by Kyle Johnson
Aranos glanced up and saw that several more flights of the winged undead were swooping toward him. I don’t have time for this, he snarled silently, tossing a pair of Fire Webs up overhead and snaring most of the undead. Like most undead, the naktraps seemed vulnerable to fire and burned fiercely in his webs. It’s not like I’m going to be using the fire mana for anything else, he thought grimly as he turned his focus back to the vile pillar that was slowly draining his life.
Below, his party had finished most of the undead. Silma’s jaws ripped open one of the child-like undead, her teeth empowered by light mana that let her penetrate the creature’s defenses. Aranos knew that had to have hurt her – the undead had acidic skin, so it would have burned her mouth to bite one – but if the fenrin felt any discomfort, she didn’t show it. To her right, Phil’s sword chopped through a pair of direly wounded draegs, the blade streaming with brilliant flames that weakened the aura of cold surrounding the creatures and roasted them from the inside. On Silma’s left, Saphielle’s spear danced among the ravants, puncturing their exposed organs, while her shield slid aside their heavy blows.
Geltheriel appeared at the edge of the clearing, among the few remaining void mages, her shadowy blade cutting through two of them before she vanished back into the shadows, leaving the three, lumbering shield-bearers bereft of a target. McBane wasn’t bothering with Stealth; the undead could sense him through it, so he was relying on his Agility, instead. His twin short blades cut through the legs of the giant, diseased corpses, spattering the ground with the pale centipedes that he easily avoided. Since the mindless vermin would swarm over anything nearby, they quickly coated the festering undead, not seeming to do any damage but hindering their movements and making them even easier prey for the nimble Rogue.
Aranos kept one eye on the naktraps that had evaded his webs and another on the column of flesh below, firing blasts of different mana types at it. Earth and air mana, like ice, were simply ineffective, blasting off chunks of worms that would quickly reform without harm done to the creatures. Life mana seemed to empower the pillar even more effectively than fire did, and Aranos wasn’t about to try using light mana. If the worms fed on sunlight, his light mana would probably give them a huge boost to their growth.
He grimaced as he realized that if the creature had a weakness, it could only be to some void-based or Enhanced mana type. The only problem was, using those mana types would damage him, and the life drain rate from the column was already up to 5 LP per second. He couldn’t afford to just blast it with pure void or death mana; that would kill him as quickly as the thing itself could. He decided to start with the most obvious option – and, incidentally, one that did a lot less damage when he used it.
He stretched out his hand, and a lance of blackness six inches wide darted from his palm and struck the tower. The worms touched by that darkness shuddered and stilled, their movements slowing and their thrashing abating at once. Aranos exulted for a moment, but the instant the beam of darkness left the worms, they slowly regained their movements and vitality. Dark mana saps their energy and nullifies the light mana that empowers them, he mused, but only temporarily. If I want to hurt this thing, I need to do something bigger and longer lasting.
He checked his flight as a trio of naktraps soared at him. The Sorcerer accelerated to zip past them, then felled all three with Composite Bullets to the backs of their heads before they could swing about to face him. Below, the party finally broke free of the remains of the undead horde – beneath his Overchanneled Radiance of Life Spell, even the largest and strongest of the creatures was weakened to near-helplessness and easy enough to fell. The void mages managed to restore their barrier to hold out his Fire and Ice Spell, but they lost their shield wall in the process, and their magical protection did little against his restorative Spell. Once it fell, Geltheriel appeared among the mages, her shadowy blade shredding their weakened forms with ease. Occasionally, one would wail piteously, but the Shadedancer slipped into the shadows before the sonic attack could reach her and immediately reappeared.
