There by the corner of the mausoleum lay a rusty sword easily twice as long as his scrawny arm. The blade curved subtly along its back, and its cutting edge pitched inward toward the hilt and outward nearer the point. Weighted correctly, a blade like that could chop with all the momentum of an ax while maintaining the maneuverability of a sword.
He picked it up, excited to test its construction.
Immediately, his vision was filled with ethereal writing.
╠═╦╬╧╪
Rusty Falcata
One-Handed Damage: 9 - 15
Durability: 25 of 30
Level Requirement: 1
Blade Class Weapon - Medium Attack Speed
╠═╦╬╧╪
Very strange. He could feel the weight of the sword in his hand, but he couldn’t see the weapon. No, now some sort of semitranslucent book hung in the air before him, commanding his field of vision to the exclusion of almost all else. True, on the peripheries of sight he caught a sliver of the graveyard—dewy grass here, crumbling mausoleum there, and a bit of leathery blue Changeling wrist—but mostly it was the book. There were several ribbons running along the top of the tome, each one elegantly labeled with a bit of flowing script: Inventory, Maps, Quests, Skills, Spells, Character, Party, Followers, WikiLore, Chat.
He squinted, studying the blank pages before him. Yes, definitely a grimoire, he decided, and it seemed as though this falcata was now bound to it in some way. Roark desperately wished that he could reach out and turn the pages, but there didn’t seem to be regular pages to turn. So instead, he read through the words on each of the ribbons again, this time more slowly. He quickly realized that each word burned with a faint golden light as he focused on it. He slowed himself down and began again. He glared at the ribbon marked Inventory, and a new page opened before him.
His breath faltered inside his chest. Incredible. On the left-hand page of the grimoire there was an image of a Changeling. But not just any Changeling. Of himself, he instinctively knew. And not merely a painting, but a perfect, floating simulacrum, slowly rotating in a circle. This vision of himself wore a dirty loincloth and gripped the curved sword in one dirt-caked hand. He was a hideous creature, really. To the right was a strange grid of boxes, most of them open, though a few were filled with items: Threadbare Loincloth. Rusty Falcata. World Stone Pendant.
As Roark skimmed each item, a slowly rotating image appeared along with various details about the item. The loincloth was self-explanatory, and the falcata’s description was a repeat of what he’d already seen. But the World Stone … The image rotating slowly before him was the amber pendant he’d taken from the Tyrant King, its intricate silver setting gleaming as if under a bright light. Fascinated, Roark devoured the description like a starving man presented with a feast.
╠═╦╬╧╪
World Stone Pendant
Durability: Indestructible
Level Restriction: 1
Property: Soul-Forge - Imbue the undead with life and will.
Current World Stone Authority: Greater Vassal 0 / 1
Property: ???
Property: ???
Property: ???
Property: ???
Property: ???
The World Stone can bend, shape, and distort reality, allowing the bearer the power of Creation and Life itself …
╠═╦╬╧╪
Vassal, as in serf or thrall. Maybe the rumors of the Tyrant King’s necrotic army hadn’t been baseless after all. Maybe that was how the bastard had amassed such a huge fighting force in so little time without tipping off the Council of Ancients, by raising the dead to fight for him.
Dismissing this thought, Roark navigated to the next page.
Maps
Maps of an area can be purchased from Cartographers or learned with the Cartography Skill.
Useless. He tried the next.
Quests
You currently have no active quests.
The Skills and Spells pages were equally empty. Roark focused on the ribbon marked Character, opening the page.
Roark felt like a child staring at a slate full of letters for the first time. The words and numbers slipped through his mind—neat, orderly, and completely meaningless.
The ring of steel filled the air, cutting through his attempt to puzzle out the page’s meaning. Instinctively, Roark slammed the book shut with a thought and searched out the source of the sound.
On the far side of the graveyard, a new band of warriors was attacking. A pale elf with dual swords chopped a Shambling Revenant in half while a burly rog—female by the shape of her armor—hacked into another of the walking corpses. Outside the stone retaining fence, a human archer looked on, picking off Revenants from afar.
