“Obviously, you were wrong.” George was practically preening, the little showoff. I actually thought it was kind of cute, but I wouldn’t tell him that. “Or, you know, I’m a playa too,” he said. “I do have sweet game.”
Nova smiled at him. “I think you were brilliant.”
“Of course, I am. Thanks for the idea, beautiful,” George said as he started to smooth his wind-blasted fur. “Now, about my reward for being brilliant—”
“Guys. Hate to break up the love-fest, but we’ve got incoming,” I said, pointing across the cavern where the next three knights had come to life and started charging. “Gonna buy us a few extra minutes here. Chaotic River!”
A blast of red energy from my hands hit the ground, splitting it open about fifteen feet from the running knights. And despite only having five necromancer skills slotted, I still got the bonus skeleton from the Skeleton King’s armor. Sweet. It looked like half was enough to maintain my necromancer status.
As the skeletons and knights collided on the battlefield in a tangle of bones, blades, and clockwork gears, I cast Reflecting Fog and then focused on one of the fallen knights from the second row. One with a head this time. “Raise Golem!”
Words flashed in front of my eyes as the clockwork armor rose and headed into the red fog. System message: You have raised a metal golem. Health: 1200 Mana 0.
That bothered me a little. The first golem only had 800 health, so if this one had 1200, it meant that each row of knights was tougher than the one before it.
“Okay, we’ve got a little time until they break through all that,” I said. “Nova, if you use that Weaken Horde debuff to weaken them as much as possible, I think Crash, George, and I should each be able to take one out. Sound good?”
“You got it,” Nova said as she stepped forward to cast the spell.
Crash watched the battle for a second. “I’m assuming once we’ve taken them down, we’ll have four to deal with,” he said. “So, then what?”
“Well, I’ll definitely use the golem-fog combo again. The only problem is, I can still only control one golem at a time,” I said. “The number I can control is intelligence divided by 12, so I’m short, even with my max 20.”
“I can fix that,” Nova said. “At least temporarily.”
I raised an eyebrow. “How?”
“Hey, boss,” George called suddenly. “I think the bad guys just won. Maybe we should take out these clockwork chumps now?”
I glanced ahead to see that all four knights had emerged from the fog and taken up the charge again. “That was way too fast,” I said under my breath. “Oh, well. C’mon, let’s bring these bad boys down.”
George immediately launched into another Wind Rush, blasting the knight on the far right. I surged forward for a Revering Vendetta and Crash grinned as he took several big strides forward.
“Spectral Blades!” Crash shouted as the weapons materialized.
The blades he summoned from the ether were a lot bigger than any I’d seen him create before, with swirling gusts of wind tearing around them. He leapt forward, ghostly weapons raised, and brought them both down at the leftmost knight with a crossover slashing motion. The blades tore through the clockwork armor, bolstered by the elemental advantage, and split it into pieces, as gears and springs and bits of metal exploded everywhere.
“Yes! I told you!” he shouted, doing a little victory dance. “Spectral Blades kick ass once you get to add elemental mods. Take that, Miss Know-It-All Sabre!”
How could I have forgotten? In Titan Gate, when a skill hit level five, you could ‘branch’ skills, adding elemental augments. For every five levels, you could add or increase one of the branches, and that was on top of the base increases the skill levels added. Of course, you could always use the base form of the skill, in case the elemental augment would be a liability. The Branch system was one of the reasons that TG was a popular game with the grinding crowd. Crash had wisely nabbed the Wind augment to get us through this.
Still, I could hardly believe he’d just one-shotted that thing, but I’d compliment him later. I was already powering up for my own kill strike. “Revering Vendetta!” I called as I jumped ahead, my sword pulsing with green light. I plunged it into the center knight between the helmet and breastplate where its throat should’ve been, driving the monster flat on its back. The yellow eyes flashed a few times and stuttered into darkness.
“Little help here? I’m out of juice,” I heard George gasp. When I whirled toward him, I saw the last knight bearing down on him, even as he tried to power up for an attack.
