Lord Sorcerer: Singularity Online: Book 3

by Kyle Johnson

  Saphielle glanced at Aranos, her face showing a trace of concern. “For this to be true, no mere Wizard or warlord could be commanding here, Redeemer. There must be a Lord of Undeath holding this city.”

  “We knew that the city was going to be hard to take, if not impossible,” Aranos said calmly. “All we can do is work our way closer, avoid these wards, and find out as much as we can. Our main goal isn’t to free the city; it’s to get into the Vault and find the information for Geltheriel’s Quest. Let’s decide if we can or even should try to do more when we know more, right?”

  The others nodded, Rhys with seeming reluctance – Aranos knew that the Druid had joined the party because he felt the elves weren’t doing enough to take back what they’d lost, so the idea of the party only doing what they had to probably sat badly with him – and they resumed their circuitous trek around the borders of the city, seeking out the humans who’d come to join them.

  Aranos realized something was amiss when his Tracking Skill showed that Silma was heading back toward them at a decent speed. She wasn’t moving quickly enough to be running from anything, but she was moving too fast for a simple report.

  I think I’ve found our prey, pack leader, she sent silently as she neared the party.

  They’re not prey, Silma, Aranos admonished with a mental grin. They’re going to be joining our pack. Hopefully.

  We’re hunting them, aren’t we? That makes them prey until they prove otherwise. In any case, I found some tracks that weren’t undead or elves. They were recent, as well.

  Were they human?

  I don’t know what humans smell like, the fenrin pointed out. They aren’t elves, they aren’t undead, and they passed recently. It almost has to be our prey, doesn’t it?

  Yeah, I guess it does. He turned to the others with a smile. “Silma thinks she found them. We’ll move in Stealth, just in case – she doesn’t know what humans look or smell like, so she can’t say whether or not they’re Phil and his party.”

  They moved forward as stealthily as possible, pausing occasionally as Aranos disjoined nearby wards. So far, they’d only seen tracks of the undead around them, but there had been a lot of those. In fact, they seemed to be following the path of a large number of the type that moved on all fours; Aranos counted at least thirty of those moving quickly in the same direction. Hopefully, they weren’t moving toward Phil and his party, although he had a feeling they were. He wasn’t sure if Phil’s healer would be able to detect and disjoin the wards, but he doubted it. That was usually the province of Mages rather than Priests, unless they were a Cleric of some deity of magic.

  They followed the trail for long minutes before Aranos felt Silma speeding back toward them. As she appeared, he could feel that something was wrong; the wolf’s concern bled through their bond plainly. I have found them, she told him silently, without preamble. They’re in danger. Instantly, Aranos saw an image of a human that he immediately recognized as Phil – or Irric Brightblade, as the man was called in-game – along with three other humans. They’re being surrounded by undead as we speak, pack leader. I couldn’t see the creatures in ambush, but I could hear and smell them.

  “Silma’s found them, and they’re walking into an ambush,” Aranos told the others grimly, resisting the urge to rush to Phil’s rescue. “We need to help them, but we also need to move carefully. Silma couldn’t see the ambush, but she could smell it, so they must be magically concealed somehow.”

  “A wise decision,” Saphielle nodded. “It would aid no one if we were to fall into the very trap we were hoping to foil.”

  The party slid forward, guided by Silma’s silent directions to Aranos. The forest here was darker, the leaves a deep black color and the trees actively hostile when Aranos tried to reach out to them with his Speak with Plants Ability. It felt like an entire forest of jubokkos, with the plants crying out for blood, violence, and pain. He shivered at that thought and hoped that the trees only felt like jubokkos and couldn’t animate like them.

  The sounds of battle came to them long before they spotted the party, causing them to slow even further. Aranos got a mental flash of the battle from Silma, who observed it silently from Stealth; the party had been attacked by a wave of shambling undead from three sides and were fighting furiously to hold them back. Phil stood in the vanguard, battling with sword and shield, while a Rogue-type man with twin swords held one flank and a woman in brass-colored armor with a warhammer and smaller shield guarded the other. An archer with twin hand crossbows stood in the middle, firing into the press on all sides, but Aranos could see that, unless the undead were extremely weak, the party was doomed. Their healer was engaged in combat, meaning none of them were recovering from damage, and he doubted either the woman or the Rogue had the LP to last very long in frontal combat. Once she fell, the others would be overwhelmed eventually.

