“Alex? Bobby? Tamara?” He called out, voice quivering. “Yo, this isn’t funny, guys. Where’d you douches go?”
There was a gentle scrape of steel and the shuffle of heavy feet.
“Hello,” EdgeGod called out louder this time, his nasally voice ringing off the ceiling.
The whistle of a feathered shaft carving through the air greeted him in reply.
The arrow slammed into his neck, quickly followed by a second and third shaft. The woefully unprepared hero staggered back, eyes wide, blood drooling from his mouth as a pack of young Thursrs tore around a corner, barreling straight for him. Roark threw back his head and laughed before switching views, finding out what had happened to the rest of his unfortunate test subjects.
The higher-level Moon Shaman, Stinky_Pinky, backpedaled through a cathedralic nave, lit by the weak combination of a single glowing Infernal stained-glass oculus high on the rear wall and a dozen or so pale blue witch lights wandering between the rotting and burnt wooden pews. The third floor, then.
Hazy yellow-silver light surrounded Stinky_Pinky in a halo as he cast spell after spell at Grozka the Zealot, Third Floor Overseer. Shrugging off the hero’s attempts to stop her, the heavily armored Thursr Knight advanced, raising her spiked scepter of charred black metal. Stinky_Pinky quivered with intimidation at the sight of her. Even Roark had to admit that Grozka cut a damned impressive figure in her plate armor and stag-horn helm. The Shaman skittered back another few paces and tripped over a downed pew, landing in a sprawl of limbs as Grozka’s honor guard stood around the perimeter of the room, leering, cheering, chanting, “Finish him! Finish him! Finish him!”
The Moon Shaman raised a fist, power thrumming in his palm, an archaic chant building on his lips—
Grozka’s scepter fell, cutting the spell off in an instant. Howls of victory roared as Roark swapped the view again, this time finding the rest of the Heroes in a pitched battle in the torture chamber located on the second floor. Wrought iron cages hung from the ceiling, many of them dripping with fresh gore. Others contained grinning skeletons from distinctly nonhuman creatures. Breaking cradles, blackthorn beds, stretching racks, and grime-covered stocks were strewn around the room, interspersed with blood-soaked tables.
The party of heroes was encircled by Elite Thursrs and low-level Reavers, pressing in from all sides as the heroes screamed and fought, hopelessly outnumbered. Thoroughly pleased with the functionality of his new system, Roark dismissed the scene of carnage and chortled to himself.
“I take it things are going well?” Zyra asked.
He smiled. “It’s a thing of beauty. I just wish you could see it. Now come on, let’s go get your ingredient...”
Rock Eggs
“AND THEN KAZ MET WITH Ishri the Cunning of Bloodleech Grotto,” Kaz said, swinging his Legendary Meat Tenderizer in a wide arc that crushed the head of a [Rock Wyvernling] with a screech and splatter of blood. “And he, too, spoke of seeing action before any agreement could be struck.”
Roark ducked the geyser of acid spewed by an [Elder Rock Wyvern], then aimed his open palm at its birdlike chest and fired off a level 3 Stone Lance. Three feet of twisted stone spiral tore through his hand, eliciting a shout of pain first from him, then from the Elder Rock Wyvern he’d targeted as it pierced the breast. The creature’s Health dropped by a mere sliver.
Zyra hadn’t seemed overjoyed at the prospect of Kaz tagging along with them as they left the Cruel Citadel, but now that they were here, Roark was glad they’d brought the Knight Thursr. For one, he wasn’t sure he could’ve kept the entire flock of Wyverns distracted from Zyra by himself. And second, Kaz had returned with word from the other Dungeons, and that was news Roark didn’t want to wait on. Though, admittedly, it wasn’t the report Roark had been hoping for...
“That’s seven, then,” Roark panted. “And not a bloody one willing to say yes or no until they see a marketplace.”
The other Dungeon Lords’ demand for proof first made good sense, especially considering Roark was asking them to go to war against the most powerful dungeon in Hearthworld, but that didn’t mean he was happy about it.
Kaz swatted another Wyvernling out of the sky with a crunch. With a chirp of glee, Mac went waddling after the scraggly creature to finish it off. At first, the Young Turtle Dragon had waited patiently at Roark’s side for him to bring down the much larger, frilled Elder ... until he saw that Kaz was knocking the babies off like flies while Roark was making almost no progress toward killing the parent.
