by Pavel Kornev
Player Marquis has been killed!
Experience: +4 850 [193 169/200 000]; +4 850 [193 213/200 000]
Killed? Oh yes. It was his flesh and blood that covered me from head to toe.
Yes!! The skull had been in his inventory, hadn’t it? Which was why the game mechanics had sent me to exactly the same spot where he’d just been. Or to put it plainly, right into him. And there you go! Bang! He’d been blown to smithereens!
I wiped away the blood which covered my mask and stared at the skull clutched in my right hand.
My precious!
I didn’t get the chance to put it away. Count’s scimitar swooshed through the air, slicing my arm through the gap between the vambrace and the chainmail sleeve.
My arm dropped to the floor. I gave a yelp of disappointment and bent down to pick up the skull. Baron ran between my legs, grabbed my severed arm and sent it flying across the room.
Still crouching, I rammed into him with my left shoulder, sending him tumbling. The long spike of my pauldron had ripped right through his guts. Baron rolled across the floor.
It hadn’t helped me to get hold of the skull, though.
“Close the deal!” Count shouted.
Only then did I realize that Barth Firefist was also in the same room — now a level-98 Paladin.
Even though having died by our hand had left its mark on Barth, at the moment it was irrelevant. My skull! The bastard had my wretched skull!
The paladin picked up my severed arm and began unbending the fingers still clutching the skull.
“You didn’t expect that, did you, Johnny?” he said with a short nasty laugh. “Well, you should have! This is a game. Here, everything has a price.”
“Give it back to me!”
“It’s about time you died, John.”
“Serves you right, you scumbag,” Baron wheezed. “You’ll drown in your own blood!”
Count didn’t say anything. With a smile that promised nothing good, he began swinging his scimitars, apparently in anticipation of a new distraction.
“He will,” Barth nodded, snapping the little finger away from the skull.
I’d been waiting for this moment.
Lasso!
The spell wound itself around the artifact — but before I could snatch it out of Barth’s hands, the magic rope went up in ghostly flames and disappeared without a trace.
Barth guffawed. “Who do you think I am?”
He took a swing and hurled my severed arm at me.
It was so unexpected that I barely managed to catch it with my left hand. Immediately I lunged forward but it was too late: Barth had already opened a portal and flung my skull into it. The mouth of the portal breathed unbearable heat; its insides were lit up with the reflection of orange flames.
“You’re one clever guy, Johnny,” the paladin laughed again. “Think you can retrieve your skull from hell’s furnace? You wanna risk it?”
Should I race after the artifact right into the fiery inferno, then activate the Bone Path from there?
Completely pointless. Either the flames would consume me before I could find the skull, or they’d disrupt my concentration, preventing me from casting the portal. Also, I was pretty sure Barth had thought of some kind of magic barrier. Even if I maxed out my fire protection, that wouldn’t change jack.
I backed off from the fiery entrance.
That made Barth lose his ostentatious cool. “Go to hell, John!” he shouted with a thrust of his hand.
A jet of flame flew from his fingertips,
Instinctively I activated Shield of Death — but Barth’s spell was much too powerful. It easily penetrated my protection, very nearly burning me to a crisp. My decent magic resistance and my mask’s ability to decrease fire damage were the only things that had saved me from sure death.
Smoldering!
The fire roared all around me. My health plummeted into the yellow and continued to shrink further. The vampires had got their fair share of it, too. Spewing curses, they scattered every which way. But I had more important things to do than to bother with them now.
Trump Up My Sleeve! Bone Path!
A grave opened up under my feet. I collapsed into the dead bone forest. The last thing I heard was Barth’s infuriated bellowing,
“...a new contract!”
A new contract? I don’t think so! Living beings are banned from the realm of Death!
Just then, I heard the snapping of bone branches as something tumbled to the ground after me. Baron.
Dammit! Vampires couldn’t really be called living beings, could they?
Before he could stand up properly, I gave him a good whack with my own severed arm. The gauntlet’s blades hit his face; Baron recoiled in surprise, dropping to his back. I hurried to stealth up but…
Smoldering!
My singed flesh was still on fire — and even though I received no new damage, it had blocked my stealth regime.
“Shit!” I snapped as I took to my heels.
Count had already jumped in too. And I had too little health left to be able to face them in an honest fight.
I had to flee to the crypt. Back to the lands of the Mistress of the Crimson Moon!
So flee I did. I bolted off along the winding trail, ducking under the trees’ bone branches, using Haste as often as I possibly could. The vampires set off after me but they very soon began to lag behind until finally I couldn’t see them at all behind the spooky trees, even though I could still hear their voices.
May you get lost here forever, you scumbags!
A portal at the end of the trail sent me back into the crypt. I dove out into the corridor.
