were a supremely bad matchup for basically everyone and therefore quite powerful, but those were the exception. And even they’d sacrificed in exchange for their power. They were utterly immobile, only had a single ability, and if that ability hadn’t been so incredibly versatile as to be useful for offense, defense and general utility, they’d have been well and truly screwed. Overall, there was a little wiggle room to the relation between summoning cost and power, but the variations shown in this Event were just about the full extent of that.

Meanwhile, fighting an unknown monster in the mid-Tier 5 range was something he’d have been willing to try on his own at this point, never mind with all these people here. Sure, Chandler probably shouldn’t be here for this, but everyone else would be able to hold their own.

And if the wolf didn’t get summoned here and now, he’d probably be doing so later, on his own, but the question at hand wasn’t what he was willing to do, it was what everyone else was willing to do.

“You’ve got the most experience with Tier 5 monsters, what do you think?” Bailey asked, looking straight at Isaac.

“They’re dangerous on a fundamental Level, and have at least one kind of extreme standout ability. High toughness, speed, power, regeneration, and so on. Nasty, but this thing would be at the lower end of Tier 5 given the mana cost, at least outside of the Event. Given that it is a part of the Event, it’ll be a bit stronger, but not extraordinarily dangerous. I reached the Level the Los Angeles Stormheart Gestalt had earlier tonight, which has been the single highest Level monster to date. We can definitely beat it, the question is how many people will end up dead in the process.” he replied.

“I think this is definitely going to have to be a longer discussion.” Bailey loudly announced “Let’s all take five minutes to relax and recover, check the news and then come back to this.”

The group split apart after that, some heading upstairs to go grab something from the gas station five minutes from here, Bailey went right back to calling people on his phone and Raul had the Dwarf Dragon egg lying the palm of his hand, infusing mana into it in the attempt it would hatch.

Isaac just continued to lie there, relaxing and listening to everything that was going on, mostly Amy and Patrick, who were busily checking the news. Campus Wi-Fi didn’t reach down here and you could only check all the various news sites so fast, so they’d gotten creative.

A dozen university laptops had been set up in the closest building and each showed a different news site, with some kind of macro automatically refreshing them every five minutes. That way, all it took to check what was going was one of the three [System Researchers] to cast [Scry] and see a quick overview. If anything required an actual response, someone would go up and do so, otherwise, they could continue as they’d been for the last few hours. Then, every half an hour, Bailey would upload a brief overview of what they’d found out about the monsters, though there was a massive ‘these monsters are more powerful than their tier would indicate, so be fucking careful’ warning at the beginning of the page.

Of course, there wasn’t much information about the loot just yet, that would posted when they’d actually discussed it. Right now, all that particular page on the university website held were a bunch of ‘name, what it looks like, what its stats are like, why it’s really frickin dangerous and should not be summoned’ entries. Still, if the news were any indication, it seemed to be working.

Sure, there were people summoning the monsters and there had been a whole string of nasty incidents that could be directly blamed on the events, but far less than anyone had expected there to be. The promise of other people risking their lives to uncover the secrets of the Event monsters, people who would be done in a few short hours, was enough to stay the hand of most levelheaded people.

People willing to risk it all to be the first to summon a particular Event monster were unlikely to reach the heights needed to summon the truly dangerous crap, thankfully.

Of course, the impressive research progress had resulted in intense media scrutiny and people were camped out right outside their lab … their old lab. They were currently in the bowels of a construction site, well clear of that place. And since everyone here had passable night vision, there were no visible lights up top, and there was a construction fence around the place anyway.

And when people had inevitably started assuming that they were full of crap because no one was available for a comment, Bailey had sprinted over there, very politely told them to buzz off because he was busy and left in a completely different direction. He was perfectly able to move faster than normal, or even slightly superhuman people would be able to track. Raw stats alone helped, but throwing in the basic enhancements the professor had, his speed was downright blazing.

Then, a new conversation began, one that really interested him. With another sigh, Isaac pushed himself to his feet and sauntered over. Playing tank for literal hours on end, with maybe sixty seconds between each fight, had worn him down mentally, but he was perfectly fine physically.

“Here’s the thing: we need to put this information out there to satisfy people’s need to know what these things look like without having to summon them on their own, but we don’t want to encourage them to try and go for loot belonging to monsters that they aren’t ready to fight yet. I don’t suppose you two have any ideas?” Bailey asked the other two professors.

“I’m guessing simply leaving out the loot is not an option? It would make us look manipulative in the long run, but it might save lives in the short term.” Bishop suggested, prompting Chandler to vehemently shake his head.

“You need openness. True openness about everything would be problematic, that is correct, but even the mere appearance of it will make you appear more trustworthy. And past that, it’s simple. Overstate the danger, understate the value of the loot, then discuss each separately once the Event is over and there is little danger of causing people to mass summon dangerous creatures.”