Saphielle was the first to reach the vile tower and struck with her shield. The blow tore a large chunk of the worms free, but the gap immediately filled in, and the dislodged creatures quickly rejoined the pile. Her spear seemed to have more effect, oddly enough; where she struck, the nearest worms dropped from the pile and didn’t rejoin the column, writhing about on the ground helplessly. I wonder if the faymetal is disrupting whatever magic is holding that thing together, Aranos thought silently. Sadly, he didn’t have enough spirit mana to make a meaningful attack on the thing without draining his Perception to the point where he’d be useless in battle. If it’s looking really bad, then that’s a last resort, he decided. I can lace an Energy Barrage with spirit mana and at least break the tower to pieces. It’ll probably kill me, though, so we’ll hold off on that for a bit.
Phil and McBane had joined the Avenger. Phil was still using his flaming blade, which was actually strengthening the pillar with every blow, but Longfellow shouted a warning to the Spellsword, and the flames on his sword vanished instantly, replaced with a sheen of crystalline ice. Aranos knew it wouldn’t be any more effective than a regular sword blade, but it wouldn’t hurt, either, so he didn’t bother to correct the Spellsword. Neither Phil nor McBane could seem to hurt the tower, but as long as Meridian and Rhys’ Spells held up, neither would they die anytime soon.
At least, so Aranos thought, until the first pseudopod-like tendril lashed from the column toward Saphielle. The elf took the blow on her shield with an audible grunt and stabbed her spear into the extended strand of coiled worms. The tendril dropped from the main body as her spear loosened the bonds holding it to the larger mass, but most of the fallen worms quickly returned to the pile. Only the handful her spear had actually touched remained separate. Phil blocked a second lash of disgusting flesh and also chopped the extrusion loose from the body, but the worms he’d severed immediately returned to the pile. McBane dodged a third tendril, cutting at it with no more success than Phil had.
Aranos saw the pillar nearest him shift, and he dodged sideways as a lash of flesh arced past him. He didn’t bother to answer the attack; at best, he could knock the pseudopod loose, but it wouldn’t have any real effect. Besides, this isn’t the real attack on us. I have to stop the life drain, not these tendrils. They’re just a distraction.
Concentrating, he called up his Illuminating Mists Spell. The Spell had been the base for his Radiance of Life, and now he was going to try to use it to contain the foul pillar before them. In his mind, he created the myriad, tiny orbs of light mana, but this time, he added void mana to each miniscule droplet of power. The haze of light dimmed, darkened, and vanished as the tiny globes become points of blackness that sucked in the nearby light. Once he had the Spell clearly in his mind, he cast it, forming it into a tall cylinder that wrapped around the pillar from base to tip. The air around the column darkened as a veil of deep shadows seemed to wrap around it, shrouding it in blackness. The tendrils erupting from the thing slowed at once, and although Aranos couldn’t see past his own barrier, he had a feeling that the worms within had ceased their writhing and twisting, at least for a while.
The Life Drain Aura, though, was still there. The rate was dropping slowly – it had gone up to 6 per second but was back down to 5 – but it didn’t disappear, as Aranos had hoped. All he’d done was slow the thing down, nothing more. His party members began to chop at the thing again, hoping to harm it in its weakened state, but movement caught Aranos’ attention at the edge of the forest, and he shouted a warning to the party.
A second wave of undead erupted from the trees, racing toward the elves and humans, who quickly regrouped into a defensive formation. Aranos could see that these were the simplest undead, skeletal haigols and zombie-like jumbishes; they were no real threat to the party, but they kept the elves and humans from assaulting the enshrouded pillar. Their numbers were vast, and Aranos called out a retreat; if the party
didn’t return to the tower, they’d be surrounded and overrun. The undead commander had kept these things in reserve for just this moment, and they were doing their job effectively. The Radiance of Life Spell was weakening them, but it wouldn’t last much longer, and Aranos didn’t want to renew it for such low-level creatures if he didn’t have to.
Let them fight the battle on the ground, he chided himself, forcing his attention back to the writhing column of flesh. You fight the one that really matters. Aranos turned his mind and his senses to the Life Drain Aura, trying to study it with his Sense Mana Skill to no avail. It was an Ability, not a Spell that used mana – or, if it did, it used a type of mana he didn’t recognize. Still, at some level, there had to be magic involved. After all, the thing sucked in light and life mana – it seemed to like fire mana, too, but Aranos wasn’t sure if it was the fire or the light that the flames made that empowered the pillar – and turned it into an Ability of some kind. He knew it had to be possible to shift LP into SP, because that was one of the Class Perks he’d been offered a few times. Apparently, it was also possible to turn SP into an LP void that drained the life from all around the caster, though, and that seemed like something different.
