Death's Mantle 2

by Harmon Cooper

  It did have the effect of stunning Lucian, his avatar stumbling backward as he tried to get his bearings.

  Danira drew a sword, which she used to strike the barbarian again and again.

  Lucian pulled up his skill tree and cycled out his electric power, replacing it with a dark power he’d learned that allowed him to absorb his opponent’s HP.

  One of the reasons he liked using this particular power was that he could hold down [L2] to keep using it while he struck his opponent, absorbing HP and dealing damage at the same time. As long as he kept an eye on his MP, which he could easily replenish by tossing back a potion, Lucian would be able to take his opponent down easily.

  At least in theory.

  While draining the barbarian’s HP helped some, every now and then the barbarian’s health bar would kick up a notch, which told Lucian that his opponent had some sort of regeneration ability.

  This meant he would need to lay it on even more thickly by using stronger attacks.

  Lucian quickly accessed his items menu and found a potion that doubled his attack power for thirty seconds. He chugged it and went on the offensive, draining the barbarian’s HP while also striking him with his scythe. He noticed that his hits were taking more from his opponent’s health bar, Danira’s as well.

  Figuring he would end this soon, Lucian pulled the item menu back up and scrolled to a potion that sped up his striking time, allowing him to get in double the number of hits.

  It was all over at that point, Lucian’s avatar beating the barbarian to death.

  His opponent fell; an icon started blinking over the man and the woman who lived in the cottage, letting Lucian know that a dialogue was now available.

  But he had more important things to do first.

  Lucian ignored the couple as his avatar checked the man’s body, looting it for some shillings and a single health potion.

  The barbarian also had an ax, but it didn’t seem all that great compared to Lucian’s scythe. He was about to discard it when he noticed that there had been an enchantment on the ax that slowly regenerated HP for the user.

  Pulling up his menus again, Lucian spent some skill points reversing the enchantment and removing it from the ax. He then went to his scythe, seeing that he still had a few slots available for enchantment. He put the new enchantment there, discarded the ax, and finally made his way over to the couple.

  “Thank you,” the woman said, coming to him. She practically fell into his arms, hugging Lucian as her bleeding husband limped over to them both, eyeing Lucian’s avatar warily.

  Lucian’s dialogue options appeared, and as usual, he chose the funniest option, something about claiming the woman now, just to tease the husband.

  The husband looked at Lucian’s avatar with bewilderment in his eyes. “How could you say such a cruel thing?”

  Unfortunately, Lucian’s dialogue options didn’t allow him to press the matter any further.

  Instead, the woman returned to her husband’s arms, comforting him. The man was still bleeding, but it looked like it was mostly just a flesh wound, nothing that would kill the farmer.

  Or whatever he was.

  “We can’t thank you enough,” the farmer said, a light shining in his eye, and a green plus sign popped up, letting Lucian know that he had done something positive. “We don’t have much, but I do have an old family recipe made from the grapes and the onions in this garden.”

  “Grapes and onions?” Lucian whispered to himself.

  “It may sound strange,” the man continued, his accent crappy and faux British, just like all the accents in the game. “But it is one that has very interesting effects. If you wait here a moment, I can bring you a couple of bottles. Would you like that?”

  Lucian chose the dialogue option that was akin to skeptically agreeing to the man’s request.

  “Don’t worry; it won’t kill you.”

  Rather than go and get the odd brew himself, the man ordered his wife to go to their cellar and bring up a couple bottles.

  The screen cut to the woman entering and then exiting the home, two bottles with her.

  “Be sure to stop by if you’d ever like another. Of course, for more, I’ll be forced to charge you a small fee. Just to cover my costs.”

  Lucian took the potions and immediately pulled up his inventory list, trying to see what effect they had. The explanation box simply stated that the potion was from a grateful couple and that the effects were unknown.

  [Effects: ???]

  “That’s about enough of that,” Lucian said as he powered down his system.

  Tomorrow, he would work on something that he’d been thinking about for the last three days.

  Lucian sipped from a cup of coffee that he had augmented, adding a touch of cinnamon to it and just a dash of cream. He was getting better and better at making it, so much so that he had joked with one of his crows the other day that he should open up a coffee shop somewhere in the city.

  Since Lucian had full control over his environment, he purposefully had the sun rise twice over the body of water in front of his workshop, its bright reflections on the waves calming him, reminding him that there really was beauty everywhere even if he was dead, even if it was in some made-up environment created by his predecessor.

  Old Death.

  Lucian wondered what he was up to, how he was faring with the angel he had escaped with, and if he was happy. He recalled Old Death saying that he would eventually die after passing on his mantle.

  Or at least, Lucian thought he said that.

  Then again, his predecessor had been starving himself, in a way, by going out on limited excursions. Or had he been? Did he actually have to hunt?

  Lucian finished his coffee, and created another by simply tapping his finger against the rim.

  And what would this Committee ask Lucian anyway? Why were they so interested in what happened at the South Wind? What would they possibly be able to gain from Lucian’s account?

  In the end, two of them, the woman named Mastima and the blonde-haired man known as Lord Lifton, seemed cordial enough. It was the third Death that he was wary of, the one named Gaspard.

