As he neared Morgan, he leaned close so that only she could hear his words. “I know you would try to retaliate if I struck you here, but I want you to understand something right now. I don’t care. Death cannot stop me. I would come back, and you would still be dead. You cannot defeat me, and I only continue to grow more powerful with each day that passes. If I wanted you dead, then you would be.”
Morgan flinched slightly at his words but kept quiet. “I will let you live because you are useful to me and to this city. However, if you ever do something like this again, I will destroy you utterly. Your soul will not reside in the well. I will erase you from this world. Do I make myself absolutely fucking clear?”
“Yes,” Morgan replied tersely. Despite her calm tone, her hands trembled slightly. Perhaps for the first time, Jason saw genuine respect in her eyes.
Jason turned to address the Kin. “Stand down. Go tend to the wounded and hunt the remaining ghouls. Jerry will give you your orders until Riley returns.”
Jerry gave him a mock salute and spared a final glance at Morgan, a grin tweaking the corner of his mouth. Then he pivoted on his heel and marched off, shouting orders to the Kin – the soldiers glaring at Morgan and muttering amongst themselves. Grunt also snorted at the mage as he passed, his glowing-green eyes less than friendly as he turned to follow Jerry. He apparently hadn’t forgotten his encounter with the Abomination.
Jason shifted his attention back to Morgan. “Gather the bones and take them to the training yard. Conscript help if you need it. We may need those materials soon.” The mage gave him a single nod and then shuffled off, her staff thumping rhythmically across the ground. Jason’s eyes followed her as she walked away, the icy bloodlust still pulsing through his veins.
As the others drifted away to perform their duties, Frank approached him. Jason stood rigidly, his mind wheeling and head still throbbing. He wasn’t sure if he had just done the right thing. Although, he was beginning to realize that there didn’t seem to be any “right” answers – at least, not anymore. The line had gotten blurry a long time ago.
“It seems that I missed a lot,” Frank began hesitantly.
“I guess you have,” Jason replied in a quiet voice. Then he refocused his attention on his friend, trying to shake off his dark thoughts. “So tell me, what happened with Alexion?”
Frank winced, his eyes shifting away from Jason. “That’s a long story. I’m not certain where I should start.”
“We have some time,” Jason replied evenly. “Why don’t you start at the beginning.”
Chapter 63 - Victorious
Jason stood in the keep’s control room, his gaze fixed on the phantom image of the city that was projected across the room’s circular floor. His expression was grim. He had inspected the city as Frank debriefed him on what had happened in Kelton and his encounter with Alexion. At ground level, the devastation hadn’t seemed quite as bad. The occasional pack of ghouls still roamed the city, but the Kin were now sweeping each street – systematically eradicating the feral creatures.
However, up here in the control room, Jason was able to obtain a much more comprehensive report on the damage. Here, he was finally able to see the full scope of the war that Thorn had waged against them, detailed numbers and damage reports scrolling in his peripheral vision. They had won, but the victory had cost them dearly.
The southern gate was a wreck. His Drones and Death Knights had wreaked havoc on the fortification; the explosive crystals had carved human-sized holes and craters in the wall. A screen projected beside the wall highlighted several areas of the wall in red – identifying structural damage. This was in addition to the massive ramp of bone that now rested along the wall and the damage the feral undead had caused to the gate itself. It would likely take weeks to clear the debris and repair the fortification.
Jason’s gaze shifted to the southern portion of the city, inspecting the dilapidated buildings. Eliza’s traps had slowed down the ghouls, but that had also forced the creatures to find alternate paths to the market. They had ripped into the old wooden buildings, scaling the structures, and running across the roofs. When that proved too slow, they had burrowed through the structures, their claws making short work of the decaying wooden beams. Most of the repairs that Grunt and his construction crews had made had been entirely undone, and dozens of buildings had collapsed due to the structural damage caused by the ghouls. Even with their losses, they were now short on housing again.
Then there was the market – or the former market. The stalls had been destroyed when the materials were repurposed to build fortifications around the courtyard. Those barriers were now little more than splintered wood. What remained of the buildings ringing the market didn’t look much better. In the time it had taken Jason to fight Thorn, the feral undead had ravaged the structures, leaving little more than heaping piles of splintered wood. Oh, and they now had a somewhat intimidating bone hand jutting from the middle of the marketplace with a rare artifact resting in its palm.
So, there was that.
The property damage alone would cost them a fortune to repair. He idly wondered if there was such a thing as a fantasy insurance company. Jason could only imagine that his premiums would be crazy given how often he managed to destroy his own city.
