by James Hunter
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It was the last message I saw before the world dissolved around me and once more I was falling.
Skálaholt
THE BRUTAL CHILL NESTLED deep inside my bones was the first thing I noticed when death spit me back into the land of the living. Or rather, the land of the un-living.
The next thing I noticed was the pain.
Always the pain after dying.
In V.G.O. death had some very tangible consequences, even for Travelers like me who could respawn. I’d bitten the bullet often enough to know there would be no physical wounds to see—no dagger wound gouged into my throat—but that didn’t change the fact that it felt like someone had pushed me into an industrial meat grinder, shoveled up my remains, then fed those into the meat grinder again. Just for good measure. My bones ached, and my skin felt overly tight and raw. My lungs labored for breath, and every movement felt a little like walking over broken glass.
This was the unfortunate effect of a crippling one-two combo of debuffs.
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Current Debuffs
Death’s Curse: You have died! You have lost 28,962 XP! Skills improve 20% slower; duration, 8 hours. All XP earned reduced by 15%; duration, 8 hours. Attack Damage and Spell Strength reduced by 20%; duration, 8 hours. Health, Stamina, and Spirit regeneration reduced by 25%; duration, 8 hours. Carry Capacity -50 lbs; duration, 8 hours.
Death’s Sting: Suffer extreme physical discomfort and waves of weakness; duration, 4 hours.
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Arguably, Death’s Curse was the more brutal of the two debuffs, since it robbed you of Experience and crippled most of your abilities for an eight-hour stretch, but Death’s Sting was the real kick in the groin. Once I eventually managed to get through Death’s Sting, the horrendous pain would fade like an old bruise, and things would improve significantly.
I dismissed the interface, squinted against the throbbing headache rampaging through my skull like a stampede of elephants, and regarded the green sky above me. A dome of swirling, flickering pale jade. That was one piece of good news, at least. The Hexblade had actually worked. For better or worse, I was inside Skálaholt. Every muscle screamed in protest as I propped myself up with wobbly arms and tried to get some sense of my surroundings. It was night, though the shimmering green witchlight from the dome made it easy enough to see. From the look of things, I was in a narrow alleyway slicing cleanly between two gray-stone buildings.
I didn’t see anyone in the immediate vicinity, but I figured lying in a back alley for too long would likely attract attention if there were any natives out and about. Which meant I needed to get moving.
Despite the cold, sweat marred my face and slicked my chest, which was devoid of armor or even so much as a tunic. All part and parcel of the dying process. I opened my inventory, ready to slip on the new armor Vlad had crafted for me, but faltered when my avatar appeared. I’d grown accustomed to my Murk Elf appearance over the months since transitioning to V.G.O. Seeing someone completely, utterly different staring back at me came as a gut punch. There were still hints of the old me—the same face, the hard line of my jaw, the set of my shoulders—but my gunmetal skin was faded, now a pale, chalky white.
The pallor of a week-old corpse.
My eyes burned a fervent emerald, the same toxic shade as the enormous magical dome arching above my head, and curling ram horns protruded from the sides of my head, reminding me instantly of the Vogthar. Keeping my eyes locked on my avatar, I reached up a tentative hand and ran a finger down one of the bony spurs. Oh my God, they were real. I had horns. I recoiled when I caught sight of my arms. Glowing green lines of script encircled my forearms, winding from the back of my hands all the way up to my elbows. Yep, I definitely looked more like a Vogthar than a Dokkalfar at this point.
Lingering above my avatar’s head in bright red lettering hung the words Spectral Revenant.
Nothing in the mission brief had prepared me for this. Yes, I’d known I would receive a temporary class change by using the Hexblade—we’d been counting on it—but no one had mentioned the makeover. But then, their information about what exactly happened after getting stabbed with a Hexblade was threadbare, more rumor than fact. Not even the Ministry of Whispers had been able to turn up more than vague speculation and whispers. The problem was, very few people were killed by Hexblades. Or, at least, there were very few who were killed and returned to the land of the living.