  He seemed to especially despise Lucian.

  “It’s time,” Lucian told his spherical creations once he finished his second cup of coffee. Hugin and Munin rested on a pillow, Ezra the cat near them, lightly tapping his tail against Munin’s body.

  Hugin was the first to rise, Lucian’s crow slowly lifting into the air and vibrating. As it did so, the top of its head opened, its retractable claw coming out and nudging Munin.

  “You have to use your claw for that?” Lucian asked, amused.

  When Munin didn’t respond, Hugin used its retractable claw to lift the other crow and pound it against the pillow.

  Lucian laughed as Munin shot up into the air, angry as ever.

  “That was messed up,” Lucian said as he stepped out of his workshop, his two crows taking off, chasing one another.

  Grim Mecha landed in front of him.

  His creation was the exact same size as him, and with his hood over his head he was practically a perfect clone of his creator. His replica was more muscular than him, his body reminding Lucian of some of the Batman movie costumes from the mid-2000s.

  Like Lucian, his creation had claws. Grim Mecha also had guns hidden all over his body, this on top of the rockets in his heels, which Lucian knew weren’t necessary, but also definitely made him cooler.

  His creation did not have sentience, at least no more than Hugin or Munin had. Lucian was aware that he could give him sentience, but that wasn’t something he was interested in, at least not at the moment.

  He liked being by himself, and while he could artificially create a companion, Lucian had this itching feeling that it would only make him feel more alone.

  “Are you ready?” he asked his creation.

  Grim Mecha lifted his arm, and as he did a blade began to press out of his metallic flesh, a gun barrel forming on the
other side.

  Lucian’s creation aimed his gun at him.

  “Not yet,” Lucian said as he brought a table made of stone up from the ground.

  “Armor,” he whispered to himself, realizing that it obviously was going to have to be bone armor.

  Because of course it was.

  Lucian began to envision what bone armor would look like, and how it would work regarding how he liked to fight.

  He rolled up his sleeve, and as he did, a bone material began to press out of his skin from a center seam. It wrapped around his arm, cascading down to his hand, encasing it completely like it was a cast.

  Knuckles and other joints appeared on the outside of the armor, allowing Lucian to move his hand, fingers, and his wrist.

  Still focusing on his armor, Lucian began thickening the bone by growing and hardening it, concentrating so hard on strengthening his armor that he could feel his temple throbbing.

  Once he was done, the armor from his elbow to the tips of his fingers was about half an inch thick.

  He flicked his finger against it, and then held his arm out.

  “Try to cut it off,” he told his creation.

  Grim Mecha approached Lucian, something slightly mechanical about the way that he walked that was definitely intimidating.

  His creation brought his bladed arm back and drove it into Lucian’s wrist, the blade repelled by the bone.

  “Try shooting it off,” Lucian said, holding his arm out and trying not to cringe as he watched Grim Mecha lift his energy weapon.

  Lucian knew that it wasn’t going to hurt him, but there was still something human about him, something that made him wince and cringe from time to time when he expected pain.

  His creation blasted it, bone chips flying into the air.

  “Okay, thicker,” Lucian said as his armor reformed, thickening and flattening so it remained fairly close to his body. “Try again.”

  Grim Mecha did as instructed, again raising his gun arm and firing at Lucian’s newly formed armor.

  This time there were no bone chips, although there was a slight indentation in the armor.

  “I believe that will be okay,” Lucian said as he started to extend his armor over the rest of his body.

  His robes pulled away from his body, his cape lifting off and joining his Grim Mecha.

  For a moment it looked like his cape was watching Lucian skeptically, but then he figured he was just projecting this emotion onto the inanimate object.

  He could feel his skin splitting as more of the bone armor formed, his rib cage hardening, solidifying as it spread down toward his groin, his thighs, his knees, his shins, and finally his feet.

  Lucian now stood in his full armor before his workbench, everything covered aside from his skull.

  “I have to see what this looks like…” Lucian said to himself as a mirror lifted from the ground like the stone table had, the soil falling away.

  His two crows zipped back over to him, saw what he was doing, and flew back toward the water, Ezra joining them on the shoreline.

  Lucian turned once, not quite certain what to make of the off-white bone armor. For one, the color wasn’t going to fly with him. As soon as he thought this, he began to darken it until it was a gunmetal gray, so it looked like a bit like unpolished metal.

  He nodded. “Much better.”

  Lucian felt a shift in his face as his cheekbones pressed forward, a mask made of the same thick bone armor taking shape over his features. He moved his jaw, seeing that it was also hinged. As the structure continued to form, it began to spread up the crown of his head, and from there down to the back of his neck.

  “Damn,” he said as he took in his new appearance, Lucian completely decked out in bone armor complete with a skull mask.

  He recalled his robes to his body, watching as they swirled into place. His hood came over his head, just a bit of his skull mask visible.

  He really did look like the Grim Reaper now. He admired himself as his cape settled on his shoulders, bunching up in a way that made him look even more intimidating.

