Rogue Evolution

by James Hunter

  A flash of green light from across the room let him know that PwnrBwner was now firing Ranger-based spells at Aczol. It seemed that he’d just made a forest of hardened spikes jut from the floor, piercing the NecroDragon’s feet and dragging belly. This managed to shave a small fraction from the beast’s Health bar and pin him more or less in place.

  Unfortunately, it also reminded Aczol that the Ranger-Cleric was there.

  With a roar, Aczol wheeled right, the motion snapping off the imbedded spikes, and dove in PwnrBwner’s direction, a fountain of Fire and Ice Breath streaming from his jaws.

  Roark banked hard, darting toward the hero on outstretched wings, intending to drag PwnrBwner to safety, but Aczol’s dive was suddenly pulled up short. He snarled as his head jerked back on his neck.

  A shining silvery thread had been looped around Aczol’s throat and connected at several points high above like rope and tackle. Zyra appeared briefly along the wall, anchoring the spider line, then disappeared again in a puff of inky smoke.

  Furious, Aczol began thrashing his enormous body like a whip, serpentine tail flailing back and forth, huge claws leaving deep furrows in the soft earth below. Kaz was knocked across the cavern into the side of a mountain of gold. Before the Mighty Gourmet could roll to his feet, Aczol closed the gap, stomping and clawing at him with brutal hatred.

  “Aczol!” Roark bellowed, hitting the ground and casting Infernal Thunder once more.

  The NecroDragon avoided the ripples easily, still attacking Kaz. Now that Aczol had one of his tiny assailants at his mercy, it was clear he had no intention of being distracted.

  “Back here!” PwnrBwner sprinted around the leviathan’s flank, ducking under his huge tail. The Ranger-Cleric shot off more of the Light-Enchanted arrows Roark had smithed for him. “Come on, you velociraptor chode! Grow some stones and come get me!”

  But Aczol ignored PwnrBwner, too. Attacks from the ground wouldn’t be enough to pull him away from Kaz.

  Roark beat his wings furiously, darting toward the creature’s face. Aczol unleashed a torrent of Fire and Ice damage, but only managed to clip Roark’s right wing. Folding both, Roark dove toward Aczol’s eyes and hacked at them with a series of aerial combos similar to the ones he’d learned from Griff. He sliced and swiped until his shoulders burned from the effort it took to hold himself aloft with his leathery wings, and his rapier arm ached with a dull fire from the constant swing of his blade, but still he pressed on, slashing bloody streaks across Aczol’s muzzle and golden eyes. The Light-enhanced blades left electric blue wounds in their wake, which curled up at the edges and seemed to seep slowly outward.

  Realizing he would be blinded if he continued to face off with Roark, Aczol ducked back down. The spider line holding him snapped. Before Roark could do anything, the NecroDragon swooped down, gargantuan razor-sharp teeth snapping shut like a bear trap as he bit Kaz clean in half.

  “Dick!” PwnrBwner screamed. “You done messed up now, fuckface! Eat Retribution Blast!”

  With a furious otherworldly shout, the hero shot a Divine spell at Aczol’s back side.

  The beast turned to face PwnrBwner.

  “Shit,” the hero cursed. “That was supposed to hurt you worse. For Kaz.” PwnrBwner nocked an arrow again. “I guess just suck on Light.”

  With that, he started firing off Rays of Sunlight once more, sprinting backward to avoid Aczol’s next strike.

  Across the cavern, Ick’s throat-singing intensified. A scrap of parchment flashed in front of Roark’s face before disappearing.

  [You have been temporarily Fortified by Rejuvenating Moonbeam! Dexterity and Strength increased by 50% for 32 seconds.]

  Invigoration flowed through Roark’s muscles as he darted in, Light-Kissed Rapier and Illuminated Dagger in hand. His strikes carved red from Aczol’s bar, but not fast enough. A moment later, Mac appeared nearby, shooting spikes of Elemental Lightning at the NecroDragon. The lightning was pure, unadulterated Light damage. The strikes hit like a series of battering rams, carving through Aczol’s scaled exterior like a hot knife through a pat of butter.

  From the corner of his eye, Roark caught sight of Zyra. She’d reappeared on Aczol’s shoulder and was using a pair of Poisoned Longknives to carve away at the exposed skin left behind by the scale PwnrBwner had pried up. With her other two hands, she pulled vials and bottles of toxic sludge from her Inventory, popping off the tops, then upending each noxious brew into the festering wound.

