by Ryan Rimmel
Jarra got to the top of the pillar and threw something down into the middle of the party. A thick cloud of greenish smoke flared up, and the undead started falling back slightly. Suddenly, Zorlando sidestepped and attacked, bringing his sword down on a skeleton’s arm. The weapon crashed through it, shattering the bone into fragments. This left a gap in our attackers’ line, and the rest of our party began pushing back hard. Jarra leapt down, but, instead of heading toward the group, she ran to Bashara. I was going to tell her to stay with SueLeeta, but, by then, my Death Knight had found me again.
I executed another Hack and Slash, at the same moment he used his identical move. A shower of sparks flashed around me, as both of our swords clashed. At the last moment, his sword became encased in Shadows.
● Curse of Disarming: Your weapon flees from your hand with all possible haste.
● Curse of Disarming vs Jim: Failure. Countered by Sword Mastery
It was only the massive power of my grip, granted to me by the Sword Mastery perk, that kept my sword in my possession. Still, it felt like it was trying to fly from my hand. The skeleton assisted it by slamming his fist into my chest, sending me sliding backward on the ground. Using Mobility, I barely managed to roll and get back to my feet, before he was on me again. I stretched out my hand to reclaim my sword, only to have it fly right past me.
● Two-Handed Strike does 85 points of Damage.
I saw stars and coughed out blood, as I went flying to the side. That was getting hit by a boulder damage, and it felt like it. I staggered to my feet, trying to cast a spell. I failed, even as I tried to summon my blade back to me again. I heard a sharp clang as I pulled, and the Death Knight stumbled toward me a pace.
“Wow, right into his back! Now, that’s just bad luck,” stated Shart.
He was swinging his sword in fast arcs around his body, as the Death Knight charged toward me. It was time to get some space between us, I thought, as I backed up another step. My heel nearly caught on something metallic.
It was Jarra’s armor. She had Bashara on her shoulder and was trying to pull her away from the battle, but the battle had come to her. The healer was trying to give Bashara a Stamina potion, the expression on her face pure unalloyed terror.
I wasn’t entirely sure I would have left Bashara to her fate. I knew from experience that I couldn’t just grab Jarra in her armor and leave. I could dodge out of the way, but what would Jim do? Not me, not the real Jim, but the Jim that Jarra saw. All of these thoughts flashed by in an instant.
I snatched the Stamina potion from Jarra’s hand, turned, and launched myself at the Death Knight. I threw the contents of the vial into my mouth, as I drew my sword closer to me. Then, I dumped all my Stamina into my right hand.
● One Punch: you have used 428 points of Stamina, attack base Damage is 20 + 428 points, effect: Knockback, resisted.
The Death Knight had been slightly surprised by my sudden shift in attacks. He was out of place for the kind of strike needed to swat me out of the air. What he did attempt, I knocked away with my bracer, even as my fist impacted his helmet.
“I kind of expected his head would explode,” stated Shart.
The Death Knight went flying backward, as most of its Hit Points depleted instantly. It slammed into the ground and bounced three times before finally finding a hard enough piece of stone to be stopped. I crashed to the ground, face-first, from my ill-planned jump.
A vial landed at my head, shattering on impact. A cloud of sweet smelling smoke hit my lungs, restoring some Hit Points. I laid there in Stamina Crash, feeling miserable. Maybe in a few hours, I’d get back up. I was certain it wouldn’t be before then, though. I was wrong.
I felt my body being lifted from the ground. A spike of Shadow scored my chest, fracturing into tiny pieces.
“Most unproductive,” stated the Shadow Priest. “That spike was meant for your heart.” I glanced around. Both Jarra the Healer and Bashara were in some sort of barrier that was being clawed at by more Shadow.
I said nothing. The hideous creature lifted me by the throat. “Do you have any last words?”
“Nuce eybes huu gut thar,” I sputtered.
“What?” asked the Shadow Priest.