“But they did sound very interested,” Kaz said, lazily smashing a third against the sparkling surface of a cliff face. “Especially after Kaz explained about skewers. Oh and salt. Ishri the Cunning seemed very much interested in learning more about salt—though only in the right amount, of course.”
The Elder Rock Wyvern swooped low and let loose another gout of acid. Roark threw himself into a roll. Rocks sizzled where he’d been as the acid ate through them. Roark targeted the creature with Infernal Torment, one of his Jotnar spells. Purple tongues of fire burned through the Elder’s pebbly skin as it was cooked alive from the inside out, but its red Health bar dropped to barely less than three-quarters full.
Roark scowled as he heard the shriek and crunch of another Wyvernling behind him. Since they’d first arrived in the Star Iron Hills, fragile Wyvernlings had been swarming the Mighty Gourmet by the tens and twenties, each one meeting with a gruesome end against the flat of Kaz’s Legendary Meat Tenderizer. The nearly unkillable Elder, however, hadn’t bloody looked away from Roark once.
“Have you got that egg yet?” Roark called up the cliff, eyes never leaving the circling, diving Elder.
“A few more feet,” Zyra’s voice came filtering down along with a dusting of pebbles.
“Has Roark noticed yet that Zyra says ‘a few more feet’ every time he asks?” Kaz asked, splattering another wyvern baby across the Star Iron–flecked rocks.
Mac clambered back over the rocks to check in on Roark’s fight. He’d been doing so every few Wyvernlings, not wanting to be left out if Roark ever finally did kill the Elder.
“The next Dungeon Lord you talk to, mention that we’ve already recruited a Book Binder, a Flesh Barber, a Bulwark Engineer and that our merchant is on the way,” Roark said. In truth, only one, Jorfas the Bulwark Engineer, was already setting up shop in the citadel, but according to Griff the other two had agreed to come as soon as Variok was in place. But that final piece of the puzzle was all but complete. More or less. As soon as they were finished with Zyra’s quest, they would be off to Chillend. “See if that doesn’t make them more willing to commit.”
As if drawn by Roark’s breathless voice, the Elder Rock Wyvern swooped, this time both spewing acid and slashing with its wickedly curved Star Iron talons. Roark dropped Infernal Torment and threw up his shield. The Elder screeched in frustration as it scraped along the violet barrier. The creature lost altitude, its smooth arc disrupted, and nearly fell prey to the jaws of a surprisingly springy Young Turtle Dragon. Mac had leapt from a boulder at the Elder like a wolf trying to snatch an eagle out of the sky. His razor-sharp beak clipped the very end of the Elder’s tail, but the creature pumped its massive leathery wings like mad, regaining the sky.
The momentary distraction, however, had given Roark time to scribble a Ball Lightning spell in one of his level 4 spell slots. He sent the spell crashing toward the Elder. A sparking ball of green-white energy and plasma slammed into the back of the creature’s neck, just below the skull.
Incensed, the Elder Rock Wyvern banked sharply and folded its wings, diving. As it approached, it extended clawed feet tipped with six-inch talons.
Roark steeled himself; this next move was going to hurt, but hopefully the pain would be worth the payoff. The Elder slashed at Roark’s eyes, opening gashes across his face and upraised arms. But the moment it was within reach, Roark tagged the creature with the flat of his hand, triggering Hex-Touch.
Hex-Touch
> Lay hands on any enemy and trigger Hex-Touch; any creature with an Intelligence score lower than the caster is Cursed! for the duration of the spell. Hex-Touch inflicts a -10 against (1) Attribute Score—Strength, Constitution, Dexterity, Intelligence—of the caster’s choice for the duration of the spell! If the enemy dies while Cursed!, caster receives an additional 10% experience! Hex-Touch can be inscribed in a second level, third level, or fourth level spell slot. Inscribing Hex-Touch at higher level spell slots increases the duration of the Curse! Second level spell duration, 10 minutes. Third level spell duration, 1 hour. Fourth level spell duration, 8 hours.
Text appeared before Roark’s eyes.
