Lord of the Dead: A LitRPG Saga (The Eternal Journey Book 2)
Page 26
Gregory ‘Domort’ Ballantine (Human, Eternal)
Level 15(20) Necromancer, Homunculist
Health 876(1126) Mana 840/1,270(2,140), Endurance 869/1090
Graverobber (Undead)
Level 10(15) Elite Necromancer
Health 500(750) Mana 820/1,200(1,500), Endurance n/a
Most of the targets were blinded and stunned by the Hawke’s spell, but he knew that wouldn’t last long. He exploded into action, casting Burning Light, Dark Tendrils that killed and immobilized at the same time, a Fireball, and smacked Greg personally with a Hammer of Light. He finished his routine with a Healing Wave for an extra f-you, and jumped back towards the other side of the wall. Tava used his spells as a targeting beacon and dropped an Imbued Killing Arrowstorm onto the courtyard, sending dozens of Undead back to hell. Nadia followed suit with all her AOE spells. The Necromancer’s minions were taking a beating; a quick look at his Combat Log showed him that one of the Graverobbers had been destroyed in the process. That was great, Hawke thought as he refreshed his Bulwark of Light, because in a few seconds…
Three Death Cyclones struck him and his pet. Once again, he saved himself by engaging Timeless Mind and switching all his Mana over to Health; he ended the magical barrage with less than twenty points on each. Those spells were the worst, and the twenty-percent bonus the defenders were getting just added injury to more injury. Hawke spent the next few seconds chugging potions and trying not to die. How long had it been? The barrage of spells had finally taken down his giant shadow monster. He was all alone at the gate, and more defenders were filling the battlements despite the best efforts of his friends. He didn’t know how much longer he could keep up. Even with the potions, his Mana was still well below two hundred; another trio of Death Cyclones would wipe him out.
Before that could happen, the cavalry arrived. Or, to be more accurate, the Dwarven Sapper Squad arrived.
Since a direct assault was near-suicide and the best spell of their arsenal, Mass Blast Undead, was line-of-sight only and was thus blocked by defensive walls, Korgam had suggested using Tunnel spells under the walls. The main problem was that a Stronghold occupied a volume of space, including a one-hundred-foot radius sphere under its main floor. To prevent being detected, which would allow the Necromancer to hit the Dwarves with his deadly spells, the team burrowed away from the Stronghold’s borders until they were just below the walls – and then they opened massive magical tunnels under them.
Hawke knew that the plan had worked when a section of wall and courtyard collapsed under a hole and Egg jumped out and cast Mass Blast Undead on every critter on sight. The rest of the Sterns came running out, tearing into the survivors with axe and spell. Hawke joined in the fun, jumping back onto the wall and clearing the rest of the battlements with his area of effect spells and waving at his friends, who were already rushing forward, led by Tava, who was kneeling on Rabbit’s back and shooting off her bow in perfect time with his pouncing strides. The Dire Bear cavalry was on its way, and the Undead were about to have the worst of all possible days.
The only problem was that Hawke could only see the Gravedigger Necromancers lying on the ground like good dead things.
There was no sign of the Necromancer.
Forty-Four
Undead reinforcements were pouring out of the surrounding buildings. Hawke wanted to go chasing after the Necromancer, but he couldn’t leave his friends alone, either.
He rushed towards one of the barracks and plugged its entrance with his AOEs, dropping Undead left and right until his friends joined him. The ensuing battle was savage, but most of the enemy Wraiths had been either at the wall or the courtyard, and were no longer a problem. The Adventurers had to deal with waves of Abominations, but despite their size and strength, they weren’t much of a threat for a properly coordinated party. The two teams joined forces in the middle and formed a circle around the ranged combatants, holding off the monsters while spells thinned their ranks. Their coordinated efforts wiped out all the creatures after several furious minutes. Everyone needed some extra Mana and Endurance by the time it was over.
Despite their enemies being raised to level 10-12 or even higher because of the Stronghold defense bonuses, they still only gained the experience from their regular levels. Even so, killing hundreds of Undead paid off:
For slaying your foes, you have earned: 2,600 Experience (325 diverted towards Leadership; 325 diverted towards Node Mastery).
