Awaken Online: Dominion

by Travis Bagwell

  Okay, now that’s a little over the top.

  A few seconds later, the door mercifully ground to a halt and Jason stepped through. There was a short hallway terminating in another massive door. Without seeing any other options, Jason opened that portal as well.

  He peeked through the new opening and found himself staring into an abyss. It was impossible to determine the size of the room on the other side – his Night Vision unable to penetrate the darkness. He could only guess that there was some sort of spell affecting this room which limited his abilities. That didn’t bode well for this next challenge.

  As he stepped through the doorway, a lone torch ignited. The blue light barely pushed back at the oppressive darkness that filled the room. The torchlight also illuminated a familiar pillar near the front of the room, a milky-white crystal globe resting on its surface. Jason placed his hand against the glass orb as he had done in the other room.

  At his touch, dark energy abruptly streamed out of the globe, tumbling through the air in wispy tendrils. He expected Rex to appear, but instead the energy formed into a dark doppelganger of Jason, replete with phantom horns jutting from its forehead. The specter turned to look at Jason, its non-existent eyes observing him from head to foot.

  As though reaching some sort of decision, the ghost lifted a hand and a staff materialized from thin air. The figure then moved into an offensive stance, the staff raised and at the ready. As Jason watched, the phantom began speaking arcane words – the sounds coming out as a whisper. The specter began summoning dark energy, and the mana crawled up the length of the staff as though in slow motion. As it reached the top of the weapon, the energy arced forward, forming a two-foot-long blade of darkness. The specter darted forward, slicing through Jason without warning.

  Jason flinched backward, but the movement wasn’t necessary. The blade passed through him without any apparent damage. Then the specter reset and went through the motions again – this time at nearly double the speed. Jason could barely see the energy wind up the staff before the blade appeared and the phantom lashed forward in a blur of movement.

  “Shit, okay,” he murmured to himself. He wasn’t sure he was going to be able to cast the spell nearly as fast as his doppelganger.

  Jason attempted the same gestures, holding his staff at the ready as he listened carefully to the ghostly apparition. Some of the words it spoke were intelligible at this point. The incantation was describing a blade of darkness – capable of cutting through armor. It was strange to listen to the apparition, the arcane language not seeming so foreign after days spent practicing his other spells. He wondered how he had ignored this in the past. Although, in fairness, it had been irrelevant before. Simply knowing how to cast a spell had been enough.

  It took Jason a few dozen tries to master the new incantation and a few more minutes to learn to time when to summon his mana. Less than an hour later, a blade of dark energy slid out of the top of his staff, the energy spearing forward. Jason gave it an experimental swing, and the staff arced through the air, the blade blurring slightly at the movement. Yet it managed to keep its shape. As he finished the swing, he glanced at his UI in confusion – not understanding why he hadn’t received a skill notification.

  He slapped a palm to his forehead. He had turned off his notifications again while training and attempting the first challenge. The blue boxes could be terribly distracting. As he re-enabled the notifications, a barrage of blue boxes cascaded through the air in front of him.

  Quest Update: Keeper Challenges

  The dark god has explained that to gain new spells, you will need to utilize more mundane training. Well, as mundane as going through a series of unknown challenges constructed by a race of ancient Necromancers can be. You managed to defeat the first challenge by the skin of your teeth. Like, literally, your teeth were pretty much the only undamaged part of you by the end of that first challenge. Go teeth!

  Difficulty: A

  Success: Complete each of the three challenges.

  Status: 1/3 challenges completed.

  Failure: Unknown.

  Reward: Acquire new abilities and spells.

  New Spell: Soul Slash

  You have learned the basic offensive melee technique of the Keepers, channeling a spectral blade of energy with a bonus to armor penetration. This spell can only be used with two-handed staff weapons. Higher levels of this spell will reduce the channel cost and variants are available to modify the spectral blade’s effects.

  Skill Level: Beginner Level 1

  Mana Cost: 500 mana/second.

  Effect: 300% damage increase on strikes and the blade ignores light and medium armor.

  x2 Skill Rank Up: Staff Combat

  Skill Level: Intermediate Level 3

  Effect 1: 12% Increased damage and accuracy.

  Effect 2: 2% Increased speed and reaction time.

  x1 Skill Rank Up: Mana Mastery

  Skill Level: Intermediate Level 4

  Effect 1: -7.5% Mana Cost.

  Effect 2: 2.5% Faster Cast Rate.

  x3 Skill Rank Up: Dodge

  Skill Level: Intermediate Level 5

  Effect 1: 7.5% increase speed and reaction time.

  Effect 2: 1.8% bonus to Dexterity.

  x1 Spell Rank Up: Dark Incarnation

  Skill Level: Beginner Level 2

  Effect: Your body is converted to a cloud of dark mana, increasing your mana regeneration by 130% and making you temporarily immune to physical damage. Effect lasts for 30 seconds.

