Thirty-Three
Zombies filled the streets below Hawke’s perch, still unaware of his presence, although that was the least of his worries. What had him dashing around and jumping over the rampaging Undead was the knowledge that Legate Neron could see the horde running towards his forces, and that his likely response would be to cut loose with everything he had. In a second or two, hell was going to rain down onto the Trogg city, and Hawke needed to find shelter, since many of the spells oriented on his position would hurt him as much as the zombies.
He climbed up the wall and squeezed through a narrow window that led into a chamber lined with standing sarcophagi, dozens of them. All empty, of course; their occupants were out and about, hunting for his friends. As he looked for an exit leading deeper into the building, he heard the whooshing sound of Fireball spells. Lots of them. His resistance to Fire – and all Elements – was at the 95% cap, but advanced wizards imbued their spells with enhancers to overcome those defenses, and even if that wasn’t the case, five percent of a buttload was still a lot.
The entire structure shuddered under multiple impacts as he made it to an internal corridor in the vertical graveyard. Fireballs didn’t impart a lot of kinetic energy, so whatever was making the building shake was something else. Probably flying boulders. His suspicions were confirmed when a flaming rock the size of a Porta-Potty crashed through both corridor walls and kept going, missing him by a few feet. The near-miss still delivered enough Fire damage to kill anybody without his resistance levels. A direct impact from that rock definitely would have left a mark.
The hole the flaming boulder had made ran clear through the building. Through it, Hawke saw more smoking craters marking the spots where the Imperials’ spells had crushed or incinerated a few dozen of them. He saw half a dozen flaming boulders and twice as many fireballs descend towards the spiral plaza, which was currently covered by a greenish-purple dome of energy. The spells hit the energy barrier and exploded without making a dent. The ritual site was protected well enough to shrug off battlefield magic. Nothing about this crap was going to be easy.
The building began to collapse around him. Another boulder went flying through it, making it clear he needed to get out. He teleported toward one of the flaming craters, which the zombies were avoiding. When his feet hit the smoldering ground, he realized why: the rocks also delivered a Consecrated Ground spell at the point of impact, which healed the living and burned the Undead even worse than regular flames. He crouched there for a moment, reaching out to Tava through his sword.
Hawke! Tava said, sounding angry. The Legate ordered his mages to fire without waiting for you! Are you all right?
Had to be done, he told her. And I’m fine. Where are you?
We have retreated to the entrance and are entrenched there, she sent back.
Saturnyx allowed him to see through Tava’s eyes. The Undead horde was headed toward the combined force, which had gathered together by one of the new tunnels the Imperial mages had created. The zombies were getting blasted by the massive rain of fire coming from the Legion’s detachment, but their numbers were huge and worse than that, they were getting some hefty bonuses from the Trogg City Core. Besides their level boost, they had increased resistance to all forms of damage, including Life and Light spells. The Trogg bat riders were back, casting spells from range. And other monsters were beginning to appear. Hawke looked up and saw a giant Undead Tarakken, something that made Digger look like a shrimp. He realized with a sick feeling that those were City minions like the ones his Stronghold could create. Now that the city was active, they could pull all kinds of deadly tricks on the Adventurers who had dared invade it.
Are you coming to join us here? Tava asked.
I can’t, he sent back.
Why?
I have to get to the Trogg City Core and take it out, or the Event will destroy Akila. And kill us all.
The bastards hadn’t just reanimated all the Troggs in the undercity; they had done the same for who knew how many bodies buried in Akila’s graveyards. He hated leaving his friends to fend for themselves, but he was the only one who could do something about the situation.
Hawke looked up. The barrage of battlefield spells had stopped. Powerful magic like that could not be sustained for long. The original plan had been to concentrate all that firepower onto the plaza. From the looks of it, the Imperial mages had spread their firepower, targeting both the zombie horde and the ritual site. It was an understandable screw-up, but they had screwed up; abandoning the main objective had probably doomed them all. They had run out of juice, there were still thousands of zombies headed their way, and the ritual was still going strong.
His stealth spells were still on, and by the time he crawled out of the crater, most of the Undead horde was gone, off to wipe out the invaders. All he could do about that was to stop the zombie apocalypse at its source. Another solo expedition for him. Well, him and Saturnyx. As long as he had the sword, he wasn’t alone.
Sure, but we don’t have to fight them all, just whoever is in near the City Core.
The streets of the mad city were not completely deserted: bands of Troggs and Risen remained, herding any straggling lesser Undead towards the fighting. Some of the walking corpses seemed dumber than others, maybe because their brains hadn’t been properly treated during mummification. Or maybe they’d been the dummies of the bunch. In any case, he had to do some fancy footwork to avoid them as he headed for the one source of ambient Mana in the city, other than the ritual site: the building where he had seen the big Raise Dead spell go off.
