And then I noticed Gerry smiling at me.
“What?” I snapped, wiping any sign of happiness from my face, “I was convinced that was how this was gonna end, with me dead at the bottom of some mountain. Can’t blame me for being a little enthusiastic.”
“I didn’t say a thing.”
“Good, because there’s nothing to say. What now?”
“I suggest we get out of here,” Vilor said as we all got to our feet, “the last thing we want is for this whole system to come crashing down on top of us.”
“True,” I replied as I led the way out of the mangled mess of broken metal and stone and into the hall that was not unlike the one a few hundred feet above our heads, save for the added amount of dirt and the sconces on the walls, “do you think we’ll be able to find another way out?”
Lyrias nodded, “I’d say so. Aldok is many terrible things, but he was always good at planning ahead. I’m sure he would’ve prepared for that foolish contraption to fail.”
I looked back at the elevator to see if there was any way that I could defend the design, but found none, “I suppose you’re right, let’s go.”
I’d thought about asking her about Gulk, simply to see if she could offer any more insight into what happened between him and Aldok, but decided against it when I remembered how many things that had been spoiled for me in the past by chatty NPCs.
Yes, yes, I know I said that I enjoyed that sort of thing with the barkeep, but that was when all the information was new, fresh, and, to some degree, vague.
I just knew that if I’d started to press with Lyrias and Vilor I’d suddenly know every little detail and lose out on the opportunity to get a proper good surprise later in the dungeon.
Yeah… I came to regret that decision pretty damn quickly.
Armelia: Chapter 26
Exhaustion was finally starting to catch up with me as Gerry pushed open the door into the next section. My eyelids were as heavy as bowling balls while my fingers were like sausages, both in the way of reaction time and hitting the wrong keys.
“Doing alright back there?” Gerry asked as I finally caught up and yawned.
“Yeah, just gettin’ a bit tired. How much longer…” I trailed off as I started looking around the cacophonous room we’d found ourselves in.
“Pretty amazing, huh? It’s kinda like that one with the Skeleton King, you remember?”
“Yeah…”
I was lost for words, genuinely.
He was right, it was about the size of the one from that first big dungeon we’d done, similar shape too, but instead of being a huge air pocket in a cave, it was a library, and instead of being dank and poorly lit, it was filled with a soft golden light that came from the hundreds of ornate sconces and torches around us.
“You’ve got that look that Belle had when Beast showed her his library.” Gerry said, drawing my attention back to him.
It took some effort, but I successfully managed to get the gaudy grin off my face, “Eh, I always thought that that scene was a metaphor for his penis.”
Gerry rolled his eyes, not losing his smile in the process, “You can be as crass as you want, but the more tired you get, the less you’re going to be able to inhibit that little ball of cheerfulness you’ve got balled up inside you.”
I decided I wasn’t going to win the argument about how miserable I was, which made me both frustrated and happy, and started to walk around the room, “You see anything that could potentially get us further on? I doubt we’re gonna progress much if we stick around in here.”
“My bet? We use the exit. I know it opens the possibility of us losing the opportunity to find something in here, but I reckon it’ll trigger somethin’ cool.”
I agreed with a nod and started leading the party over to the other side of my new favourite place in Tarthirious, not noticing the sharp green light that had started to descend from the ceiling.
“What are you doing in my library?” a deep and crackled voice reverberated into my soul.
“Do I really have to turn around?” I asked Gerry as I stood frozen in place.
“Not necessarily, but you don’t technically have to breathe either. Everything’s voluntary.”
With an almost pained sigh I pushed that deep philosophical thought to the back of my head and turned around to face the source of the voice that had yet to be labelled.
He was a large man, maybe seven foot, built like a lumberjack, wore black robes, and had a great big bushy beard.
Oh yeah, and he was surrounded by a green smoky aura and was floating about three feet off the ground.
“I’m sorry,” I said, trying to get past the fact that his eyes were even more piercing than the spiders’, “I was unaware that we wer-”
“Do not try to spin your falsehoods with me,” the man warned, “I am far too old to have my time wasted by the likes of you. So, I ask again, what are you doing in my library?”
I paused for a moment, considering whether there was any point in trying to lie to him again, before caving and giving the almost incorporeal form a stern look, “We plan to destroy Aldok Dethrisr.”
The man appeared amused by that, a small smile curling around his grey lips under his beard and revealing a set of black teeth, “Now, that’s quite the shame,” he said with an ominous chuckle, “I’m sure you’d be able to give my brother a challenge.”
And just like that the name ‘Gulk the Just’ appeared next to his head.
“Why is that a shame?” I asked, ignoring the fact that I could’ve gotten a great deal of information about Aldok if I’d just spent a few seconds talking with Gulk.
Alright, fine, so maybe I didn’t ignore it and just forgot, but in all fairness I was getting pretty bloody knackered.
Gulk started to rise in response, his aura pushing him up into the air as the once peaceful man outstretched his arms and started to generate a powerful spell, “Because you won’t be leaving this room.”
Gulk the Just is attacking your party.
Level 75 Master Necromancer, HP: 55000/55000.
