Countdown a litrpg apoca.., p.10
Countdown: A Litrpg Apocalypse, page 10
I narrowed my focus on the towering figure in the center, its presence dominating the eerie tableau. The creature’s aura was imposing. Rather than the barely six foot height of its fellows, it was at least nine feet tall with the same general shape. It wore heavy robes which looked more like a velvet drapery cascading down it. Then over its back, it hid the four legs that I expected it had, as well as the rotting flesh I could smell. The fabric of its robe was so heavy that it ignored the breeze that was blowing through the dungeon.
The staff it held was a piece of art in itself. Crafted from dark wood, it seemed to absorb the scant light, giving it a sinister, almost living quality. Silver bands bound its ends and gleamed dully, etched with intricate runes that pulsed faintly with a menacing energy. There was something about the weapon which made me feel uneasy. It wasn’t so much that I felt threatened. No, it was more insidious. I felt like my mana twisted when I saw those runes.
But it was the crown atop its head that held my gaze. Constructed from bones, each piece interlocked with the others in a macabre dance of death. The black fire leaping from point to point was hypnotic, casting eerie, flickering shadows over the creature’s gaunt, skeletal face. The flames seemed to consume and regenerate endlessly.
Its eyes, deep within the sockets, glowed with a malevolent red light. We had learned long ago that whatever tied the broken minds which controlled the drones to the bodies were contained within their heads. This seemed to be the same, but the brilliance of the eyes made me suspect it of far greater intelligence.
This was no mere guardian; it was a commander of the undead. Up to now, much of our advantage had been the complete lack of tactics deployed by the drones. If a threat like this was here in the last outer plot, I could only wonder what we’d find in the inner plots. Any boredom I’d been feeling earlier was completely erased now. I felt both a faint fear and a surge of excitement. The fact that they carried items meant that the loot was almost certainly going to be better than the meager offerings the dungeon had given us so far.
I felt a bit of resistance as I began using Identify upon it, but pushed through. This was clearly a caster of some kind and we needed any information I could gather.
Undead Darje Smolder (Uncommon) Level: 45
Threat: Serious
Status: Psychotic, Linked Recipient, Mini-Boss Variant
So much for this being a level 40 common dungeon. We’d expected the final boss in the core plot to be uncommon, but knowing even the outer plots had these creatures too? I had more questions for Samvek. Yet, could this be due to the excess power of the dungeon? My mission did say it was overloaded and perhaps made aberrations in what would normally be the common part of the dungeon? It did make a certain amount of sense, but I was merely speculating and once this was over I’d be asking my mentor.
Suddenly, the creature looked in our direction. “I feel your feeble magic. Come and taste of the black flame, the flame which burns the soul.”
The voice was like something out of a horror movie. It echoed off the stones of shattered tombs and broken mausoleums to fill the air around me. As one, the two armored drones headed toward us, but I wasn’t going to wait here.
Dora pulled on my arm, and I didn’t need to be told twice. We were both off and running. Once we were most of the way to where the others were waiting, I asked her. “I thought you said there were six of them?”
She slowed her pace and signaled me to match her. “I guess it’s safe enough. I don’t sense any more pursuit. If they’re like the others, when they give up pursuit, they’ll go back to their grave or whatever spot that binds them.”
That allowed me to take a deep breath. “That was freaky having it speak to us.”
“I’ve heard that higher levels can detect when they are being scanned, but didn’t expect that here. So, what were they?”
I gave her a brief summary but held back some of my thoughts. There was no use repeating the same thing when we had to brief Crag and Nevin. She nodded and echoed my thoughts about how odd it was for the monsters to exceed the level of the dungeon.
“As for why there were only three. I’m sorry that I wasn’t clear earlier. They are located in two different locations. The other three include two like those drones and a different one behind them.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah but don’t worry about the other three. Let’s just focus on taking out these. Any thoughts?” She asked, just as we walked back into our camp.
I didn’t see Samvek anywhere, but that was hardly unusual. Crag however said, “You guys were gone forever.”
Nevin asked, “Any thoughts on what?”
Dora held up her hand to both of them. She looked at Crag first, “Sneaking around with him is only marginally better than sneaking around with you. At least his armor doesn’t creak, though.” Then to Nevin she replied, “Better let him start at the beginning.
Which I did. After filling them in on the results of the identification and the creepy voice, we began discussing strategy. Nevin had heard about the linked status. “It has a couple of different forms, but since this is one with guardians and recipients, it’s probably a one-way link.”
Crag huffed. “Don’t drag it out, just tell us already.”
Nevin leaned back, looking offended. “I would never drag something out. I just like to be precise. Just because a grunt suffices for you doesn’t mean that it works for everyone.”
I just laughed. They were the best of friends, but both of them got on the others’ nerves from time to time.
Nevin looked at me, but then smiled. “Fine, maybe I can be a bit long winded. In short, the linked status means that they share HP. With this type of link that means the Smolder can’t be destroyed without first destroying both the drones.”