He moved as quickly as he could toward it, because the information Tava kept relaying to the sword wasn’t good. Legate Neron had tried to order a retreat, only to find the way back blocked by more Undead. Those animated corpses belonged to former citizens of Akila. They had risen from nearby graveyards and were cutting off any avenue of escape. The good guys were surrounded. The allied forces were killing the weaker monsters in droves, but their positions were also getting hit by spells from Trogg shamans and Exalted Risen Leaders, and casualties were rising. The City Watch Special Cohort was about to break; a couple of members had panicked, tried to flee, only to be overwhelmed and torn to pieces by the Undead. The whole thing looked a little too much like the battle of Little Big Horn for comfort.
Hawke tried to contact the Legate, only to discover Neron wasn’t taking his calls or the Trogg City Core was interfering with communications. He told Tava to pass on his plan to the officer and kept going.
The tower looked like the rest, the bastard child of a porcupine and a corkscrew, but it was glowing with the colors of Undeath, with extra motes of Chaos for good measure. He sensed the presence of another Mana Node beneath the structure, with a ley line linking it to the one in the spiral plaza. An arched entrance on the ground floor was guarded by a dozen Elite Trogg warriors, all boosted to the level cap by the City Core. There was no space to walk between them without alerting them. Picking a fight without his regular Light and Life buffs would be suicide, so he decided to create a diversion by summoning his Darkness Guardian. The creature was massive and an Elite critter in its own right, but even at level 20, it wouldn’t last long against that many enemies. On the other hand, the sight of the fifteen-foot tall shadowy behemoth distracted the guards like nobody’s business. All the Troggs rushed the creature, blasting it with bolts of Chaos before chopping away with their hacking swords.
Hawke got through the gate and flattened himself against a wall to avoid a squad of shamans who were running down the stairs to join the fight. The poor Elemental wasn’t going to last long, so Hawke hurried up the spiral staircase. The Core must be near the top. He sent his armored boots back to his Inventory and took the stairs barefoot to avoid clattering all over the place. His rapid tiptoeing almost got him to the top without incident. Almost.
There were seven levels to the penthouse, each level smaller tha
n the last. On his way up, Hawke walked past rooms where more shamans performed magical ceremonies, arranged in groups of five or seven. Probably enhancing the main event in the center of town, he guessed. A couple of times, robed figures going downstairs walked right past him while he stood perfectly still. On the fifth floor, a max-level priest headed down stopped and looked straight at Hawke. Undead Troggs were capable of emotion, and the expression of shock in its homely face told Hawke all he needed to know.
A quick Twilight Step and backstab dropped the critter from 1,600 Health to 0, but the influx of magic was immediately noticed by every spell-caster in the vicinity. Hawke heard movement from below him. He rushed forward after taking a second to get his boots back on, buffing himself as he went. The time for stealth was over. A pair of guards on the sixth level stepped in his way, blades ready and crackling with Undeath and Chaos. Hawke blasted them with Burning Light: the cone of energy made them recoil in agony, giving him the chance to close in. A desperate swing with Saturnyx scored a critical hit and sent the first Trogg’s head spinning off as its body crumpled in a heap.
Congratulations! Your Sword Skill has been raised to 9.
Hawke dismissed the annoying notification and kept hacking at the remaining guard. Every second he wasted on the flunkies would give the bosses time to get ready. The Trogg was no wimp, though, and the survivor went on the defensive, taking damage from Hawke’s spells but not enough to put it down quickly. After wasting several precious seconds, he fired off a 200-Mana Elemental Bolt at its head, exploding it like a piñata. By then, however several shamans and priests had arrived.
Multiple spells hit him, eating through his Bulwark of Light. His Mana began to drop by the hundreds, both from the damage getting through and the spells he used to return fire. A bunch of Chaos Priests on the seventh floor cut loose with twisting streams of putrid green light mixed with multicolored energies. Grunting, Hawke injected a Mana potion, used his Ring of Spell Storage to apply a new Bulwark, and sent a full anti-Undead spell rotation back at the bastards. One went down, then another, but more were joining in while the casters on the fifth floor kept their steady barrage of Undeath magic and warriors tramped up the stairs. He had to keep on moving.
Twilight Step got him the rest of the way to the top floor. He appeared right behind five Chaos Priests. A brutal kick sent the closest Trogg plummeting down the central shaft; he backstabbed another through the neck a moment later, and followed with a shield bash that knocked a third off the platform. Maybe the Troggs should have thought of putting safety railings on their stairs. He chopped down another victim – and then it was his turn to be blindsided.
Burning tendrils of Chaos ripped through his auras and wrapped around his arms and torso. The damage was bad, but their side effect was a dose of bad luck: everything that could go wrong with Hawke did. He tripped on one of the corpses, losing his balance and nearly dropping Saturnyx, and he fumbled the visualization on his next spell, causing it to fizzle in a flash of Mana. A moment later, the world sped up around him, and he realized that Temporal Distortion, the side effect for his messing around with time itself, had decided to show up, either by regular bad luck or triggered by the Chaos curse.