Clang! A dagger thrown by Baron hit the bars and dropped impotently to the ground.
I chose against taking advantage of his mistake. Instead, I shot up the stairs and yelled at the top of my lungs,
“To arms!”
Strangely enough, the guards and even Scarecrow soaring high above weren’t the only ones who’d heard me. Isabella hadn’t forgotten her promise and brought the mercs to the tower. The dwarf warrior lumbered toward the tower but failed to block the entrance fast enough. Baron somersaulted over him and lunged at one of the Drow healers, slicing through his throat with one dagger while stabbing him in the heart with the other.
The healer died instantly — but this split second was enough for me to switch to the attack.
Leap! Power Lunge! Touch of Death!
My gauntlet cannonballed Baron’s left shoulder blade. As the blades sliced through his ribs, I felt my hand dig deep into his flesh, critting him, while the paralyzing spell turned him into an easy target.
Instead of freeing my hand, I buried it deeper, feeling for his heart, and closed my fingers around it, crushing it and ripping through arteries. I wrenched it out, watching Baron’s pale dead blood gush out of a hole in his back.
Execution! Player Baron has been killed!
Experience: +4 400 [197 569/200 000]; +4 400 [197 613/200 000]
That’ll teach you to steal!
The predatory shadows thickened behind the female Drow’s back, forming Count’s outline. His scimitars glinted greedily, reflecting the crimson moonlight, as he slit her skull open, dodged the clumsy dwarf’s axe and darted toward me. A rain of fiery arrows showered down from the tower, missing him.
I grabbed at my flamberge and took a swing, preparing to block his attack. But the sword stayed locked in its scabbard — I’d been trying to draw it with my missing right hand.
Count descended upon me, forcing me to block his lightning attacks with my left steel sleeve which struck a flurry of sparks, allowing me to cast the Mantle of Death. That slowed him down a little — but Count promptly vanished into thin air only to reappear behind my back. His right scimitar glanced off my phantom armor — but his left one struck my thigh, slicing through my leg.
Critical hit! Damage taken: 328 [215/1 872]
Your left leg has been damaged! Your speed has been compromised!
What did they mean, my speed compromised? I couldn’t even stand properly!
I collapsed to the ground, becoming an easy target. My life was deep in the red: a couple of well-aimed blows could finish me off, sending me back into the fiery inferno.
Still, I had no intention of giving up.
Clink! Clang!
Count’s right-hand scimitar glanced off my steel sleeve while my pauldron cushioned the impact from the left one, limiting the damage to just over 100 pt. health. With my left hand, I drew the hook from under my belt — but Count stepped back promptly, dodging the blow.
Once again, the Tower guards showered him with arrows from above — but the vampire raised his scimitars high, parrying the tongues of flame. Scarecrow crowed hoarsely and dove down but barely avoided being impaled on the sharp sabers and soared back up. The dwarf mercenary seemed to be hopelessly late for the fight, making my death pretty inevitable.
Wait a sec. A mercenary?
Count raised his scimitars for one final swing — but just before he could lower them, I croaked,
“Suzerain!”
The dwarf froze in mid-step. An unknown force ripped the life force out of his body and hurled it at me.
My health soared. The scimitars impotently glanced off the bone plates that had covered my body.
Count growled in frustration.
With my left hand, I grabbed his ankle and gave it a good yank. The vampire dropped to the ground but immediately rolled aside and jumped back to his feet. Clenching my fist, I too scrambled off the ground. The crimson moonlight played on the razor-sharp blades of my gauntlet.
Come on, then! I’m the Bone Lord! I’m the ultimate killing machine!
Count began circling me. That’s when Scarecrow dropped silently onto his back. The vampire brandished his scimitars blindly, forcing me to stop in hesitation. Should I attack him or should I run?
I didn’t get the time to do either. A cloud of darkness enveloped Count who began to convulse, wheezing. His entire body now shimmered, exuding a phantom light, then crumbled to ashes. One of the scimitars dropped to the ground, followed by the Crown of Domination which hit it with the dull sound of a bone hitting steel.
The darkness began to thicken and solidify until it formed a human figure. It was Neo.
He laughed and kicked the ashes, sending them scattering all over the place.
“How did you…” I began in disbelief.
Neo sniffed. “He was dead — and he was dark. Dead easy.”
I was about to demand some explanations when I began to convulse too. It felt like being skinned alive. My knees buckled under me; I slumped to the ground and lay in a heap, leaning all my weight on my left arm.
And when I finally got up, I was myself again.
The Bone Lord was gone. I was Ancient Lich — again.
What the hell?
Only now did Neo seem to have taken a good look of me. “Uncle John! What happened to your arm?”
