Unbound Deathlord: Challenge

by Edward Castle

96 piercing damage dealt to Armored Woman

  17 darkness damage dealt to Armored Woman

  That was some damn good armor. But even so, she had received more than a hundred points of damage and didn't even look like she had felt it. And she was supposed to be hurt, too.

  This fight might not be within my power to win. Not that it would stop me from trying.

  I threw another darkball at her and started running around the woman, as far from her as possible. I wanted to shower her in darkballs, but to create a darkness sphere I had to stay still for half a second and that would make me an easy target for her spears.

  She put herself in position to throw a spear, but for almost a full minute she just watched me run, slowly turning around to aim better.

  Then the flying light came at me.

  I had to bet my life on either stopping or keeping running. She had watched me for a long time, which meant she had felt my speed and could predict my position. I did a full stop as best as I could. Evidently, inertia kept me going for a few meters, but the sudden change in acceleration and speed was enough. The spear passed through where my head would have been if I had kept running, and struck the stone wall in another loud thud.

  Grabbing the spear would have been good, but the wall was good five meters away from me. I created a sphere and sent it her direction. And another. And a third one. She ignored the damage they dealt, and I suspected I might as well caress her armor for all the damage I was dealing.

  She prepared a new spear and I ran again. This time, it took her a lot less time for the throw. I bet my life again and kept running instead of trying to stop. Air rushed behind me, and the spear hit the wall.

  I threw three dark spheres at her and resumed running. I almost believed I could survive the five minutes of the duel; then she positioned herself as if she would throw her last two spears at once.

  "Dodge this, unbound!" She half-yelled and the spears flew.

  I didn't throw myself to the ground; that would have been too slow. I purposefully tripped on my own foot and took advantage of my running speed to get to the floor faster. That lowered my HP by two, but it was better than dying. The spears hit the places where I would have been had I not went down, either had I kept running or tried to stop.

  After a quick glance to confirm my enemy was not running at me, I closed my eyes. The gray circle of my mind's eye immediately appeared. I killed all the vermin around, healed myself once and got up from the floor.

  She had taken the sword out of its scabbard. Even the blade was black but strangely dull as if the light had difficulty getting to it. She maintained a very slow walking pace coming to me. Again I gambled my life, closing my eyes for another healing, keeping alert for the sounds of her steps and watching if she would get inside my mind's eye's sphere.

  Three seconds later, when I opened his eyes, she was still walking. I finished healing myself and threw all the darkballs I could at her.

  After tens of darkballs, my MP was depleted and I was feeling a little dizzy, as if a bit drunk. She was still coming at me.

  "Is that all, unbound? No more of your magic tricks? What a shame, I had some expectations from you after those dodges. It shows I should never expect anything from your kind."

  I ran to a spear at the wall and tried to take it out, but it was firmly struck. I didn't give up and ran to the one on the wooden doors, but still couldn't take it out. It was time for psychological warfare, then.

  "I must say, you are so hot with all that macho attitude. I'm sure all the other girls must fall for you."

  She ignored me.

  "See, that's what I'm talking about. Do you also lift?"

  We were two meters away from each other.

  "It is a shame you are such coward, though. Fighting me in that armor of yours."

  "The Underworld is not a fair place, unbound. I'm doing you a favor by killing you before you have time to see that for yourself."

  "A humanitarian too! It's hard to compete with you. Please don't hang out in the same places as me at night."

  "Worry not, we will be in different worlds very soon."

  We were near enough; she raised her sword and swung it down. I blocked. As soon as the sword hit the shield, a dark liquid left the blade, enveloped the shield and got to my hand and arm, paining me in an already known way.

  48 shock + 15 darkness damage received (63 total)

  HP: 82 / 145

  What the hell?! Two more blocks and I would die; she didn't even have to bypass my defenses. And that was an enchanted sword, too; I had no way to decrease the additional dark damage.

  Just for science, I hit her back with my corroded spear, and it didn't even scratch the armor.

  Suddenly, the fear I was feeling was not that fun anymore. I was going to die, no doubt about that. I took five steps back and hit the wall.

  "Uh... Can I surrender and be taken back to my prison cell?"

  "No," she said impassively.

  "But I love dark bare underground cells. They are the best."

  "You are not funny, unbound. Your groveling is pathetic."

  "C'mon, at least I'm trying! Why are you so slow, though? Feeling bad?"

  She didn't answer.

  As much as I wanted to keep thrusting my rusty spear at that very solid looking armor, it was her lucky day: I didn't need to defeat her, I only had to survive long enough.

  I tried to run away, but when I was not distant enough from her, something weird happened. My legs kept moving and I felt as if I was running, but I wasn't going anywhere. Looking back, I saw the woman had her extended fist pointing my way again.

  "No way! That's cheating!"

  Status effect received: Eager Duelist (level 2)

  You have been challenged to a duel twice in a row and failed to refuse it.

