Devil's Waltz

by Dante Sakurai

  Redwing hurled a close-range, low-power mortar. The icy missile met its mark in seconds, and the beast’s scaled hide gave way in the impact. Follow-up bolts tore into its soft skin and exposed underbelly. Serrated ice blended swaths of frozen, bloodied flesh, and Rowan sneaked in an Examine.

  Young Red Dragon: Level 272

  Health: 20,100

  Mana: 5,500

  Stamina: 24,200

  Only a grunt—not their World Boss. Unsurprising.

  The next Young Red Dragon flared into the swarm as the first struggled on the tall grass, followed by another, then two more in quick succession. Searing winds melted the surface layers of Rowan’s shield.

  The swarm met the four head-on, Redwing micromanaging the forces with his vaster mind along with Seth who was hovering at the right wing. Back and forth, left and right, minions dashed and buzzed in a chaotic shuffle to dodge streams of molten air, fiery claws, and barbed tails. Harpies fell, a few per second. Their control wasn’t without flaw, but it was better than anything Rowan could muster on his own.

  Meanwhile, Rowan finished off the downed youngling with three Tainted Ice Blasts to its head, wounded to death—as the prophecy foretold. But its level was too high for a Raise, unless…

  Three more younglings rocketed into the fray while Rowan fussed over spending more skill-tier points on Raise. So far, he’d pumped every precious point into the skill, and there was no method of resetting them even if his class changed—an element of permanence. He wasn’t a fan, especially when this was his one and only character.

  “What are you doing?!” Seth yelled.

  “Three skill-tier points on Raise, then I can target that corpse!”

  Seth snarled something unintelligible in the dark language. “There is a drop from tier ten solo and group dungeons that grants tier points.”

  Fucking hell. “Why didn’t Gabby tell me?” At the edge of his sight, the second beast was downed. Its iced corpse crashed into trees.

  “Tier ten dungeons hardly ever spawn. The portal keys are rarer.” He pointed with his blade and blasted a suicidal, dying dragon hurtling toward Redwing, decapitating the enraged reptile. Its body tumbled down a hillside into a river.

  Rowan’s eyes rolled as another dragon fell onto the encampment’s outer tents—and five more Young Reds flamed into the conflict. A tenth of the Harpies had already perished, over a hundred. Now wasn’t the moment for hesitation; these were just lesser dragons apart from baby whelps. Ambiguous had described several types, the younglings weak and common. They could be coming along with a World Boss.

  But three tier points was still another three tier points. Raise had already eaten the first four.

  Maybe I can win with just my ice summons.

  Swallowing, Rowan gazed through momentary gaps in the mist, ignoring the chaos unfolding before him, catching glimpses of tens— No, hundreds of Red Dragons were pouring from the mountain range, and within the onslaught lumbered hulking masses that shouldn’t be able to fly but someway could. Holy Hell. Redwing had single-handedly caused a dragon apocalypse. Was one soul really so important? It had to be more than that!

  There wasn’t time to puzzle over the quandary. Rowan dumped three of four skill-tier points into Raise. The tier ten empowerment bonus better be good. He’d forgotten about that, read it on the forums yesterday.

  Skill Tier Level-up (x3): Raise

  Raises a corpse to an Undead minion. Usable on skeletons. Corpse decay weakens the resulting minion.

  Skill Level: 84, 11%

  Skill Tier: 10 (maximum)

  Channel duration: 0.5 seconds.

  Mana Cost: 100

  Effect: 4 maximum targets. 8.4% fewer minion slots used, minimum 1 slot.

  Tier Effect: Not usable on targets of 100 or more levels than yourself. Cannot be used on World Bosses. Minion skill tiers are capped at your highest class skill tier.

  Tier 10 Empowerment: -1 second channel duration. -100 mana cost. Every 50 points of Control further raises the target’s maximum level by 1 (multipliers not counted).

