Alburet stepped up next to Gerald, “Two on two sounds fair to me. What do you say Bloodmoon?”
She sneered at him, “You’re higher level than us. Three on two sounds about right. Just keep your sluts out of it.”
Gerald growled as he stepped forward again, “I’ve had enough from you.”
“Deal,” Alburet told her. “Either way, you’re done, but if you win at least you’ll have something to crow about.”
Alburet dismissed the second Bob and Copied Stacia, “Oh, by the way, I’m never a single threat.” Tiny, Bob and both Stacias lined beside him, “Ready?”
Bloonmoon snorted, “Hiding behind your minions. How very brave, oh all-powerful guild leader.”
Alburet shook his head, “I’ll go one on one if you would rather, no help and no minions. But no weapons or abilities, either.”
Bloodmoon frowned a she eyed him, looking for the loophole. Gerald spun on him, “I object to this plan. There is no way a Summoner can take a Berserker in hand to hand combat.”
Laughing, Bloodmoon stepped forward, “I accept.”
Gerald tried one more time to talk Alburet out of it, “This is wrong.” His back was to Bloodmoon’s group, so they couldn’t see him roll his eyes. “I’m going to side with her after she wins, and we’ll take this guild from you.”
Alburet shrugged, “Meh.” He stepped past Gerald, directing his attention to Bloodmoon, “You ready?”
Bloodmoon leapt at him without preamble. Alburet had been ready for such a tactic and dove away from her, coming back to his feet and dropping his axe on the ground to give himself better movement. “So that’s a yes, then?”
Bloodmoon snorted, “I’m fully decked in strength gear. There is no way you can win this fight.”
Alburet shrugged, “I haven’t put a single point into strength or agility, so come on already.” He waited for her as she charged at him, as she closed he shifted his weight slightly. As her hands closed on his chest piece, he snagged her arms and rolled backwards. She went up and over him, but he went along with the roll, coming down on top of her with his knee in her diaphragm. It did almost no damage, but it did wind her.
As she lay there gasping, he calmly spun her over and put his arms around her neck. After a couple of seconds, he watched the icon appear declaring her unconscious from lack of oxygen. Instead of letting her go, he looked up at her two friends and held the choke. Her life bar started dropping. “Do you understand that it is never about brute strength, but applied pressure?”
The Defender of Bloodmoon’s group, Waller, yelled and charged at Alburet. The stun Waller used on Alburet caused him to lose his hold on Bloodmoon. Gerald intercepted the Defender with his own stun, rushing over to intercept the attacker. He was stopped a few feet short by the Elemantalist of her group, Icestorm, who froze Gerald’s feet in place. Icestorm was casting again when Karen’s blades sank into his back. “It was a one on one fight until you interfered,” she told him simply as his life started ticking away, due to the poison she had applied to her blades.
Icestorm encased Karen in a shell of ice, turning to help Waller again. He felt his thoughts go hazy and muddled and swayed in place, all thoughts of joining the fight forgotten. Stacia kept singing softly while Gerald was freed from the ice by Bob tossing perfectly placed Fire Blasts. Gerald got to Waller just as his stun was wearing off, his sword slicing across Waller’s neck. Fluff arrived as Waller swung his mace at Gerald. She snagged his arm, her skin flushing red as her Rage was triggered which allowed her to overpower the Defender.
Alburet shook his head as his own stun wore off. He looked toward Ironhand’s group, then to DrBone and the Lunari standing next to him. “You can stay out of it or join in. This is justice for their ways.” Alburet rolled Bloodmoon over and sat down next to her as his allies killed Waller and Icestorm.
Ironhand walked over to Bloodmoon, looking down at her with a frown, “It doesn’t seem right to attack her while she’s out.”
Alburet shrugged, “Rabid dogs need to be put down. Stacia, this one is for you. Bob, Tiny, you can get a piece as well.” His minions descended on Bloodmoon and killed her in short order. While they did, he went into the guild tab and removed the three offenders from the guild. “They’re kicked. They’ll probably still try to come after you guys, though. I would suggest jumping continents for a few days.”
Greenbeard nodded, “Good idea. I’m in favor of the Dwarf lands.”
“Oh, please, the Elf lands would be so much better,” Leggylass chimed in.
“Where will they respawn?” Ironhand asked.
“The fort, so maybe an hour, or less if they run,” Alburet told him as he got to his feet. “Portal and head out, or stick around here. Your call.” He turned to the other two, “DrBone, I remember you. What is your name?” The last was addressed to the Lunari.
The lion maned Lunari bowed his head, “Lambert.”
Alburet started to laugh, “Oh gods, that is horrible.”
Lambert chuckled, “I think you’re one of the few who’s gotten it.”
Fluff was giggling, “The sheepish lion?”
Lambert nodded, “Yeah, the old cartoon.”
“Okay. Lambert and DrBone, you guys stayed out of it, so I’m not kicking you from Alpha Company. You’ll need to find a new group to hang with, but we’re probably going to get more members soon. Just, next time, if someone starts shit like that again, come to us first. I don’t want to see this kind of thing again.”
