by Lucas Dunn
Raken joined us at the entrance and we finally moved on to the level we left at. The wolf men we previously left behind were all level 35 excluding the boss. That meant this next level was most likely going to be at our level or a little lower. As we teleported to the floor, I felt a slight breeze before my sight came to me. We stood in the middle of a gentle forest. The trees were spaced out evenly and bright green grass carpeted the forest floor sending out a sense of peace. Needless to say, it only served to enhance our sense of precaution. With nature all around us, I spent 2,000 mana to summon a golem. As it pulled the shade from the trees to form its body, this golem came in the shape of a black panther formed of shadows. As it was now, it was extremely weak and would need to consume souls or soul gems to grow stronger so I pulled out ten common gems and fed them to the panther who’s shape became more defined and solidified. While not as strong as my last golem yet, it was still decently strong. Whishing it had a level, I stopped myself from hitting my head against the tree. Using appraise, I saw just how strong my black panther golem was.
Level 20 Shadow golem. Form: Black Panther. Shadow golems are created from darkness making physical damage negligible to them depending on their form. Their offensive attacks cannot be completely blocked by physical means either. With high resistance to the physical, elemental enchanted weapons and spells tend to be extremely effective. Due to it being a friendly mob, you are able to see its strengths and weaknesses.
After reading over the prompt, I assumed my last golem was at least level 40. I could give this golem one of my splendid gems and probably boost him way beyond 50, but it seemed like such a waste right now. Splendid gems were extremely good for enchanting and I wanted to give them to my enchanters for my armor. With nothing else to do we headed forward. The light above the trees was waning and I didn’t want my squad to be stuck here in the dark. As we continued onward, the serene calm turned into a creepy silence when the sun finally set. We could all see fine, but the hairs on our arms all raised when a strange creaking from the trees began. Increasing our pace, the creaking increased and suddenly roots burst from the ground wrapping around my ankles making me face plant. With my ankles wrapped in thick roots, and more speeding towards my group I swung my picks using Precise Strike so I wouldn’t hit my ankles and shattered the roots into frozen shards. I yelled “run” and we all sprinted forward fighting our way through the roots in a flurry of iron, ice, and fire. Suddenly the roots sunk beneath the earth and a slow rumbling began. The trees around us started pulling themselves from the ground with feet formed of the roots that just assaulted us. Luckily not every tree uprooted itself, taking the break to use appraise I gathered more information of the mobs.
Level 36 Tree Ent. Tree Ent’s are extremely territorial and walking in the middle of their land is extremely stupid. Ent’s are extremely strong, but typically very slow. Upgrade appraise to see its strengths and weaknesses.
I was definitely going to have to upgrade appraise. The Ent’s were clearly weak against my frost picks due to their ice enchantments and my shadow golem clearly absorbed their strength. Wherever my golem attacked the Ent’s, their limbs shriveled and withered to black dust. While the panther was having a blast, the rest of us were hard pressed to defend against the sheer amount of Ent’s. I was doing fine with my cloak of darkness neutralizing their strength, and after a couple of minutes of my group frantically trying to defend we settled into a decent rhythm. We formed a circle with Elif, Jackson, and Raken in the middle firing bolts of magic and arrows while Blade, Elizabeth, and I defended them. Blade’s fire swords went to work just as well as mine, but Elizabeth could do nothing but absorb damage and occasionally strike out. She finally reached the skill level to wield the massive Warhammer with her shield, but it did very little against the Ent’s. Luckily with her great quality enchanted earthen armor she was able to hold out with heal spells until the Ent’s turned into a small trickle and were eventually defeated. I was so absorbed in the battle I didn’t realize I had leveled during it and was only two percent away from the next level. I used appraise on my golem and saw it had gained ten levels! Glad he had gotten to absorb the souls, but a little disappointed I didn’t think to cast soul steal, I split my points between dexterity and strength as I waited for my group to finish with their prompts. After everyone finished we continued to through the forest unmolested by any more Ent’s.
