[You cannot perform this action! Your left arm has been damaged! You cannot wield two-handed weapons, equip spell books, or cast Infernal spells until it is healed! Duration: 36 seconds or until you drink a Healing potion.]
With only one hand, he couldn’t even reach into his Inventory for a Modest Health Potion—not while he tried to defend himself from the Brute’s hacking blade with his rapier. And even that was futile with Frostbite slowing his accustomed speed and grace to a clumsy crawl. The Brute Thursr continued to hack and slice at him without pause, emptying Roark’s red filigreed vial by the bucketful. From behind, the Dread Reaver fired her ice javelins, slowing him even further and stealing away his Health bit by bit.
Meanwhile, the archer Reaver beyond Zyra shot another pair of bolts. One pierced Zyra’s bicep. The other struck home in Roark’s kidney, slicing off another quarter of his Health.
Roark swung his rapier at the Brute Thursr, but the pain was making his arms and legs weak and his attacks ungainly and ineffectual. The Brute avoided it easily, then lunged back in, taking an upward swing at Roark’s head, meaning to decapitate him. Roark just barely managed to duck, and the Brute’s cleaver tore off Roark’s ear instead. Pain lanced through his head, white and hot and angry.
In the corner of his vision, the filigreed Health vial flashed out a warning. Peril is imminent, it seemed to scream.
Roark couldn’t access his spells. He couldn’t hope to match any of his attackers at the slow slog he’d been relegated to. He was badly outnumbered. And he was going to die if he didn’t drink a Modest Health Potion. But in the time it would take to pull one from his Inventory, he would be dead as well … His entire body was a battleground of throbbing, stabbing pain so intense he could barely lift the Slender Rapier to even the simplest of guards, and no matter what he did, he was going to die.
The Brute Thursr gave a guttural cry as Kaz’s twin hooked swords scissored his massive head from his broad shoulders. It landed on the floor in front of Roark with a wet plop, spatters of Troll blood dotting Roark’s leathers.
The split second of satisfaction Roark felt at the sight of the Brute’s astonished expression disappeared a moment later when a crossbow bolt and an ice javelin simultaneously skewered him from opposite directions.
The last bit of red drained from his Health vial, and Roark von Graf died. Again.
ELEVEN:
Respawn
The driving music of war was the backdrop to Roark’s journey through death. Though he was incorporeal—a very disconcerting sensation indeed—he could see the winged Infernali and Malaika battled high over the Hearth, the volcano Hearthworld was named for. They were brilliant creatures. The Malaika held themselves aloft with golden wings, surrounded by halos of brilliant opalescent light. The Infernali were equally impressive: a dark counterpoint to the Malaika, though swathed in shimmering purple. Seeing them battle, Roark couldn’t help but think of Lowen, the Tyrant King’s right-hand mage.
Somehow, the mage had followed him through the dimensions to this place. A thing Roark didn’t understand—a thing that should’ve been possible! Impossible or not, though, Lowen had done it. He was here in Hearthworld somewhere, and bearing the image of the Malaika, no less. And if he was here, it would only be a matter of time before Marek Konig Ustar followed. Roark could almost see Lowen in his head, held aloft by the speckled brown-and-white wings of a cana-hiri falcon, his humanoid body wrapped in soft brown leathers crisscrossed with buckles and straps.
A stern reminder of just what was on the line and that he needed to move quickly before Marek arrived in Hearthworld and managed to consolidate power here. Which Marek would do. If there was one thing Marek Konig Ustar and his lackeys were good at, it was consolidating power.
Roark pushed thoughts of Lowen and Marek from his mind as the younger races—elves, rogs, and humans—joined the epic battle, while the wizened olms took up residence in mountain caves, waiting for the war to end so they could return order to the chaos one way or another.
Roark watched it all with bitter detachment. There was no doubt those Reavers and the Thursr had been sent by Azibek the Cruel—they’d openly admitted as much. The question was how the bastard had known he and his honor guard would be traveling down to the lower floors so soon. Another Hellbender spying, invisible to the Troll eye? Or perhaps the Jotnar Exarch had simply thought far enough ahead to outpace Roark’s plans. One didn’t get to be Dungeon Lord by failing to guess his opponent’s actions.
