The Dead Rogue

by Pavel Kornev

  The wind was still raging. It blew, it howled, it ripped, throwing bucketfuls of rain in your face. The rain would ease up only to return in force, pelting you with volleys of different caliber.

  So what was I supposed to do till the evening? The enforced boredom was driving me mad. The only thing that made me feel slightly better was that my “sworn friend” Garth couldn’t get into the city no matter how hard he tried. And the moment the siege was lifted, I’d make a beeline for the capital.

  And what if it ended in defeat? Never mind. Even if the dead took the city, I wasn’t afraid of that. The subjects of the Lord of the Tower of Decay couldn’t hurt me. But still, I didn’t want to prolong it much further.

  I looked at the lighthouse. Should I go and see it, maybe, while Incognito hadn’t yet syphoned me dry of internal energy?

  I found it strange that the locals kept mentioning it whenever they spoke to me Could it have been a prompt of some kind?

  I was just about to do so when I heard a far-off rumble in the air.

  What the hell? That was one hell of an explosion! And it sounded as if it had come from the bridge!

  I cussed and dashed toward the bridge across the entire city. It was actually good I hadn’t bought that chainmail. My cape didn’t hinder my movement and used virtually no stamina. That wouldn’t have been the case had I had to run in full armor.

  I noticed the smoke from afar. The wind was whipping up billows of black smoke; but even now as they dispersed, they continued to glow green. There must have been some powerful sorcery involved, and not of the nicest kind.

  Death magic.

  When I’d run around the last hill and rushed out onto the square in front of the bridge, there was only one tower left standing. The other one lay in heaps of smoking masonry and had partially collapsed into the river.

  The bridge’s meager garrison were rushing around like headless chickens, preparing to meet the army of the dead. Five players were awaiting the assault next to them. But two archers and three warriors could do precious little to change the course of the battle.

  Mia wasn’t there. Had she been smart enough to go back to the city?

  Bows began snapping on top of the surviving tower as the bridge defenders began to fire at the dead. The latter had brought some fat pine trunks with them and mounted them onto the bridge, intending to repair it. The defenders had killed them all but more and more zombies kept pouring out from behind the mound, replacing those who’d dropped into the river. They continued dragging the pine trunks along to the damaged section of the bridge. The defenders engaged incendiary missiles. Despite the rain, the tree trunks caught fire straight away, forcing the dead to retreat.

  The players cheered. From the other bank, catapults fired wooden barrels across the river. I ducked behind a boulder, expecting them to go off, but the missiles hit the ground and fell apart, sending bits of wood and human bone everywhere. There was nothing magical inside them.

  Having said that...

  The human bones hit the ground and began to join up, forming human figures.

  Bone golems.

  Shit!

  A new volley from the catapults had hurled more barrels onto our bank. I hurried to help the players. They’d split: two shielded warriors had advanced and began to slaughter the undead. A scout lancer was stabbing the zombies with his lance from behind while the archers climbed the hill from where they kept loosing off arrow after arrow with little success.

  I stealthed up and ran into the enemy’s rear where I hacked at them with my flamberge. To my surprise, its undulating blade had sliced through their backbones with remarkable ease. The golems collapsed to the ground in heaps of bones.

  The players had finished the two remaining skeletons and hurried to frisk them, looking for any loot. I stared in disappointment at the XP I’d just received for the killing.

  This was a far cry from the dungeon’s guards in their black armor.

  More barrels smashed into the ground. More bones stirred. The players perked up and hurried to smoke the skeletons one after another while I shouted to the archers leaping from rock to rock,

  “Have you seen Mia?”

  “The thief girl?” an Elf replied, sweeping his braided silvery hair aside. “She’s just been here somewhere!”

  “Where did she go to?”

  “I didn’t notice!”

  The third volley of barrels overshot the square and burst open on the slope overhead.