Roark watched in disbelief as the Revenants scattered throughout the rest of the graveyard continued to trace their familiar paths around the tombstones and crypts as if nothing were amiss. Buffoons. Did they not realize that if they all turned on their attackers, the fight would be over in moments? Apparently not, since even the Revenants closest to the fighting appeared oblivious to the crash of battle just yards away.
“You’re under attack!” Roark croaked to the female Revenant as she passed. “At the gate, enemies!” He jabbed a clawed finger toward the entry.
She groaned and shambled on without even drawing her sword.
Roark ran to the bearded Revenant.
“Look!” He grabbed the Revenant’s arm and yanked him around to face the battle. “Your yardmates are being mowed down like wheat. But if you all launch a counterattack at the same time, you’ll overwhelm these invaders easily. To arms, man! To arms!”
An arrow thudded into the bearded Revenant’s skull. The Revenant looked from side to side, the shaft of the arrow waving back and forth with the motion, as if he couldn’t tell where it had come from.
“They’re right there!” Roark shouted, stabbing the rusty falcata at the rampaging fighters. “Are you blind, mate?!”
The rog and elf had pushed deeper into the graveyard, and the archer followed them inside, but the attack was poorly coordinated, suicidal given the number of undead opponents. If the Shambling Revenants weren’t such morons, these invaders would be dead already.
Roark tested the weight of the falcata in his hand, fingers itching for the familiar lightness of his penknife. Maybe with his magick and time to prepare, he could take these armor-clad heroes. But caught unaware with nothing but a rusty sword more than half his size? No, this battle was lost.
Roark turned and sprinted as fast as his tiny Changeling legs would carry him back to the breach in the wall. He scrambled to the top, casting a glance back over his shoulder before climbing down the opposite side into the ruined citadel.
The warriors were closing in.
SEVEN:
PwnrBwner_007
Roark hopped from the rubble pile to the citadel’s muddy ground, landing awkwardly on his strange legs and sending wisps of mist swirling and eddying away. A quick glance around the inner bailey showed nothing but scattered debris from battles long finished. Nothing that would provide a sufficient hiding spot. The little bit of shadow the feather-banded Changeling was loitering in hardly covered half of the swaying creature; it would never conceal both of them.
The crash of weapons and shouts of battle grew louder behind him. The party of warriors was decimating the graveyard. Soon they would make it into the citadel.
The crumbling staircase leading deeper into the belly of the citadel was his only option. There was no way of telling what lay at the bottom, but anything was better than being cut down out here with no time to prepare a defense. He didn’t know whether there was a limit to how many times this world would resurrect him, and he didn’t want to find out.
Pumping his short legs, Roark dashed over to the staircase.
“Raiders coming!” he croaked at the swaying Changeling.
The Changeling grunted and swayed, feathers bobbing in time with his movements.
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“You’re going to be killed if you stay here,” Roark snapped.
Another grunt, this time with a finger thrust in the general direction of nothing to underline the futility of Roark’s struggle to communicate.
Days’ worth of anger, frustration, and failure boiled over inside Roark, and he grabbed the Changeling by its leathery shoulders, shaking it savagely.
“You dolt! If you don’t—”
Those thin white letters appeared above the Changeling’s head.
[Current World Stone Authority: Greater Vassal 0/1]
[Use Soul-Forge? Yes/No]
The properties of Soul-Forge raced through Roark’s mind—Imbue the undead with life and will. This Changeling hardly seemed undead, but if he could imbue it with will, then at the very least the creature could find a better hiding spot. This wasn’t the best time for an experiment, but in spite of the threat he was curious to see how the World Stone worked.
With a thought, Roark selected Yes.
Against his leathery bird-chest, the pendant turned ice cold and the cloudy stone at its center flared with bright amber power. Roark found the same amber light bleeding from beneath his hands. He let go of the Changeling’s shoulders, but the glow remained, a glaring tawny handprint tattooed against the creature’s blue skin.