I focused Biological Aeromancy Mana into my arms, restoring them. Then, I jammed two Thingamabobs into the Shadow Priest’s eyes. The touch of my Life energy on its face was enough to cause the creature to drop me. An instant later, both contraptions detonated, removing its head.
Spitting out a mouthful of glass, I tried again. “Nice eyes you got there.”
The controlling intelligence gone, the Shadow power assaulting Bashara’s barrier faded. She stumbled out, grinning, “Oh, Jim, I could kiss you.”
I smiled, showing blood, flesh, and shards of glass.
“Maybe not,” she said, backing up a pace. I frowned. Jarra flipped open her visor and kissed me on the cheek, anyway, then snorted at Bashara. The healer moved back toward the party. They had nearly broken through the remaining skeletons.
“Kind of expected them all to die when the main boss went,” I gestured, as blood started pouring from my mouth.
“How does that make any sort of sense?” asked Bashara. “Just because the main evil is dead, it doesn’t mean all of his minions aren’t still out there. Believe me.”
That was it. I stared at her for a long moment, my face utterly impassive. We both knew. I would have said something, but I really needed to do something about all this glass.
“Did you drink a Stamina potion?” asked Sir Dalton, walking past. I looked across our current landscape. While the skeletons hadn’t all simply perished when the boss died, the spell he was empowering them with had failed. That turned them from life or death challenges to something quite a bit more manageable. Sir Dalton was carrying one of the struggling creatures in his hands. Reaching the edge of the chasm, he flung it off the side into the bottomless depths below.
“I mean, you hear about people eating vials,” stated Glorious Robert, placing a leather bag around a mace head before dropping it into his extradimensional storage, “But I’ve never seen anyone who actually did it.”
“Well, if he can’t talk, I suggest that I be in command,” suggested Sir Dalton.
“Of Jim’s party?” asked Zorlando consideringly. “It could be grand. The Dashing Dandies at it again! Alas, once a party enters a dungeon, I believe it is set until the group leaves. That’s assuming the stories are true.”
“Yes, everyone knows that,” said Glorious Robert, giving Dalton a side-eye. “Jim is in charge of the party, unless he dies. Range doesn’t matter in a dungeon like it does in the real world.”
‘It's probably better if he doesn’t talk,” chuckled SueLeeta, as she finally made her way over. “He’s pretty enough to survive with his trap shut.”
“Yes, I was just testing everyone,” chuckled the Knight, as he tossed another skeleton into the pit. I noticed something different in his expression that I’d never seen there before.
Fenris shook his head and looked out into space for a moment, “We gained Light Experience for this fight.”
Jarra, Combat Medic extraordinaire, walked over to me, “Say ‘ah’.”
I stuck out my tongue at her, and she pulled a twelve foot long barbed piece of glass out of my tongue. That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.
Badgelor hopped back onto my shoulder. “Good fight! I got that one Death Knight twice, so I’m counting it as two!”
“I hepped,” I said, feeling my tongue for a moment. “Isssss there a hoo in my tungue?”
“I think the glass was plugging it,” said Shart helpfully.
Jarra pulled out another healing potion in a syringe, of all things, and used the glass removal tongs to hold my tongue out. She placed a few drops of the potion on my tongue, causing the hole to seal up instantly.
“Thank you. That’s much better,” I smiled. Jarra gave me a wry grin before stepping back. I think my entire chin was coated in blood
. Bashara frowned as she walked over, tilting her neck to show a rather serious wound.
“Remove this. I would prefer it if it didn’t scar,” said Bashara flatly.
“Of course, you wouldn’t want another one, like the terrible scar on your face,” stated Jarra coolly. Bashara flinched slightly, her eyes burning with hatred. Lacking any place to go, I stayed to watch Jarra use her healing potion syringe. The device appeared to almost magically stitch the flesh back into place.
“The Shadow Priest’s experience reward isn’t in the log,” said Glorious Robert, his mace back in his hand. ”That’s really bizarre.”
“Why wouldn’t the experience be logged?” asked Jarra. Sir Dalton looked up from kicking a third skeleton into the gaping chasm.