A nasty lesson, to be sure. Best he learn it now, though, while he only had one level to lose, rather than later when he was only one level away from evolution.
He had to stay one step ahead of Azibek. The weapons trainer afforded them a small leg up, but it wasn’t enough. The Dread Reaver and Brute Thursr from the ambush had been level 15 and 13 respectively. And the pair of Elite Reavers couldn’t have been greater than level 14. Which meant they’d likely come from either the third or fourth floor, but not the fifth. They were far too low-level for that. And if those early floors were already dead set against him, it could be problematic, to say the least.
If he couldn’t work out an alliance, he’d have to formally challenge and kill the Overseers, which could be a dicey prospect. After all, the fastest way to turn the ruling class against you was to start taking out their fellow gentry. No, he would have to find a way to convince them peacefully, if possible. The question was, how? Any idiot understood that the demon you knew was better than the demon you didn’t. Hells, Azibek could even be filling their heads with all sorts of propaganda against Roark. The only way to find out for sure was to venture down …
The world before Roark’s currently nonexistent eyes went black, and lines of golden text began to appear before him, screaming into the darkness.
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A single eerie minor note wafted along as if carried by an unfelt breeze, slowly swelling into a haunting melody as the scent of smoke and molten earth curled in Roark’s nonexistent nostrils.
HEARTHWORLD, the final line of golden text proclaimed somberly.
As the text faded away, a bustling marketplace appeared below him. It wasn’t Averi City’s bazaar, but one nearly identical to it—filled with vendors under flamboyant canopies, their wooden stalls showcasing weapons, armor, jewelry, gemstones, food, and drinks. Heroes of every shape, size, and color combination wandered through the stands wearing a mishmash of armor, robes, and helms of varied quality and infernal or divine alignment, chatting or negotiating with the vendors and one another.
Roark readied himself. Last time, this scene had come just before resurrection.
The golden text returned, stretching over the heads of the heroes below.
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Roark didn’t even try to understand the foreign words floating before him, just brushed them aside. Surprisingly, they went.
A feeling as if he were liquifying trickled through his muscles and bones. He had felt it before the first time he’d died, but it was still strange. As if he were being gently dissolved bit by bit for reconstitution elsewhere. The marketplace vanished around him in a swirl, leaving nothing but blackness behind.
From the blackness came one bloodred word: Respawning …
Roark opened his eyes to find himself in the throne room in the midst of a battle he hadn’t started, wearing nothing but a threadbare loincloth.
Weapons rang against one another or thudded into flesh. Shouting and the grunts of the injured filled in what earspace the clang of metal on metal didn’t, and the room around Roark was alive with shifting and whirling bodies. Nameplates floated in the air overhead like tiny personal rain clouds. Kaz and seven first-floor Thursrs were facing down a single olm in
shining scale mail—[BrokeBoi69]—a heavily muscled rog with a flowing topknot—[Skeeter3.0]—and a pale elf with golden hair known as [HornyD_McElvenwood], each one between level 12 and 15. Zyra and Mac were nowhere to be seen, but the familiar thorny silhouette of a level 22 High Combat Cleric had taken their place.
[PwnrBwner_OG]
Somehow the jackass had managed to get his gear back.
Roark reached for his Slender Rapier only to find it missing. Frantically, he pulled up his mystic grimoire, searching his Inventory.
No rapier, no dagger, no leather armor. No wand or weapons. No potions. Nothing but the World Stone Pendant and his soulbound Initiate’s Spell Book. And, of course, the dirty loincloth doing a lackluster job of preserving his modesty.
Hastily, he glanced at his character page, noting that he had dropped back down to level 8, though his Health and Infernal Magick had returned in full when he respawned. The Attribute Points he’d invested at level 9 were also absent. Still, it could’ve been worse. He could have been naked and with no soul-bound items.
“Roark is back!” Kaz crowed ecstatically. “Finally!”
PwnrBwner_OG’s head whipped around as if someone had slapped him. When his gaze settled on Roark, the High Combat Cleric aimed his Mace of Thorn Tethers at Roark’s chest.