[You have cast level 2 Hex-Touch on Elder Rock Wyvern. You may choose (1) Attribute Score to inflict a -10 penalty against for the duration of the spell, 10 minutes. Which Attribute Score would you like to Curse? Strength, Constitution, Dexterity, or Intelligence?]
Roark selected Constitution. Unfortunately, no change was immediately apparent. He hit the Elder with a second round of Infernal Torment. This time, however, its red bar drained at a more reasonable speed, the plum-colored flames licking away at its Health until less than half remained.
Encouraged by the gain, Roark traded the spells for his Bow of the Fleet-Fingered Hunter and nocked a trio of exploding-tip arrows. He could wait until the creature circled back around, but the range of the bow was more than double the range of most of his spells, plus it was always best to preserve his magick when a common attack would do the same job. His limited supply of Infernal spells simply took too long to regenerate to cast thoughtlessly.
He took a breath to still his rampaging pulse and followed the retreating Elder. With the Flawed Jade he’d added to the bow, his eyesight was Enchanted to four times its usual ability. Roark could see the ragged holes growing in the Elder wyvern’s wing, the crimp Mac’s beak had left in its tail, the slight hitch in each flap of its right wing.
From above came a shout from Zyra. Kaz cheered in response, but Roark ignored them both. He targeted the injured wing and loosed.
The trio of arrows flew true, exploding as they struck, nearly tearing the Elder Rock Wyvern’s wing completely off its body. The creature spiraled to the ground with a shriek.
Just before it hit, Mac leapt out from behind a pile of boulders and snatched the wyvern by the throat. The Young Turtle Dragon shook its prey viciously, the sound of ripping flesh filling the air.
With the sure-footed grace of a child of the mountains, Roark sprinted across the rock-strewn slope to where they’d landed, switching out the bow for his rapier and dagger. By the time he reached them, however, Mac had torn the head from the Elder Rock Wyvern.
The Young Turtle Dragon gave a proud but muffled chirp as Roark stopped by his side.
“Well done, mate,” Roark said, stowing his dagger to scratch Mac’s blood-soaked beard.
“Roark!” Kaz shouted. “Zyra did it! She reached the Rock Wyvern nest!”
Roark turned back to find the Knight Thursr leaning back and staring up the cliff at Zyra, who was clambering down much faster than she’d climbed up. A little too fast for someone with no experience in the mountains. She wasn’t testing any of the hand or footholds before putting her full weight on them, just grabbing on and going.
As soon as Roark thought this, a rock ledge crumbled in Zyra’s hand and she dropped. Roark broke into a run. He slammed into a wall of Thursr, knocking an oof from a surprised Kaz, who was also trying to catch the falling Reaver.
A moment later, a pile of long arms and legs wrapped in black leathers crashed down on top of them both, driving them to the ground and extracting a fraction of the red liquid from Roark’s filigreed Health vial.
A gray-green egg the size of a musk melon slammed into the ground beside them, erupting in a fountain of foul-smelling green yolk.
“No!” Kaz howled, trying to disentangle himself from them and get at the broken mess. “Take Kaz, but not Zyra’s quest egg! Nooooooooooo!”
“It’s all right, big guy,” Zyra said, sitting up. “I only need the shell, Kaz!”
The hooded Reaver was so busy trying to quell Kaz’s dismay that she didn’t seem to realize she was straddling Roark’s lap. Roark, however, was very aware of the fact—and of the need to get her off of him before he embarrassed them both.
“Kaz, I only need the shell,” Zyra shouted again, louder this time.
“Oh.” Kaz sighed with relief. “That is very lucky.”
Rather than make a move to stand, Zyra leaned over and started plucking eggshell from the gooey green debris.
“Zyra,” Roark said, straining to sound casual and failing by several degrees. “Could you let me up?”
The shadowy opening of her hood swiveled to look down at him, and she gave a little lurch of surprise.
“Ah—sorry.” She scrambled off him with an unusual lack of grace and no sarcastic comment at all. Her hood turned this way and that, every which way but toward Roark. “Did I hurt you? Do you need a Sufficient Health Potion?”
“No,” Roark said, standing and dusting himself off. An Icy Torrential Downpour wouldn’t go amiss, though. “I’m fine.” He hastily cleared his throat. “Now, what’s our next ingredient?”
