Illiriel
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146: With Spells Like These, I Should Get Better Spells
🕑 Added 2025-08-07 15:03:41 +0000 UTC“See, now, this is the issue,” Ashtoreth explaining, tugging on the brim of the massive witch hat that she’d conjured. The hat, which had two holes in it for her horns to poke through, remained stationary instead of rotating. “I can’t spin it.”
She’d landed on the top of the pyramid and rejoined the party. Dazel had floated down to land in her arms, his movements seeming more hesitant than usual. Neither of them mentioned the details of their conversation; Ashtoreth had simply said she’d taken [Spellcasting] and her teammates hadn’t pried.
“I don’t get it,” Frost said. “Why do you need to spin it? Witches don’t spin their hats.”
“It just feels very weird to have a big, pointy, crooked witch hat with a semi-floppy brim that I can’t constantly reposition for dramatic effect,” Ashtoreth said, still tugging on the brim. “And it feels weird to have [Spellcasting] without a big, pointy, crooked witch hat with a semi-floppy brim.”
“How about you lose the brim?” Kylie said. “Just wear a big, pointy cone everywhere.”
“I can’t do that,” Ashtoreth said.
“Why not?”
“Well, for one thing—and take this with a grain of salt, because I’m just making it up now—among witches, brim width is like a man’s height. It denotes competence.”
“Does it?” Kylie asked, her icy eyes betraying the slightest hint of amusement.
“And anyway, a totally brimless hat isn’t even a witch hat anymore, it’s a dunce cap.”
“It’s witch-hat adjacent,” said Kylie. “You could use it psychologically. You know—convince your enemies you’re a complete fool to get them to lower their guard. Call it the Hunter technique.”
“Mm?” Hunter said, looking back at them from where he was standing next to the dead dragon. He seemed to realize what Kylie had said, then frowned. “Hunter jitsu,” he corrected.
Apparently satisfied, he turned back to considering the dragon.
Kylie turned back to Ashtoreth. “You’ll need the dunce cap to make it work now that you’ve taken off all the clocks, is the thing,” Kylie said.
Ashtoreth tugged on the brim of her hat some more, again frowning as it simply pulled against her horns. “I could Hellboy my horns, but they’re my only casting focus when my scythe’s not out.”
“Heh,” said Frost. “Maybe humanity would like you more if they could see you as Hellgirl.”
“Hellwoman, you mean,” said Ashtoreth. “It’s the 21st century, Sir Frost!”
Frost rolled his eyes, and something occurred to Ashtoreth before she asked, “Say, Kylie—how come you never tried a witch hat?”
“Because I’m an adult.”
“Ptch,” Ashtoreth said, waving a hand. “That just means you should be mature enough not to worry about being seen as childish!”
“Spare me the trip to Narnia, Mr Lewis,” said Kylie. “I’m not wearing the hat.”
Dazel cleared his throat from where he hovered in the air beside her. “As crucially important as I’m sure this conversation is to group morale…”
Ashtoreth shrugged. “The only time-sensitive thing happening right now is that our dragon corpse is gonna expire.” She shot a glance over to where Morax Tol was still sprawled in a pool of his own blood, broken fragments of his armor scattered around him. “We’ve got time.”
“I know, I know,” Ashtoreth said, opening up her system. “I’ve got upgrades!”
{Advancement}
{Choose a spell}
[Eye of the Magus]
You invest a moderate amount of [Bloodfire] to conjure an invisible, incorporeal, flying eye with truesight as strong as your own. The eye counts as a minion.
You may choose to see with the eye’s field of view instead of your own.
[Hellfire Jacket]
This buff spell will drain your [Bloodfire] at a steady rate until it builds to full charge.
When you touch a creature while the spell has any charge, you can expend charge to have them suffer damage from your hellfire.
“Huh,” Ashtoreth said. “Maybe they’d be weak if I tried using them, but neither seems too bad.”
“Neither should be,” said Dazel. “You get one spell based on your existing aspects, which is usually some mixture of powerful, efficient, and versatile within its domain. You also get a general-use spell from outside your normal aspects that sucks, but might cover something you can’t do already.”
“Like detect enemies.”
“Sure. Show me?”
She wove a claw through the air and wrote her options out with a glamour.
“I’d say some kind of detection spell would be very good for you,” said Dazel. “But this doesn’t feel like it. Take whichever you like for now—we’ll be replacing all of them.”
Ashtoreth shrugged. “Let’s see what this looks like.”
