As the Party descended, Garath noticed Aldrasyl was missing from his roost atop HQ. They landed down on the asphalt outside the school building and Garath willed more information from the debuff denoted by a small, black skull icon that had appeared as they approached.
You are infected with Plague. You will suffer 17 (death) damage per second until you are cured or until the source is neutralized.
He willed his combat log into existence, the words and numbers displayed in front of him, hovering just above the ground.
Begin Combat Log:
[15:01:14.105] You are infected by Leviathan's Plague.
[15:01:14.105] You have lost 17 HP from Leviathan's Plague.
[15:01:14.595] You have Regenerated 30 HP.
[15:01:15.105] You have lost 17 HP from Leviathan's Plague.
[15:01:15.595] You have Regenerated 30 HP.
End Combat Log.
He checked his Profile panel for reference and was excited to see how his stats were sitting with his new gear.
Garath
Race: Human
Class: Necrologist
Level: 22
Age: 29
Health: 930/930
(base: 720; APs: +110; items: +100)
Stamina: 100/100
Mana: 1,410/1,410
(base: 720; APs: +90 items: +600)
Exp to next Level: 32,185/75,000
Attributes
Vitality: 93 (items:+10) - Each point of Vitality provides +10 to maximum Health.
Wisdom: 141 (items: +60) - Each point of Wisdom provides +10 to maximum Mana.
Regeneration: 58 (items: +18) - As a Necrologist, each point of Regeneration increases Mana recovery rate by +1.11 per second; Health recovery rate by +.25 per second; and recovery from injury by +2%.
Strength: 8 - In addition to making one stronger, each point of Strength increases physical attack damage by 1% and reduces damage received from physical attacks by .25%.
Dexterity: 10 - In addition to making one more agile, each point of Dexterity improves the critical strike chance of physical attacks by +.3%; the critical strike damage of physical attacks by +3%; and improves chance to dodge by +.5%.
Unused Attribute Points: 0
Between how much he had already invested in Regeneration and the additional Attribute points from the items he had acquired in the dungeon, Garath was in less than zero danger of dying solely from the Plague. He placed all three points into Wisdom to increase the base damage of his offensive spells, then confirmed his decision.
Athios and Sharon retreated hastily to the ladies room inside the red brick school building and left Garath and Warrion standing together near Gary's outdoor dining area - that looked exactly the same as when they left. The simple scene really put into perspective what they had been going through here at HQ while Garath and pals were out adventuring. In the few days he had known the bearded Armoron, Garath hadn't seen Gary leave a project unfinished yet.
Garath opened his MENU panels. He navigated to his Friend list to locate Gary. The small green dot on the map that indicated the bearded man looked to be located inside the large building clustered with several members of the late Raid Group, The Band of the Hawk. The Necrologist informed Warrion and messaged Athios and Sharon as he walked with the Assassin into the building.
The fear was palpable as they entered the main hall. Every head in the room swiveled to the doors as they opened and the two adventurers entered. Garath wasn't sure if it was an effect of his 300% improved sense of smell, but he could almost taste the nervousness of everyone in the hall. As he looked over the nameplates of the nearly two-hundred people congregated in the hall, he knew he didn't have much time. Most of the previous Raid members were below half health and dropping. Many looked like they were even suffering illness effects from the Plague, lying in blankets and coughing.
He located Gary sitting on a love seat with Daisy sitting on the arm of the cushy chair. All five of his boys (and the crow, Dave) were seated nearby, chatting amongst themselves, when Gary noticed Garath and Warrion enter the building. He nodded at them and got up to meet them.
"Glad you're back. Good trip?" asked Gary.
"Plus or minus," said Garath, shrugging.
"You get the water for your egg?"
Garath had almost forgotten about the egg in all of the day’s excitement and he patted his pocket to check on it. It felt intact and he breathed a sigh of relief. He found it kind of sweet that Gary wanted to make small talk and see how they fared even at a time like this, but Garath wasn't the type to mince words when work needed to be done. "Yeah," was all he said.
"There's something you should see," Gary told them, his tone growing more serious. He motioned for them to follow and walked toward the far side of the HQ building where the bodies of the dead awaited their burial. They walked past the silent, slowly dying people in the main hall and Gary opened the door to a washroom near the back exit.
Garath was speechless when Gary swung the door open. He didn't know what to expect the Armoron to show him, but he never would have guessed what he saw then. Six bodies covered in white sheets were laid peacefully in a row - that much was expected. Instead of a clean white sheet covering the bodies, the two newest additions to the room of death were covered by sheets that were soaked with dark red blood.
When he looked closer, Garath noticed that the blood on each of them seemed to seep out from a single location. He approached one of the crimson sheets and pulled it back over the victim's head. The copper smell of blood filled his nostrils and he looked on, eyes wide as he learned who it was lying dead on the floor.