  Magic flames flared up amid the stones. The archers scampered to safety, away from the skeletons. This time I saw some Death Disciples among them. The warriors with the raised shields started up the slope while I ran around it, aiming to climb the hill from the opposite side and attack the undead from the rear.

  As I left the square, I came across Ripper and Thorn Master and shouted to them as I ran,

  “Did you see Mia?”

  “Follow us!” the warrior signaled. “She’s over there!”

  We darted along the road, then turned off onto a trail hidden by the bushes. Soon it had taken us to a rocky plateau where it wound its way along the bed of a precipitous canyon.

  Suddenly I realized I was running alone. The players had lagged behind.

  What the hell?

  I turned a bend and very nearly bumped into a Death Disciple immobilized by the long branches of a thorn bush. The thorns had sunk deeply into his dead flesh even though they couldn’t deal him any serious damage, just kept him in place.

  The crystal skull that topped his staff began to glow, emitting a blue light. Instinctively I shrank back. Too late: the magic thorn bush had already blocked my retreat, growing bigger by the second.

  That was the druid’s work!

  Death magic: immunity!

  The spell cast by the dead sorcerer went right through me and burned a hole in the thorn bush. Still, new shoots just kept growing in place of the ones scorched by the spell.

  The druid hadn’t just wanted to avoid the danger. He’d lured me into a trap. An ordinary player had no chance against a Death Disciple.

  A bit further on, I saw a shred of black velvet. Then I knew that I didn’t have to look for Mia anymore.

  Bastards! They drove other players into a trap, then looted their bodies!

  Scumbags.

  How I wished I could hack them both to bits!

  Instead of fighting with the ever-growing bush, I drew my Soulkiller and unhurriedly headed for the Disciple. He cast a couple more combat spells on me. I buried the hook under his collarbone and leaned with my whole weight on it, widening the cut. The hook sliced through the dead flesh and the bones. I released it, then sliced through he monster’s larynx and broke his backbone.

  His head dropped onto his chest. He let go of his staff which I caught just in time. It crumbled in my hands. I was dying to add another crystal skull to my collection but it too disintegrated into dust.

  I didn’t care.

  I slid the hook in my belt, drew the flamberge from its scabbard and ran down the path. By then, the thorn shoots had already shriveled up. One whack with my sword was enough to disperse it.

  I stealthed up and returned to the road. The two bastards were nowhere to be seen. Shame. I’d seriously intended to rip them to shreds. I didn’t give a damn about receiving the PK mark. I just didn’t care.

  Still, the two lowlifes had already legged it. My fury began to subside. I returned to the square and froze, open-mouthed. The powerful wind ravaged the square. Dustdevils played havoc with the bodies and bones, eventually merging into one gigantic tornado. It then fell apart, releasing a bone dragon into the sky.

  The archers on the surviving tower tried to bring him down. The undead creature saw their efforts. With one powerful wingbeat, it collapsed the firing platform on which they stood into the river.

  The bridge had fallen. The approaches to the city were now open to the army of the dead.

  7

  THE DEAD HAD neither attacked during the day nor at s
unset. In was only at twilight that their troops marched into the between the hills. By then, most of the surviving players had already returned to the tavern. The moderators had deliberately given the city defenders enough time to regain their strength. But even so, our decimated ranks hadn’t the slightest chance of repelling the invasion.

  But even though Stone Harbor wasn’t ringed by walls, Grakh hadn’t even thought about ordering a retreat.

  “They’re just a bunch of brain-dead zombies!” he announced out loud over the clamor of voices. “They can barely move! We’ll wipe them out provided we don’t panic!”

  Somehow I doubted his fiery speech could inspire anyone. At least no one laughed at him. After all, one’s participation in an unwinnable battle was a requirement for the Defender of Stone Harbor achievement. All you lost in case of death was your XP. For all of them, this was just a game.

  WE’D DECIDED to face the dead at the roadblock by the entrance to the city. Our warriors took cover behind the high barricade. The archers climbed onto the nearby roofs.

