Legacy of the Fallen
Page 34
Grunting in pain as electricity discharged itself through his body, Carver flinched involuntarily, giving both Freya and I the faintest opening to press our attacks. With a cry of triumph, she drove her spear into the half-orc’s side while I pulled Razor free of Carver’s shoulder and used it to knock the rising point of his spear back towards the ground, reaching out with the hand that the wolf had bitten earlier.
Grabbing his arm roughly, I tightened my grip on Carver’s arm and wasted no time in beginning to drain his own mana myself, watching his eyes widen in surprise as he realized what was happening.
“I happen to like spellcasters too,” I repeated Carver’s words to him as he reflexively pulled himself free of Freya’s spear in his side and began to backpedal in an attempt to break my grip. However, I had expected the move and managed to maintain my mana draining grip for a couple more seconds, before a short thrust of his spear forced me to abandon my efforts or suffer another injury.
“Well, aren’t you full of surprises, Lyrian!” Carver announced, his expression becoming unreadable as he regarded me in a new light. “Seems like I’m not the only one who’s been busy over the last few weeks and learning new tricks to show off.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” I replied as Freya and I resumed our attacks, not wanting to give Carver the opportunity to recover.
“It’s a shame though you didn’t spend more of it leveling though,” Carver added mournfully, shifting his body to accept a glancing blow from Freya’s spear while blocking Razor with an expert shift of his shield. Leaving his spear completely free as a sickly green orb of magic formed at its tip. “You might have just been able to stand up to my tricks.”
Before I could react, the orb shot forward and slammed into my chest, instantly filling my body with a sickening sensation as a fever caused my internal temperature to soar. A second later, an aching pain filled all my joints, followed by a wave of muscle spasms and an overwhelming feeling of nausea. In the blink of an eye, I had gone from my regular healthy self to the sickest I could ever recall being, each and every cold or flu that I had ever experienced paling in comparison.
And then I felt Carver’s spear bury itself into my stomach.
I gasped as a burst of pain exploded through my body, Carver savagely twisting his spear as he pulled it out of me, leaving me staggering backward away from him, trying to create some distance between us. Blinking numbly from the combined agony of Carver’s spell and the brutal wound in my stomach, I was barely able to make out the list of messages that had rapidly appeared in my combat log.
You have been afflicted by Carver’s [Insidious Fever]!
Carver’s [Insidious Fever] hits you for 33 points of disease damage!
Carver critically hits you for 178 points of damage!
“Lyrian!” I heard Freya shout in concern as I tried to force myself past the near-crippling sickness that wracked my body, only to have Carver’s voice drown her out.
“That is a pretty nasty spell isn’t it?!” the half-orc taunted with glee. “Too bad it doesn’t last that long though! But fortunately, I’m not done quite just yet! Valefor, come!”
Almost before the words finished leaving Carver’s mouth, did the translucent form of the crimson spirit wolf suddenly appear in front of him, Amaranth’s surprised shout entering my mind a heartbeat afterward.
“Pretty neat, no?” Carver continued seamlessly as I reflexively flinched away from the wolf, forcing myself to bring Razor’s point up high to defend myself despite the illness still coursing through my body. “Though it’s this next trick that’s the one really worth watching!”
Carver let his words hang in the air for a second, before barking out a harsh command.
“Valefor, kill!”
With a feral bark, the wolf’s body partially shifted into an insubstantial state as it practically flew off the ground towards me, covering the distance between us at the speed of thought. Moving reflexively, I threw up Razor in front of me, hearing both Freya and Amaranth shout as the wolf slammed into me and took me off my feet for a second time, sending me crashing down onto my back.
Struggling to catch my breath from the fall as the wolf pressed down on top of me, I felt a hard pressure dig into my hand, Razor’s hilt twisting awkwardly in my grip. Gazing upwards at the wolf, I saw that my quick reaction had forced my sword into the creature’s ethereal maw and was the only thing keeping it at bay. I didn’t know whether a spirit creature such as the wolf was a wholly corporeal or incorporeal entity, but given that my sword had stopped it, at least temporarily, from tearing out my throat, I wasn’t about to argue.
Straining to keep hold of the sword with one hand, I placed my free hand on the flat edge of the blade and tried to force it deeper into the wolf’s mouth, using it as leverage to push it away. Snarling around the edges of the blade as it fought back against my efforts to push it away, I was surprised to find that the creature showed no sign of pain or discomfort from the sharp edges of the weapon, noticing that its jaw was, in fact, clenching downwards.
Is it trying to bite— I had barely begun to form the thought before Razor suddenly shattered right before my eyes, wicked metal shards flying in every direction as the wolf’s jaw snapped shut.
“Shit!” I gasped as all resistance from the two now shattered halves of Razor in my hands vanished, Valefor lunging forward to take a large bite at my face before I could react, sinking its teeth into my cheek and jaw.
I felt flesh tear, and bone break as the wolf snapped its head to the side, causing mine to jerk in sympathy, the familiar cold sensation of my mana being drained returning with a vengeance. Dropping the broken shards of Razor, I reached up to grab at the spectral wolf at the same moment Amaranth leaped upon it.
