Defenders of the Realm

by Dave Willmarth

  When they were all in position and ready, Alexander dropped the wall. Instead of liquefying it, he’d had a bit of inspiration. This time he discussed it with Sasha first. What he did was soften the base of the wall on the left and right sides. Then Lugs and the rock troll simply shoved on it. It toppled forward, crushing any undead creatures within the first 10 feet or so. This had the added advantage of allowing the dwarves to fire three volleys of crossbow bolts into the enemy before they reached the line of tanks. Between the wall and the devastating ranged attacks, half the remaining undead perished in the first thirty seconds.

  Brick and the tanks took over, pushing the remaining undead back with much less effort now that their numbers were so reduced. The dwarves worked in rhythm with the front line, growling out a war chant as they worked.

  Stand and fight all day and longer

  Blood and pain just makes ye stronger

  Crush their skulls n break their bones

  Stand side by side to defend our homes

  Make them shake at the sound o’ our song

  Ne’er stop till our beards grow long

  And so it went. The tanks pushed, the dwarves behind drove forward their spears, and the enemy fell at their feet. Time after time to the rhythm of the chant. The dwarves truly seemed to be enjoying themselves. Lugs got so into it he incorporated a little booty-shake as he stepped forward. Much to the amusement of those behind. Sasha gave him a little wolf-whistle. The morale of Alexander’s army was high, now that there was light at the end of the tunnel.

  By the time they’d pushed the enemy all the way back through the choke point, there were only a few dozen left. They were pushed back into the trench atop the few stragglers who hadn’t made it out. Sasha cast an AOE Thorn Trap at the bottom of the trench, and Alexander lit them on fire. Lugs pulled several long spears out of his bag. Keeping one for himself, he passed them out among the dwarves and they made short work of the remaining zombies. Alexander then used his Earth Mover skill to raise the pit back up to ground level. Silverbeard and a few others were looting the corpses as they moved forward through the mine. A few of the undead were incapacitated, but not quite dead. They’d lost arms and legs or had a spine severed, but could still move. Fibble led the way, shouting Pew! Pew! as he finished them off with his magic stick.

  When they reached the courtyard, his army spread out, located the trapped enemies, and destroyed them. Alexander asked “Jeeves, how many undead left in the area?”

  “There are twenty-one roaming about in the woods within the area of the mine. And one remaining inside the mine.”

  “Inside the mine?” Alexander asked. Then it clicked. “That damn elf! The one I thought was the necromancer! He’s in the mine, and probably headed for the pit!”

  Sasha called out “Dwarves! Use some of this stone and fill the breach in the wall! Max, Lainey, take the hunters and track those last few undead!”

  Then Alexander, Brick, Sasha, Grumpy, Fibble, Lugs and Helga dashed back into to the mine. As they ran, Alexander called out “Jeeves! Show me on the map where the undead elf is inside the mine.”

  He pulled up his map and zoomed it out to encompass the entire mine. The image rotated and turned on its axis, so he was looking at a multi-level image. A red dot appeared on the third level down. It was moving slowly but surely down the ramp toward the bottom.

  Wasting no time, Alexander teleported his group to the bottom of the pit. They found the Guardian and the dragons there, gazing upward. Barin pointed as soon as he saw Alexander. “The kobolds smelled something dead. They went up to investigate. Did the army break through?”

  “No. The army is all but gone. This is one undead elf that may be the necromancer that created the army.”

  Barin growled deep in his chest. “Foul thing! We will utterly destroy it!”

  Just as he finished his sentence, dead kobold dropped from above and smashed into the floor. A moment later it rose and tried to bite one of the dragons. The dragon crushed its head between her hands, letting the body drop limply to the floor. Several more kobolds dropped to the floor and rose again to battle the dragons.

  “You guys take care of the kobolds and watch over the Guardian. This damned elf is mine!” Alexander ordered. “Guardian, please call your kobolds back before they’re all dead.”

  He dashed to the ramp and ran upward. As he moved he cast a magic shield in front of himself. It was a spell he hadn’t practiced much, and he had no illusions it would stop an attack like one of those dark bolts the elf had hit him with before. But every little bit helped.