{You have prepared [Hellfire Jacket] into a spell slot}
Casting the spell was a strange experience, but still one she was familiar with. Unlike normal abilities, the spell slot didn’t quite do all of the necessary structuring and controlling of the [Bloodfire] involved, shaping it into the desired effect.
Rather, the spell slot was more of a guide for controlling her into controlling the [Bloodfire]. She raised a hand, moving a claw through three distinct gestures and printing three phases of a small circle of glowing hellfire into the air before her.
Then the spell concluded, limning her in purple light as it drank her [Bloodfire] in preparation to hurt someone.
“Neat!” she said, twirling in place and looking down at herself. “I glow!”
“Great,” said Dazel. “That was your freebie, right?”
“Right,” she said, turning back to her advancement.
{Reaching level 360 has granted you advancement. Choose one of your progression paths other than [Vampiric Archfiend of Humanity].}
“Spellcasting, please!” Ashtoreth chirped.
{Advance [Spellcasting]}
{Choose an upgrade to gain. You may retain or replace only the third option.}
Gain a [Spell Slot]. Choosing this option will immediately allow you to choose a spell to prepare into the gained slot.
Gain the [Bloodfire Well] ability:
Double your maximum [Bloodfire]. This bonus [Bloodfire] does not count when calculating the effects of abilities such as [Bloodfire Boon], and stacks additively, not multiplicatively, with the bonus [Bloodfire] maximum from [Wanderlust: Bloodfire Well].
Ashtoreth read the options and sighed. Yes, obviously the [Spell Slot] could essentially do anything that other abilities could, given the right spell formula and enough baseline [Magic] and [Bloodfire] to cast it. And [Bloodfire Well] was one of the advancements that stood out among the others as an advancement so strong it was basically a perk granted to those who took [Spellcasting].
But there was something so disappointingly scarce about the fact that there were only two options and she couldn’t choose to retain or replace any of them. [Spellcasting] was an aspect whose versatility was found in its spell slots; any supporting abilities would have to come from her other aspects.
“I’m going to have a pretty big [Bloodfire] pool,” she said. “If you were right about five upgrades to [Bloodfire Well], that is.”
“Uh-huh,” said Dazel. “One each tier. And much like a lich, you’re multiplying a mana pool that has already been amplified by another dimension—your quadruple [Bloodfire] from [Vitality]. You’ll need it, too—the stronger you get, the harder it’s going to be to satisfy your need for [Bloodfire] with the hearts of your enemies.”
“Yeah,” she said. “I’m already feeling that.” Morax Tol’s heart would be about as strong, relative to her current power, as the boss hearts that she’d brought from the scenarios when they’d first started defending Earth.
She’d had seven of those. Something told her that fighting six more Morax Tol’s was not happening any time soon.
But that was the nature of cosmos, she supposed. The juicier the hearts, the fewer and farther between they were to be found.
Unfortunate, that.
As for her decision…
She was tier three, and could take three of the [Bloodfire Well] advancement before she’d have to wait. Still…
“I’m just going to take 1 [Bloodfire Well],” she said. “I’m not resource starved, but I am hungry for spell slots.”
“Reasonable, even if it’s unorthodox,” Dazel said. He chuckled to himself. “It at least took a lot to get you to that point, I suppose.”
“Heh,” Ashtoreth said, considering her absurd resource reserves. “One day soon I’ll be flying to battle with enough [Bloodfire] to set off a [Hellfire Nova] without even having to eat anybody.”
“Such a lovely thought,” Dazel said. “Perhaps I can form a spell to help you charge it faster…”
“Oooh,” Ashtoreth said. “That’s worth looking into. In any case—I’ll take [Bloodfire Well], please!”
{You gain the [Bloodfire Well] advancement.}
{Reaching level 370 has granted you advancement. Choose one of your progression paths other than [Spellcasting].}
“Thanks!” she said. “And I’ll take [Vampiric Archfiend of Humanity], please!”
{Advance [Vampiric Archfiend of Humanity]}
Upgrade [Aura] with [Aura: Archfiend Resistances]:
Your aura now grants half of your racial resistances to allies within its range.
Upgrade [Consume Heart] with [Satiated II]:
Buffs from [Consume Heart] last 72 hours, not 18.
Upgrade [True Sight] with [True Sight II]:
Increases the efficacy of your [True Sight] by 50%.