  As Young Reds kept falling and the swarm kept melting, Rowan’s heart skipped a beat and banged against his ever-trusty amulet. The empowerment bonus was better than he had imagined by an order of magnitude. With his three and a half thousand points in Control, excluding the boss multiplier, he could now raise corpses up to level 350. Terrific. More than terrific for this battle! Those tier points had definitely been well-spent, and no amount of cute nagging from Gabrielle would change it.

  Rowan was, quite literally, over the moon, as though the empowerment bonus validated his skills as a gamer, but he knew, deep within, that he had merely lucked out yet again. Though it might not be luck if every skill’s empowerment was as wonderful. Lament’s empowerment might be something monumental.

  “Lord Black!” Seth barked, snapping Rowan out of his stupor.

  A third of the Harpies were gone.

  “On it!” Rowan’s wand arm swished, hitching mid-air. The spell wouldn’t be able to connect; the closest dragon corpse was out of range from this height. There was no option but to dismount. Flying Redwing close to the ground was a massive risk when the light players were on cue to hit any minute. “Take care of Redwing! Stay with him!” Rowan lightly pulled Seth’s minion leash to let him understand how important the order was, knowing free-willed minions hated being tugged.

  Seth’s nose wrinkled for a moment, but he said, “The Undead Dragon you are mounted on is far more valuable than you can imagine.”

  Rowan had to ask, “Why?”

  Seth’s head shook. “Have you forgotten your jewel of blasphemies?”

  Fire and ice danced before Rowan’s unfocused eyes, a tick of the system clock blinking at the top-right. He understood: Redwing was going to be the patriarch of a new dragon breed. A breed aligned with darkness. No wonder the Red Dragons were so angered.

  Nodding once, Rowan called for a personal escort of Harpies and Dragonflies, jumped off Redwing’s side, and staggered the fall with a series of Rime Blinks. Gabrielle had mentioned doing that significantly mitigates fall damage. His shield chunked for 4%, impacting dirt and ice.

  Already feeling exposed, his hand tightly gripped Anton’s bone wand as he gunned for the first corpse at the encampment’s edge. He met no resistance from the Young Reds battling overhead. They weren’t too smart.

  The beast’s corpse was mangled, its head almost unrecognizable.

  [Corpse] Young Red Dragon: Level 272

  Integrity: 62%

  Decay: 0%

  Buffs: Light Freeze (reduces decay rate by 33%)

  Debuffs: Tainted (reduces armor)

  62% integrity. Just enough for a Raise.

  And Rowan did exactly that, speaking the one required word in the dark language: raise. The incantation could be more creative, but it was short and to the point, so he had no gripes, and he couldn’t think of anything better either. He was no game designer.

  Mana rushed down his right arm with a thrilling tingle and flooded Anton’s bone wand, the spell drawing more magic than usual. Wispy darkness seized the corpse and healed its wounds in a whistling vortex. Silver-ruby eyes bleached to milky white. Ruby scales took on a desaturated dullness. An Undead Red Dragon through and through, the minion rose from the ground and took off into the skies at Redwing’s command without a single roar given. He was happy to have a companion even if it was just a soulless puppet.

  Rowan shrugged and simply moved to the next corpse. One by one, the downed beasts’ deadly wounds were healed in the name of death.

  Chapter 34

  Let Her Go

  The battle rampaged onward as a symphony of frost and flame little more than a thrumming cacophony smothered by the game’s smart noise cancellation. In the encampment, throughout the surrounding forests, high into the skies above, red and white-hot flames met tainted ice in violent, steaming explosions. Lush trees caught ablaze one moment only to be frozen into charred blocks the next; however, th
e encampment was more or less intact save for all the slashed tents and corpse piles. The icy Undead and growing number of raised dragons held the airspace nicely.

  Boots on shallow water in the river, Rowan sipped from a crystal flask before raising the next dragon corpse and bolstering the Harpy line. The blueberry taste of Gabrielle’s craft was as sweet and sharp as her. The sensation was that of swimming in a desert spring, the chilly draught warming in Rowan’s stomach. Renewed mana saturated his flesh.