  Cooldown: 24 hours.

  Jason examined the notices carefully. As he read through the description of his new offensive ability – Soul Slash – his gaze fixed on the mana cost, his eyes widening slightly in surprise. He shifted his focus to his UI and saw that his mana pool was almost at half in the short time he had been channeling the ability. He quickly canceled the spell before he drained himself dry, which he fully expected would kill him.

  Then he pulled up his skill list and character status.

  Character Status

  Name:

  Jason

  Gender:

  Male

  Level:

  165

  Class:

  Necromancer

  Race:

  Shade

  Alignment:

  Chaotic-Evil

  Fame:

  0

  Infamy:

  16,200

  Health:

  0

  H-Regen/Sec:

  1.60

  Mana:

  13,675

  M-Regen/Sec:

  55.95

  Stamina

  1,640

  S-Regen/Sec:

  8.20

  Strength:

  61

  Dexterity:

  67

  Vitality:

  36

  Endurance:

  82

  Intelligence:

  80

  Willpower:

  899

  Affinities

  Dark:

  61%

  Light:

  9%

  Fire:

  6%

  Water:

  4%

  Air:

  4%

  Earth:

  6%

  Once he had his skill information and Character Status in front of him, Jason opened a calculator in the game’s UI. As he did some quick calculation, he grimaced in frustration. The mana cost of maintaining Soul Slash meant that he could only keep it up for roughly 33 seconds, even factoring in the mana cost reduction from Mana Mastery and his natural mana regeneration. That also assumed he cast no other spells and wasn’t getting hit.

  “What the hell,” Jason said aloud, his voice echoing in the dark room.

  He was having trouble seeing the point of an ability he could barely keep up for half a minute. Even if he was able to maintain it for an extended period of time, he was effectively draining his health to do it – now that his health and mana were one resource.
The only positive thing he could say for the spell was that it looked like it would pack a punch. Just a very brief punch that left him wounded and relatively useless afterward…

  Jason rubbed at his eyes as he considered how to proceed, worry twisting and knotting in his stomach. He had been hoping for a more powerful ability – something that could put him on an even footing with Thorn. Especially now that Alfred was warning him of an impending nerf. As though he needed a new handicap at this stage!

  However, he was uncertain how useful Soul Slash would be.

  He ran his hand through his hair, forcing himself to shake off his morose thoughts. There was nothing he could do about it now. This was the ability that he had. There was nothing for it but to learn how to use Soul Slash as best as he could. Maybe if he continued to train his new spell, he could reduce its mana cost. Although, he expected he would probably need to hit intermediate before that happened. Which meant he needed to get to work.

  And he now had a fancy new training room.

  With a grimace, Jason moved back to the first challenge room, standing in the center and eyeing the mounds of bone that loomed around him. With a thought, he cast Bone Absorption to replenish his supply of materials, the bones whipping through the air before being absorbed into his body. Then he cast Bone Armor, the ivory material leaking back through his skin and armor before forming long ridged spines up his arms and framing his chest and shoulders in thick bone plates. Once fully armored, he stood ready in the center of the room.

  Without giving himself time to second-guess his decision, Jason smacked his palm against the globe on the pillar standing before him.

  Challenge 1: A Trial of Bone has been initiated.

  Completion of this challenge detected. Endless training-mode enabled.

  As the bones around him began to tremble and shake, Jason considered retreating to his alcove in the corner of the room. That might give him a better chance to avoid the initial charge of the Death Knights – assuming the room followed the same pattern.

  However, he shook his head, forcefully summoning his dark mana. Rex had been clear. If he was going to grow stronger, he couldn’t constantly rely only on his wits. He was going to have to smash himself against these skeletal creatures again and again until either he broke, or he was capable of withstanding their onslaught. Besides, there was no “winning” this fight anyway. He was doomed to die in this room, day after day until he grew stronger.

  Within only seconds, dozens of Death Knights loomed around him. The dark orbs that were their eyes watched him expectantly as their heavy feet stamped the ground and they prepared to charge. Jason didn’t give them the opportunity. Dashing forward toward the line of skeletons, he simultaneously channeled Soul Slash. Dark energy cascaded up the staff before condensing into a deadly blade. The effect occurred much more slowly than the ghost had cast the spell, but he was getting better.

  As he approached the first creature, Jason feinted high, causing the Death Knight to raise his shield to block the blow. However, he shifted his grip at the last moment, striking the shield with the base of the staff and using the rebound to immediately reverse into a downward swing. The dark blade sliced into the creature’s leg. Jason expected the strike to simply crack or damage the bone. Instead, it cut cleanly through the skeleton’s limb, and the Death Knight tumbled to the ground with a sickening crunch of bone.

