Guardian 2.9
The guardian spirit stalked through the streets in the docks area as a translucent ghostly apparition. High in the sky, my dove familiar scouted the area, looking for any sign of trouble.
For the last several days, I'd been sending out my new summon and familiar to patrol at night, eager to learn their capabilities and to actually start doing some hero work.
For now, my combat gear still wasn't ready, so I avoided going out personally, but my summons could be commanded by thought as long as it was within my visual range. And seeing it through the eyes of my familiar counted as being in range.
Unfortunately that also meant that I couldn't command the guardian spirit if it phased through a wall into a closed building, which was why I had it moving around through the streets, usually scaring anyone that saw it into running away.
I hadn't managed to make any arrests or save anybody from an active crime yet, but through a number of experiments, I had learned the mechanics and limitations of the summon.
It possessed a degree of intelligence of its own, but was largely limited to understanding combat-oriented commands. I could direct it to attack or defend a target, grab or fetch something, and move around in a pattern or with timed actions. But it couldn't speak or write, or even use any tools, including weapons. I could tell it to grab a baseball bat, but it wouldn't understand a command to swing it at somebody, and an order to attack while holding the bat would just result in it discarding the bat to use its hands and legs instead. The only sounds it could make were groans, grunts, and roars.
And if I lost sight of it without having issued a command previously that it could continue following, it would just become passive and do nothing. Unless it could hear a new command given out loud through whatever was blocking my sight.
It was nowhere near as strong a connection compared to my familiar, which could share senses with me and was always linked to my mind regardless of where it was. I could even project speech and spells through the bird. For all intents and purposes, my familiar was basically an avatar that had primitive feelings but would do whatever I wanted it to. It took a little getting used to, but now I had no trouble having two distinct sets of perspectives at all times. It was even quite thrilling to be able to fly vicariously through it. Too bad I didn't have a spell to make my actual body fly.
The guardian spirit couldn't fly either. It could phase down through floors, but it couldn't just float back up through the ceiling. It also couldn't phase into solid ground—I wasn't sure what the precise limitation of that was, whether it was something to do with the concept of "ground" or if it was just a limit to how thick/large the solid was that it could pass through.
But the stats on it were great. It was a lot stronger than I'd expected when I tried to spar with it. As I suspected after seeing the "non-magical natural abilities" limitation of my enchanted accessories, the Guardian Spirit's 6 attack and 5 defense just trounced me in a straight slugfest even with 6 attack and 6 defense. It wasn't even a close contest. Heck, it was slightly stronger than me even after I swapped out for [Holy Weapon] and [Holy Armor], bringing my attack to 5 magical and defense to 6. But they weren't quite as skilled or reactive as I was. And I easily outclassed them again after stacking both the accessories and my two Holy spells. Their only big weakness was that they were quite slow at running, or rather, floating around, compared to the speed with which they attacked in close quarters.
My new theory was that [Fantastic] units, and "magical" stats behaved differently from normal stats, and even though spells could push someone into physics-defying territory, there was still a normal component of their total stats, and maybe more of a skill component relative to power, compared to a [Fantastic] unit's fully magical stats and raw power. And maybe not all spells and effects were the same either. For example, [Holy Weapon] increased my "attack" power by a lot, but not my strength, as if there was more to my attack than the momentum carried by my fist.
Overall, the spirit was a pretty good disposable soldier, and I could think of many tactical uses for it, besides just being a decent meat shield for me to buy time while I chanted spells. Under my direct command, they were also better than if I ordered an attack and let them fight on their own intelligence, because I could tell them to turn Incorporeal mid-battle to avoid some physical attacks if they were slow enough that the lag on my orders wasn't too late to respond, but they weren't smart enough to do that by themselves. Combining all this with the fact that I could summon a whole lot of them? The idea of having an army of these things was very tempting.
Unfortunately they cost a lot to summon, and the maintenance cost was nothing to scoff at either. The higher my total upkeep in mana, the slower I could accumulate more, and the less of everything else I could make.
And they were also eye-catching. I had finally understood the use of making items enchanted with the summons, even though it didn't save as much mana compared to the other spells. I couldn't hide it anywhere so there were a lot of situations where I wouldn't be able to bring it. My new [Recall] spell could target Summons and but it only allowed summoning back to an active Summoning Circle.
Having the guardian spirit sealed into an inconspicuous item would allow it to be summoned at will from the item, and otherwise be hidden.
But the tripled enchanting cost of permanently sealing it into an item was just exorbitant. I'd probably want to have that as a hidden ace at some point but for now it would eat into my reserves far too much. And if I were going to enter cape fights, I would definitely need to build up reserves. The more times I could heal myself, the longer I'd last in a fight. In a way, my reserves were my lifeline, so I couldn't just spend all my MP on items and summons.
But with staves, I could use the much more efficient [Combat Summon] version, which was still pricey but at least manageable, though it did limit how many I could have out at once based on how many staves I or my team could carry around.
Suddenly I saw a guy approaching one of the hooded men I'd noted down as a drug dealer standing in a dark alley. I'd seen a few of his deals before but hadn't been able to interfere because the guardian spirit was too far away. One time I managed to get close, but they ran off too fast and my summon wasn't able to catch up. The guardian spirit was strong but unfortunately it wasn't that much faster than a human at running around, and had nothing on cars.
