The Heroic Villain 2

by Charles Dean

  Spending these favor points from the Blood Goddess herself will yield one Blood Hound that will last 6 hours. The Blood Hound is a 140-pound canine that will regenerate it’s hit points as it consumes flesh. The Blood Hound begins at Rank 1 and may be upgraded 4 times for the price of 3, 5, 8, and 10 points. Each upgrade will increase the dog’s combat abilities, slightly increase the dog’s size, and add 6 more hours to the duration of the Blood Hound. The Blood Hound’s maximum summonable duration is 72 hours.

  How awesome would it be to have a giant dog at my side during the next battle? Lucas was tempted to summon the thing immediately, but he decided to check out the rest of the menu first before making any decisions. After the Blood Hound, at 10 points was a “Blood Guard,” a summonable soldier similar to the Blood Hound but that was no doubt deadlier since the upgrade costs were double what the Blood Hound’s were. At 15 points, there was the Blood Mage, which had upgrade prices three times as high as the Blood Hound’s but had the same duration limits as the two previous items. The fourth item, however, didn’t have a limited duration attached to it. For 20 points, Lucas would be able to summon “Weapon of the Blood Servant,” and according to the description, it wasn’t upgradeable. The very succinct and unhelpful tooltip said, “It’s a weapon that’s form and function will vary based on the class and abilities of the purchaser.”

  There were also other items listed in the 20 Reputation Point category, mostly different articles of clothing ranging from chest pieces to boots, but the weapon was the most tempting. If he wasn’t in the middle of an event that was going to last hours and would revolve around him fighting against what would likely be a giant horde of people trying to kill him, he would have already decided to hold off and make sure he got it. After all, his staff was one of the biggest hindrances to him at the moment. He might not even have been able to finish off Thomas if one of their mages hadn’t betrayed the sap and switched sides.

  No, I’ll get it in due time. Right now, I need to make sure I stay alive. Lucas clicked on the Blood Guard and then on the first upgrade, spending 16 points in total to acquire the Rank 2 Blood Guard. The dot representing his summon hovered to the side of the screen, waiting to be placed, and Lucas dragged it to the room closest to the entrance, where his soldiers were still fighting against two enemies.

  The Blood Guard’s dot showed up as purple instead of blue, and he watched as the purple dot immediately entered the lobby, crossed the screen, and killed one of the two red dots with the help of four other guards. The next red dot also died a moment later, and Lucas noticed that the one remaining Blood Reputation Point had gone up to three after the two kills.

  So, I get one point per kill performed by my people . . . or maybe inside my dungeon. This really will turn me into a raid fight. I can finally spawn minions and be properly annoying like a good MMO boss. Lucas grinned devilishly, elated with the progress, as he opened up the map and accessed the trap store. Since he still hadn’t acquired any new traps, there were only two options available in the dungeon store: the Fake Floor Spike Trap and the Fake Loot Dart Trap. They would cost him 20 and 25 gold respectively, so he could buy a few with his 312 gold, but not enough to cover the whole dungeon with them like he wanted. He needed to make sure that players didn’t find the journey to the final room as easy as he had. We’re on the fifth floor, which means that anyone attacking is going to have to go through four floors to get to me, and I don’t want them to just take the stairs all the way to the top.

  “Lilith, how many more explosives do you have?” Lucas asked, turning to the girl.

  “Oh, he’s back,” Lilith said. “Thought we had lost you to that mind-control trick. The other side must have put up quite a struggle. I’m interested to see who shows up.”

  “It isn’t worth discussing,” Lucas said shortly. “What about the explosives?”

  “None,” Lilith sighed. “I kind of used a few of them on some things earlier and then the last of them downstairs. I still have some cloth-wrapped balls of pepper, lots of rope, a few different knives--you can never have too many knives--and some other knickknacks, but no explosives.”

  “Crap,” Lucas cursed, wincing disappointedly. “Alright, Linnaeus, can you move around? Can you free yourself?”