Overhead, the thin white letters declaring the creature a [Changeling] disappeared, replaced by a name: [Kazko].
Then before Roark’s eyes, a new prompt appeared.
[Kazko has become your Greater Vassal!]
On the heels of this, another of the nonsensical pages of information materialized, this one in the Followers section of his strange grimoire.
Whatever sense could be made of these pages would have to be puzzled out later. Roark imagined slamming the book shut just as he’d done earlier. The feather-banded Changeling was still there, but its wide eyes met Roark’s with an unmistakable new awareness.
An arrow sailed past Roark’s face, clipped one of Kazko’s black feathers, and thudded into the citadel wall behind them.
“Over here!” a human voice shouted. “I’ve got eyes on two!”
With a rusty creak and the clanking of heavy chain, the portcullis across the bailey rose. Roark didn’t wait around for them to make it inside the citadel. He grabbed the Changeling’s leathery arm and dragged him down the crumbling staircase.
As they descended into the bowels of the citadel, Roark searched for some place to hide. The stairs led down into dank darkness, but quickly opened up on a sprawling antechamber. Torches in heavy iron sconces were spaced throughout the room, giving off a flickering orange light that illuminated the tapestries lining the walls. The floors were wide, even flagstones, worn by the passage of time and countless feet. Here and there, stained-glass windows portraying scenes of beautiful black-winged women glowed with what must have been magical light considering their depth underground.
A handful of Changelings sat on a human-sized table, guzzling from tankards and fighting over scraps of food. More wandered the length of the chamber as if they had a particular destination in mind, while others scratched their asses and stumbled blankly along. One even lay against the wall with an empty wineskin in one limp hand, snoring contentedly. Hanging from the ceiling were purple-furred beasts with large leathery wings; the white letters beneath their heads declared them [Reaver Bats].
“Invaders are coming!” Roark croaked, his voice echoing in the underground chamber. “Prepare yourselves!”
A few of the Changelings raised their eyes to him, but these went immediately back to fighting over table scraps.
Roark cursed himself for getting optimistic just because the World Stone had managed to imbue one Changeling with sentience. He jogged farther into the chamber, Kazko keeping pace beside him.
“What do I have to do to explain to them that they need to fight or they’ll be killed?” he asked.
The feather-banded Changeling blinked his bulging eyes slightly out of sync and seemed to struggle for the words.
“You cannot,” Kazko finally said in a voice like the deep, gravelly croak of a bullfrog. “They not like Kaz. They like Kaz was … before stone.” He reached out, his fingers stretching toward the amulet before falling back down. “Low level.” He grimaced and shook his head. “No choice. Choices for exalted level.” He drew the word out as though with reverence. “Them and Floor Boss. Floor Boss give orders.” He shrugged narrow shoulders. “We follow orders. Unless we no die. Then?” He paused, searching for a word, a phrase. “Then we gain level. We change. Become independent.” He cast a sheepish glance at Roark. “Like Kaz.”
“Floor Boss?” Roark asked, mind racing as they made their way down a connecting side passage. “Will he help us?”
“Oh no, Master.” He shook his head frantically. “He will punish us for abandoning our posts!”
“I’m not your—”
Kaz grabbed Roark’s arm and jerked him into a shadowy alcove behind a rusted suit of armor holding a leaning tower shield.
“We got spawns!” a human’s shout echoed through the underground chamber. Roark peeked around the corner of the shield. The archer stood at the top of the stairs, firing arrows at the creatures below.
A nameplate appeared over the archer’s head. [PwnrBwner_007]
Little red bars appeared above the Changelings and Reaver Bats the arrows hit, the red emptying as blood spilled and the creatures’ lives drained away. One affected Bat swooped down from above, and three wounded Changelings rushed up the stairs growling, but just like before in the graveyard, the rest of the creatures seemed oblivious to the attack.