  Aranos gestured to the others with hand signals, and the party moved forward, Geltheriel slipping off to the side while Saphielle and Rhys moved toward the nearest flank with Aranos in tow. He considered using his Flight spell to get a better view of the battle, but the trees around him made him nervous. While none of them had attacked the party yet, he didn’t want to find out that they could while he was floating in the air above a horde of undead. Even his armor wouldn’t last long that way.

  He mentally directed Silma to sneak around to the front of the battle and waited for several moments to let Geltheriel get into position. From this distance, he could just feel the undead with his Lifesense Skill; he couldn’t sense them directly, as they didn’t have souls, but they stood out in his mind as an absence of life, their presence vile in his mind. Finally, he took a deep breath and closed his eyes, trying something he hadn’t before; he cast his Ravaging Burst Spell, targeting it not with his own senses but using the mental image Silma was sending him. It felt strange at first, but he focused on the vision and pushed the Spell with his will, using the fenrin’s sense of his presence to gauge exactly where he wanted the Spell to strike.

  Fire mana raged up from his core, pouring down his channels and swirling into seven brilliantly glowing spheres of flame that whirled above his outstretched palm. The Spell roared from his hands, streaking out over the trees past the limit of his vision. In his mind, though, he could see the spheres slamming into the horde of undead and erupting in waves of flame. The wash of orange light was all the signal his party needed, and Silma burst from the trees, leaping over the flames and landing beside Phil, spinning to face the undead who still charged forward, heedless of their burning flesh. The Spellsword looked startled for a second and seemed poised to attack Silma, but as he saw her start to tear into the undead, Aranos saw recognition flash onto the man’s face, and a huge grin spread across his cheeks.

  “We’ve got backup!” Aranos heard the big man’s voice bellow. “Let’s do this!”

  Aranos and Rhys raced forward, following well behind Saphielle. The Avenger had already vanished into the trees, and Aranos heard the roar of her Battle Shout as she smashed into the enemy lines. As he rushed into the clearing, he saw Geltheriel appear on the other side of the melee, her blade cutting through undead flesh with ease. Her Shadedancer Class was meant to do terrific damage to Corrupted creatures, and Aranos couldn’t imagine anything more Corrupted than these shambling, skeletal undead.

  Freed from the threat of the looming trees, Aranos cast his Flight Spell and leapt into the air. His Composite Bullet Spell wouldn’t be very useful, here; there were simply too many of the creatures. His Battlesense suggested that there might be close to a hundred of the undead swarming the humans; he was impressed they’d held out as long as they did. They’d obviously leveled significantly since he’d last spoken to Phil.

  He looked down and saw that Geltheriel’s side needed the most assistance; the Rogue on Saphielle’s side was doing an impressive job of avoiding the creatures, and most of the rest had turned to face Saphielle when she attacked. Phil and Silma had the vanguard, no problem, especiall
y now that the undead were severely damaged by his Ravaging Blast. The healer, though, was struggling, alternating between melee and healing herself, and Geltheriel probably wouldn’t reach her in time.

  “Geltheriel, disengage!” he shouted, and immediately the woman danced back, vanishing into the shadows around the clearing. Aranos concentrated, pulling up more fire mana and combining it with air, earth, and water. Normally, this Spell should have failed, since it used conflicting elements, but thanks to his Master of Elements Title, twin streaks of crimson and white leaped from his hand, falling onto the milling undead and swirling madly in vortices of ice and hardened lava. The shards of frozen water and molten rock tore through the undead, shredding their skin and snapping bones.

  “Rhys, Entangle on your side!” Aranos shouted, seeing that the undead there were swarming to the sides and threatening to flank Saphielle. The woman’s spear and shield were deadly to the creatures; she crushed their skulls with one hand and impaled them through the brain with the other. Still, if they surrounded her, she’d be overwhelmed.

