“Sure, but Greg isn’t dead yet, and I took the Stronghold as my own. That’s a big chunk of loot. Korgam is probably unhappy about that.”
“I guess there is enough room in the mountains for everyone,” Hawke said, thinking of the Arachnoid ruins they had found along the way.
The Murk Arachnoids didn’t seem to be interested in resettling their old cities but had spread onto the upper reaches of the mountain, where they met the plateau the Wolf-Men controlled. Maybe the Dwarves could claim the abandoned lands near the bottom of the mountains and build there, after signing a treaty signed with the Arachnoids and one Hawke Lightseeker, Lord of the Dead. More meetings. There were going to be a lot more meetings.
Vaults Six, Seven and Eight (again, matched pairs) contained magic scrolls and books. Unlike the assorted components in the previous vaults, there were rarely more than a handful of each kind of scroll, and very often an entire slot would be occupied by a single copy. Greg had either been fond of using his supply, or hadn’t had much luck acquiring more.
“Makes sense,” he said. “Now, can you learn a spell from a scroll?”
After Saturnyx’s lecture, Hawke was unsurprised to find that all but a handful of the scrolls and books in the four vaults were the kind that let you cast the spell inscribed there, after which the scroll would burn away, or, in the case of a book, the page where the spell was would do so. There were only four Teaching Tomes in total, each a scroll containing a single spell. One he already knew: Animate Shadow. The other three belonged to the Death or Undeath schools:
Raise Zombie (Undeath)
Time to Cast: 15(12) seconds. Cooldown: 10(8) minutes. Cost: 15(12) Mana. Duration: Permanent. Range: 10 yards. Effect: Raise a fresh corpse from a sapient species, turning it into a servant. The zombie will be one level below yours (minimum level one) You can control a maximum of one zombie per level. Additional zombies can be created, but are not under your control and will wander around, seeking to kill and feed on the living. The spell can also be used to take control of an unbound zombie, at the same cost of raising one.
Death Stare (Death)
Time to Cast: 3 seconds (Instant). Cooldown: 30(24) seconds. Cost: 100(75) Mana. Duration: Permanent. Range: 30 feet. Effect: Look into your victim’s eyes, inflicting 15-25 Death damage per level. Armor and most defenses other than Elemental Resistance will not mitigate this spell. Only living beings can be affected by Death Stare.
Army of the Dead
Time to Cast: 5(2.5) minutes. Cooldown: 24(20) hours. Cost: 250(200) Mana. Duration: Two hours. Range: 2-mile radius. Effect: Any corpse in the area of effect that has not been given a proper funeral and buried in hallowed ground will rise, digging themselves out if necessary, and follow your mental commands. The risen dead will be Skeletons or Zombies, depending on the state of their corpses, and will have an equivalent level to two-thirds the caster’s level, rounded down.
“Holy shit.”
Death Stare was the next best thing to a one-shot kill. No wonder Greg had almost murdered him a bunch of times during their fight. Army of the Dead could raise a private army. In the right place – like the unmarked graves of a couple of legions he knew about – he could start his own zombie apocalypse.
Is there a catch? Will raising the dead damn me? Or staring people to death?
“In that case, I’m taking those scrolls.”
“I know. This gives me one more reason to keep the Death Temple going. I’m already a Twilight Templar. Walking a fine line between opposites is what I do.”
“Risk versus reward. My only worry is that I already have more spells than I know what to do with.”
“Just like a game. Of course it would be just like a game,” Hawke said, cursing himself for not thinking of that before.
A quick look at his spell list let him pick an icon for each spell, and to arrange a series of icons in a floating line in his field of vision, off to one corner so it wouldn’t obstruct his visibility. He could even add a timer function so he would know which spell was on cooldown and which was ready to cast. Setting up more than thirteen or fourteen spells began to clutter up things. It was just like Saturnyx had said. Pick the spells you wanted to use, then you could easily fire them off as needed. Change the rotation for different foes – one for Undead, for example – and you wouldn’t forget a useful spell in the middle of a fight.
“I’ll still have to work on it. Lots of practice.”
“That’s a good point. If I ever have to use a regular sword, I’d be still stuck with a Skill of seven. I’ll start working out a few hours a week.” Assuming I can squeeze a few hours a week out of my schedule.
“Okay. Meanwhile, let’s finish checking the vaults and maybe have an early lunch back in Orom.”
As things turned out, there was no lunch, early or otherwise.
