by Aleron Kong
That was all less important than the fact that he quickly saw that the portal had not opened near the roof of the Mausoleum. The portal had let out on the grey metal steps between the seventh and eighth floor, three levels from the top. To be specific, the gateway had appeared almost at a forty-five degree angle to the stairs and was three feet above them. The drop was easily handled, but the fact that they now had to fight through three levels of undead was a problem! In addition to coming to terms with their position, he also let a series of prompts wash over him, internalizing the information in a moment.
Know This! You have entered the influence of the Mausoleum of Saginald!
-100% Spell Strength to Life magic
-50% Spell Strength to Earth and Water magic
-25% Spell Strength to Light magic
+100% Spell Strength to Death magic
+50% Spell Strength to Fire and Air magic
+25% Spell Strength to Dark magic
Richter gritted his teeth, thinking about how Zarr was going to have a hard time making the bulwark with a 50% spell penalty. It would be possible, but exceedingly difficult. Difficult or not, now was not the time for worry. It was a time for action.
*Attack!* he shouted into the mauler’s mind, bare seconds after they had crossed through the gateway. His command sent the Labyrinth boss barreling up the stairs. The giant monster bellowed as it raced up the stairs to do battle. Hulking zombies the size of gorillas raced down to meet it while archers from the level above continued to fire arrows. Richter drew a poisoned arrow of his own while the rest of the strike team poured through the portal. Sighting on a level 28 Professed Mage, he released, a faint golden aura surrounding the arrow. It streaked up the stairs, crossing the space in a blink, but the skeletal Mage was already prepared. A previously invisible, 4th-tier spell shield of Death energy sprang into visibility the moment the arrow tip came in contact with the barrier.
The spell had over six hundred HPs and a defense of +15. All of that was doubled by the Mausoleum’s influence. The defensive magic effectively gave the mage the equivalent of a concrete-reinforced bunker. Any attack with a damage value less than fifteen wouldn’t even deplete the spell’s health. It would protect the undead Mage from attacks and allow the wretched creature to destroy whatever was attacking it at its leisure. That was why Richter got to enjoy seeing its mouth drop open in shock as his arrow passed through its spell barrier unimpeded, right before it blew up in the mage’s unarmored face!
The last several days, Richter hadn’t just spent his time enchanting. He had spent it experimenting. At the time, he’d wondered if it was a function of his increased Creativity, because ideas had started exploding in his mind. Whatever the cause, when this particular notion had occurred to him, he knew he’d stumbled onto something special.
One of the few things he already knew about magic shields was that they were not effective against magics of the same type. A Fire shield could not stop a Fireball spell, for instance. He’d run that concept by Hisako who told him that there were shield variations this did not hold true for, but that many magic shields did follow that axiom.
Knowing that, he’d wondered what would happen if he shot a magic shield with an arrow enchanted with the same type of magic. Awesomely and surprisingly, it had worked! Hisako had helped him test the theory by casting a stationary Life shield over a rock. While an unenchanted arrow was deflected, an arrow enchanted with Life Attack passed right through! Even an imbued arrow would pass right through the shield as long as the arrow was enspelled with Life magic. According to Hisako, this was because the force magic of the Imbue Arrow skill didn’t adhere to any particular spell school.
That was when he’d started wondering what would happen if there were two enchantments on the arrow. He expected to be fighting Death magi as the Mausoleum was an undead stronghold. It was all well and good to have an arrow enspelled with Death magic pass through a magic shield, but the enchantment might actually make an undead stronger, with the damage the arrow itself caused wholly negated. He needed to add a little extra umpf to the attack.
The first experiment with an arrow dual enchanted with Life Attack and Dark Attack had been a total failure. The arrow failed to pass through. The second experiment had literally exploded as soon as the arrow had been enchanted. The high steel arrow simply couldn’t take the opposing energies of Life Attack and Death Attack. After apologizing to the smiths that had been glaring at him, he’d moved onto a third possibility, using an arrow with Life Attack and Sonic Damage. It was unfortunately another failure. The arrows simply wouldn’t penetrate Hisako’s Life shield.