  Grakh left me in reserve. As the preparations for the battle unfolded, I kept looking for Ripper and Thorn Master but they were nowhere to be seen.

  What a shame.

  However, very soon we had more important things to take care of. The first wave of the dead fell upon us. The barricade became the scene of a massacre. The players had no problem killing zombies who were stupid, clumsy and unarmed. But they were only a cover for the arriving legionnaires, followed by lost souls. Our archers on the roofs were forced to switch their attention to the enemy archers, leaving our warriors without support.

  Volleys of arrows showered the ground beyond the barricade. Someone screamed with pain. An arrowhead ricocheted from another warrior’s sturdy armor. Luckily, my Evasion protected me from the deadly downpour as I seemed to know where exactly they would land and dodged mechanically without even thinking.

  And then we discovered that the army of the dead wasn’t going to play ball. While the legionnaires engaged our main forced, the dead had spread into nearby streets and attacked the few city defenders on the flanks. The latter weren’t able to offer much resistance, retreating in panic toward the Power of Tower.

  “John!” Grakh shouted. “Bring more men here! Don’t let them surround us!”

  Bring more men? We were literally down to a few: the lancer scout covered in blood, a warrior whose left arm was hanging uselessly, and a knight, powerful but too cumbersome in his armor studded with arrows and crossbow bolts. Plus me.

  Still, we had nothing to do, so I turned to my handicapped platoon, “Follow me!”

  We hurried along the street, turned a corner and bumped right into a crowd of zombies. Just our luck. Still, their rusty swords and battleaxes hadn’t prevented us from overpowering them and then heading for the crossroads. From there, a straight road led directly to the main square.

  We were not the only ones attracted to this strategically important position. A pale glow spread in the night air.

  “Retreat!” I shouted.

  Too late. The ball of ghostly light hit the scout who staggered and turned to us, raising his lance. His eyes lit up with an ominous pale-blue flame. Still, the newly-baked zombie didn’t get the chance to attack us as the knight who was running behind him smashed his brains out with his gauntleted fist.

  Blood and gore flew everywhere.

  I rushed forward, taking the next strike onto myself. My immunity to magic hadn’t let me down. A new attack spell seared me with a wave of cold but dispelled without actually harming me.

  The pallid-faced sorcerer, as tall as a beanpole, raised his staff again. I hurried to stealth up. I took a swing with my flamberge and gave him an almighty whack, adding my Constitution bonus to the damage. At the very last moment, he’d managed to detect my attack. The crit failed but the undulating blade of my sword cleft him in two, from his left collarbone to his right thigh. I’d literally split him in half.

  Next one!

  Experience: +300 [7 694/8 950]; +300 [7 738/8 950]

  Undead, the level is raised! Rogue, the level is increased!

  Achievement received: “Man of Habit”!

  My success gave me wings. I pressed on. I beheaded a skeleton brandishing a halberd, then turned to a zombie crossbowman and lowered my sword onto his swollen head in a rusty second-world-war helmet.

  The towering bulk of a dead mountain troll appeared from around the corner, his head reaching the third-floor windows, his burly shoulders blocking the daylight from the street.

  He raised his clawed hand. I dove under his swollen mitt and drew my flamberge across his exposed knee. The sword went into the rotting flesh with remarkable ease but failed to reach the bone. I had to dodge his new attack and retreat.

  Still, now I knew I could do it.

  The dead troll was enormous and strong but terribly slow. He just couldn’t react to my lunges in time. Any other rogue would have had their work cut out for them trying to pierce his hide with their miserable daggers. Not me, though.

  I had my flamberge.

  Dammit! Inspired by my example, the knight raised his two-handed sword and fearlessly joined in the fray. The troll’s mitt grabbed him by the waist and hurled him head first at the wall, then squeezed him and discarded his corpse like a used tube of toothpaste, coloring everything red.