Crag groaned at that. I got it. Normally, his role would have been to keep the defensive types busy; probably him and Urg with me healing them. That would have freed up Dora and Nevin to destroy the caster. However, that wouldn’t work. We needed a way to separate the guardians from the one they were linked to, but if he was half as intelligent as I feared, that wasn’t going to be easy.
“Okay, so how do we split them up?” I asked.
Dora said, “If your aura worked on them, then I’d have you distract them with that or if Spirit Walk would affect other beings, then I’d have you grab one of them and take them out of the fight for a minute.” She sighed. “Wishing won’t win this though.”
Nevin nodded along. “I’d say we have a good chance. Sure their levels are increased, but we still out level the drones. The fight will take longer because of their armor and weapons, but we can handle that. The real uncertainty is finding out what type of magical abilities the caster has. Something fire related possibly?”
Crag said, “I could run in there and try to draw an attack. I should be able to stand up to at least one…”
Dora punched his shoulder, interrupting him. “No, we’re not using you like bait. If we were going to use anyone like that, it would be Urg, but since I don’t know what happens if he dies, then I’m not comfortable with that option either.”
As I was listening to them, an idea occurred to me. “I’ve got a plan.” Then I smiled and began to explain the stages of my plan. We had some work to do and it probably wouldn’t be ready until tomorrow.”
Chapter 13- Target Practice
Samvek didn’t show up all night long, so our usual sparring was skipped as we worked on preparations. I thought I sensed him a couple of times but when I turned to look, I couldn’t see anyone. It worked out for the best though, as the preparations took longer than I would have hoped.
After breakfast in the morning, Dora went over the plan I’d proposed one more time for everyone and then we all moved into place. The plan called for Nevin, Crag, and Urg to remain a bit further back than me and Dora. I snuck closer with the rogue who looked at me. “Ready?”
I nodded, and first activated abilities.
Inspiring Presence: All allies, including summoned creatures within your aura gain increased HP and Mana regeneration equal to 30% of yours. This is a Charisma based ability. The regeneration percentage will increase as your Charisma stat does.
I would have liked to cast Boon-Bane, but it had an effect on enemies, and within its area of effect, I didn’t want to do that yet. The time for that would come soon enough. Before my next spell, I climbed up on top of the highest crypt I could find. It put me about fifteen feet off the ground.
Levitate
This spell wasn’t one that I had used much with the drones since Samvek always insisted that I stay within melee range. But I didn’t have any such limitations today. So, I’d spent a good hour the night before practicing the spell as quickly as I could cast it. With my ever-growing mana pool that ended up being thirty-five times and then three times every minute from just my mana regen.
The result had been that I’d raised the spell’s progress to the next tier up to 50%. It didn’t change the hard limits of the spell, but I definitely felt like I had more maneuverability with it. That much casting in an hour had started to give me a headache, but the real reason I didn’t push it further was that I felt like I needed time to process what I’d learned about the spell before I could make more progress. Hopefully my thoughts and mind were on the right track and not simply a distraction from feeling the monotony of the grind. Honestly, it was getting boring just casting the same spell time after time.
Levitation had a hard limit of not being able to rise more than six feet above whatever hard surface I started on. There was no way that was going to be high enough to put me out of range of the Smolder, but having fought drones for almost a month, I had a good idea of how they moved.
They weren’t very good at dealing with things above them. Hopefully, by starting on top of the crypt I’d be high enough above ground level that even the polearm wielding drone wouldn’t be able to reach me, not that I’d cast Levitation primarily to avoid them. I had another way to do that.
I looked once more at Dora and then with a nod of my head; I started floating forward at my maximum height. I looked down after I left the top of the crypt just as planned. The ground was now something like twenty-one feet beneath me. This seemed like a weird limit for the spell when it could be so easily bypassed, but I didn’t make the rules, I was just figuring out ways to break them.
Levitation ate up the distance quickly since I didn’t have to worry about the broken ground or shattered gravestones which made traveling upon the ground so much more tricky. I also wasn’t trying to sneak, so I didn’t have to be quiet. This was much more my style. I held my staff in my left hand and already had a shield conjured immediately in front of me. In my right hand, I was holding onto the fire blast wand. This was gonna get their attention for sure.
As expected, I quickly came into sight, and the drones immediately reacted by waving their weapons futilely at me. It was so nice having stupid foes. The smolder was the one I was more concerned about. Keeping on the script I’d played out in my head a few dozen times; he raised his staff. Orange fire danced around it and then sprayed out at me.
My shield was shaped around me and easily resisted the broad-based attack. I could feel the air heating up, so even if my shield stopped him, I wouldn’t be able to stay still if he kept up the fire-thrower approach for long. Our plans had estimated the monster likely had a fire-based power set, and it was gratifying to be right.
After a few seconds, his attack ran its course, and the air cleared, but only for a moment. The sword wielding drone had dropped its weapon and hurled basketball sized pieces of tombstones up at me. My shield wasn’t angled correctly to block them, but I was able to barely scramble out of their path. Once again, I was thankful for the practice with Levitation, since moving in the middle of the air was anything but intuitive for a being who had lived his entire life glued to the ground.