Armelia: Chapter 27
There wasn’t much I could do against the overprotective Gulk as I quickly discovered after wasting a few seconds trying to hit him out of the air with my lightning.
But that’s what friends are for, is it not?
“You got anything that can bring him down?” I asked Gerry as I started pretty much the exact strategy I’d had with the Skeleton King which was basically just run around the edge of the room and hope to the Gods I wasn’t going to get obliterated because of a mistimed roll.
“Not that I know of…” Gerry finally replied with a grunt as he launched a hefty fireball at the yet-to-attack necromancer, “But Lyrias and Vilor seem to be doing a pretty good job.”
That they were, their blasts of powerful white light definitely burning through Gulk’s protective aura, but unfortunately it was barely at a rate of a millimetre a second.
And that’s when things started to really screw up for me.
You see, if I’d have learned about Gulk at all before going into that library I probably would’ve realised that he was a brilliant hunter capable of predicting even the most skittish of creature’s movements and I would’ve been focussing on warding instead of running.
“Armelia!” Gerry shouted from the other side of the library, “Look out!”
But it was too late, it didn’t matter whether it had something to do with the fact that I was running on fumes, or if it was just that Gulk was too good of a shot, I’d already ran smack-bang into the bolt of horrifying green light and been blasted a good fifteen feet backwards.
Gulk the Just cast Necromorphic Blast.
No damage inflicted.
HP: 6500/6500.
“What the Hel?” I asked as I got to my feet, “Did he miss?”
“No, he definitely hit yo-woah!” Gerry yelped as he rolled out of the way and narrowly dodged one of Gulk’s attacks.
“I don’t get it the
n, did he-” I said before getting cut off by the cracking sound of my leg giving out.
Right leg wounded.
“What the shit!? What is-”
Left leg wounded.
I was on the floor, both of my legs practically snapped in two, but I wasn’t missing any health.
Luckily I could still drag myself though.
Right arm wounded.
Well, I still had my-
Left arm wounded.
“Goddamn it!”
“What’s wrong with you?” Gerry called over having returned to his assault on Gulk.
“Everything’s breaking!” I cried back as I tried to roll around and failed.
“What, like glitching?”
“No, my bones! They’re all breaking!”
“Well just… wait there.”
I couldn’t tell if he was picking on me or not, but I decided to take offence anyway and started stewing, mumbling about the fact that I’d managed to somehow get hit with the one spell in the game that gave people cerebral palsy.
And then I got an idea.
“Use that spell the tavern keeper gave us!”
Gerry didn’t waste any time in responding before hitting Gulk with a flash of white light.
Grand Gerry the Good cast Turn Undead.
At first I thought the spell had failed, Gulk left hovering there like nothing had happened at all, but then I noticed something interesting had happened to him.
“His shield is down!” I shouted as I watched Gulk’s green aura fall, “Hit him!”
Again Gerry focussed on doing instead of responding, unleashing a brilliant barrage of fire and splinters at the shield-less Gulk while Vilor and Lyrias continued their combined assault of light.
Eventually the man fell, his knees eliciting a loud crunching sound as he hit the floor.
“His HP won’t go below one.” Gerry said calmly as he approached Gulk while I continued to wait less-than-patiently to have my bones fixed.
“That’s great, can you come help me up now?”
“I can’t,” he replied, hitting the downed enemy with another blast of fire, “his health keeps regenerating.”
“Ugh… fair enough…” I said with a defeated sigh as I let my strained neck drop my head onto the ground.
A few seconds of explosion sound effects and accepting defeat, a set of feet appeared next to my head and I saw a white light descending upon me.
Lyrias Rew healed you.
All debuffs removed.
HP: 6500/6500.
My bones slip back together after that, their natural form returning as I rose to my feet and saw Lyrias standing beside me with a raged expression on her face.
At first I thought she was angry at me for some reason, but then she ran back to start blasting Gulk again and I realised that she must’ve just stayed in battle mode.
“Now,” I said, dusting myself off and walking over to the group that was whaling on the mostly defenceless necromancer, “what’s this about his health not going down?”
“I don’t know,” Gerry replied with a shrug as he hit him again with a blast of fire, “just won’t go down to zero. Wanna pull out your bow or something and get an easy skill increase?”
“Though tempting, no. I’d be stuck here all night going through all the crap I wanna level up.”
“Alright, then I’m open to suggestions. You got any ideas on how to take this guy down?”
Fire was a bust, and I seriously doubted that a silver sword would do much better.
Deciding conventional methods wouldn’t work, he was mini-boss that had to have a turn undead spell used on him to drop his protective aura after all, I started to think abstractly.
I was tired, very tired, and annoyed that I hadn’t thought to ask Vilor and Lyrias more about Gulk when I had the chance.
“Quick revive!” Gerry blurted out, making me jump.
“What?”
“A quick revive spell. I’m thinkin’ this bloke requires brains over brawn, which means we’ve gotta be doin’ the right combination of spells or we’re never gonna take him down.”
I gave him a few seconds to explain himself, but apparently he too was bloody exhausted and couldn’t read my obviously waiting expression, “And..?”
