by John L. Monk
Though I had twelve wraiths, three were wounded and would die if they lost the initiative. In five levels, I could choose Heal Undead, but hadn’t thought I’d need it. Again, this should have been easier.
“Regrets later,” I muttered. Nothing I could do about it now.
“Get ’em!” I shouted, sending the three wounded and five fresh ones against the four seraphs.
While they flew, I shot back to the far corner and waited for the demons.
One wraith died in the seraph attack, and two more barely survived. I raised four more, bringing my complement to fifteen.
“To me! Attack!” I shouted, calling back the spent group and sending in the six that were ready.
The demons got to me first. They slammed into my Necrotic Aura, slashing and hammering ineffectually. Thank goodness for my 701 pain protection, because my aura transmitted half the pain from every blow.
My imperfect aura had another flaw—the demons had released a powerful toxin into the air. Not being a direct-damage attack, there was nothing to block. Every breath I took forced a resistance check against poison. With 500 in poison resistance I was mostly safe, but every failed check added 10 damage a second. I’d failed two checks already.
My newest wraiths finally reached me and attacked, killing two demons. The remaining two clawed my aura for 750 points of damage. They died immediately afterward, slashed from behind.
“Kill! Kill! Kill!” I shouted while flying back across the chamber.
More raking hits from behind proved the futility of retreat, so I turned and waited for my minions to cut them down.
“Finally,” I said. “Summon.”
My aura had been a lofty 17,000 after the seraphs, but had now declined to 13,620. I’d failed two more poison checks, adding 40 damage a second, or 2400 a minute. Add that to my ROD and I’d never see the end of the Tourney.
“Dammit, toss me a curity potion, would you?” I shouted at my invisible leech.
Another mistake: not bringing any potions for poison. Total hubris on my part, but there you had it. I still had health potions if it came to it, but I could only drink one every three hours.
Moments after my outburst, I gasped in surprise as a cool tingle coursed through my body. The effect extended to my Necrotic Aura, which pulsed blue before fading back to its shadowy translucence.
“What the…?”
My hidden companion had not only cured my poison, they’d healed my aura to full health.
“Well, isn’t that just great?” I said bitterly when I checked my logs.
My benefactor’s name was Jane. The spell she’d used was Immaculate Reconception. This was one of the best heals in the game in that it replaced your old, broken body instantly with a new one. Good news, right? In one sense, yes, but ultimately no, it wasn’t.
You see, my benefactor was also a paladin.
My mind raced furiously: What the hell’s a paladin doing here?
There were still a good number of classes I’d never played, each for various reasons. Diviners required Hard Mode—a style of playing that’d forever reduce me to 100 lives and prohibited Giving Up.
Warlocks had never appealed to me because of their emphasis on causing pain and spreading misery.
Seductresses and casanovas? They were weird beyond words.
The one class I’d really wanted to try—paladin—had been denied to me for reasons I’d likely never know. Paladins didn’t choose their classes—their classes chose them. Or rather, the gods they supposedly followed sought them out and offered it to them. What someone had to do to attract such attention was a mystery, and those paladins I’d run into never spoke of it.
One thing everyone agreed on was that pallies played the game differently than other classes. They kept to themselves and rarely grouped. They were also the chief enemies of warlocks and necromancers, killing either on sight, as well as bandits and outlaws of any sort. For that reason, they were loved by most people.
At the moment, I wasn’t feeling love so much as raw, naked terror mingled with dizzying confusion. Somehow, I’d just been healed by one of the notorious do-gooders, which made no sense at all.
Anz was running his mouth again.
“You’ve been lucky so far, heroes, but now you will fail! Let’s see how you handle twelve!”
Six demons and six seraphs materialized.
The numbers were finally on my side. Twelve of my wraiths murdered the right six seraphs with no casualties. I immediately raised these and sicced them and my three free wraiths onto the remaining demons, losing only one minion in the process, though several were now wounded.
“Summon! Attack!” I shouted.
Four wraiths killed two demons.
“Summon! Attack!”