“Right,” DrBone said, pulling out his Homestone. “I’m going to head back to the city and probably spend the rest of the day thinking stuff over.”
Lambert also took out his Homestone, “Thank you for the second chance. I’m sorry I didn’t do more to try and stop her.”
“Live and learn,” Gerald told him before Lambert vanished. He turned to Alburet, “How did you know that would work?”
“Bullies always think they’re stronger than everyone else, and the way she moved didn’t even hint that she had any training. If she had, I would have sent Karen to fight her instead.”
“I would have won faster,” Karen replied with a smirk. “You seem to be getting a little slow there, Al. Maybe I need to take you to the mat again, get those reflexes back up to speed.”
He looked into her laughing eyes before shaking his head, “Double entendre much?”
She shrugged, “I am who I am.”
Ironhand coughed lightly, “We’ll be heading out after all. Thanks for the help, they were brutal.”
Alburet nodded, “If you want, you can stay out here with us and finish off your quests before you go. Easy XP that way.”
“Aye, it will benefit ya and she will nay think about another go with us, so it will be safe for now,” Stacia added.
Ironhand got nods from his group so he nodded, “We’ll do that. Thank you again.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
After a couple of hours, Ironhand’s group was ready to turn in their quests, then they planned on going off to another zone. Once they’d taken their leave, Alburet looked at Gerald, “So, ever done the Blighted Tower?” He hitched his thumb over his shoulder at the bell tower.
“No, so this should be interesting,” Gerald said as the group gathered by the doorway that shimmered with the same portal like appearance of every dungeon entrance. “We’re inside the level range for it at least, so it shouldn’t be too bad. Anyone else done this place?”
Fluff shook her head, “I didn’t.”
“Me either,” Karen added with a grin. “I’m so ready for it, though.”
“Well, let’s try it out,” Alburet said, before he stepped into the tower.
The others appeared beside him a second later. The building was a fifty-foot square structure five stories high. The bottom floor had rubble strewn across it, and a stairwell leading up along the left-hand wall. The cross braces for the floor above them were fashioned of a dark wood that had an unpleasant green tinge to it. “Well, this looks
friendly,” Gerald muttered at the gloomy air that also held a soft green tinge to it.
“Blighted,” Marysue murmured, “I’m betting disease.”
“Cure sickness doesn’t cure disease, does it?” Fluff asked.
“No, which means this might be kind of rough. Level twenty had an option for cure disease, but I picked up the area heal instead.”
“We still going to do this?” Alburet asked, looking at the others.
“If we fail, we only die horribly,” Karen snorted. “We always come back to life, so I don’t see a reason not to give it a go.”
Stacia frowned, but nodded, “Tha’ be the biggest point tha’ sets ya two-souled apart from us. As long as Alburet be our master though, we,” she pointed to herself, Tiny and Bob, “will nay die a final death either.”
“Right,” Gerald hefted his shield and went towards the stairs, “let’s see what happens.”
The group gathered up behind Gerald and followed him as he started up the stairs. As Gerald cleared the last stair and turned past the wall to look into the room on the second floor, a roar echoed through the building. Gerald darted forward to clear the way so the others could follow him up.
“Golem,” Gerald called back at them as he brought his shield up, blocking the hand that crashed down.
The others exited the stairwell into the room and were able to get a good look at the monster Gerald was fighting. Frankenstein’s monster it seemed to be, a patchwork of flesh stitched together and standing seven feet tall. The Blighted Golem was hammering at Gerald’s shield just fast enough to make it difficult for him to try returning an attack. Fluff, Karen, Alburet, Tiny and Stacia all rushed forward to surround it, while Marysue and both Bobs hung back by the stairs.
As they surrounded it, the Golem stomped a foot heavily onto the floor, knocking them all to one knee and stunning them for two seconds. While they were stunned, it backed away to keep them in front of it and slapped Fluffball as it went by. A good quarter of her life was taken away by the hit, which caught everyone’s attention quickly. As the stun wore off, Fluff triggered her Rage and leapt at the monster as everyone else went to try to surround it again.
Fluff sank both claws into its right arm, shredding the appendage, but no blood came from the mangled limb. Gerald taunted the Blighted Golem as it turned to hit Fluff again, causing it to turn to him instead. Its swing clanged off Gerald’s shield again, as Karen finally sank her blades into its back. “Fucking undead, always immune to poison,” she snarled.
Alburet triggered the flame on his axe and swung at the legs of the mob. His hit did a decent amount of damage since it didn’t have much in the way of armor. The hit barely dented the health of the creature. “Treat it like a mini boss,” he called out to the others. The Blighted Golem also had a taunt, which seemed pointless since it was alone in the room, and it expelled a cloud of green gas at every quarter of its life.
Blighted Air appeared as a debuff, decreasing their overall health pool by 20%. As the fight went on, the lower health pool made Marysue’s job of keeping Gerald alive more challenging. After almost two minutes, they finally whittled away the last of its life and it dropped. While they healed and regained mana, waiting for the debuff to fall off of them, Karen initiated the loot. A nice amount of silver trickled to each of them, but no other item drops were forth coming.
