Raising Allies

by Sarah Lin

  Though it seemed useless now, it was a critical part of his strategy. Once that trait was obtained and Meara had gained the ability to repair equipment, there were no true obstacles to them completing the crypt, but they continued working until the 22nd day in any case.

  That morning they all assembled together in full equipment, except for Danniah who held hers within her sphere. Before they went down into the lower levels, Bloodwraith finally explained the exact details of his plan for the crypt.

  "There's a reason we haven't been cleaning out the rest of the crypt room by room. According to some rationale I have never been able to determine, the boxes award something called a 'marathon bonus' for extended conflicts without a period to rest. Because I feed off death, the enemies remaining in the crypt are effectively a resource - now that we've made enough progress that I believe we can do the rest at once, this is the most efficient use of that resource."

  Gharavi pressed her fingers together and watched him thoughtfully. "How confident are you that we can do this all at once? Fighting while exhausted will lead to a far greater chance of injury or death."

  "There is a risk, certainly, but Izilthor and I have been trying to determine what we can about the lower levels." Bloodwraith gestured toward her and she perked up, nodding. "Furthermore, her ability will be essential to regularly encounter more undead - if we go too long without a fight, I fear the marathon might end and reduce the overall reward."

  "We've been preparing for this." Danniah grasped her sphere and her armor manifested around her. "It may be hard, but I think it will be worth it to get ready for Raigar!"

  "Exactly." He didn't add that this would be a far lesser challenge than that battle. This crypt was dangerous, but a reasonable challenge for their group. Raigar was an unpredictable mess of unknowns that would not be remotely fair.

  They headed down the staircase and passed through the outer defensive wards. From that moment until the crypt was clear, there would be no time to rest.

  Meara moved at the head of the group, carrying their torch. In addition to keeping everyone else's hands free, any traps or ambushes would be blunted by the fact that they would have no effect on her. Bloodwraith moved behind her to counter-attack, Izilthor and Gharavi stayed in the middle since they could attack freely, and Danniah defended the rear.

  Though they didn't encounter any traps, when they were first attacked by wights, Meara served her role well. When the wights descended on her and passed through uselessly, the others counterattacked. Bloodwraith's sword cleaved through the first, Gharavi hit the second with a burst of flame, and by the time the third and fourth arrived, Danniah and Izilthor had joined in.

  It ended without the party taking any more than a few scrapes. Bloodwraith nodded to them in affirmation, but kept his tone grim. "Good work, but that was the first of many. Stay vigilant."

  Their second encounter didn't go so smoothly, a massive zombie exploding from a sarcophagus in the wall beside them and breaking up their formation. Yet Izilthor easily evaded it and Gharavi switched to binding with ice attacks, buying enough time for the others to reorient themselves. They had more than a few injuries, but Izilthor ate the wounds and they continued onward.

  As they progressed through the crypt, clearing out room after room, Bloodwraith gained an increasing appreciation for Gharavi. She might prefer to shoot lightning from a distance, but she was a capable mage who could use a wide variety of spells. He began to depend on her more for such things, not wasting his mana on shooting bursts of force when traditional spells would be more effective.

  By the time they reached a great doorway blocked by a statue guardian, they were working together smoothly as a team. The golem was powerful and well-crafted, but it lacked the intelligence necessary to fight against an organized group. Danniah held its attention and Bloodwraith kept it off balance while Izilthor and Gharavi dealt glancing blows. In the end it went down with their only attrition a few bruises, lost mana, and a dent in Danniah's shield.

  "Aww, this is going to be hard to get out." Danniah looked at the dent, but was surprised when Meara swept up to her and took it.

  "Let me make an attempt. But first... everyone needs to look away."

  Bloodwraith dutifully looked aside. He wasn't sure if Meara's abilities actually worked better when she wasn't observed, as if she was tricking the system, but he was depending on her skill to reduce attrition. When they looked back, she revealed the repaired shield with a flourish.

