The Culling of Man: A litrpg adventure (Peril's Prodigy Book 1)

by Craig Kobayashi

  "My turn," said Garath to himself, grinning wildly and focusing his will into the .5 second cast of a Death Bolt he aimed at the Hypnotist. The caster had to go down next and he planned on bringing in reinforcements to get the job done. *Get out here, we have work to do.*

  Garath could feel the Experience Points inside his target, the power he would gain from destroying it - and he wanted it. He released the black orb of energy from his outstretched hands and it fired over the flowing river, then dipped in altitude to connect with its target. Only a sliver of red drained from the Hypnotist's Health bar, eliciting a perturbed glare from the Necrologist that had expected much better results. Could she have a magic resistance of some kind? The Hypnotist stayed behind, treading water with her tail as the three Pikemen neared the cave mouth and Garath's summoned demons arrived at the scene behind him.

  The Fel Hound ran back and forth at the edge of the water, eagerly awaiting the Naga Pikemen while the Flayer took aim at Garath's target without being told to, unleashing Death Bolts in a constant stream of black energy - pulsing every .5 seconds as another black orb shot out of its outstretched hands. The melee Naga engaged Warrion and the Fel Hound as soon as they slithered out of the water. The female Naga treading water beyond the melee made eye contact with Garath and held it, her gaze shaking him with its intensity and animosity. Then, he couldn't move.

  A new icon appeared in the corner of his vision opposite those of the Bark Skin and Aquawood Defense buffs, this new icon was that of an eyeball with a red line flashing over it. Unable to move, the Necrologist focused on the icon to gain more information - he mentally kicked himself on repeat for being such an idiot, and read the script that appeared, even though he already had a pretty good idea of what was going on.

  You are paralyzed. You will be unable to move until eye contact with Naga Hypnotist is broken.

  Garath desperately willed himself to look away, but no matter how hard he tried, he just couldn't. The Hypnotist raised one eyebrow at him, taunting, then lifted her hands and began to cast, a heartless smile twisting her face. Garath wanted to tell the Party to focus her down or distract her but the words wouldn't come. As luck would have it though, he wasn't the only person in the group with a brain.

  Athios had noticed that something was wrong the moment Garath’s second Death Bolt didn't immediately follow his first. She saw the debuff icon appear near his nameplate and noticed that he wasn't moving. In a rare moment of decisiveness, Athios knew exactly what to do. And exactly what to do was inspired by her all time favorite game, Portal.

  She hefted her trident, flipping the pointy end to face the stone floor. With one hand lifting the weapon as high as she could manage and the other outstretched with her palm up, she cast a white disk to appear at her feet. A second later she sent a second white disk to appear just above the water-treading Naga's head and strained to hold them both open. She thrust down with the trident like a conquistador planting his flag on already inhabited land with her eyes glued to the Hypnotist.

  Just like in her favorite game, the dangerous end of the trident went through the disk just above the stone floor, then emerged from the second disk above the Hypnotist's head, easily penetrating the Naga caster's neck and shoulder.

  The Hypnotist shrieked in pain and the Necrologist was free of her paralyzing gaze.

  "Kill the caster,” Garath called over the Party channel while pulling his will in to cast another Death Bolt at the paralyzing Hypnotist himself.

  Athios nodded, her Mana was getting dangerously low and her ability to focus with it. She steeled herself even as a mind splitting headache stabbed at her frontal cortex. Athios twisted the trident and pulled it out of the Hypnotist then thrust down again. The Naga caster dipped below the water level, lifeless, as Athios pulled her trident back through the tear in space-time, and ended her channeled casting. Holding two disks open drained her Mana precipitously and the cooldown for her Endless Potion of Mana still had three and a half minutes left - leaving her effectively out for the remainder of the fight.

