The party continued discussing the quest as they rode. A similar red dragon flew overhead, seemingly Examining the party, searching, judging. It roared once before leaving. The party breathed a chorus of sighs, many on the verge of attacking the beast. Lance and the officers were close to losing command of the raid there.
Lance pulled up beside Jonathan and Dorian joined in. Lance said, “They don’t usually care if random whelps wander down from the mountains and are killed by players who think they are any other monster.”
"Yes," Dorian said, nodding, "Very strange. And they're much more aggressive when going after revenge if they bother to do. Though reds are more mellow. We're lucky it wasn't a black whelp from the eastern continent."
“Maybe LeMort really pissed them off,” Jonathan offered. He shrugged. “Or maybe they can sense the whelp nearby.”
“Maybe,” Lance said and drifted to the other diagonal.
The party quickly forgot about the two dragons and quest once they approached the narrow gap between the mountain range, a handy shortcut that would save half a day of traveling. A white wolf ran through the forest as the temperature sharply declined on the uphill climb.
Soon enough, the trees thinned and chunks of snow fell onto the quaking stampede. A thirty or forty meter gap in a vertical cliff entered view. Lance pinged the party to ride on, nothing entering Rain's detection ward apart from mid to low-level beasts. A bandit retreated into a deep cave in the darkness of the mountain pass.
Maybe an hour two left till they reached Stonehurst or what was left of it. Jonathan activated his raid party interface. Fifty truncated entries populated a list at the left. He selected the leaders and their icons expanded to a typical party entry. A pretty good interface design. Not bad for an AI.
Lance Rider: Head straight for Stonehurst. Once the dark temple is secured, we’ll sweep the area. The humans are sending reinforcements in the morning.
Jonathan nodded and sank into a meditative trance, preparing himself for a potential conflict. He wouldn’t fail everyone again. Not again.
* * *
Close to two hours passed, Jonathan tiring of the boring trek. The mountain pass had been uneventful though dark and tension-ridden. The dirt path descended into Greenwood Southern Forest in a gentle slope, the scenery similar to the north. No dragons down here to the party’s surprise. Did the red dragons not know LeMort was down here?
Jonathan shrugged, having lost any care for that whelp a while back. Whelps were always killed by adventurers or NPCs when they foolishly left the safety of the mountains as Lance said. The dragons seemed to treat it as some form of natural selection. They valued strength—and that mentality kept them alive in this world. It bordered on evil but they were good enough to remain neutral without dark mana flowing through their veins.
The town appeared in the distance, nestled in a large clearing by the mountain wall. Jonathan braced for a sudden attack and drew his shield and sword.
A sudden wave of dark mana filtered through his body. He shivered and glanced at the party. They appeared worse, much of the party not having felt such sheer darkness before. This city was gushing dark mana.
Lance Rider: Hold it. Jonathan, Dorian, Rain, and I will scout the town. Wait for pings.
The four flew ahead, Stealth active. The concentration of dark mana in the air grew. Jonathan hadn’t felt anything like this in the game before—not even in the bandit king raids.
“What the—” Rain said.
“Yes?” Lance snapped.
“There are over a hundred dark characters gathered in the town.”
Jonathan’s stomach sank, his pulse rising. The only explanation would be… Rowan’s Undead. Over a hundred already? Ice-Dark had to be extraordinarily powerful.
Rain said, “They’re all low level. Most of them are level 1.”
“What? Are you sure?” Dorian said.
“Why would Rowan raise an army of level 1s?” Jonathan asked.
Lance signaled to stop, hand open at his side. "This could be a trap. Ambiguous Pain and LeMort has high-level dark mirage skills that fools even Examine and most detection wards."
Jonathan waited for Lance to make a decision. The dark temple needed to be secured and they’d come all this way with a small-sized raid party. If anyone died here, they’d respawn apart from the few noble NPCs. Low-risk, Jonathan evaluated.
Lance seemed to agree. “Keep up stealth and approach the group. Jonathan, Life Link us and prepare to use Divine Mark any second.”
Smirking, he did as asked, looping the three with a Life Link each. A smart, common strategy which he was about to offer anyway.
“They're by that park,” Rain said, pointing to one of three green clearings between shabby wooden houses. Pale corpses still lined the roads, the poison long dissipated.
Jonathan sighed and repeated to himself: They're just AI. It helped somewhat.
“Very well,” Lance said, his face sullen as he looked away from the bodies, “Proceed slowly.”
Jonathan kept in line with Lance and held the two words for Divine Mark at the tip of his tongue, ready to shout at any heartbeat, ready for intense, ambiguous pain, pun intended. This was a game after all despite the macabre scene below.
Shingles and balconies passed beneath Jonathan’s feet and no ambush jumped them. They floated a hundred fifty meters off from the park and voices wafted through the wind.
“I don’t know but I think we’ve been cursed and blessed by the dark gods.”
“LeMort did this to us didn’t she?”
“I feel awesome! Look at this, dad!”
“My parents aren’t here… Damn you, LeMort!”