  He didn’t have far to go before frightened kobolds came fleeing toward him down the ramp. He hugged the wall to let them pass, noting that not many were left. As the last of them passed, he caught sight of the elf following behind.

  “Necromancer!” he shouted at the pallid, half-rotted elf. He cast a Ray or Light into the thing’s face, sending it staggering “Your masters should have sent someone stronger.” He Identified the thing as he hit it with another Ray of Light burst.

  Underlord Verrotten

  Undead Elf Necromancer

  Level 70

  Health 36,600/44,000

  The elf recovered from the blast to the face and growled at Alexander. “You should be dead, boy. How did you survive the deathworm?”

  “Deathworm? That’s what you call it? We call it the shit-weasel spell. It’s a joke to us. If that’s all you’ve got, then this is going to be a short fight.” Alexander taunted the necromancer. “Your army was pathetic, even as a distraction. Less than two hundred of us wiped them all out. You should apologize to your demon masters.”

  The elf began to chant and move his hands. Alexander simply flicked a finger and cast Levitate on the undead. Raising him from the ground didn’t interrupt Verrotten’s cast, so Alexander flicked his hand quickly to the side. The elf slammed into the wall with a wet squelching sound. One of his wrists broke on impact, and his spell was interrupted. He screamed in rage at Alexander.

  “When I kill you, I will raise your corpse and use it as my personal slave. You will lick the blood and bile from my floors as you watch me kill your people and add them to my army one by one!”

  “You’re just a simple necromancer, oh underlord stinkypants. You should have become a lich. You might have lived more than a few more minutes.” Alexander slammed the elf against the wall again, then let him drop. He cast Wizard’s Fire, setting the thing ablaze before drawing his sword and stepping forward. The necromancer saw the divinely blessed sword and scrambled backward, feeling no pain from its broken wrist as it crawled. Alexander raised his sword and was just a step away from swinging it when the elf shouted a short phrase, and everything went black.

  Alexander froze. One misstep and he could tumble off the ramp into the pit. The fall wasn’t that far, but he needed to stop the elf here.

  He heard laughter in the darkness. “Elves. Can’t see in the dark, can you? Neither could I, when I was alive.”

  The voice was coming from his left, so he turned to face it. A sharp impact to his hip was followed by a searing pain. His health bar dropped by about 10% in an instant.

  The cloud of darkness around him was so thick he couldn’t see his own body. So he reached for his hip with his off-hand and promptly sliced his fingers on a blade of some kind. His health bar dipped lower.

  “That’s a poisoned blade, boy. Strong enough to kill a dragon. It’ll eat away at you until the pain drives you insane! Then you’ll be mine.”

  Alexander remembered the poison that had nearly killed Kai before Fitz had saved him. Fitz had said it was a tool of the drow wizards. So this necromancer was definitely working for them.

  His health bar was now down to 70% and ticking away steadily. He cast a Ray of Light spell in the direction of the dead elf’s voice, but the spell just disappeared into the darkness. He desperately swung his sword in a horizontal arc hoping to strike his foe with a lucky shot. That failed too.

  Alexander cast a
light globe right in front of him, but it too disappeared in the darkness. Whatever spell this was, it was powerful. His health bar now at 50%, he was running out of time. He needed to locate the necromancer.

  “Even if you get past me, which you won’t, you have no hope of defeating the guardian.” He taunted the elf.

  “I have no need to defeat him. I will simply open a portal and invite the demon horde back to claim what is rightfully ours!” Verrotten hissed. Alexander oriented on the voice and cast another Ray of Light burst. This one struck home, and the elf growled in pain. He began to mutter a familiar sounding spell and was clearly moving as he spoke.

  Alexander’s health had dropped to 30%. He needed to deal with the poison before his time ran out altogether. Closing his eyes, he put his bleeding hand back onto the blade in his torso and used the divine spell he’d been given. At the same time, he gripped the blade and pulled.