  "There you go! I can't do it in an instant, and I can't repair enchantments, but I should be able to keep our equipment in decent shape."

  "Speaking of time," Bloodwraith said, "we've been resting too long. Izilthor, find us some more undead."

  With that basic system, they were able to clear out the entire floor without any difficulty. But as they advanced to the lowest level of the crypt, they began to slow down. Bloodwraith wasn't sure how long they had been fighting, but the weariness was taking its toll. Not just the difficulties of combat, but the stress of constantly being alert for another ambush.

  Eventually a group of ghouls managed to truly surprise them. They broke through their defenses and drove Gharavi to the ground, tearing open multiple wounds before Danniah managed to smash them away. After that they managed to regroup and defeat them, Gharavi casting from the ground, but it was obvious that her wounds were serious.

  Once the area was secure, Izilthor immediately crouched down beside her, teeth snapping. Gharavi looked a bit uncomfortable, but warmed to it as her injuries began to heal. Yet when Izilthor was only partly finished, she wavered and nearly fell.

  "Are you alright?" Bloodwraith bent down beside her, checking more carefully, and saw that she was overflowing with the energy she'd been gathering from their injuries.

  "Too... too much..." Izilthor shook her head and leaned against him. "Can't hold it..."

  So there were yet more limits to her ability. He refrained from saying anything negative and just patted her on the back. "In the next fight, you should take point. Get out as much energy as you can."

  Meanwhile, Meara gave Gharavi potions until her injuries were healed. But the body could only endure so many potions and so much magical healing, so they were beginning to wear down. They had 75% of the lowest floor to clear, by his estimate, so they should just be able to make it.

  When they next ran into a group of skeletons, Izilthor sprinted ahead, tearing through the group. She attacked with unusual ferocity until the energy within her had spent itself, leaving the rest of them with only support work to do, protecting her from flanking attacks. Once it was done, Izilthor was back to normal energy levels, but Bloodwraith could detect a bit of fatigue. Even undead bodies could not function perfectly forever, especially when transferring so much power.

  In their next encounter, they faced off against a zombie that appeared to be normal until it spit out a slew of acid. Their equipment survived, but holes were burned in many of their clothes. Meara did her best to repair everything, though when they headed onward again, he saw the strain in her eyes. Though her abilities might not use conventional mana, they did require great concentration, which was itself a limited resource.

  But the bottom floor was nearly cleared and they had yet to break the marathon string. Bloodwraith let the thought of all the EXP the box gods would award him push him onward.

  Toward the end, his mana ran low. His mind was so tired that he nearly stumbled into another fight without enough, but Meara noticed. He drank a mana potion, knowing it was the first of many. The others were beginning to run low as well, and though Meara could provide them with more, the mana expenditure took its toll nonetheless.

  They pushed on toward the last room, prepared to face a final challenge. Yet when they arrived, they discovered only a staircase.

  Danniah groaned and banged her head against the wall, while Gharavi crouched down and closed her eyes to rest. Since they had just finished a battle, Bloodwraith allowed them time to rest, though
he spent it pacing by the staircase and trying to figure out how they had miscalculated. Perhaps it was as the box said, and Izilthor's abilities had limits too low to determine the size of the crypt accurately.

  In any case, he was now extremely confident that they had only one level of the crypt remaining to clear. Though they could have retreated, he refused to let this crypt defeat him. They pushed on, even as fatigue began to claim them.

  One of the largest chambers on the bottom floor contained something truly unexpected: an undead shardwing. Though it could not fly in such a small chamber, its size and undead strength were truly dangerous in the enclosed space. When Bloodwraith tried to get behind it, one of the hind legs snapped out and knocked him into the wall.

  Fortunately, before it could turn on him, Danniah and Izilthor struck. They might be exhausted, but they had mana to spare and their teamwork had only improved. Danniah bashed her shield into the head of the shardwing, and while it was stunned Izilthor stabbed out one of its multi-faceted eyes.