  Aczol’s Health began to drop steadily and his red bar flashed green. She’d found the weak point and she was exploiting it for all she was worth.

  With a cry of rage, Aczol beat at her with his ragged wings. The leathery old things looked like massive ship sails, tattered on the edges, holed in places, and long past their prime. But they were fast and heavy, and the barbed spikes studding the wing bones were deadly. Zyra moved in an eyeblink, desperately trying to maneuver away from the wings, but she was half a step too slow. Smoke enveloped her in a cloud as she disappeared, but when she flickered back into sight, one of her long spidery legs was crushed. She folded it behind her back and darted in at Aczol once more, snarling and chopping with her longknives.

  Still in the air, Roark cast Infernal Invigoration on her, restoring her to full Health, then traded his Light-blessed weapons for his Bow of the Fleet-Fingered Hunter and began firing off a bevy of Rays of Sunlight like the ones he’d supplied PwnrBwner with.

  As if the NecroDragon knew Roark couldn’t do enough damage to him in time, Aczol flatly ignored him, focusing instead on the poison-slinging alchemist who’d dealt him the most serious damage so far. His serpentine neck swung around and snapped Zyra up in his jaws before she could dodge or Shadow Stalked away. She yowled like a stepped-on cat and hacked at the NecroDragon’s mouth, but a concentrated blast of Fire and Ice breath ate through the last of her Icy Hot protection and all of the restored Health in a flash.

  Before Roark could do so much as cast an Infernal Invigoration, Aczol threw his head back and shook her down his gullet like Mac gulping down an enemy’s heart.

  “Seven hells!” Roark fired off a three-arrow blast, then nocked a trio of Rays of Sunlight Arrows. They’d hardly brought the bloody Dragon down to half Health, and already the great beast had picked off their party’s two highest-level members. “Ick, support PwnrBwner! Mac, with me!”

  The Nocturnus’s throat-singing changed in pitch. The next spell PwnrBwner cast lit up Daemonhold Deep with blinding golden light. The hero glowed with both Divine and Night buffs as he slammed his Unique Elemental Mace into the NecroDragon’s vulnerable wound. Brilliant blue light crackled and arced deep in the wound.

  Finally—finally!—Aczol’s Health dropped below half. If they didn’t keep up a constant stream of attacks, however, it would start to creep back up. The NecroDragon went after the mace-wielding Ranger-Cleric next, but Roark and Mac attacked from the air, the Adolescent Turtle Dragon clinging to the walls, and bombarded Aczol’s scaleless weak spot with Rays of Sunlight, Elemental Lightning attacks, and intermittent bouts of Infernal Torment. Slowly but surely, they stole away more of the beast’s red Health bar.

  With a start, Roark realized that the battle with the deadly NecroDragon had taken a toll on him as well—his Health vial was below half, and though it was holding steady, that was no good. Any errant blow from Aczol could kill him where he stood. Kaz and Zyra had both been higher level than he was now and hadn’t fared any better. Quickly, he gulped down a sickeningly sweet Absolute Health potion, then resumed firing.

  But Aczol had other plans.

  Snorting, the NecroDragon swiped a massive paw at Ick.

  The Nocturnus leapt back with the agility of a jumping spider and took to the walls, trying to scramble to safety on the arachnoid legs sprouting from his back. The first paw-swipe narrowly missed, the ground reverberating from the crushing force of the strike, but Aczol was already attacking again—and there was a cunning gleam in his golden, lizard eyes.


  As Aczol swiped again, Ick feinted left, then bolted right. But the NecroDragon had anticipated the move, adjusting his strike mid-swing. He crushed the fragile-boned Witchdoctor in a single blow, grinding him into the stony cavern walls like a common house spider under a raised shoe.

  Ick’s Health bar flashed out a critical warning, then emptied as he died, little more than a smear of gore on the wall.

  The Nocturnus’s fortification on both Roark and PwnrBwner winked out immediately, and Aczol seemed to know it. The NecroDragon wasn’t one for the typical Dungeon Lord monologuing, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t a clever old monster. Aczol spun, tail whipping through the air, trying absently to bat Mac from the wall. He failed in that—Mac scampering away—but then the creature homed in on his real target.

  PwnrBwner.

