by Pavel Kornev
It was just in time! Militiamen armed with axes and pitchforks were already running through the open side door. What was worse is that two of the men had torches with them. The darkness of the night receded, so I had to hurriedly slip towards the fence. I climbed over it, jumped into the street and stayed still in the bushes for a moment, but everything was quiet all around me.
That was it, time to go!
8
IT WAS ALREADY DAWN when I reached the cornfield. Isabella and Frederick were waiting for me in the place we’d agreed upon, in the clearing where the crows had recently pecked at the crucified conjurer.
“Did you bring it?” the dead man and the priestess asked simultaneously.
I offered the sickle to Frederick, who carefully examined it and reverently declared, “That’s the one!”
The conjurer didn’t seem to have lost his strength after the magery by the village, but the priestess had quite a time of it in her battle with the paladins — her hair was singed, while her face was covered with numerous grazes. However, this didn’t make the elf any less attractive.
Isabella noticed my interested look and deliberately stood in a seductive pose.
“So, Kitten. Has anything moved?”
“No,” I truthfully replied.
“You impotent!” the priestess declared and strode after the conjurer, who was busy with the ties on a sack that was lying by the cross.
Frederick took a black kid goat out of the bag and raised the ritual sickle.
“Hey, is this really necessary?” Isabella asked with a frown.
What an animal lover! I was concerned about something else.
“Wait!” I shouted. “Aren’t you supposed to open the portal in your village?”
“No!” the dead conjurer answered curtly as he used a single smooth movement to slash the goat kid’s throat with the sickle.
The sacrificial animal dissolved into gray ashes and the weightless dust spun above the ground, went as high as the height of two men and turned into an inverted cone.
“Is that it?” Isabella snorted.
However, Frederick was not finished with the ritual yet. Quickly muttering a complex spell, the dead conjurer started to move in a circle, as the cone above his head started to widen and fill with magical power.
The Steal the Silver Sickle quest is complete!
Experience: +350
Relations with the subjects of the Lord of the Tower of Decay have changed. Current status: Neutral
Rogue: You have gained a level!
Neutral? I almost spat with disappointment. I had neutral relations with all of the undead anyway!
To hell with it. I increased my Dodge skill to level 3, while I put my single stat point into Agility. I started to close the stat window, but then I received a system notification.
Choose your specialization!
Choose my specialization? But my rogue was only level 13! Were my 12 undead levels added to that? Then yes, it did actually come to 25 all together.
The notification kept blinking and I couldn’t quite get over my insecurity and open the correct part of the game menu.
Specialization was introduced to make characters more individual and the choice of professions was different for different classes, largely dependent on the stats and skills which the hero had gained by level 25. The majority of players decided on their character development strategy at the generation stage and strictly followed the recommendations of the many guides that were around.
The most popular professions among rogues were those of Assassin, Infiltrator and Ninja, but there were more than enough narrower specializations For instance, there weren’t many Pickpockets in the game, but there were many legends about the greatness of their skills.
So what would be offered to a character with high Stealth, beginner Dodge skill and 12 undead levels? What would it be, eh?
I felt ill from my bad premonitions.
The system notification kept blinking for some time, but then changed to a list of available professions by itself. It was a rather sparse list. There were only three choices: Grave Robber, Poisoner and Executioner.
This was the order in which I looked through them.
The Grave Robber turned out to be good. The dead caused it reduced damage, with the addition of resistance to death magic. The Stealth skill had quite a large bonus in dungeons and with a rise in level, there was a greater chance of remaining undetected by undead that had magical senses. However, its main feature was the Anatomist skill.
Having much experience in the dissection of corpses, you have become an expert in the formation of the human body. As it develops, this skill increases the chance of critical hits in melee combat. The multiplier for this damage increases by one. The Grave Robber isn’t affected by the immunity of certain types of undead to critical hits.
Wow! If I could use my current multiplier to hit for 280 units of Health, then I would get 420 if I selected this specialization!
The problem was that the rest of the skills of the Grave Robber were of no interest to me. Death magic couldn’t harm me anyway, while there was no point for me to hide from the undead. Neutrality, oh yeah. There was also a short blade specialization here, while I had stupidly included a double handed sword in my Deadman’s Set. I could stop using the set of course, but...
Whatever, let’s keep looking!
Things were no better with the Poisoner. With every new level, the profession received an immunity to increasingly potent poisons while acid damage resistance grew at the same time. The main weapons were poisoned daggers, poisoned throwing knives and pots of poison, while the main skill was the unique Clouds of Death.
You have been so saturated with poisons that you can hide in clouds of poisoned smoke without any damage to yourself. Your victims are unable to see you through them, while every hit will cause critical damage.
Was this any good? Not so much in the open air, but the Poisoner could do such things in enclosed spaces that they would make even high level players feel sick. However, I had an immunity to poisons anyway. There was that issue with the set again too...