  And even now, while the world was burning around him, she wouldn’t depart his thoughts as though she owned a portion of his mind and lived in it. It wouldn’t be surprising if the AI controller had done something to his brain to make his deal with her more binding—during Draesear’s ‘slight tuning’. If so, had he also done something to his beautiful Gabrielle? Did it even matter at this point? For she alone allowed him a sliver of happiness. Well, more than a sliver.

  Interrupting those musings, at the left, another one of the elite Dark Humans’ party icons changed from a blank slate to an onyx bow and arrow. Dark Ranger. A shuddering wave in the air came from the temple’s direction, laced with a despairful feeling. Five out of the first seven were done minus Ayla. Hers was going to be the last of the first batch.

  Rowan stowed the Mana Draught and rushed back up the hill alongside his personal escort now featuring several Red Dragons of varying size. The younglings were markedly smaller than grown adults, and they displayed a much more limited arsenal of fire skills. Rapidly chanting, Rowan threw bone marshmallows in between Rime Blinks to replenish any melted Harpies. The front line couldn’t be overlooked. The dragons’ defensive stats were spectacularly low for the number of slots they each occupied; a fair trade-off for insane melee and mid-range damage.

  Catching his eye, from Redwing’s position in the swarm’s center, a slice of black and white plasma boomeranged above the moons and missed a dragon’s wing by six feet. A second missed by less, the dragon swerving in a belly roll. A third lopped it right off. Impressive. Seth’s kill-count was up to seven or eight now.

  Rowan neared a dragon corpse by a charred mahogany tree. Several Red Dragons took notice, glancing downward. They were catching on quickly but couldn’t do anything other than watch when Harpies and Dragonflies were on their tails, wings, and bellies. Rowan summoned his magic and and raised the corpse, feeling almost bored. Seth took command of the puppet instead of Redwing this time.

  Then from high above, a mortar-type attack spewing white miasma collided with over twenty Harpies, stunning them in place for five seconds. But five seconds was long enough for the enemy dragons to set up shop and capitalize. Focused white-hot flames from a dozen gaping maws melted the lot before the stun debuffs lapsed. The attack had been from one of those hulking dragons the size of a football field, Rowan reasoned. It had finally lumbered into range, but the mist was too dense to get a read on its location, the battle denser.

  On the way to the next corpse by a rock formation, Rowan thought-out a message into the chatbox for some assistance.

  Rowan Black (Raid Chat): Ambiguous, does your Detection Ward pick up a massive dragon?

  Four tense seconds passed without a reply. Rowan tisked, blinked to the corpse, and raised the corpsy dragon missing a claw and half a wing. Redwing claimed it. More precious seconds fell away, and Rowan pinged her for a reply.

  The chatbox beeped, finally.

  Ambiguous Pain: Was sorting through all the entries. Here.

  Elder Red Dragon Brute: Level 347

  Health: 2,300,150

  Mana: 155,100

  Stamina: 900,050

  Red outlines appeared in the mist with labels indicating distance. It was parked two-thirds of a mile away. There were two, the second still coming. And still no boss. Maybe it was scared. Who knows.

  They were too far for a Lament, and Rowan briefly considered sneaking through the forest before a louder beep trilled.

  Ambiguous Pain: A group of fifteen is nearing! I think they’re on flying mounts. Coming fast! No assassins though.

  Only fifteen? And no assassins? That couldn’t be right.

  Ambiguous Pain: They’re on you!

  Parting through the Red Dragons’ arc formation and the swarm, a glittering, multi-layered sphere of translucent golden-white coated mana dispersed the mist. A different white miasma coated the sphere. High-tier Light Screens—effective for fending off missile and mortar-type attacks.

  Just great. What do they want? Please tell me they aren’t here to join me.

  The Light Screen construct planted onto the ground, morphed into a hemisphere. A guy, donned in ornate Paladin armor, on a Light Shard led the group, his helmet at his armpit. Strong masculine features glared. Much stronger than Dorian’s pretty-boy face that had a tendency to morph into a pig’s. Lance Rider was the leader’s name, revealed by a quick Examine across the lot. None were anything powerful. Without those shields, they’d be dead with a few ice blasts. They were no threat.

