Willheal4loots – Priest – level 29 dies – 190 EXP
My cover was blown at this point. The warrior was pointing right at me, trying to rise to his feet while the two weakened NPC guards wailed on him with impunity. I dropped another grenade on them all, killing the weakened guards and another one of the priests.
The warrior and surviving healer started running towards their comrades in the middle of the corridor, where the main skirmish continued, albeit with thinned numbers.
“You’re doing so well,” Ellie said. “Get ‘em!”
“We’re in the endgame now,” I said. “Time to hit them with everything.”
I dropped two more phials of slime by the exit, then began leaping from beam to beam back up the corridor, throwing grenades each time they were off cooldown.
Athletics Increased!
Level 3
Good work stretching those legs. Next time, you won’t need to warm up.
+1 to base Constitution
+1 to base Reflexes
Each jump, after this upgrade, felt smoother, and my balance easier to find. With feline grace, I landed at my desired destination, pulled out the blowtorch tool from my inventory, flicked it on and lowered the rune empowered flame towards the upturned end of the piece of rope I’d nailed down.
Having lashed my pendulum of doom together, I’d been left with 2 spare pieces of rope that could not be made into a fishing net on their own. I’d found a use for them. This was it. One was set up here and an identical rope to bomb trap was set up near the stairs.
Did I mention that I’d tested whether I could place pouches of gunpowder stuffed full of spare nails inside the empty cavities of the suits of armor? Well, I’d discovered I could do that.
Sparking fire sputtered nicely along my cobbled together fuse, disappearing inside the steel chest of the hollow knight.
The bang was incredible.
The screaming even worse.
Flames and scorching shards sprayed outwards, burning and cutting as they spread. Kill notifications nearly overflowed, toppling over each other.
Level Up! You have reached level 10
+3 attribute points
+50 health
+50 mana
Unlocked!
Class Specialization Choice!
Unlocked!
Tinkering – Rank 1
I forced myself to look away from the details. Kill notifications were still flying in, and there were still enemies left to vanquish. Anticipating they would retreat soon, I was already on my way back to the only exit where I’d placed a final set of nail bombs.
Virtually all the NPCs were dead now and the five remaining players sensed they were under siege from a third entity, if not knowing who or where they were from. The healer I’d chased from the window lay dead, as was the warrior, leaving the terrorists without a healer or a tank.
Not wanting to stick around and fight much longer without support, the remaining damage-dealing players polished off the last remaining guards and turned tail. With haste, I set fire to the fuse of my second nail bomb but the players would probably be safely back in the stairwell before it went off.
I couldn’t let that happen.
With a sudden surge of daring, I brought out my grappling hook, bit the teeth of the metal into the wood and slid myself down, so as to hang behind their retreating backs. I grasped onto the rope with one hand and drew out a frost rune with the other. Activating it, I was greeted with the same choice of options.
Frost Bolt or Cone of Cold?
I had an inkling as to how this worked, and a practical experiment seemed in order. This time, I selected Cone of Cold.
Mana started to channel into the spell as before, draining exponentially. Due to the level ups in the fight, I had nearly 600 mana. I cut the flow this time, pouring 530 mana into the spell, leaving myself just enough for a Desperate Shot if needed, then let go.
A cone of icy wind billowed from my open palm, reaching 7 feet in range, enough to catch all the players and slap them with a slow debuff.
Winter’s Chill
Movement speed decreased by 13%
Duration 5 Seconds
It had less of an effect than when I’d slowed that rogue, but I was using it over a wider area, so it made sense that the debuff would be weaker to compensate.
I scrambled back up to the rafters just in time to save myself from the exploding nail bomb and casually tossed another grenade into the mix. The shower of nails thinned the herd down to three, their health falling fast as they slowly waded through the barrage of damage, heading right for the slime awaiting them at the head of the stairs.
Feeling cocky, I slid back down the grappling hook, landing on the floor in a crouch. Two players fell victim to the slime itself, falling flat on their faces.
“Looks like you guys slipped up,” I called, unable to resist.
I threw what I thought to be the final grenade of the fight. More flames, another white-burning wall of slime turned lava. Two kills were notified to me but not the third; the player in question was blown aside, down the stairs and out of my line of sight.
I gave chase, throwing all caution to the wind. I leapt over the burning ooze, my momentum carrying me down the staircase three steps at a time. Emerging into the throne room, I loaded a bolt into my crossbow, taking aim at the player stumbling away.
Coward. It made my blood boil.
“Hey,” I called, “Don’t you want to fight me? Huh? Or do you just play with people’s lives when it suits you?”
The player turned and threw their hands up. His staff gave away that he was a spellcaster, and I thought I recognized it. Much to my surprise, it turned out to be Karl from back in the armory. He was a level 35 mage, his health barely a sliver of green and he was completely out of mana. That’s oom for short by the way.
“Who the fu—”
“Ah, ah, ah,” I said. “I’m gonna ask the questions if that’s alright?”