This time, I sent my familiar to drop down to the roof near them, while I had my summon try to sneak its way over without alerting them.
I watched as the two greeted and then began their exchange, some cash and a small bag of something traded hands, then it looked like they were about to leave. I sighed, thinking my summons wouldn't get there fast enough…again.
But then I perked up after hearing the dealer speak just as the buyer was about to leave.
"By the way, I ain't gonna be here over the weekend. I heard the ABB are looking for some dumbasses hiding around here that pissed them off, and they got until midnight Sunday to show their faces or else. Dunno what's gonna happen but Imma stay outta their way. So don't come back til next week, brother."
"Really? Thanks for the heads up, dude." Then he paused, and took out some more cash. "Actually, I'll take some more, just in case I can't find you after."
"Won't say no to that, but no worries, I'll be around. Unless shit starts burning down around here."
Sunday night. I looked at my calendar. That was in only two more days. Taking on an organized gang would be a bit more than I'd intended for my first taste of fighting crime, but as long as their capes didn't show up I could probably handle it. Even if they did…well I was a cape too, and if things got really bad I could always teleport away with a word.
Back at the alley, my Guardian Spirit turned the corner, catching the attention of the customer.
He blinked, then blinked again. "Wh—what is that?" His expression slowly turning fearful.
"Huh?" The dealer turned around, then froze.
"Do you see what I'm seeing? That—that—"
The spirit made sound halfway between a grunt and moan, and floated towards them hands raised with its legs trailing an inch off the ground.
"The Faceless Ghost! No way, it's fucking real?" He stepped back then bumped into his customer.
My dove flew down to land on the railings of a metal staircase beside them, and I projected my voice through it. "Don't move, criminals. Surrender and face judgement!"
"The fuck, did that bird just talk, bro! Is that a cape?"
"It's fucking possessed, the Faceless Ghost wants to steal your face, run for your life!" The dealer turned and dashed away without a second thought.
The spirit howled and charged as the customer numbly followed after the dealer. "Ooooiiieeee!"
"Stop!" I shouted, but obviously they didn't listen.
I chased them around for a bit, but they got away after rushing inside a building. I could've sent the spirit in, but my familiar couldn't follow to keep command of it, so I let them go, again.
O O O
I reappeared over a Summoning Circle with a momentary flash of light, before dropping off on the ground the bag of stuff I'd scavenged from the Trainyard. I'd have had much more trouble lugging everything around if it weren't for my new [Recall Servant] spell that let me bring along anything non-living, except my familiar which could always come along, that I could pick up and carry.
In this dusty old stone crypt with no electricity, I'd set up my enchanting workshop and drawn a new Summoning Circle to make it my home base. My familiar could activate Circles for me, so I only had to fly it back home to swap the active Circle.
I'd found this place underneath an abandoned and dilapidated small church building in the old European long hall style on the southeastern part of the Trainyard, close to the Boat Graveyard and the north market. The only entrance was a flat hatch that opened up at the far end of the church behind the sanctuary, in a closed room. But I'd found it by sending my Guardian Spirit to test whether it could phase down while exploring the various abandoned buildings around these parts, then searching for an entrance from above.
So if there was no electricity, how could I see down here? No, I didn't get candles or torches, though this crypt chapel area did include sconces. After the initial flash of light from the spell faded away, I was left in total darkness.
But, previously, with some experimentation, I had managed to learn a new cantrip that wasn't a proper spell, enchanting the empty sconces with the ability to generate floating balls of light with a custom trigger phrase.
This was actually a modified version of the [True Light] spell where I'd figured out how to remove the battlefield properties and just emit a normal white light.
"I come to dwell in a House of the Maiden, before the Queen whose Light is endless, that I may never be lost in darkness."
An eerie white light illuminated the stone walls around me as a sconce positioned above the door lit up.
The actual spell was way too expensive to use, but just this effect could be enchanted for only about 3 MP and it'd last all day. And the trigger phrase counted as a prayer, so in the future, once I turned this church building into an actual [Temple] or set up an [Altar] here, if any [Friendly Unit], including myself, used it, it would be able to recharge for another day, the same way the rest of my items worked.
This crypt had many different small rooms, most of which were open and had no door along the two sides of the hall that ran underneath the apse of the church above, but there was one room in the far back that did, on the opposite end of the stairs beneath the hatch.
There was a flat wooden bench on the side and a single stone altar table that was undecorated at the wall opposite of the door. The rest of the build was largely empty of anything that wasn't too heavy or difficult to move, everything else of value having long since been removed by whoever owned the church last or looters.
The walls and the structure of the building itself had held up well though. It was probably a lack of church goers, both with the decline of religion overall and the exodus of people from this area of the city, that ultimately led to its abandonment.
It was the perfect place for me though. I had great plans for it, but for now it simply served as my base away from home, where I was keeping various materials I was using for experiments and crafting, as well as my guardian spirit when I wasn't patrolling with it.
Right now the room was littered with wooden branches and half carved pieces, metal parts and bars, fabrics, cardboard, tools, small trinkets, and other random things.
It was time to finish my new combat costume. By Sunday evening I estimated I'd have about 2300 MP to use total. That wasn't nearly enough to get everything I wanted, or even all the powers on a single staff that I'd been planning to make. I'd just have to prioritize the most important things.
O O O