I grin back at him. “Thanks, Djinn. I’ll do that.”
Sid dismisses Djinn.
Sid summons Xiuhcoatl.
The great, coiling dragon fills the tiny dead end, spiraling out of my chest as a golden mist and taking form in the middle of the haphazard circle we are sitting and standing in.
“What is your command?” he asks.
“Just looking at you and your abilities.”
He hovers quietly, and it makes me nervous.
I read his ability list to myself, then aloud to my friends.
Description:
Xiuhcoatl is an ancient fire dragon, known through the ages as the most powerful dragon of the sun. He is stronger in the day when he can use all of his abilities. He is a dragon with the power of solar magic. He has unique dragon qualities grown from eons of abuse of his power, also giving him true bloodlust for justice.
Abilities:
Fire Breath—Breathes fire at target, dealing damage.
Dragon’s Grasp—Wraps target in his body, making target unable to move or fight for 20 seconds. Target receives Strangle damage over time for the duration.
Simmer—Burns target every 3 seconds for 10% HP for 30 seconds. Target cannot attack.
Seizure Ability: Solar Explosion—Uses sun’s power to deal massive damage to target. Can only be used during the day.
“Wow,” says Doolittle. “Good call on the sun. I mean, doing this at night. He couldn’t do that move at all at night.”
I give Xiuhcoatl a little smile. He doesn’t return it.
Sid dismisses Xiuhcoatl.
“He hates me,” I tell them.
“Me too,” says Days with a laugh. “He got me bad twice.”
“You’re tough. You can take it,” Sorry says to him, rubbing his arm.
“I’m really just a show-off,” he says. “I can’t take these kinds of hits and stay sane without an audience.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. It’s my fault my friend was strangled by a giant, snaky dragon and abused so badly. I haven’t felt guilt over this before, even when Xiuhcoatl got us with Solar Explosion. But seeing Days weakened so much makes it all hit me. I’m asking my friends to risk horrible pain to fight these summons.
“None of that,” says Simple, watching my face, reading my worries.
“Nope, don’t think of it,” adds Days. “We want to do this, right?” He looks around at the others.
“Yeah,” says Doolittle.
The others nod at me, and I might have been imagining it, but they look a little desperate, as though they have a lot more invested in my claiming summons than I’m aware of.
“Thanks. I mean it.” I don’t know what else to say. They all seemed to read my mind, or maybe my Nuudle features can’t hide a thing. Or maybe, just maybe, they need these fights as much as I do. That feeling of needing to do something with our time in Dark World is always there, the need to quiet the questions.
CHAPTER 13: BATTLE OF KERES
“Look at you, Nuudle Mystic!” says Calla when she appears, umbrella and blue bubble at the ready, after I summon Xiuhcoatl. “You are doing quite well. How fortunate you claimed him. You must have good friends, and a good knowledge of how Mystic works. I’m so very glad you chose this class.”
“Me too,” I say as I dismiss Xiuhcoatl. Even though I have control over him, he makes me anxious to have out. He stares at me like he wants to fry me.
“I think you might be ready for Keres, Nuudle Mystic Sid,” she says.
Keres? I’ve never heard of a summon named Keres. “Who is Keres?”
Calla looks down. “She feeds.”
“She feeds?”
Calla looks back up at me. “Yes, she feeds. She feeds. Hold out your left hand.”
I do, and she marks it with what looks like an old hag.
“Who is she?” I ask.
“Lost soul, undead, caught between worlds. She has unique abilities.” She pats my shoulder. “Now, go. Gather your friends. With Keres, you only have one chance.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, you don’t want her to feed on you.” She shakes her head, and then switches from grim to cheerful in a split-second. “Nothing you can’t handle, I’m absolutely sure. Otherwise, I’d never suggest Keres. Very few of us know of her and where she is. Only certain Mystics would be chosen for this summon.”
“Well, thanks.” I let her know through my sarcasm that I don’t appreciate her scary, cryptic information without further explanation.
“Now, off you go.” She disappears altogether in a blip and I start getting rained on again as her blue bubble fades.
I look around for Anella, feeling like she’s nearby, but I don’t see her.
