Ruthless (The Completionist Chronicles Book 5)

by Dakota Krout

  “What in the…?” The silencer took a trembling step back.

  “A Neigh-Bear! How rare and sought after!” The Jester took a decisive step forward. “A single fang is enough to guarantee a rare-quality dagger-”

  “That’s not just any…” the scholar’s eyes widened. “That’s… that’s Neigh-Bear King Arthur! Leader of the Seven Hordes, brightest light in a generation, Ember of the Flaming Berserkers! I’m sure of it, look at those markings! He even wields the claw weapon Excalibear!”

  Joe jumped onto Arthur’s horsey hindquarters and dug his heels in. “Giddyup.”

  The area descended into silence once more, this time in shock. Only the creaking of a building burning and collapsing broke the still air. Arthur growled, “What did you just say?”

  “We need to get out of here, right now. I need you to clear a path directly to that building, and time is running out for your summoning.”

  “The people in the way?”

  “Enemies, one and all.” Joe pointed at the distant wall. “Go, now! Hurry, Arthur!”

  “You will not use me as a mount again.” Arthur rumbled as he started charging toward the core of the town.

  “Deal.” Joe winced as Arthur got up to speed. There was no way for people to get out of the way in time; they were packed too densely together. Arthur trampled anyone in his path, his huge hooves pulverizing everything they landed on. His paws and jaws seemed to work independently, and the Neigh-Bear sent dozens of people to respawn every few steps, and critically wounded even more. Somehow, he was able to keep increasing his speed the entire time.

  “You have ten seconds remaining until I vanish.” Arthur spat out the words and a hand at the same time, so the message was a little garbled.

  “Understood. Get as close to the wall as possible, and jump as high as you can.” Joe stared at the distant wall, then shifted from sitting into a crouching position. A dagger slammed into his arm, and a sharp *slap slap* rang out nearby.

  Damage dealt: 617 Dark damage. Jester slain x1. (Retaliation of Shadows)

  Joe was silenced a moment later, and a strange metal ball impacted his back and finished off his Shell, as well as cracking one of the ribs on the left side of his back. Joe silently spat out a mouthful of blood; his lung must have been punctured. Arthur jumped and started to fade. Joe felt his feet starting to slip through, so he empowered his legs and jumped. It was a smooth jump, and he went ten feet above the wall, clearing it easily.

  He arced back down, plummeting toward the stone ground that surrounded the bathhouse. He landed badly, his legs cracking, his wrist shattering, and internal injuries stacking up rapidly, if the way he felt was any indication. The silence countdown had another ten seconds, and Joe was currently staring down a half dozen swords. He could only pray that someone would recognize him under the ash, blood, and bruises.

  “U-um. Excuse me, he’s my party leader.” Joe managed to turn his head slightly, and saw Alexis lightly tugging on one of the men that was about to skewer him. “I really think killing him is a bad idea. Please hold off?”

  “I…” the man hesitated, clearly tightly wound. If someone had harshly demanded that he step away, he likely would have finished Joe off. “Yes, miss. Just, make sure it is who you think it is. Looks like one of them mages that messed with our defenses.”

  The timer finished, and Joe slapped his unbroken hand to himself and cast Lay on Hands, which caused his bones to grind against each other as they aligned.

  Skill increase: Lay on Hands (Student 0). You can now use each hand independently to cast this spell! This means you can have two spells ready to go whenever you need them, which seems to be pretty often! Their cooldown is determined individually.

  Alexis offered her hand, and Joe took it to stand up. As he did so, the majority of the grime that had accumulated on him just… slid away. Every second, more blood flaked off, and ash slid off him as if he wasn’t there. “I need to see Aten.”

  “I figured as much.” Alexis started pulling Joe away from the still-suspicious people staring him down. “He’s in the main building, coordinating the defenses. He left orders that you were to be brought straight to him when you showed up. I don't know how you did it, but that man has a crazy amount of faith in you.”