“Zoran,” Ellie’s voice cut over me like a scolding teacher. “There’s no time. Just finish him off. If he regens mana, you’re done for.”
“Well, you’ll let me know if he’s about to get enough back for a spell, won’t you?” I muttered.
“Are you talking to yourself?” Karl said.
“Yeh, that’s right,” I said. “I’m a madman, like your boss. What’s Azrael really doing here?”
“Zoran, do it now!”
Karl looked equal parts shocked and impressed. “How do you know who he is?”
So, their leader was definitely Azrael then.
“I have my ways,” I said. “Just as I took out your friend Shanksy. The guy seemed like a prick, by the way, so you’re welcome.”
Karl laughed. “I told the guys we should have gone looking for him. Little weasel deserves not to get his cut.”
“What do you mean?”
“Anyone who dies on the job doesn’t get paid their cut.”
“Paid? So all that political prisoner stuff was definitely garbage?”
“Grade A bullshit,” Karl said. He squinted at me. “Come a little closer, will you?”
I moved right up to him, placing the tip of the loaded bolt at his head in point-blank range as I’d done to Shanksy. He was on such low health that one hit was bound to kill him despite our level gap. If he tried to just punch me, I’d kill him before he rose. He’d made that calculation himself, I could see it in his eyes. He knew he was beaten, but his eyes roved over me, a look of awe spreading from ear to ear.
“Wow, you’re only level ten? And a scavenger. Get out kid, you’ve got some mad skills taking us all out like that.”
“Kill him, Zoran!”
“I’d like to get some more information out of him if that’s alright,” I growled. “Why are you all really here?”
Karl laughed again. “I’m streaming this to Azrael right now, kid.”
Ellie cut in, her voice deafening like club music. “Do it now. He has backup coming!”
“You don’t actually die in real life as well, do you?”
I’d just slaughtered about twenty players. Ellie had said they wouldn’t, but she had admitted to being malfunctioning, not on the top of her game. For my own soul, for my own sanity, I had to check.
“Of course, we don’t really die. Boss is tough but he’s not a mania—”
I pulled the trigger. A deadly critical hit was swiftly followed by his kill notification.
Level Up! You have reached level 11
+3 attribute points
+55 health
+55 mana
Unlocked!
Desperate Strike/Shot – Rank 3
You lash out wildly to drive off an attacker. Weapon base damage is increased by +90-105 but accuracy is lowered by a third.
Mana Cost: 150
Cooldown: 10 seconds
Cunning Unlocked!
You planned and pulled off the impossible (Bonus levels granted for your efforts).
Level 8
As cunning as a fox who’s just been appointed Professor of Cunning at the Imperial University of Argatha? Not quite. But you’re surely the next in line.
+8 to base Intelligence
I barely registered the upgrades before sheathing my crossbow and tearing open my map to check for players heading my way. There were none. Each player out on the walls seemed to be following their patrol route. Flicking up a few floors, I found each smaller knot of players doing the same. Azrael remained at the top of the tower, completely still; probably filming another message to the world.
If I had some way of rounding on Ellie, I would have.
“What was that all about?” I said. “Nobody is coming.”
“S-sorry, Zoran,” she said, voice crackling in and out. “I must be losing my connection again.”
“Nuh-uh, I’m not buying it. You were totally fine during that whole fight.”
“I just don’t want you to remain out here. It’s so exposed.”
I groaned and stooped down to Scavenge Karl’s body. I’d been getting good information out of him, but she wasn’t wrong. He’d sent a stream to Azrael, whether directly or as a video to be viewed later, I couldn’t be sure, but my anonymity was about to be blown. Hanging around in the middle of a very open throne room wasn’t the wisest move.
“You lied to me, Ellie. That’s why I’m upset.”
“Why?”
“Because what’s going on is still terrifying and I want to know I can trust you. I need to know that.”
“Zoran, I want you to live. And after what you just pulled off I think you might be able to make it. Azrael’s men have been reduced to twenty-seven players now.”
“Yeh, well I won’t have the luxury of the guards again for a full day.”
“We’ll think of something,” Ellie said.
“Alright. Alright. Just – just don’t lie again to me, okay? I was close to figuring out what’s really going on there.”
A quiet moment, of reflection, of hesitation? It’s hard to read into someone’s silence without being able to see their face.
“I won’t lie to you.”
I nodded, then shook my limbs to work out some of the tension. With nothing more to gain from Karl, I headed back to the scene of the battle, intending on scavenging all I could while I still had time.
18
There has never been a more hurried and less respectful looting of battlefield corpses. Not ever. Alright, not in gaming history then.
I scoured my corridor of doom as a dredger scrapes the seabed. At the back of my mind was the ever-looming question of Ellie’s intentions. She’d gone quiet since our altercation in the throne room, ostensibly to focus on checking player movement.