And then two killed the last.
“Curses, you fools!” Anz screamed. “I shall summon an even bigger army to destroy you! Prepare to face the combined strength of Heaven and Hell!”
The insane researcher raised his staff and chanted in a harsh language that hurt to listen to. With each stanza, the staff flared red or gold. Red flares resulted in a demon lord appearing, and gold flares summoned an angel. They didn’t attack, though. They stared between me and Anz curiously, as if trying to figure out what to do next. At the same time, his shield grew fainter and fainter.
I couldn’t help but smile. Even at level 2000, such creatures were a chore to beat without a good group, which meant this part of the event was over. This was confirmed a minute later when his staff exploded, causing Anz to let out a bloodcurdling scream.
Directly behind him, a new portal appeared—this one a kaleidoscope of scintillating colors.
“Noooooo!” he screamed as his minions turned on him, ripping him into bloody pieces and carrying them through the portal like trophies.
After they were gone, the chamber was eerily silent.
“Scramble and slash!”
My wraiths went wild, flying in every direction at breakneck speed while swiping their spectral claws through the air. My hope was to draw the paladin into a fight. This was Ward 1, after all. She couldn’t be that high level.
Jane’s voice carried from the platform: “You coming or what?”
Her voice was deep, yet feminine, and possessed of a smug sense of certainty. A second later, the portal flashed and I knew I was alone.
“Wraiths, follow,” I said, then flew after her.
Once again, we were back in the arena with the cheering fans. The mumbo-jumbo-tron was gone, and the daytime had returned.
A few seconds passed, and then…
“Wow, what a fight! Poisonous demons? Holy seraphs? Anz, the Researcher? Our mighty heroes have very nearly completed the Timeless Tourney. Just one fight left, and wow, it’s a doozy: a magnificent proto-hydra, summoned from the Festering Swamp four million years ago! From me to you and anyone you tell: The gods made ’em extra sturdy back in the ol’ paleo-mythic era. I sure hope that spectator shield holds, that’s all I’m saying… I kid, I kid! Don’t get Anz in your pants and leave or you’ll miss what’s sure to be an event like no other. And with that … I give you … the raising of the gate!”
The crowd went wild, as usual, then wilder as the portcullis began to lift. They howled their approval when a massive, nine-headed hydra stumbled through, roaring with each of its multi-colored dragon heads—each of them raisable if killed. As one, the crowd issued a loud gasp when the paladin snapped into view and began murdering my wraiths!
“Hey!” I shouted. “What are you doing?”
Jane flew from wraith to wraith, swinging a blazing sword and killing them easily. My logs showed her hits landed for over 6000 points of overkill.
“Wraiths, attack!” I shouted helplessly and took to the air, placing myself as far from the hydra as I could without coming near the woman.
My wraiths, despite being lower level than her, were still incredibly fast. They actually scored a few hits. Then she used a short-range area-of-effect spell I’d n
ever heard of called “Holy Blast” and killed them all.
Wait, not just Holy Blast… My logs showed it was a Godlike Holy Blast, putting her somewhere over level 1000.
Though I was sitting on over 25,000 health points, I had no wraiths. My sword was useless against a paladin, and likewise Harrow.
Bitterly, silently, I cast Return.
If she killed me, I’d stay dead until she left. Then I’d trigger Return and loot the Summon Lich spell.
Uh-huh, I thought. And what if she knows you can do that?
Jane turned and smiled faintly. I thought she might kill me, but no, she landed deftly in front of the hydra and stalked toward it, sword held almost negligently by her side.
The hydra didn’t wait—it leaped forward and struck with a series of bites and low-level breath weapons, none of which ever reached their target. The woman struck at blinding speed, severing heads left, right, and center. This being a hydra, it still had two more lefts, two more rights, and two more centers. She killed those with shafts of golden light that streamed out of the clear blue sky.
“Summon!” I shouted, raising the heads. Bad practice without the vit from Death Blossom to cover it, but I still had a strong aura. “To me!”
