by Kyle Johnson
Lord Sorcerer
Singularity Online: Book 3
Kyle Johnson
Prologue
Phil’s shield clanged as the giant beetle’s pincers grabbed it, and the big man winced as the insect shook its head, trying to tear off the shield or the arm; Phil wasn’t sure which. He muttered a few syllables and touched one finger to his shield, and the beetle hissed as an electric spark jumped through the shield into its body. Its pincers opened reflexively, releasing Phil’s arm, and the Spellsword pushed forward, stabbing his flaming blade directly into the beetle’s open maw. The insect scuttled back, but suddenly McBane appeared on top of its back, his twin blades ripping into the soft tissue beneath its carapace.
A crossbow bolt streaked past Phil and struck the beetle in one of its eyes, disappearing into the monster’s head. It recoiled, and Phil took the moment to slam his shield under its pincers, lifting it up and exposing its more delicate underbelly. He could have struck then, but instead he continued to lift, putting his new Str Stat to work as he flipped the creature entirely onto its back. He stepped on one of the pincers, pinning it in place, and held the creature’s head down with his shield while Longfellow and McBane finished it off.
As he sheathed his sword, he shook his head at how easy the battle had been. “I think we’re outgrowing this area, guys,” he mused as he checked his notifications. “That fight gave us each, what, 85 XP? That’s barely worth coming out here, really.”
“It doesn’t make sense,” McBane complained in a slightly high-pitched voice that had a very faint Irish accent to it, one you had to listen to in order to really hear. “Yesterday, these things gave us almost triple that. Did the AIs nerf them or something?”
“I think it’s hilarious that you’re talking about making sense,” Meridian scoffed good-naturedly in her normal accent, which held a distinct Southern twang but wasn’t as obnoxious as what she called her ‘Hee-Haw accent’, whatever that meant. “You named yourself after a minor Simpsons character – and you don’t even have the common decency to talk like him – and you’re expecting things to make sense?”
“I’ve told you,” McBane huffed, “I’m not named after that idiot movie star in your little cartoon. I’m named after Donald McBane, the legendary swordmaster!”
“You say that a lot,” Longfellow spoke up, his British accent clear and strong. “But I have yet to see you challenge anyone to a formal duel. Is it because your gloves are too tight to take off and smack someone? I can lend you a pair, if you’d like.”
“Like I’d want to touch anything your hands have been in,” McBane snorted. “You think we don’t know what you do when you go off to ‘train’? I’m certain there’s some shaft work going on, but no one believes arrows are involved.”
Meridian burst into laughter. “Damn, Shortfellow,” she guffawed. “Do I need to drop a heal on you for that burn?”
“We all have our training methods,” Longfellow shrugged. “Just because mine doesn’t involve grunting and sweating…wait a tick…”
Even McBane laughed at that, and Phil needed a few moments to collect himself before he could speak. “Hey, whatever you’re doing is working, so feel free to keep it up,” he assured Longfellow. “Just, you know, be a little quieter about it around the camp, tonight, okay? You had Meridian all hot and bothered yesterday.”
“That boy couldn’t get me hot if he set me on fire,” Meridian countered. “Now, maybe if McBane would just give in and do the accent already, we could talk.” She looked at the short, wiry man with his dirty blonde hair. “Come on, you know you want to say it. Just once, for me?”
The Rogue rolled his eyes. “You know that doesn’t work on me,” he reminded her. “You’ve got too many X chromosomes for my taste.” He looked at her pleading face and sighed. “Fine, just this once.” He straightened and put on an expressionless mask. “Did you ever notice how men leave the toilet seat up? That’s the joke.”
Meridian sighed and pretended to swoon, but McBane just ignored her and turned back to face Phil. “So, what do you think about why our XP are going down?”
Phil frowned, his hilarity melting away in an instant. “I think it’s because they’re not really a challenge for us anymore,” he said slowly. “I remember Jeff – Aranos, sorry, it’s hard to remember sometimes – telling me that the AIs scaled down his XP when he was fighting these giant skeleton things because he had a method that gave him almost no risk. When the challenge goes down, the reward goes down, too.”