  The Ultimate Loot

  “SHIT!” PWNRBWNER BACKPEDALED, firing off another round of less-brilliant Heavenly Wrath—a Divine spell that would hardly touch the creature at all. And if he was falling back onto his purely Cleric abilities and his Mace, it could only mean that he had run out of Rays of Sunlight.

  Attacking from close quarters was certainly not good news for such a low-level hero.

  “Aczol! Here!” Roark darted in front of the NecroDragon’s face and shot his last trio of Luminescent Arrows into its left eye. “Come after me!”

  The NecroDragon ignored the full-Health Jotnar obviously trying to distract it and lunged at the Divine threat. PwnrBwner was far less agile and nimble than either Ick or Zyra. He never stood a chance. The Ranger-Cleric frantically shuffled back, but with one mighty chomp, Aczol tore off PwnrBwner’s leg at the hip. The limb vanished in a spray of crimson, and PwnrBwner’s face went sheet white as his Health plummeted like a dropped stone.

  The hero slammed backward onto a pile of gold, his enchanted shortsword falling just out of reach with a clatter of metal on metal.

  “Son of a—” Livid, PwnrBwner roared something in that unknown language, and bright white light engulfed his entire body in Shield of Faith—another Cleric-based spell that would likely do little to stop the rampaging NecroDragon. Divine heroes were, after all, vulnerable to Undead creatures.

  Still, Aczol keened and spat out the glowing leg as though the limb were now distasteful.

  “Yeah! How’s it taste, bitch?” PwnrBwner crowed. He pulled free his Unique Mace of Hallowed Lore from his Inventory and began swinging it wildly. “Come on, I got your dinner right here!”

  While the Undead Dungeon Lord was engrossed with the antics of PwnrBwner, Roark landed on Aczol’s head, stabbing and slashing and trying to turn the NecroDragon aside, but Aczol blasted Fire and Ice at the downed Ranger-Cleric.

  A roiling mixture of blue and orange flames enveloped PwnrBwner at once, fire superheating his armor while tongues of bitter frostbite nipped at exposed skin. The low-level hero’s Icy Hot protection ran out in seconds, and his Health followed in short order. Cold fury settled into Roark’s chest as he realized that only he and Mac were left.

  “The hole!” Roark shouted at the Adolescent Turtle Dragon, pointing up to the cavernous ceiling high overhead. “Aczol can fly! Get him to follow you through the hole!”

  Leaping off Aczol’s head, Roark beat at the air, climbing toward the glimpse of sky visible through the ceiling of Daemonhold Deep. Rather than follow, however, Aczol let loose a gout of Fire and Ice breath.

  Roark let out a strangled cry as burning cold tore across his back, searing him nearly to the bone. His left wing froze and faltered, unable to recover from the brutal damage. He dropped like a stone, Aczol’s Fire and Ice following him down. A full third of his Health vial vanished as he slammed into a mountain of gold, the air rushing out of his lungs.

  A burbling shriek pierced the air, and Mac slammed into Aczol’s jaw. The NecroDragon’s head careened into the wall, breaking off a series of boulders. Mac avoided most of the rockfall, but took a titanic boulder to the back. Roark cringed when he heard the Adolescent Turtle Dragon’s shell crack from the impact.

  Aczol unleashed another blast of Fire and Ice breath as Mac shot a lance of Elemental Lightning at the NecroDragon’s wide maw. Mac was wearing the NecroDragon down, but not fast enough to survive the fight. The behemoth was just so damned powerful.

  With a groan, Roark downed his last Absolute Health potion. His broken wings stitched themselves back together with a flash of agony, and he stumbled drunkenly to his feet. He leapt into the air again, flying as fast as he could toward the open sky.

  Odds were this was a terrible idea, but he was completely out of good ones. But then, he was also out of ranged weapons. And friends who could distract Aczol while he attacked from close quarters with melee weapons. This was all he had left. He had to make their sacrifices count.

  Doubt niggled at his brain. The closer he got to the opening, the bigger it looked. Surely Aczol couldn’t fit through. The NecroDragon was enormous.

  Stupid big AF, he reminded himself.

  Below, he heard Mac give a final cry before an explosion of Elemental Lightning burst from his corpse in a mighty roar accompanied by a blinding flash of blue-white light.

  Then the leathery rustle of vast, ragged wings.

  Roark risked a downward glance.