  While it reeled backward, Bloodwraith leapt on top, hacking as he went. It crouched and then leapt into the air, smashing him into the ceiling, but he had been prepared for that. When they came back down, he pushed his sword first and used gravity to cut deep into the shardwing's body.

  Instead of tearing his sword out, he instead pulled back, exposing as much of the wound as possible. "Gharavi, now!"

  She responded with a lance of ice that punched deep into the shardwing's body. The creature let out a hiss and rushed at her, but Danniah blocked its path and Izilthor cut through one of its legs. That delayed it long enough for Gharavi to flood more mana into the ice lance, plunging it deep into the creature's undead body.

  Though it kept moving, the ice through the core of its body was too debilitating an injury. They finished destroying the undead two at a time while the other two went to Meara for equipment repair. It might be cheap to draw out the battle like that, but Bloodwraith didn't care. Against the box gods, anything was fair play.

  "Eat?" Izilthor eyed the corpse eagerly, but Bloodwraith shook his head.

  "Sorry, Izilthor, we need to move on."

  "You know..." As Danniah moved with them, her words slurred. "You should call her Izzy. It's a much better name... for a girl..."

  Bloodwraith just shook his head and refused to argue on the issue. Not when they were so tired. Izilthor looked between them curiously but didn't seem to have an opinion on the topic, still casting longing looks back toward the shardwing chamber.

  The next chamber was just another group of wights, but their screeching brought even more undead from nearby chambers. As the fight extended on and on, their group slowed down and made more mistakes. In the end it was a close thing, with Gharavi releasing a huge fireball to finish off the group and Bloodwraith pulling the others down beneath a sarcophagus to avoid the blast.

  When they got back up, they wavered on their feet. Meara stared at them and shook her head. "You all need rest. Not healing, but rest."

  "No. We can't give up now."

  "I didn't say we'd do that. All of you stay here - I'll move forward and lure more undead back here for you to kill."

  It was a reasonable plan, so Bloodwraith allowed it. As soon as he dropped back to sit against the wall, his body ached, but it felt so good not to be holding his muscles tense. Danniah just collapsed on the floor, breathing heavily. Though Izilthor was not fatigued in the same way as the rest of them, she scampered around the room and chewed on leftover corpses, which seemed to restore her in a similar way to a good rest.

  To Bloodwraith's surprise, Gharavi dropped down to sit against the wall beside him. She was silent at first, massaging her forehead to cope with the mana fatigue. Eventually she looked up at him, eyes slightly unfocused.

  "We should... do the bracelet again..."

  Though it hadn't been a priority given everything else, Bloodwraith supposed that it was harmless. Might be good to take their minds off the fighting as well. "Go ahead."

  She fumbled with the bracelet a few times before successfully managing the spell.

  [Gharavi Affection: 47/47]

  That was right, she had reached the new maximum. It hadn't seemed to have any perceptible effect, other than a reminder from the red box that he was supposed to kill her. That concluded their business, but Gharavi slumped to lean against him.

  "Thank you... Bloodwraith..."

  He looked down at her. "For what?"

  "For respecting my intelligence. You're never surprised by it. Never say I'm smart for a half-orc. No... you expect me to be even better, to drive myself further."

  "What else would I do?" Bloodwraith shook his head. "Life is too short to waste on fools. I knew right away that you were no fool."

  "Thank you... but that's why..." Gharavi stared into the shadows for a time, then rubbed her eyes slowly. "That's why we need to get rid of the... stupid box system. I don't want anything to be... it shouldn't be tainted by that... sorry, I'm rambling. I just wanted to say... I'm glad I met you."

  Bloodwraith was never good with sentiment, much less when he was this exhausted. So he settled for a page from Meara's book. "Careful, or you'll trigger another bonus."

  "Hmm? I mean it... I'm really glad I met you, Bloodwraith..."

  [Affection +5!

  Gharavi Affection: 47/47]

  Gharavi cursed in her tribal language and rubbed her forehead. "Oh, that was what you meant. Gods, I'm so tired..."