I look at my map. The Keres fight is marked south of Siren Territory in the depths of the Paradise Sea outside of Cashmere.
I tell the guild about it, and my friends are ready to go for her right now, but I need to get some better gear and to practice my scroll-making, so I do.
Master Gronai is especially happy to see me. When I tell him about my Keres quest, he takes a great interest, even helping me craft a scroll called “Satisfy Undead.” Not sure what it does, exactly, but Master Gronai seems to think it’s the way to go because “I read once of a sea monster ghost in the Paradise Sea, that she sinks ships and eats everyone alive. Might as well try something, Young Sid, do you not agree, that might aid with your battle?” We used old Nuudle runes, and I’m not the best at those. I’ll figure the scroll out when I get to her. I hope.
It gives me an idea. I didn’t think of Keres as a regular undead, but if she is… and I send Lucky, the guy I met in Dawn, a letter asking if he’d help us with the fight… maybe as a Dead One, he’d have some moves on her.
I do so. I wait to hear from him while I clothcraft and treasure hunt around Nuudle Territory.
A day or so after I got the Keres quest, I have a new Crimson Caster Robe (with hood, of course) I made, which is Mystic-specific and has all three of my main stats: +20 CON, +11 INT, +7 MND. I found a bracelet near the mountains to the east of Kleeple called Ruby Bezel Bracelet. It’s silver and covered in red gems. It has +9 CON, +9 ATT, and +5 INT. Mystic-specific, too. Nice. New sandals with some MND, which I’ve learned is good for aching feet (still no mount). Black Pearl Ear Cuffs that have +4 CON when wearing both. Made some Silk Pants and had a guildie enchanter put + 10 CON and +5 MND on them. Wrist cuffs called Master Mage’s Wristlets, which have +14 ATT, +14 STR and +10 DEF. And… broke again until the goodies I found with Third Wish and couldn’t use sell on the AH.
I even did quests I found to make my STR and DEF stats higher to add to my cuffs’ stats, which, as Djinn explained, helps my summons. As I get higher stats, my summons do, too. They do more damage as my STR gets higher, get more DEF as my defense gets higher, etc. I need to get all my stats up, not just for my little HP bar to have more segments, but for my class’s success’s sake. I’d been wondering about that since the Counts’ fight, and with Djinn, I keep forgetting he’s the only summon I have I can talk to, ask questions to. And he answers. I’m turning to him more and more.
Finally, the day the last of my treasure sells, I have a mail icon saying “1” in my interface while I’m treasure hunting with Djinn, and let him know I have to get to a mailbox.
“I know the drill,” he says, and disappears as I dismiss him so as not to be bothered by the Mystic-curious.
I run all the way to Kleeple to get to a mailbox. The letter is from Lucky.
Sid,
Sorry it took so long to get back to you. I had to give it some thought. I’m ready now, though. I want to help you with the fight. Hit me up when you go and I’ll be there.
Lucky
Awesome.
I tell the guild I have a Dead One to help us. Sorry is ecstatic. “I’ve never fought with a Dead One before. How intriguing. I wonder what he’ll be able to do with Keres. Good thinking, Sid.” I’d told them what Calla said about Keres being undead.
I’m glad they’re open to having another player join us. I got so lucky that Days and Simple were the first people I met when I came here. They don’t care about standing and guild-owning. They’re people with feelings and maturity. I didn’t know Days was the head of Faithgamblers until I asked in guild chat, and through all of them saying, “Me!” and “No, me, me!” I figured out it was Days. Why is Shell in Days’ guild when she was here before him? Why would someone leave a guild in Dark World? I’m guessing she didn’t have one.
I keep getting that instinct about Shell, and it grows. She didn’t say a word when the rest of the guildies congratulated us on our win with Xiuhcoatl. I often checked the guild list because of my suspicious mind, keeping an eye on who was listening in, and she had turned off guild chat the day I got the Keres quest. Her name didn’t show in the online guild chat list for over two hours, which I knew from my monitoring was odd, and hasn’t since.