When we finally made it to the door, we took a small break taking the time to eat and rest our legs. When we all felt ready, we entered the boss floor.
Level 50 Tree Ent. Tree Ent’s are extremely territorial and walking in the middle of their land is extremely stupid. Ent’s are extremely strong, but typically very slow. Upgrade appraise to see its strengths and weaknesses
The fight needless to say was lackluster, it was only a little larger than the other Tree Ent’s, but after fighting so many of them our group overpowered it with our magic and weapons while my shadow golem capitalized on its weaknesses. The fight did however gain my shadow golem a couple levels and boost our group the small amount of experience points we needed to make the next level. The Ent dropped a couple branches that Jackson quickly picked up and stored away saying they could be used for certain magical constructs or staffs. Interested in the concept, I made a mental note to study it once I had time. Without wasting any time dallying, we continued to the next level.
Unlike the previous level that was outside, this time, we appeared in a stone dungeon that held multiple skeletons in shackles all along the wall. They were all clearly dead, so with the safety of our group in mind, I cut them from the wall and raised them into undead. 30 skeletons later we came to a sturdy wooden door that I easily smashed through. A long spiraling staircase led upwards for hundreds of steps. Taking point, I surrounded myself in shadows and led the way. Halfway up the stairs, I heard footsteps coming from above. With little time to act, I launched a lightning bolt at the armored soldier as he turned the corner instantly paralyzing him and sending his body convulsing down the steps. Before he could regain control of his body, I activated speed attack and my body shot forward in a blur as both picks smashed through the helm and into his brains.
-100 of 2,000 damage done to level 55 Fire Paladin.
-1,900 of 1,900 damage done to level 55 Fire Paladin.
Level 55 Fire Paladin? What the hell is up with that. The increase in level is insane, and what does Fire Paladin mean? This might not be a level I could take with just my group. Continuing upward we came to a medium sized rectangular room that held three guards playing cards. All level 55 like the first one. We were extremely outmatched when it came to level, and I was the only one who could stealth so we took a quick second to formulate a plan. Casting lightning wave, I paralyzed all the guards and again used quick strike to take one out. By that time Blade and Elizabeth were working on one, and Raken and Jackson were getting the other. Another Paladin went down, but right then the one Elizabeth and Blade were fighting was surrounded in red aura that turned into a fearsome flame. Suddenly the flame exploded outwards in a wave of fire.
-500 damage taken from paladin’s Flame Wave ability.
Due to having a 50% resistance to fire, the damage has been reduced to -250 damage taken
Holy shit, that was an ability? Something like that would rip armies apart! Cursing at myself for forgetting to put up my mana shield I returned my attention to the warrior. I could see him holding off both Blade and Elizabeth with his sword and shield. Joining the battle from behind, I tried to sneak attack but was met with a metal shield. The shield was punctured by my pick, but not enough to go all the way through. Grunting, the guard yanked his shield backward to block Elizabeth’s attack. Taking a mental step back, I thought and then activated heavy strike and quick attack at the same time. My right pick headed straight for his head, but to my surprise a shield of fire appeared. My frost picks and his flames exploded, sending everyone sprawling. With my quick dexterity I jumped to my feet and met the Fire paladin’s sword
before it could stab into my neck. Casting lightning bolt, again a shield of fire sprung up blocking the strike. It was clearly an ability he had to activate. I didn’t want to use any trump cards yet, but I also didn’t want to die. I met his sword again, we were clearly both advanced when it came to our weapons skill. Though his health and strength were clearly higher than mine, I was able to avoid most of his blows due to my dexterity. Finally, Elizabeth and Blade rejoined the battle as we got him to go on the defensive once more. Elif and Raken joined the fight shooting bolts of darkness weakening the fire that appeared whenever we got through his defenses. Eventually we were able to get the shield to flicker out and whittled him down until Blade landed a lucky blow between his armor taking him out causing a soul to float into my bag filling a flawless soul gem. Once the fight was over, I glanced at Jackson and my panther.
