by Edward Brody
“Jax!” Rina yelled before quickly casting a healing spell.
The enforcer raised its axe and stumbled forward a bit before placing its free hand back on the wound. It was bleeding profusely and almost the entire side of its body was covered in red.
I thrust my hand out and cast an Arcane Missile at the warlock, which landed in its shoulder, causing it to jerk back and turn its attention to me. It suffered little to no damage from the attack and wasted no time thrusting a hand out towards me, sending a beam of twisted, purple magic into me which caused me to freeze in place, arch my back, and rise in the air like Jax had earlier.
The attack by itself didn’t harm me but caused me to lose complete control of my body. My staff fell from my hand, my head tilted back, and I couldn’t turn my head or tuck my chin to see everything going on around me.
The warlock held out its staff, and lightning arced out of the bulb tip and into my floating body, causing me to jerk erratically and stutter in pain. Both health and stamina started to drain from my stat bars at around 2% per second, and after being electrocuted for around 10 seconds, my health had dropped by approximately 20%.
I was finally released from the spell and collapsed to the ground in a heap. I wasn’t sure what had interrupted the warlock’s spell at first, but when I looked up, I saw the orc briefly stunned by Rina’s magic. It seemed her magic forced affected enemies to release any spells they were channeling.
I grabbed my staff and scrambled away, trying to put some distance between myself and the warlock, but no sooner than I had taken three or four steps, I felt the strange purple energy enter me again from behind, and I was once again frozen and lifted into an arch off the ground. Almost immediately, I was electrocuted again.
I… must… survive, was the closest thing to a complete thought I could muster while I was being fried by electricity. It continued draining my health and stamina but also seemed to have the effect of scrambling my mind any time I was under its effects.
When I was released a few seconds later and fell to the ground, I took a deep breath, grabbed my staff, and ran away without looking back. Another 20% of my health had been sapped, and my stamina had barely 50% remaining.
I ran for a good 10 seconds before I felt confident that I was out of range of the incapacitating spell. I turned and saw that Jax was back to his feet, firing arrows at both the warlock and the enforcer.
The enforcer was on one knee, holding its neck and thrusting its weapon around wildly, trying to deflect arrows but instead looking like it was drunk. Another arrow slammed into its shoulder, which it amazingly ignored; it had an incredibly strong ability to disregard pain.
The warlock turned its attention back to Jax and conjured a shimmering round black shield that was hoovering directly in front of it. The arrows slammed into the shield, but rather than being deflected, the arrows seemed to pierce halfway through the magic shield and lodged themselves there.
I jogged forward to get back in range of the fight and held out my hand while focusing on raising a Fire Curtain over the warlock.
The orc was startled when the flames arose, quickly jumped away, and rolled on the ground to put out a small fire that had started to catch at the bottom edge of its robe. Oddly, its magic shield seemed to follow the warlock, even when it fell to the ground, and changed from a circular shape to a flat oval, protecting him perfectly in one direction at all times. When he scurried back to his feet, the shield followed him up and returned back to its larger, circular state.
I had already started channeling another Firebomb—this one softball sized—by the time the orc was back to its feet, and I hurled it towards the orc like I was a pitcher on the mound.
It wasn’t clear if the warlock noticed the incoming attack or if the shield was somehow protecting it automatically, but the shield zoomed from facing Jax’s direction to facing me, causing my Firebomb to explode on contact with the shield.
The shield was ripped apart from the impact but was still effective at protecting the warlock from the full force of the blast. The warlock was thrown back and to the ground, even with the shield’s protection, and no sooner had the shield seemed torn apart at the middle than the two sides started repopulating. It took only seconds for the shield to fully reform, and it zoomed away from my direction to protect the orc from another of Jax’s incoming arrows.
The jumbled enforcer groaned something unintelligible before using all its might to push itself back to its feet. It took a swing towards an out-of-range Jax, and when it followed up with a second swing, the weight of the axe pulled it forward, causing the orc to fall face first on the ground. Its arm reached out, stiffened, and slowly went limp. Blood continued to pour from the arrow in its neck and pooled underneath it.
