“Broncar,” I whispered to the blue-skinned hob. “Open the door, as gently as you can.”
He nodded at me and placed his palm on the handle. I saw his shoulder muscles tense up then the door creaked and wood splintered as he shoved it open. At his level and boss tier, Broncar had over 140 points in his Physical attribute, making the wooden door nothing more than cobwebs to him.
The door – half torn off its hinges – swung open, revealing a dark guest room. Three figures huddled together behind a large couch in front of an unlit fireplace.
“Monsters!” an elderly man shrieked when he saw us entering the house.
“Take it easy, man, we’re travelers,” I said, looking around for other people. “Well, most of us.”
The man whimpered as he gazed at my cougar necklace then cowered even more.
I cursed myself for forgetting to remove the amulet before entering the house. The magical item was usually useful, improving my relations with monsters but imposing a penalty for interacting with ‘civilized’ races.
“Calm yor ass, old-timer,” Ragnar said gruffly. “We ain’t gonna kill ya. Probably.”
The man whimpered, probably incapable of deciphering the insectile clicking sounds of the drone, and I could tell he was half-paralyzed with fear. The two women he was shielding with his body looked equally frightened.
Before I could come up with a good reply that would put them at ease, Lirian stepped forward. My daughter crouched next to the girl, who seemed to be around twelve. “My name is Lirian, what’s yours?”
The girl gulped as she looked up at the green, armed goblinette, but something passed between them, and some of her fear seemed to have lessened. “Ma … Maurie.”
“Maurie,” Lirian said. “We’re not here to hurt you.”
“You … you’re not?”
“No. We want to help you. We can protect you, but we need to know what happened here. Can you please tell us?”
Maurie gulped then nodded.
“Good girl,” I murmured.
The girl threw me a frightened glance, but as she looked back at Lirian, some of it melted away. “It came from the sky,” she said.
“What did?” Lirian asked gently.
Maurie shook her head. “I didn’t see it, but I heard others who did. Some sort of giant black beast. It landed straight in the town square and killed everyone there. Then it attacked the Church of Light. The high priest, Quintin, called for the power of our Lady to repel the beast, but something went wrong. The beast was gone, but mist came out of the temple and spread everywhere. Anyone who touched them disappeared, so we all locked ourselves inside our houses.”
“Temple ‘o Light, eh?” Ragnar spat. “Damn bitch had it coming.”
Maurie paled at the sight of the talking ant person, but Lirian tactfully moved to block her view. “When did that happen?”
“The … the beast came yesterday at dusk. We’ve been hiding ever since.”
Lirian looked up at me. “Anything else you’d like to know?”
“What did it look like?”
Lirian looked back at Maurie.
The girl gulped. “People say it had four legs and was black as night. It was so big it flattened one of the buildings it stepped on.”
The description sounded suspiciously familiar. “I think we’re done,” I said.
“Time for blood and guts then, Chief?” Panda threw me an evil grin, brandishing her war axe.
Maurie and her family huddled tightly together at the savage display.
I stared at her. “Are you serious? These people are traumatized.”
“So? They’re all the same. None of them said a word when Novenguard’s militia threw me in prison for no good reason. They’re nothing but a bunch of whiny XP bags.”
“We. Are. Not. Killing. Civilians,” I said slowly, emphasizing each word. “Especially when they’re not a threat. Is that clear?”
She rolled her eyes. “Fine.”
I looked at Ragnar. “Are we clear?”
“Like mornin’ sunshine,” the drone said.
“Let’s go. We need to check out the temple.”
“Thank you,” Lirian said to the frightened girl. “Stay here and keep hidden. My father will save you.”
“A goblin?” Maurie’s father finally found enough courage to speak up. “Save us?”
“Didn’t you hear?” I smirked. “I’m The Goblin Messiah. I’m building up a new kingdom, and you’re all invited to the party.”
We left the house, entering the misty streets.