  There was searing pain as the blade exited his flesh, its barbed edge causing more damage on the way out. The divine magic battled with the poison in is system.

  The struggle was short. No poison could hold up long against divine power. He felt the pain lessen a bit as his health bar stopped dropping at 20%. He gulped down a healing potion, then cast a Healing Light spell on himself as well.

  “Your little blade didn’t do its job, necromancer. What else have got?”

  Alexander regretted that he asked. The necromancer finished his chanting and Alexander was nearly knocked off his feet by an impact to his chest. There was a high pitched scream as the shit-weasel rebounded from his mithril shirt and hit the floor with a wet smacking sound. Alexander stabbed at the sound with his sword several times before another scream indicated he’d skewered the deathworm.

  Another blow struck Alexander, this time to the head. A physical blow, not magical. So, the elf could see him in the dark. He activated Mage Sight, and just a single step in front of him was the necromancer. He raised his sword and the elf took a step backward. Alexander followed, jabbing his sword and pushing the undead elf against the wall. He used his Earth Mover spell to soften the rock behind the elf, and pushed him into it. He stopped and solidified the rock when the elf was about half entombed. The broken arm was completely encased in the stone, while the front half of the elf’s face and body were still visible.

  The necromancer’s free hand held a staff, which he swung awkwardly at Alexander. He blocked the blow with his sword, then pushed the staff upward. He kicked the elf in the gut, but got no reaction, as the necromancer didn’t need to breathe.

  The staff was coming down at him, but rather than block it, Alexander took the hit to his shoulder. Then he swung his own sword downward and severed the arm that held the staff at the wrist. The elf screamed as the blessed blade seared through his skin. He pulled the stump back and held it close to his chest, struggling to try and free his other arm from the stone.

  Alexander took a moment to cast another heal on himself. He was now back to 60% health. He raised his sword and placed the point an inch from the necromancer’s eye. “I’m going to kill you, you piece of shit. The only question is whether it’s going to be quick, or slow and painful.” To emphasize his point, he placed the flat of the blade against the elf’s cheek and let it sizzle the rotted flesh for a moment. Verrotten screamed in agony and tried to push the blade away with his stump. The stench was awful, and Alexander pulled the blade away himself.

  “Now. Tell me how you were going to open the portal for your masters.” Alexander instructed. He held the blade up in front of Verrotten’s eyes so that he could see the still bubbling flesh that clung to it.

  The necromancer mumbled a few words, then spat a foul liquid into Alexander’s face. His skin began to burn and bubble, then peel away. The pain was intense, and nearly caused him to panic. An injury to an arm or a leg is easy enough to accept, but nobody likes the idea of damage to their face. Alexander backed away and frantically cast Healing Light on himself. When that didn’t stop the spread of the pain, he dug in his bag for a cure poison potion and gulped that down. The potion did the trick, stopping the spread of the decomposition and easing the pain slowly. He cast another heal on himself, then just for spite hit the necromancer with Healing Light as well.

  Verrotten’s scream of agony devolved into a string of curses. One in particular mentioned Alexander’s mother. That earned him a poke in the shoulder with the divinely painful blade, and the screaming resumed.

  “I’ve got all day” Alexander withdrew the sword and wiped it on the necromancer’s robe. “You can tell me what I want to know, or we can test how long your rotted vocal cords will hold out.”

  The elf glared at him and began to mumble again. Alexander took hold of his stump with one hand and pressed the blade against it with the other as if cauterizing a wound. Again there was screaming, and the ghastly stench of burning rotted flesh. Alexander quickly inspected the necromancer to make sure he wasn’t too near death.

  Underlord Verrotten

  Undead Elf Necromancer

  Level 70

  Health 7,100/44,000

  Alexander had forgotten how much damage the enchanted sword did to the undead. He lowered it to his side and made a mental note to stop using it. At least until he got the info he wanted.

  Verrotten spat again, this time at the ground, before saying “I’m carrying a portal orb.”

  Alexander let out a breath. “How do you activate the orb?”

  “There’s a simple phrase. Or it can be activated remotely by my master.” The elf growled at him. “Now kill me!”