And then there were the casualties. They had lost hundreds of troops and civilians between the attack on the city, Frank and Vera’s quest to conquer the outlying towns, and Alexion’s raids. They had been able to recover some of those losses by converting the border villages and their residents, but most of the towns had already been wiped out by the native undead. A glance at the area map also confirmed that William had a sizable stockpile of corpses waiting in Peccavi to be delivered. This would help defray some of their losses, but the bottom line was that an unleveled civilian was a poor replacement for a trained and geared soldier. It would take time to build back to their former strength.
Time. It all came back to time.
Jason winced, glancing at the mail icon on the righthand side of his system UI. He had four emails waiting for him after the battle. The committee had called a hearing tomorrow. It was widely expected that Senator Lipton would announce whether the committee would allow the CPSC to re-open the investigation into Cerillion Entertainment.
He channeled his dark mana forcefully and let the chill energy wash through him, trying his best to quash the mountain of worry that he could feel building in the back of his head as he considered the outcome of the hearing. The sensation swept away most of his doubts and fears, leaving him feeling blissfully numb. Although, he knew the relief was fleeting. Eventually, he would have to log off, and he couldn’t flee to the dark mana in the real world.
Jason sighed, rubbing at his eyes tiredly. As he did so, he noticed a flickering notification in his peripheral vision and he swiped at it. As usual, he had deactivated most of his notices during the battle, and he was immediately met with a barrage of windows.
x37 Level Up!
You have (185) undistributed stat points.
x4 Skill Rank Up: Staff Combat
Skill Level: Intermediate Level 7
Effect 1: 16% Increased damage and accuracy.
Effect 2: 4% Increased speed and reaction time.
x4 Skill Rank Up: Dodge
Skill Level: Intermediate Level 9
Effect 1: 9.5% increase speed and reaction time.
Effect 2: 2.6% bonus to Dexterity.
x3 Spell Rank Up: Soul Slash
Skill Level: Intermediate Level 3
Mana Cost: 500 mana/second.
Effect 1: 360% damage increase on strikes and the blade ignores light and medium armor.
Effect 2: -6.5% channel cost.
x3 Skill Rank Up: Mana Mastery
Skill Level: Intermediate Level 7
Effect 1: -9.0% Mana Cost.
Effect 2: 4.0% Faster Cast Rate.
x2 Skill Rank Up: Custom Skeleton
Skill Level: Intermediate Level 9
E
ffect 1: You may raise a custom skeleton using nearby bones. The skeleton’s max level is calculated as Willpower/7.0.
Effect 2: Mana cost reduced by 8.5%.
x2 Spell Rank Up: Corpse Explosion
Skill Level: Intermediate Level 6
Effect: Increased damage and radius (Currently 1.15 x Health).
Effect 2: 6% increased blast radius.
Alternate: Destroys all summoned zombies in the caster’s line of sight at the cost of 100% of the caster’s remaining mana.
x2 Skill Rank Up: Martyrdom
Skill Level: Beginner Level 3
Effect: Player may be injured to -150 health/mana before dying. Only activated when sacrificing yourself for a teammate or a cause greater than yourself.
It took Jason a moment to make his way through the list of notifications. They might have suffered hundreds of casualties and a dramatic amount of property damage, but these large-scale battles were undoubtedly good for leveling.
He also had 185 stat points to allocate. He wasn’t keen on adding those points blindly to Willpower, although that stat still scaled quite well. It increased the now lower level cap on his skeletons, increased his mana pool – which now also increased his health – and increased his mana regeneration. In addition, the damage of his Soul Slash was linked to Willpower.
However, he could also supplement his effective health by using Bone Armor and his new Custom Skeleton design. He wasn’t positive that he needed more damage. If anything, he needed to be faster, stronger, and able to fight for more extended periods. He still had no ranged damage abilities, and he needed to get close to be effective. The fight with Thorn had also reinforced how far he still had to go. Even with Riley’s sacrifice, he had barely kept up with the one-eyed man.
The memory of Riley’s death made him wince. He could still see the blood trickling down her face and the desperate look in her eyes. He knew that she had covered for him – again. If he had been able to avoid Thorn’s attacks, she wouldn’t have had to face the man alone. She might not have died. The fact that she had been able to keep up with Thorn by herself and without any special buffs was a testament to just how much better she was in combat. Jason suspected he would never be able to truly compete with Riley or Frank except in rare circumstances, but he shouldn’t be a liability. He needed to try to close the gap.
Grimacing, Jason made an abrupt decision. With a few quick gestures, he dumped his points equally into Dexterity, Strength, and Endurance, bolstering the hard-won gains he had made during his training in the challenges. With that done, he pulled up his Character Status.