  Warrion was dancing, locked in melee with three Pikemen and bleeding profusely from his left arm by the time Garath was finally released from the paralysis. Sharon flashed green as she slung a Nature's Touch to the Assassin, bringing his Health back up to just over half and continuing to rise each second. Again she pulled horned roots from the stone floor, binding a flailing Naga Pikeman in place.

  The Flayer fired Death Bolts at any Naga in sight like Oprah at a charity event. One for you, one for you, look under your chair, Death Bolt! The Fel Hound jumped on the Naga bound with horned roots and bit into its unprotected abdomen, filling the hound's mouth with blue puss and a fat hunk of flesh as it ripped away. Garath, less than cautiously, approached the raging melee, getting just close enough to infect all three Pikemen with the instant cast of Blight - he spared a thought to consider the additional cost, but figured one more soul-taint couldn't be that much harm - he'd gained dozens of taints with his cat form after all.

  Deep purple energy spread from his body, infecting the snake-people with its poison debuff. The remainder of the skirmish was short lived, the outnumbered and outgunned Pikemen fell one after another to the ground with empty Health bars, a teal orb rising from each of their bodies. Garath bathed in glorious ecstasy as the experience from their deaths flowed into him, and was rewarded with a prompt.

  Congratulations, Garath! For reaching level 23, you are awarded 3 Attribute Points (3 per level) and 1 Skill Point (1 per level) to distribute at your discretion. As a Necrologist, you receive +3 Wisdom, + 3 Vitality, and +1 Regeneration per level. You have one week to distribute the points before they are assigned for you based on your chosen Class.

  Unused Attribute Points: 3

  Unused Skill Points: 1

  New Skills are now available.

  The Party retreated several feet back into the cave to wait for their Mana and cooldowns to recover before attempting the next pull. Garath found that a perfect time to pull up his Skills panel to check out the new Skill that had just become available.

  A glowing new Skill circle waited eagerly for his attention on the Death tree. It branched off a prerequisite Skill, Blight. As soon as he read the name of his newest Skill option a sick feeling threatened to overwhelm his senses. He hesitantly willed more information to appear, the sick feeling turning to a brick in his stomach as he read.

  Plague

  Active

  Cost: 178 Mana (.25x base Mana) to cast and an additional 10 Mana per second to maintain

  100 Meter Range

  3 Second Cast

  Effect: Infects all hostile beings within 100 meters of you with a Plague stemming from your blackened soul, dealing 7 (death) damage (.1x Wisdom Attribute) per second until the cast is cancelled, the Plague is cured, inflicted being moves out of range, or death occurs.

  "Mother fucker," said Garath, his mouth hanging open dumbly.

  He explained the Skill to his friends, who all just listened silently, wondering why he insisted on reading them the description of his new Skill. Then, all at once, each of them put two-and-two together.

  "Mother fucker," said Warrion.

  "Right?"

  "So you think… You don't think…” Athios started pulling on a lock of hair below her ear as she considered it. “You think another Necrologist is making everyone sick?"

  "Well, yeah. I do."

  "But why?" Sharon wanted to know.

  "That's the question, isn't it? There's a chance it's unintentional. I mean, the Skill description says it infects all hostile beings, so if someone even viewed other humans as a threat that could qualify them, to the system, as hostile. So maybe a friendly, and perhaps paranoid, Necrologist is just nearby. And has his spell active. In a safe zone…”

  “Fat chance," said Warrion.

  "Yeah," Athios agreed.

  Garath knew there was nothing innocent about the Plague at HQ. He knew exactly what the other Necrologist was doing, farming EXP. On his
friends. On his Raid group. On fucking Gran! He didn't know why he knew exactly, his only clue being his own, rapidly increasing, curiosity about the amount of experience a human would grant if slain.

  The Necrologist willed his MENU panels into semi-transparant existance in front of him and opened his Friend List. In just a few minutes, with a few messages back and forth to Gary, Garath explained how Plague works to the bearded man. He agreed to get some of the stronger fighters together and attempt to triangulate the bastard’s location.