It was Sarah. She had lived on the same floor of the apartment complex that he, Sharon, Warrion, and Mark had before they formed a group and joined with others as they formed The Band of the Hawk. It seemed like so long ago. Garath had always had a crush on Sarah but had never made any attempt to speak with her, now he never would. He pulled the sheet farther down to inspect the wound allowing so much blood to leak out of her body. It was an unmistakable mark on her chest, just below her clavicle. A bullet wound.
"Fuck," said Garath, eloquently as ever. "When?"
"About a half-hour ago," Gary explained. "Brandon was training Dave, at least that's what he called it, it looked more like they were playing fetch to me. Anyhow, they were out 'training' and Brandon screamed. I ran over as fast as I could and these two were just stuffed under an incinerated Acura down the street."
Garath crouch-walked to the second body and pulled back the sheet. It was Mark. They must have been together when Leviathan found them.
"Mark too?" he asked, already knowing the answer. "Shit."
"Yeah. They were your friends, right?"
"I wouldn't go that far," said Warrion, looking somber. "We all lived on the same floor of the big apartment complex on Rucker. I never even talked to Mark before the apocalypse..."
"And only gawked at Sarah," Garath finished for him.
"Guilty," Warrion agreed, nodding seriously.
"Correct me if I'm wrong, but these look like bullet wounds," said Gary.
"You're not wrong," said Garath. "Did you hear gunshots?"
"I didn't even think about that at the time, actually. I panicked and just tried herding everyone inside," Gary admitted. "But even thinking back, I don't remember hearing a gunshot at all."
Garath pulled the sheets back over the vacant, dead faces of Mark and Sarah and stood up straight with a grim expression crossing his demonic features. "I'll be back later."
He walked out of the room and kicked open the swinging back door, shimmering into crow form before he had even left the building and took to the sky. The evening air was warm and the sun hung suspended between two planes, its lower half covered by the dark blue waters of the Pacific.
Garath beat his wings hard to gain altitude, his black-feathered body disappearing from view into the night sky. Basic reasoning suggested that he would be able to triangulate Leviathan's location by noting the lo
cations where the black skull icon denoting Plague fell off, so that's what he did. Or that's what he would have done if a far more convenient method hadn't presented itself at that very moment. He grinned wickedly as he read the prompt.
You have received a friend request from: Leviathan. Will you accept? Yes or No.
The reason for his grin was simple, accepting the friend request would provide him with this dick bag's location. The rest of the reasoning that plagued his mind was far from simple. For one, his location would also be given to his enemy. And why would Leviathan send the request in the first place? Garath had to assume the worst, that accepting the request would lead him into a trap. If that was the case, then he would have to assume, because of the timing of the request, that Leviathan had eyes on the building and therefore knew he had left and was now in crow form. So great was his hatred for this man that, even knowing the risk, he accepted the friend request.
You have accepted Leviathan's friend request.
Garath didn't waste a second, still beating his wings furiously as he gained altitude, he willed his MENU panels into existence and opened his map. He scanned over the mass of green dots (denoting the location of those on his Friend List) littering the map, frantically searching the names for Leviathan. When he located the green dot with the name he had come to hate next to it, Garath smiled. Leviathan was nearly the full 100 meters from the HQ building, between the stronghold and the ocean.
From his position, Leviathan probably wouldn't have had a direct line of sight to the back door, Garath figured. Was the timing of the unexpected friend request coincidental? Did that mean that remaining in crow form could still provide him with the advantage of surprise?
Staying high in the air and out of sight, Garath flew to the location noted on his map and closed his panels. Once he was directly above the green dot on the map, he tucked his wings and dove as fast as he could. As he neared the ground, his target came into view.
Leviathan was standing alone on a cliff edge overlooking the Pacific. A dark figure was all Garath could make out as he approached from above and behind the enemy Necrologist. A slender figure, with shapely hips and long, dark hair. Leviathan's face came into view and Garath spread his wings to slow his dive.
‘Leviathan is a girl?’
Chapter 35
Vengeance
Something wasn't right. Garath felt that in the back of his mind but he couldn't quite place it. The obviously female form he was crashing down on was huge, easily over six feet tall. She didn't recoil in the slightest as Garath reached her and released the instant cast of Blight. Dark purple energy shot out from his crow form and found purchase on not one, but two targets. The first was the tall female Garath had assumed was Leviathan, the second seemed to take hold on a bush only a few feet away. The tall female form vanished into blackness like wisps of smoke from a blown out candle. He spread his wings wide to end the dive and gain altitude again.
Luckily, Garath had kept his combat log settings on ‘enabled: foreground’ and was able to piece together what had just happened with a little light reading as he flew higher and out of range of a potential retaliatory Death Bolt. His Blight had indeed infected Leviathan, the combat log made that much clear. The damage-over-time on the enemy Necrologist was even increased due to a 300% damage multiplier for her current form size (Diminutive). The combat log even specified his enemy's form, a rat. The log also showed that he had infected a Shadow Puppet with Blight.