Jonathan’s mount wobbled as the voices became clear. It was the townsfolk. Alive. Talking. And perhaps not Undead? The Death-Knight raid boss’ minions hadn’t been sentient like this. Or was this one of Ambiguous’ illusions? He took a breath and sailed onward—only one to find out.
The first of the townsfolk appeared as the four crept around the corner of a weapons shop.
The sight nearly sent Jonathan to his knees.
Deathly pale skin, bodies veiled with gassy dark mana, and depraved yellow-orange eyes glowed in the park. Children. Mostly children among thirty or so adults. Rowan had raised all the children in the town. Bile bubbled up his throat as he coughed. LeMort had created a true monster. He didn’t dare glance at the reaction of his friends. Lance was shaking at the corner of his eye.
“Pew pew pew!” a boy shouted, his voice tainted and echoing in dark mana. He pointed at a tree and tiny blobs of black mana shot from his finger. The tree disintegrated to black dust along with several unsuspecting, sleeping birds. The dark mana flared through the park and forced Jonathan to activate Holy Light Aura to prevent himself from taking ambient damage.
The other children giggled and laughed. One said, “How did you do that?”
“I dunno. I kind of just imagined it.”
The adults glanced at the tree’s remains and murmured among themselves, none seeming to care that a child just used a dark skill. Other children joined in but none managed the death bolts. That was the name of the skill. A pure bolt of dark mana that corrupted on touch.
“Why are they sentient?” Rain asked in a trembling voice. “How do they remember their previous lives?”
Lance shook his head. He sniffed. “I don’t know… but LeMort and Rowan will be brought to justice.”
Jonathan would have cringed at that line if it weren’t for the hundred Undead children flooding the town with dark mana. An unholy, putrid sight. Jonathan swallowed drops of stomach acid and Examined the boy who fired the bolts. Because why the hell not? He was a freaking Undead kid playing with dark skills.
Joshua Wilson (Dark Human): Level 2
Faction: None
Health: 100
Mana: 110
Stamina: 100
Dark Human?!
“Examine them,” he snapped, “I think my skill is bugging out.” It be
tter be. The alternative was unthinkable.
“What?” Dorian said, “They’re just unde—”
His face blanked and slowly morphed into a mix of anger and confusion.
No. It couldn't be. A cold sweat broke out from Jonathan's hands and neck. "Dark Human?" he asked the three.
Dorian and Rain nodded.
“What do we do?” Rain said and looked at Lance, who hadn’t said a word or moved since his last remark.
A minute ticked away. Jonathan watched the children with moist eyes as hundreds of questions spun in his head. Was Rowan given the power over life and death? Could he resurrect bodies into… this abomination of darkness? What did it mean now? Purge the town? The children appeared so innocent. So happy despite their disturbing personalities.
And the adults… Many of them flared with darkness as they argued among themselves. They spoke to each other in cold calm, a wick smile or glare breaking through during the flares. The look of evil. The look of Rowan’s mad laugh when he had murdered Max.
Dorian broke the silence. “This town must be purged,” he said in a low voice, “They are far worse than the bandits.” He lifted his silver and ruby staff.
Lance nodded and waved him ahead.
“What?” Rain said, “Wait!” he said far too loudly.
Oh damn.
Half the children and all the adults froze and looked in their direction. A handsome man dressed in a stylish suit-like outfit pushed through the crowd. "Who's there?" He reeked of corruption, grass dying at his feet. "I'm Mayor Derek Goodwill of Stonehurst! Show yourself!” he bellowed, menacing and low.
Several of the adults and two children pointed in Jonathan’s direction, dark mana gathering at their fingers and palms.
“Shit,” Lance breathed and began chanting Light Screen, breaking his stealth. It took at least tier 8 stealth to use skills while in stealth. “Dorian, do it! Nuke the park!”
The mayor stumbled in surprise. “Lance?”
Dorian de-stealthed as a colossal ball of flame grew at the tip of his staff.
“What are you doing?” the mayor said, “We need help! LeMort attacked the town!” His mana fountained as he tried to position himself in the way of the attack.
“Go go go! Kill them before they kill us,” a girl shouted and fired a bolt.
Lance's screen erected in time, the bolt splashing. Dorian's chant continued as his ultimate flame blast grew to an unbearable scorch. Jonathan and Rain backed away from the Fire Lord, their skin begins to burn.
The adults unleashed a barrage of death bolts at Dorian. Lance pinged the raid party for assistance. He began incanting consecration.
A ping popped up in Jonathan’s interface for him to do so as well. His sword-arm and tongue moved automatically in response, dread and anger and a myriad of emotions storming through him. Killing all those children was so, so wrong but it had to be done. They couldn’t allow for such darkness to spread. It had to be put out here and wherever Rowan spawned these demons.
The onslaught of death continued. Every child pointed at Dorian while the mayor screamed for a stop. Ten children managed a bolt. Twenty.
Then the majority of them.
Lance’s Light Screen cracked, his Consecration channel interrupted in the surprise.