  “Of course, brother. I can move, but I’d rather not. You see, I just ate, and one isn’t supposed to fly on a full stomach,” Linnaeus said.

  “Well, you’re going to have to. I need you to go outside and guard the gates like you usually do. If you get hurt or are overwhelmed, just come back here.” Lucas paused when he remembered the monster’s noble nature. If he told Linnaeus to just run away, there would be no way the beast would. Linnaeus had pride and dignity in higher quantities than most men, so he added, “That way, we can fight to the bitter end together when they reach my chamber. So, until then, try to stall some of them for me.”

  “How will I know friend from foe?” Linnaeus asked. “I would hate to kill someone who has come to aid you. It’s rude to make dinner of those coming for dinner.”

  “If they aren’t my guards or my known friends and if you’ve never seen them with me and they’re headed toward the door to our place, kill them. If they’re not Human, don’t even wait for them to head toward that door: just kill them anyway.”

  “Hoorah! That sounds delightful. I shall bring you back some sumptuous eyeballs, brother!” Linnaeus cheerfully leapt through the window he had come in from. A few pieces of broken glass still stuck in the frame sliced his wing as he passed through, but they didn’t seem to faze him in the slightest as the large, flying primate hurried to his feast.

  “Ah! So, that eating the eyeball thing”--Lilith looked over at Lucas after Linnaeus had left--“it runs in the family, I take it?”

  “Family . . .” Lucas sighed. He knew that she was joking, but he wasn’t sure how comfortable he was being called Linnaeus’s family member. “Anyway . . .” Lucas began, quickly trying to change the subject. “Steve, I need you all to break all the stairs on each floor. Make it so that no one can come up the same way we did. Then go to any random room aside from this one and crush a large hole in the floor and drop some rope to the bottom. Anchor the rope on anything solid, make it easy to go up and down those ropes, and leave the doors open. Those will be the new floor-advancing mechanisms.” It wasn’t the best solution, but it’d have to do. He needed to make it so the attackers wouldn’t just go straight to the boss room he was in, but he still had to let them advance and feel some sense of accomplishment as they battled their way to him.

  “What if there is someone in the room we enter?” Steve asked.

  The game said the building was cleared of all hostile forces. Anyone in the building should be a friend unless . . . Lucas did a little mental math in his head, trying to count the number of dots that were neither blue, purple, nor red in each room. He knew that killing hotel guests would give him Blood Reputation Points, but he also didn’t like the idea of just busting into someone’s home and murdering them, even if they were an NPC.

  “Tell them to go to a neighbor’s room,” Lucas whispered, making sure that the Fire Mage who was still grumbling about money wouldn’t hear. “Tell them to act like they’ve been brainwashed so that no one will kill them. Hopefully.”

  “Will do,” Steve answered back softly before leaving with the other seven soldiers.

  Lucas spent some of his 341 gold--his new total after the death of the two red dots in the entrance--and bought thirteen of the booby-trapped chests.

  “So, are we going to the entrance now?” Lilith asked.

  Lucas nodded eagerly, excited to see his new Blood Guard. “Yeah, let’s go find out who we’re fighting next.”

  Chapter 9

  Character Name: Lucas

  Level: 31

  Hit Points: 5040

  Arcane Energy: 2600

  Stamina: 200

  Holy Energy: Class Locked

  Current Class: Enchanter

  Stats:


  Arcanum [increases Arcane Energy by 10 per point]: 250

  Holy [No Effect/Class Locked]: 0

  Athletics [increases Stamina by 10 per point]: 10

  Fortitude [increases Hit Points by 1% per point]: 350

  Charisma: 350

  Luck: 60

  Unspent: 0

  Current Elemental Attunement:

  Lightning Affinity: 1.5%

  Effects: +3% Lightning Element Damage

  +6% Lightning Element Channeling Speed

  -3% Non-Lightning Element Channeling Speed

  +0.75% Lightning Element Damage Resistance

  Arcane Resistance: 2%

  Combat Proficiencies:

  None

  Racial Quest Chain Progress:

  Vampire: Started.