What a conundrum.
Anyway, I had to think. All right, and what about the Executioner?
I didn’t hold out much hope of this specialization at first and it turned out that I was right. The Executioner killed, but they killed enemies that were already immobile. In this case the critical hit multiplier increased twice over and there was a chance to kill the target with one skill, no matter their health. The chance of a mortal strike was ten percent for an opponent of the same level, while it increased by one tenth of a percent for every level under and decreased in the same way if the target was of a higher level than the Executioner.
That meant that my chance to kill a level 100 player at level 25 was only two and a half percent. I had to make them immobile first as well! A team play character that was not for me. This was a shame, because a specialization in two handed swords and axes was available.
But then I opened the description of the Incognito profession specific skill and I was completely dumbstruck.
Since the most ancient of days, executioners hid their faces behind masks. You are a master of secrecy. Whenever you want, you can hide your name and status from everyone. Only the most observant of the most observant ones can penetrate your secret and most victims will never know who made the fatal strike. But beware — the gods are all-seeing. This skill will not rid you of the mark of the murderer.
Really? You can hide your name and status?
An ideal choice for a player killer who is... undead!
Even if they won’t let someone anonymous cross the threshold in many places — who cares! The main thing is that nobody I meet will try to take my head.
Profession selected: Executioner!
The system suggested that I put the available point into the development of profession specific skills and I started to look through the available options — I could either improve Incognito or
Execution or I could invest in weapon skills. The icons for the swords, shields and double wielding remained inactive, but the icons for two-handed weapons and single handed short blade fighting were blinking.
I selected two-handed weapons and automatically got the Fencer status, which significantly increased my chances of parrying and also let me choose one of the special moves.
Power Strike let me make increased damage once. Constitution was added to the strength of the character which was used to calculate damage. In addition, fighters had the chance of knocking down their opponents or completely knocking them out.
Quick Strikes was an ideal skill for a dueller. The player was quickened and managed to make three strikes instead of a single full strike, even if they caused half the usual damage. The chance of success here depended on the level of Agility.
All of this would be fine, but I remembered how easily the pack of dogs tore into me and chose Sweeping Strike, which would let me hit several opponents at once. Even though the damage was lowered with each subsequent hit, the fall in the damage depended on the Armor of the targets and the Constitution of the player. It wasn’t the best way to combat high level characters, but I could now easily deal with a pack of baying curs.
There were then three branches for the development of the move: Blind Strike, Controlled Strike and Circle Strike, but I didn’t read their descriptions for now and opened the updated character stats.
John Doe, Executioner
Undead, Flesh Eater. Level 12 / Human, Rogue. Level 13
Experience: [2984/3000] [3028/3600]
Strength: 20
Agility: 16
Constitution: 24
Intelligence: 5
Perception: 8
Health: 600
Stamina: 550
Energy: 162
Damage: 80-140
Stealth: +10
Dodge: +3
Critical damage when attacking in stealth mode, backstabbing or attacking a paralyzed target.
Professional skills: Incognito, Execution
Fencer: Two-Handed Weapons, Sweeping Strike
Creature of the Dark: night sight, penalty for being in sunlight, Deathgrip, Aura of Fear, Fearsome Bite.
Neutrality: undead, subjects of the Lord of the Tower of Decay
Enemies: Order of the Fiery Hand
Immunity: death magic, poisons, curses, bleeding, sickness, cures and blessings.
Achievements: Dog Slayer Grade 3
Once I’d finished with the character development, I closed all of the system windows and saw that the inverted cone had enclosed the whole clearing. The corn at the edge of the clearing went gray and dissolved, falling to the ground as weightless dust.
Isabella was looking at the portal with obvious fear. In fact, a moment later I understood that it was not fear — it was confusion.
The priestess caught my eye and declared, “It’s a one way portal!”
“So what?” I shrugged. “We’ll find some way to return.”
“You don’t understand,” Isabella growled. This is a portal from the Kingdom of the Dead. We won’t get there.”
“What the hell?” I cursed and ran towards Frederick.
The conjurer was walking around the edge of the clearing, and the power that followed him dried out and dissolved the stalks of corn into dust.
“Conjurer!” I shouted. “You had to open a portal into the Kingdom of the Dead, not the other way around!”
“Had to?” the conjurer laughed. “I don’t owe anything to anyone!”
“But the Elder said that the villagers can hide from their enemies in the Kingdom of the Dead!”
“That’s exactly what will happen!” Frederick barked in reply. “The Kingdom of the Dead is already here! It has already come, even though the mortals don’t understand it!”
“The plague was your doing?” I suddenly guessed.
“Humans will only attain eternity through pain and death!”
Isabella’s face twisted and her eyes burned with a malignant fire. The priestess started to transform into a fury and declared fiercely, “You are about to attain your own eternity, you piece of carrion...”