“I kno’ where tha’ temple’s at,” Ragnar said. “It’s this way.”
We followed the drone through the winding streets. The mist was even thicker here, reducing visibility to just a few meters, and we often had to stop abruptly to avoid bumping into buildings. We didn’t encounter any enemies, but I could feel eyes staring at me like daggers from the concealing vapors. There was an ominous presence here. And it was watching us.
Instead of growing apprehensive, I felt my temper slowly rising. I was the monster around here. I was the thing in the dark other monsters feared. It was time to show whatever thought it could ambush us who the real boss was.
“Stop,” I said to the others. I lowered my staff and channeled a Direball through it, aiming at a dense patch of fog ten meters away.
The Direball detonated, the blast radius burning a hole through the mist and leaving a small smoking crater in the ground. I felt a grin spread across my face. A few more of those, and I could probably disperse enough of the vapors to open a path for us.
Before I could follow through with a second spell, the mist rushed back into the void. However, instead of an amorphic cloud, the vapors grew thicker, taking shape. Within seconds, eight smoky wraiths formed in the clearing. They howled an eerie howl, and their milky eyes fell on us with unsated hunger.
“Oh, be quiet,” I said and launched two Direballs in rapid succession. The surrounding mist was pushed away even further, but the eight figures were left standing without any visible signs of harm. “What the–”
If anything, the wraiths looked more substantial than before. To make matters worse, other howling figures formed around them, pouring out of the mist, and the entire throng closed in on us.
Everyone in my party already had their weapons out to meet the attack. Lirian dodged a misty fist and her sword slashed through a figure, cleaving its chest and eating away a large part of the creature’s torso, but once the sword was through, the two halves rejoined, and the creature still stood – albeit a head shorter than before. Ragnar’s clawed hands bit smoky chunks off an opponent while Panda swung a giant war axe in all directions. Vaporous claws found the two players, leaving behind grey furrows that seemed to make the flesh around the wounds crumble away. Yulli and Broncar fought like the elite bosses they were; the scout’s unending streak of arrows was mirrored by the blue-skinned hob’s flurry of spear stabs, carving visible holes though a dozen white figures all at once. The holes remained open, oozing white smoke, making some of the figures stagger.
“They can bleed!” Ragnar called out gleefully as he ripped off another chunk of an enemy, ignoring his own wounds.
“Let’s make them bleed harder, then!” Panda retorted, increasing the speed of her attacks.
This was embarrassing. I stared at the Epic staff in my hand. Everyone in my party was being more effective than I was. “Time to get serious,” I grunted. I summoned my shadow clone into a clear area and followed through with a volley of six drilling arrows, aiming each spinning missile at a separate injured form.
To my horror, the damaged figures absorbed the missiles into their bodies, and the holes my friends had inflicted filled up instantly. Even worse, a batch of howling wraiths pounced on my shadow clone, eating it away before it was fully formed, forcing me to cut the mana flow needed to maintain it. The mist parted even further, revealing more new enemies in its stead.
“Shadow-crap.”
“How ‘bout you stop
helpin’ the enemy?” Ragnar shouted as he repeatedly swung around.
The situation was growing dire. There were now at least 50 enemies surrounding us. Lirian fought, nimble like an acrobat, dodging swings and severing limbs with every strike. The others were also claiming a toll from the enemy’s insubstantial bodies, but it was slow, and unlike my daughter, they were getting hit in return.
Analyze , I thought, then cursed when I saw the result. I should have opened with that.
Fog Wraith
Level: 55
HP: 370/550
Skills: -
Traits: Mana Leech, Life Drain
Resistances: Magic 200%, Physical 75%
Description: A mana-hungry wraith manifested by sentient, mana-starved fog.
Thanks, I can read, you know.
Yeah, I figured that out already.
Broncar felled two apparitions, reducing them to nothing more than foggy sifters. The insubstantial beings’ high resistance to physical damage meant we had to literally tear them apart to bring them down.