Sixty
Hawke didn’t spend much time looking at the regular one-shot spell scrolls. That sounded more like a job for Nadia or other Mage types. He only placed a few one-use scrolls in his inventory, because the spells in question looked cool or might come in handy during an emergency. After closing those vaults, he turned to number Nine.
It was full of magical items. Weapons, rings, necklaces, armor pieces, cloaks, hats, enchanted jewels, even piercings and some weird patterns that Saturnyx explained were tattoo enchantments. Most of the items were unique or close to it, with rarely more than two items of each type in a slot. There were sixty filled slots and about eighty items in total. Hawke opened the vault on the opposite wall and wasn’t surprised to find more of the same. He checked the ninth and tenth vaults on both sides and found yet more. Before he went on a shopping spree, Hawke decided to look at the last two vaults on each side, just in case they also had more useful doodads.
They didn’t. The last four vaults were filled with bodies: sixty-three in three vaults and sixty-two in one, for a total of two-hundred and fifty-one wrapped-up bodies.
“That’s a big nope,” he said, closed all those vaults, and decided to deal with them after he was done picking up so
me goodies. Whatever was going on there, it was not likely to be pleasant.
Hawke examined the items carefully, looking for some good stuff for himself, as well as some choice presents for his friends and loved ones. He decided that half of the rest of the items would have to be divvied up between everyone who had participated in the expedition, including the families of the dead, both Adventurers and normal people. Everybody was going to get a share of those items or their value in cash, whichever they preferred.
He ended up picking up eleven items from the huge selection. Seven were gifts: two Masterwork Rings of the Sage, going to Nadia and Gosto, which provided a +4 bonuses to Intelligence, Spirit and Willpower, two Rings of the Scout (for Alba and Tava), with +4 bonuses to Dexterity, Constitution and Perception, and a Hunter’s Helm for Tava that gave +5 bonuses to those Attributes plus a self-heal enchantment that would restore 150 Health once a day. He also got her 48 Arrows of Smiting that added +50 Physical damage to each shot. Korgam would be getting a Shield of the Defender, with huge bonuses to Strength and Constitution as well as increased resistance against all Elements and Forces. He would count those things as part of his share; everybody would get their pick after that.
For himself, he took a Warrior’s Ring that added +5 to Strength and Constitution, a Tattoo of the Boar that magically painted a very realistic beast on his chest and increased his Elemental and Force Resistances by 10% and his Health by 20%, and a Cloak of Salvation that gave him another +5 to Constitution and which, if struck by an attack that would reduce him to zero Health, would let him survive with 25% of his maximum Health instead. Considering how close to dying he came on a regular basis, the cloak was a godsend and a good backstop to his In Extremis spell. The ability worked only once a day, so he resolved not to engage in suicidal behavior any more often than that.
Finally, he put an Amethyst of the Magus into the chest slot of his armor. The glowing jewel socketed itself in the breast plate with a burst of light and a small puff of ozone. He still had a Holy Orb of Life in his inventory, but he already had one attached to Saturnyx and he was saving it in case they needed to replace the one that was being slowly destroyed by the strain of housing the Fury’s soul. His Breastplate of the Battle-Mage had a slot for a jewel, orb or other socketed item, and the Amethyst was a perfect fit:
Amethyst of the Magus (Legendary Item)
Level 15 (Minimum Level 10)
Bonuses: +5 to Intelligence and Spirit, +50 to Mana, +20% to spell damage.
Special Abilities:
Draw Mana: Once per day, the Amethyst can replenish up to 50% of your Mana Capacity.
He also set aside a level 20 bastard sword that he couldn’t use yet but would make a fitting replacement for the paired weapons that had served him and Saturnyx so well for most of his adventuring career. With it and the Lesser Shield of Order, he would soon go back to his old sword-and-board tanking days as soon as he reached level 15.
There was a lot more stuff in the vaults, but some of it was level 20 or higher, which he couldn’t use, and other stuff was too low-level for him but might be useful to starting Adventurers. After half of the vaults’ contents were shared by the expedition, Hawke decided that people who joined his Guild (including those who had already joined) would get to pick a magical item as a sign-up bonus, with some limitations. Adventurers who wanted to strike off on their own could buy items instead.
“All right,” he said after equipping all his new gear. “Let’s look at the bodies in the last two vaults.”
* * *
The two hundred and fifty-two bodies were wrapped in bandages like so many Egyptian mummies. He used True Sight on one of them, and made a couple of disturbing discoveries:
Elwynn Alfair (Fae, Undead)
Level 10 Unseelie Revenant
Health 365 Mana 370 Endurance n/a
What the hell? Fae cannot become Undead.