There have been discussions about what happened to Shell, but I keep my mouth shut. I have a bad, bad feeling she changed somehow. Something happened to change her from the Mystic who gave me the Contemplation quest and who had been eternally active in the guild chat to the Mystic who leaves for days. No word from her to anyone, according to Days. I can tell he’s upset about it. He has that soft spot for her, wants to help her if she’s in a bad way. But nobody can find her or reach her. Letters and messages have been sent. No replies. We put off fighting Keres while we searched her usual haunts, like certain crafting stations in Kleeple and Sheala, which is a brand-new town, not a capital yet. Couldn’t even call it a city here in Dark World.
I’m tired of hearing everyone worry about her, and it’s my damn gut telling me she’s doing something not in character. I couldn’t defend that with “It felt like to me when she said these perfectly normal words, she blah, blah, blah.” I can’t breathe a word of it to anyone. I don’t even speak my suspicions to Djinn, feeling like saying them aloud to any sentient being, including NPCs, will bring my paranoid crazy exposed for any and all to see.
I know I’m right—that’s the part that scares me for what is to come. Because something will come of this.
I’ve never been great at trusting that kind of intuition, though, especially because deep down, I feel it’s all about me. Me being a Mystic with Ananta’s mark. That she sees me as special and she isn’t, and the reason I don’t want to talk that way is because I’m not an egomaniac. I’m probably wrong, too, because I know in the way I’m knowing this stuff, all circumstantial, but there’s more. Something changed her, as well, maybe to think that way of me.
She wasn’t always… jealous? Is that it? It doesn’t feel quite right.
Something happened, something that has to do with me, but I don’t know what. Just a hunch, but don’t worry. I know better than to spin conspiracy theories when I have clues as weak as her tone of voice changing.
We finally plan the Keres fight a week after Shell disappeared, and I write Lucky telling him where it is and what time we’re doing it. He writes back within minutes saying he’ll be there. We have plans to meet midday in the Paradise Sea south of Cashmere, and that sea is deep. We’ll all, with the exception of Sorry, have to eat Kula Peach Berries, very expensive, to breathe underwater for as long as we’ll be there. They last five hours. Simply swimming to the small, unnamed cave on my map will take an hour. That’s how far down that part of the ocean of Dark World, Elora, whatever, is. Nobody has any clue what this fight will hold, and nobody has heard of Keres. Not even Simple, who loves her Temple of Nuudlel book piles she pulls out and pores over when nothing is happening before or after an event—and even sometimes over Siren Ale. I have no clue how anyone can read old Nuudle rune writing with even a lick of the pink brew on her tongue. She always has three or more of those Siren Ales, too.
Yeah, we’ve developed habits. I’ve gotten to know other guildmates, but nothing nearly as close as with the players who do my fights with me. The five of us, since Djinn, have spent many an inactive evening on the open-air cedar patio of Dark World Cashmere’s stat-boost drink haven and had our ways with Siren Ale.
I’m sure you’re dying to hear about every .03 skill-up I get in scroll-making while Master Gronai reads Nuudle and then Elorian to me, trying to give me “Nuudle Word Music” to enhance my scroll runes. The grinding for stat boosts, quest after quest. Or the skill-ups in crafting, or the treasure hunting and talks with Djinn about nonsense…
Instead, I’ll get to Keres.
Lucky meets us at an underwater cave, unnamed on the map, deep in the Paradise Sea after we waited forty minutes for him.
“Sorry, sorry. Had the wrong berries. Had to get air and swim to land. Get the right berries.” He doesn’t look at anyone, floating low, seems awkward. Not like the fanboy I’d met in Dawn.
“I should have mentioned that, sorry,” I tell him. “Hey, you alright?”
He nods and finally looks down into my eyes. “Sorry, I couldn’t bring any. None would go in the water. And there are no Undead in the water.”
I cock my head. “What do you mean?”
In a rush, he says, “I catch the undead and they fight for me. Like your summons. But they get away and I have to kill them, or else they’re after me. Don’t worry about it. I have other things that should help.”
Days swims over to him. “Human. Did that blow your mind or what? I’m Days.”
Lucky stares hard at Days as though Days hit him.
“Dude?” Days says, concerned.
Lucky shakes his head and flaps his arms through the sea water. “Oh, sorry, sorry. You remind me of someone. That’s all.”