“Well, we’ve still got this Bounty Quest for their bits and pieces,” Meridian spoke up. “That’s a few hundred XP, plus some gold, right there.”
“It’s not very much XP or gold, though, is it?” Longfellow countered. “I think Phil’s right; I think we’re outgrowing this part of the Blightlands.”
After Phil’s return to Singularity Online, he’d tried his best to put Jeff’s suggestions into action. He’d worked out a deal for Longfellow and him to get some weapons training at the local armory, and he’d been using the training regimen Jeff gave him to boost his Str and End by two points a day. After seeing the results, his teammates had found trainers of their own: Longfellow was working on his Dex and Per, and Meridian had found an exercise that let her boost her Wis and Int.
After they’d recruited Blaine, who went by the alias McBane, to Meridian’s endless amusement, Phil had told the Rogue about Stat training. The man had jumped at the chance for extra Agil and Per training, and the four of them had finally become strong enough to venture into the Blightlands at night, the first party in Stoneleague to have attempted it and survived.
“We could go deeper,” Meridian ventured. “In fact, maybe we should start heading out toward the High Road a bit. I know stuff’s tougher out that way, but we’re gonna have to do it eventually, right?”
“The tiny healer has a point,” Longfellow agreed. “Beyond her two obvious ones, that is. Might as well start making our way out there, right?”
Phil nodded. “Yeah, I think it’s time,” he agreed. “We’ll head that way tonight, come back out tomorrow, and see if we can’t reach the High Road the day after.” The big man grinned. “I think we’re ready for Antas, folks.”
Martina sat silently, staring at the ale she’d been nursing all day and cursing that asshole Phil for probably the fiftieth time today. She was certain he was the one who started calling her ‘Karen’ – not that ‘SniprGurl’ is any better, is it, Martina? she thought bitterly – and that he was probably the one who convinced Neela to join that damned College, leaving Martina without any kind of magical support. Sure, Hector was still willing to party with her, but with just a tank and a scout/DPS, there weren’t many Quests that were really available to them. She knew that Hector had been hanging out at the Adventurer’s Guild and jumping into pick-up groups for single Quests here and there; tanks were a dime a dozen, but Hector was known to be solid and reliable, so he rarely had trouble grabbing a group.
He’d even invited her to join him, but she just couldn’t bring herself to do it. That would be someone else’s party, and she’d just be another shooter in it. Despite what Phil said, she knew that she could be a great party leader if she just found people that wouldn’t screw things up so much, but no matter how she tried, she couldn’t seem to get a party together. Hector told her that she had a reputation; he didn’t say for what, but she was sure that it was because Phil went around shit-talking her out of spite for being kicked out of the party.
And then, the asshole Spellsword had gone and grabbed a new party. They’d started small, with only three people, but they’d gone on a damn whirlwind of Questing. They’d managed to comple
te some Quests that Martina had left hanging – you mean failed, her mind told her maliciously – and a couple that she had deemed impossible to complete. All that meant, of course, was that Phil had been holding out on her when he was in the party; he’d been screwing her this whole, damn time.
Now, here she was, sitting in this stupid bar, nursing a drink because thanks to not having a party, she couldn’t complete Quests, which meant that she was broke and could only afford a single beer. She didn’t even know why she was hanging out here; she had been hoping that being around the King’s Rangers would eventually net her some Class-related Quests and maybe even an invite to join them, but they just kept ignoring her.
Because you don’t have reputation with them, the mocking voice reminded her. And you can’t get that without a party, can you? She gritted her teeth and squeezed the clay mug as hard as she dared; she didn’t have the funds to pay to replace it, and she didn’t want to spend the day washing dishes for some pissed-off tavern keeper.
A pair of thumps at her table pulled her eyes out of her drink, and she saw that two people had taken a seat across from her. One, a weathered-looking male with dark hair graying at the temples and wearing an expensive, if worn and faded robe, smiled confidently at her, as if he knew some secret that he was about to share. The other, a severe-looking woman in black leather with knives strapped all over, looked everywhere except at Martina, drawing suspicious stares from the gathered Rangers.
“What the hell do you want?” Martina snapped at the newcomers. Come sit at my fucking table, everybody knows it’s mine, too…rude asshole! “There’s plenty of room in here; find your own table if you want a drink.”