I spun and charged, drawing back for a strike. The knight reacted by turning its torso toward me and bringing up its own sword. As our weapons met with a clang and a shower of blue sparks, I struggled to keep it engaged. “Crash, finish off this bastard!”
Crash launched his wind-enhanced Spectral Blades again. As they stabbed into the clockwork knight, driving it to the ground, I heard Nova call out, “Mana Transfer!” I looked over to see her sending a stream of white light into George. When the stream stopped, she staggered a bit and held her staff with both hands to keep from falling.
I rushed over to her. “You okay?” I called out.
“Fine. I just … this is a lot more casting than I’m used to. I’ll be okay in a minute.” She smiled and looked down at George. “Feel better?”
“Tons. You totally refilled my mana,” he said, rising up on his hind legs to stare across the cavern. “Just in time, too, because those last four just lit up like evil Christmas trees.”
At least I was mostly ready for this. “Reflecting Fog,” I said, gesturing toward the clockwork goon squad. Thick red fog poured instantly from my fingertips, obscuring the knights from view. Then I held a hand out toward the knight I’d dropped in the last round. “Raise Golem.”
System message: You have raised a metal golem. Health: 1800 Mana: 0
“Oh, shit,” I said out loud. “Okay, there’s not only more of them every round, they also get stronger. The first one only had 800 health when I raised it. The second had 1200, and this one has 1800. Which means these last ones are crazy strong.”
Nova pulled herself upright. “Then we’re going to need another golem, right?” she said as she pointed her staff at me. “Discerning Eye!” she called, and a beam of golden light blasted from the staff and hit me in the forehead.
“You have received the buff Discerning Eye,” Elizabeth informed me pleasantly. “Your intelligence is now increased by 25 percent.”
I watched as my intelligence stat changed from 20 to 25. “Perfect!” I said as I turned toward the dead knight that’d tried to attack George. “Raise Golem!”
My second golem clanked to its feet and rushed into the red fog after the first one.
“Let’s hope this doesn’t take long,” Nova said in a strained tone. She was still holding a hand out toward me. “I have to keep spending mana to hold the buff.”
Crash came over rapidly. “Let me help you out,” he said. “I’ve got a decent amount of mana left, since Spectral Blades actually uses less of it at higher levels. And I’ve got a spare skill slot. What was that you called it? Oh, right — Mana Transfer,” he said as he invoked the skill, using it to channel the mana her way.
“Nice combo, I think, but I might be getting a headache trying to follow all this,” George said, hopping closer to me as the sounds of battle rolled from the red clouds of Reflecting Fog. “What are we doing when they come out of there?”
“We take them down,” I said. “They should be weak enough. Those golems are dealing double damage in there.”
Just then, the sound of lots of metal hitting the ground came from within the fog. And then four clockwork knights with glowing yellow eyes strode out of the clouds, heading for us with a vengeance.
Both Nova and Crash dropped the spells they’d been holding. “Mind Break,” Crash called out as he targeted one of them. His mouth dropped open. “Holy shit, it still has over 500 hit points!
These things are a lot stronger than the other ones. We’re gonna have to hit them hard and fast.”
“I’ve got this,” Nova said with a determined look, despite the sweat breaking out on her face. Before anyone could stop her, she raised her staff in both hands and brought it down hard against the ground. “Sparkle Death!”
A glittering beam of multicolored light burst from the end of her staff. It zoomed halfway to the targets and then split off into four jagged strokes of colorful lightning, hitting all of the clockwork knights at the same time. Their bronze bodies jittered as the electrified magic crawled all over them, and smoke poured from their joints. Three of them collapsed instantly.
And so did Nova.
“Help her!” I shouted as I ran for the last one standing. “Die already, will you? Fire Wall!”
Flames burst from the ground and engulfed the knight. After a few seconds, it collapsed, and its glowing eyes winked out.
And the door they’d been guarding opened on its own with an ominous, echoing creak.