“O-ho-ho.” PwnrBwner_OG’s voice grated down Roark’s spinal column like claws on ice. “Just in time for me to wipe you off the map, you cheating, modding, taint-wrinkle.”
He slammed the head of the mace on the floor and thorny whips erupted from the stone, surging at Roark’s feet.
Roark leapt away, throwing himself into a roll and coming up to the dais. He grabbed his spell book as he jumped up onto the platform; the familiar numb tingling crept down his left hand as the book levitated open over his palm. The brambles slapped and lashed toward him, hitting nothing more than the steps. Apparently he was outside their reach, since none managed to hit him.
Across the room, the High Combat Cleric was already shouting at whatever forces passed for divinity in Hearthworld. The thorn tethers had merely been a warm-up, it seemed.
Quickly, Roark scribbled out a simple Rebound Spell in one of his empty level 2 spell slots. His neat, precise letters filled the page, then snapped into place as the magick of this world altered his wording to fit its arbitrary rules.
[45% of all damage done to target will rebound on the opponent for the next 30 seconds.]
PwnrBwner_OG finished his chant, ending on a shout that shook the throne room like an earthquake. A blast of raw electrical power surged forward and blew Roark off his feet, slamming him into the wall between two of the glowing stained-glass windows. The impact knocked the air from his lungs, and the sizzling shock that rolled through his lean muscles stole away a handful of his Health, but he was happy to see PwnrBwner_OG across the room struggling to regain his feet as well. The bit of Health the High Combat Cleric had lost was nearly invisible to the naked eye, but Roark knew the spell had taken it.
Roark scribbled furiously, inscribing his next two spells while PwnrBwner_OG recovered.
“You think you’re so clever, huh?” the High Combat Cleric snarled, advancing with his mace raised. He battered the ground again, and again the thorny whips chased Roark to the edge of their reach. “Well, I know what you’ve been doing, writing in your own spells and shit. You ain’t no mob, you’re a player. A dirty, griefing player. That’s right, I got you figured out.”
Roark snorted, finishing the second spell. “I seriously doubt that, mate.”
He cast Spectral Hands at PwnrBwner_OG’s feet.
[A field of spectral hands erupts from the floor, grabbing and holding any enemy for 30 sec – (1 sec x opponent’s character level), in exchange for 1 HP x caster’s character level.]
Ghostly blue hands, with overlong spindly fingers, reached up from the stone floor below, grasping and clutching at the cleric’s Thorny Armor Boots. The red in Roark’s filigreed vial dipped a notch as the spell took its required Health.
PwnrBwner_OG immediately began hammering the ethereal hands with his mace, but they didn’t dissipate or release him—and wouldn’t for another seven seconds and counting.
Roark cast the second spell, a modified version of the stone lance he had last carved as a blood cantrip into his arm.
In his spell book, he’d written: A stone lance shoots from my palm, through the heart of my target.
And the book had replied with
[Congratulations, you have inscribed Stone Lance in the Initiate’s Spell Book!
Stone Lance can be cast (1) time per inscription!
Base Damage: 50 HP to target, +50% chance of Critical Hit.
Critical Hit deals 2x damage to target.
Cooldown period between casting Stone Lance and re-inscription: (2) hours!]
The lance tore from Roark’s palm, dragging a shout of pain from his throat as it went. PwnrBwner_OG twisted away at the last second, the lance plunging through his shoulder instead of his chest. Roark cursed. He’d missed the heart by a long shot, but the red bar over the cleric’s head dipped down to three-quarters full nevertheless.
“Little bitch!” PwnrBwner_OG snarled, snapping the protruding end of the lance off with his rose mace. The ghostly hands grasping at his ankles dissipated, and he smirked at Roark. “Now you’re in big, big trouble.”
The High Combat Cleric raised his mace to the sky with his undamaged arm and shouted again in that undulating language Roark couldn’t understand.
Thinking back on their last face-to-face battle, Roark started inscribing a counter to the spell he guessed PwnrBwner was casting.