I hadn’t failed to notice that she’d got loudmouthed when I’d asked Karl what Azrael’s true intentions here were. That had been a sticky topic for her earlier too, and I was now convinced something weird was going on. She definitely knew more than she was letting on, though I couldn’t imagine why she wouldn’t tell me.
Still, I didn’t doubt that she wanted me alive. It would be simple to kill me off if that was what she wanted, nor did I have the balls to even contemplate such a horror. The thought of her leaving me alone made my heart skip a beat and my stomach knot.
My anxiety now gravitated around when Azrael and the remainder of his cronies would come after me. Shanksy had been one man, and a late addition to the crew by the sounds of things. Karl’s message aside, twenty missing players would hardly go unnoticed.
Hence my haste in looting. Five minutes was all it took, running from body to body, hitting ‘loot all’ as fast as possible and not paying much attention to what was entering my inventory. I only paused when scavenging the elite priest who I’d shot to gain the initial aggro.
Scavenged High Priest Velen level 50 Elite – 89 EXP
Manafused satin x3
Loot all?
That was the same endgame cloth that I’d received from scavenging the Emperor earlier, bringing me up to 6 pieces. Maybe I’d be able to craft something cool with it, though how I’d reach the Intelligence level to do so was beyond me. If I made it through this I could just sell it on the auction house for a tidy price. Pleased at this boon, I continued my looting bonanza.
Pale dawn light spilt in from the shattered window. Maybe it was just a placebo but, somehow, seeing daylight was comforting. I’d spent enough time in the dark. Combined with the sweet rush of such rich looting, I was having a rare moment of fun between panic attacks.
Aside from the obvious advantage of having removed some of the enemy players from the equation, the coolest part was being able to fully loot them because I’d been their maker. I was gaining all manner of items, plus the scavenging drops on top. By the time I was done, my inventory was groaning and my experience bar was nearly a third of the way to level 12.
I was just beginning to think that I ought to high tail it out of there when Ellie’s voice sparked back to life.
“How are you getting on?”
“All done here. Time I fall back to sieve through this hoard of loot and sort out my stat points. Also, I think I’ve unlocked a couple of things at level ten.”
“Yes, you unlocked a specialization choice for your class and the Tinkering ability. This will allow you to upgrade your items, but we can discuss it once you’re somewhere less exposed.”
“Where should I head? I suppose the dungeons might be best to—”
I halted mid-flow. Another video feed was being forced into my vision. Only this time it didn’t feel like Azrael’s usual scheduled programming. Two small icons, a speaker and a camera, flashed in the bottom right-hand corner of the image. Azrael had opened a two-way video call with me. And I couldn’t close it down.
“Zoran, you need to move now,” Ellie said. “Three players over level forty are heading down from the upper spire and they aren’t stopping.”
I didn’t need telling twice and started making my way back to the dungeons. Azrael’s message kept playing as I ran.
Rather than sweeping around dramatically, the scene shook like it had been filmed on a hand-held camera. It was dark too, a windowless area deep inside the Spire. Bloodied warriors in plate armor were being shepherded into a cramped room. All the furniture had been smashed up and shoved against the walls. The gold inlay on the blue-tinted armor signaled these were the elite members of the Imperial Guard, though I could not yet see the Emperor. Amidst the pained whimpers of the NPCs, I could hear raspy growls and shrill rattling scrapes as though a rake was being pulled over broken glass.
With a sharp turn of the camera, I beheld the source of these unearthly sounds – skeletons, zombified creatures with decaying hanging flesh, and a true terror from t
he crypts – a construct of stitched human and animal body parts that was forced to stoop to avoid hitting what passed for its head on the extinguished chandeliers.
“Ellie, what is that thing?”
“It’s a stitched colossus. It’s a summon ability that’s rewarded from a very difficult death knight class quest.”
Azrael helpfully lingered the camera on the colossus, just to make sure I got a good glimpse of the futility of my position.
“Might we not speak and make terms?” A nervous voice said.
The camera turned to look upon Emperor Aurelius, down on his knees, his robes torn and his crown askew.
“But I already made terms,” Azrael said from behind the camera. “You gave me your word.”
One of the elite paladins rose to his feet. His armor was different from that of his colleagues – white gold inlays patterned the surface and his helm was a cowl of flexible plate, making him appear like some battle angel.
“There can be no terms with the undead. Abominations must be purged.” Light swirled in his hand, a spell, but a skeleton warrior interrupted him, slamming a bony elbow into his face.
“Stand down Reginald,” Aurelius said. “I do not wish to see any of you killed.”
“Listen to your sop of an Emperor,” Azrael said. He stepped out from behind the camera, the paladin disguise gone. Black and red plates of spiked armor covered a body of semi-rotting gray flesh. Bones were visible where his calves should have been. I could not yet see his face, but I recognized that perfectly bald head. He dropped to one knee and gently cupped Aurelius’ chin in a hand of which half the fingers were pure bone.
Battle Spire Page 19