Congratulations! Your Leadership has increased to Level Seven!
Current XP/Next Level: 15,784/16,000. Leadership XP: 11,211/15,000
Current Node Mastery XP/Next Level: 2,694/3,000
You have found: 127 gold, 8 silver.
You have found 21 Healing Potions, 18 Mana Potion, 23 Endurance Potion.
Hawke chose Messenger I for his new Leadership ability, so he could check on Marko. The news he heard from the First Sergeant weren’t great: the Murk Arachnoids had launched two more assaults after the attack on the Stronghold had begun. They’d been beaten off both times, but Marko was sure more were-spiders were coming. Echoing horns and bells could be heard from the tunnels leading toward more villages. From the looks of it, the Necromancer was pressuring his allies to come to his aid. The next attack would involve greater numbers.
He shared the news with the two teams.
“I should go,” Nadia said. “It’s time to put the Vestments of the Spider Emperor to work.”
“You are right. But you will need extra help if they turn out not to work.”
“Take Daggon and Taggan with you,” Korgam said. “The rest of us will assist the Sorceress, your holy eminence.”
“Thank you.”
Nadia would be greatly missed, but having the Warrior and the Stone Mystic along would be a big help if the Necromancer showed up, although Hawke also suspected Korgam wanted to make sure all loot found along the way was properly split up.
“We’ll see you soon.”
He clasped forearms with Korgam, kissed Nadia, and the groups went their separate ways.
The last time Hawke had seen the Necromancer, he had been standing on the steps of the central building, a large cathedral-like structure that reached all the way to the huge cavern’s ceiling, nearly a hundred feet up. That had to be the inner side of the tower everyone had seen protruding out of the mountain. The buildings on the sides had been barracks, or more like storage units, since the Undead there had been standing shoulder to shoulder until there was room for them to come out. From the looks of it, there had been something like fifteen hundred creatures manning the wall. He felt a little bit cheated with the XP he’d gained.
The Arbiters are harsh but fair, I guess.
“Okay, then,” Hawke said out loud. “I think he went into the big building. Let’s go!”
* * *
The ‘lobby’ of the tower was a mess. From the looks of it, Greg liked to leave bodies to rot when he didn’t need them, and the place had a stench that only the Undead could endure. After taking one whiff, Gosto turned green, doubled over, and upchucked, which would have been funnier if the sight hadn’t triggered Tava into following suit. After a while, Hawke’s sense of smell quietly died, which he counted as a blessing. How could anything human live like that?
A handful of Abominations came from a set of stairs leading down and attacked. They were level twelve, augmented to level seventeen by the Stronghold, but hadn’t been ready for action, if the missing limbs and slow movements were any indication. It looked as if the Necromancer had released unfinished monsters to slow them down while he did… what? Nothing they wanted him to do, that was certain. Hawke and his friends took down the lumbering monsters as quickly as they could and rushed downstairs. Another Abomination, a big critter that h
ad been made out of Wolf-Men instead of human parts, blocked their way. It was tougher than normal and had over six hundred Health, but that wasn’t enough against the hardened band of Adventurers. Hawke’s backstabs took him down most of the way. A couple of arrows from Tava did the rest. The Necromancer must be scraping the bottom of the barrel, Hawke thought.
He was wrong. They reached the basement, and that was when things became serious.
The stairs took them to a vast underground section, with a thirty-foot ceiling and a hundred-foot long room. Hawke felt a little sick when he recognized the vaulted ceilings. He had been there before, when the Necromancer had recaptured him. Dozens of man-sized glass containers lined both walls. Most of them were open, with nothing inside but spilled pools of some greenish fluid that stank of toxic chemicals; the smell was powerful enough to briefly reawaken Hawke’s olfactory nerves, only to kill them again. A few still had bodies inside them: more Abominations that hadn’t hatched, floating limply in containers filled with the same liquid. That was where the Necromancer made his creatures.
