― Enemy incapacitated for 27 seconds!
With Gorgie’s speed, that might as well have been an eternity.
No longer distracting myself with the harn, I attacked the closest fire mage. With Blade of Vengeance, Spike pierced the chest and head of the stunned mage several times. Two crits and the system reported a victory.
I felt no mercy for my enemies. I was acting in cold blood, the same way I would treat any other enemy. A minute earlier, these ugly bastards had been planning to rob and kill me.
The next mage’s body was lying three steps away.
― You have activated the ability Blade of Vengeance!
― You have attacked mage (23)!
― Critical hit. You have dealt 1739 damage!
― Critical hit. You have dealt 1701 damage!
That one took three blows. Dismissing the system’s victory message, I dashed onward. But before I made it to the third mage, a red message appeared before my eyes.
― Attention! You have come under the effect of the legendary spell Charm Dispersal (9).
Before I realized what had happened, the Crusher’s magic fog, my shroud of invisibility and the ice golem’s breath all ceased to exist.
“Got you now, little punk!”
An enraged woman’s cry from above made me look up. Twenty yards off the ground, there hovered a level-thirty magess. So I wasn’t wrong after all. The light blue marker was for air magic.
She had tar-black hair, a ferocious scowl and loathing in her eyes. I wonder what I did to get her so upset. Was she really so outraged over the fact a “pitiful peasant” dared fight back?
“His beast slayed Taylielle!” notes of despair and grief cut through in the magess’s voice.
So that’s what it is. One of the four Gorgie just killed must have been dear to her.
“Litzia! Behind you!” Rom cried out, somewhat back to his senses.
The creep noticed Gorgie crouching down low on the slate roof. The harn had snuck up there and was just about to pounce.
I must give the magess her due. She dropped the mourning instantly. She even managed to form some semblance of a spear made of air in her right hand but, to her misfortune, I was not stingy giving tablets to my pet.
Gorgie easily pushed off a wooden beam sticking up out of a gap in the roof and made a long jump toward the hovering little magess.
Unlike the others, the woman was no slouch with her defense. The crushing blow of my beast’s front paws landed on a transparent defensive sphere. And an instant later, I saw the woman fly forward and slam into a wall on the opposite end of the street like a balloon that just got hit with a rock.
Gorgie’s baffled face after landing on the street a few steps away from Rom brought a smile to my face.
Less than a minute after my spells were dispersed, the magess was sent on a rapid flight hurling curse words. In that time, Troyce had finally come to his senses and extended both arms my direction. I saw my death in his eyes burning with rage.
I didn’t stand around either though. After taking down the third incapacitated mage, I somersaulted to the right and activated my last prepared spell. It occurred to me that the Mites had not worked as expected. Rom and Troyce did not lose their mana. So that’s what it’s like to fight well-prepared mages!
― You have activated the spell Stone Spikes!
― You have attacked mage (38)!
― Critical hit. You have dealt 58371 damage!
― You have attacked mage (29)!
― Critical hit. You have dealt 25912 damage!
We hit at the same time. I was engulfed in a wave of fire, which ate through almost my whole shield. The muckwalker’s aura had just a few dozen points of defense left.
You’re strong, creep! But I held out.
My opponents weren’t so lucky though. Troyce, still having yet to bother to activate any defense, and Rom with him, whose shield had already popped like soap bubble, were three feet off the ground, stuck through with big huge stone spikes. When I read the spell’s description, I honestly imagined it working a bit differently. But the mysterious higher powers who had gifted me the iridescent with this spell clearly preferred a bloodier end for my enemies.
Troyce, impaled on a whole three spikes was unconscious. His innards were falling of out of his torn-open stomach. Blood was streaming from his mouth, ears and eyes. His body was giving occasional predeath convulsions, opening his wounds even further.
I looked at his supply. Empty… The mage had a matter of moments left to live.
“Finish him off,” I nodded at Gorgie standing next to me. With his level, every kill was important.
A moment later, the system informed me of our victory. But that wasn’t all. Another two markers were hiding behind the meat shop. A red and a dark blue. They’re strangely in no hurry to help their comrades. I shouldn’t forget about the air lady either.
I glanced at the pile of bricks, boards and other rubble that formed where the magess slammed into a wall. She also must have gotten knocked out. The system had said nothing about her death, so she must have still been alive.
After quickly checking all my spells and the remaining mana in my supply, I winced. Continuing the fight with no shields is a bad idea. The canopy of invisibility isn’t an option either. As if it wasn’t bad enough for that flying witch to disperse all my spells, she had also blocked me from using them again. I wouldn’t be able to use Canopy for an hour now.
“What a rogue!” I grunted heatedly and looked around. “We’ll have to leave before the last couple nice guys get up the nerve to attack.”
I didn’t want to send Gorgie into battle without a shield. Those two had had time to prepare.