You have gained 3300 XP!
“Rina!” I yelled as the warlock was stammering back to its feet. “Use your spell right when my magic hits!”
“Got it!” she shouted back.
“Jax!” I shouted. He turned to me as he was loading another arrow. “Spin Shot, now!”
Jax said nothing as I reached my hand out and fired an Arcane Missile. I wasn’t expecting the missile to do any damage, but as anticipated, the warlock’s shield swerved around the orc’s body and absorbed the magic right as it hit.
Rina’s timing was spot on, and her energy fell from the sky and stunned the warlock at just the right moment.
I turned to Jax and could see by the light trail of white and distinct spin of the arrow zooming away from him, that he had already released his spin shot.
The warlock was unfrozen right as the spin shot was about to hit, and its shield made an effort to zoom around to absorb the attack, but the Spin Shot was too fast and strong. It clipped the edge of the shield, easily powering past it and piercing through the warlock’s heart before he had time to react. The orc grabbed the hole that was torn into its chest and the magic shield in front of it vanished. It looked down with its mouth wide, dropped its staff, and fell sideways to the ground.
You have gained 2300 XP!
I leaned over and put my hands on my knees to catch my breath, thinking that the fight was over, but I quickly jerked back up when I heard the sound of Rina gagging.
Rina was standing on her tiptoes in a slight backbend position with both of her hands on her neck, trying to mouth something and breath.
“Rina!” Jax yelled as he ran to help her.
I turned my head to find that the source of the attack was the red-robed warlock who had somehow returned to its feet. The bottom left corner of its face had been torn apart by Jax’s critical attack earlier, and its jaw was dangling only from loose flesh and bone on one side. Blood poured out of the edges of its eye on the decimated side of its face, and it held its hand out as if grabbing Rina’s neck from a distance.
I used my staff to cast a rock projectile at the orc, and when it was struck on the side of its head, the orc released its spell and staggered. When I followed up with an Arcane Missile, it bobbed its head and evaded.
Rina coughed, and Jax had barely made it to her before the warlock straightened its shoulders and slammed the bottom of its staff into the ground. A twist of green and black energy streamed out of the tip of its wooden staff and arced high in the sky before swimming back down and entering my, Jax, and Rina’s bodies.
I tried to dodge the strange magic, but it was no use. Even when I ducked and rolled, the energy stream seemed to find me like a homing device.
Our movements were slowed to a near standstill, and I involuntarily inhaled deeply as the energy attacked us all. I felt tired and cold, and when looking to my status bars, I could see my health and mana bars slowly starting to decrease.
I tried to run to Jax and Rina, but my movement was too slow to make any progress. When I tried to hold my hand out to fire a counterattack at the orc, the air felt like a thick, inhibiting gel.
Energy flowed through the stream of magic, from our bodies and back into the orc’s staff, and the gore that mad
e up the orc’s face was slowly starting to heal. Its bloody eye ceased bleeding and turned completely white and absent a pupil, and its jaw healed abnormally, leaving it still hanging to one side, and its tongue dangling out like a dead animal.
“Gun-n-nar,” Jax moaned slowly.
“Jaxxxxx,” Rina groaned.
I forced my hand up gradually as my health dropped to 30%, and before my last bit of mana was siphoned away, I released another Arcane Missile toward the orc. Its draining and slowing magic seemed to distort my aim as well, causing my attack to be way off and fly far out of the way from my target.
Father… I heard a voice say in my head.
Sora! I quickly projected back. Though my speaking had slowed to a crawl, I was still able to communicate thoughts normally.
Should Fenris and I step in or are you—
Yes, help! I interrupted. Take out the red-robed orc, quick!
I watched as both Fenris and Sora sped towards the one remaining orc, each circling around to attack from both flanks.
The warlock’s eyes went wide when it noticed the two incoming Great Beasts, and when Sora jumped in to attack first, it held its hand up and a blast of black, explosive energy burst from its hand. Sora was thrown back, but the warlock wasn’t able to react to the two attacks at once. Fenris tackled the warlock, forcing it to release the spell from its staff.