“And how exactly is an obvious manipulation going to help things?” Bishop grumbled “Keeping mum might look bad, but actual Machiavellian tactics are going to make us look a hell of a lot worse.”

“Simple. Most people won’t see through it and take it at face value. Those that see through it should also be the ones smart enough to obey the warning anyway. There will never be a one hundred percent effective solution to problems like this one, but ones that effectively warn off almost everyone are good enough.” Chandler rolled his eyes “I’ve seen it time and time again. People not reading far enough to get to the danger warning, or forgetting all about that pesky little warning note in the beginning once they read about the good stuff.

“There’s a pretty simple way to deal with this. We bracket the juicy information in warnings, start off with one, and because the final argument is the one that sticks in the reader’s mind the best, end off with one.

“But at the end of the day, people who understand enough to call us out on how we phrase it will also understand why we’re doing it. And at the end of the day, regardless of what we do, there will be numerous negative examples to prove our point., all over the globe.”

“I still think doing this will damage our credibility in the long run.” Bailey insisted, his internal turmoil clear in his voice. He wanted to do what scientist had done since time immemorial, uncovering the secrets of the universe and publishing them, for fame, fortune, or just for the hell of it. But this was a situation where doing so could do serious harm.

“As long as all the information we have is actually included, it won’t. Warn people, give them information while sneaking in other warnings, tell them about the loot alongside the danger posed by the monster that provides it, then finish it off with a dire warning that references as many public disasters linked to the matter at hand as are easily findable. There are some examples of people doing things like that in the past, here, I’ll show you some.” Chandler said, pulling out his phone and typing in something.

It was at this point that Isaac realized he may have had a bit of a blind spot. He’d been focusing too much on people who’d be famous in the future, people who he one hundred percent knew were able to adapt to the new reality and had, at the very least, the potential to work with the [System]. After all, that was what had prompted him to seek out Bailey and start with.

But these people weren’t famous yet and had a limited amount of influence as a consequence and there were countless people who either had or would achieve great things without reaching the level of fame where everyone had heard of them. Isaac had basically learned everything there was to learn about the [System], but that didn’t mean he knew who’d discovered those things. Only truly prolific researchers, like Bailey, were known to him.

And then there were people from the previous generation of academics, or even the ones before that who were in a position to help him, yet he’d truly never heard of them. Much like most people, in his first life, Isaac hadn’t known about many scientists other than the truly famous ones. Pasteur, Curie, Einstein, Tesla, Newton, Mendel, and so on.

He really needed to start looking for other people who were in a position to help, but it would be difficult. There were a metric fuckton of academics on the world with varying levels of fame and influence, and he needed to somehow find the exact ones who could help the best.

Still, even with all the things that had changed from the original timeline, it would be just about time to start enacting some of his other plans. Plenty of summoners were starting to reach the level where they could actually fight Tier 5 monsters and the few times people had tried to go for Tier 6, they’d gotten brutally slapped down and the race for next Tier had slowed down significantly. And given the sheer breadth of Levels that Tier encompassed, it would take years before people tried to go for, gods forbid, Tier 7.

That would give them all a crucial chance to slow down a little, no longer forced to madly sprint to keep up with the most powerful summoners so they could research the same monsters that would become catastrophes if unleashed, go for some more in depth research into each and every monster, start to figure out how some of the non-monster mechanics of the summoning system worked, and so on, and so forth.

And for him personally, that meant he could travel the world. Not for pleasure, but to make connections and collect some research data in person. It was research he hadn’t bothered trying to convince Bailey to do because he’d known other people had been doing it this early in the other timeline and confirmed it via the internet.

Dungeons in particular were an incredibly powerful resource for levelling and gaining resources, but there was no way in hell to convince people to create them in the west, given that they created monsters completely independent from any human intervention. Other places, where the concept already somewhat existed in popular culture, had made them the sort-of primary method of gaining XP. Making the right connections there, perhaps convincing the local researchers to give him some specific pieces of research, he should be able to create some here as well.

Regardless, that was a matter for the future. Right now, they still needed to deal with this blasted Event.

People were trickling back in and pretty soon, everyone was back.

“So, what has everyone decided on, should we summon the last monster of Tier 5 despite the danger its name indicates?” Bailey asked.

“The question is if you youngster can manage to beat it. If you think so, then you should go for it. These creatures are a wealth of resources and new avenues of research even if they don’t generate additional resources upon death. Take the Uraeus venom, for example, it can transform magic, upgrade soulbound equipment and is an incredibly powerful alchemical reagent. Image how much we’d be kicking ourselves if we hadn’t summoned those serpents and discovered how useful it was after the Event had already ended. Any of these creatures could hold something of equivalent usefulness.” Chandler replied.

