by Ryan DeBruyn
That’s what Joe would want. He would save the people his friend had protected desperately since the crash!
All he could do was win at any cost!
Chapter Twenty-Five
After receiving three more robes and staffs from looting the necromancer corpses, plus some Crystals, the group continued on. They were significantly bolstered by the two Abomination spirits, so the group made much quicker time through the deep tunnels. Every so often, Rocky, his clone, and Sela would take the front spot to allow the spirits a chance to heal some of the minor wounds they had been suffering, but for the most part, the spirit Abominations were in the lead while the others took pot shots of opportunities. Zippo, of course, burned every fallen Zombie corpse to prevent another ambush like the first.
The timer read one hour, seven minutes, and forty-five seconds when suddenly, the two spirits ran out of targets. The group blinked in surprise at the lack of bloody carnage, and all simultaneously looked up at the spirits that were walking away towards a left turn in the tunnel. Smith held a hand up, and they stopped as the group stood stock-still and stunned. All eyes fell on Sela in her cat form who looked back at them and then the corner. Everyone cringed at the sound of nails on a chalkboard, as she drew an ‘X’ with her sharp claws on an unlucky onyx tile that was nearest her.
Rocky unclenched his tightened jaw and sputtered as she began a circle, “Stop, stop… We get it, Sela, we are near the goal?” She cat-grinned up at him, and he shook his head in exasperation before shaking his whole body to get rid of the skin-crawling feeling the noise had induced. Once he was satisfied, he put on his best announcer’s voice and whispered, “Let's see what we have around corner number one.” Then he crept to the edge of the wall and looked around the corner.
Around the corner was, simply put, nothing. Two feet from where the corner started, a wall of dirt was blocking the entire passage, and Rocky turned back to look at Sela. “Yeah… Sela, there is a wall of dirt here. Nothing else. Are you sure we went the right way?” Rocky had seen a few other turns they could have taken, but the massive horde of enemies and Sela’s insistence that this was the right way had convinced him this was correct. Until now.
Sela shifted back to her human form and scoffed at Rocky but didn’t bother to whisper when she maintained, “You know damn well it is the right way.” She walked up and touched the wall. “By the look of this wall, they have a low-level geomancer on the other side of it.” She looked at Rocky, intoning emotionlessly, “There was something suspicious about that ceiling falling on Smith, and I think we found the culprit.” Rocky snarled at the wall and raised his sword. Sela moved quickly and put a hand on his arm. “No, you idiot. That could bring the whole tunnel down on us. I changed to human form to have better control over the Earth. You all just have to kill whatever I am going to be fighting against.”
Suddenly, the wall dropped, and they all jumped and spun to face down the now open hallway. Frankie stood in the middle of a group of five Necromancers, each with a Dragon Heartstring. Behind Frankie, a rodent-looking man sat cross-legged, covered in dirt and tattered clothing, and wearing a Heartstring around his neck like Derik once had.
Frankie walked out from the group, and Rocky immediately noticed his new arm. The fact that it was black and twisted might have been the reason, or the fact that it had a Heartstring wrapped around it that glowed red could have drawn his eye. Regardless, Frankie saw him looking at the arm and sneered, “Do you like my new arm? Apep gifted it to me after I caught the group of hold outs that this Geomancer,” he pointed at the cross-legged Geomancer, “was hiding from his rains.” Frankie held his arm up, admiring it like it was beautiful instead of grotesque.
Rocky Analyzed him as he continued to ogle his own disgusting arm.
Frankie Cocozza
Level 33
Journeyman Psychologist Apothis’ Ether-Manipulator
Health Points 810/810
Rocky’s eyebrows rose at the massive increase in terms of levels Frankie had undergone in the few days since he had seen him last. Frankie finally pulled his eyes away from his disgusting arm and saw his face. “Ah, you must have seen my new rank and levels! Yes, well, you see;=, while the Zombies are just constructs of the Dungeon and thus provide little Etherience when sacrificed, all the citizens who have been caught by the storms and were later converted to Minions do!” Rocky felt his stomach twist at the implication that one cockily spoken statement held.