  His Soul Points flashed before him, Lucian seeing that he had spent a little over three hundred points to create his armor, realizing yet again that this was something he should have done days ago, before going to the South Wind.

  “What do you think?” he asked Grim Mecha. His arms wide, Lucian walked in a short circle, letting his creation take him in.

  Grim Mecha nodded, raising his fist for a fist bump.

  “That’s all?”

  Grim Mecha nodded again.

  “Maybe I should make you sentient,” Lucian said under his breath. “Well, are you ready to do this?”

  The stone workbench he’d never actually used and the mirror filtered away as his scythe formed in his hand.

  Grim Mecha nodded, Lucian’s crows docking into the nooks on his shoulders.

  Lucian appeared at what was quickly becoming his old stomping grounds. The psychiatric hospital in Manhattan was as foreboding as ever with its tall, imperial structure, the way its shadows nearly reached the black gates out front, grasping for the streets beyond as they crisscrossed through the city.

  Lucian spiraled up into the air and blasted down to a building he was becoming quite familiar with, instantly pressing inside.

  He stopped at the end of one of the hallways with its inspirational quotes on the wall, everything sanitary, everything depressing as hell. With a wave of his hand, he sent Hugin and Munin forward to root out the parasites.

  Lucian felt like he was in his element now, growing increasingly confident in his ability day by day. He had taken a bit of a hit the previous night when the three Deaths had visited him, but he was back to feeling powerful, like he was becoming a formidable opponent.

  Lucian felt movement as his cape lifted off his shoulders. It braided into the air, taking off down the hallway.

  One look down at his hands and the armor Lucian had created earlier began to form, twisting together and spreading up his arm as it hardened. It stitched over his chest, his lower half, and finally it grew over his skull, everything but the mask hidden by his black robes.

  Figuring he would start off with a bang, Lucian also conjured a wall of injurecrows, his scythe appearing in one hand and his other hand charged, ripples of electricity oscillating around his knuckles as he readied himself.

  The first two parasites broke through the wired glass, their forms tearing the doors off their hinges as they met in the middle of the hallway.

  They made squishy noises as they plaited together, the demon bug’s slimy skin pulsing and reforming as it thickened.

  Eyes lifted on the back of the conjoined creature, its limbs merging into a giant blade that resembled the end of a screw.

  Using the walls to boost itself, the merged parasite exploded in Lucian’s direction.

  Lucian kicked off the ground with a huff, charged up the wall, and narrowly dodged the parasite’s first attack.

  He slapped his hand onto the creature’s sticky flesh, electricity charging through its body.

  His injurecrows blasted off, explosions everywhere in a matter of seconds, the fluorescent lights on the ceiling fizzling out as the shattered fixtures fell to the ground.

  More parasites burst out of their rooms; a tendril whipped around Lucian’s neck and drove him straight into the ground. He felt the impact, but his armor protected him, leaving a small crater as he flipped back up to his feet.

  He brought his scythe around, the bladed end charged with energy as he cut through one of the parasite’s limbs. He struck it again and again, one of his crows darting into the parasite’s vertical eye.

  A beautiful light poured into Lucian.

  “That’s the stuff,” he said as he threw his scythe to the other side of the room, his cape swooping up and latching onto it.

  Lucian’s MX-11 formed in his hand and he began firing at the massive parasites lifting and falling over one another in the center of the room.


  More explosions signaled that his injurecrows were hitting their marks, Lucian ducking as Munin flew by, his spherical creation bursting through a muscled arm reaching for him.

  The nearest demon bug let out a garbled sound as his crow circled back around to peg it again.

  Lucian electrocuted another slithering and slimy chunk of parasite, twisting at the waist to fire at one coming at him from across the hallway.

  More light flowed into him, followed by another wave of energy.

  The parasites still standing started to hiss and squeal, Lucian going for his sword.

  Lucian’s cape whipped past holding his scythe, and slammed down onto a parasitic limb. The end of the scythe dug so deep into the limb that it got stuck, Lucian’s cape launched back to the other side of the hallway, where it swelled up like a mushroom cloud before going to retrieve its weapon.

  Lucian spun, cutting through a barbed tail.

  Another barbed tail struck him in the chest, his armor deflecting it, Lucian realizing yet again that he was an idiot for not crafting armor earlier.

  Then again, it wasn’t like he could die…

  He flourished his sword and jumped into the air, where he landed with his feet on the ceiling just as a bladed limb tore past him.

  His sword overhead, Lucian cut through the limb, the lava portion of his sword causing the parasite’s wound to hiss as it cauterized.

  He dropped back to the ground, his focus returning to the hallway.

  It was messy, it was visceral, it was surreal.

  More light poured into him courtesy of his crows, who had tag-teamed a parasite in the far corner of the hallway.

  Most of the parasites were now dead, and from what Lucian could tell there were two left, both of them joined together, still trying to attack him with their screw-shaped blade.

  His cape belted into the conjoined parasites, covering them completely and causing confusion as Lucian charged forward.

  He cut through a spiked stegosaurus tail trying to take his head off. Another limb managed to hit him in the chest; he was thrown back a few paces, but not impaled this time.