  Jason stood frozen for a long moment as he witnessed the damage caused by his new spell, the remaining undead still thundering toward him. He could feel his adrenaline-fueled thoughts mingling with the dark mana that flowed through his veins. They resonated with the unholy energy, whispering his wish. He wanted to be able to stand up to Thorn. To protect his city and his people. To show the game world that the Twilight Throne was not to be trifled with.

  He wanted to grow stronger.

  And he knew how he would accomplish that goal. He would train harder. He would take what he wanted. He would smash himself to pieces against these waves of undead until he couldn’t feel the pain anymore – until his body finally grew stronger, faster, and tougher. He wouldn’t back down or give up.

  With a roar, Jason launched himself forward at the undead, tattoos of dark energy peeling away from his skin – his eyes ablaze with unholy power.

  He would show this world what it meant to be a Keeper.

  Chapter 24 - Mercantile

  Jason respawned, his breath coming in ragged gasps. He leaned against the pillar in the center of the room to avoid collapsing. Instinctively, he felt at his chest, expecting for his hand to come away slick with blood. Instead, his skin was whole and intact. The transition from death to immediate respawn inside the challenge room was abrupt – to put it mildly. Jason was beginning to understand why Alfred had introduced a 45-minute lock-out. It took some time to recover from the sensation of a bone sword impaling your chest.

  Or having your skull caved in by a Death Knight’s heel.

  Or having your neck ripped open by a Night Child.

  Jason shivered and forcibly shoved those memories away. It didn’t help to dwell on them, and the more frequently he died, the easier it became to ignore the trauma. Rex had only required that they run the challenge once per day, but he had just finished his twelfth attempt. In some ways, he rationalized that he was catching up to the other players who had spent a large portion of the game getting hit and dying. In contrast, Jason had largely managed to avoid death except for a handful of encounters.

  Although, sometimes he wasn’t certain if replaying the challenge over and over was forcing him to get stronger or if it was slowly making him insane. A voice in the back of his mind cautioned that it probably wasn’t normal for a person to learn to accept having their arm chopped off. Perhaps it was a fine line.

  The same shadowy voices whispered the results of Jason’s latest attempt.

  Challenge 1: A Trial of Bone ended (Endless Mode).

  Total Time: 6 minutes and 41 seconds.

  Jason Kills: 189

  He was getting better. Each time he ran the challenge, he had survived for a few more seconds. To be fair, he spent a large portion of that time running away and creating a pocket for himself to recover and keep the undead at bay. But that was probably to be expected. He had come to realize that the challenge wasn’t so much about destroying the undead – since they rose again with little delay.

  No, it was an endurance test. It was about staying alive amid the horde. Learning to dodge and block. Jason recalled his fight with Thorn; the way the man had seemed to barely move as he dodged each blow. Economy of motion was also his friend in this challenge. It was better to side-step or duck a blow than to dive out of the way. As he thought back to the way he had approached the challenge initially, he cringed. It was hard to believe he could have been that stupid – even if it had only been a couple of weeks ago in-game.

  Jason glanced at his system UI. It was getting late in the real world, and he should log off to get some sleep. Tomorrow would be the second day of the regulatory hearing, and he probably shouldn’t be seen passed out in the gallery while Francis and Gloria droned on.

  Before he could log off, however, a chime sounded on his UI, and he saw that he had just received a message. Curious, he tapped at the icon, and an email appeared in front of him.

  Jason,

  I am sending you the shopping list you requested. I’ve outlined the supplies we need to begin crafting the healing potions. As you can see, there are some things we won’t be able to produce within the Twilight Throne. I’ve also included a complete ingredient list for the healing potions in case you see any useful ingredients on sale.

  Long term, I may be able to arrange to have Fluffy and Alma send over regular supplies from the Sea’s Edge. However, this will require a trip to the city, and, of course, dealing with the Hippie… which we might want to avoid for now – especially with everything else going on.

  Eliza

  His eyes hovered on the mention of Fluffy and the Hippie, m
entally recoiling at the idea of having to negotiate with the capricious water god. The sheep seemed relatively sane – for a sheep, anyway – but the same couldn’t be said for his cohort. Besides, Eliza was ignoring the risk of shipping the material overland. The road between the Twilight Throne and the Sea’s Edge wasn’t exactly without its risks, even assuming no one caught wind of their crafting enterprise. Setting up a safe trade route would be time-consuming and risky.

  With a sigh, Jason tapped the email’s attachment, revealing a laundry list of materials and ingredients that Eliza had requested – vials, catalysts, lab equipment, a handful of minor missing ingredients. The list stretched on for a while. Most of it looked manageable, although he wouldn’t really be able to determine that for certain without looking at the player auction house. He glanced at the in-game clock on his UI once again. Ideally, he should order the goods as soon as possible since this would allow Eliza to get started crafting the first batch of potions.