The orc cried out in agony as Fenris ripped a piece of flesh from its shoulder then clamped his jaws around the side of its body, rendering its free arm immobile. “Nooo!” it roared.
I winced and took a moment to catch my breath. Though I had no cuts or bruises, I ached and felt like I had been through the ringer.
“Kill the bastard, Fenris!” Jax coughed.
I stood up straight and looked at the carnage around us. Bits of charred goblins were lying everywhere, the black-robed warlock’s blood was splashed upon the grass, and the enforcer was laying in a pool of blood.
We had been caught up in trying to survive in the heat of the battle, and only then did I remember that the whole purpose of the battle was to capture an orc. “Wait!” I shouted. “Wait, don’t kill the orc!”
Fenris ignored me and continued dragging and shaking the orc, obviously heeding its master over me.
“Jax!” I shouted. “We need him alive.”
“Fuck, I forgot!” Jax shouted. “Stop Fenris! Put the orc down.”
Fenris quickly backed off, shook his head and started licking the blood and gore from around its snout and paws.
The red-robed warlock lay mangled on the ground, but I could see its chest still heaving.
“Hurry!” I yelled as I started running towards. “Jax, get the rope. Rina, throw it a heal!” As I made it closer, I paused when I saw Sora try to push herself off the ground and fell. “Wait, no… Heal Sora first!” I projected my thoughts to her. Are you okay?
Just a sting, Father. I’ll be fine.
I breathed a sigh of relief at her answer and focused my attention back on the orc.
The warlock was lying on its side with its arm clearly broken and contorted in an odd position behind its back. Blood was seeping from various bite wounds on its body, and its broken jaw was hanging even further open than it had before. It was incredible that it was still alive, but there was no doubt it was going to bleed out at any moment.
“Heal it!” I said again.
“Calm down, Gunnar,” Rina said. “I have a slight cooldown on heals.”
Energy shimmered around the warlock’s body as Rina finally tossed a heal to it, and its body jerked. Its one good eye opened wide and turned its attention to me. I could see it trying to move its broken arm, but it moaned at the failed effort.
“Should we waste a bandage on it?” Rina asked.
“No,” Jax said as he knelt down and grabbed the orc by its hair and jerked it into a sitting position. “Don’t waste any supplies on this piece of shit. Keep throwing heals on it to keep it alive, and we’ll know it’ll bleed out if it tries anything funny. You never know what kind of tricks the orc mages have up their sleeves.” He raised his chin to me. “Help hold him up while I tie him.”
I swallowed hard as I knelt down and put my hands against the orc’s shoulders, and I felt sick as I looked at it. I was face to face with the battered creature at too close a proximity—its tongue hanging out of its torn mouth and blood bubbling from its throat and nose with each breath—like something out of a horror movie.
The warlock tried to jerk its one working arm toward me, but Jax quickly grabbed it and forced it behind its back.
The orc roared in pain, but it came out more like a loud, bubbly gurgle.
“Easy there, scumbag,” Jax said as he held the arm down and wrapped the rope around its body several times. He pulled out his hunting knife when the rope was tightened and secured and used what was left of the rope to tie its legs loosely, leaving it just enough slack to walk. “Go ahead and give it another heal.”
When Rina healed the orc again, the orc perked up even more and struggled to close its broken jawbone. “Wot are yuu done?!” it asked with its barely functioning mouth and tongue.
“You’re coming with us,” I said. “I need your help.”
The orc stared at me with its one good eye for a moment, then half coughed and half laughed, shooting droplets of blood from its throat on to me. “Orc no hell hu-an! Ner-uh!”
“I’d give it a good kick to the temple if I weren’t afraid to kill it,” Jax spat.
“Bleh,” Rina voiced. She was holding her hand over her mouth and looked like she was about to vomit. “I can barely look at it.”
Sora… I projected.
Gunnar?
Are you well enough to ride and carry this thing back to Edgewood with us?
I believe it will be no problem, Father.