“My spells were sliding right off of him so I watched the door to make sure no one would come through and surprise attack us.” Jackson said.
Accepting the response, I glared at the panther who gave an innocent look in return.
“The panther wouldn’t have been able to break through the shield either” Raken said causing me to give the panther a weary glance.
“He could have at least tried” I said annoyed.
The fight had been extremely hard. The ability the Paladin used must have been an extremely rare ability. That’s what I hoped at least. My frost picks did massive damage against it, but the shield must have had over 3,000 hit points. Our group took time to rest. I had gained quite a bit of experience from fighting the high level opponents, but not enough to level me. The souls I collected from them had all been flawless which excited me. If I could get my troops to farm this floor for souls, I could create an army of skeleton mages which would be amazing. I took their loot and raised them as zombies. I could control 17 zombies at a time, but they would only last for 12 hours. With three new powerful zombies, I started back down the stairs alone but was unable to raise the Fire Paladin I killed on the stairs because its head was to smashed. Heading back up, I gathered my group and we opened the door which led to a hallway ending in yet another door. The next door led to another hallway with multiple doors. Checking all of the doors, they were similar to the servant quarters back at my castle. There were many ways to go from here so we picked a door at random that led straight into a group of five Fire Paladins.
“Don’t hold back!” I shouted. Five fireballs launched our way but Jackson was there with a shield blocking them all. Raken returned with a wave of darkness causing the Paladin’s skin to turn a sickly yellow color. Launching myself forward, I used lightning wave paralyzing the group. An arrow flew into the skull of one of the Paladin’s shot by Elif and pick appeared into another’s head.
Three explosions of fire launched me backwards, luckily, I had refreshed my mana shield after forgetting with the other group of Paladin’s. My mana shield absorbed all damage since it wasn’t able to have an elemental resistance. With my shield shattered I got back up before the three remaining Fire Paladins could reach me and sent the three zombies to fight. Though the zombies were not smart unless given gems, they were still just as good at fighting as when they were alive. They didn’t have any of their abilities, but they did keep skills making them worthy opponents against the living Paladins. The rest of my group joined in and quickly overwhelmed the remaining three. Luckily no more red shields appeared, which caused things to end much smoother. Leveling up from the battle, I distributed my points quickly and raised my zombie count to eight. We took a small break to regen before moving on. As we explored the floor, no one could come up against our growing horde of zombies. None of the groups were larger than six and the highest levels were 58. The only trouble we ran into was when a select number of soldiers could bring forth a fire shield like the first group we fought.
By the time we were almost dropping from exhaustion, I had reached level 47 and we still hadn’t found any sign of reaching an end. We went to the nearest empty room and found a place to rest and regroup. My last two level ups, I placed all my points into intelligence, bringing me to 100 and giving me a new ability.
You have shown great dedication to the magical arts and have been given an ability relating to your lifestyle. Shadow Port: Teleport to any shadow within 100 yards. Notice! This is a special ability that can only be used since use have mastered darkness magic.
It was definitely a perfect fit for me. I would be able to dodge strikes or reach an opponent in an instant! One moment I could attack an opponent from the front, and the next second I could be behind an opponent with another attack! Thinking about the ability for a second, I pulled darkness from the corners of the room and formed a shadow in front of me and activated my ability. Suddenly I stood three feet in front of where I had just been! This ability was going to be amazing. Mastering a magic truly had its advantages! My group had all leveled up quite a bit as well. The one who had gained the most though was the Shadow panther. It was now a hulking form of darkness that reached my shoulders. I allowed it to eat the Paladins souls for a while, and it had reached level 50 from all of the flawless gems it absorbed. As it was now, it was leveling super slowly and would need at least a splendid level gem to make any significant changes.
I currently had 20 zombies under my control since I reached level 100 in intelligence. I had leveled up zombie necromancy twice bringing it to level three and giving me some nice bonuses. The zombies would now last twenty-four hours and could keep one ability learned from their previous life. So far none had learned the flame shield, but they were still extremely powerful and could most likely wipe out are group. After a while of chatting, we ate a quick dinner and fell asleep so we wouldn’t be tired for tomorrows battle. Before I fell asleep I went over my stats, extremely happy with the new levels and abilities.