  Sure enough, Aczol was heaving himself up into the air. The NecroDragon looked ponderously slow. Like one of the great humpbacks that swam in the bottomless depths of the Templemar. If he could just keep ahead of it, he might have a chance yet...

  Fire and Ice breath shot up from below, scorching Roark’s legs with freezing damage. A fresh wave of pain crawled across his skin and sprinted through his nerve endings. But that pain only galvanized him. His friends had died horribly to buy him this opportunity, and he wouldn’t waste it—especially not since a victory here could give him his first true edge over Lowen and his forces.

  With renewed fervor, Roark shot toward the blue sky above. Aczol let out a roar and picked up speed, golden stacks of coins once more cascading downward under the gusts of his mighty wings.

  Impossibly, within seconds Aczol had closed the distance and was snapping at Roark’s heels. It was going to bite him in half before he could make it through the opening. He was so close now, the finish line seemingly within arm’s reach.

  With a grunt, Roark poured on the speed, glaring at his dropping Stamina and praying it would hold out for just a few more moments.

  He felt Aczol’s hot, fetid breath on his heels...

  Felt his presence like a looming shadow...

  Felt the chomp of razor-sharp teeth reverberate in the air with a clack...

  Finally, Roark soared up through the hole in Daemonhold Deep and into the open air. Immense, empty grassland stretched off in every direction. Wind hit his face like a damp soothing rag against fevered skin, and the hearty gusts sweeping across the plain immediately caught his wings, pulling him up and out of line of another gout of Fire and Ice.

  Roark turned back to watch Aczol’s ascent.

  The NecroDragon slammed into the opening, getting his neck and upper legs out of the hole, but was unable to drag his wings and body through. The NecroDragon was stuck.

  How long Aczol would stay that way, Roark couldn’t begin to guess, but he had an opportunity he wasn’t likely to get again.

  Not losing a moment, Roark darted back down, avoiding the snap of Aczol’s massive jaws, and hacked and slashed at the scaleless weak spot, ripping away Health by the handful. The wound opened wide, revealing vulnerable white-hot muscle.

  Aczol snaked around, shooting Fire and Ice, but Roark dodged and whirled, undeterred. This beast would die. He shot back in and went to work furiously burrowing into the creature’s scaly hide, slashing through the burning necrotic muscle with his Light-Enchanted blades until he struck glowing bone. Aczol let out a screech of pain, but there was nothing the mighty creature could do. Yes, it was a leviathan, but now that very size was working against it. Roark stowed his weapons and pulled free his Initiate�
��s Spell Book.

  With a thought he flipped to his fifth-level spells and conjured a nasty bit of work he’d picked up from the WikiLore on Druidic Terramancers: Earthly Tremor.

  [Create a deadly shock wave of earthen power that radiates outward from the caster, dealing 12n seismic damage (where n is equal to the caster’s level) in a forty-foot radius. Earthly Tremor also has a 5% chance to collapse nearby structures, a 10% chance to knock down nearby creatures, and a 15% chance to create a fissure on the contact surface!]

  Muddy brown light exploded out from Roark’s palm and smashed against the creature’s exposed rib, sending a tremor radiating through the NecroDragon, biting off a sizeable chunk of his remaining life. More importantly, the bone itself cracked, a narrow fissure opening wide to reveal the most vulnerable target of all—a steaming, fleshy gray lump of meat that could only be Aczol’s heart.

  The NecroDragon, seeming to sense his own peril, thrashed about, clawing wildly, neck swinging, fire and ice exploding from its maw in a furious geyser.

  Donning a vicious grin, Roark unleashed every Light-based spell he’d inscribed in his tome. Level 4 Sunburst Light, level 3 Nocturnal Moonfire, level 2 Spectral Orb, level 5 Noonday Aura, level 7 Daybreak Bolt. He emptied his tome of spells, working through the pages as he cast relentlessly at the exposed organ. The lump of meat, easily as large as Mac, burned and withered under the onslaught of raw Light energy. Aczol’s red Health bar faltered, flagged, and guttered, the creature roaring and spasming as he died from the inside out.

  Finally, the NecroDragon’s Health bar flashed out a critical warning. With a last blast of Infernal Torment, Roark ended the leviathan’s breakneck struggles.

  Aczol crumpled to the ground, the impact of his huge head and neck sending out a shock wave across the prairie.

  Roark toppled beside the enormous corpse, exhausted, and gulped down huge breaths while his Health-regen began to heal his numerous wounds.