It’s like the worms are taking light mana, shifting it into some other type, and adding void mana to create the effect. If that’s the case, I should be able to disrupt it if I can just figure out what sort of mana the pillar is using. A blast of that mana type should nullify the Aura, and if the thing can’t get any more light…it should die. The real question is, how can I sense that mana? I don’t feel it at all around the pillar or even in me. Where else could I sense it?
Aranos stopped as his eyes fell on the widening patch of yellow-brown grass surrounding the column of worms. It was draining the energy from the soil – but that was something he could do, as well, wasn’t it? His One with the Land Ability drained small amounts of energy from the earth to empower him; maybe he could sense how that energy was being taken from the ground, even if he couldn’t feel it in himself.
Quickly, he settled to the earth near the pillar and dropped to one knee, placing the tips of his fingers on the ground. He could feel the soil’s energy flowing weakly through it – the pillar had drained the earth but hadn’t killed it, yet. Still, thin tendrils of dark energy appeared in his mind’s eye, leaching the vitality from the earth. The ground wasn’t dead, but it soon would be.
He let his mind drift across the sinister lines of power his One with the Land Ability could feel, even when his other senses couldn’t detect it. It wasn’t Corruption – Corruption took that energy and changed it, turned it into something else. Instead, it was as if someone had taken vital energy and meshed it with void mana, creating a vacuum that sucked all life energy into it. His mind could almost see the pattern; the vital energy was LP, and your LP came from all sorts of things, like your Class, level, Endurance…
The image clicked in his mind, and he understood. His Endurance generated a well of power inside him, one that didn’t create his LP pool but fed energy into it. His experience, his overall toughness, the needs of his body to endure damage; these all determined the size of the pool to be filled, but it was the power generated by his End Stat that filled that space and determined how quickly it would renew. That energy could feed his body as LP, repairing damage and staving off grave injury, but it could also be channeled and used for other purposes. He’d been using that same energy to sustain himself with his One with the Land Ability without even realizing it. It had simply never occurred to him that the energy he was absorbing was related to mana. Not that it would have mattered; without his experience sensing soul and spirit mana, he would never have been able to recognize this energy as mana, even tangentially, anyways.
It wasn’t really mana, he realized at once. It was like mana, an energy that he could grab and channel if he knew how. Fortunately, he already had two Abilities that let him manipulate vital power: One with the Land and Life Drain. Both of those involved taking that energy into himself, but if he could reverse the flows and run it through his mana spirals…
He focused, calling up his Life Drain Ability for the first time since he’d gained it. It was a Corrupted Ability, and using it to hurt another would turn him into something like Lythienne in short order, but he had Redeemed his Soulbinding Skill. Theoretically, he should be able to do the same with Life Drain. He reached out to the ground nearby, activating the Ability and starting the draining process – very, very slowly.
As the power came in, he activated his One with the Land Ability, as well. These two Abilities were really identical, at their base: they both drained vital power from something else and fed it into him. One was destructive, one harmless, but that was probably a question of how quickly the drain happened and how much power was being pulled. He followed the two strands of energy, one feeding into his dwindling LP pool, the other spreading out throughout his body, and as he watched, the pattern came together in his inner sight. He could see how the energy coursed through his body, how it empowered him and sustained him. He could even sense that it was linked to every other system of his body – somewhere, there was a connection between all his Physical Stats and this fundamental energy.
He shook those thoughts off, though; that was something he’d investigate another time. Right now, he had to reverse the flow of his Life Drain. The energy resisted his efforts; it wanted to flow into and support him, not to leave, and he realized that was its nature. If he wanted to reverse the flow, he’d have to force it to do so, not coax it.