As they flew my way, trumpets blared and the announcer started announcing—praising us for our “stunning victory” and assuring everyone how amazing we were.
My logs showed I’d leveled ten times for completing the Tourney successfully, raising me to 84. I’d also gotten a new title: Dungeon Crawler.
Now I just needed the chest to drop so I could get the spell and leave. If this were like other such instances, Jane wouldn’t be able to take the spell, not being a necro. I, likewise, wouldn’t be able to take any paladin gear while she was here.
“Dammit, what’s she doing?” I muttered.
Nothing, that’s what she was doing. Not killing me, not leaving. Waiting expressionless by the headless hydra, staring my way like she had a problem with smiling and waving and other nice things.
The announcer started up again:
“Now, about that treasure… Our taliathe host has placed a very special item in the prize box! Something every necromancer boy and girl awaits as they claw their way through life and death in search of power. I’m talking about the Summon Lich spell, of course. Sounds scary, doesn’t it? Anyway, behold … The Trove of the Taliathe!”
The trove in question was a five-by-five rose quartz treasure chest floating from the sky inside a scintillating column of white light. Beyond it, the taliathe in the personal box stood with its hands raised in holy supplication.
When the chest landed, the roar of the crowd climbed to a deafening cacophony before quickly dying to nothing at all. The column of light faded to nothing, leaving a purple afterimage that no amount of blinking would clear. Even so, my eyes saw what my ears had already confirmed: The crowd was gone.
I had but to open the chest and claim my prize.
“Wraiths, kill her!” I shouted.
The paladin cast another area-of-effect spell—a lesser version of Holy Blast, but still enough to eradicate my wraiths. Unfortunately, she also didn’t murder me. In fact, she didn’t move a muscle. She watched me calmly with an inscrutable expression, and against my better judgment, I felt a glimmer of hope. Could I possibly reason with her?
I approached her to find out.
“You can stop right there, necro,” she said from an impolite ten feet away.
“Hi, I’m Howard,” I said, waving and smiling like a long-awaited friend. “I guess I should thank you for returning my missing coins. I’d always heard paladins were holy and pure like that, and now I’m a believer.”
Chapter Eight
If she was impressed by my deductive reasoning, she didn’t let on.
“What are you doing here?” she growled.
“Existentially, or…?”
“Here, smart-ass. At the Tourney!”
Jane was tall, blonde, and pretty—coldly so, thanks to the perma-scowl directed at yours truly.
“Oh, the Tourney,” I said, nodding agreeably. “If I said I was here for the title, would you believe me?”
“If you said it was Wednesday I wouldn’t believe you. So you better be convincing.”
“All I’m doing is playing the game like a normal person who leaves others alone. Same game as you or anyone else. Oh, and it’s actually Thursday. For the record.”
Jane's scowl grew deeper and her eyes blazed with fury. “Leaving others alone? That’s rich coming from a filthy necromancer! You know what we do to your kind in the upper wards? We grief you on sight, then pull in others to help. A thousand times and you’re dead forever. So, I’ll ask you one more time: Why are you here—specifically—at the Timeless Tourney?”
I knew so little about paladins. Could they detect lies like diviners? Could they torture like warlocks?
“First of all,” I said, “this is Ward 1, so death only slows me down a teensy little bit in the grand scheme of things. That said, regardless of what you think of me, I’d never willingly take a permanent life from anyone.” Affecting a faraway look, I said, “You are in the presence of a man of peace.”
Jane snorted. “I spoke to my god two days ago. He sought me out in Heroes’ Landing—at my apartment. I may be the only one alive who’s seen Bernard outside that inn of his. He told me that you—”
“Wait a minute, are you saying Bernard’s your god? He actually has paladins?”