Sure enough, as the cleric gave a final shout, lightning forked across the throne room ceiling and thunder boomed. Rain poured in sheets from nowhere, blistering Roark’s leathery white skin.
Roark cast his counterspell, which occupied his only level 3 spell slot.
[Rain heals all Infernal creatures 10HP per second.]
With every stinging raindrop that fell, a surge of red poured back into his filigreed Health bar. And it didn’t work for just him, but for all of his troops within the throne room. Trolls had a naturally high Regeneration rate, but nothing that could come close to this.
Roark couldn’t help but grin smugly.
PwnrBwner, however, didn’t take it quite so well. Nearly shaking with fury, the High Combat Cleric roared and sprinted across the floor, swinging his rose mace at Roark’s head. Roark whirled away and inscribed another Stone Lance into one of his open spell slots. PwnrBwner_OG followed, swinging wildly. Roark dodged and ducked, forcing himself not to pull his body out of line or take three steps away when one would suffice. What he wouldn’t give for his rapier. The cleric was unhinged, his attacks insane with anger. Sloppy. Any swordsman worth his blade could exploit mindless fury and extract a steep price paid in blood.
Proving his point to himself, Roark sidestepped a vicious swipe—still close enough to feel the wind of the rose mace—then opened his hand and fired off the second Stone Lance at PwnrBwner_OG. This one lodged in the High Combat Cleric’s side and dropped his red bar down to less than half.
It also made him even angrier. He screamed at the sky, his face red, and leapt after Roark again, sending raw purple energy streaking through Roark’s body. The electricity seared away several points of his Health and knocked him off his feet, but the rain continued to pour, bringing them right back to him.
Roark hit the ground and rolled, narrowly missing a blow from the mace that cracked one of the flagstones.
“There’s too many of them and they’re healing like crazy!” came a cry from behind them. “Fall back! Retreat!”
This stopped PwnrBwner_OG mid-swing. “Da fuck?”
Not far away, BrokeBoi69 stumbled backward toward the portcullis, his paddlelike tail whipping behind him as he threw shurikens into the crowd of Thursrs advancing on him as he went.
“I paid your sorry asses to kill this bag-rash, not run away like little
girls!” PwnrBwner_OG yelled, spittle flying from his lips.
“Screw it, dude,” the elf, HornyD_McElvenwood, said, laying down a wall of fire to back off Kaz and the pair of level 5 Thursrs harrying her. “We just wanted to see what was up with these freaks. A couple hunnies in gold and a merc tag ain’t worth dying down here.” She turned and ran for the exit.
The rain cut out sharply.
“No!” PwnrBwner_OG slammed his mace into the floor. Thorn tethers tripped the olm and anchored the elf to the spot. “No one’s going anywhere until the Griefer is dead! That was the deal!”
To prove his point, the High Combat Cleric sprinted past Roark, past the olm, the rog, and the elf, and kicked the portcullis lever with the flat of his heavy boot. The pitted iron grate fell with a metallic clang that Roark felt in his feet.
“What the hell, man?” Skeeter3.0 snapped. “I just got this shield and you’re gonna make me lose it down here?!”
“Yeah, assface, what’s your problem?” HornyD_McElvenwood yelled, a hint of panic in the words.
“My problem is I paid a buttload of money to a buttload of losers who won’t even kill one freaking Troll!” PwnrBwner_OG spat. “You wanna be cowards? Then die like cowards!”
With that, he shot a bolt of lightning at HornyD_McElvenwood. The crackling purple leapt from the pale elf to BrokeBoi69 behind her. The thorn tethers kept them from being thrown off their feet, but the elf dropped dead in the tangle of thorns.
“Aw, what?” Skeeter3.0 yelled. “You dick! You killed Randy!”
“You got a problem with it?!”
Kaz caught Roark’s eye as this drama unfolded. Roark felt a corner of his lips turn up and he shrugged. He was certainly interested to see who the psychotic cleric would kill next. But they also needed the Experience griefing these heroes would bring them, and standing around watching PwnrBwner_OG murder his own kind—while entertaining—wouldn’t result in levels for anyone.
Civil War Page 8