Luckily, since they had no combat skills, their attacks weren’t all that powerful. Their high level translated mostly into a high health bar. With our weapons dealing relatively little damage, the entire fight turned into a war of attrition.
Lirian nimbly dodged three separate strikes at once and barely blocked another with her sword. The flailing fist disintegrated as it impacted the blackened weapon, and I could swear I saw mist flowing into the blade.
That was too close for my taste. “Protect Lirian, now!” I bellowed, moving to cover my daughter.
I cast Mana Infusion, hoping the internal spell wouldn’t breed any more wraiths, then grabbed my staff with both hands and joined the melee.
More wraiths fell to our combined attacks, the majority of them by Yulli and Broncar, but everyone except Lirian was getting hit. I felt each attack that struck me drain away my health and mana, but my oversized boss pools were far from depleted. The players got the worst of it. Both Ragnar and Panda were the lowest level among us, and their health bars dropped precariously low as the wraith’s attacks disintegrated their flesh. Ragnar cursed and slashed while Panda laughed, swinging her oversized axe and shrugging off hit after hit. I didn’t dare cast Heal Followers, fearing the wraiths would use the wave of energy to multiply.
I compressed even more mana into my muscles and my spear turned into a blur of stabs. I dropped the specter I was fighting, while Yulli and Broncar brought down several more. We were slowly gaining the upper hand, but the players’ situation turned even graver as their health bars neared zero.
“Protect them, I will be fine,” Lirian said.
“Damn it!” I redoubled my efforts. My Epic spear-staff dropped another wraith with a flurry of stabs, but more were standing behind it. “Fine. Yulli, Broncar, step out; we’ll form a perimeter around the others.”
With us three bosses forming a triangle around the others, the wraiths focused their attacks in our direction. My health and mana kept steadily dropping as more misty claws leeched them out of my body. I squared my shoulders and kept on fighting.
With the pressure off their backs, the other two players switched to a more offensive fighting style. They lashed out at any wraiths that tried breaking into our formation while keeping themselves inside the bordered area. Panda kept laughing as she hacked wraiths apart, and Ragnar swore constantly. Lirian’s sword was without a doubt the most effective weapon we had, eating away large chunks of smoky flesh. We continued fighting with us bosses taking the brunt of the damage instead of our more vulnerable members.
Suddenly, a single specter breached through. It charged, howling, its misty claws aimed at my daughter’s back.
Time seemed to slow to a crawl as the claws inched toward her neck, and I could feel Nihilator’s wrath boiling the ground where I stood. I let out a strangled cry as I realized I wouldn’t be able to save her in time.
A fraction of a second before hitting their mark, a chitinous body shoved Lirian away, intercepting the misty claws with its own. I watched in amazement as Ragnar, of all people, moved in to battle the howling wraith. A moment later, Lirian’s spinning slash terminated the threat.
The drone’s eyes met mine, and I gave him a quick nod of approval before moving my focus to the next enemy in line.
The last specter finally fell to our combined attacks. We stood, weapons at the ready, heaving from the prolonged fight, looking for more enemies. The fog slowly rolled in, washing over us as if nothing had happened.
The two players turned to me and spoke together.
“No more magic, fugly, I prefer my victims to bleed red.” Ragnar scowled.
“Ha! Let’s do that again!” Panda cheered, her face torn and gushing blood.
The two turned to look at each other in surprise.
“That’s crazy talk,” Panda told the drone.
“You’re one ta’ talk,” Ragnar said gruffly. “What’s the point o’ killin’ if they don’t bleed and scream while you’re doing it?”
The female player rubbed her chin in thought. “Hmmm, you have a point.”
“You’re both crazy,” I informed them. I looked at Lirian. “Are you alright?”
She nodded.
I shot a glance at Ragnar. “Thanks.”
He gave me an indifferent shrug. “Don’t get all mushy on me, fugly, just ‘cause we’re fightin’ on the same side.”
