by Pavel Kornev
The power that had crucified me in the air disappeared and I fell, rolling to the side and entering stealth mode. I didn’t run away though — I stood up straight and slashed down at the nearest guardsman with my flamberge. His cuirass was cut through and the undulating blade went into his body down to the middle of his chest.
I tore the blade free, but there was no one to fight anymore. The priestess had dealt with the others by herself.
Level 53 and a fury to boot...
The Furies were the battle priestesses of certain gods. When they entered a battle rage they became stronger and faster, but there were few that chose this specialization, because healing skills became unavailable automatically. All types of cleric were mainly valued for their healing abilities.
Isabella’s magical armor returned to its sexually aggressive form and the staff straightened out, but the skull remained covered in blood.
“Now then,” the drow priestess looked at me with interest, “half the job is done, shall we continue, Kitten?”
“What do you mean?” I didn’t understand and I was suddenly happy that I hadn’t returned the flamberge to the baldric behind my back.
Isabella screwed her face up in disappointment.
“You accepted my help without reading the conditions?”
“Um...” I hesitated and then nodded. “Well, yeah.”
The elf sighed.
“Kitten, you were really lucky! I am the servant of the Mistress of the Crimson Moon, the goddess of death and rebirth, fury and passion. Your rescue from the claws of the Order must finish with a tantric ritual. Are you happy?”
“Tantric?” I was taken aback.
“Yep,” Isabella confirmed, as she had already thrown her cloak to the ground and was working at the clasps on her breastplate. “We’ll screw and part ways. Nothing personal.”
Sex was not something forbidden in Towers of Power — more the opposite, as only adults were allowed access to the game. I would have happily had some exercise with the sexy priestess in any other situation, but her demand put me into a rather unusual situation now.
“I’m afraid there might be some issues with that,” I admitted, pulling back my hood.
When Isabella saw my face and the spots of lividity that covered it, Isabella screwed up her face and said unhappily, “Urgh, an undead”
“It just turned out that way...”
The priestess waved her hand.
“All right, it could be worse. I’ll bear it somehow.”
“You don’t understand. The dead do not have any blood pressure.”
This statement of mine seriously worried Isabella.
“Erection problems?”
“No erection at all.”
“What about the terminal erection?”
“Not in my case.”
The priestess frowned.
“Kitten, are you trying to say that I have spent one and a half years on completing a horribly complicated quest only to come across a useless deadman? Is that what you are trying to say?”
“Try it with someone else,” I shrugged.
“I obviously can’t wait!” the woman growled and then hit me in the face with the skull on her staff with all her strength.
I also noticed how the skull was getting covered with spikes and then my head just exploded. That is no exaggeration — my brains flew everywhere, sprinkling the corn stalks with red and gray
Sudden attack: Save Failed
You have been killed by player Isabella Ash-Rizt!
7
DAMP EARTH, DARKNESS and the roots of corn.
I had to spend a while to get out of the shallow grave and then I fell on my back completely drained and swore. Damn it! Why was there some trend to kill me with one hit? I had over half a thousand Health now, after all.
Insane bitch!
I raised myself up on my elbow and then saw a torch light up nearby. A torch? No, it was the skull on the staff of the elven priestess burning with a crimson flame. Isabella stepped up to my grave and hissed at me in a hateful voice, “You piece of carrion...”
I rapidly rolled aside and dove into stealth mode, but it didn’t help me get out of the clearing. The priestess waved her staff and the stalks of corn suddenly turned into iron rods, with their leaves turning into razor-sharp blades.
Damn it! The Fence of Steel spell was supposed to be defensive, but it became a deathtrap in my case!
“I will never retreat!” Isabella declared. “Was one death not enough? No problem! You will die sooner or later, and I’ll get the chance to take this task again!”
I shuddered. The stubborn priestess was not joking at all and even if she wouldn’t be able to stay in-game forever, I really didn’t want to get another mortal enemy. I also simply didn’t want to die yet another time!
“Stop hiding!” the elf demanded. “Come on out!”
My Energy was drifting away, but not too fast, so I opened the system menu and glanced through the conditions for my acceptance of help from the priestess. It said that I definitely had to take part in the tantric ritual — there was no getting out of it.
Damn it! What sort of lover could a dead rogue be?
However...
I moved further away from the berserk priestess and left stealth mode.
“Isabella, wait!” I shouted at the priestess as she charged towards me. “I’m a player, I’m on a quest as well!”
My Dodge skill helped me to avoid the attack with the staff, I leapt into the darkness, entered stealth mode and ran to the other side of the clearing.
“I can become alive again!” I told the priestess once I got there. “This is just a temporary state!”
Isabella stopped and stuck her staff into the earth, freeing her hands.
“What’re you talking about? What sort of quest can you have?” she asked, putting aside her desire to turn me into a pile of battered flesh for a moment.
“A portal to the Kingdom of the Dead! Can you imagine how much money the first player to get there can make?”
“You’re full of it, Kitten!” Isabella curtly replied.