We’d kicked around the idea that transforming into a Spectral Revenant was in some way tied to the process of becoming a member of the Darkling Horde, but getting an actual Darkling to talk about the process had proved... wildly unsuccessful. We’d captured hundreds of the traitors since the fighting had broken out after Ravenkirk, but they had the ability to die on command, and even Dead Bind rooms didn’t seem to hold them long. A nifty perk for sure, though frustrating for our side.
Looked like I was getting a glimpse behind the curtain in a way few others ever had.
So, my physical appearance had changed for sure, but I was curious to see if the transformation had any other effects or whether the changes merely went skin deep. I toggled over to my character screen, figuring that was where I’d find any class-related information. I wasn’t disappointed, as a notice appeared.
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Spectral Revenant
You have been banished to Skálaholt, capital of Morsheim, and your bind point has been fixed. As a Spectral Revenant, you are temporarily bound to Skálaholt until you either successfully pledge yourself as an acolyte to one of the many Darkling Noble Houses or find a way to return to the land of the living. Unlike a true Darkling, who has earned a Morta Brand, as a Spectral Revenant, you are a creature caught between two worlds.
Neither living nor dead, good nor evil, you are a shadow of what you were and only a glimmer of what you may yet become should you continue down the Left-Hand Path. As a Spectral Revenant, you are recognized as a potential recruit and thus are safe while inside the walls of both Skálaholt and the wider Necropolis. But be warned, if you leave the city boundaries, the wild beasts of Morsheim will treat you as hostile and attack you as mercilessly as any monster of Eldgard. Moreover, any Vogthar outside of the Necropolis will likewise slay you, assuming you are attempting to flee to the land of the living.
Gameplay
Spectral Revenant is a temporary hybrid class available to all Eldgardian races regardless of gender, alignment, or previous class. Unlike other classes, the Spectral Revenant subclass is transitionary—a chance for prospective recruits to earn their way into the good graces of the Darkling Horde through a series of trials, proving their allegiance to the Dark Lord of Morsheim, Thanatos. Unlike Branded Darklings, Spectral Revenants have a “neutral” alignment and are not considered inherently good or evil. Instead, they are the souls of Travelers who have fallen from the path to rebirth.
Because Spectral Revenants are undead beings by nature, they suffer extreme penalties in a number of different areas. All ability stats—Strength, Vitality, Constitution, Dexterity, Spirit, Intelligence, and Luck—remain unaffected. However, your Character Level, Health, Spirit, Stamina, Attack Strength, Ranged Attack Strength, and Spell Strength are all cut in half! Additionally, if you have any spells or abilities with level requirements, and your new Character Level falls below that level, you will not be able to access those skills until you either earn your Brand or return to the land of the living.
In order to earn a Morta Brand, you must pledge a Darkling House of well-repute, garnering enough reputation within to max out your Morta gauge—proving your allegiance to Thanatos through word and deed. Once you have earned the trust of a House Arch-Zealot, you shed your form as a Spectral Revenant and become a Branded Darkling, unlocking your full character stats and a “corrupted” version of your current class. To find a House accepting pledges, go to any available inn and speak to the innkeeper about “Houses of well-repute.”
As a Spectral Revenant, you gain limited ac
cess to the Darkling special ability Eternal Pact.
Eternal Pact: Death holds no fear for the Undead and the Darkling alike. There is no XP penalty for dying, and the effects and duration of Death’s Curse and Death’s Sting are reduced by fifty percent. Restriction: Does not apply retroactively!
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I read the prompt several times, feeling a sinking sense of dread settle over me each time. Wincing, I pulled up my character screen and took stock of the damage.
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THIS WAS BAD. REALLY bad.
Being a Spectral Revenant would hopefully allow me to move freely about Skálaholt, but, other than that, there were no upsides and there were a ton of downsides.
My character had just been nerfed into oblivion. I’d be lucky to handle a handful of elite Vogthar, and taking on Thanatos like this would be like trying to fight off an angry lion with a tube of summer sausage. My Shadowmancer spells were likewise gutted. I still had access to my core low-level spells—Umbra Bolt, Umbra Bog, Umbra Flame, Shadow Stride, and even Void Terror—but my hardest hitting spells, Night Cyclone and Shadow Lord, were both inaccessible for the time being.
