Annoyed, Hawke stepped closer and took a good look without touching the box. It was made of wood with golden inlays that depicted a hunting scene featuring a spindly-looking elfin figure armed with a bow just as tall as he was. He was shooting at a three-headed Drakeling. And there was writing on top, in Fae letters. A name, maybe? Going by phonics, the word was ‘Abuxiel;’ he had no clue what it meant.
So this is his bow? The Sidhe Prince’s?
His inspection didn’t find any physical traps. He used his Mana Sight next, and sure enough, the entire box was wrapped in a web of energy ‘strings,’ ready to be triggered if someone started messing with it. The web was connected to a big Mana construct on the top of the box; it was a spell that would activate if the strings were pulled or touched. To his attuned senses, the spell looked like a miniature sun, with fiery flares rising from it, and a complex pattern inside it, like a mechanism of organic gears that had been doused in gasoline and set on fire. And it looked a lot like something he had seen a few minutes ago: Nadia’s Fireball spell.
“Nadia, can you cast another Fireball? I need to check on something.”
“Sure, but I will have to throw it somewhere.”
“Send it into the next corridor. Maybe it’ll trigger some traps.”
“Ok.”
He watched the Sorceress as she concentrated, sent Mana into the spell – incidentally interrupting and messing up her entire inner Mana flow; there had to be a better way of doing that – and formed a softball-sized flame construct. Its ‘code’ was just like the one in the trapped box. Hawke studied it carefully during the several seconds Nadia held the spell, containing its destructive power while she waited for him to say when she could release it.
Congratulations! You have become attuned to the Element of Fire!
You have learned a new Fire spell: Fireball
Fireball
Time to Cast: 3 seconds (Instant). Cooldown: 10 seconds. Cost: 15(12) Mana. Duration: Instant. Range: 75 yards. Effect: Creates an exploding missile that inflicts 1-10 points of damage per level to all within a 20-foot radius from the point of impact.
Holy… His Mana Sight had let him pick up a new Element!
Congratulations! You have earned an Arcane Achievement!
Elementalist: You are the first Twilight Templar of your level who has acquired an Element not derived from any of his Classes.
You have unlocked an Elite Class: Elemental Warlord (available at level 20).
You have earned 225 Experience (25 diverted towards Leadership).
Current XP/Next Level: 1,504/16,000. Leadership XP: 3,568/4,000
“You can toss the spell, Nadia,” Hawke said, a bit stunned by the notifications.
The magical missile went flying down the corridor, disappearing in the unnatural darkness filling it. A moment later, there was a big flash, followed by a lightning burst. Looked like blowing up those hallways was another way of ‘disarming’ traps. Good to know.
Hawke wanted to cast a Fireball of his own, just to show off, but decided not to. People were already weirded out by his unique abilities. Hell, he was weirded out by them as well. A full-on Tank-Mage-Ninja would cause gaming nerds to rage like nobody’s business. Creating OP – overpowered – classes or abilities was among the greatest sins a game designer could commit.
True, Hawke replied. And he might be OP, but his enemies still managed to kill him with depressing frequency. Sighing, he turned back to the magical trap.
Now that he knew Fireball, the mechanics of the trap became much easier to understand. He saw the trap’s ‘trigger’ mechanism, a second spell laid over the explosive one. He had taken a couple of coding courses in vocational school, so he knew about basic ‘if-then’ commands. If someone touched the Mana strings, then the ball of fire went boom. His last attempt to mess with the strings and the conditional spell had failed miserably. But what if he went at it from the other end? He knew Fireball. Maybe he could neutralize the actual explosive and ignore the tripwires.
A few nerve-wracking minutes later, Hawke acquired a full appreciation of how Fireball turned Mana into an explosion. And how to ‘deflate’ it gently, like letting air out of a tire. As he concentrated, a thin jet of fire shot up towards the ceiling, lasting for several seconds until all the energy trapped in the spell dissipated. His Mana pool was drained by twenty-six points.
Congratulations! You have raised your Ability: Spellcraft, to Level Two.
You have learned: Spell Deconstruction. You can now break down a spell you know, releasing its Mana without triggering its effect. Time to Cast: 1 second per level of the spell. Mana Cost: 2 Mana per level of the spell.
Hawke took his first full breath since he started playing ‘cut the red wire’ with a high-level Fireball, and touched the box. The Mana strings around it sent a pulse to the triggering spell, which released a big spark. Nothing else happened, since he had removed the magical version of C-4 attached to the trap. Take that, a-hole, he told the creator of the trapped box, and opened it. A bow made of silver was inside, held in an indented cushion of bright green velvet. There were little green, blue, and red jewels encrusted along its recurved shape. A red filament of pure Mana served as its bowstring. It looked more like a work of art than a weapon, but Hawke’s True Vision showed it was definitely meant to bring harm to its owner’s enemies:
Sylvan Recurved Bow of Slaying (Masterwork Quality)
Minimum Strength: 16. Item Level: 12 (Minimum Level to use: 7)
Damage: 10 (Minimum) to a Maximum of (Strength + Dexterity + Perception) (Physical), +2-20 (Fire), +2-20 (Air)
Bonuses: +4 to Strength, Dexterity and Constitution, +3 to Archery Skill
Mana Storage: +50 to Mana Pool
Special Abilities: +15% Resistance to all Elemental damage, +5% Resistance to all Force damage.