  As he hung over the battle, Aranos felt a new presence manifest to his Battlesense Skill. It was a single creature, standing in the forest just beyond the trees, invisible to his sight and Lifesense but showing up plainly to his Battlesense. As he watched, black, malevolent energy poured from the creature and washed over the undead; immediately, their skin began to patch itself and shattered bones reformed. Aranos’ eyes narrowed as he saw this; the undead had a healer, of sorts, and in combat, you always took out the healer first.

  He summoned a Composite Bullet and fired it at the hidden creature, targeting it with his Battlesense alone. The Bullet streaked out and slammed into a barrier of gray, unhealthy-looking mana. Aranos had expected that, though, and an instant later, six Mana Arrows struck the target, three of them light mana and three of them void. The barrier cracked as the conflicting energies reacted destructively, and a second Composite Bullet shattered the shield. The moment the shield fell, the unseen presence vanished from his Battlesense.

  Frowning, Aranos turned back to the main battle. The undead had been healed, but the boon to them was temporary. The creatures in his Fire and Ice Spell had been reduced to piles of shattered bone and torn flesh, freeing the healer to turn her attention to Phil and Silma and allowing Geltheriel to join the human Rogue. Caught between Saphielle and the pair of damage-dealers, the press of undead on that side was being quickly whittled down.

  Phil and Silma had been fighting defensively for the most part; as they each felt the first heals descend on them, though, they began pushing forward. Aranos launched another fiery Ravaging Blast at the group, scorching them with roasting flames, then followed up with an Energy Barrage that rained blasts of fire across the cratures. The undead fell like blazing torches beneath his Spell and the blade and teeth of the two Warriors, and a minute later, silence descended as the last of the creatures collapsed to the earth, Saphielle’s spear buried in its eye.

  Aranos descended to the ground, and his party gathered around him. “Who were you attacking in the forest, Oathbinder?” Geltheriel spoke, her gaze darting around the edge of the clearing. “Are there more of the creatures unseen?”

  “They had a caster with them,” Aranos answered. “I think it fled when I broke through their shield, but that means that they’ll be able to report our presence and numbers. We need to get organized and move out.”

  Aranos glanced at the humans, all of whom were staring at them in puzzlement. “Um, Jeff?” Phil spoke up, one eyebrow raised. “You know that none of us speak Elvish, right?”

  Aranos almost slapped his forehead; he hadn’t even considered that there might be a language barrier! He’d have to act as translator until they figured out…

  “Then it is fortunate indeed that all elves learn the Human tongue, is it not?” Saphielle said in perfect Human. “Otherwise, the Redeemer would have to spend his days here translating, and surely he has better things to do.”

  “Yeah, I do,” Aranos sighed in relief as he strode over to Phil, embracing the bigger man. “It’s great to see you, man!”

  “I can definitely say I’m glad to see you, too,” Phil laughed. “I thought we were all headed for respawn! I don’t know how those things managed to sneak up on us like that.”

  “Well, obviously, they had a caster with them,” the healer spoke with a strong American Southern accent, walking over to Aranos and extending her hand. “Didn’t ya’ll see Aranos here attacking the trees? I’m assuming he spotted something we didn’t, floating up there like a bird.” Although the accent was fluid and seemed natural, Aranos’ Sense Intent Skill told him that it was forced and that the woman was gauging his reaction.

  “Does she pretend to talk like this whenever she meets someone new?” he grinned at Phil as he shook the woman’s extended hand. “Or is this a special performance just for me?”

  “Every time,” Phil grunted. “She’ll get over it once she’s tired of annoying you.”

  “Oathbinder, I do not wish to interrupt your reunion, as I know you have long looked forward to seeing your old companion,” Geltheriel interrupted, “but as you said, we need to move before the caster brings reinforcements. It is not safe to stay here.”

  “Right, thanks Geltheriel,” Aranos nodded. “Okay, greetings and introductions later. We need to move and find a place we can set up safely…or one I can Redeem. We should be secure there.”

  “We’ll follow your lead,” Phil shrugged. “That’s why we’re here. In fact, let’s make that official…” The man’s eyes unfocused, and a notification appeared in Aranos’ vision:

  Party Leader Irric Brightblade wishes to join your party. Accepting this request will allow all members of Irric Brightblade’s party to join yours.