My hair stood on end. I had a barrier constructed an instant before the blast of Shadow slammed into me. Jarra was so close that I was able to grab her and hold us both behind my shield. Bashara was not. My last image of the Wizard was the Shadow enveloping her, right before it detonated. The explosion sent Jarra and I flying over the chasm.
I started using my Airborne perk to adjust my ‘jump’, but I was too high. I looked back into the Shadow Priest’s glowing red eyes and realized he’d seen me do that before. Then, Glorious Robert bashed its skull in.
Jarra, Badgelor, and I hovered, for a brief moment, over the bottomless chasm. Bashara was gone. Jarra turned to me, her eyes full of hope. I came to the rapid realization that both of us were not going to make it.
“It was a good run,” I smiled at her. We were out of the range I could throw her, and I only had a bit over 160 Stamina, anyway.
● One Punch: Jarra the Healer, You have caused 163 points of Damage. Jarra the Healer has been knocked back 8 logs.
She slammed into Sir Dalton with enough force to knock both of them to the ground. I vanished into the darkness.
“Jim, you fecker!”
Chapter 32: Falling Into the Unknown
“So, how deep do you think this hole is?” I asked Shart, after the last shards of light vanished from above.
“How deep do I think this magical, bottomless hole is?” asked the demon. “Gee, I don’t know. Miles, maybe. Does miles sound good to you?”
“Jim, you fecker,” repeated Badgelor from his position on my left shoulder.
“And the grab-you-by-the-tail approach will not work?” I double-checked with Shart.
“Seeing as you ripped off my tail about thirty seconds ago, no, it will not,” replied the demon hotly. He glanced back to his wounded buttocks. Apparently, there was a speed at which that trick stopped working.
“Well, at least we won’t see it coming,” I ventured.
“Jim, you fecker,” stated Badgelor.
“Have you checked your skills?” asked Shart.
“I have no Stamina potions and am in the middle of a Stamina Crash. I was figuring on just splatting,” I commented.
“No drive at all,” said Shart snidely.
“Jim, you fecker,” stated Badgelor, exhaling hard through both nostrils.
I flipped into menu time, allowing me a vastly extended timeframe to plunge to my death, and started checking out my skills. Swords, Block, and Fancy Footwork had all gone up slightly. My Jump skill had also risen, but insufficiently to do anything useful. I couldn’t slow myself down with my Airborne perk. Technically, I had to land again to use that. I had no control over my movement at all.
“Hey, is there something like a double jump?” I asked Shart. He was sitting on the top of the ‘S’ in my skills list, his head in his hands. I could occasionally catch bits of what he was mumbling to himself. Words like “Dum Dum,” “imbecile,” and “massive fuckwad,” seemed to dominate his musings.
“A skill like Double Jump? No, you nimrod.”
“It's a perk, isn’t it?” I asked.
“Yes, of course, but it wouldn’t matter. Even with it, if you had fallen all this distance and then jumped again, your legs would explode,” stated the demon.
● Stamina Control has increase in rank to Journeyman. You are eligible for a Stamina Control perk.
How the hell did I level up Stamina Control? I flipped through my skill logs and found out easily enough. Usually, you only earned Skill Points in Stamina Control when you were willing Stamina into something abnormal. Just activating my skills or talents wouldn’t help much. That said, I had been putting Stamina into my Duelist talents, when I used weapon skills on them, That helped to level them up a bit. My Biological Aeromancy skill, on the other hand, helped out tremendously. It didn’t hurt that the Stamina Control skill only required a limited number of Skill Points to advance.
Glancing through the new perks, I didn’t see anything that was going to let me live. However, I did see one that I was going to take.
● Second Wind: You recover 75% of your base Stamina up to maximum. Must be reenergized after use.
I selected that, obviously, and dropped out of menu time to activate it. Instantly, I felt the bone crushing fatigue leave my body. I might be plunging to my death, but I wasn’t exhausted. Things were looking up. It was even getting brighter below me.