Richter had been more than frustrated, but that was when Hisako had reminded him of the mandala. Her shield was comprised of Life magic. The two Basic Elements most closely associated with Life were Earth and Water. He’d pointed out that he had already tried to use Sonic Damage, which was an Earth enchantment, but Hisako had already anticipated that objection. She’d proposed that for the arrows to pass through a Life shield then the enchantment had to be identified as Life as well. Richter’s previous experiment had tried enspelling the arrow with an expensive level two Earth magic while only using a level one Life magic as the other half of the enchantment.
Happily, and maddeningly, the Hearth Mother had been right, as always. Richter found that as long as the Enchantment Points he invested into Life Attack were greater than or equal to the points he invested into an Earth or Water enchantment, the arrow could still pass right through the shield! He’d even found he could use spell types that were two removed from Life and still penetrate the spell shield, as long as the ratio was then 75% Life and 25% Light or Dark.
Fire and Air magic did not work in any combination to get through a Life shield, but that was not what he needed to attack the undead. Both of those magics did border Death on the mandala and they were exactly what he needed to pierce a necromancer’s shield. That was why he’d spent some precious TPs to buy the enchantment Fire Attack, and that was why the skeleton caster was having a bad fucking day!
He drew another arrow and checked the results of his first attack.
BEGIN COMBAT LOG
Richter strikes Skeletal Necromancer’s 4th-tier Death Shield with Enchanted Imbued Moonstone Arrow.
Death Fire Moonstone Arrow bypasses Skeletal Necromancer’s Enhanced Static Shield.
Richter strikes a Skeletal Necromancer for 272 points of varied damage with an Death Fire Moonstone Arrow: [(+17 Recurve Bow of the Wood Sprite + 8 Moonstone Arrow + 38% for level 19 Archery + 76% for 38 points of Dexterity) + (56 Mana/5 + 90% for level 18 Imbue Arrow + 43% familiar level – 15% Necromancer’s Wisdom) + 0 Death Damage (Target Immune) + Fire Damage: (+8 Fire Enchantment + 50% undead weakness to Fire – 15% Necromancer’s Wisdom)] x 3 Critical hit (head)
6-foot radius AoE Force Damage: 26
Skeletal Necromancer has been Poisoned with Sun Lotus Poison! It will take 53 points of Life Damage/second for the next 15 seconds!
Skeletal Necromancer resists Mind Fog.
Skeletal Necromancer resists Stun.
Skeletal Necromancer resists Psi Crystallization.
END COMBAT LOG
All of the information washed over Richter in an instant thanks to Randolphus’s status window technique. The Mage fell back, its jaw knocked clean off and the Life poison coursing through its undead body. The chaos seed used Analyze again and saw that in the opening salvo of the battle he had removed more than 80% of its life and that the poison would finish the job in seconds. Richter’s face was fixed in a rictus of battle lust. That’s right, muthafuckas! Feel the power of Essence Enchanting!
In the two seconds it had taken him to both attack and register the damage, the other twenty members of the squad had traveled through the portal and the battle was joined. Wisteria went down with an arrow in her shoulder, screaming as the foul poison on the arrowhead began to course through her body. Two of the Hearth Tree sprites dropped as well, one with an arrow in his eye and anoth
er from a bolt of Death magic that knocked him unconscious. Yoshi didn’t deviate from the plan. Instead, the half-sprite shouted “Foresuto No!” and sprinted up the stairs, the warband racing after him.
Richter held his to his own part of the plan. Dropping his bow for a moment, he drew vials of Flammable Life Oil from his Bag even as he examined the forces arrayed against them. The Mausoleum had ten floors before the top level, each smaller than the one below it. As he had expected, the number of defenders decreased with each tier, but the levels of the monsters increased.
The undead on the seventh floor had noticed the invasion, and the melee fighters were beginning to rush up the stairs even as the archers raced into position so they could fire on Richter. Using Analyze, he saw that the monsters on the seventh floor looked to have levels between twenty-two and twenty-seven while those above him were levels twenty-six through thirty.