  I slashed my flamberge across his swollen hand, chopping off his pinkie. The wound oozed puss. Clumsily the troll began to turn round, offering me a perfect opportunity to attack his legs again. This time I used the “Powerful Blow”. The sword sliced through the flesh, hitting his kneecap. The sword very nearly flew out of my hand but he’d received a “Crippling Blow”.

  His enormous bulk listed to one side. I barely had time to duck out of the way. The troll clattered onto the pavement. He reached up and grabbed at a second-floor window trying to scramble back to his feet but failed. He was stuck!

  I jumped at my chance. I darted back toward him and buried the tip of my flamberge into his bulging eye. The sword met no resistance as it pierced the monster’s brain.

  The troll opened his jaws exposing his rotting teeth. He shuddered and died, for good this time.

  Execution! The Dead Mountain Troll has been killed!

  I let out a howl of triumph and pulled the soiled sword out of his eye socket. Mechanically I glanced at the XP bar.

  Big mistake. The troll’s body shuddered in one last spasm. His hand convulsed, still grabbing at the window. The stonework gave way and collapsed right on top of me.

  TURF. Stones. Drizzle.

  I’d come back into the game on a hilltop at dawn.

  “Good morning, Uncle John!” the boy greeted me. He was sitting on a mossy boulder next to a bush.

  My head was still smarting from the impact of the falling masonry but I forced a smile. “Hi kiddo. Why don’t you start a fire?”

  “There’s a dragon nearby.”

  There was only one kind of dragon that lived here: the Bone Dragon.

  I walked over to the edge of the bluff. “Where is he?”

  “I can’t see him anymore,” the boy said. “Usually he prefers to circle the tower. But he does fly over to the river now and again.”

  The top of the hill offered an excellent view of Stone Harbor. Much to my surprise, the battle was still raging in the city. Houses were burning. Flashes of combat spells raked the air. The army of Light was trying to cross the river right on the enemy’s heels. Still, the dead stood their ground and fought literally to death. The air quivered with all the loose magic, spreading a ghostly glow which trailed along the ground, then rose into the sky.

  It looked as if the subjects of the Tower of Decay had won this round. Sooner or later, they were going to polish off the few city defenders. The army of Light had its work cut out for it trying to break through their defenses.

  “Don’t the dead come here?” I asked the boy as I’d noticed about twenty grim prisoners, all city dwellers, being esco
rted somewhere by a Death Disciple and half a dozen zombie crossbowmen.

  “No, they don’t,” the boy replied. “They don’t dare to. Only the dragon flies around.”

  I sat on a boulder next to him and stretched my legs.

  “Uncle John, d’you want your skull back?” the boy asked. “It’s sort of weird. Sometimes it gets real cold from inside.”

  “I’d like you to keep it for a while,” I asked as I opened the stats window. I had to distribute the points I’d received. Also, what was that achievement with a funny name, “Man of Habit”?

  I opened its description. Oh wow.

  25 levels with one weapon!

  Bloody Flamberge (Deadman’s Set)

  +3% to Damage and Accuracy

  Did I just say wow? This was off the scale!

  With the previous achievement, I now had 5% to both Damage and Accuracy. That was nothing to sniff at!

  And if I managed to keep it for 50 levels, what kind of reward would they give me then?

  I stopped and knocked on the nearby tree, not wanting to jinx it.

  Oh no, sir.

  A player’s initial advance through a game is usually rapid. But once you reached level 50, you had to fight for every little bonus. Even investing real money wouldn’t help you much. It was just that my case was so special. It might take me a while to reach my ceiling. Still, sooner or later that would happen.

  I added one point to agility. After some hesitation, I invested the other one into perception which directly affected internal energy. It was vital for me to keep Incognito up and running.

  I selected Evasion from my list of skills. Instead of improving combat skills, I chose to level up Incognito seeing as now I had this opportunity.

  And that’s where bitter disappointment lay. I’d naively thought that now my skill would spend less internal energy. In fact, it turned out to be quite the opposite.

  Incognito II

  By now, you’re so used to hiding from unwanted stares, you can actually sense them.