‘Wait, Shadow Puppet?’ Garath thought, leveling out over a hundred yards above his target. He wondered if the puppet was a Necrologist Skill he hadn't unlocked yet.
Leviathan was in rat form taking an insane amount of damage from Blight. Garath himself was taking a good amount of damage from her Plague with the 150% increase for his 'Tiny' crow form. Neither of them would benefit much from remaining in a beast form for this fight and they both knew it.
Based on what he was seeing from the scrolling combat log, he was definitely in a better position to remain shape-shifted than Leviathan was. He activated his own Plague to up the DoT slowly killing his enemy and force her out of the diminutive form. An unseen aura spread in a one-hundred-meter circumference around him. Without seeing it happen or even reading its effects on the scrolling combat log, Garath knew Leviathan was infected with his Plague.
He now understood why she had said that people taking damage from her Plague felt so good. Even with just one sentient enemy infected by his Plague, Garath felt nearly overwhelmed by the euphoria filling his mind like an overflowing tankard of ale. It was nothing like the feeling he got from infecting the Naga a few hours prior.
Garath dove again, this time in hopes of catching a glimpse of a scurrying rat. He was not left wanting. A large rat with gangly limbs exited the bush and blurred into a much larger form, her natural human form. As soon as the nameplate came into view from her hiding place, Garath triggered Inspect. Since she was now on his Friend list, her entire Profile panel was revealed.
Leviathan
Race: Human
Class: Necrologist
Level: 31
Age: 17
Health: 435/990
Stamina: 98/100
Mana: 1,450/1,790
Attributes
Vitality: 99 - Each point of Vitality provides +10 to maximum Health.
Wisdom: 179 - Each point of Wisdom provides +10 to maximum Mana.
Regeneration: 43 - As a Necrologist, each point of Regeneration increases Mana recovery rate by +1.11 per second; Health recovery rate by +.25 per second; and recovery from injury by +2%.
Strength: 5 - In addition to making one stronger, each point of Strength increases physical attack damage by 1% and reduces damage received from physical attacks by .25%.
Dexterity: 5 - In addition to making one more agile, each point of Dexterity improves the critical strike chance of physical attacks by +.3%; the critical strike damage of physical attacks by +3%; and improves chance to dodge by +.5%.
Garath was stunned. Leviathan, this wild murderer, was a seventeen-year-old girl? Just a kid. By the looks of it, this child had invested every Attribute point she had received for over 30 Levels into Wisdom and Regeneration. This was concerning to Garath because if she stayed in human form and only took the regular, 100% damage from his spells, her Regeneration stat of 63 would counter a great deal of the damage his poison spells would deal. Luckily, killing his enemies from a distance with DoT spells was not his only means of dealing death. As he finished reading his enemy's Profile page it disappeared and a new prompt clouded his vision.
Leviathan has ended your friendship. You will no longer share the benefits of friendship.
Garath would have laughed out loud, had he been in human form. The Necrologist knew he was taking a net damage-per-second of 6 in crow form - the 150% increased damage from Plague to his “tiny” form, less the 30 HP he restored per second via his Regeneration Attribute. With his total of 913 HP (still bolstered by the %10 increase from the Naga Trident’s buff), the net damage of six per second would finish him off in around two and a half minutes. But that was just the bad news.
The good news was that his Plague and Blight combination on Leviathan's Diminutive form had wreaked absolute havoc. Before she had ended their Friendship, Garath saw her HP was already down to 435/990 and dropping fast. The health bar on the nameplate affixed above her person leveled out to just over 50% as she downed her Endless Potion of Healing. She wouldn't be able to use it again for another ten minutes, but she recovered 99 HP immediately and would regain another 495 over the next sixty seconds.
During his dive from above, Garath saw the glowing eyes of another Necrologist for the first time. He could see why Daisy always seemed so nervous around him. Even the aura of darkness permeating off of this girl-child was unsettling. He imagined his own visage wasn't exactly cuddly, albeit a bit less considering the tiara and heart-shaped pendant over his chest, but he hadn’t even considered that he may have the same ominous vibe as t
he murderer below him.
His next move was to down his own Health Potion as soon as possible to start the cooldown period in the case that the fight lasted longer than ten minutes. His HP had already dropped by over thirty-percent during his time in crow form and he knew it would behoove him to stop taking 150% increased damage from Leviathan’s Plague as soon as possible. Garath tucked his wings tight to his sides and started his dive - descending unseen like a wraith in the night.
He landed down ten feet behind Leviathan, shimmered in to human form, then summoned the ruby Potion from his Items panel. He poured the sweet liquid down his throat and his HP jumped by 100 and continued to rise by 49 per second (between his Regeneration and the healing over time from the Potion).
The Culling of Man: A litrpg adventure (Peril's Prodigy Book 1) Page 32