  Joe felt his eyes burn with shame at the undeserved praise. “I’m just a cockroach… really hard to kill, seems to survive against all odds, but not really great to have around. I’ve barely got any good news for him at all. I…”

  “It’s fine, Joe.” Alexis assured him. “Even if all this goes away, all that happens is that we need to start fresh. We got here in such a short time, and next time, we will build with heavy defense in mind. We went to luxury too fast, trying to bypass security because of our life experience on earth to this point. Next time…”

  Her eyes blazed with fervent belief. “Next time, we’ll make them fear coming after us.”

  They crossed the remaining distance in silence, and Joe was admitted to the meeting room right away. Aten held up a hand and cut off an accounting of supplies. “Joe! Blast it, man, you did make it back!”

  “Aten, I don’t have much-”

  “Quiet, Joe. I haven’t pinned all my hopes on you.” Aten could see at a glance that Joe didn't have the news that he had been hoping for. “You’re one man, and we are a full guild. Even if you didn’t come back with a miracle, we’ll figure this mess out. Did you succeed? Are you third tier now?”

  “Yes. but-”

  “Was it worth getting?” Aten demanded with shining eyes, clearly picturing glory and battle prowess.

  “I can only hope.” Joe sighed and ran a hand over his bald head and down his neck. “I do have some good news. I cleared out the area around the Pathfinder’s Hall, and our people there are ready to strike whenever we give them a proper signal.”

  “You made it there, too!” Aten grabbed Joe’s shoulders. “Did you get the box? Did you-”

  “I got it, and managed to get everything linked before I came here.” Joe nodded at Aten’s wide smile. “I think that we will be able to retake our town, at least for a while. This will give us a shot of getting the walls up, at least.”

  “Do it now.” Aten demanded. “Make them start feeling it. Wait, how long will it last?”

  “At least a few hours?” Joe shrugged, slightly off-put that he couldn’t give a definitive answer. “I didn’t set this one up; my juniors did it. Can’t imagine it lasting any shorter than that.”

  “Do it then, we’ll plan the counterattack to go out in an hour.” Aten slapped Joe on his unprotected back, reminding him that he needed to get his Exquisite Shell going again. He nodded at Aten and pulled out the gold ingot.

  Joe pressed the activation sequence, starting the ritual.

  Ritual ‘Blooded Quarantine Area’ activation started x4! Players who will remain unaffected: none. All beings in the impacted area will feel sick, and gain symptoms ‘vomiting’ and ‘no bowel control’, stacking to higher ranks with increased proximity to the ritual diagram. Once active, this ritual will remain for .25 seconds per impacted living being, increasing range by one foot in radius per impacted living being. Timer does not increase if a living being leaves the impacted area and returns. Activate all four rituals now? Yes / No.

  Joe selected ‘yes’, and flopped into a chair. His part in this war was over for now, and a nap was long past due. He blinked at the gold as his hand began to hurt, then dropped the ingot with a yelp as it turned red-hot and began to melt. “What… what was that?”

  Ritualist Hannah has broken a vow with you, and has been given the title Warlock V!

  His eyes went wide, and Joe scrambled to pull up his notifications.

  Alchemical agents added to rituals have taken effect! Altering effect of ritual ‘Blooded Quarantine Area’… complete. Substance ‘Blood of Endless Hunger’ from being ‘Gameover’ has significantly altered the ritual! New ritual in place, see effects?

  “What? Yes, see the effects!�
� Joe’s bellow attracted attention, and anyone who had interacted with him before saw that his face was pale, and his hands were trembling as he read over the information that he alone could see.

  New ritual activated: Ritual of Liquifying Membranes. Players who will remain unaffected: none. All beings with less than 80 points in constitution within the impacted area will become sick, and gain symptoms ‘vomiting blood’, ECC, and ‘damaged organs’, stacking to higher ranks with increased proximity to the ritual diagram. Once active, this ritual will remain for .25 seconds per impacted living being, increasing range by one foot in radius per impacted living being. Each impacted being increases the threshold of constitution required to ignore effects by .0001 each. Does not increase if a living being leaves the impacted area and returns.

  “Show status, guild contribution points!” There was only one thing this could be, but there was no way-

  Contribution points: 6,189,761.