Spells: Cast the following spells once per 24-hour period: Fireball, Lightning Strike. Wielder’s level determines the damage and effects of the spells.
“Hey, Tava,” Hawke called out, closing the box. “I want to show you something.”
Twenty-Two
For slaying your foes, you have earned: 900 Experience (100 diverted towards Leadership).
Congratulations! Your Leadership has increased to Level Four!
(Leadership Abilities cannot be purchased until completing or abandoning a Lair)
Current XP/Next Level: 2,404/16,000. Leadership XP: 4,149/6,000
You have found: 11 gold, Pouch of Holding (8 slots, 500 pound weight limit), 3 Healing Potions, 2 Mana Potions, 3 Endurance Potions.
The next room had been a carbon-copy of the last, with another Drakeling and twenty-two Spriggans standing watch. After clearing the traps, Hawke had come in, taken his baptism of fire from the three-headed monster, dropped a Fireball and Burning Light on everybody, and then sent his three-headed monster into the room, followed by the rest of the gang. Between a couple of backstabs and Tava’s super-duper bow, they had taken out the Drakeling before it could breathe fire again, After the big monster went down, 3PO, Rabbit and Desmond rampaged through the surviving Spriggans while the rest of the gang picked them off one by one or, when their AOE spells’ cooldown was over, by the bunch.
It wasn’t exactly easy – a Spriggan managed to land a critical on Hawke’s head when his Bulwark of Light was off, dropping him to under 100 Health, and a couple of other party members had their own close calls – but they wiped out the monsters in short order.
He sat up, reaching for the swords. His armor was in his inventory; it took him a moment to have it appear as he asked What’s going on?
That woke him up in a hurry. He saw Gosto, who had been on watch as well; the young Druid was looking at the corridor going to the next area, and hadn’t noticed that his watch partner wasn’t at his post anymore. Hawke got his attention, whispered to him to be ready to wake everyone up if he heard anything, and went after the missing Warrior.
Hawke cast Shroud of Twilight on himself and crept forward, listening carefully. By the time he was halfway to the previous chamber, he heard Desmond whispering angrily.
“That’s not how it is! You are trying to turn me against my friends!”
There was a pause, followed by:
“You are lying!”
By then, he reached the room and saw Desmond arguing with himself. There were two Desmonds in full armor, one gesturing furiously, the other standing with his arms crossed and his head tilted to one side. He figured out the doppelganger must have come out from the mirror Desmond had cracked earlier.
“She likes me. I think she loves me,” Desmond said, drawing his sword. “And I’m done listening to your bullshit.”
Hawke dropped his invisibility spell and cast Aura of Light. “Let’s get that sucker,” he told the real Desmond.
The Warrior didn’t say anything as he swung his sword wildly, too enraged to fight smart. The fake Desmond ducked under the attack and stabbed his counterpart in the chest. Critical hit: Desmond staggered back, his Health down by over a hundred. Hawke did his Twilight Step-backstab combo, and that was more than enough to destroy the magical construct.
“Remember what I said,” were the doppelganger’s last words as his body turned into smoke and vanished.
“Let me heal you,” Hawke told Desmond.
The Warrior was glaring at him. “Did you have sex with Alba?”
Hawke’s Touch of Light repaired the wound; he wasn’t sure if anything he said would fix Desmond’s other problem, but he decided to tell the truth. “I did. Once, a long time ago.”
“You do want to bang every chick that crosses your path.”
“It’s not like that. It happened the one time, on my second day in the Realms. After that, I was with Tava. Alba and I are just friends now.”
“How many people has she screwed? Was she a prostitute?”
That mirror thing knew too much. Knew personal details nobody else did, and also what to say to trigger Desmond’s insecurities. The Warrior’s furious expression told Hawke that all the goodwill he had earned with his gaming buddy had vanished as thoroughly as the simulacrum he had destroyed. How had the critter learned all that stuff?
“Your girlfriend set me up with a bar slut!” Desmond growled. “She wasn’t good enough for you, but fine for me.”
“She worked at the Copper Kettle,” Hawke explained. “Sometimes she dated the patrons.”
“And often, they paid for the privilege,” Alba said. She had followed Hawke in without his noticing.