I waved him away, scrolled back through the logs and chuckled.
No way!
Suzerain! 02:00… 01:59… 01:58…
Mercenary Blood Ax has become an undead!
Health: +400 [515/1 872]
Internal energy: +75 [483/1014]
Temporary effect: Experience +2 500 [200 069/200 000]; +2 500 [200 113/200 000]
Temporary effect: Undead, the level is raised! Rogue, the level is increased!
You’ve been temporary blacklisted by the Mercenaries Guild. Time left: 29 days 23:59:59…
So! Apparently, this Suzerain thing syphoned my vassals not only of their vital powers and magic energy, but also their XP! That’s how the ancient lich General Malik had transformed into the Bone Lord! Heh! And I’d just done it myself, too!
How awesome was that? Don’t get me wrong: in a normal situation, a 2-minute raise in levels is a nice thing to have in combat, but that’s about it. But two seconds was plenty for me to activate the Scroll of Rebirth! All I had to do was hire enough mercs to be able to jump to level 100.
My head already buzzed with mental calculations when I noticed a new countdown timer in my interface,
Mercenaries Guild Black List
I opened it and cussed. Apparently, the game mechanics had mistaken the dwarf’s transformation into an undead as my attack on a team member. As a result, I was denied access to the guild’s catalog for a month.
Shit, shit, shit!
Having said that… I did some more mental math and cussed again. You just couldn’t hire enough mercenaries to pull this off. If all I’d gotten from the dwarf was about 1.5% of his XP, then I might need to hire at least four level-100 NPCs.
Or should I try to level up under my own steam as far as I could, and then use Suzerain to reach my goal?
Hell no. Too risky. I just couldn’t afford it. An accidental stupid death could send me back to Inferno, and then what? Also, how were you supposed to level up without a right hand? The only way to restore the missing limb was by resurrecting, but dying was the exact thing I couldn’t do! And just to please, all my combat skills involved using a two-handed sword. Without this hand, I had no leg to stand on. And focusing on magic was too late now. Way too late…
I gnashed my teeth. Dammit! Everything to please!
Think, man, think. There must be a way. Games never offer problems without solutions. Cornering players isn’t their purpose.
But technically, I wasn’t a player, was I? And this wasn’t a game at all. Far from that. When you can’t log out, it stops being a game.
Stop it now, I told myself. This is negative thinking. It won’t get you anywhere.
Suzerain was an obvious oversight in the game’s mechanics. This ability wasn’t even supposed to be used by players, only by NPCs, and even those latter could only make full use of it in script scenes.
How could I use it to my own advantage? No, scratch that: How could I find enough entourage?
Now that I had no access to mercenaries, that left players. But you had to be a total idiot to agree to something like this. I might talk to Isabella — after all, my success was in her own interests — but that didn’t mean she was in a position to help…
“Uncle John!” Neo called me.
“Yes, yes, I had my arm chopped off,” I said mechanically. “It’s all right.”
“No! I mean the trophies!”
“Sorry?” I forced my mind off my ruminations. “Sure, take them. You’ve earned them.”
He picked up a scimitar and attempted to swing it. “The bone crown, Uncle John.”
I frowned, but immediately came up with a solution. “Fancy a swap? For Baron’s dagger?”
This was an honest deal. Seeing as I’d killed the wretched midget personally, I now owned all the items he’d dropped.
Neo very nearly jumped for joy. He obviously would rather have the exquisite dagger than the grim strip of steel with seven bone spikes attached to it.
“You can have it,” he said, reaching for the dagger and trying several blocks and lunges with it. “Julian has been teaching me fencing!”
The scimitar was way too long for the kid, so I suggested he use the black ritual dagger instead. This way it worked even better. Even Scarecrow squawked a hoarse approval of his fencing skills.
“Where’s the prince himself?” I asked.
“There’s something come up in his clan,” he replied, busy slicing the air with his daggers.
I sniffed, then walked over to the crown and picked it up.
The Deadman’s Set is complete!
Modification: Bone Ghost
The moment I laid the crown onto my head, my armor transformed. It was now uniformly gray — and if you took a good look at it, you could notice a fine weave of complex engravings covering it all over. Its stats were now maxed out. Not that it mattered anymore…
I walked around the undead dwarf and picked up General Malik’s staff dropped by the female Drow. Nothing happened, apart from a new system message in
forming me that the Deadman’s Set was now complete and no new items could be added to it.
I left Neo to practice with his daggers and descended back into the crypt where I picked up my severed arm still lying on the floor and slumped onto the throne.
Shit! Talk about bad timing!
I didn’t care much about my health which was going to restore, anyway. But my arm? How was I supposed to graft it back into place? Short of sewing it back…