The smile never left the man’s face as he cocked his head curiously at her. “I’m not here for a drink,” he spoke in a calm, deep voice. “I’m here because I heard you’re looking for a party, right?”
“I’m looking to start a party, yeah,” Martina corrected, straightening up and plastering a smile on her face. “Sorry about that; people in here can be a little rude, sometimes.”
“You don’t say?” the man replied in a deadpan voice. “That’s a shame.
“In any case,” he continued, “my friend and I are looking into a Quest, but we seem to be short a party. I’m a Summoner, and she’s an Assassin; I heard you were a shooter and had a tank on call for you, right?”
“Yeah,” Martina said hesitantly. “I mean, that sounds good, but I wasn’t looking to join somebody else’s party, man. Thanks, though.”
“Oh, no,” the man chuckled. “Neither Monetta nor I have any desire to lead a party. She’s so quiet I maybe only hear her speak a couple times per day, and I…well, I’ve got my Summons to deal with. Keeping them moving in one direction is enough headache for me, I can tell you!”
“So, you’d want to join my party?” Martina confirmed slowly. “What’s this Quest you’re looking at?”
“Something the Temple of the Sunlord put out,” he shrugged. “There’s some city called Antas that needs liberating, and I want to take a crack at it.”
Martina scoffed and leaned back. “Join that Aranos guy?” she replied disbelievingly. “Nah, I’m not in this game to right wrongs. I’m in it for XP and loot; I have a feeling we beta testers might get some epic loot that we can sell for beaucoup bucks once the game goes live.”
“And what better place for that than a ruined, deserted city?” the man pressed. “Let me be clear: I don’t care about Aranos, or about freeing the city. I’m a Summoner, and I’m hoping to find some rare or lost Summoning Spells there, plus maybe some good mage loot. Plus, if we can secure it, it might serve as a handy base; it’s only a couple days from here by the High Road, after all.”
“That’s true,” Martina nodded thoughtfully. “So, what’s your name, friend?”
“Call me Liam,” he grinned, extending his hand. “And you are…Karen?”
Martina flushed. “No,” she said shortly. “My name’s Martina, but…well, I was treating this like every other game, so at character creation I called myself ‘SniprGurl’. No one in my previous party wanted to use it, so they called me Karen.”
“I don’t blame them,” he chuckled. “Mind if I just call you Martina, then?”
“Yeah, that’s fine,” she sighed. “Welcome to the party, Liam and Monetta…and hey, maybe if we run into that Aranos guy, we’ll get a chance to see if he’s as tough as I’ve heard, right? It’d be fun to bring that bastard down a peg or two!”
“Oh, that would be fun,” Liam agreed, his eyes glinting fiercely. “I look forward to working with you, Martina…”
Veronica watched all the moving pieces in play around her more or less impassively. Newsome was sitting in his office, negotiating a deal to license the Mark-I pod technology as a new type of home fitness regimen. Every so often, his eyes would dart to the small holo-pic floating above his desk, and his negotiations would become even more fervent. Newsome was, despite his power and influence, one of the simpler pieces playing: he had one goal, and everything he did was moving toward that goal. It made him easy to predict, but hard to influence.
The woman named Lily was currently pursuing a Questline that she probably hoped would give her some vengeance on Jeff. So far, she’d had a distinct lack of success, but Veronica knew that a lot of that was because the Corruption she was embracing was dramatically weakening her. If she completed her transformation and became fully Corrupted, Veronica wasn’t sure how a confrontation between the two would turn out. While her predictive models told her one thing, they’d been notoriously inaccurate anytime the fledgling Sorcerer was involved, so she’d learned not to fully trust them. Still, Lily was technically the highest-leveled and most powerful player in the game right now; if she turned her focus to beating Jeff instead of indulging her pleasures, Veronica didn’t give the Sorcerer very good odds.