Name
Lucian(Lord of Shadow’s Edge. First Priest of The Dark One. Tribune of Mars)
Race
???
Class
Warrior God
Level
47(Percent towards next level: 14%)
Fame
1,830(Respect)
Health
1,180
Mana
3,000
Intelligence (1 point = 30 towards mana)
100
Constitution (1 point = 20 towards health)
54 (+5 from ring)
Wisdom (1 point = +.5 mana per second)
50
Strength (1 point = x.1 physical damage.
167 [Damage modifier = (damage * 17.3) (+6 from ring)
Stamina
30 (+30 from rings)
Dexterity
173 (+30 from ring)
Luck
5(+10 from Ring)
Abilities
Dark Sight: See with 100% proficiency in darkness. (Non-Passive)
Dark Shroud: Unable to be heard or detected by the followers of light through divine or mundane magic. (Passive)
Divine Fortitude: Resist the strongest attempts to influence your mind(Passive)
Elemental Merge: Merge with the elements for five minutes increasing all stats by 100% (Cool down: 1 hour)
Mana Sacrifice: Trade health points for mana points.
Precision Strike: This skill allows you a single strike that will strike with one hundred percent accuracy if not stopped. (Cool down: 5 minutes.)
Mar’s Aura: Create an aura that spreads across the battle field raising friendly stats by 5% and lowering enemy stats by 5%. (Cooldown: 1 week)
Port: Teleport within 100 yards to any shadow.
Skills
Mana Magic: 40% towards next level. 50% resistance [Level three]
Water Magic: 5% towards next level. 50% resistance. [Level four]
Earth Magic: 55% towards next level. 50% resistance. [Level four]
Fire Magic: 28% towards next level. 50% resistance. [Level four]
Air Magic: 20% towards next level. 50% resistance. [Level four]
Dark Magic: 100% resistance. [Max level]
--Necromancy—Skeleton: Level 4. Ghoul: Level 1. Zombie: level 3
Light Magic: 10% towards next level. 50% resistance. [Level three]
Lightning Magic: 3% towards next level. 50% resistance. [Level four]
Mana Manipulation: Process of efficiently using mana. 15% towards next level. Cast speed, damage, success rate. +15% effective. [Level seven]
Spell Creation: You have the ability to create your own spell. Current limit of four runes. 12% towards next level. (Non-Passive) [Level Four]
Sneak: You are able to slightly conceal your presence and noise. 10% reduction to noise and noticeability. -45% reduction to speed. [Level two]
Tracking: You are able to follow game by their tracks. [Level One]
Pain Constitution: You are able to ignore 1% of pain. [Level one]
Appraise: You are able to see name and level of all mobs/items as well as a short description. [Level three]
Tame: You are able to tame creatures level five or under. [Level three]
Charm: Convince any mob of equal level and lower fortitude to listen to you. Limit: 2. Length: 2 hours. [Level 4]
Combat: Basic. You have a basic understanding of all combat.
--Dual Wield—Advanced. You excel in this form of combat.
Mana creation: Create most objects at the cost of mana. Can’t be magical [Level 2]
Speed attack: Next attack is twice as fast. (Cost: 5% of full stamina)
Heavy strike: Next hit does x2 damage (Cost: 20% of full stamina)
Tremor: Stomp the ground to send nearby opponents falling as the earth shakes. (Cost: 50% of full stamina)
Quests
--
Lightning, water, and mana magic all leveled up since I could spam their spells from afar while my horde of zombies overtook everyone else. I could now merge most of the elements together and use their sources, but I wanted more than that. I want to be able to summon golems and elementals from at least two other groups of magic. Then I would be truly powerful. Until then, all I had was darkness, and I truly couldn’t complain with how powerful it was. With these thoughts, I fell into a deep sleep dreaming of great wars and abilities of extreme power.
