Inflame (The Completionist Chronicles Book 6), Dakota Krout [free novels to read TXT] 📗

can send it… down, if I pull that part from that ritual here, but there again, I run into the issue of breaking the ritual.”

He pondered over the issue as the entire, massive cavern floor raised another six inches thanks to the magma. “What if I modify the Gravedigger’s Requiem to move horizontally instead of vertically? Disperse the effect, then have it ‘dig’ through a wall using the heat instead of vibration? Do I have that kind of time?”

Eyeing the rising lava, Joe gulped. “I might not have the time… but I can’t think of anything else that I could do instead. Time to do or die.”

He really hoped he could do it. If this failed, he was going to die within range of the major fort again. Joe was not looking forward to another escape attempt.

Chapter Forty-Six

The first issue that Joe ran into was reworking the ritual itself. Just because he had an idea, didn’t mean that he could flawlessly put it into practice. The ritual he finally came up with was only at the Beginner rank, because it had to be. After being robbed blind, Joe was down to a single Synthetic Common Core, and he had only found that after desperately searching through his ring.

Only being able to use a two-ring ritual limited his options greatly, and it also forced him to tear out anything that wasn’t going to be producing the effect he needed. That meant limiters, variables that kept Joe safe, and most of all… control. This ritual had been boiled down to two effects: drain heat, and condense heat in a specified direction. If something went wrong, there was a good chance that Joe was going to either freeze or flash-boil just after activation.

Those risks meant that he needed to eliminate all of the physical impediments to success as quickly and thoroughly as possible. The place where he drew the ritual needed to be perfectly flat, and as similar of a substance as possible. First, he cast Acid Spray onto the obsidian, but that did nothing except make that area dangerous to sit on. The obsidian didn’t react at all… which made sense. Kind of. It was magical acid, and it worked on armor and metals… so why not this?

Instead, he set up a Field Array and reduced the glass-like stone in a set pattern, making a perfect square with the sharpest edges he had ever seen on anything. Joe took out a paper and set it lightly on the edge of the square; half of it lay flat, the other half slid down the small incline and burst into flame. “That’ll work.”

Next up was inscribing the actual ritual circle, and here, Joe finally hesitated. There were only two functions, but he did have some special aspects. He decided to prepare the circles with the aspects, both to test them and hopefully give the ritual the oomph that it needed. Placing his hand back into the Field Array after adding the ‘Molten’ aspects—no jar yet—he created a pure white Common inscription tool, which swirled a reddish brown as the new aspect was added.

Then he made a dark grey Damaged tool, which only became darker as he poured in ‘Zombified’ aspects. Gear prepared and ready, Joe began the process of actually forming the ritual circle; starting with the inner circle, the ‘drain heat’ portion. On this one, he used the Zombified inscriber and rapidly drew out the circle. Luckily, he was drawing with aspects, not ink, as ink would have spread across the perfectly smooth surface no matter what he did to prevent it.

The outer ring, designed to send the heat directionally away as a cylinder, was composed with the Molten aspects. Joe set the Synthetic Core in the center of the ritual and started inputting mana. It didn’t take much; one person was more than enough to power such a ‘weak’ ritual. His part done, the Reductionist stood back and watched as the strangely glowing ritual began performing its function. The room was filling faster now, much faster, and he realized that the magma must have eaten away a large chunk of the wall. If this didn’t work, there wouldn’t be a second chance.

Reductionist class experience gained: 50

Joe barely noticed the grey shadow expanding from the central ritual circle out of the corner of his eye, and he only dodged away from it out of base instinct. It wasn’t attacking him, per se, but everywhere it touched took on a ‘preserved’ look. The stone itself lost its shine, and Joe started running out of room on the small island that his hill had become. There was another not too far away, so he jumped across the open space and quickly turned to watch what was happening.

Grey light reached ruddy heat, and a *hiss* sounded loud enough through the cavern that Joe was worried a cave-in might occur. Where the light touched, hardened stone was left behind. Still, it was up against magma on one side. The flash-frozen composite shattered, sending shards of super-sharp obsidian and hardened metals scattering through the area. Joe twirled in place, dropping to the ground and trying to shelter in the lee of the hill he was on. Constant elemental effects had created a deathtrap that he was uncertain he could withstand; flying flechettes and deep freeze in one spot, bubbling magma in the other.

At least he knew that he could survive in the magma for a few minutes, but the ritual? Joe wasn’t sure, and it was still expanding. Though… slower? There was only so much heat it could take in at any given time, Joe supposed. Another interesting phenomena was happening as well: a cool breeze was being generated from the ritual area, but the superheated air in the rest of the cavern was naturally trying to rectify the balance. He was nearly blown off his small hill as wind started surging in the cavern in the form of small tornados.

Then the second portion of the ritual