Then, something landed on my back. I reached over and grabbed it, coming face to face with another skeleton. I could only assume Sir Dalton was still tossing monsters into the hole. The Knight had torn the arms and legs off, so the only thing the skeleton could do was bite me. I glanced around for Badgelor, but he had separated himself from my shoulder sometime during our fall to oblivion. I could just let the skeleton smash to flinders on the ground, but I didn’t like the notion of leaving a skeleton behind. I raised my fist to crush its skull.
“WAIT,” screamed Shart. “Jim found a monster!”
“What?” yelled Badgelor, floating toward me.
“Sir Dalton threw it over,” I said.
“You asshole!” yelled Shart.
“You knew about this the whole time?” growled the badger.
“I thought you were dead,” yelled Shart.
“What about me?” growled Badgelor.
“I’m pretty sure you thought Jim was dead too,” said Shart. “Hey, the ground is getting really close! Get your sword ready.”
I drew my sword and looked at it for a moment. The skeleton was biting at my elbow. However, lacking flesh made the neck quite bendable. After a moment, I shoved the tip of my sword into its mouth and pushed it underneath me. The skeleton promptly began gnawing on the blade.
“Perfect,” said Shart. “Just keep your arm in position.”
I was falling down a hole at terminal velocity, with my sword in the mouth of a skeleton, in a cavern that looked like it was surrounded by magma, after fighting an undead monster and his minions, beneath a magical castle. Keeping my arm in position was about the easiest thing I’d done all day.
Wait, magma?
We hit the ground hard enough that stalactites broke off the ceiling.
● You have executed a successful Death-from-Above attack. Target receives 9,872 points of Damage.
I stood up and looked at the me-shaped impression in the ground. Shattered remnants of the skeleton had become embedded in the floor of the hole. “The FECK?” I screamed.
Chapter 33: Burning Cavern
“I can’t believe that actually worked,” I said again, for, like, the twentieth time. I was calming down. I was good with this.
“I can’t see how you thought it wouldn’t,” replied Shart, staring at me. He had caused his body to glow a faint purple color, and his magical light seemed to fill the nearby space. I could barely make out Badgelor, sniffing the walls and crevices in the distance.
“It doesn’t make any sense at all,” I said, feeling my knees again to check for breakage. There was none, so I flopped onto my back and looked up into the cavern above. It was a tiny pinprick of light in the vast distance.
“It was pitch black the whole way down,” I commented.
“The light you can now see is caused by a spatial distortion,” replie
d Shart, looking up. “This whole dungeon is thickly enchanted.”
I activated Mana Control, pushing a few points of Mana into the distortion. The enchantment was so thick, you could see wisps of smoke in the background. They seemed to be flowing over the lip of the crater I had fallen into, though. I was about to ask Shart, but he was totally disinterested. He had picked up the fractured skull of the skeleton and was playing with it.
“What do you think, Mr. Skeleton?” asked Shart in his regular voice..
“I think Jim is being a Dum Dum,” replied the squashed, decapitated head of the skeleton. For this, Shart raised his voice several octaves while waving the skull around in an arcing pattern.
“We fell thousands of feet, and, because I landed on a monster with my sword out, I didn't take ANY damage from the fall,” I said again, because it made no sense whatsoever.
“Yes, it's a Death-from-Above attack. Those never cause any damage to the attacker, as long as you hit,” stated Shart. “It’s a good thing that gigantic oaf tossed the skeleton down when he did. I don’t know what we’d have done, otherwise.”
“Thousands of feet,” I half screamed. Okay, maybe I wasn’t as good with this as I previously thought. I had been skydiving once on Earth, before realizing that it was a terrible idea to jump out of a perfectly good airplane. My wife had been the smart one. When I’d told her my plan, she’d told me that she was staying at the bar.
I had taken zero Falling Damage. I wasn’t sure if it was better or worse that it happened in darkness, because I couldn’t tell how screwed I was. I just had to imagine it. I was internally trying not to hyperventilate. Badgelor, who had jumped onto my back at the last second, was totally unfazed.