  Lucas made his way to the entrance of the building with Lilith while the soldiers were still working to destroy the old staircases and create the new passages that he had asked for. The two had no more than rounded the corner into the main hallway when another explosion went off.

  Lucas looked over at Lilith expectantly. “I thought you said you were out of explosives?” He had only seen her set two at the entrance, and both of those were close to the main room, not at the end of the hallway. One had already gone off, and that one remaining shouldn’t have been armed until his troops were retreating from the lobby.

  “I am. That wasn’t mine,” she answered.

  “That could have been my bomb if you had just paid me already,” the tag-along mage grumbled.

  Lucas gave him an exasperated look. There was a good chance that the mage would just betray him and attempt to get both the money and the quest kill if Lucas paid him in advance, but there was also an equally good chance that he would end up switching sides and backstabbing Lucas out of frustration if he didn’t give him something. After all, this was still a game, and he was only ever going to look out for himself.

  “Fine,” Lucas grumbled, pulling out his coin purse. He didn’t like having to pay the bastard who had messed with Bonnie and Viola, but in times like these, he couldn’t have enough friends--especially since he didn’t know how many enemies there were or how many high-level players would come--and he definitely didn’t want to underestimate the value of a mage who specialized in raising giant walls of Fire that could do area of effect damage in tight corridors. “Here’s 30 gold now, and you can have 100 after the sun sets.” He made a point of counting through his coins so that the mage would see he had more than enough to pay him even twice that amount.

  Bonnie glared at Lucas when she saw the cash exchange hands, and Lucas very clearly felt her gaze.

  He looked over and did his best to give her an apologetic shrug. I’ll make it up to her later . . . If she’s still with me then.

  “That’s what I like to hear,” the mage said as he took the money with an ear-to-ear grin.

  “That is, of course, only if I come out of this alive though,” Lucas added. “Once I die, you can consider your chance of a paycheck dead too.”

  “Interesting,” Lilith murmured, gazing at Lucas’s face with keen interest.

  “Don’t think too hard on it,” Lucas said as he began walking again. After only a few steps, however, a massive explosion rocked the building. Lucas automatically fell into a half-crouch, and when he looked up again, he saw that the wall to one of the guest rooms had been blown right through.

  “Crap,” he groaned, firing an Exploding Tear at the left-hand door at the end of the hall. A second later, he unloaded another Exploding Tear on the door.

  “What? Is the door at risk of being dry?” the mage laughed. “Trying to wet it up with a few tears like a fresh barmaid?”

  The guy continued cackling at his own joke even as Lucas unloaded three Static Webs in rapid succession at the same door. The small charges slowly crept across the floor and created a net of arcing electricity as they coursed down the tight corridor, completely covering the ground as they went.

  “What a shocking development,” Lilith said in the most deadpan tone possible as she watched the Lightning course toward its target. She then fell silent as the door opened and someone stepped into the hall.

  Lucas recognized the giant arms and the scaly skin of an Orc, and he instantly knew that the leather-clad individual was definitely not part of the Imperium. No sooner had he identified the creature’s allegiance than the massive brute stepped into the waiting pool of electrically-charged water. A loud crackling filled the hall as the amplified electricity entered the Orc’s body. The crackle was followed by an even louder pop and a shout from the Orc as the jolt sent him flying back into the figure behind him.

  You have killed Karla. You have been awarded 1455 EXP. An enchanted trident, a fresh fish, and 67 silver have dropped upon death.

  There was an anguished howl of rage and anger and pain from the other room, and then the six-and-a-half-foot-tall Orc burst from the doorway and charged directly for Lucas, completely enraged and with no regard for the trap he had sprung only seconds before.

  Lucas was already channeling yet another round of Static Web, and he let it fly the moment the Orc entered the hallway. Unfortunately, the savage giant was prepared this time. Just before the spell struck him, he threw himself to the side and leapt up into the air before landing on the wall, somehow clinging to the surface like a tree frog or gecko would have. Without even waiting for the Static Web to zip past him, he continued his headlong charge while running along the wall.