  You must stay within 10 meters of your challenger until one of the conditions are met:

  » 4 minutes, 59 seconds have passed

  » You have killed the challenger

  That sucked, but... "Ha! Joke's on you! Catch me if you-" Before I could finish my phrase, she closed her hand again, and something pulled me closer to her.

  Status effect received: Earnest Duelist (level 3)

  You have been challenged to a duel three times in a row and failed to refuse it.

  You must stay within 5 meters of your challenger until one of the conditions are met:

  » 4 minutes, 59 seconds have passed

  » You have killed the challenger

  She didn't even let me open my mouth this time. She just closed her fist again, and I was pulled even closer to her. After a few seconds, she opened her hand a new message appeared on my log.

  Status effect received: Fanatic Duelist (level 4)

  You have been challenged to a duel four times in a row and failed to refuse it.

  You must stay within the challenger's reach until one of the conditions are met:

  » 4 minutes, 59 seconds have passed

  » You have killed the challenger

  No other choice, then. I had enough stamina for twenty attacks. "You asked for it." Gripping the spear, I attacked.

  Hit, circle her, hit, move, hit, move. Repeat.

  She took every strike. I did no damage at all. When I had five stamina left, she was still just looking at me.

  "What the hell are you?" I asked angrily. "Goddamit. Just die already."

  It was the end. I had no mana and couldn't even run; even dodging an attack would exhaust me. I got in position, shield before me and spear ahead, panting, looking at my death slowly coming. The moment she attacked I would attack back, a kind of system abuse that would allow me to block and attack at the same time using only my last five stamina.

  My last act of defiance.

  We looked at each other. Well, I looked at her closed helmet. She refused to attack and since I was going to die, I liked it a lot. After what felt like an eternity, the woman flowed.

  She was too fast for me to do anything. She punched my
shield one, two, three times, enough for me to open my guard completely. Then she punched me in the stomach.

  10 shock received

  10 shock received

  10 shock received

  40 blunt damage received

  HP: 12 / 145

  I doubled over myself, out of air, my belly spasming.

  "Die," she said in a low voice, full of hatred.

  Everything seemed to be in slow motion as her fist came for my face. It was the end.

  "Blademaster Shai." A commanding female voice came from the stairs.

  The fist stopped inches from my face and the armored woman looked back.

  There was a female elf on the middle of the stairs. She had short red hair and a solid black circlet on her head that resembled a thin crown. She wore a red robe with golden details, which hid all of her limbs. Her eyes were completely black: a deathlord.

  "I remember commanding you to go back to the Citadel in haste," she said. "Am I mistaken?"

  Silence fell on the hall. Over my hard breath I could hear the crackle of the torches as if they were right beside me. "No, High Lady," the armored woman replied. "But I found-"

  "I see," she interrupted without raising her voice. I found that damn impressive. "You are saying that your own judgement of priorities is better and more important than obeying your superior's commands. The new crop of deathlords are curious things. I suppose I should travel with you to the Citadel and inform them of my return to their rankings because of the lack of discipline and courtesy you displayed under my dominion."

  "No!" Incredibly, I heard the fear in the armored woman's voice. "I was merely trying to help! I saw an escaping prisoner and thought better-"

  "Not only your judgement is better, but you also execute my own responsibilities better than me. You are clearly much more qualified than my ignorant and weak self to run this prison. Wait here, I will take my traveling clothes. I must clarify to the council how inadequate I am and step down from my position in your favor." She started climbing the stairs to the right.

  The armored woman fell to the ground on one knee. "High Lady Renno! Please! I beg your forgiveness!"

  Renno stopped and looked back to both me and Shai. "Get out of my sight, Shai," her tone was now harsh. "If you ever again come to my property to tell me how to run my prison, I will make you regret having eternal life. No, if I ever see you again, no matter where we are, I will cause you unimaginable pain right there, right then. And I dare the council to stop me from doing so. Now, leave."

  "I am truly grateful, High Lady Renno." She said meekly and without another word got up and left the prison, my 'Duelist' status disappearing just before she opened the door. Renno looked at me.

  "Unbound, sit, meditate, and recover your life and arcane powers. I will stand guard."

  "How do you now I'm unbound? And who are-"

  "Obey me. Now. In silence."

  It was as if I felt power in her mere words. I obeyed. When I got completely healed, with full mana and full stamina, some half hour later, I got up.

  "I'm okay. Now, who are-"

  She flexed her right arm without taking it out from her side and her finger appeared from inside the robe, pointing at me. A ridiculous small flame, the size of a candle, instantly materialized and flew at me. It passed right through my armors – chain and leather both –, through my right arm and hit the wall behind me.

  I screamed in pure pain.

  76 fire damage received

  HP: 69 / 145

  "You are unbound, so it is natural that you are uneducated." I couldn't understand how her unaltered voice was being heard over my own screams. "I will enlighten you to the methods of the torture you are to experience. That was the weakest of the fire spells. It's intended for light or lighting fireplaces. I've lived for so long that I have achieved such power with it as well as altering it slightly to cause more pain."