  "Let's get through this shit and get back,” said Garath, the vacant expression leaving his face as he willed his MENUs to close. “I've got a few words for this dick-bag."

  Chapter 31

  Rinse and Repeat, Right?

  As the Party recovered HP, Mana, and cooldowns, Garath read through a handful of private messages that he had received from his previous Raid Group in response to his announcement about the Guild. He was both touched and surprised to learn that so many BOTH members felt the need to express their gratitude to him personally. While it was true that he had been the Raid Leader throughout the event, and many of them read his forum posts calling them to safety, and that he was the one that had ended the threat of the Ice Drake, Aldrasyl, at the culmination of the horrendous event - he felt almost guilty receiving so many messages of thanks. He hadn’t done any of it by himself, it was Athios that had posted the original message that led to the Raid Group and almost every member of the Hawks fought through the entire event alongside him. Even though he didn't feel like he deserved it, Garath was touched. These people had counted on him to keep them safe during The Culling and, at that very moment, were in peril again - this time from the attack of another human.

  The Necrologist felt a pang of guilt at not being there to protect them. If he had been, he would have immediately recognized the attack for what it was by reading his combat log. A spell like Plague would show up in the log next to the name of whoever cast the spell. He knew it wasn't worth dwelling on and that his focus should be on the present, so Garath shook the guilt away and purchased his new Skill, Plague, before walking once again to the open cave mouth leading to the cerulean cove. He stood at the edge of the water to prepare for the next pull.

  The cove was still heavily guarded by the Aquawood Naga. The platform to the left of the cave mouth, the larger platform topped with a gazebo in the center of the cove, and the two far platforms were still manned by five Naga each. There was still the patrol with the abnormally large Naga swimming through the flowing blue water behind the central platform. In total, twenty-three Naga remained and Garath salivated over the Experience Points just waiting to be harvested.

  Refreshed, the Party repeated their method to clear the platform to the left of the cave mouth. Athios sucked the Sentry through her dimensional disk to land inside the cave, where Warrion silenced it before it was able to call for help with a savage throat-slash. Garath didn't make the mistake of looking into the Hypnotist's eyes this time. Instead, he kept his visual focus glued to the nameplate affixed above her head. Athios’ second relocation landed the Hypnotist on the body of the recently deceased Sentry to quickly join it in a heap of puss and blue flesh on the stone floor. With the Sentry and Hypnotist out of the way, mopping up the Pikemen was no great feat.

  Garath felt himself enjoying the style of battle that playing as a summoner provided. Before, he had been fighting largely in cat form - as it allowed for greater mobility and a smaller hitbox - but as his Fel Hound and Flayer remorselessly delivered killing blows to the blue-skinned snake-people, he felt a sort of kinship to them, these literal demons that he had eternally bound to his servitude.

  With the two platforms closest to the cave mouth out of the way, the Party discussed their next obstacle - traversing the water filled cove without alerting the remaining Naga, or having to fight the Naga in the water where their fierce-eyed enemies would hold home field advantage.

  "Now Crow form?" Warrion asked, looking out over the flowing water.

  "That or we're going swimming..." Garath suggested unenthusiastically.

  "We do have a third option," Athios reminded them, holding one palm up with a dimensional disk flashing into and out of existence above it.

  "Save your Mana," said Garath. "I might be going swimming anyway."

  “So you DO have a deathwish,” Athios said, nodding at the Necrologist with unbelieving eyes. Who would be such an idiot?

  "The Hypnotists were casters. I want that staff. And the water isn't moving that fast," he said, cautiously approaching the water at the edge of the cave mouth and dipping one finger in. He pulled it out and waited apprehensively for some new debuff icon to appear, but none did.

  The water was not a crystal-clear blue, like in some high mountain lakes, but it was transparent enough for the Necrologist to clearly see the gold staff tipped with a pulsing blue orb bobbing back and forth at the bottom. He sat on the wet cave floor and started to untie his shoes, hardly able to contain his excitement at the thought of finally having a better weapon than his (self-described) useless wooden rod.