  Rowan’s eyelids blinked once. Dorian wasn’t among them. A first.

  An average-looking guy in brown leather holding a Red Dragon Whelp, Jonathan Bladestrider, hovered forward on his own Light Shard. They were both World Bosses. Tier two. He yelled, “Rowan! Do you remember me?! I shall not stand by without acting again! Never again! Justice has come for you! We have come for you! The righteous many will always triumph over the wicked few. We will heal the scars you have dealt to these lands and cure the toxic plague you have birthed—”

  “Thank you, Jonathan,” Lance said and slipped forward to their shields’ limit. His glare sank deeper into his brow.

  Meanwhile, Rowan was puzzling over this Jonathan lad. I had met this guy before? And what’s with the NPC-like act? Is he a roleplayer?

  Lance exhaled and pointed with a gauntleted hand, that index finger very stubby. “I have already filed a support ticket and alerted the real world authorities. I don’t know what they will do for something like this, but it doesn’t look good for you. Have you seen Ayla’s thread? Everyone knows what you’ve done to her, mate. Hand her over before you make it worse for yourself. Where is she?”

  Something about that irked Rowan to no end. Lance didn’t know what they were going to do… yet it didn’t look good for Rowan somehow. Those who blindly follow authority figures were the worst kind of… monkeys.

  But at least the the distraction was working.

  While Rowan considered next words, another miasma blast sailed overhead and stunned fewer Harpies. Redwing and Seth’s micromanagement was improving. They were skilled lieutenants—extremely valuable. And the Red Dragons’ onslaught was thinning. Their wide arc was thinning. Very good. Rowan didn’t even need to reinforce now.

  “Look at me when I talk to you!” Lance roared. “Where is Ayla Frost?!”

  A pudgy guy sporting a heavy beard and goofy glasses, Blinte Rancore, said, “And where’s Gabby? Hand her over as well.”

  What. The. Flying. Fuck? Hand her over?

  Rowan couldn’t stop a crazed laugh from blasting from his lungs. “She’s busy at the temple, but I wish she were here right next to me!” Her handy curses could pierce any area shield.

  Confusion twisted a few of their faces, but Blinte’s facial hair bristled. He foamed at the mouth, “So you can violate her like you violated Ayla in front of everyone?! You’re disgusting! You need to be put down! Let them go! They’re not your property!”

  Eyes bulging under the hood, Rowan was at a complete loss. When had Gabrielle started playing the victim as well? It wasn’t part of the plan! It wouldn’t have worked, but this guy apparently cared about Gabrielle for some reason. What was happening? Nothing made sense. Ghostly yellow ducks circled Rowan’s head. Monkeys. These were truly monkeys. Gabrielle couldn’t be more right.

  “How could you do something so horrible to such beautiful creatures?!” Jonathan barked.

  Beautiful creatures. Rowan had to agree no matter how weird it sounded. Gabrielle truly was a bea
utiful creature. Looking away, he flicked her a message.

  Rowan Black (To Gabby LeMort): Did you know you are my beautiful creature?

  Her reply was near-instant.

  Gabby LeMort: Ah… thanks?

  A miasma blast detonated among a group of Dragonflies at the corner of Rowan’s eye. Seth could handle it.

  Gabby LeMort: But I guess that’s a step up from calling my pussy a precious treasure. Hehehe. =P

  A grin had to be swallowed.

  Rowan Black: Btw do you know a Blinte Rancore? He and a small weak group are here demanding me to let you and Ayla go.

  Gabby LeMort: Huh? Me? Ya sure ya got that right? I don’t know him, but I saw him on the forums a few times.

  Most peculiar.

  “Let them go!” Blinte yelled again, his fists balled. So overly emotional. Why?

  “Nah,” Rowan simply said. “Not done with either of them.”

  “Let them gooo!”