  She took a step down the stairs and spoke once more. "Most can't understand how an elf could willingly become undead. They are idiots. Elves live a long life, but they are not really immortal. Why should one such as myself have to die while undead live forever? It was not hard for me to learn the ways of death magic and how to become a deathlord. It was even easier to rule over the Death Citadel for decades using only raw power."

  I was recovering from the pain when she took another step down and a new small flame came at me, passing through my left leg now. I fell to the ground, still screaming. My HP got to exactly one. Somehow she knew my total HP and had dosed her fire spell to do this.

  "Politics is the tool of the weak. They must bribe and negotiate to make their wishes reality, and even so, they can be opposed. Not me. My words were law, by fear or by force. But I eventually got bored of it. I created this prison to experiment on some interesting magical paths and left the world. The fools who stayed in my place allowed the vampires to rob their power and now dare to command me. This makes me... Unsatisfied."

  A smoky dark gray ball formed above her head and hit me a few seconds later. Refreshing coldness swept over me, completely restoring my HP. She was slowly getting close to the first floor.

  "But what brings me even more unhappiness is when my prey is taken from me by some ignorant weak unbound." A new flame hit my other leg before I could get up after the healing. "The so called Resistance is a mild annoyance which I allow to exist because I am too occupied with my own studies; so busy and for so long, in fact, that my own muscles have atrophied. It's distracting to defend my prison every few days, which led to a commitment with the Resistance and the Destiny Spirits.

  "I allow weak Travelers to escape and the Resistance don't fight me. This even allowed me to weaken my security detail and save resources." Another flame and more pain. She was now on the first floor. "Therefore, imagine my unhappiness when the first unbound I allow to escape decides to free all my prisoners before fleeing.

  "Yes, I know about your little adventures. I even took it out on Shai, while you ran rampant. A deal with the Destiny Spirits is not easily broken and I knew that if I moved to stop it and saw you... "

  She healed me again and got right in front of me, two meters away. I was on my knees and looked at her from below. "And then you came back. It has been centuries since I felt any semblance of anger, but you make me absolutely furious. I will not allow you to die at first, I will torture you for months. When I'm done with you, I will go back to the Citadel, reclaim it, and hunt every last member of the Resistance until there is not a single stone unturned in the Underworld."

  I knew about the first skill in the fire magic skill-tree: it did a single point of damage per level, plus the user's intelligence level. To be able to do almost eighty damage to me after going through my armor, she had to have almost eighty points in intelligence. Which was a damn lot.

  Her exploits of almighty power were obvious lies, of course. No matter how powerful anyone was, it was impossible to rule over an entire species without playing heavily on politics, unless they were ants or something. The way she had handled the armored deathlord was proof enough of the lie.

  She was still too powerful for me, though. It was no wonder the armored lady had been so terrified. I could even guess what had happened to the veteran ghouls when they had accompanied Shai to demand something from Renno.

  Yet again, she healed me. "All I must do now..." she attacked me with fire again, and this time it was my belly that was hit, making me discover a new kind of pain, "...is deciding how to begin your treatment." Another hit to the shoulder. An idea came to me amidst all that pain and I let my spear and shield drop before touching a whip on my belt.

  "I suppose burning all your skin off will suffice for the beginning. You can either get up and come with me or I can break your will before you obey me. It is merely a matter of keeping your sanity a few minutes longer but I find it curious that most prisoners value this technical detail." She began to form the healing sphere.

  The torture was not that scary, since the game provid
ed a skill exactly for that situation: all players could kill themselves at any time to return to their revival point. If the revival point was in a torture environment, a new safe revival point was provided. Still, the eighty attribute points that I would lose for not winning the Challenge were too many to let go without a fight.

  I had counted the seconds on the last healing sphere she had formed: two. When the new sphere she was creating was a second and a half on the making, I moved.

  Jack Thorn

  Unbound Deathlord

  Level 4

  Hit Points:1 / 145

  Mana Points:275 / 275

  Stamina:160 / 160

  Attributes:

  Strength:3

  Agility:6

  Dexterity:5

  Constitution:4

  Intelligence:8

  Perception:3

  Willpower:7

  Charisma:2

  Traits:

  Antimage:1

  Controller:1

  Crafter:1

  Energizer:1

  Gold Digger:1

  Mage:1

  Meditator:1

  Mind Seer:1

  Nitpicker:1

  Shadow:1

  5. Don't Try This at Home

  'Never give up. Retreat temporarily, if needed, but never. Give. Up.'

  - Father

  I took the whip, got up and ran to Renno. The death sphere hit me midway and healed my HP back to full. A few moments later a little flame came at me. I jumped. The flame would have hit my neck and killed me, but it just went through my stomach as I fell on her, screaming in pain and rage.

  It was good old jiu-jitsu time; before I had even thought about learning Kung-Fu, I had grasped the very basics of wrestling and subduing people so I could survive the street fights. My body ended up over her back, her arms locked behind her. I used both the whip and one of my two belts to bind her hands.

  The sensation was marvelous. It was like spitting in the game's face. Too much realism in a game could also be a weakness.