Speaking of the devil, Jeff had finally wrapped up his latest Quest and was busy basking in the rewards. They’d been significant, but that was because Veronica hadn’t remotely expected it to turn out as it had. All of her models showed Jeff failing and Golloron sweeping in at the last moment to save the day, but that was because none of them included Jeff basically sacrificing his mind and counting on his NPC followers to send him to respawn. His willpower had astounded even her, and she decided that maybe this time, instead of testing his power or ability to use it, she’d test the limits of what he could endure…
Chapter 1
“Rhys, Entangle on the left!” Aranos shouted as Saphielle jammed her shield into the ground and braced it with her shoulder, absorbing the impact as what looked like a 10-foot long, black-and-grey dappled hyena slammed into her, rebounding off her shield. The creature once more shook off the impact and snapped at the spear that the Warrior thrust over her shield, puncturing the creature’s hide only lightly but keeping its attention fastened securely on her.
The tall, green-haired Druid instantly began to mutter words of power, and twisted, black roots erupted from the dark soil of the Blightlands to the left of the party, snarling and tangling around the paws of another pair of the hyena-like creatures that had attempted to rush the party on their flank. Aranos glanced to the right and held out his hand, calling air and unaspected mana from his spirals in equal amounts, weaving them into an invisible net of tiny hooks of force surrounded by spinning discs of air. As his Energy Web snapped into place, it captured another pair of the attackers that were trying to sneak up on their right flank.
Silma stood beside Saphielle, her glistening, white fur hidden beneath what looked like a second skin of gleaming steel. She dodged a hyena’s lunge and shouldered it to the side, her mass almost matching the creature’s and sufficient to knock it off-balance for a moment. As it stumbled, her teeth, glowing with light mana, ripped into the monster’s foreleg, tearing through muscle and tendon with ease. The hyena yelped and tried to jump back, but with its wounded leg it simply tripped and fell, exposing its neck for an instant. That instant was all Silma
needed to dart forward and rip out its throat with her gleaming fangs, leaving it to bleed out on the ground.
“Now, Geltheriel!” Aranos shouted, and the elven Shadedancer suddenly appeared behind the trio of creatures attacking the party’s front. The woman’s slim sword, a family heirloom of some kind with powers that Geltheriel had yet to awaken, flashed in the darkness, falling upon the rearmost hyena’s spine three times in a single second. Before the creature could react, a second, shadowy blade followed the first, striking the same spot as the first attack. Despite seeming almost insubstantial, the dark blade bit deeply into the hyena’s back, drawing a gout of blood before it vanished in a swirl of black vapor.
The hyena’s rear legs collapsed as the second attack apparently severed its spine. It tried to turn to face its attacker, but its useless back legs dragged on the ground, slowing it to a literal crawl. Geltheriel thrust with her blade, plunging it into the creature’s nearest eye, and concentrated for a moment. A pulse of dark energy raced down her blade, and the hyena convulsed as the shadowy power coursed into its brain. The creature’s corpse fell to the earth, and Geltheriel vanished back into the shadows before the remaining attacker could turn to face her.
Saphielle shouted a wordless cry and banged the shaft of her spear against her shield, and the hyena before her turned back, its aggro one more focused on her as she used her Battle Shout Ability. Her spear lunged out once more, the blade drawing a line of blood along the creature’s side. As it lunged for the weapon, trying to snatch the shaft from her hand, she lashed out with her shield, smashing the metal-bound surface into the hyena’s skull. The monster yelped and jumped back, shaking its head and staggering slightly.
The two hyenas on his left were slowly approaching, and he turned to face them, flinging out his left hand. A multi-colored cylinder of energy no bigger than the tip of his finger swirled into being as he pulled mana of all four elemental types from his spirals, compacting the energy into a Composite Bullet. The Bullet whistled as it flew off, his Expert-level Arcane Archery Skill guiding his aim. The Bullet struck the nearest hyena exactly between its eyes, and he Channeled the Spell for a second, forcing it to bury itself into its skull. He released the Spell, and the Bullet burst with a low clap as all four energies exploded into the hyena’s head. His mental computations estimated that with all of his Perks, Stat bonuses, and Titles, the Spell normally did about 225 LP, or Life Points of damage per casting, without critical hit bonuses, damage bonuses from his Archery Skill, or the extra damage it gained from being Channeled. The creature’s LP, whatever they might be, obviously weren’t enough to protect it from the combined effects of all that stacked damage, and its head burst into a flare of energy as its decapitated body dropped to the ground.