Trapped underneath the two creatures, I felt my body shake and jerk awkwardly as Amaranth attempted to dislodge the wolf from on top of me. Valefor, though, stubbornly refused to give up its iron hold on my head. Feeling the last bits of my mana begin to ebb away, I began to panic, reaching out towards the wolf on top of me, hoping to return the favor or at the very least nullify whatever it was draining from me. Pressing my hands deep into the shimmering essence that comprised it, I reached into the wolf expecting to feel the creature’s mana, my mana flow back into me, hopefully giving Amaranth a chance to dislodge it.
But I felt nothing.
There was no mana in the creature at all, at least not anything that my ability could pull from. It was as if the spirit on top of me consumed the energy it was draining from me the moment that it left my body, leaving nothing inside of it for me to recover. My panic rose to new levels as I worked my hands up towards the wolf’s face and reached for its eyes, hoping to find some vulnerable spot I could jab my finger into and force it to release its hold.
But before I could do anything, I felt an insatiable hunger rise up and consume me, banishing any sense of rational thought away from my mind as my vision involuntarily took on an azure hue. Four fleeting alerts appeared in the corner of my eye before vanishing as quickly as they appeared.
You have run out of Mana!
You are affected by [Ætherial Hunger]!
Your body consumes itself for 1 point of damage!
Your body consumes itself for 2 points of damage!
A horrific scream tore itself out of my throat as the hunger dwelling inside of me intensified, a distant part of my mind identifying it as being exactly the same as the one I had heard from the Ætherwarped ghouls several weeks earlier. My vision blurred as everything reduced itself to varying shades of azure, all other detail and co
lor vanishing as the hunger within continued to grow with every second that passed.
I felt the weight on top of me shift in surprise, which was followed by a jerking motion that tore something free of my jaw. Yet whatever had happened, I felt no pain, my head automatically snapping back towards the now black silhouette on top of me. The hunger that now drove me regarded it carefully, gazing into the void of energy for several long heartbeats before a primal anger surged through me as it recognized what the shape was.
A rival predator.
With an unearthly snarl, my hands shot up of their own accord, fingers outstretched as they thrust themselves into the void that was perched on top of me, immediately eliciting a loud canine howl of pain. Writhing around my hands faster than I could react, the silhouette shifted into a strange inky blot and leaped off me, revealing yet another shape, this one a dark azure. Instinctively I reached out towards the shape, but before my body could even begin to move, it bounded away from me, chasing after whatever I had just wounded.
The hunger gnawing at me from within continued to intensify, my mind no longer able to focus past it, everything that I once was vanishing under its all-consuming presence. Drawn by a sense I couldn’t identify, my body continued to move without active input from me as I rose to my feet, taking in all the various shades of azure that appeared around me. Some were bright and alluring, while others were dark and thus barely worth my notice.
It only took me an instant to take in all the bright azure shapes around me, something within me instinctively drawn to the brighter shapes, like a moth to the flame.
There! I was already in motion before the thought struck me, a bright azure shape, the brightest azure shape, looming before my eyes as I rapidly closed the distance towards it. A second, darker shape danced in front of it, its form shifting strangely in sync with the brighter one. I was far too gone to understand what the shapes were doing, all that mattered to me was getting towards the brightest azure shape in range.
The hunger demanded it.
Without even a second thought, I barreled past the dark shape as I closed the final distance between me and my target, one of my hands shoving it out of my way as I passed, sending it sprawling out of my vision. It was then, with nothing else before me that I thrust my hands towards my target, desperately attempting to reach into the bright azure shape where I knew the energy that my hunger craved was stored.
But to my frustration, the shape recoiled at my attempt to reach out to it, my hands hitting something hard that I couldn’t quite see. My balance then shifted as a weight pressed itself into my shoulder, the hunger within me crying out for some reason I didn’t understand. Redoubling my efforts, I launched myself forward again, this time sweeping my hands wide as I tried to step in closer to the shape, once again feeling a hand hit something hard and the other running ineffectively along something soft, but unyielding.
While I tried to make sense of what had just happened, another weight pressed into me, this time in the center of my chest, which for some reason caused my footing to falter, the hunger reaching new levels that I could have never dreamed possible. I began to feel strength leave my body, no longer able to keep up with the demand placed on it as a deep fatigue came over me. I stumbled forward, weakly sweeping a hand towards the shape once more, only to have it leap backwards away from me once again, escaping my reach.
The hunger demanded that I follow it, until it found what it needed to sate it, but my body was no longer capable. I felt my legs buckle as the final dregs of energy left my body, sending me falling to the ground. Craning my head upward as I fell, I caught one last glimpse of the bright shape that had evaded me, its presence somehow smaller than it was before.
Then I hit the ground, and everything went black.
Loading, please wait…
Chapter 27
Aldford – Town Hall
I hit the ground hard as I resurrected in Aldford, my mind flailing in momentary panic as it tried to pull myself together after yet another death, this one being perhaps the most traumatic that I had experienced to date. No sooner did I try to begin to process what had happened to me, did a powerful wave of nausea cause my stomach to clench as an all too familiar hunger welled up from within me.