  "Just a little longer. We're close, I can feel it."

  They said nothing more about their conversation, just resting until Meara returned with several wights hot on her heels. But with all of them partially rested, they easily destroyed the wights and then continued, the marathon still unbroken.

  There was no escaping the fatigue now, though. Since the marathon had lasted through their short break, Bloodwraith called for more breaks after each fight, but they stopped helping very much, barely denting their exhaustion. Meara began handing out her unique potions, which they would drink before they entered new fights, but though those provided a temporary boost of energy, they took a toll as well.

  Normally Bloodwraith had nearly total control of the boxes, but they began appearing and disappearing regardless of his focus. During one fight against a group of heavily-armored skeletons, he actually started seeing damage indicators again.

  As they trudged along after the battle, he found himself staring back at Danniah and realizing something. "Danniah... your maximum mana... it reached 6 points..."

  "Yay... three shield impacts..." It sounded almost like sarcasm, but it was only a shadow of her usual enthusiasm.

  They forced themselves to keep moving and he reflected that this was one way in which the others had an advantage over him. His stat benefits were always deferred until after the event, whereas their aggressive exercise of their abilities led to immediate increases. Of course, he would take the benefits of immediate growth when it came to stat points.

  When they stumbled toward the last room, everyone in their party had full health and mana, but they were half-dead. For the first time in months, Bloodwraith found himself flailing at the boxes, muttering that they needed a better approximation of fatigue. He slowly trailed off as he realized that there was only a single chamber remaining.

  "Everyone..." He had planned to give orders, but it felt like too much. "Do the usual..."

  Though it seemed there was an ornate sarcophagus in the center of the chamber, Bloodwraith realized that reaching it would not be easy. A pile of heavy bones sat in front of the sarcophagus... and as they approached, the bones unfolded into a towering bone golem.

  One more battle. Bloodwraith took a deep breath and tried to believe they could finish it.

  Chapter 25

  Without needing to be told, everyone began to retreat. Though the golem attacked with immense power, Danniah managed to deflect its blows with her shield as they headed back to the corridor. Bloodwraith carefully swung at its arm when
it was extended, testing that he could damage the bone golem's armor. Though its body was thick and reinforced, he could whittle it down.

  Instead of fighting fairly, they retreated into the narrow corridor. When the bone golem hunkered down and tried to follow, its movement was severely hampered by the space. Bloodwraith struck it repeatedly with bursts of force, holding it back, while Gharavi blasted it with all of her spells until she discovered that it was weakest to ice.

  Finally the golem's outer bones collapsed. Bloodwraith stared, feeling no sense of victory... and then his numb senses realized that something was wrong.

  Before he could consciously realize what it was, he grabbed Gharavi and threw her to the side. A moment later, the bone golem's outer body clattered to the floor... revealing that all of the outer bones had been welded onto a thinner body underneath. Just armor.

  Then it flashed across the chamber and Bloodwraith realized that it had impaled him through the stomach. His mind took a moment to register that its heavy fists had also fallen away, revealing sharp bone claws that had stabbed directly through his armor. It pinned him to the wall and his blood splattered against it, but the exhaustion was greater than the pain.

  Though Bloodwraith released an empowered shout in all directions, it only made the golem flinch. Its hand rose up, ready to stab into his head, but at that moment a bolt struck it in the back. Gharavi lay on her side, but could still cast from there. The golem hissed in anger but stayed focused on him, ready to split wide the wound in his stomach.

  Danniah almost stumbled into it from behind, but the impact did get its attention. When it stabbed down at her with its free hand, she met the attack with her shield. At her best, the mana-fueled impact would have made the golem stagger, but now it only managed to deflect the attack.

  It delayed the golem long enough. Shaking off his weariness, Bloodwraith raised his sword and stabbed it deep into the golem's hand. When it hissed and tried to flex its claws, Bloodwraith grabbed the blade with his other hand and twisted, using leverage against the weaker bones. Combined with another burst of force, he managed to tear apart the golem's hand.