12
“George, watch that door,” I said as I headed for Nova and Crash. The priest had crouched next to her to cast Heal, but she still looked way too pale and woozy, and she was sweating. Even her pointed ears glistened with moisture.
I went around to her other side. “Heal,” I said, focusing the spell as hard as I could. With both of us healing her, Nova started to regain a little color and breathe easier. Her eyes fluttered open and she looked questioningly from Crash to me. “Did it work?”
“What, you mean that Sparkle Death attack?” I said as I remembered Sabre mentioning that spell. She’d said Crash should use it, since he was a priest, but she didn’t have the skill herself. That was the first time I’d seen it in action, and it packed a hell of a punch. “Yeah. I’d have to say it worked,” I told her. “And not that I’m complaining, but why do you even have that?”
She smiled faintly. “Learned it from watching my sister,” she said as she struggled to sit up straighter. Crash helped her ease from the ground, looking extremely surprised. “She’s a Warrior class, uses a lot of shadow skills. But she grabbed Sparkle Death because she … thinks it complements her aesthetic, or something,” she groaned, clutching her head. “That was the first time I actually tried to use it, though.”
“Uh, hey, listen,” Crash said as he rubbed the back of his neck. “When I said don’t be completely useless, I didn’t mean almost kill yourself.”
“Don’t worry. I’m not doing that again unless it’s an emergency.” She looked around, eyebrows raised. “Where’s George?”
“Door duty,” I said as I jerked a thumb toward the rabbit. “That door popped open when the last knight went down, so he’s making sure nothing comes through it. We need to regen before we keep going, if we can.”
Nova nodded. “That’s probably a good idea.”
“Yeah, I’m going to speed things along a little,” Crash said as he straightened and walked away to cast Priest’s Meditate.
I could tell he felt bad for coming down so hard on Nova, but I had to admit that my opinion hadn’t been much higher. At least she’d come out of her fear a little bit. I only hoped she wouldn’t freeze when we faced a boss, since we had to be coming up on one soon. But still, she had some serious buffs in her arsenal. I’d never even heard of anything like Discerning Eye.
“So, since we’re going to hang out here for a while,” I said as I sat on the ground next to her. “You said something earlier about your sister and the Guild?”
Nova sighed and looked away. “I guess you’ll find out sooner or later,” she said. “Terra’s one of the Elite Eight.”
“Uh. The what, now?” I said, blinking at her. “And how would I find that out?”
She stared at me. “The Elite Eight. The chosen ones?” she said slowly as she searched my face. “You really have no idea about this? I thought everybody tried out for the Elite team during the trials.”
I was about to say ‘what trials,’ but just then Crash came back over and said it for me. “What trials? And Elite who?” he said, taking a seat on the ground.
Nova looked back and forth between us. “You guys are American, right?”
“Okay, whatever you’re talking about, fill me in.” George was hopping across the cavern toward us, looking annoyed. “Nothing’s coming through that door, boss,” he said as he paused, and then jumped right into Nova’s lap. “So, what are you weird human people babbling about elite trials?”
Nova started petting him almost automatically. “Okay, I have no idea how you missed this,” she said. “Every time the American guild sends in a new group, they have eight top slots for players who perform the best during the trials. They’re supposed to lead parties, with each of them trying for a soulstone.” She paused and stared away at nothing. “Terra was a late replacement for one of the Elite Eight who … something happened to, I guess. Except we hadn’t been here long before she got super pissed at Wynn and decreed that we were going rogue.”
It was starting to make sense, more or less. “So, Wynn’s with this Elite Eight thing too, right? And your sister’s a badass, but she’s behind the leveling curve because she got here late.”
“Yeah, pretty much,” she said as her focus returned to us. “That’s why Terra was so damned convinced we could beat this place. I tried to tell her this wasn’t like the trials or the game, and she just isn’t as good as she thinks because so much here is different from Titan Gate, but she’s so …” Nova trailed off and covered her mouth with a hand for a few seconds, her eyes closing briefly. “I have to find her,” she whispered as tears shimmered in her eyes. “I should’ve stopped her from coming in here alone.”