Zyra produced a wooden rack of glass tubes and a tiny bottle from her Inventory. She set the lot of it on a flatter boulder and began to crush the Rock Wyvern Eggshell into smaller pieces in her fist.
“Actually,” she said, dropping the chunks into one of the tubes, “I obtained the Haint Orchid petals I needed while you were busy blowing yourself up last night.”
She brought out a velvet pouch, then picked a spectral blue petal from inside and dropped it into the tiny bottle. A concentrated, ghostly flame peeked from the mouth, hissing with preternatural intensity. Carefully, Zyra tipped the eggshell into the flame, then swirled the bottle’s contents. The flame shifted from green to magenta to that ghostly blue again before disappearing altogether. The hissing sound slowly tapered off.
“Done!” Zyra said. She jammed a cork into the potion bottle, then slipped it into her black leathers.
An ascending chime rang through the Star Iron Hills as she leveled up.
“And that’s done as well,” Zyra said. “Say hello to your Master Alchemist, Dungeon Lord.”
Kaz clapped enthusiastically. “Kaz knew Zyra could do it!”
She took a mock bow, one hand folded behind her back, the other sweeping out grandly.
“Congratulations.” Something was wrong with this, but Roark was having a hard time putting his finger on what exactly. “What was it? The potion?”
“Nothing,” she said dismissively. “Just another poison.”
“It must’ve been something rather special to require such rare ingredients,” he pushed.
Zyra shrugged a shoulder. “It’s not exciting for anyone but poison enthusiasts. Now,” she said, slick as spilled oil, “don’t we have a merchant to spring from jail?”
Sensing he wouldn’t get a straight answer from the hooded Reaver and newly minted Master Alchemist, Roark relented. No matter how strange Zyra was acting, she was right. The sooner they got Variok out of Chillend, the sooner they could get the mob marketplace open for business and start preparing for war.
Favors
SCOTT BAYANI RAISED his Unique Mace of Elemental Culmination, blue lightning popping and sparking between its razor-sharp flanges, and shouted out another healing spell. Blue spheres surrounded each of the party members, refilling their Health and Magick.
Of course, as soon as he did it, [Bro_Fo], the douche he was getting paid to push through the Tidal Caves, stepped right into a barrage of Venomous Sea Urchins summoned by [Sssshwsssh the Merfolk Overlord].
Scott rolled his eyes and hit the Overlord with a Lightning Lance—one of his most powerful offensive spells—then healed that dummy Bro_Fo again.
He just had to keep thinking of the money.
Five grand in gold pieces to get Bad_Karma’s newbie you
nger brother through some slightly harder than normal dungeons, power-leveling the entitled little nutsack to at least level 20. If not for the solid five Gs, Scott thought, he would kill Bro_Fo himself. The little asswipe was seriously the worst.
Scott hadn’t planned to go back to his guild yet, but when Bad_Karma said jump, you mashed Y like your membership depended on it. Because it did. Not only was Karma one of the guild’s founders, but he was number one on the server—and that was playing in Hardcore Mode. One death and Bad_Karma’s character would be gone forever, but the dude had gone fifty levels so far without dying. Even Scott had to admit that was impressive.
If only his moron little brother had half that skill.
The Merfolk Overlord’s HP dropped to twenty-five percent, triggering the boss bullshit. Scott braced himself for something underhanded and shitty. Fishman was a level 34, after all, so his final mode should be epic.
But the Merfolk Overlord just splayed his gill fronds, making a hissing, rattling sound like a dinosaur from that classic movie, Jurassic Park, and split into five.
Major letdown. All intimidation and scare tactics, but each copy only had a fifth of the HP the original had when it split.
Scott zapped one fishman with a Lightning Lance, one-shotting it outright, then hit another with the same, knocking its HP down to barely breathing. Bro_Fo swept in and killed the second one, soaking up that Experience he’d paid for, while the other guys in the party whaled on the rest.
Weirdly enough, he found himself comparing the Merfolk loser to that dick modder, the Griefer. Sure, Overlord Splish-splash was tough, but like only as tough as he was supposed to be. No surprises, no last-minute cheats. You got exactly what you paid for with this guy and not a penny more.
Troll Nation Page 9