“Now, I will not be fighting alongside you because, quite frankly, I am more likely to get into your way then help, so I have no right to demand you risk your lives for this, but it is something that should be considered as you make your decision.”

“I, for one, think we should go for it. We’ve only got so long to fight with this thing and like Professor Chandler said, we could regret not fighting this thing for the rest of our live.” Bishop threw in.

“And if we do summon it and it turns out to have been a mistake, we won’t have the rest of our lives to regret it.” Patrick stated bluntly, earning himself a dirty glare from Bishop.

Then, he shrugged.

“Just figured someone should keep the potential negative consequences in mind. But my vote is also to summon it.”

“I agree that we should also summon it, but here’s something we need to keep in mind: everyone on Bailey’s team can phase out through walls and escape with ease, Professors Chandler and Bishop can’t. So they should stay near the doors, with the key, so if things go wrong, they can get out and lock the monster in here.” Amy suggested.

“And how to we deal with the monster, then?” Isaac asked “Sure, this place is tough enough to contain a Tier 5 monster for a while, but not forever.”

“Magically infused hardwood reduces to slivers, coated in Starvenom, wrapped around some kind of combustion device. Phase it through the wall and wait for the explosion, then follow it up with a slightly opened oxygen tank to fan the flames and supercharge the venom. As long as this ‘Skalli’ has some kind of ordinary, organic physiology, this should kill it, it might just require several tries.” Chandler mentioned nonchalantly. Clearly, he’d already thought about how to weaponize his new tricks.

“Why don’t we just do that, then?” Bishop asked “As much as I’d like to fight this thing, if there’s a way to deal with it safely, we should do that to see what it actually drops.”

“It would likely count as an environmental hazard, so if it dies to it, it won’t drop anything.” Raul explained “We’ve also discovered that completely safe methods of taking down monsters will give no XP and destroy any Aspects that might be held in their bodies, I sincerely doubt that we’d get Event loot when we don’t get anything else.”

“I guess that’s it then? Professor Chandler prepares everything needed for that emergency measure while the rest of us come up with a plan. Unless you object, Isaac?” Bailey summed up the discussion thus far.

“Nah, I’m fine.” Isaac shook his head “Let’s get planning, shall we?”

It took a full twenty minutes, but eventually, they were all satisfied with the plan.

“Alright, summoning Skalli.” Isaac announced, standing right in front of a brightly glowing summoning circle. Bailey stood two meters behind him and slightly off to the side, having fully transformed his body for the first time.

The professor stood a full three meters tall, still humanoid, but no one would ever mistake him for actually being a human, not anymore. His internal modifications were significant enough, his entire skeleton having basically become rubber and his organs had been segmented and toughened while also more able to shift past each other, making him effectively invulnerable to crushing blows. Blood and bone marrow had become that of a Hydra, granting him the same regeneration as the serpent monster while a little mechanism borrowed from the Horned Lizard let him launch the toxic liquid at range.

Bone scales that had been outright stolen off Isaac’s ultimate form covered the entire thing, interlocked with metal threads copied off a metal slime the same way rebar strengthened modern buildings.

And then, there were the flaming claws taken off a Jungle King, the original having been a gift from Isaac.

All in all, his Level was only 17 so his Stats weren’t that high, but unless the monster was Level 24 or something, Bailey might even be able to take it on his own. It wouldn’t be guaranteed win by any means, but he was still damn strong.

Karl, Amy, Raul and Patrick had spread out, each ready to rain fire and brimstone on the monster while the two other professors were waiting by the door, ready to run and lock the door behind them, should worse come to worst.

And then, the wolf arrived. Its shoulders were three meters above the ground, the head rising even higher. Its fur was black as night and its eyes were even darker, seeming to suck in the light to the point where it was visible even against the darkness that surrounded it.

It roared and lunged, only to be met with a salvo of devastating spellfire. Freezing blasts, lighting bolts, streams of fire weirdly reminiscent of the venom of a Uraeus serpent. The wolf howled even as it continued to charge, slowed slightly by the attacks, sprinting past Isaac to quickly for him to block it with his body, aiming right for Patrick.

Isaac just gave it a feral grin and stuck out his arm, he could reach that far. It chomped down, drawing blood … and let go a moment later. [Tools of Terror] let him copy the natural weapons belonging to the monsters whose Aspects he’d slotted, and incredibly toxic blood counted to that purpose.

It staggered briefly, working to try and break down the toxin with its power, a moment that Bailey took to touch Isaac’s shoulder and heal the injury. Streams of fire and fury hammered into it while the ground began to liquefy to try and trap it.