He imagined the energy surging into his mana hourglasses, racing through the channels he’d so painstakingly built, and roaring out of him. He could feel the energy churning from the very center of him, where his Endurance generated it. He envisioned his SP joining that flow, supporting it, hastening it, and carrying the energy out farther than it would have traveled. The image was clear in his mind, clear enough that he could practically feel it happening, and once it was as perfect a vision as he could imagine…
He poured his will and SP into the image. Silently, he demanded it happen, with every ounce of his Willpower. The energy resisted for but a moment, clinging to him, but his will was stronger than its inertia. Only a moment, and suddenly, as if a dam had burst, the power raced up and out of him.
He felt a sharp pain lance through him as his LP dropped. Energy coursed from his body, surging from the edges of his extremities, down into his core, and back out his mana channels. The vital power exploded from him in an invisible burst, sweeping through the air in a barely seen ripple. The grass around him straightened, becoming a healthy green and standing tall once more. The undead that were struck by the wave staggered briefly but seemed unharmed.
When the energy struck the pillar of worms, though, the construct held for only a brief instant before it collapsed. The worms that fell free of his column of darkness squirmed feebly for but a moment before falling still, even in the bright, morning sunlight. The pall of darkness that still hung over the clearing faded, and the red notification warning Aranos of the Life Drain Aura vanished from his vision. A foul odor of decay washed over Aranos, and he noticed that the fallen worms had begun to liquesce, turning into tiny pools of some brown, putrid substance that filled the air with the scent of rot.
Aranos’ muscles gave out, and he collapsed to the ground. His legs felt like jelly, and while he didn’t have the overwhelming mental exhaustion that casting Ascended Spells often gave him, his body felt as if he’d spent an entire day training with Jhaeros. He rolled onto his back with a groan. Might have overdone that, he thought grimly as he glanced at his status:
Aranos, Lord Evenshade, Elf-Friend
Age: 26
Race: Aleen
Advanced Class: Sorcerer AscendantXP: 122190/120000 Level Up!
Level: 6
Class: SorcererXP: 83595/91000
Level: 13
Profession: HunterXP: 492/500
Abilities:
Str: 47
(72) Dex: 52 (77) Agil: 53 (78) End: 49 (26)
Int: 122 (148) Wis: 130 (156)Per: 56 (82) Cha: 101 (127)
LP: 13/1817 (664)Regen: 4.9/s (2.6 /s)
SP: 11/13264 Regen: 53.3/s, 69.6/s when meditating
Stamina: N/A
Soul Points: 30
No wonder he felt worn-out; taking away the item bonuses, his Endurance was down to a single point right now! He’d obviously traded End for mana the way he could with Wis and soul mana; doing so had drained his LP down to only 13 points and his SP to 11. His SP were already returning, driven by his incredible regeneration rate, but with his lowered Endurance, it would take a long time before his LP got to the place where he could survive a single serious blow.
As he struggled to rise, a heavy blow took him in the chest, knocking him back onto his back. The Sorcerer cried out in surprise; he’d been so intent on his status that he hadn’t noticed the figure that stood over him. The creature was covered in elaborate, ancient-looking armor that seemed sturdy despite being blackened and covered in what looked like dried blood. Only its eyes were visible through the slit in its visor, glowing a deep indigo even in the morning sunlight, but Aranos could tell from the charnel-house reek that swept over him that the armored Warrior was undead. As the Sorcerer tried to rise, the creature placed its foot on his chest and shoved, pressing him back into the earth; Aranos’ Composite Armor had kept him from taking any damage, so far, but the monster was enormously strong. Once it made a determined effort, it would probably be able to get through his armor in no time – especially if it used the black-bladed, two-handed sword it raised up above the prone Sorcerer.
“That was unexpected, Sorcerer,” the creature hissed, its voice gravelly and liquid as if its vocal cords were rotting as it spoke. “Entire armies have been felled by the azgrovas. Indeed, it takes the death of an army to create one; the master will wish to make you suffer for what you have done.”