“Huh,” Ashtoreth said, reading them over and showing them to the crew. “Honestly, I haven’t got a clue what I want, here. Better true sight?”
“I think so?” said Dazel. “Resistances are nice for Kylie.”
“Do I retain the second rank of [Satiated]? If it’s ever useful, I’ll be glad I took it. But we’re out of the “constant fighting” phase. It’s best for lengthy engagements… but those also supply fresh heart.” She sighed. “I’m trying to get human abilities.”
“Human abilities?” Frost asked.
“Yeah, I don’t know,” she said. “I want to see if anything else pops up in my racial stuff now that I’m an [Archfiend of Humanity]. But I have to take [True Sight II] eventually… it’s death to not have it.”
“And the resistances are nice for both our minions,” said Kylie. “Remember, with your massive [Bloodfire Pool], you’ll be able to pump out a whole army of [Hellfire Elementals] even though you don’t have [Minion]. And all your hellfire advancements make them damned strong for a one-off advancement.”
“You’re right,” said Ashtoreth, choosing to retain [True Sight II] and replace [Satiated II]. “I’ll take the aura buff, if you please!”
{You upgrade your [Aura] ability with [Aura: Archfiend Resistances]}
{Reaching level 380 has granted you advancement. Choose one of your progression paths other than [Vampiric Archfiend of Humanity].}
“Thanks!” Ashtoreth said.
{Advance [Spellcasting]}
She chose [Invisibility] over a spell called [Mana Parasite] that would drain an opponent’s mana as they cast spells.
“You know it is kind of sad that [Spellcasting] is the most versatile aspect, but I only get two choices each time.”
“You’re joking, right?” asked Dazel. “That’s like rolling a wizard and then complaining that the class is weak because it doesn’t have a lot of class features.”
“To be fair, magic missile doesn’t really do a lot of damage. It’s only d4s!”
“I’m not dignifying that with an answer.”
{Reaching level 390 has granted you advancement. Choose one of your progression paths other than [Spellcasting].}
“Race again, please!”
{Advance [Vampiric Archfiend of Humanity]}
Upgrade [True Sight] with [True Sight II]:
Increases the efficacy of your [True Sight] by 50%.
Upgrade [Archfiend Resistances] with [Child of Fire]
Gain an extra 10 fire resistance per level.
Lose your base archfiend resistance to frost.
Upgrade [Command Profane] with [Profane Domination]:
When you successfully affect a weak enough target with [Command Profane], you may invest [Bloodfire] proportional to their overall strength to dominate them until this [Bloodfire] is divested.
They count as one of your minions for the duration of this effect.
Strong enough creatures may be able to break free from your control.
“Oof,” said Ashtoreth. “And I just took an aura that’ll help my minions, too.”
“Are you retaining that fire ability?” Dazel asked.
She made a face. “The only thing it really does is firefights. The resistance will help my flames cancel out other flames better. But the dispel and drain effects on my fire already does that, and without lowering one of my weaker resistances. No chance. I’ll take [Profane Domination], naturally!”
{You upgrade [Profane Command] with [Profane Domination]}
{Reaching level 400 has altered your advancement progression. You will now be granted advancement every 25 levels.}
{Reaching level 400 has granted you advancement. Choose one of your progression paths other than [Archfiend].}
“Thanks!” Ashtoreth said. “And I’ll be taking spellcasting, naturally.”
This time she chose a buff spell called [Aura Infusion] that would allow the buffed targets to gain the benefits of her aura at triple its usual range. Useful, even if they would wind up replacing it.
{Reaching level 425 has granted you advancement. Choose one of your progression paths other than [Spellcasting].}
“Racial, please!” she said.
Then, as she read her options, she gasped.
She’d clearly found exactly what she’d been looking for… even if she had no idea what it did.
{Advance [Vampiric Archfiend of Humanity]}
Upgrade [True Sight] with [True Sight II]:
Increases the efficacy of your [True Sight] by 50%.
Upgrade [Aura] with [Aura: Diabolical Interdictor]
Enemies seeking to teleport into or out of your aura will have the efficacy of their teleportation abilities halved.
This aura has reduced effectiveness on enemies who are much more powerful than you.
Gain the [Pinnacle Curator] ability:
Pinnacle will grant you privileges and access commensurate with your tier.
You can communicate with Pinnacle from anywhere within the Pinnacle Realm.
She blinked as she read the last ability. “Uh… you guys?”
Comments
AreVee
If you renove the brim from the hat you get gnomed