Why didn’t it go away?! I thought as I reflexively curled into a fetal position and retched. I died and respawned, it should be over!
The hunger shifted as I writhed on the ground, transitioning into a blinding spike of pain that radiated through my head as if there was something buried deep inside of it that desperately wanted to claw its way out. My vision blurred as the agony intensified, causing everything to go completely white as I felt something touch the edges of my mind, leaving me grinding my palms into my eyes, desperately paging to the menu that held the logout option.
But just before I was about to trigger the logout process, the pain vanished, my head suddenly snapping back to perfect clarity, leaving me gasping in a heavy sweat as my heart hammered in my ears and the familiar feeling of Death Sickness settled onto me.
What the hell was that? I took in a deep breath, and I tried to process what had just happened. In all my time playing Ascend Online, I had never felt anything close to what I had just experienced. Save for the time that I had fallen into the Ley Line. Was it because I ran out of mana and died?
“Lyrian!” Sierra’s voice reached my ears, followed quickly behind by several rushing feet. “Lyrian, what happened to you?”
I felt a hand touch my shoulder as I pulled my hands away from my face, looking up at the concerned face of Sierra, who kneeled over me, with Constantine and Helix standing over her shoulder. Their eyes all widening as they looked down at me, their expressions shifting from concern to outright worry, if not fear.
“Marc,” Constantine whispered as he joined Sierra in a kneeling position, who had inhaled sharply in shock as she looked at me. “Are you okay?”
“No,” I replied as I reached up to rub my face and felt it strange to the touch. My hands still shook badly from what I had just experienced, the death sickness not helping any with my condition. I knew it was going to take me some time until I felt normal again, but until then I had to try and force my way through the apathy and moroseness that threatened to consume me if I let myself focus on it for too long.
“I ran out of mana,” I explained.
Sierra and Constantine exchanged looks between one another, before looking back down at me. They all knew what that meant for me, though fortunately for them, they had also missed the spectacle that I had put on.
What the hell happened while I was out of mana? I asked myself, remembering my azure-tinted vision and how all-consuming the hunger had been. Even discounting my more recent episode, I had completely lost control after Carver’s wolf had drained my mana, even going as far to hurt it somehow with my bare hands.
After it broke Razor, I remembered with a sudden pang of sorrow, one of my hands reaching down to where I expected my sword to be, only to find nothing.
“Lyrian,” Constantine said after a few seconds, his concerned tone snapping me back to the present. “Your Ætherwarping…it looks like it got worse.”
I froze, the hand searching for Razor freezing in place. “How bad?”
“Even gaunter,” Sierra replied quietly her expression not wavering as she spoke. “And I can see slightly glowing veins in your face now, and down your neck. Similar to how it looked like when we were at the hub, just not as bright.”
“Great,” I let out a sigh, the pain that I had felt earlier now making a little more sense if my body had changed once again. I felt a wave of frustration, anger and depression surge through me as I realized that everyone would once again be flinching at me whenever they saw my face. Then I ruthlessly pushed the confusing array of emotions to the side. I didn’t have time to worry about my appearance right now. Not while Carver was still out there, and the rest of the guild was in danger.
With a resigned shake of my head, I moved to get up to
my feet, shifting the topic of conversation as I did so. “I’ll figure that out later; we have a huge problem—”
“Carver, we know,” Sierra stated darkly as she rose with me, both her, Constantine and Helix continuing to give me a worried look. “A few of the others who resurrected ahead of you already told us. Both about him and the bandits.”
“I completely forgot about him,” I said, silently cursing myself a second time for thinking that the man had moved onto somewhere else. “We just hadn’t seen him for so long…”
“That he fell out of mind,” Helix added softly. “It happened to all of ussss, Lyrian. Even with everything that he did.”
“He isn’t the worst of our worries though,” Constantine cut in as we reshuffled ourselves into a standing circle,. The movement allowing me an opportunity to look around and see the rest of the respawned guild members standing a short distance away in their own cluster, which I was surprised to see included Lazarus and his group.
“Sierra and I ran into Orcs in the forest while we were scouting. We didn’t even see them until they practically stepped out in front of us,” Constantine continued. “They were perfectly camouflaged in the brush, likely with magic of some sort.”
“Not just any Orcs either, Lyr, but NPC Orcs,” Sierra clarified. “And Constantine is right; during our fight two of them started channeling fireballs, and we couldn’t get to them both in time, though I’m pretty sure that Amaranth managed to jump one of them before he got his spell off.”
“Orcs?” I replied in surprise as I remembered my familiar’s panicked shouts during the battle and the rogue fireball that had impacted in the middle of Carver’s group. “We didn’t see any Orcs at all during our fight!”
“That’s what Helix said too,” Sierra told me with a nod. “For whatever reason, Carver held them back.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” I replied as I forced my brain to work through the death sickness that hung over me and tried to work through Carver’s motivations. “As it was, he had us dead to rights with just the people he brought with him. If the Orcs attacked too…”