Days opens his mouth, but pushes his brows together and closes it. He was about to say more, but something stopped him. By his expression, an unpleasant thought.
“Let’s swim on in,” Simple says. She sounds quiet. I realize she’s scared.
Doolittle hasn’t done anything but keep his Luna Lamp charged with Violet Petals so he could see swimming this deep. It’s blacker than black here where the sun has never been.
The cave is creepy, the Luna Lamp is creepy… Lucky is acting creepy.
Sid summons Djinn.
“Master Nuudle Sid, my great pleasure to serve… this dank dungeon with my green glow.” He sniffs the water. “What is this place? Keres?”
“Yeah.”
“She smells like a rotting bride left at the altar.” He squeezes his nose.
I laugh.
“You can’t smell her,” says Days.
“How do you know?” Djinn says. “You know not my greatness and acute extrasensory abilities.” He wags a fat, gold-ringed finger in Days’ face. “Come on, smell. Come on. You’ll see I’m right.”
Days gives him a flipping, forked tongue and then sniffs.
“Nothing.”
“See? It proves I’m superior.” He folds his arms across his huge, bare chest.
Days cracks a grin. “Djinn, you’re so full of shit.”
“I’ve never once shat, so that very well may be.” He rubs his chin, looks lost in thought.
“God, Days, should I start being jealous of that genie? You flirt with him more than me.” Sorry winks at Djinn.
All through this, I’ve kept low-profile attention on Lucky, making my eyes dart from person to person, but really checking out Lucky. His gloved fingers shake, even in the thick water. He wears no shoes. No footgear for a boss fight? I mean, it could be class or ability-specific… but I’ve never seen anyone without shoes for something like this.
We find a dead end quickly and the usual ritual goes down. I put my hand on the wall, the hag’s mark stays on the wall and gets bigger, and my palm glows.
Then, we’re in.
We’re all scared instantly.
There is air here, and it’s a round cavern forty meters wide filled… filled with bodies. Pieces of bodies in various stages of decay. Humans, Sirens, Nuudles, White Elves, Dragons, Dragonbane, Mylop. Fresh kills, too. NPC names by the colors. What
is going on?
In the middle of the bloodbath stands Keres, and she is a wicked, dark one.
I don’t know about lost soul, but I completely get the undead. She’s a species of her own. No idea. She’s seven feet tall, white and bony, wearing a long black, flowy open-breasted dress, and its every exposed end is a tattered, black mess. Her mouth gapes open, three times the size of a horse mouth, with skinny, dagger-like inch-long teeth. Her talon-tipped hands drop a bloody White Elf arm as she notices us. Her big, oblong, black eyes gleam with hunger at Sorry. Suddenly, huge, thin, black-feathered giant wings spring up from her back, having been behind her, and she flaps the foul stench at us. Djinn was right; it’s here.
Sorry casts Weaken Enemy. Keres has Offense Down.
Days uses Invoke Inner Demon.
Keres is within arm’s length of shredding Sorry when Days steals the hate. Whew.
What am I doing?
Suddenly, summoning Xiuhcoatl for this doesn’t seem so much of a bad idea. I’d been going to break my own rules and use Djinn…but…
Sid summons Xiuhcoatl.
Gold, smooth smoke flows out of my chest and the great, spiraling dragon flies above us.
“Silly Master Nuudle,” he growls. “No sun.”
“Fight, man!” I call out to him.
Sorry casts Blind. Keres is blinded for 20 seconds.
Keres keeps slashing at Days’ arms and sides, missing more now that she’s blinded, leaving long claw marks all over his heavy, dark armor. Is it going to hold? How does he stay standing straight and still be able to block, invoke his inner demon in intervals, and attack?
Keres uses Visit the Grave. Sorry is warped to graveyard.
She thinks, she judges. She punished Sorry for blinding her. It’s the first real move she’s made.
At the same time, her nails are pretty long and fierce, and Days’ face is consistently inches away from the hole of teeth she needs to feed. As a Maniac and a hand-to-hand fighter in Elora, I didn’t have any flash. I tore them up and then forgot them with my bare or knuckled hands. She reminds me of that style of play.
Total Immersion: Dark World: A LitRPG Adventure Page 15