However, the elf didn’t have time to deal with the conjurer. A warrior with a rectangular shield and shortsword who was covered head to toe in black armor fell out of the portal. Another dead legionnaire came after him and then more and more. Judging by Isabella’s worried facial expression, these were serious opponents even for her.
However, they didn’t touch us because of out neutrality.
The legionnaires parted and were followed by strange creatures which looked mostly like armor that had been cut off below the belt. The flying creatures had no legs, with some sort of rags hanging down below instead.
Lost souls. I never even heard of creatures like that...
“Fly to the village!” Frederick commanded them and the flying undead swarm obediently sped away. To add to it, the status of the dead conjurer changed to the foreboding “Death Disciple”.
Isabella moved backwards, as if she was about to disappear among the corn, but she noticed me and stopped.
“Bastard! What did you get me into?”
“I didn’t know anything!”
“Are you seriously trying to persuade me of that, you piece of carrion?”
“There’s nothing I need more than a portal to the Kingdom of the Dead!” I shouted back.
Isabella shook her head.
“I’m leaving.”
However, before she could go through with her intention, the first lost souls returned. Each creature brought a villager that was scared to death. The legionnaires took the prisoners and lined them up before the conjurer. They turned undead as soon as he waved his hand.
“See the power of the Lord of the Tower of Decay!” Frederick exclaimed. “Tell everyone of the way his host arrives!”
“If anyone finds out about our part in this,” Isabella whispered in my ear, “we will become pariahs.” She got herself together and snorted. “But you don’t have to worry about that, do you?”
“What are we going to do?” I asked in confusion.
“Let’s come back to our original plan,” Isabella flashed a dangerous grin. “I am going to batter you until...”
“That won’t help!” I interrupted the elf. “I could actually come back to life!”
“But you need to get into the Kingdom of the Dead to do that?”
“Exactly!”
This was the moment when the lost souls brought another party of prisoners and Isabella fell silent for a while, observing Frederick’s activities.
“All right,” she said after a while. “Let’s try to talk to the conjurer.”
The only thing was that the Death Disciple was working non-stop and it was impossible to approach him. As soon as we tried to come near, the dead legionnaires blocked our path. We may have been neutral, but they didn’t consider us to be allies.
The sun already began to rise above the forest when the lost souls that had raided the village returned for the last time. They threw their prisoners down to the ground and started to circle the clearing, looking out for danger. I was sure that the army of the Order of the Fiery Hand would be here by midday with the support of Light side players. The cleverest thing that me and Isabella could do was to run away as far as we could...
That was when we heard a child shouting.
“I have seen you!” shouted a red haired child who was being dragged towards Frederick by a dead legionnaire. “I saw how you got out of the dungeon! I will tell everyone where you came from! Save me! Help me!”
Me and Isabella glanced at each other.
“The lad knows where the Death Disciple came from. Maybe he can take us there!”
“He could,” I nodded back automatically.
Isabella smiled, baring her tiny and sharp teeth.
“Kitten, the boy is asking for help. Do something! Do it, or I will tear off your useless tool and feed it to Roger
!”
The skull on her staff clacked its teeth and it somehow became immediately obvious that the priestess was not joking.
Damn. Out of the frying pan and into the fire.
Chapter Three. Dungeon Of The Dead
1
CREAK, SPLASH. Creak, splash. Creak, splash.
The wooden blades of two oars descended into the water and rose back up to the regular creak of the oarlocks, spraying droplets that shone in the sunlight, before descending back into the river.
The sun hung overhead and covered everything with its blinding light, glinting off the ripples on the water, making me fidget and pull the hood tighter over my head. The infinitely white glow was everywhere, as if I was in the middle of an overexposed photo. I couldn’t see anything at all.
Ah, us dead men are not suited to sunny days. At least the necromancer’s clothing didn’t let the sun dry me out and even though the fiery rays sometimes touched my skin, the silver amulet that I had taken off the Death Disciple immediately restored the Stamina that was burned away. I’d make it...
It was surprisingly easy to save the talkative boy from being turned undead. All I had to do was forcefully pull him from the arms of the dead legionnaire and the armored walking corpse immediately lost all interest in his prisoner. It was either my neutral status or part of the plot.
That didn’t matter! The main thing was that the boy agreed to show us the dungeon that the Death Disciple came from.
“The flood had washed away the riverside there,” the red and pock-marked lad reported as he evenly worked the oars. “We went fishing, so we saw how this scumbag was coming out of a hole in the riverbank. What do I mean by a hole? A big cave opened up with a ceiling the height of a man! It was getting dark and we had to come back, so we never went inside. We just found a silver sickle by the entrance. The Elder took it away afterwards. There’s no way to get there on dry land, you can only use a boat...”