Every Necromancer he had fought, every Necromancer he had killed was a converted human that had been caught in Apep’s rains? Then on top of that corruption, they had sacrificed them to increase the levels of this parasite?! He did a quick scan of the individual behind Frankie.
Devoted of Apothis
Level 22
Journeyman Irradiated Necromancer
Health Points 509/509
“You seem to be missing a member of your party! My old ‘commander’,” Frankie turned the title into a curse as he spoke it. “Good, old, reliable Joe. I told him all that time ago that his Sacrifice skill was only going to get him killed. Obviously, right!” He broke into maniacal laughter as the stunned group looked on and began growing red in the face.
Rocky, who had not been using his Dark Cloak skill when the wall came down, felt his inner ‘beast’ bristle, and the skill craved release. He held it in and hissed between his clenched teeth, “You are scum. Even if everyone on the earth is under your command and you somehow live long enough to die of old age, you will just fade into oblivion one day and be forgotten instantly! Joe will be remembered, Jack will be remembered, Alex will be remembered, Oliver will be remembered. The atrocities you committed will be remembered, but your name will not!”
Frankie stopped laughing after the first sentence, and his face grew red shortly after. As his rage became apparent, the four Necromancers stepped forward, but he held up a hand and spat out, “You people and your ideals–” His words sounded like some sort of poison he needed to expel from his body. Then he was cut off as Rocky’s Shadow Clone popped into view behind the group of Necromancers, sinking a dagger into the base of two of their skulls and cutting their bodies’ communication to the brains.
Rocky sprang forward and let Dark Cloak activate as he did. On his left and right, Smith’s spirits surged. Zippo’s Fireball flickered as he looked for an opening to unleash hell. It was Sela who acted oddly as she screamed and knelt down, placing a hand on the ground. Rocky swung his sword with a wicked smile, seeing two spectral bone hooks mimicking his attack. Frankie casually lifted his disgusting black arm and caught all three blows on its edge. Sparks flew, and then it was Frankie’s turn to smile as he kicked Rocky in the chest, causing him to fly backwards.
Rocky turned the momentum into a roll and watched on in horror-filled fascination as Frankie touched one spirit and then the other. Smith screamed and began to sweat as his constructs began deflating like balloons. After they both were nothing but smoke, only a small blue line was left connecting Frankie to Smith. Rocky scrambled and used his newest style of Dark Blade to attempt to sever the connection. It did cut off the strange blue connection, but it simultaneously knocked out Smith.
Frankie chuckled and licked his lips. “I wasn’t finished with that one yet!” Frankie looked like he would have sprung forward into a charge, but Zippo had finally seen his opportunity; he let fly a string of Fireballs. One after the other, they impacted the man, and flames whooshed out around him. Rocky felt his connection to his clone drop off as the flames intensified, and he put a hand on Zippo’s arm to stop the fifth formed Fireball spell.
They both watched on as a mound of earth emerged from the smoke where Frankie should have stood. A heartbeat after that, a charred foot broke the surface of the mound and began pulling a singed looking Frankie clear. Behind the man, the Necromancers turned to join the fight, and Rocky leaped into a forward charge again. Two shadow bolts flew towards him as Frankie dusted himself off. In counter to the spells, he unleashed the doub
le charge of his Dark Blade that he had been holding on his sword and began charging it again.
The spells collided, detonating as the Dark Blade lost power but continued on. Frankie batted the weakened spell aside, but Rocky struck at his front leg as he braced himself for the flashy move. The blade severed the limb like it wasn’t even there and continued on, scoring a strike on his back leg as well. Frankie screamed and collapsed forward, his weight no longer held by the limb.
Rocky stomped down hard on Frankie’s head as he ran over the man to continue on towards the Necromancers who shot whips down the hall at him. For a second, he thought they had missed; then he screamed as their targets became apparent to him. Zippo managed to deflect the one coming at him with his shield skill, but the one targeting Sela wrapped around her arm.