  “Not so fast. What’s the phrase? I might want to pay your master a visit. And who IS your master, by the way?”

  The necromancer glared at him, not speaking. Alexander raised the sword again, pointing the tip at Verrotten’s eye. “Answer me!”

  With both eyes focused on the point of the blade, the undead elf began to curse again. Alexander moved the blade closer, so that it was millimeters from the eye.

  “The phrase is ‘Póg mo thóin’. And my master will reveal himself to you soon enough!”

  Alexander was tempted to just kill the necromancer then and there. However, he recognized the phrase, a well-known Irish insult he’d learned as a kid. His first reaction was that the elf was screwing with him. But he stayed his hand when a realization hit him. This NPC would not have any way to know any Irish phrases. It must be one of the developer’s idea of a joke.

  “I’m not in the mood to wait for your master to come out of the closet. His name, now. Or I burn away some more of your moldy arse.”

  Verrotten was silent for some time. Alexander held his stare unflinchingly. Eventually the necromancer gave up. “I know not his true name. He is called simply “Dark One” among our people. He speaks of you often, boy. You may have defeated me, but he is coming for you. And he has promised your death will take weeks!”

  “And where is this ‘Dark One’ now? Cuz I have to tell you, I already killed one Dark One last week. We put his head above our manure pile behind the stables to scare the flies away. If there’s another so-called Dark One, I may have to start a collection.”

  “Fool! The drow you killed was merely a servant of the true Dark One!” The elf struggled to get free again. A thought occurred to Alexander. “A servant? Or his father?” he mused more to himself than the undead elf.

  “You wish to know where my master is? Activate the portal orb! I am certain the army of demon minions will happily escort you to him.” Verrotten sneered at him.

  Deciding he had all he needed from the necromancer, he said “I’m going to free your arm. You will remove your bag and hand it to me. Then I will give you a quick death.”

  He liquefied the stone encasing the dead elf’s arm. It obediently dropped its inventory bag on the floor and spat in Alexander’s face again.

  Alexander truly had meant to give the necromancer a clean second death. But the rank spittle on his cheek changed his mind. Instead he softened the stone again and
pushed Verrotten deep inside with the end of his sword pressed against the elf’s breastbone. When he was at the end of his reach, he withdrew the sword and hardened the stone. He then etched a rough skull into the stone, in case he wanted to come back and find this elf later.

  He shouted at the stone to be sure Verrotten could hear him. “I know you don’t have to breathe, so you won’t die in there! Enjoy the next several hundred years!”

  Lifting the bag, he began to walk back down to the chamber at the bottom. He found the kobolds huddled in a corner, looking nervously at the dragons standing over the bodies of Verrotten’s kobold victims.

  “The necromancer is dead. Well, I mean, he was already dead. Now he’s trapped deep within the stone above.”

  Geb actually grinned at that. “A fitting prison. Lifeless stone for one who stole so many lives.”

  Alexander opened the necromancer’s bag and located the orb. Pulling it out, he showed it to Geb and the dragons. “He planned to open a portal for the demons to transport directly here.” He put it back in the bag, and dropped the whole thing into his inventory to be examined later. “We’ve seen several of these orbs. The minions of the ‘Dark One’ have placed them in dungeons and other locations. It gives me an idea.”

  Geb’s eyebrows rose, as did Barin’s. The Guardian said, “Do tell us your plan, Alexander.”

  “Well, you said yourself that I shouldn’t fight on ground of the enemy’s choosing. And with this, I can choose the battleground. We were trying to figure out when they’d come charging through the forest behind the undead army. Their plan was not to do that at all. They’re expecting this portal to open soon, and when it does they will come pouring through. I’m thinking we place the portal someplace to our advantage before I open it. Someplace hazardous to a demon’s health. The center of a lava pool, maybe.”

  The dragons laughed out loud at this. Barin clapped Alexander on the back. “Good thinking, your Majesty. Why fight the demon horde if you can trick them into suicide? I see why prince Kaibonostrum is so fond of you!”