The single silver lining I could see was that all of my Champion of Order abilities were entirely unaffected—probably due to the fact that it was a subclass, and the skills weren’t tied to Character Level in the way normal skills were. I couldn’t use Avatar of Order because I couldn’t even accumulate fifty thousand experience points, but everything else was there, waiting to be used. Every edge mattered at this point.
Still, it was best to get moving quickly, since I was deep behind enemy lines and basically a sitting duck. If Thanatos found me like this...
Well, that wouldn’t be an encounter I was likely to walk away from. I opened my inventory and equipped my gear. Instead of my warhammer, which would’ve given me away at a half mile, I decided to go with a lesser used weapon I’d picked up while in the Realm of Order. Lawbreaker’s Edge. It was a scythe-bladed dagger, somewhere between a short sword and a normal dagger.
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Lawbreaker’s Edge
Weapon Type: Bladed; Dagger
Class: Rare, One-handed
Base Damage: 45
Primary Effects:
10 pts Poison damage + (.25 x character level)
+15% damage when Backstabbing
Dexterity Bonus = .25 x character level
Secondary Effects:
2% chance to Paralyze for 30 seconds on hit
Gain 100% chance of Critical Hit against enemies below 25% Health
Lawbreaker’s Edge ignores all class restrictions!
Lawbreaker’s Edge can be dual wielded, ignoring class and weapon restrictions!
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As a Maa-Tál Shadowmancer, I had a lot of cool class advantages, but there were also several class restrictions, such as weakness against Holy damage and the inability to wear heavy armor. Checks against an already overpowered class. Among those restrictions was a heavy penalty while using anything other than a blunt weapon—blades in particular. In theory, there was nothing stopping me from using a dagger, but I would do such insignificant damage it just wasn’t worth it.
Lawbreaker’s Edge, though, let me bend that steadfast rule, which was especially helpful since everyone and their brother knew that Grim Jack Shadowstrider wielded a warhammer.
I gave my avatar one final gander—in Vlad’s new armor, with the scythe sword at my hip, I hardly recognized myself. Especially not with the ghastly pale skin and curling horns. Hopefully it would be enough to fool the natives long enough for me to reunite with the others and bring down the shield generator. But I needed a place to hole up for a little while. Trying to take down the barrier as a Spectral Revenant was going to be hellacious enough. Doing it on an empty stomach and under the crushing heel of Death’s Curse and Death’s Sting was just asking for trouble.
What I needed was an inn—a place to grab a bite, rent a room, and hunker down for a few hours. Since the Spectral Revenant prompt had specifically mentioned heading to an inn anyway, I thought that would give me a convincing cover story if any of the Darklings still in Skálaholt came sniffing around, digging for answers. I pulled up the deep hood of my cloak, gingerly settling it around my horns, and set out.
The alley connected to a broad street of smooth gray pavers flanked on either side by two- and three-story homes and shops carved from pale marble and age-worn granite. Surprisingly, the homes and shops were decorated with bright flowers or nature scenes, and the widely overhanging roofs, covered with ceramic tile, looked vaguely Chinese inspired. Everything was neat and orderly. Meticulously so. Most of the windows were dark and lifeless, covered by dark wooden shutters, shut tight against the pervasive cold present even in the heart of Morsheim.
Warm yellow candlelight leaked from a few of the homes, though, a testament to the fact that even in war, there were those who stayed behind the frontlines, making sure the army was fed and cared for.
From this vantage, I could also see more of the jade dome sequestering us from the outer Necropolis. When viewed from outside, the dome was an impenetrable screen that made it almost impossible to see anything going on within Skálaholt, but from inside, the dome was translucent, giving me a clear view of the outer city. I easily spotted the top of the Crimson Hammer poking up above the outer wall’s edge like some monstrous kaiju, deadly and larger than life. Overhead, Accipiters still circled, flying holding patterns, though the fighting seemed to have died down in the eight hours I’d been under for respawn.