“Sounds like your sister doesn’t listen to anyone,” I said, not adding especially you. She didn’t need that right now. “What got her so pissed off at Wynn?”
Nova sniffled a bit. “I don’t know. She wouldn’t tell me exactly,” she said. “But I do know the guy’s an arrogant asshole who thinks he’s God’s gift, you know? He’s completely full of himself, and he thinks everyone else should worship the ground he walks on. Just because he found a soulstone—”
“Okay, whoa. Wynn has a soulstone?” I said, suddenly very conscious of the fact that I had one too — and everyone knew it.
Nova cocked her head slightly. “Of course, he does. Everybody knows that. He broadcasted it all over the Guild channel for days,” she said. “Why don’t you know anything about … anything?”
“Guess I just don’t pay attention to things that don’t matter,” I said, deciding to end the conversation before it got awkward. Well, more awkward. “How’s your health and mana looking? If you’re all charged up, we should get going.”
She stared for another second, and then her gaze grew distant as she checked her stats. “I’m good to go.”
“Me too, and I know Crash is all set. Right?” I said as I looked at him. He only nodded. Must’ve been still trying to process all the bombs Nova just dropped. “George?” I said.
“You know it. Let’s go kill something,” George said as he twisted to look up at Nova. “How about one more tiny scratch?”
She obliged by tickling behind his ears, making his hind foot vibrate.
As he hopped off and headed for the exit, I caught up with him before Crash and Nova could get up. “Hey, lay off the adorable bunny act, will you?” I said. “You barely know this chick.”
“I don’t need to know her. I mean, look at her,” he said as he glanced back. “She’s smoking hot. If you haven’t noticed that, there’s something wrong with you.”
Oh, yeah. I noticed. I’d even considered the fact that since Ivan, the guy who’d removed my brain and shoved me into the Kingdom of Ruul without telling me a damned thing about the place, was dead and therefore no longer watching my every move, I didn’t have to worry about anyone spying on my private business. Which meant I could totally bang somebody. But even I wasn’t about to sneak off for some hot love in
the middle of a dungeon crawl.
Once we were gathered around the slightly open exit, I used Detect Traps to make sure we wouldn’t walk through and drop into a pitfall, and then pulled the door the rest of the way open. Just like the rest of the doors around here, it was completely dark behind it.
“Light,” I said, extending an arm through the door frame to cast a white glow inside and reveal what was in there. Which turned out to be a small dirt-floor chamber about the size of my bathroom, with absolutely nothing in it. “Well, that’s great. What is this, the Broom Closet of the King of Knights?”
Crash peered inside. “It could be another puzzle, like the red button thing. We probably have to go in there and close the door.”
I sighed. He was probably right. “Okay, let’s just do it,” I said. “I want out of this level.”
Everyone piled inside, and I looked around one more time before I closed the door.
Which was when the dirt floor crumbled away beneath us, and we dropped into a pitfall.
13
I landed hard on a flat surface somewhere in the dark, and managed half a breath before something dropped on my chest and knocked the air out of me. The something that landed on me shifted and said, “Thanks for breaking my fall, boss,” as two more thuds and a few groans sounded nearby.
“Yeah, you’re welcome,” I said to George as I prepared to cast Light. “Now get off me.”
Just then, flickering torchlight invaded the darkness. I made out Crash and Nova sprawled on the ground, with a bunch of dirt scattered around us. “Everybody okay?” I said as George hopped down, and I pushed slowly to my feet with a slight wince. A quick check of my stats showed that the fall had cost me a mere five health points. At least we hadn’t landed on a bunch of jagged rocks or sharpened sticks.
“Just freakin’ dandy,” Crash muttered as he righted himself. “What the hell happened? I mean, you checked for traps, right?”
Nova coughed once and sat up, brushing dirt from her robe. “Ouch,” she said. “Was it supposed to do that?”
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