As an after-thought, I realized, I likely could have moved the shield but my first reaction had been to move my body. I made a quick mental note to work on that and then sent a spark of my mana into the wand. My own fire blast surged out and struck one of the drones.
One of the most unnerving things about fighting the undead was that I could see the flames burning its flesh away as it super-heated the armor it wore, but it never made a sound other than the crunching of stone as it tried to pick up another piece of debris to hurl at me. I could literally bake its bones till they shattered and it would never even whimper in pain.
The next rock came, but this time, I remembered to move my shield rather than moving myself. The mental control wasn’t exactly easy, but it wasn’t the intense strain it had been when I first started doing this. It gave me a number of ideas for how I could use these shields as more than just defense.
I turned in the air and fired off another fire blast at the second drone. Both of them were much sturdier than the lower leveled drones, but fire bypassed much of the defense provided by their armor. If I’d had ten minutes to just keep blasting them, then I probably could have burnt them to crisps.
I glanced back at the smolder. It wasn’t doing anything other than staring at me as I fought the two drones. Neither of them were hurling rocks at me, but up in the air it was more like a training sequence than any real sense of danger. Each time I moved the shield in response to the incoming rocks it became a tiny fraction easier to do.
Splitting my attention between keeping an eye on all three of the monsters was a good mental exercise. I felt like I wouldn’t have been able to do it before the system, but now it felt like stretching in the morning after getting out of bed. It was well within my capability, I just had to get used to it.
I pushed myself a bit further by casting another spell
Boon-Bane
The drones resistance to fire immediately dropped and I could see their flesh blackening even faster just from the super-heated armor they were wearing. This was going better than planned. The drones had already become enraged, so that status told me they were unlikely to be thinking clearly, even if they were able to do so normally. I just needed to really get the Smolder’s attention.
Mage Missiles
I switched attacks because I had a suspicion that a creature with flames dancing along its bony crown was likely resistant to fire. I focused the attack into a single bolt which struck that same crown. As I expected, it was either part of the creature’s skeleton or was fused to it, because the blast rocked its entire head back without budging the crown.
“Foolish mortal, soon you will know the embrace of the endless and be freed from the shackles of life. Free to do my biding that is.”
He raised the staff then, and it sparkled on the end. I didn’t need to be warned that he was activating an ability as I conjured a third shield to float around me. What I hadn’t expected was that the object of his ability wasn’t directed at me or some energy attack. Rather, the drones moved a little more stiffly, but in perfect unison as they raced forward under me.
I moved one of the shields beneath me as a reaction to the movement. An instant later, the halberd wielding drone had run up the back of the other and then launched himself into the air. He lashed out so quickly that I was barely able to move the shield into place. But his body kept coming. His still smoking armor and ruined flesh slammed into the shield.
They weren’t perfect, and his clawed hand reached around one of the shields and nearly ripped into me. Only Spirit Walk saved me as I became ethereal. I saw the tips of those bony claws pass through me, but didn’t feel it as real.
In response, I fired off another Mage Missiles at the smolder’s crown. The drones might have attacked me, but he was the architect. It howled, not in pain, but in rage. “How? Are you a ghost?”
I only had forty-two seconds to stay in this form, but it was enough for me to taunt him. “Guess that’s for me to know and you not to find out. If you want the secret, you’ll have to take it from my cold, dead body.”
He got a wicked grin on his alien face as he said, “Oh, I intend to.”
Then I was moving. They all seemed adequately motivated, and I had a team. There was no reason for me to try to solo all three of them. I moved through the air like a ghost. Something about being in this form allowed me to move much faster with Levitation.
I had to be careful though not to leave them in the dust. They needed to keep following me. I turned and fired off another Mage Missile at one of the drones. Keeping them enraged was important.
That was when I noticed how the black fire on the smolder’s crown had grown until it was like a spinning ball of flame the size of a basketball. An instant later, it was streaking toward me. I might have been in the middle of a Spirit Walk and completely immune to the effects of any physical or elemental attack, but I still reflexively moved a shield to block the incoming attack.
Imagine my surprise when the attack passed through the shield without pausing. There was no time at that point to move another shield into place. Then the black flames hit me and I screamed.
Chapter 14- Soul Fire
Intense pain raced through me. I quickly began to fall as my momentum was directed downward rather than forward when I shifted my body. Reflexively, I batted at the flames, but there was nothing physical about them to smother. This fire wasn’t burning at my flesh but at my mind, or was it at my soul?
Either way, I screamed in agony. I didn’t know that such pain existed. I’d been burnt, crushed, stabbed, and cut since the system arrived, but this surpassed all those. It was like I’d never known pain in my life and was experiencing it for the first time. It just wouldn’t stop. What was probably seconds felt like an eternity. I couldn’t even feel where I was.
You have partially resisted Soul Binding…
The words flashed in front of my eyes, but they might as well have been calligraphy. Then I felt the ground beneath me. I must have fallen all the way down but not felt the impact because I was in a non-corporeal form. I began to roll in a desperate attempt to put out the fire. It didn’t seem to help, yet after a few more seconds, the fire winked out.