With a rictus smile, the minion pulled, Sela opened her eyes screaming, and the tunnel began to shake as Rocky decapitated the two defenseless, snarling Necromancers.
When the dust settled again, Rocky was coughing and stumbling around blindly in the extremely dark space he occupied. He thought for a moment that he was covered in rocks, dirt, and the other caved in remains of the tunnel, but when he activated his light strip, he found himself looking down a clear hallway. On the ground ten feet in front of him, the Geomancer was passed out but breathing. Rocky walked over and pulled the Dragon Heartstring from his neck, summoning it into his bag of holding; he knew that wouldn’t be the end of the corruption to his Ether if he was anything like the people from his Territory, so he considered killing him.
He glanced down and used Analyze.
Harold Dawmer
Level 13
Apprentice Geomancer
Health Points 70/170
He had already seen enough death for the day, though, so he tried to look back at his party for guidance but found the tunnel completely caved in. He tried his radio and received only static. Then he shouted Sela’s name into the dirt.
Zippo’s voice answered him, coming muffled and scared. “She is okay, Rock. We managed not to get buried, but that Necromancer did a number on her arm. She is unconscious, and so is Smith.” There was a pause, and then he continued, “I poured a healing potion down both of their throats, and they seem to be getting better, but I don’t know what to do!”
Rocky took a deep breath to calm down; the last thing Zippo needed was Rocky’s added worry on top of his own. “Take the more injured to the surface and come back for the other?” he suggested once he breathed out, hoping that Zippo would be able to handle it. He glanced to his corner and saw the clock counting down from just under thirty minutes and tried to calm his nerves. From the last moments of that fight, it was clear that Sela had been in a struggle with the Geomancer for the earth around the tunnel.
The group who a collapsed tunnel favoured was also rather obvious to Rocky. While Sela had people to protect and keep alive and needed to get to the end of this passage, Frankie only cared about himself and wanted to prevent them from going further. It would appear that he had nearly succeeded but had been buried in the cave in for his efforts. Rocky hoped he suffered in his last moments or was still suffering!
Rocky took the moment to loot the corpses of the Necromancers and put their staffs and equipment into his bag of holding. After that was done, he also had four new Dragon Heartstrings in his bag. He looked at the cave in and the fifth Heartstring it held, but now wasn’t the time. He would have to clear the cave in eventually anyway or find another way out.
Zippo screamed back after a time, “Sela has lower health. I will carry her out to get help. We will be back!” The fact that Zippo was going to be moving and working towards something was all Rocky cared about. The kid was extremely strong, but Rocky remembered the last time he had lost his two friends. It hadn’t been pretty, and he hoped that losing Joe wouldn’t cause the young man to slide back into the place he had been before. Unfortunately, Joe had been the person Zippo had spent the most time with out of the entire group, and that meant he was probably the one who knew him best.
Rocky shook his head and mumbled, “Enough worrying about the fire-starter. You should be worrying about yourself!” In answer, he walked over to the still unconscious Geomancer and poured a Potion of Dreamless Sleep that Smith had given him down the man’s throat. That should at least keep him knocked out until Rocky had solved the takeover or died trying.
With that grisly thought, he started walking down the eerily quiet hallway. After a short distance, the corridor turned left, and a faint, red glow emanated from whatever lay beyond. Rocky turned off his own light and cast both his Stealth and Shadow Cloak skills. Then he crept forward to find out what awaited him.
Chapter Twenty-Six
As soon as he turned the corner, Rocky found out what was causing the ominous, red, glowing pulse. A few feet in front of him, a small three-step staircase descended into a massive, open room. The room was stylized in the same pattern as the maze had been but was furnished with strange-looking pieces of equipment. He could only describe the stone benches and seats as equipment, as the room looked like a deck of a massive starship from Hollywood. It even had three massive stone chairs in the near center of the room, with the middle one raised higher than the other two. ‘Chairs’ was probably even the wrong word for the eloquently carved stone monsters; they more closely resembled a throne with two small thrones surrounding it.