  “Oh… oh my… Mike. Mike authorized extreme measures.” Joe was dizzy. He nearly fainted as he read the horrifying effects that this ritual had. “See information ‘vomiting blood’.”

  Vomiting blood: take 1 bleeding damage per second per stack, lasts 10 hours. Maximum: twenty stacks.

  “Ten… hours?” Joe felt a tear roll down his cheek. “Damaged organs?”

  Damaged organs: reduce effects of healing by 50%.

  “What in the world is ECC?” Joe whispered, truly not wanting to know the answer.

  ECS: Exploding Corpse Curse. When a being inflicted with this curse dies, their body explodes, dealing half their maximum health as concussive damage and inflicting all debuffs they had at the maximum possible stacks.

  “I need to stop this. I need to stop this right now!” Joe stood up, and turned toward the door.

  “Joe? What’s going on? Joe!” Aten called as Joe ran from the room.

  “Don’t let anyone into the central area of the town! We just released a massive curse… a plague that might kill us all!” Joe bellowed over his shoulder. “Wait… the safeguard I put on all rituals! I can end this now! End ritual: Ritual of Liquifying Membranes!”

  Nothing.

  “End Ritual: Blooded Quarantine Area!” There was no message, there was nothing. That meant there was no response from the ritual; it was still starting. Why? He had always been able to cancel them before! Joe’s hands slapped to the sides of his head as he remembered a past conversation with Hannah. She had said… ‘She was stripping everything down to make it as efficient as possible’… she wouldn’t know… the safeguard! “No! She removed it!”

  Joe ran to the top of the ramparts and staggered over to the edge of the wall. Thousands of people were milling about, and he could hear someone give the order to launch a full-scale assault. He shouted as loudly as possible, infusing his throat with mana in an attempt to make his words reach further. “No! No! Listen to me! You all need to run! You need to scatter! If you stay here…”

  Darkness flashed through Joe’s eyes, and a shadowy version of himself appeared behind him with a sinister grin on its face. The words that rumbled out of Joe’s chest were filled with dark charisma, and caused fear to run through the crowd below.

  “You’re all going to die!”

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  “Attack!” The people below charged the walls, but Joe didn’t bother to watch as arrows were traded, ladders were knocked away from the wall, and fireballs burned people to charcoal. No… he was watching the rear of the lines, where ever more people were running through the active rituals.

  He was waiting for it… it wouldn’t be too long now… *pop*.

  The sound was soft at this distance, but since the fires had burned out and smoke had begun drifting upward instead of settling, a red mist clearly showed where the first victim of what would become known as the ‘Corpse Plague’ had died. The sound of vomiting and screams started coming from the distance. Joe winced: the sound of hundreds of people puking at the same time, over and over, was going to stay with him for a very long time.

  One thing that Joe appreciated was that the ritual actually killed very quickly. Mostly. The low-level people had far less than two hundred health, so with twenty health per second vanishing, they died in under ten seconds. Most fell in less than five. Hysteria began to set in, but there was nowhere to run. Within half a minute, the demands of victory, war cries, or random babble all changed to begging to be let in before whatever that was got to them.

  Guild Title upgraded! Utterly Ruthless II. Show details?

  Joe swiped away the message and watched the panicked crowd below. The doors stayed shut, of course. There was no way anyone was letting that in; orders be abyssed. If there was one positive note, it was that the sight was blocked out by the red mist swiftly, and all retching and popping sounds stopped soon after that. An eerie silence set in, but no one wanted to be the first to break it. Joe made the choice after a few long minutes. He turned and waved to get the attention of anyone in sight.

  “That red mist is going to stay in place for days. If you touch it, you’ll die from it. You’ll also make it stronger. Right now, if you have less than…” Joe checked the active ritual for information, eighty point two… eighty-one… eighty-three…. Celestial…”

  Guild Title upgraded! Utterly Ruthless III.

  He gulped and shook his head. “If there really were a million people out there, and this doesn’t go anywhere else… we will be trapped in here for sixty-nine hours. Anyone below one hundred and eighty constitution will catch that, and it lasts for ten hours. Twenty health a second for ten hours. No one goes out or comes in!”