“Who are you?” I heard a short rasp.
Surprised, I looked up. Rom. I glanced at Gorgie blankly. Why is he still alive? Then I remembered I had only given the order to finish off Troyce. Beyond that, Rom’s level made him useless to the harn.
The water mage isn’t moving. I saw that his energy channels had turned into a mangled mess of shredded threads. Looks like his spine is broken, too. In more than one place, actually. The spike went straight through beneath his stomach. The stone tip was sticking out of the mage’s back.
I tilted my head to the side and walked up closer. We met eyes. I saw pain in his eyes. Lots of pain. Despair and disbelief, too.
“I’m the guy you underestimated,” I responded.
Rom tried to say something else, but he started coughing. Blood sputtered from his mouth. His eyes rolled back. I took out Dragonfly and stuck it sharply into his temple.
I looked around. It would be a bad idea to go digging through the ruins to finish off the magess and two apparently battle-ready mages, even if they were cowardly. But gathering the spoils I was entitled to as victor was another matter entirely. Quickly searching the fallen mages, I turned to Gorgie:
“Now let’s definitely get out of here.”
* * *
“A-hem,” I grumbled in perplexity and stroked the back of my head.
After my battle with the mages of the order, Gorgie and I ran all around the city to confuse our tracks and hid inside a small fish shop. It stank unbearably of spoiled fish, but that also meant the morphs stayed away. A good place to regroup and go through loot.
I wonder if the necromancers are aware of that quirk. How long will I be able to take advantage of it?
Not counting the system reward in the form of seventy silver tablets, several tens of thousands of esses and seven gold tablets of intellect, I made a rich harvest from the bodies of the mages.
Beyond magical rings, bracelets, daggers, knives and amulets, each of the mages had a twilight warrior backpack, and Troyce and Rom also each had a twilight mage backpack. Too bad I couldn’t get to the two brown mages Gorgie took down. It wasn’t likely they would let me plunder their bodies.
But beyond a doubt, the most valuable trophies were the mana crystals, of which we got a total of twenty-seven. When I saw
them, I gradually started to realize why my adversaries had so little mana in their supplies. They must have fought valiantly before crossing paths with me. They thought one agent of chaos wouldn’t be too hard to take down. They underestimated me. As by the way, had I them. But I came to terms with what I saw. I adapted to the situation, while they stuck to their particular haughty style. And got in over their heads.
I also discovered something else in the mages’ pockets. Beyond the particles corresponding to their factions’ elements, there were also chaos particles. Just over three hundred. That could mean just one thing. They must have already taken down ten or so forces of chaos. I wonder what use our particles are to them. Thinking the word “our” made me chuckle. There’s no “us” here. There’s just us ― me and Gorgie. And Mee and Maya… I wanted to add Mink and Badger, but I stopped myself…
Stop! Eric! No moping! There’s no time!
Viciously rubbing the tears out of my eyes with a clenched fist, I breathed a heavy sigh and leaned my back against the wall. Mink’s wooden figurine appeared in my hands all on its own.
Sensing my emotions, Gorgie licked my cheek. I cringed in disgust. His maw reeked of salted cod. After spending the new tablets, the harn managed to find a few barrels of that slightly rotten “delicacy.” I thought it might gross him out. Slim chance though ― he ate it with delight and didn’t even wince. For fairness’ sake, it should be noted that he had made do with worse before.
In the end, I got seventy new ephemeral slots and more than twenty crystal slots, which I immediately filled with the highest denomination mana crystals. The size of my magic supply had more than doubled. My Wisdom got straight to filling the gap. Now, I wouldn’t be having more mana troubles any time soon. Or storage problems for that matter.
“Hrn,” Gorgie warned me quietly and pointed his nose toward the shop’s front door.
“What’s going on out there?” I asked, alarmed and looking carefully out the window.
The magess’ block had elapsed long ago, so I was back to using canopy of invisibility. Now I kept it constantly active to avoid unpleasant chance encounters.
Once I saw what Gorgie warned me about, I cursed softly. Things in the city were starting to change.
The fish shop was on a downward slope leading toward a wide square. So I could see very well what was happening down below from the window. And there were some very odd things going on out there.
There was a long procession of prisoners obediently making their way down a broad causeway that ran straight across the square. I counted up four columns. Men, women, and children, guarded on both sides by necromorphs, trudged dismally toward the middle of town. They were being led to the King’s palace. I looked to see how far it went and gasped. These were the refugees that had escaped through the Northern Gates!
The gods really had forsaken the people after all…
I was standing and sullenly observing the unfortunates as they clenched their fists in impotence. A fire had been lit in my soul. I wanted to run off and help, accepting righteous battle even if it would be my last. But my rational mind cooled my jets, constantly reminding me that these people had died long ago, and these were just strange tricks of the Labyrinth of Fright.