He relayed all of this to Hisako as he continued to smash enough oil vials to coat the width of the stairs several yards down from the portal. The undead of the sixth level had already made it halfway up the stairs. He ran back up, trailing the last bit of oil from the vial in his hand. Richter waited one more second, letting the undead get fully within the AoE of the oil, then with a malevolent look in his eyes, spat a word of Power.
“Igni!”
Orange flame shot from his fingertips into the oil at his feet as he cast Weak Flame. The clear liquid caught fire and raced down the steps in a line before igniting the large swath of oil he’d placed on the stairs. A conflagration twenty yards long and five yards wide sprung into existence and caught ten undead in the flames. Armored ghasts, zombie knights and skeletal Warriors were all caught in his trap and began to burn.
Richter unsheathed Black Ice and his elementum short sword, preparing to meet the charge. A skeleton holding a black steel mace made it through the flames but still burned as it ran at the chaos seed. Despite the fact that blades were not the ideal weapon to fight monsters of this type, his powerful instruments more than compensated. Spinning low, Richter ducked under the undead Warrior’s attack and brought his green elementum blade against the skeleton’s right leg; an instant later he sliced Black Ice into the left. Both weapons cut clean through the Life-weakened bones of the skeleton, dropping it to the ground.
With a savage kick, Richter shot his skeeling boot into its torso and sent it tumbling down the steps into the flames. A horrible moan to his right heralded a six-foot-tall zombie beastkin moving as fast, if not faster, than it could have in life. With talons extended, it lunged at him, swinging its arm in a vicious swipe. He raised his elementum blade just in time and braced himself.
The fey metal bit into the zombie’s left arm, and the force of the blow knocked Richter back a step. Yanking down and twisting, the hand came free and the zombie howled, either in anger, pain, or both. Its other hand reached forward to grab Richter’s armor, but it moaned anew when it came in contact with the Life-enchanted metal. It drew back, its hand smoking, and Richter grinned broadly. Swinging like he was letting the big dog eat from the blue tees, Black Ice swept up into the zombie’s crotch, splitting it from tooter to rooter! The two burning halves fell to either side and Richter engaged the next undead that had made it through the flames.
As he desperately parried an axe blow, Richter called to Hisako to send the Dungeon beasts and Zarr. Even though there were only fifteen undead on the level below them and twelve above, there were thousands of green-eyed dead in the lich’s army. They had started surging across the land bridge that connected the Mausoleum to the plain where the army had waited. Every defender from the lower levels was rushing up the stairs as well. Even the Life oil flames were not stopping all of them, the dumber undead rushing straight through them. They had to do this quickly!
*The portal is stable enough to send the beasts,* Hisako thought to him, *but the strain of holding it open is worse than I thought! Even drawing on the mana of my people I will not be able to hold it open long. You must hurry!*
What does she think I’m doing, Richter asked, diving to the side to miss an arrow shot from above. Thanking Alma for warning him from overwatch, he savagely hacked at a ghast holding a mace and buckler. Purple-black energy danced over the undead’s weapon and Richter Identify Talent showed that the weapon was enspelled with a disease enchantment. He didn’t let the weapon touch him. Instead, he flowed from one form to the next, making sure to keep the ghast’s body between him and the enemy archers farther down the stairs. The undead might have been a Professed Warrior, but even it could not ignore the damage the Life oil flames had wrought. More than half of its life was already gone before Richter even swung his first blade at it.
With wild bloodlust, Richter delivered a flurry of blows that the ghast was able to block, but that was not the purpose of the chaos seed’s attack. Each contact was a chance. Each strike he landed was a chance that one of his blade’s effects would trigger. He swung Black Ice in a perfectly executed Drunken Barber. His powerful Named weapon cut straight through the neck of the ghast and a spout of gravy-colored ichor shot into the air. The demon soul in the weapon hungrily lapped up the life energy and was ready for more!