“Want me to invite you? You can read the conditions yourself!”
The priestess hesitated. Her own quest was far more important to her, but getting access to the Kingdom of the Dead before other players was the same as hitting the jackpot!
“When will you become alive?” the elf asked.
“Is that so important?”
“Damn you to hell!” Isabella said furiously. “You barged into my quest and I can’t move along it until the ritual is complete! I want to become the high priestess! I threw away one and a half years for that!”
“I need to get into the Kingdom of the Dead to become alive again,” I answered, actually telling her the honest truth.
“Are you definitely a player?”
“Yes!”
“Open your profile!” the priestess demanded. “No, not like that! We’ll make a group!”
The request came up — I hesitated a little, but didn’t want to make the situation any worse and accepted. Isabella was completely still for a while as she studied my stats and then asked, “John Doe, how did you manage to take a second class?”
“It was an individual quest which I got with my VR capsule.”
“A rich Kitten?” Isabella chuckled. “All right, send me an invite. But take note that if you lied about the portal, I will destroy you!”
I wasted no time and sent the elf an invitation to join the “Find the Village Conjurer” quest, and Isabella started to look through all of the logs connected to it.
“I can’t believe it!” she said with surprise. “The Kitten didn’t lie to me! A portal to the Kingdom of the Dead, how cool!”
Her condescending tone annoyed me, but it was difficult to expect anything else from a player who had a level twice as high as yours.
“What do you need to do with the glass skull?” Isabella asked.
“I think I need to give it to the dead
man,” I supposed.
“Well, go for it, Kitten! What’re you waiting for?”
Player Isabella Ash-Rizt has joined the Find the Village Conjurer quest
Group created. Members: 2
Crystal skull in hand, I approached the dead man who was turned into a scarecrow and the priestess followed. As I approached the dead conjurer, the clear stone in my hands shone brighter and brighter, with its ghostly light soon spreading through the whole clearing, but there was no heat coming from the artifact My fingers started to get perceptibly colder instead.
I hesitated for a second and then pressed the skull to the chest of the village conjurer and he suddenly started to twitch and thrash around on his cross. Flesh started to grow back onto his head, his eyes lit up with a dark light and then the ropes tying him up started to smoke and he collapsed to the ground like a sack.
“Is he alive?” Isabella frowned and poked Frederick in the ribs with the tip of her boot.
The Find the Village Conjurer quest is complete!
Experience: 80
The crystal skull shone even brighter than before and then slowly melted, leaving only hoarfrost upon my gloves. Frederick groaned as he got to his feet and turned our to be a gaunt middle-aged man with a short black beard and deep-set eyes. He was dead, of course.
“Oh...” he said hoarsely. “I’m back, praise be to the Tower of Decay!”
“A Portal to the Kingdom of the Dead!” Isabella immediately interrupted him. “Can you open it?”
“Portal!” Frederick looked up and then nodded slowly. “Yes, I can!”
“So go for it!” the priestess demanded. “We’re waiting!”
The conjurer shook his head.
“To do this, I need the ritual silver sickle which is stored in Pine Log. I couldn’t get it!”
“What was it that stopped you?” Isabella chuckled.
“It is guarded by paladins! Will you help me? But we must act before the sickle is taken to the Citadel of the Order!”
A system notification about a new quest to “Steal the Silver Sickle” appeared and the priestess accepted it for both of us, without even asking my opinion. I had no intention of protesting anyway.
“Kitten, you’re a thief, aren’t you?” Isabella stared at me. “Will you steal this knick-knack for us?”
“I will, but only if you deal with the paladins.”
The elf then turned to Frederick.
“Are you with us, conjurer?”
The dead man made a small bow.
“I will help how I can.”
OUR PLAN WAS NOT particularly cunning. Isabella and Frederick had to distract the guards by storming the gates so when the paladins of the Order counter-attacked and left the sickle unattended I’d have a great opportunity to freely enter the elder’s house and steal the ritual blade.
It would all have been fine, but I had to take the enchanted skull with me.
I couldn’t give it to my random acquaintance to look after!
Could I hide it? Unfortunately, that wasn’t an option either.
“I can take down the gates,” Frederick announced when we got to the village, after thinking for a little while. “But I can’t help you with anything else. We’ll meet on the cornfield.”
Me and Isabella glanced at each other and the priestess nodded.
“Do it!”
The dead conjurer walked ahead and used a piece of a simple branch to start drawing a summoning circle in the dirt of the road. At first, Isabella just watched his actions with an obvious skepticism and then suddenly rapidly retreated. It was no wonder, as even I felt the energy spreading through the air even though I had no magical abilities whatsoever.
The complicated diagram lit up with ghostly fire as the mud swelled and started to grow into the giant figure of a bloated and slimy earth golem. Frederick shouted a hoarse order and the terrible creation moved out towards the village.
Huge pieces of mud and damp earth fell off it on the way, but the golem still made it to the gates. The magical creature used its whole body to smash into them, sending one door crashing down and making the other hang askew before it shuddered and collapsed into a formless pile of clay. This immediately caused a great commotion in the village — the dogs started barking, the guards started shouting and the distant sounds of tolling bells could be heard through the din.