The archer, PwnrBwner_007, took out one of the charging Changelings, but backpedaled as the Reaver Bat swooped down at his head. The Bat slashed with oversized talons, managing to score a line across archer’s forehead and right eye. A red bar appeared above PwnrBwner_007’s head, though only a miniscule fraction of its color seeped away from the attack.
Though they appeared preternaturally tough compared to the creatures in the antechamber, these invaders could be injured after all. Interesting. Roark hefted the rusty falcata in his hand, watching the archer for an opening. But just as it looked like the Bat and remaining Changeling might stand a chance against PwnrBwner_007, the heavily armored elf burst in from the staircase and cut the Changeling down like firewood. A moment later, the Bat dropped from the air, pin-cushioned with arrows.
The rog warrior came jogging down the steps a moment later beneath the nameplate [RogStarKel].
“Great job, Kellie, take your time,” PwnrBwner_007 sneered.
“I had to pee,” the rog snapped, her ornately carved tusks bobbing in time with her words. “I told you jerkwads to wait!”
“Come on, you guys, I’ve only got two more hours,” the elf warrior, [Dude_Farkowitz], said, raising his dual swords and resting one on each shoulder. “Let’s just get this place cleared out so I can level enough to wear my Plaguefist Gauntlets.”
A sadistic grin stretched across PwnrBwner_007’s stubbled face. “All right, let’s pop some mobs, son!”
At the archer’s word, the trio of raiders swept across the floor like a ravaging tsunami, chopping down Changelings and hewing Reaver Bats from the air. Occasionally, a Changeling or Bat managed to score an attack on one of the warriors, draining red from their overhead bar, but when the loss was too significant, that warrior dropped back and pulled out a glowing pink potion seemingly from nowhere. After gulping it down, their red bar refilled, and they waded back into the slaughter.
Then as the party was finishing off the final Changeling—the one that had been snoring drunkenly when Roark first entered—the heavily armored elf designated Dude_Farkowitz shouted in pain and jerked away from the wall.
“Stone Salamanders!” he yelled, hacking wildly at the wall with his swords. “Look out, guys, there’s Stone Salamanders all camoed up in here!”
A red bar hung beside the wall over some creature Roark couldn’t see. The elf seemed
to have found it, however, because two messy swings later, a slate-gray creature the size of a large dog tumbled from the wall, where it had been perfectly disguised to match the stone, and lay dead on a threadbare rug, its head nearly hacked off.
The party began scouring every surface, searching for more of the salamanders and stabbing every shadow. The tower shield had hidden Roark and Kaz while the raiders were distracted, but Roark knew it wouldn’t stand up to such close scrutiny. They would have to make a run for it.
Little by little, the raiders were closing in on the suit of armor concealing them. Roark could feel the feather-banded Changeling beside him trembling as Kaz shimmied along the wall of the alcove, inching toward the torchlight at the edge of the shadows. It was obvious that every inch of Kaz wanted to break into a mad dash.
“Wait,” Roark whispered, his grip tightening on the rusty falcata. If PwnrBwner_007 wasn’t distracted, then the archer would shoot them down like flushed-out quail as they ran. “Wait for my signal, then run.”
Kaz whimpered, but quit edging away.
The party closed in. The rog warrior, RogStarKel, was closest to their alcove, diligently searching the stone walls, while the elf watched the opposite side. The archer was at the center, scanning the ceiling and the corridor ahead and letting arrows fly whenever he thought he saw something.
Every muscle in Roark’s body tensed as they drew nearer. What he wouldn’t trade for a triggered explosion spell. Unfortunately, he was going to have to settle for a Changeling-sized mishap. Kaz shook and shivered beside him, desperate with fear and ready to run.
Wait, Roark mouthed.
Finally, they came into range. The rog’s gaze caught Roark’s eyes a split second before he barreled into the back of the armor with all the might in his tiny Changeling body. The rog’s shout of warning turned into a startled grunt as pieces of suit and the shield flew at her with an unholy metallic clatter. She threw up her sword and sliced at the offending iron instinctively. Behind her, the archer and elf both spun to face their newest attacker.
Rogue Dungeon Page 5