“Huh? Oh yeah, sorry, what I was saying was that hypothetically speaking if I revive him he’ll come back to life and die.”
“Do you really think that that’ll work?”
“Nothing else seems to be.”
There was a risk that doing what Gerry suggested could easily just get Gulk back up to full strength, I’m sure he knew that too, but he was right, nothing else was working and we were so damn close to getting to Aldok.
I took a deep breath, looked between Gulk, Vilor, Lyrias, and then finally back to Gerry, and nodded, “Do it.”
The flames stopped pouring out of Gerry’s hands and instead became wrapped in a calming blue light, “I’d take a few steps backwards if I were you.”
I went to take his advice, terrified that I would definitely end up getting absolutely annihilated if Gulk was brought back to full power, but I stopped just short of moving and shook my head, “He gets up, he gets up. I’m sticking by you.”
Gerry gave me a little smile and then turned back to Gulk, “You know what? You’re pretty crazy. Let’s rock and roll.”
With that, Gerry pushed his hands to Gulk’s head, to which the powerful undead necromancer screamed and roared, his green eyes burning with blue light as his entire body took on a new magical radiance.
And then his health started to go up.
“Stop.” I said, watching on in horror as Gulk regained his strength, “Gerry, seriously, stop.”
“I can’t,” Gerry grunted, his hands locked on Gulk’s head, “the spell takes ten seconds to finish.”
“Then just stop the spell!” I shouted as I started taking a few steps back, “Do something else!”
“I can’t! It needs to-”
Grand Gerry the Good cast Quick Revive.
An explosion of light silenced us both as the spell finished, leaving us both blinded as we waited to be met with our gruesome, bone snapping deaths.
But that didn’t happen.
No, instead when we finally had our vision returned to us we saw Gulk the Just standing there, a faded outline of Gerry’s blue handprints still on his head while his hands sat peacefully crossed across his stomach as his HP bar started to tumble at an exponential rate.
“You have freed me,” the fast-ageing man said with an ethereal voice, “and for that I-”
Kylia: Chapter 11
“Kylia!” Gerald shouted so I could hear him past my headset, snapping me to reality and forcing me to pause Tarthirious, “Someone’s at the door.”
“Nope.” I replied flatly as I clumsily got to my feet and saw that daylight had well and truly come, “Nopity, nope, nope, nope.”
“I know, right?” Gerald laughed, having equally as much trouble as I did in getting to his feet, “It’s like… well, nope.”
I nodded and rubbed my eyes, “Not a much better way to say it than that.”
My sentences were clunky, I could feel the words coming out all weird as my tired brain churned them out like a printer with low ink, but at least Gerald understood what I was saying.
Then I heard the knocks, loud enough to catch my attention, but not so hard that whoever it was was likely to punch a hole through the door.
“You two awake in there?” a familiar voice asked through the door, “Or should I come back later?”
I seriously considered telling him to come back later, but then I remembered how good Will had been to us over the past few weeks and couldn’t help but say “Not at all, just give us a sec.”
Gerald was noticeably dissatisfied with that response, though he was quick to regain his composure and put a smile back on his face.
Some part of me knew that that was for my benefit, and that part of me was positively singing with fuzzy f
eelings, but the other parts of me wanted to just pass out right where I was standing.
Each step to the door I waited for my legs to give out and let me collapse into a snoozy pile on the floor.
One.
Two.
Three.
“Hi,” I said with a defeated sigh as I pulled the door open and saw Will’s happy face, “how you been?”
“How’ve I been?” Will laughed, looking between Bri and Ronald, who’d apparently been sent back to be our guard detail during the night, “You’re the ones bein’ kept ‘ere on account of a bunch o’ tits back home tryin’ to blow you up! Heh, ‘how you been’. Anyway, you gonna let me in?”
Gotta say that Will upped my spirits a bit.
“Yeah,” I replied with a smile, “sure, come on in. What brings you to our little safe house?”
“I wanted to check up on you is all,” he said as looked around the little cottage, “it’s been a while since I was able to check on you two, and that don’t exactly sit well with me. But you two seem pretty comfortable.”
“Yeah, can’t complain. Hey, weird question, you wouldn’t happen to know the time would you?”
Will shook the sleeve up on his coat and checked his watch, “Just past half-nine.” he said before pulling his coat off and draping it over one of the dining chairs, “What? You two pull an all-nighter or somethin’? What am I sayin’? Course you did. You two look proper knackered.”
I rubbed my neck and nodded, “Yeah, yeah, I know. You kinda forget how much work and that dictates your life, you know? Without that structure we’re just kinda…” I trailed off as I started snapping my fingers to try and remember what clearly must’ve been the most difficult word in the English language.
“Lost?” Gerald asked, finishing my sentence with the grace that I could not.
“Yeah, that’s the one, lost.”
Will looked between the two of us for a few seconds, sizing up whether we were just messing with him or if we were genuinely that out of it, and then laughed, “Let’s get you guys somethin’ to eat. I take it the blokes out front handle getting you food, yeah?”
Legends of Tarthirious: The Complete Collection Page 52