“Alright,” I said loudly and scanned the bodies around us. “Meditate if you need to Rina. Let’s loot up and head back home.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
2/20/0001
You’ve received: Sturdy Staff of Electrocution. 18-21 Attack Damage. Requires 23 Intelligence. Durability: 7/10. Quality: Average. Rarity: Uncommon. Weight: 1.3. On Cast: Electroshock: 6 Charges Left.
You’ve received: Warlock’s Siphoning Staff. 17-23 Attack Damage. Requires 15 Wisdom. Requires 25 Intelligence. Durability: 5/10. Quality: Average. Rarity: Uncommon. Weight: 1.3. On Cast: Siphon Souls: 6 Charges Left.
You've received: Cursed Robe of Darkness. +3 Armor. Requires 28 Intelligence. Durability: 6/10. Quality: Exceptional. Rarity: Rare. Weight: 1.0 kg. +15% Dark Magic Damage. Your mana drains 20% faster than normal.
You’ve received: Crude Orcish Enforcers Axe. 20-50 Attack Damage. Requires 35 Strength. Requires 22 Dexterity. Axes Level 25. Swords Level 20. Durability: 8/10. Quality: Average. Rarity: Uncommon. Weight: 5.9 k.
You’ve received: Scroll: Burdening Gust. A troubling dark gust causing your target’s stamina to drain 15% faster. Requires 38 Intelligence. Dark Magic Level 22. Durability: 9/10. Quality: Average. Rarity: Rare. Weight: 0.1 kg.
You’ve received: 123 Gold Pieces
“That’s everything, right?” I said as I shoved the last of our looted items in my bag and pulled myself atop Sora.
“I think that’s it,” Jax answered.
The warlock draped across Sora’s back behind me started squirming to force himself off, so I turned around and stuck my finger in one of its bite wounds.
The warlock roared in pain.
“Stop it,” I said after I pulled my finger out. “I don’t want to torture you, but you’re just going to make things worse if you don’t cooperate.”
“Kill meh!” the orc spat, blood and saliva dripping down its flaccid tongue. “Kill meh!”
I shook my head. “Not yet. Actually—” I looked to Rina who was sitting atop Fenris with Jax. “Can you toss him another heal?”
“Noooo!” the orc roared.
Rina raised her hand and healed the orc again.
&nb
sp; “Hyu-uns! Iyyye yuu hyu-uns!” it said.
“What?” I asked.
“I’m pretty sure he’s saying ‘Die, you humans,’” Jax said with a smirk.
I stuck my finger in the orc’s wound again, causing it to roar. “Shut up until we tell you to talk.”
“You ride ahead of us,” Jax said. “It might have some magic that doesn’t require its hands. We’ll keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn’t try to kill you.”
I pulled my finger out of the orc’s wound, nodded, and rode ahead.
As Sora carried me back to Edgewood, I pulled out the items we had looted and gave them another look over out of boredom. It wasn’t the greatest haul, considering how difficult the fight had been, but loot from the Scourge had been sparse since their invasion started.
“Shame these staves have so few charges,” I said as I held one out, inspecting it. “They’re better than what I have, but it’s almost pointless to take them out if I can only use their on-cast a few times.”
“Ha!” Jax clucked behind me. “Staves are already overpowered if you ask me. A free no-mana spell? If you find a staff like that siphoning one with a lot of charges, you’ll have it made.”
“I wouldn’t call them overpowered,” Rina argued. “They break more easily than a sword, and unless you’re really good with staves, you’re at a severe disadvantage at close range.”
“But at range, staves are a problem,” Jax explained, “especially if the user is a powerful mage.”
“Who else uses staves?” I asked. “Not only mages?”
“I’ve seen a few specialize in staves specifically for close combat,” Jax explained. “A fighting staff is quicker than polearms usually, outrange most swords and axes, and you can be a little more reckless with the way you fight, since you won’t impale yourself. Some people will specialize in both unarmed and staves, just in case their staves break in mid-fight. And when you’re fighting a staff user, you never know if that person’s staff is loaded with an unexpected spell.”