Heavy footsteps coming from the other end warned the group that the Necromancer had more tricks up his sleeve.
It was another unfinished monster, but this one was at least half as tall as the underground laboratory’s ceiling. He had been built with several bodies grafted together. The last time Hawke had seen something so nasty had been at an Area Event: the Lords of Bones had been another mishmash of corpses, but at least those had been clean bones. The thing moving towards them was a composite of at least a dozen different corpses, with sewn-up torsos for legs and arms, some with their own limbs still attached and waving feebly. It had three heads: Human, Arachnoid and Man-Wolf, mounted side by side and looking grotesquely tiny against the barrel-like torso. Hawke found himself having flashbacks to some of his old gaming times, compounded by the paint-peeling stink from the creature, worse by far than everything they had experienced.
Greater Abomination (Undead)
Level 12(17) Elite Minion
Health 2,830/2,400(3,400) Mana 1200(1,700), Endurance n/a
“Time to tank,” Hawke said, and teleport-backstabbed the giant monster. Since the Undead was so tall, he had to hit it in the ass. The monster was heavily armored by thick folds of fat and muscle, though, so he only did a couple hundred damage even with criticals. He followed up with his Light and Life spells, which hurt the critter some more and also kept it focused on him. That turned out to have mixed results.
Two fists the size of a Smart Car came crashing down on Hawke. He rolled away from one but the second smashed him into the ground. The gross damage of the blow horrendous, and even after Hawke’s defenses, his Health went down to 206. As his broken bones reassembled themselves, he screamed in rage and pain and slashed at the monster’s hand before it could pull away. A volley of magic and arrows from the team hit the Abomination, including a Falling Boulder spell from Taggan that smashed its Arachnoid head into paste. The ranged hits were followed by Daggon and Rabbit, who proceeded to tear into the monster. They hurt it a lot, but Hawke’s renewed attacks continued to top the damage meter. He used his spells as soon as they were off cooldown, doing his damnedest to be as much of a nuisance as possible.
Unfortunately, the monster didn’t rely on just his fists.
Beset from all sides, the Giant Abomination dealt with its tormentors by spewing a torrent of acid from its two remaining mouths and spinning in a circle, bathing everyone in the burning fluid. The corrosive, Death-attuned chemical ate away at Hawke, Daggon and Rabbit at a continuous rate of 100 Health per second, which Hawke’s Elemental Resistances reduced to 35, still no picnic. For Daggon and Rabbit, it was much worse; his Combat Log reported that both of them were losing Health at sixty points per second. Crap.
Hawke kept slashing away at the creature and using Healing Waves every three seconds. Gosto switched to healing full-time. Between the two of them, they slowed down the acid, but not stopped it. Hawke tried Lesser Healing on Daggon; the spell removed the poison effect from the Dwarf. Unfortunately, Hawke wouldn’t be able to cast it again for another sixteen seconds. Rabbit’s Health was ticking down into dangerous levels. Hawke maneuvered to be close enough to the bear to place him in range of his healing aura and use Touch of Light on it. He took a punch and a stomp from the Abomination along the way. For a couple of seconds, his Health dipped into the twenties, but a rushed heal from Gosto pushed him out of the danger zone.
Unfortunately, the monster did another acid spew before Hawke’s Lesser Healing cooldown was over.
Rabbit’s Health Pool was 440; he would only last four seconds without healing. Hawke kept using Touch of Light on the bear and himself, while sending a Bolt of Life at Daggon, who was still hacking away at the monster despite the painful chemical burns making his skin bubble sickeningly. The fight became a race between dropping Health Pools. The monster was down to its last thirty percent, but that was still over eight hundred Health.
Daggon delivered a Death Blow, a special attack that only worked against gravely wounded targets. The devastating axe swing chopped nearly halfway into one of the Abomination’s legs. The monster’s own weight did the rest: the bones supporting it broke in a series of cracks as loud as gunshots. But the monster stood long enough to turn on its tormentor and smash him with one of its massive fists.