And yet, there it was, and Elwynn wasn’t the only one. All those hundreds of bodies were some variety of Fae or Elf, all transformed into Undead and kept in stasis inside the Vault, despite the fact such transformation shouldn’t be possible. Hawke hadn’t realized that you could put people in inventory slots, either, and asked Saturnyx about that.
“Crap. I’m sorry for doing that to you.”
“But these guys must be insane.”
“So why keep them there? Why create them in the first place? None of this makes sense.”
“Which means that either Greg couldn’t fill his collection evenly, or one of them is out and about. Doing who knows what.”
“No, and when I find him I don’t plan to waste time with questions. I really don’t care what he wanted to do. We’ll leave those guys in there until we can figure out what to do with them.”
He emptied most of the low-value stuff in his Inventory into the Vault’s spare slots and left, making sure the door leading to the stairs was locked and trapped. He looked at the time and realized he had missed lunch and was probably going to be late for dinner. Hawke was just heading for the Stronghold Core when a running guardsman found him.
“Trouble, Your Holy Eminence!”
Sixty-One
Hawke followed the guard to the main courtyard, where Marko was talking to a tired-looking guardsman who had gotten off a well-lathered horse; there was a remount behind them, equally covered in sweat. The guard must have ridden all the way from Orom, made it through the ford and then ridden up the tunnel at the foot of the Stronghold. Even with a remount, it must have been a brutal trip, over twenty miles in a couple of hours, over portions of broken terrain and dangerous wildlife. He reminded himself to see that the messenger got a bonus.
“Your Eminence,” Marko said, saluting.
“What’s wrong?”
At a node from the First Sergeant, the messenger spoke up. “Captain Kinto sent me here. Some of the Eternals went off exploring this morning. They came back with tidings of an army gathering in the Shadowy Foothills. He wanted to notify you, so here I am.”
“Thank you. I’ll go to Orom. Get some rest before you head back.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Hawke rushed to the Core Room and teleported to the Prefect’s Keep in Orom. As soon as he was there, he contacted Tava and Nadia through their link to Saturnyx. Thankfully, they were both within reach.
What happened?
We’re in the Keep, Tava said. We’ll talk then.
“Welcome back,” Antana told him, looking up from her desk.
“I don’t feel very welcome,” he replied on his way out of the main office. “We may have some trouble.”
“So I have heard. That seems to have become the normal state of affairs,” the Mistress of Coin said unhappily as she followed him.
Hawke went to the room where he normally held Town Council meetings. The other To
wn Officials were there, along with Kinto, Nadia and Tava. Also present were a handful of Eternals, including Moe Butts and Olaf Goode, both of whom had gone up to third level.
“What happened?”
“It was my bad,” Moe began. “We got a Quest from the Alchemist lady to collect some herbs up north. We headed up there, no biggie, but then a Dire Bear showed up. Level six. We took it down.”
“Moe kept us organized,” Olaf added. “Good teamwork all around.”
“Yeah, but then we continued north, even though we’d been warned it wasn’t safe. We’d all leveled up and we were feeling a bit cocky, I guess. We made it to the top of the hill, and that was when we saw them.”
“At least a hundred Woodlings,” a female Orc Ranger by the name of Alabama McGee broke in. “Level five, mostly, with a dozen lieutenants and bosses, levels seven to twelve. And about thirty of the Anger Hounds that attacked us yesterday. They were camped between a set of hills, about twelve miles north of town. And more of them were coming in.”
“We took off then,” Moe went on. “But we ran into a patrol. Dozen Woodlings and six Hounds came after us. Howard stayed behind to hold them off.” Moe looked down. “He had the highest Identity of us, so he figured he was the most expendable.”
“I’m back, though,” Howard Strong said; he was a third level Paladin of Hercules. “I just didn’t want the others to lose more points. My I.D. was at twenty. Eighteen now, but I’ll live.”
“They still almost caught us, but Gosto and Tava had been gathering herbs not too far away, and they saved us.”
“We dealt with the remaining Woodlings and their beasts. Then we sent word and raised the guard,” Tava said. “We have brought in all the farmers on the northern farms, and prepared for the worst. The Woodlings haven’t come to us yet.”
“Waiting for reinforcements, I’d wager,” Kinto said. “If they are gathering their forces, it may be a few days before they reach their full strength. Although they may strike sooner, now that they know we are aware of their presence.”
Lord of the Dead: A LitRPG Saga (The Eternal Journey Book 2) Page 35