“The rest is up to you,” the dead conjurer declared and disappeared into the night.
Isabella raised her staff and a blindingly bright flame burst forth over her head. I quickly ran aside and hid myself in the bushes.
The first to run out was around a dozen guardsmen, but the villagers were no serious opposition for the elf. She threw a fireball at them and the explosion threw them to and fro. It didn’t kill anyone, it only scared them and forced them to retreat back behind the fence.
“Your time onstage, Kitten!” Isabella said, when two paladins and a dozen guards of the Order of the Fiery Hand came out of the broken gates. “I’ll hold them back as long as I can.”
The knights charged as the priestess retreated into the darkness. I let the unit go past me and slipped into the village under the cover of stealth. There was a proper mess inside, with militia men hurriedly lining up, children running around and a terrified village elder issuing orders. I was only noticed by chained guard dogs, but no one paid any heed to their desperate barking now.
Frederick had marked the elder’s house on the map, so I didn’t have to rely on guesswork to find it. The only thing I did do was tried to keep to quiet lanes where the chances of meeting and especially alert militiaman were not so high.
I got away with it.
By the time I’d reached my destination, I’d managed to spend a little more than half of my energy, but I still had three vials held in reserve. More than enough to return. The main thing was to find the sickle.
The side door by the gates was open, so I carefully slipped into the elder’s yard. Immediately, a huge guard dog on a chain burst out of the darkness! The dog’s attack caught me unawares, so the only thing that I managed to do was turn around and stick my flamberge out in front of me.
This was when my Dog Slayer achievement helped. I noticed a vulnerable spot for some barely perceptible moment and gave the blade a slight turn, so the huge hound literally impaled itself on the blade.
Once I freed my bloodstained flamberge from the body of the impaled dog, I sneaked towards the house, but the backdoor turned out to be locked. Then I started to check the windows. Thankfully, my basic burglary skills were more or less enough to open one of them.
I climbed into a tiny, dusty room, which was completely empty and slipped into stealth mode again, stepping into the corridor only after that. I soundlessly padded through it and carefully looked into the lounge. The ritual sickle glinted silver on some pegs that were hammered into the wall, but something made me freeze in place.
Something was wrong with the room.
My low Perception didn’t allow me to fully assess the situation, which was why I simply stood there unmoving. My hands trembled under the weight of my sword which was raised to strike, but I had no issues with my Strength level. It was just a question of concentrating. I forced myself to calm down, and the trembling stopped.
Nothing happened for some time, but then the shadows flickered and parted, as a dark figure in tight-fitting black clothing appeared. The stranger stepped very quietly, and the planks of the floor made no sound under his leather boots. One hand of this agile operator held a shortsword, while the other clutched a dagger. The blades of both weapons were blackened. None of his clothes had a single bright spot either.
A thief? What did he forget here? Had he also come for the sickle? Or was it the other way around?
The stranger stood in the middle of the room, listening out for something. I could have easily cut into his back, but if I sliced downwards, the blade was bound to get caught on the low ceiling, while a side swing would be impeded by the wall. I had to sid
estep, but I didn’t want to move.
The dark figure started to turn and I had a sudden sense that made me understand that I was discovered. Or, to be more exact, I would be discovered in an instant!
A side step and a turn with my whole body! The flamberge hit in parallel with the floor and the surprised stranger had no time to do anything. The arm in the way of the strike was simply sliced in half and the undulating blade bit into his ribs.
Critical hit! Damage: 270
The problem was that my opponent stayed on his feet and even stabbed me with his sword!
Damage taken: 40 [536/576]
Poisoned weapon: Immunity
The flamberge was stuck in the strangers side, so I used all my strength to yank on it, slicing the blade through his body and widening the wound. Then I immediately let through an attack on my neck. It would have been an unpleasant surprise, but bleeding and poisoning were nothing to the dead, while half a hundred points of damage made no real difference.
I threw my opponent back off me by hitting him with the cross-guard of my blade, breaking his nose in the process. I was about to finish him off, but he suddenly started to run away. The shadows rose and the stranger dissolved in them, but black blood immediately burst forth, running down the door and then the rogue fell out of the emptiness and fell to the floor stone dead.
Bleeding wound! Additional damage: 3
The Order of the Fiery Hand Infiltrator has been killed!
Relations with the Order of the Fiery Hand have changed. Current status: Enemy
Damn it! More problems, but to hell with them!
I tore the ritual silver sickle from the wall and rushed out into the corridor. Someone had already started to shout the alarm in a far room, so I had to scram as fast as I could. Time to run!
I drank one of the Energy Restoration Potion vials and ran towards the exit, but then the infiltrator’s dagger clinked under my foot. I had no time to mess around with it, so I shoved it in my inventory, came out into the corridor and rushed towards the room with the window I’d used to get inside the house. I entered stealth mode and then jumped out into the backyard covered by the shadows and invisible.