Desmond’s eyes were bugging out. “So, you were… A…”
“A whore? Many called me that, and lost teeth for the telling. I was no pimp’s slave, bedding anyone with denars to spend. I liked all those who I spent time with, by my choosing. But that is over now. I have no other lovers. Only you.”
“This… this is messed up.” Desmond turned to Hawke. “All I got were your sloppy seconds.”
“Watch your tongue,” Alba told him.
“Screw this. I’ll finish the Lair, because I want the gold and the XP. But after that, we’re done.”
“Come on, man,” Hawke pleaded with him. “You are a hero in Orom. Everywhere else, you’ll be an outsider. Alone.”
“How do you think I feel now?”
“When we take down the Necromancer, we’re going to free a lot of Eternals. Players like us.”
“And we’ll all be friends, right? Screw that. You go fight the Necromancer. I’m done playing hero.”
“Desmond…” Hawke trailed off. He could understand why the Warrior felt betrayed, and he didn’t know what to say to fix it.
“Don’t worry,” Desmond said, still angry but with a colder, more calculating edge to his voice. “I won’t go to Akila and tell the Nerf Herders about your little town.” He laughed bitterly. “The town you own. You just keep taking everything around you, don’t you? That bow you just gave your other girlfriend was worth hundreds of gold, but it didn’t occur to you that the rest of us had a stake on it. It’s your planet, we just live in it.”
I can’t. I won’t.
“There is probably one, maybe two encounters left,” he told Desmond. “I’ll see to it you get your fair share. And if you change your mind, I will forget everything you said.”
“I will not,” Alba said. “Sleep alone from now on, and let your jealousy eat you from inside, little man.”
Well, that didn’t help, Hawke thought, although he couldn’t blame her for being angry. Or Desmond, either. He had screwed up things royally.
Desmond was sputtering, clearly ready to say something insulting to Alba, but also clearly afraid of Hawke. He had just watched the Twilight Templar one-shot a copy of himself, after all. And it would be so easy to do it again. Alba wouldn’t say a thing about it, not after Desmond insulted her. Just five, maybe six backstabs, and the Warrior would be nobody’s problem anymore.
Hawke shook his head. “Let’s go back to sleep. Desmond, you’re off watch. And if you step out of line before we leave the Lair, you won’t be leaving at all. Understood?”
“Crystal clear, boss.”
“Fuck you too. Let’s go.”
* * *
The mood the next morning was awkward and tense. Desmond spoke in single words or grunts. He ended up in his own isolated bubble, with nobody coming close to him.
Hawke kept an eye on him while he prepared the team’s entry into the next room. A bunch of Animate Shadows and a few Mana Constructs later, the path to the new chamber was cleared. He sent another summoned pet to take a look. It reached the other side and saw… a forest? The doorway led to a large clearing surrounded by large trees. In the center of the clearing, his scout spotted a stone altar with a body lying on it. A tall metal box covered in mystical symbols stood nearby, as did three Elf-like figures in silver plate armor, wielding swords large enough to be considered two-handed, as well as shields. Their helmets left their inhumanly long and thin faces exposed. Their pale skins, ivory in color with hints of green, bigger-than-Vulcan ears, supersized purple eyes, and long platinum-blonde hair marked them as Fae. The Shadowling barely had time to identify them before a lightning bolt hit it for over seven hundred damage and erased it from existence:
High Fae Defenders (Sidhe)
Level 12 Elite Battle-Mages
Health 920 Mana 1,320 Endurance 650
“Good news is, that’s the last chamber,” Hawke told everyone. “These
guys are going to be tough, though.”
He described the final guardians of the Sidhe Prince and his Vault. “Three tank-mages with high-end gear. They are going to fight smart, too. Can’t draw aggro on them, not like I can with dumb beasts or minions. They will pick off our casters if they expose themselves.”
“I can do it, actually,” Desmond said. “One of my War-Cries is called Great Taunt. It forces every enemy in range to attack me for eight seconds.”
“All right. I’ll cast Gift of the Martyr on you, and Gosto will work to make sure I don’t drop dead.”
“I didn’t say I would do it, though.”
“Oh?”
“Before I risk losing another life for you, I want something in return.”
Tava started to say something, but Hawke interrupted her. “What?” he told the Warrior through clenched teeth.
“I get first pick from any gear we find. Including everyone’s personal doggie bags from every corpse.”
Hawke shrugged. “Done.”
“And I go into the Vault first.”
Not going to betray the guy, he told the sword.
“Done,” Hawke repeated. “Anything else?”
Desmond grinned and put on his helmet. “Nah, I’m good, bro.”
I am being me, Saturnyx. You have to accept that.
Twenty-Three
Before they went in, Hawke tried to refresh the Tame spell on 3PO. And failed.
Lord of the Dead: A LitRPG Saga (The Eternal Journey Book 2) Page 13