  Requesting Party Size: 4

  Current Party Size: 4

  Maximum Party Size: 11

  Do you wish to allow this party to join yours (Yes/No)?

  Aranos selected “Yes” and watched as his party UI expanded to include the four new members. Their names and SP/LP/Stamina bars were available to him, but their Classes, levels, and Stats were hidden. He wasn’t concerned; he’d figure all that out later. For the moment, they needed to move.

  “Whoa, nice bonuses,” the slim Archer named Longfellow said in a decidedly British accent. “Phil, you never gave us such nice bonuses. Have you been holding out on us?”

  “You may have noticed that one of the bonuses is to movement,” Saphielle said firmly. “Rather than talking about it, let us use that bonus and move to somewhere safer. Or would you prefer another ambush such as this one?”

  “She’s right,” Aranos said quickly, before the Travelers could protest. His Sense Mana Skill was screaming at him; the humans were all pulsing with magic and had tripped a number of the hidden wards. “We need to get somewhere defensible so I can get those mana tags off you guys; that’s how they’re tracking you.” He turned and nodded to Silma, who ranged ahead of them into the forest. Saphielle started off behind the fenrin, and the others grudgingly moved to follow. They didn’t bother with Stealth; the beacons on the four humans would have invalidated that, anyway, and speed was more important right now.

  The forest passed them swiftly by, as Aranos kept his Aura of Movement active the entire time, giving them all a 100% boost to their travel speed, in addition to the 31% bonus they now got for his Leadership Skill, thanks to the doubling effect of his high Charisma bonus. Unless the undead could fly – or they were mounted on something really fast – there was no way they were going to catch the party.

  As he sped through the trees, Aranos heard Silma’s voice in his mind. This might be a good place, she sent to him, along with a mental picture of a ruined, crumbling tower that looked like it might have been a watchtower or outpost at some point in the distant past. There are undead inside, though.

  Aranos signaled for everyone to halt, and the party slowed to a stop. “Silma found some sort of ruined watchtower up ahead,
” he told them. “It’s probably our best bet for a fortified position, but it’s being held by the undead right now. I can’t tell what kinds or how many until we get closer.”

  “What would a tower like that be doing out in the middle of nowhere?” Meridian asked dubiously. “What’s it guarding, the trees?”

  “Ah, but this was not all trees long ago, Traveler,” Rhys spoke up off-handedly. “Once, there were towns and villages surrounding the great city of Antas, and those roads required a watch. Of course, the villages were no doubt destroyed during the Feast, and the forest has certainly reclaimed what roads there were, but one would expect things to change somewhat in five centuries or more.”

  “Smartass,” the woman muttered with a grin. “I think I’m gonna like you.”

  “That the roads have vanished is likely a point in our favor, Oathbinder,” Geltheriel pointed out. “The tower of which you speak may be but lightly defended, since there is no longer any need for its presence.”

  “Define ‘lightly’,” Longfellow pointed out. “Not all of us are used to obliterating a hundred zombies in one afternoon, after all.”

  “Those creatures were called jangshie, not zombies,” Saphielle corrected. “And we had not encountered them until this battle, either, so destroying them is certainly not our custom. Yet, the Shadedancer is correct: there is likely little need for this tower to be maintained, and it may simply be infested with creatures that took up residence, rather than a carefully defended stronghold.”

  “No point in guessing,” Phil shrugged. “We might as well go check it out.”

  “But we need to get you four cleaned up, first,” Aranos said firmly. “If whoever cast the wards that you guys tripped is in that tower, they’ll know you’re coming from an actual mile away.”

  Frowning, Aranos reached out mentally to Phil, sensing the thin, diaphanous weave of mana around the Spellsword. It wasn’t particularly complex or sophisticated; magically speaking, someone had essentially woven a bunch of spiderwebs, and the man had walked through them. Finding the start of the pattern was simple enough, and Aranos simply allowed the Spell to drain away rather than attempting to turn it back against its caster. As simple as the weaving was, he assumed one of two things was true: the caster of this Spell wasn’t a very high level, so attacking them with the Spell backlash wouldn’t help their cause very much; or the caster was a decent level but hadn’t bothered to make anything more complex than this, in which case turning such a simple Spell back on them wouldn’t have much effect at all.