But then I saw something else. Or rather someone. Pinebogey, and next to him Dobbess the goblin. Those two had managed to get themselves taken prisoner and were now trudging submissively forward, their heads hanging low. I didn’t see any chains, much less ropes. At first that oddity surprised me until I saw their captors.
There were three of them. Hunchbacked. short. I might even call them gnarled. They had black hoods covering their faces. Level fifty. Obviously mages. I had seemingly finally put eyes on the shadowy figures behind all this gruesome chaos. Necromancers.
They had clearly overtaken the will of the chaos faction members. I couldn’t find any other explanation for their obedience. I looked closer and noticed another few colored markers around. Two fire mages. One dark blue and another bright yellow. Swarthy skin. Slightly pointed ear tips. An Atrian lady. A child of the desert. So, they have their own citadel and faction too. Although why not?
Based on the way she’s swaying from side to side, she’s been pushed to the limit of exhaustion. Or wounded. Low level. Twenty-four. She’s on the verge of collapse.
There are four beasts scampering around next to the necromancers. I whistled to myself mentally. Level eighty. The system identified them as Wights. A mixture of human-like creature and animal. Great humps of muscle. Bone armor. Long claws. All just a bit worse than Gorgie’s. These were clearly some advanced form of necromorph.
When the procession of prisoners including my new acquaintances reached the middle of the square, Pinebogey gave an unexpected shudder and stole a glance in my direction.
“Bug damn you!” I whispered. “You can sense me? But how?”
I saw his animal eyes and shuddered. It was the exact same way Gorgie looked at me on the day I found him on the bank of the subterranean river. Pinebogey was pleading for help…
Weighing all the pros and cons, I promised myself not to do anything rash and decided to keep an eye on the column of prisoners from afar. If I get the chance to help my new acquaintances without taking too big a risk, I’ll do it.
“Let’s move,” I whispered to Gorgie and slipped first out of the shop.
Chapter 8
IT WAS AS IF I had second sight. The closer we came to the middle of town, the harder it got for Gorgie to find hiding spots. Every neighborhood we entered had more and more undead.
I looked up at the sky. The thing I had taken for a black cloud hovering over the King’s palace turned out to be none other than a huge flock of those big bats from before. A chill ran down my spine. Another few blocks and they’ll be able to see Gorgie clear as day.
“Brother, I’m gonna have to tuck you away,” I mentally addressed the harn, who immediately struck me with a scrutinizing gaze. “Don’t worry. With the canopy, they won’t be able to see or sense me.”
The cat’s eyes, full of skepticism, squinted suspiciously.
“I promise to keep my head down,” I reassured him and activated the summoning amulet.
The necromancers really did not see or sense me. A few times I got quite close to them, ready to run away at any moment but the canopy had been doing a great job so far.
At first, I didn’t know why they were so blind. I figured they were just trying to keep tabs on too many things at once. In any case, keeping such a massive gaggle of undead under control is no easy task. Either that or their senses aren’t high enough level. Honestly, I quickly concluded that theory didn’t hold water. A mage capable of controlling so many creatures at one time must have high level senses a priori.
Then Bug pushed me to reread the description of Canopy and everything fell into place. The little hint my improved mind had revealed explained the nature of magical and physical senses. As it turned out, there were lots of kinds of senses linked to various characteristics. For example, the Queen of the Draks had sensed me with a natural ability somewhat like the Gulper Female’s echolocation. The level of her natural “vision” was higher than my canopy of invisibility’s.
And when it came to magical senses, Will took over. And the level of my ability no longer played a role. I got further proof of that while they were inside the activation radius of the Black Widow’s mask. The System let me know that the necromancers’ Will, along with that of their creatures, was low enough for me to use the artifact successfully. In other words, if the necromancers were not intelligent, I could have taken two of them under control. Now I get why they can’t see or sense me.
Unlike Pinebogey… The mage must have had some kind of natural sixth sense. Otherwise, how was he always able to tell where I was despite his low will? I already had one guess about that, but I had yet to test it.
While following the procession of captives, I had already started to think I had no viable options when suddenly they stopped m
oving. I ran a bit ahead, got up on the roof of a three-story manor and looked around. So that’s what’s causing the pile-up.
There was a real logjam up ahead. The main street leading into the middle of town looked like a river of people trudging in silence. The little streets like the one Pinebogey and the goblin were currently on, were like tributaries awaiting their turn to join the main watercourse.
The silent submission of the victims coupled with the eerie coordination and sheer numbers of the undead made my skin crawl. My very nature was demanding that I leave this part of town. But I just couldn’t bring myself to go.
I got down and checked my “cover,” then headed toward the tail of the column, which was where Pinebogey was. Every time I took a step just one pace away from a necromorph, my heart fluttered. But the undead brutes didn’t detect me. And neither did their masters.
Labyrinth of Fright (Underdog Book #5): LitRPG Series Page 8