“Shut up.” She paused as if searching for the right words. “He showed me a vision—one involving a No Loot amulet and eternal darkness descending over the world. Afterward, he wouldn’t go into specifics, except to say you had the amulet and were coming here to set the vision in motion. Afterward, for the karma crime of using his Nosey Innkeeper perk to stop you—a player he’s been charged to help—a bolt of lightning shot out of the sky and blasted him.” She shook her head. “I always thought Sanctuary applied to everyone, but apparently it doesn’t. Bernard got up bleeding from his mouth and ears and staggered off. So tell me, Howard: What does the amulet do, and how will you use it to destroy the world?”
Though I felt it a wasted effort, I decided to tell her something of the truth in the hope of convincing her that yes, the world was perfectly safe from the likes of me. That I was trying to fix it, not destroy it.
“The game’s glitched,” I said. “Many years ago, I was a high-level like you. I traveled to Ward 4 with the hope of beating the Domination and lost. But that’s not the full story. What really happened was—”
“Not what I asked!” Jane thundered in a voice magically augmented to rattle my bones. As I stood there shaky and disoriented, she closed the distance, lifted me off the ground by the front of my jerkin, and got in my face.
Despite the immediacy of the situation, I was briefly surprised at the scent of peppermint breath.
“I don’t care what your motivations are,” she said. “Give me the amulet and I’ll let you go. You’ll thank me in the end.”
“Lady,” I said, “you may be the first paladin I’ve ever met with minty fresh breath. I happen to like minty fresh breath. Isn’t it funny how we’re all individuals, but still the same deep down inside?”
Jane’s eyes smoldered and her jaw took a set. Her hand, I noticed, was creeping slowly to the scabbard at her waist. I’d be in my Return state in no time, I just had to up the pressure.
“You know, I’m disappointed in Bernard,” I said sadly. “So friendly. Always quick with a joke and a welcome mug of delicious ale on the house. Sad that he’s got a paladin named Jane working for him. What kinda name is Jane for a paladin? The other gods probably make fun of him. You probably added those comeliness points because they kept calling you Plain Jane. Am I right? Look, I know you’re gonna kill me so just get it over with. Make with the holy-hoodoo so I can get back to my diabolical plans. I’m done talking. Minty breath or no minty breath.”
To seal my fate, I affected an evil laug
h worthy of the naughtiest, PV-Peeviest of necromancers.
Jane's face underwent a remarkable change: It relaxed. The little knot of tension between her eyes eased, and her frown lifted into the vagueness of an almost-smile. She let me go, stepped back, and pulled what looked like a hand mirror from a pouch on her belt—and not her sword.
“Killing you would be the easiest thing ever, and a wasted act in Ward 1, as you say. But this is Mythian. There are things in this world far worse than death, as I’m sure you’re aware of—Underpowered Howard. Yes, I know about your silly name. Bernard told me that too. He said you’re a stubborn fool who spends all his time trying to break the rules in a mad quest for power. Well, that changes today. Look at this and tell me what you see.”
Like a fool (though not a stubborn one), I looked at the mirror she held up … and the world froze around me … and a game message appeared:
YOU HAVE FAILED A MAGIC RESISTANCE CHECK AND ARE ABOUT TO BE TRAPPED IN “The Mirror of Captivation.” YOU WILL STAY THERE UNTIL “Jane, the Paladin” RELEASES YOU. THOUGH THERE IS NO KNOWN WAY TO ESCAPE, WHEN YOU ARE ABLE, YOU MAY OFFICIALLY GIVE UP, RETURNING YOU SAFELY TO LEVEL 0 ON THE “Path of Heroes.”
YOUR SENTENCE BEGINS NOW.
The words faded away, and with it, the world around me. This was followed by another game message:
BINDING UPDATE: The Mirror of Captivation
When the world faded back, I found myself at the intersection of four tunnels leading into darkness. My immediate surroundings were lit by light runes.
“Shit,” I said. When that didn’t do anything, I said it again. “Shit and double shit!”
The Mirror of Captivation was a particularly cruel item you could only find in Ward 4, and was thus quite rare. It also had a very limited range of usefulness. From what I remembered, it was completely useless against anyone over level 100. My magic resistance was a respectable 501. Great for Ward 1 purposes, but no match for anything that came from Ward 4.