Once they were all healed and the debuff had fallen away, they went up to the next floor with Gerald in the lead again. They found another Blighted Golem, but they knew now how to handle the fight, so it was much easier to deal with. The third floor contained five zombies. The putrid odor they exuded was their big downside, however the gasses turned out to be flammable. That eliminated the stench, but also set the zombies on fire which did damage to anyone they hit or that hit them in melee. The upside was that they also took damage themselves from the fire.
The fourth floor held a Blighted Golem and five Putrid Zombies together. Tiny took the zombies, moving off to one side of the room with them while Gerald took the Golem. Alburet called out, “Everyone go to the far corner and help Gerald. You move over there, too, Marysue.” Once they were all in the far corner, he had Tiny position the zombies diagonally across the room from them, as far away as the room would allow. He then used a spell he’d only used once before, Fire Burst. “Flame On!” Alburet cried out, unleashing the twenty-foot radius burst of fire from his body. Both Bobs, Stacia and Tiny were uninjured, but the zombies were all burning along nicely. He used all of his mana chain casting the spell as his minions did as much damage as they could to the burning zombies.
It still took two hits with the axe per zombie to put them down. As the last zombie fell, he turned to go help Gerald and the others, “Sorry for the delay guys, I was having a bit of a hot flash.”
Karen groaned, “Not funny.”
Alburet laughed, “I thought it was.”
Once everyone was focused on the Blighted Golem, it soon fell over. “Last floor is next, that should be the Necromancer,” Gerald told them as they looted the bodies and regained their health and mana. “We have no idea what it’s going to do, so everyone stay on their toes.”
Guild Achievement: Kill the Orc Warlord
Alburet grinned, “Looks like the other groups are getting into the spirit of the dungeon clearing.”
“Oh, that’s the dungeon in the Orc Village zone,” Fluff told them. “He rides a giant boar into battle.”
“No one has hit the other continents yet. Maybe we should jump over after the next fight.” Marysue mused as they looked at the stairs. “I would like to see the Elf Lands.” No one else had a specific continent they wanted to see, so Marysue’s idea passed without dissent.
“First we have to kill this guy,” Gerald said as he approached the stairs.
The others all followed him up the final set of stairs. There was a closed door at the top landing. Gerald opened the door and entered, with the rest of the party close behind him. As soon as the entire group had entered the room, the door boomed shut behind them and mocking laughter rang out from above. Looking up, they saw that the roof of the tower was missing, leaving the bell hanging at the top outlined against the sky. A rope dangled from the bell in the middle of the room.
A black clad man jumped lightly down into the room from a broken timber. His smile was manic as he laughed again, “You took apart my helpers did you? No matter, for the end is nigh! The Master has taught me the right ways of Necromancy and the end has come!” He broke out into more wild laughter.
Alburet frowned as he read the name of the boss, Death’s Apprentice. “Ugh, how cliché,” he said with a sigh. “Gerald, I think that was enough of a monologue.”
Gerald nodded, “Okay, everyone, let’s do this.” As Gerald took a step toward Death’s Apprentice, two Blighted Golems jumped down into the room next to the boss. “Tiny, take the one on the right.”
Tiny did as he was asked and engaged the one on the right while Gerald took the one on the left. As the rest of them started in on their normal tactics, the Necromancer cast a spell and touched the Golem that Gerald was fighting. A glowing black bubble sprang up around the Golem.
“Damage reduction,” Gerald noted.
The Necromancer cast the spell again, bringing a second bubble up around the other Golem. Alburet turned for the Necromancer, realizing that they had to stop him from casting. He got there just as a third glowing black bubble sprang up around the Necromancer.
“You are annoying,” Alburet grumped, bringing his axe down on the spell bubble.
Cackling, the Necromancer started to cast another spell. Alburet swung again, his axe once again stopped by the barrier surrounding the Necromancer. A bolt of dark energy lashed out from the boss, striking the Golem facing Tiny and healing it of the damage it had taken before the shield had been cast on it. “The Master has taught me the truth, and he will unleash his army upon Stormguard.”
Alburet swung again, still not getting through the bubble, “What the f
uck are we missing here?”
Marysue threw a blast of Light magic at the Golem Tiny was fighting. The spell hit the bubble, causing it to burst in a shower of sparks. “I can counter it,” she called out.
“No!” the Necromancer yelled. “Faithful of the Light, I will pull you back from the dead as my plaything. I’ll torment your body and your soul.”
“Like hell,” Gerald snarled.
The Necromancer replaced the shield Marysue had destroyed, but Marysue was casting again and destroyed the shield protecting the other Golem. “Ring around the rosy,” Marysue half sang.
“You will rue the day you crossed me, priestess,” the Necromancer spat as he put a new damage bubble up on the Golem facing Gerald.
Alburet swung his axe into the bubble surrounding the Necromancer again, still to no effect, “This isn’t working. Without a priest, this dungeon would be broken.” As he stepped back, he felt something tickle his neck. He spun, ready to attack whatever it was. The only thing there was the rope dangling down from the bell. Frowning, he grabbed it and yanked hard once, just to see if anything would happen.
Alpha Company (Alpha World Book 3) Page 30