  Lucas instantly changed tactics and fired off a Scorching Skull, a spell that he knew the Orc wouldn’t be able to dodge. The Orc tried to jump across the hallway toward the other wall, but the Scorching Skull homed in on him and smashed into its target a second later. The Fire attack didn’t do as much damage as the Static Web, but thanks to Lucas’s Arcane Energy pool and his regen, he was able to fire one every second without even losing mana. Within ten seconds, the man had gone from a proud warrior to freshly cooked fish.

  You have killed Julian. You have been awarded 1856 EXP. An average athlete’s elixir, a fisherman’s hardwood cudgel, and 4 gold have dropped upon death.

  “That’s going to be a problem,” the mage said as the group looked at the fried player. “Can’t have dudes going in your backdoor when you’re busy with the front.”

  Why does everything sound so inappropriate coming out of your mouth? Lucas sighed and shook his head. “You’re right. This back door is going to be a serious issue, but they’re after my life, so at least we know what they want and where they are ultimately going. I guess I just need to put on the right show and make a scene so that they’re certain to come in through the front. If we can funnel them through the main entrance, your wall of Fire and some other skills will come in handy.”

  “Won’t be matterin’ much at all if you take that long just to finish off one dude,” he argued after pausing long enough to spit on the floor.

  “Don’t worry about me,” Lucas said. “I can handle myself.” However, he actually agreed with the pyromaniac. Pulling up his menu, Lucas quickly checked how high his Blood Goddess Reputation Points had climbed and saw that the total was now 8. That meant that, on top of the one he had from the start and the 2 he just got, he had picked up an additional 5 points from somewhere. He was tempted to buy a Blood Hound and set it to guard the newly man-made entrance in front of him, but he decided against it. He needed to save every point he could until he reached 20 so that he could grab that new weapon. He didn’t know what it did, but he knew it was going to be a lot better than the crappy magic staff he had picked up on noob island.

  As they rounded the corner into the entrance room, Lucas spied eleven tired-looking soldiers, who were currently leaning against the walls with their swords or spears in hand. Then, at last, he saw the new soldier. The Blood Guard wasn’t the clichéd decked-out-in-solid-blood summon that he had somewhat anticipated when he read the skill title. Rather, he looked just like a regular Human. He had golden hair that spilled out of his helm
et, and he was wearing glistening silver chainmail that made him look somewhat like a Viking. The guard’s weapon was an imposing zweihander, and the long grooves running down the blade were already covered in blood, which had also covered what was otherwise an immaculately clean set of gear.

  So, I’ve got this guard for 12 hours, Lucas thought as he looked him over.

  “Boss, who’s that one?” Bonnie asked, walking up to the blonde guy. “Did you buy him too?”

  “No, there is something off about this one,” Lilith said, inspecting the man. “Too still.”

  “Right,” Lucas said. “He’s a summon. He’ll disappear after half a day unless I modify the spell.”

  “Making men rise up with a spell?” The Fire Mage said as he walked toward the Blood Guard with the girls, his eyes fixed on the summon in a different way than Bonnie’s and Lilith’s. While the two girls were curious, he was envious. Lucas would have recognized that greedy look anywhere. He had seen it a hundred times in a hundred different boardrooms, and given how quickly the little man had already switched sides just to double his payout, Lucas didn’t doubt for a second that the look in the man’s eyes was exactly what he thought it was.

  “Yeah, a skill I’m afraid that those outside my employ will never have the luxury of even being introduced to,” Lucas said, telling a half-truth. He actually didn’t even know if what he said was true or false. He just wanted to put an extra collar on the potentially disloyal mutt.

  “I see . . .” The man fell silent as he studied the Blood Guard for another moment, but then asked, “Well, we gonna bust out of here and find you a hiding spot until the sun sets or something?”