“No!” Hawke and Taggan screamed at the same time. Daggon’s Health bar emptied out completely. You could sometimes help people if they went below zero, depending on how far below zero they had gone, but when Hawke cast another Bolt of Life, it didn’t touch the Dwarf’s limp form. The blow had been immediately fatal.
“Kill you,” Hawke growled as he redoubled his attacks. He almost forgot to keep healing himself and Rabbit, but his Party Interface warned him they both were reaching critical levels.
Hawke forced himself to set his feelings aside and fight to win. The Abomination was down on one knee, unable to move with a crippled leg. Tava put arrows into every remaining head’s eyes, but the crippled monster still seemed to know where everybody was, and turned toward Rabbit, trying to take out the weaker front fighter first. Hawke stuck to healing spells while attacking the monster with his blades. That worked, barely. Rabbit staggered out of the fight with less than a dozen Health after the monster landed a punch, but a second later Taggan sent a Stabbing Stalagmite exploding through the Abomination’s crotch. The giant Earth spike emerged from the stump that was what was left of the creature’s Arachnoid head, and the giant Undead seemed to relax as a loot bag appeared over its unmoving form.
For slaying your foes, you have earned: 1,440 Experience (180 diverted towards Leadership; 180 diverted towards Node Mastery).
Congratulations! You have reached Level Thirteen!
You have gained 6 Attribute points to distribute.
New Darkness, Fire, Life, Light and Twilight spells available.
Current XP/Next Level: 17,224/18,000. Leadership XP: 12,411/15,000
Current Node Mastery XP/Next Level: 2,874/3,000
You have found: 8 gold, 5 silver.
You have found 2 Healing Potions, 1 Mana Potion, 1 Endurance Potion.
Taggan rushed towards his cousin’s body and began singing a Dwarven death chant. The Stone Mystic produced a dagger as he wailed in an inhuman voice, and drew a bloody line across his cheek. Hawke put a hand on Gosto and shook his head, keeping the Druid from healing the wound. His Lore Skill had informed him that some Dwarves cultures honored their dead by scarring themselves.
“I am so sorry,” he told Taggan when he was finished with the ritual.
The Stone Mystic nodded in acknowledgment. “Ye did as best ye could. Doggan was no fool. He knew as well as I that the Path to Power is dotted with the graves of most who enter it.”
“He was a great Warrior. And we in Orom will honor him to the full extent that we can, according to your customs a
nd ours.”
The Dwarf nodded. “I thank ye. But the best way to honor the fallen will be to end the life of him who took his.”
“And that’s exactly what we will do.”
Forty-Five
Hawke used Messenger to let Korgam know about the fate of his cousin.
“I understand,” the Dwarf leader said.
Nadia spoke to him next, via Saturnyx. “More Arachnoids showed up. I used the Vestments of the Spider Emperor to stop them.”
“What happened?”
“It seems there are over a hundred tribes living in burrows throughout the Sunset Range. Thousands of Warriors were being roused, led by hundreds of Shamans. We didn’t learn that until later, of course.”
“What did you do?”
“When the first group showed up, I used the Scepter’s Command ability and told them to stop fighting. Spoke to their Shaman leaders for a bit afterwards.”
“And…?”
“They left after saying they would consult with other chieftains. That was when we were told just how many spider-people live in these mountains.”
“Yeah, I thought there would be a few villages like the one we overran, not hundreds of them.”
“We are fine for now, though. Hard to press on with an attack when I can order them to lay down their arms as long as I have Mana to spend.”
Hawke thought about asking the rest of the Dwarves to join his group, but decided not to risk it. Nobody knew if the spider people would remain peaceful. For all they knew, the desire to avenge the fallen might drive them to greater efforts, and their Shamans might be able to overcome the Scepter of the Spider Emperor. He had them pull back to the Stronghold’s gates and hold there. The Arachnoids would regain their village and hopefully have less reason to attack them. The Stronghold should be easy to defend if the spiderlings changed their mind; a section of wall had gone down, but the Dwarves’ Earth Magic could patch over the breach.