Rain shook off his stupor and began chanting Priest’s version of a light shield.
Lance's screen shattered under the increased, constant barrage. Jonathan lost health points rapidly and Rain barely saved him by cutting off his shield channel and throwing him an instant-heal. Light mana flooded his decaying flesh and armor, repairing his gear and healing him in a surge of euphoria. Thank the AI controller for Priests.
Jonathan canceled his own Consecration and activated every fast-casting defensive cooldown, his armor glowing pure white. Lance copied him and restarted his consecration cast after firing ten bolts at nearby children. Light pierced their bodies and they screamed in horrible pain—a sound Jonathan would never forget.
“Hurry!” Lance yelled at Dorian as even Rain struggled to keep Jonathan above 50% under the hail of death bolts.
“You made us do this, Lance!” the mayor roared. He started charging some kind of pulsating ball crackling with black electricity.
How the hell did they know these spells?
Dorian’s cast finished. “Duck,” he said and fired, unleashing the gigantic flame blast at the dark humans.
The crowd dove but it was too little too late. They foolishly stayed and fought.
Jonathan jetted his mount behind a stack of crates as blinding light and heat engulfed the park and surrounding buildings. It was over.
Or so he thought.
An aura of black and blue shone into the night as Dorian’s blast cleared.
Jonathan steered back into view, his eyes darting to a—
Cute Little Invulnerability Totem
LeMort’s ultimate support craft. A ten-foot totem crafted from skulls and foul materials, an idol of gold at its tip. A whole minute of invulnerability for all nearby dark characters. Jonathan’s innards sank in fear. There was no way they could defeat LeMort and a hundred dark minions. The raid party was still riding down the path.
“Dammit!” Dorian barked, “LeMort’s here!”
Lance pinged for a retreat three times.
Then a flash of purple burst over the dark humans, revealing Ambiguous Pain and Gabby LeMort standing on disks of purple mana.
And Rowan Black. Jonathan's ex-classmate and greatest shame. Though his hair color was different the face was unmistakable. He wore an ornate robe decorated with bone and onyx, a stark-white wand in hand that seeped mist.
“ROWAN BLACK!” Dorian roared and fired a stream of mid-level fire skills at him.
Ambiguous flashed in front of him. Fire splashed against her invulnerable Mana Shield. “Wow. What a greeting! An old friend?” she said, tone musical. She turned to the townsfolk. “Help has arrived, my beautiful, dark comrades!”
The dark humans finally recovered from the shock. “It’s LeMort!” a man shouted and pointed with a black finger.
“No!” the same girl shouted, “They’re helping us you dumb dumb! Attack the stupid fire guy!”
Though LeMort wouldn’t say her usual taunts. She merely glanced at the man and girl with a small smile.
Dorian pelted Ambiguous’ shield with an assortment of flashy spells. “ROWAN! Stop hiding and fight, you coward!”
Rain and Lance had long retreated. Furious pings cascaded in Jonathan’s user interface.
Jonathan struggled in hesitation. This was his chance. His only chance to face Rowan once and for all.
But there wasn’t anything he could do.
But he had to do something!
A conviction rose. He couldn’t leave Dorian like this even if it was pure stupidity. He shot a blast of Holy Light in Rowan’s direction and began another cast of Consecration. It was his only decent long-range offensive spell. He hadn't leveled up any of the other Paladin projectiles. Damn his own misjudgment. He'd always relied on his guild and allies for supporting firepower.
The totem’s mana dimmed. fifteen or fewer seconds left.
Ambiguous was chanting a spell, her staff held high.
The townsfolk decided their course of action in uncanny unison and the barrage of death bolts resumed—in Dorian’s direction. Hundreds per second impacted his shield, the dark humans gaining rapid efficiency.
Shit. Jonathan swallowed as the Life Link took effect. His health bar drained as the familiar despair of defeat seized his body. The last thing he saw was Rowan’s grinning, mad face as he disappeared in Ambiguous’ Mass Teleportation.
Chapter 20
Scissors and Promises
Rowan watched the battle through the Divining Orb that Ambiguous had given him and smirked in triumph. The plan he and Gabrielle cooked up together worked flawlessly, better than he'd imagined. And not only that—the dark humans were powerful, spawning with the knowledge of Mana Mastery and Dea
th Bolt, unlike regular humans. The temporary Dark Rebirth buff they spawned with boosted their defenses and attacking power, granting them enough power to best those four level 200s with some help. Yes, these will make fine subjects one day. That one girl was especially promising. She was the skeleton which he'd picked up from the lawn.
That Fire Mage who had yelled Rowan’s name had to be an idiot. Who would waste all that time channeling whilst in combat? He should have fired lesser, fast-casting spells like the Paladin had done when taking out ten children. They will be missed… though it hadn’t looked like they died. Severely wounded, saved by the Dark Rebirth buff. Ambiguous carried a stock of Dark Essence Potions and would heal those ten if she what was good for her.
Aeon Chronicles Online_Book 1_Devil's Deal Page 24