I looked over Lirian again. “You’re sure you’re alright?”
“Yes, Father. The wraiths didn’t touch me. My sword was able to eat them when they got too close.”
I eyed Fate Stealer. White vapors still streamed over the blackened blade before being seemingly swallowed inside. The sword’s magic was powerful enough to consume even magic-eating entities. For what felt like the hundredth time, I wondered about that sword’s real potential. Despite my Analyze skill being Master-ranked, all I could glean from the weapon was its name, basic description, and the fact it could only be wielded by my daughter.
“Have any of you ever heard of this kind of fog?” I asked.
Everyone shook their heads.
“Let’s move on to that church,” I said. “None of us should cast any spells while inside the fog. I don’t want another encounter like the one we just had.”
“Sounds boring,” Panda said. Her wounds were already on the mend. “What are we fighting next?”
“Plenty o’ targets in them houses.” Ragnar pointed at the buildings around them. “There’s one fat bitch in particular that’s begging for it.”
I frowned at him. “I said no killing civilians. Not unless they attack first. We’re here to take over this town. Everyone here is a future member of the clan, just like you, and you’d both better remember we don’t attack our own.”
“Whatever,” Ragnar said. “The temple of Hildiel is behind them houses.”
“You know,” I said as we continued walking, “you never told me how you made contact with the god of light and learned she was a VI.”
Ragnar snorted. “Wasn’t hard ta’ figure out. The bitch talked to me all business-like, knew I was a playah’, and kept callin’ me a meat suit. Only reason I worked for one of ‘em digital bastards was so I could get back at yor sorry ass, fugly. She gave me some powerful gear, made farming mobs real easy.”
“I’m glad you realized we need to work together here.”
“I’m a simple man, fugly. Someone thinks they can fuck with me, I’ll chop ‘em dead. Got a bigger score to settle now than getting at your green ass.”
“Thanks, but I’m afraid my ass belongs to another woman,” I said, stifling a smile. “I thought I made that
clear before.”
“Har har. Keep it up, fugly, and I just might bump you up the list.”
The mist was even thicker now, reducing visibility to a few meters. They seemed to be gushing out from a white marble building that was only visible by its high steeple protruding above the fog.
“That’s the place,” Ragnar said. “The Temple o’ Light.”
We inched closer to the building, weapons at the ready. No further wraiths rose to greet us. The pouring fog got denser but also lower, as though it had spread out once away from the building.
We passed through the arched opening, and I took my first look inside a church that was diametrically opposed to mine.
The floor was hidden behind a thick carpet of white mist that poured out of a white-gray marble altar at the far side of the room. There was a hole in the ceiling above the altar that was several meters wide.
As we slowly stepped inside the building, a low agonized moan broke the silence.
“Doesn’t sound like a wraith,” Pandamonium said, raising her war axe at the ready.
“No,” I agreed. “I think it came from the direction of the altar.”
We inched closer as another agonized moan echoed through the temple. I was not prepared for the sight that unfolded before us.
The altar was pulsing faintly with a sickly white light that seemed to convert into vapor. A male human torso in dirty white robes was leaning against the other side of the altar, his entire lower half missing and his arms nothing more than blackened stubs. Though the man’s eyes were closed, he was somehow still alive and moaning. Part of the sickly light seemed to feed into him, and I could tell the tainted mana was somehow sustaining his life.
Looking around, I didn‘t see any immediate danger. “Keep watch for surprises,” I whispered to my companions. “I’m going to try to talk to this guy.”
This time, I remembered to remove the cougar necklace before kneeling next to the suffering man. “Hey, can you hear me?”
“My … lady?” The man barely managed to speak the words through his obvious pain. “Is it my time yet? Can I finally rest?” His eyes were still closed.
“No,” I said softly. “We’re adventurers. We just arrived at Whitebanner, and we tracked the fog back to this temple. Are you Quintin? What happened here?”
Life Reset: Conquest (New Era Online Book 5) Page 34