That was the last melee fighter from level seven, leaving archers and magi firing up at Richter with impunity. Thankfully, he was not alone. A horde of Dungeon beasts poured through the portal. Richter sent all but ten jenit prowlers and the two chupacabras bounding up the stairs. Those remaining rushed down the stairs, the agile animals leaping over the now dying flames. They raced each other to attack the undead firing upon them. The prowlers bounded, eating steps with each pounce. Three went down, two to arrows and a third to a spike of Death magic that began to rot it from the inside out. The rest fell upon the ranged undead, their claws coated with Sun Lotus Poison. The chupacabras fired their quills at the same time. The powerful shots pinged off of a skeletal mage’s shield, but each strike drained and gave Richter time to equip his own bow again.
He nocked and fired an arrow down the stairs. In midflight, the arrow blurred and, an instant later, four copies flew alongside the original. A ghast Warrior had made it up from the sixth level. The Professional was able to block two of the arrows on his kite shield, but the other three impacted. The secondary effect of the Sonic Damage enchantment triggered and the undead was disarmed even as the other three arrows struck his body with concussive booms! The Warrior tumbled back down the stairs.
As Richter tried to keep the hordes at bay, above a horrible battle of attrition raged. The mauler had long since reached the eighth level and was laying waste to the skeletal monsters. Numerous arrows stuck out of its body, spreading disease, necrotic Death magic and poisons fast enough that even its regenerative ability couldn’t keep up. It didn’t stop Richter’s pet. The Labyrinth boss had extensive resistances to magic, poison and disease and had thousands of health to spare.
Alma watched as the mauler’s talons pierced the body of what looked like a revenant. Its claws shot through the undead’s body and exploded out of its back before lifting it into the air. The monster screeched defiance at Richter’s giant, but that ended when the mauler swung it against the side of the Mausoleum and turned its head into decayed slush. A zombie Rogue jumped onto the mauler’s back, performing a Talent attack, Spine Sever, but its weapon was too weak to pierce the level ninety-two boss’s mana-hardened vertebrae. The attack did remove another two hundred health, however, and the giant screamed in rage and pain.
Before it could respond, a sprite arrow shining blue with imbued magic struck the Rogue broadside. The skeleton flew through the air and Life poison began to spread along the magic pathways that gave its bones false life. Just taking the eighth level had already cost the mauler two thousand health and now the more powerful undead of the ninth level began to attack. Its sacrifice was not in vain. Every arrow and bolt of Death magic that struck it saved the life of a strike team member. They had still taken casualties, but in the first minutes of the attack the eighth level was almo
st claimed, the sprites and Dungeon beasts matching the undead in ferocity and perhaps outstripping them in hatred. The grisly battle between the living and dead continued.
Through the portal came Caulder, Zarr, Quasea and forty mist workers carrying four blocks of marbled quartz; another ten mist workers came through behind them holding small boulders. As Richter had feared, as soon as the constructs passed through the gateway, mist began to flow out of their bodies. Away from his domain, they were cut off from the magic that kept them intact. He had no idea when they would finally fall apart, but once again he was being reminded that very little time remained.
“Stop there!” Zarr barked, halting the mist workers, and he cast the spell Contouring Stone on two of the blocks. The 3rd-tier spell had a twelve second cast time that left him vulnerable, but even as arrows continued to fly from below, Zarr stayed dedicated to his task. He was able to do so because he had the same strength as every member of the Mist Village: he was not alone.
Caulder stood in front of him with his wardoor pointed down the stairs. Quasea stood nearby, her fierce heart avowing that no harm would come to either her liege or her man. The jenit prowlers had slain the remaining archers of the seventh level and the chupacabras had overcome the shields of the undead magi, riddling their robed bodies with four-foot-long spikes until the unnatural creatures lay still. The prowlers had been ripped apart in the process, but the Life poison on their claws had done its work. They had bought the allied forces time, but only some.
The undead from the sixth floor had arrived on the seventh and the fifth-floor guardians were right behind. More arrows were flying up again; the undead were of a lower level, but there were more of them. The Death mages of those floors began casting as well and the melee fighters rushed upward, screaming and howling to spill living blood.