Part of the reason they conjured the image of a throne in Rocky’s imaginative mind was that on the highest and largest one sat a dark-robed figure holding a glowing red staff. This staff, unlike some of its lesser copycats, was holding a full nuclear rod as its focus gem; wrapping and securing the pulsing piece of glowing metal were radiant Heartstrings tied in opposite, traversing spirals before being anchored to sharp, wooden, thorny protrusions that jutted from the black staff.
While the color and intensity of the staff drew his eye first, a second glance later, it was what was inside the open robe that he couldn’t look away from. The creature inside looked like a half-rotten corpse. Its face was gray and somewhat human-looking, but his chest, hands, and torso had bones poking out of the what little gray skin remained. Most of the creature’s organs were clearly visible, and Rocky could even see the beating heart in its chest cavity!
His Analyze skill triggered due to his intense scrutiny.
Apothis
Level 75
Master Necromonger of Apep
Health Points 4,500/9,000
Boss
The box finally broke him out of his daze, and Rocky blinked, looked around, and tried to understand why Apothis was missing health points. He saw nothing else in the room but stone equipment tables with spots for legs carved underneath them but no chairs. Then his eyes found the next oddity in the room. It wasn’t a person but a massive, black, stone altar that dominated the center of the cavernous space.
Rocky would have dismissed the thing as another table if it wasn’t for the 3-D hologram that glared from its surface back at him. He may have further just dismissed it as some sort of spell if it wasn’t showing him a near-identical scene to one he had seen nearly five hours before. Tao and Gamma stood sentry around the Guild Tent, striking out at any Abomination that was raised from yet unburnt corpses.
A few of the returned military had started fires, and when the coast was clear, they ran out to place a burning log on to a dead enemy. From that point of view, it looked like they were winning or at least doing an excellent job of weathering the creature’s attacks. The military tanks and other equipment, while intimidating, was practically useless at current with no charges, but he could even see through the holographic tent to the tightly-packed citizens within, all safe.
That was why he felt his stomach drop. In the cavern walls around the Grotto, he could see hordes of undead just waiting to be unleashed. They only occupied the south and west walls currently, and Rocky could actually see why that was as he could also see his two Dungeons hard at work destroying any enemies that quested
into their cardinal direction of ownership. Rocky smiled as LFD’s prized, mutated rabbit Thumper ripped in half a Zombie before throwing it into a pit that LFD had clearly dug.
Maximus had a massive army of creatures in formed ranks waiting for anything stupid enough to try to utilize his portion of the Grotto wall. Rocky hadn’t known how much help he had been getting from all his allies in this fight, but he still felt sick seeing the vast numbers that the enemies still had in the wings. There were easily one hundred glyph circles on the cliff tops and fifty Necromancers inside them with staffs planted. Each Necromancer was taking turns raising Abominations from the abundant Zombie corpses.
While his people were surviving, Apothis had turned this into a war of attrition, and soon, if nothing was done, he would own the Territory. Twenty-four minutes and fifteen seconds from now, to be more exact! Rocky began considering his options. In his bag of holding, he had numerous grenades, more MKZ turrets, and a few proximity mines. The big problem was that four thousand five hundred health wasn’t going to vanish unless he hit him with everything.
What was the best way to do it? He smiled grimly and instantly knew that a ‘part’ of him really wasn’t going to like this. He ducked back around the corner and summoned his Shadow Clone. It blinked its dark black eyes at him and crossed its arms. Rocky smiled awkwardly at it as he started pulling out all of his explosives and affixing them to it.
He stepped back and looked at his Christmas tree of death. His clone stared back at him with the most unimpressed face he had ever seen. Then, as if inspiration struck, his clone lit up and pointed at its butt before moving a grenade from its chest to clip it there. When it turned back around, it held its arms wide and spun silently, showing off. Then it gave Rocky a very rude gesture before going back to a cross-armed, emotionless stare.
