Inflame (The Completionist Chronicles Book 6) Dakota Krout (sci fi books to read TXT) 📖

seemed to reach a threshold. Joe had expected the heat to be distributed in a nice, constant stream. Instead, it rose to critical mass and sent a beam of heat against the far wall as what could only be described as a barrel-width cylinder of plasma. Thunder rang through the enclosed space, so loud that his Exquisite Shell took damage, and his Neutrality Aura had to work on repairing his ears.

Joe’s head was rocked against the hill, dazing him. He thought it was over, but instead, the cold zone began expanding faster so that it could provide enough heat for the second stage of the ritual to activate again. More shards of stone, metal, and quartz flew into the air, hissing as they cut into the magma or pinging as they ricocheted off the solid surfaces. The wind began to pick up again, and he covered his ears when he realized that this was exactly what had happened just before the plasma beam had last fired.

*Zzzap-Booom*!

The concentrated heat of thousands of gallons of magma struck the wall after racing along the molten tunnel it had carved previously. Joe settled in to wait for the next repetition, but was instead yanked off his hill as the pressurized contents of the room were blasted into the new tunnel that had breached into open air.

His body slammed into the sides of the tunnel as he was dragged along. He, gasses, and magma were whipping along the hole, and the human was sent careening into the open air at hundreds of miles per hour. Joe broke the sound barrier, which was the only thing allowing him to survive the small volcanic eruption he’d just caused. He leveled out into an arc, managing to look back to watch the volcano. The inane thought of ‘it really does look like a shoe’ crossed his mind.

He wasn’t entirely certain how fast he was moving, but his eyes locked on a disturbance just in time to see a line of plasma tear through the debris. His parabolic descent dropped him below it, yet even so, the heat dispersed into the area would have cooked him if his shield hadn’t been resistant to elemental effects. After all the commotion, his Exquisite Shell was dangerously close to breaking yet again.

The ground was coming up fast, and Joe’s enhanced perception allowed him to see the shocked looks from all the Dwarves he was sailing over. He only had one thought before he hit the ground and was sent to respawn.

“Made it.”

Luck +2. You’ve made some wild choices. I love it.

You have died! Calculating… you have lost 31,200 experience!

Joe opened his eyes and was met with a clean white room and a beanbag chair. “Never thought I’d be happy just to get sent to my respawn room. Now… let’s take a look at the damage. Status.”

Name: Joe ‘Tatum’s Chosen Legend’ Class: Reductionist

Profession I: Arcanologist (Max)

Profession II: Ritualistic Alchemist (1/20)

Profession III: None

Character Level: 18 Exp: 188,179 Exp to next level: 1,821

Rituarchitect Level: 10 Exp: 45,000 Exp debt: 9,600

Reductionist Level: 0 Exp: 876 Exp to next level: 124

Hit Points: 0/1,642

Mana: 0/3,173

Mana regen: 45.37/sec

Stamina: 0/1,381

Stamina regen: 6.39/sec

Characteristic: Raw score

Strength: 133

Dexterity: 133

Constitution: 129

Intelligence: 138

Wisdom: 119

Dark Charisma: 80

Perception: 123

Luck: 62

Karmic Luck: -4

Joe almost gagged as he saw that he had been tossed down to level eighteen. “That hurts, Eterium. I feel like I should get a break? That was a pretty wild escapade… wait, I got a luck boost there at the end. Fair enough.”

At that point, the only thing he wanted to do was take a nap. He had been awake for… he didn’t rightly know how long, actually. Did his tiny deaths count as sleep? Did it help his mental state at all? Certainly didn’t feel like it. He hit the bean bag chair and was unconscious in moments.

He awoke to a portal humming cheerfully right next to him, and Joe scrambled to his feet. There was an invasion coming, and he needed to warn the Dwarves that the enemy was basically hiding behind the curtains in their living room.

Chapter Forty-Seven

Joe stepped out of the portal and directly into the new Grand Temple in the Dwarven capital. He went over and hugged the altar to Tatum, having a sudden realization that without Tatum, he would have been trapped on that small island until the Elves chose to let him go. There were very few times when he really thought about it, but he owed his start as a Ritualist to Tatum, and every success since then stemmed from that point in time.

“If being stuck away is anything for you like my time in that volcano was for me, I need to hurry up and get you free,” Joe sighed as he slapped the altar good-naturedly. His ears twitched, and he looked over to see that someone was singing a bawdy tune near the altar to Hansel. He tried not to laugh, hoping that the deity preferred the not-family-friendly tune over what he had been stuck hearing on Midgard.

Remembering that he actually had an important, time-sensitive mission, Joe got to his feet and started hustling toward the door. He didn’t know who to tell except for Havoc, and he was pretty sure that the Dwarf would be able to open the doors that he needed in order to mount a major offensive. In fact, he was almost certain that the Major General would mobilize more than even the Council would, given the chance.

“Joe.” The human in question paused as the feminine rasp reached his ears. Calling a Dwarven voice ‘feminine’ was a misnomer, as it was deeper than all but the deepest of human male voices, but it was still… he met High Priestess Dawnesha’s gaze as she walked toward him, her blonde mustache fluttering gently in the breeze her movement created. “Occultatum tells me that I need to speak with you. That you have found much, even more than you know.”

That brought him to a screeching halt, all plans of leaving the area put