Character Status
Name:
Jason
Gender:
Male
Level:
202
Class:
Necromancer
Race:
Shade
Alignment:
Chaotic-Evil
Fame:
0
Infamy:
26,800
Health:
0
H-Regen/Sec:
1.60
Mana:
14,045
M-Regen/Sec:
55.95
Stamina
2,675
S-Regen/Sec:
16.70
Strength:
142
Dexterity:
150
Vitality:
36
Endurance:
167
Intelligence:
80
Willpower:
899
Affinities
Dark:
65%
Light:
13%
Fire:
11%
Water:
4%
Air:
4%
Earth:
6%
Despite their losses and how this conflict had highlighted his own weaknesses, he could grudgingly admit that the encounter with Thorn had forced him to grow stronger. The combination of his training, the challenges, and the battle with the feral undead had pushed him forward at an incredible pace.
It also occurred to Jason that his surviving troops had likely experienced substantial level gains as well – something that he hadn’t considered when he was reviewing their losses. They might have fewer troops, but those soldiers who had survived should be dramatically stronger since they would have shared in the experience of killing the feral undead.
Perhaps things weren’t quite as bad as he had first thought.
Without warning, two additional notifications appeared in front of him, providing status updates on his quests.
Quest Update: Bridging the Gap (Universal Quest)
During your encounter with Thorn, he mentioned a “gate.” You have now determined that these fragments are part of an ongoing competition among the gods. You have also secured the first gate piece, although it is currently unclear how many of these fragments you will need to recover or what you will need to do once you have secured all of the gate pieces. You should investigate this matter further and time is of the essence – the other travelers will soon be hunting for the gate pieces as well.
Difficulty: S
Success: Recover the gate pieces (total unknown).
Failure: Unknown
Reward: Unknown
Quest Complete: Righteous Retribution
You have slain Thorn and his two accomplices, removing the immediate threat to the Twilight Throne. However, you suspect that Thorn was only one member of the Order. This may not be the last that you hear from these sycophants.
Difficulty: S
Success: Defeat Thorn.
Failure: Lose or quit?
Reward: Unknown air relic.
Jason rubbed at his neck as he reviewed the quest notifications. It seemed that there was still much to learn about the gate pieces – yet another item on his endless to-do list. However, he could at least feel some small sense of triumph at having defeated Thorn. They had won – he had to keep reminding himself of that.
His gaze fixed on the reward for Righteous Retribution. Almost instinctively, his hand rummaged in his pack, pulling out a familiar yellow gemstone. The crystal flickered and pulsed faintly, the light much dimmer than when it had been embedded in Thorn’s ruined socket. He had recovered the gem from the battlefield, but he wasn’t entirely sure what to do with it. At least not yet. A quick inspection revealed the following.
Unidentified Air Relic
The gemstone flickers with an unknown energy. Based on the gem’s color and how Thorn used the crystal during battle, you have surmised that it is powered by air mana and somehow provides insight into the future. In many ways, this gem reminds you of the other relics that have been recovered to-date, including the Dark One’s Grimoire and the orb that was taken from the Hippie’s temple. However, you do not currently know how to use the gemstone or the true nature of the powers that it might hold.
“Yet another mystery,” Jason murmured.
He might not have a purpose for the gem yet, but he had a feeling that it would be useful eventually. Jason tucked it carefully back into his bag. If one thing had become clear, it was that very little happened in AO by chance.
His thoughts were interrupted by a popping sound from behind him. Acting automatically, Jason’s whirled, and his staff appeared in hand, a dark blade sliding out of the wood and coming to rest only inches away from Pint’s bulging, round eyes. The imp stared at him, trembling and clutching at his little pitchfork with both hands.
As soon as Jason realized it was just Pint, he slowly withdrew the blade. “What do you want?” Jason demanded.
Pint gulped. Hard. “Umm… Pretty Lady back. Council meeting downstairs.”
Jason couldn’t help but do a double take as he watched Pint’s nervous reaction. He was ordinarily abrasive and dismissive. Yet now he was apparently afraid. Had Jason changed that much in such a short period of time? He wasn’t certain. In many ways,
he still felt like the same person, but perhaps he had discounted how grueling the last few weeks had been.
He shook his head to try to clear his thoughts. Maybe he was reading too much into it. He was most likely just on edge from the recent battle. For now, he needed to meet with the Council and discuss their next steps. There was still much too do.
“Good,” Jason finally answered. “Take me to them.”
Pint promptly obliged, clapping his hands. A moment later, the pair disappeared in a flash of multi-colored light, and the sapphire silhouette of the city blinked out of existence.
* * *
Jason stumbled slightly as he appeared in the meeting room. Although, he noted that he felt less off-balance than when Pint had teleported him in the past. He recovered more quickly, his body now responding instinctively to the abrupt change in scenery. He could only assume this was a product of his improved Dodge and Dexterity. The changes were subtle but still noticeable.
Awaken Online: Dominion Page 68