  “I think I'll just take this one,” said the Dimensionalist, walking over to the pile of corpses. She shooed the Flayer away, then physically relocated several bodies before finding the golden staff dropped by the second Hypnotist downed by the Party. The trident she had recently acquired adequately ended the lives of her enemies if she stabbed them with it, sure - but melee really wasn't her forte and the staff may be a weapon that would actually benefit her class.

  Garath looked defeated as he pulled one beat-to-shit Chuck Taylor off and set it aside.

  "Why not have your little demon go get it?" Sharon suggested absently, one finger tracing the painted murals along the cave wall.

  Garath thought about that. He hadn't tried to give any commands to the Flayer or the Hound more complicated than, 'kill'. Between the two, asking the Flayer to 'go fetch' something was probably not his best bet. The Hound on the other hand, had always seemed eager to please. Garath honestly didn't know what would happen, but he knew he'd have to find out the limit of their intelligence at some point anyway, so he focused on the part of his mind he knew the Fel Hound now resided.

  *Get,* he projected the word as he filled his mind with an image of the gold staff swaying back and forth a few feet below the water line.

  Garath was happily surprised when the demon dog seemed to understand his command. Any summoned creature in any game he had ever played would be limited to simply attacking, even the most pet-centric games would go as far as allowing summoned creatures to use their own Skills - but nothing like a real time command that would require even the lowest amount of cognitive reasoning. The Hound jumped from the cave mouth, bounding into the water. It dove and retrieved a golden staff, breaching the surface holding it between clenched jaws. As it wagged its stumpy green tail proudly at the Necrologist, Garath felt the need to praise the eager creature.

  *Good boy!* he told it, bending to scratch its leathery head. The Hound dropped the staff onto the stone floor and Garath bent to pick it up. A little focus later, the item description was revealed.

  Hypnotic Staff of the Wise

  Attack Damage: 7-11 (Mental)

  Attack Speed: 3.26

  DPS (damage per second): 2.76

  Durability: 29/30

  Item Score: 17

  Two-handed weapon

  Type: Staff

  Quality: Above Average

  Rarity: Rare

  Spell Targeting Assistance: Basic

  +30 Wisdom

  +10 Regeneration

  Item Requirements:

  Level: 13

  Wisdom: 36

  "Whaaaaa," exclaimed Garath, eloquently as ever. Warrion looked at him expectantly. "Plus thirty Wis and plus ten Regen," he explained.

  "Dude, nice!" said Warrion.

  “Not bad at all,” Athios agreed, equipping her own staff.

  She then rifled through the pile of corpses again, fighting a losing b
attle to avoid adding her breakfast to the mess. With one hand over her mouth, she finally stood up with a golden adornment in her free hand.

  "That's right, they were wearing some kind of crown too. Circlet?" Garath remembered.

  Garath looked again at the happy demon dog, who was still wagging its stumpy tail and drooling something foul, then gave it another command.

  *Get,* he told the Hound again, replacing the image in his mind to that of the gold crown still sitting atop the head of the slain snake-woman's corpse, bobbing around below the water. Again, the demon dog bolted into the water and, seconds later, emerged with the simple gold crown. Garath excitedly Inspected it.

  Hypnotic Diadem of the Wise

  Raiment Slot: Head

  Defense Rating: 35

  Armor: +7

  Quality: Above average

  Durability: 30/30

  Item Score: 21

  Type: Light armor

  Magic Resistance: +15%

  Rarity: Rare

  +20 Wisdom

  +8 Regeneration

  Item Requirements:

  Level: 13

  Wisdom: 36

  Garath equipped his new diadem and staff, sending both pieces of his Necrologist starting gear to his Items panel, and let his newly improved stats wash over his body.

  "Nice tiara," commented Warrion, cracking a smile.