A projected [Far Strike] slashed several times across its flank and Skalli lunged, trying to take his hand off at the wrist, but Isaac just tossed the blade down its gullet and yanked back his hand. The danger seemingly over, it whirled again and charged at the [Mage] group, only to be met with three overlapping barriers, which it promptly crashed into, stopped cold.

Instead of futilely scratching against it, Skalli simply opened its jaws wider than should be possible, and then a vantablack orb manifested right there, obliterating any parts of the barrier it touched, followed by it sucking in more and more of it even further away. Meanwhile, any attack spells from the front began to distort and fly towards it, disappearing on contact.

And then, the wolf stumbled, whined in pain, smoke trailing from its insides and flowing into the orb, and turned back to glance at Isaac. He just stood there, hand open and outstretched towards it.

The stupid thing had swallowed a soulbound weapon. [To Me] was a basic ability belonging to the weapon itself that recalled the weapon back into Isaac’s hand in a straight line. If the guts of a one ton wolf happened to be in the way, oh well, they’d just have to end up getting chopped in half, didn’t they? Oh, and Isaac had also activated the brand new [Starfang] ability, lighting it on fire with a venomous fire that both burned and poisoned its flesh.

Sadly, the wolf wasn’t completely stupid. It whirled, lining up itself so a second later, a blood, gore, and other things he didn’t even want to imagine-covered Old Reliable slapped into Isaac’s hand, still on fire. It was looking slightly warped, but despite all appearances, that thing in its mouth wasn’t a true singularity.

Skalli tried to jump towards him but the leap ended up rather anemic, as it had to first pull itself out of the concrete, which was now far closer to quicksand than anything else.

More and more spells burned through it, electricity causing spells to make its muscles spasm, ice freezing flesh solid, venom necrotizing flesh. The wolf collapsed a moment later, but no kill notification showed up.

Bailey held up a hand and the barrage stopped, his [Skills] letting him tell that the monster was practically already dead, now all they were doing was tearing up valuable materials.

Isaac stepped forward, ready to jump back at a moment’s notice, blade elongating back into its Kriegsmesser form. He lunged, blade glowing orange, and drove it through the skull up to the hilt.

As the wolf stiffened with finality, a beautiful cloak appeared before Isaac. It was a wolf pelt cloak, albeit in the grey color one normally associated with wolves, the fur on top of the head still attached to go on top of the wearer’s head, strongly resembling what a druid might wear in a work of fantasy. It looked cool as hell, though it would make the wearer give off some pretty strong cosplay vibes.

Isaac made the [System Window] visible to everyone.

Cloak of the Ulfhednar

This is a cloak made from the hide of a mystical wolf, empowering the wearer with the fury of that same wolf.

While wearing this cloak, the wearer gains +10 to Perception, +5 to Strength and Agility. It can also bank 100 points of mana that may only be used for transformation Skills.

Earning 5,000 XP while wearing this cloak will make it soulbound (so long as the user does not already have a piece of soulbound equipment, each user may only have one piece of soulbound equipment at a time) and unlock the Ulfhednar (minimum rare for the first Evolution, minimum epic for second Evolution, rarity will be altered and upgraded based on the user’s Class, Skill Level, Aspects and achievements) Class at the next Evolution.

For 100 mana, the form of this cloak may be changed, once unless it is soulbound. If soulbound, it may be repeatedly altered.

“What on Earth is an Ulfhednar?” Chandler asked.

Tossing the cloak over to Bailey, Isaac began to explain.

“I’m sure everyone is familiar with what a berserker is, right? A powerful warrior that fights with the fury of a rabid animal, at least that’s the modern interpretation of it. Historically though, they fought with the fury of bears, or so they said, and the name itself roughly translates to ‘bear-shirt’. An Ulfhednar is the wolf equivalent, though few people other than mythology nerds like myself know it.”

“Whatever it is, the stats on that thing are amazing.” Raul commented.

“Should we try to get one for everyone?” Bishop asked. They’d figured out a while ago that some loot that directly came from the monster’s body, like the Uraeus Venom, dropped with every kill while loot that had to be generated, like the Dwarf Dragon eggs, would only drop the first time a given person summoned the monster. That being said, Isaac suspected things had been set up like that to entice people to summon one of each monster for the guaranteed loot, and that guarantee would be dropped eventually, so everyone would desperately summon to get the same bling the ‘early birds’ had earned. It would be an easy way to counter the researchers trying to diffuse the danger posed by the Event.

But for now, that still meant that they should be able to get one each pretty quickly.

“Let’s get another two and then see what time it is. I’ve got the press conference in 90 minutes and at least some of us need to be there and presentable. Now, is everyone recovered, should we try and kill another one of these apocalypse wolves?” Bailey asked, tossing the wolf pelt over to Bishop.

“Do you really need to ask?”