Died down didn’t mean absent, though.
Occasional explosions still lit up the dome as siege weapons rained fire and destruction down on targets I couldn’t see.
I dropped my head and slipped away from the residential street and onto a broad two-lane boulevard. Despite both the cold and the climate, cherry blossom trees in full bloom lined either side of the roadway. And cutting down the center of the street was a raised median studded with bronze gas lamps that reminded me of my time in Harrowick. Unlike the lamps in Harrowick, though, green and pitted from the gloomy weather, these were carefully maintained, the metal polished to a dull glow. As I wandered farther, I noticed everything was like that here.
There were no doors hanging askew. No broken windows. No muddy gutters or trash-filled alleyways.
A place for everything and everything in its place.
I froze as the crack of a whip filled the air and a cart, heavy laden and covered by a brown tarp, creaked onto the street, pulled along by a slowly plodding lizard the size of a musk ox. The driver was a portly man, as wide as he was tall, with a thick gut and ruddy cheeks, windburned from the cold. At a glance, he looked like any of a dozen-odd Wode merchants I’d seen in Rowanheath—if not for the green bands snaking around his forearms, proudly exposed to the world.
I pushed over to the very edge of the roadway, giving him a wide berth, expecting a glower or even a cruel whip strike.
“Revenant,” the driver muttered quietly, no malice in his voice as he nodded in my direction. He clucked his tongue and gently pulled on the reins, slowing the beast to a standstill. I edged even farther away, hand instinctively going for the handle of the short-bladed weapon at my hip. The man grunted. “No need fer that, feller. I ain’t got no quarrel with you. If yer looking fer an inn, well, most of ’em are shuttered due to the war, but you might have luck a few blocks over. A place called the Traveler’s Rest. Merv’s a good man. An Imperial by race, but then none of us are perfect, eh?”
“Thank you,” I said, feeling like this surely had to be some sort of trap. A bait and switch. In Harrowick or New Viridia, you needed to have a Merchant skill in the low teens to get a wagoner not to brandish a weapon at you. They never just talked to you or offered helpful advice. Not ever.
“Nothing to it,” the man said, flicking his reins and urging the shambling lizard back to motion. “It’s the way of things around here. You’ll find that out qui
ck enough.”
I just stood there, watching the odd man and his lizard trundle down the street—he didn’t even bother looking back at me. If he was setting some sort of trap for me, he was doing an excellent job of hiding it.
It took me less than ten minutes to find the little tavern the cart driver had mentioned. It was a quaint place with a tidy sign hanging above the door, and firelight radiated out from the windows. Perched in the corner of one window was a sign advertising vacancies—beneath that was a line that read Revenants and Pledges Welcome! Once again, every sense in my body screamed that this had to be a trap of some sort. I was an enemy. Surely they wouldn’t just let me walk around Skálaholt unchallenged. Right?
It didn’t make sense.
But then, neither did posting such an obvious sign. Was this some kind of crazy reverse psychology? Make a trap so obvious that no one would think it was a trap, when in reality that was exactly what it was?
It hurt my head to try and work through that string of logic.
What I did know, though, was I was hurting badly and needed a place to stay for a few hours. At least until I could rendezvous with my friends and figure out where in the hell the shield generator was located. This place seemed as good a candidate as any. So, disguise in place, I crossed the otherwise empty roadway, and shoved my way inside of the Traveler’s Rest.
The Traveler’s Rest
I HAD NO IDEA WHAT was waiting for me inside, but subconsciously I steeled myself for trouble, senses on high alert, hand resting on the hilt of my scythe dagger. Ready to run or fight, whichever happened to be the most appropriate response. I tensed as the door swung shut behind me with a soft whomp, a last burst of cold air rushing in from the outside, fluttering my cloak. Off to my left was a mudroom with a small hearth decorating the wall, firelight dancing merrily against the chill. In front of the fire was a woven rug covered in interlocking geometric patterns and a pair of leather club chairs with an end table positioned between them.