  The last sentence had been a bellow, and no one dared to let out a single peep. “On the plus side, it has now been three minutes. Anyone caught in there with less than nine hundred health has died. In fifteen minutes, I’ll ask Aten to let most of you stand down. For what it's worth…”

  “We won.” Joe started walking down the stairs heavily, and no cheers rang out. Everyone wanted to win, but no one wanted to win like that. Starting over would have been preferable.

  Guild Title upgraded! Utterly Ruthless IV.

  Guild Title upgraded! Utterly Ruthless V.

  The next few days passed quietly. It was tight quarters, but everyone was able to stay fed, thanks to the greenhouse, clean, thanks to the bathhouse, and calm, thanks to the sea of red mist that hovered a foot above the ground as far as the eye could see. Joe trained his stats as well as he could during those few days, and spent some time drawing up new spell scrolls. He didn’t learn any of the spells, not just yet. He wanted to be ready for what came next, and he knew that people were still dying.

  Guild Title has reached maximum rank! Utterly Ruthless has transformed into a new title: Ruthless.

  Ruthless. When attacking a guild, town, army, or defending those, damage dealt is increased by 25%, damage received is reduced by 25%. There is now a 50% chance of an item dropping from a slain enemy when they are attacking areas owned by your guild, and it is automatically collected into the guild vaults. If no guild vault is present, the loot will accumulate in the Guild Hall.

  Joe was once more standing on the walls, staring out at the sea of red. The ritual was about to end, and nine days had passed. That meant that at least three million people had been caught by the ritual’s effects. He hoped that Ardania still existed. On the positive side, if everyone practiced social distancing and no one added fuel to the mists, it would be over in an hour.

  “Everyone!” a voice broke the morning stillness, and Joe startled away from the edge where he had been leaning. Quiet voices had been the norm, so this was shocking after over a week of quiet contemplation. “It is time to make our choice! Over the last few days, I’ve spoken to many of you. If I haven’t had the pleasure yet, allow me to do so now.”

  The man hopped onto a table, and continued shouting. “My name is Mr. Banks! I am one of the founders of this guild. This war… was pointless! I had secured a deal that would have left us in
an advantageous position with all the poor souls that were wiped out by the actions and choices of the ‘players’ who staged a coup! Instead of calm negotiations, they ousted the council, and demanded war! Instead of taking care of all of us, and making sure we had safety, they trapped us here for the last fortnight!”

  “Banks!” Aten appeared on the scene, looking like a thundercloud. “You have no right to-”

  “Oh, but I do.” Banks stated coldly. “Look, I’m level ten now, Guild Commander. It is time for cooler heads to prevail! We need to show this whole kingdom that we are going to make amends! This starts by removing Aten as a leader! I hereby call for a vote of no confidence!”

  The council of the Wanderer’s Guild has issued a ‘No Trust’ vote to remove Guild Commander Aten from his position! Should he be removed? All Guild members currently waiting on respawn automatically vote ‘abstain’. Yes / No / Abstain.

  “This again?” Aten roared as buttons appeared in the view of all currently living members of the guild. “You can’t possibly believe… that they… would…”

  The guild has spoken! Abstain: 18,501. Votes to remove Aten as Guild Commander: 268. Votes for him to remain: 231. Aten has been removed as Guild Commander. Per his contract, he will attain the highest position in the guild only in the next Zone, so long as a new guild area is established. If this happens, the guild in Zone one ‘Midgard’ will become a branch guild.

  “It’s just good business, Aten. Looks like the handful of people that survived under your iron fist have chosen freedom!” Mr. Banks’ smile was more like a disturbing mask. “We need to prepare to hand over the war criminals to the crown. If they are here; Aten, Joe, Mike, come here now.”

  The last word was an order, and Aten was forced to one knee. Joe stayed where he was, staring down at the man who had decided to take command. Mr. Banks looked up, and Joe saw just a hint of fear in his eyes. “I know you’re here. I said get down here.”