His Mana bar dropped down below ten percent as he was struck over and over before he could even form a spell. The energy tentacles gripping his limbs spun him around and he found himself face to face with the Trogg Arch-Priestess, Urgah Thul. She was saying something, but in Hawke’s current state, her words went by too quickly to understand, sounding cartoony, like a video played at quadruple speed. If baring their teeth meant the same thing for Troggs as it did for humans, she was happy as a clam. Or maybe just hungry.
She made some gestures and squeaked more incomprehensible commands, and his Mana stopped dropping. The Troggs had stopped hitting him with spells. They wanted him alive for some reason.
You have been afflicted by Chaos Bonds
Spellcasting and most actions are impossible.
Duration: 10 seconds.
Time was slowly returning to normal, but the damage was already done. Immobilized and unable to cast spells, Hawke was dragged up to the top of the tower. He let them; that was where he wanted to be, after all, and he still had one more trick he could pull.
The last tower room had no partitions; it was just a large circular space with a glowing sphere floating in the center: the City Core that Hawke had come to destroy. The Trogg leader had seven priests form up in a circle around her and her captive, beginning a ritual of some sort. She made a gesture with her hand and spiked chains made of golden light exploded out of her palm and pierced Hawke’s chest. The pain was immediate and overwhelming. It wasn’t physical. It felt like losing everyone and everything he loved. It was pure anguish, a word he hadn’t fully appreciated until now.
You have been afflicted by Soul Ripper.
Time to Final Death: 6 seconds.
Thirty-Four
Hawke activated Timeless Mind.
The pain didn’t stop, but it diminished to the point he could think again. Now everyone else was frozen, or rather moving very slowly. While the special ability was on, he could prepare spells that would go off when he returned to normal. Or he could have, if he hadn’t been hit with a spell disrupt. As long as the effect was on, all he could do was use Mana directly, which limited his options. To top it all, his soul was about halfway out of his body. He could see it, a humanoid figure made of everything he was, all his memories, personality, virtues and flaws. In a few seconds, it would be all over.
Hello? Anyone there? Your favorite pawn is about to get knocked off the table.
Nobody answered. Saturnyx was frozen in time as well. He had been able to reach her before, but he didn’t try. The effect didn’t last for long. If none of the gods, Arbiters or Makers who liked to drop by and give him orders wanted to get involved, he would have to get himself out of this mess. That was probably for the best. Every time a major power intervened on his behalf, he ended up owing them more than he wanted to pay. This time, they were going to owe him.
Hawke leveled up, dumping all six Attribute points into Spirit to raise his Mana pool.
Timeless Mind dissipated, along with Chaos Bonds and Soul Ripper. Urgah’s grin vanished as Hawke tore into the Trogg and the surrounding priests with everything he had. He glowed like a runaway reactor as he fired off a storm of Light and Life, fortified with Celestial and Order energies while he swung Saturnyx. His targets shriveled like flowers hit by a flamethrower. All except Urgah. He gave her his best shot – and her Chaos Shields held. The faces on her robes weren’t mere decorations; they were chanting spells. More shields and defenses appeared around her, deflecting his attacks.
He moved in close, firing off more spells as they came off their cooldowns, but she wasn’t just waiting for him. A gesture from her sent a handful of Doom Spears that hit for thousands of points of damage flying at him. Her cloth puppets cast Death Curse and Undead Curse, two of each. The Chaos missiles tore through his defenses and added debuffs: he found himself slowing down and his sword lunge missed the target even as he felt everything drop. A Mana potion and Transference kept his Health and Endurance up. All he needed was two seconds and the fight was as good as won, but the Arch-Priestess and her talking robe weren’t giving him a chance to use any magic that he couldn’t cast instantly.
He used Tulpa Weapon, projecting a spike from his Solar Plexus Chakra. The pure Mana attack cut through her defenses and hurt her, making the Arch-Priestess hiss in surprise. Before Hawke could send a spell through the Mana spike, her living robes howled another spell at him, all six of them joining forces for a single casting. A giant claw made of half a dozen forces came out of nowhere and punched him with the strength of an angry god.
Hawke blinked. He was crumpled up against one of the walls of the tower. All his stats were down into the low hundreds, and many of his buffs had been st
ripped away. The spell – Hand of the Daemon Lord – had messed him up good; even with Tranquil Mind, he was stunned and unable to concentrate. Urgah stepped forward, her hands raised as she formed another Soul-Ripper spell; her pets were prepping multiple Chaos Bonds, and this time there would be no level-ups to free him from them.
All for nothing, Hawke thought. He tried to call to Tava, but he couldn’t muster enough focus for that. His vision narrowed into a tunnel.
And through it, he saw Desmond the Destroyer appear out of thin air behind the Arch-Priestess and stab her in the back with his oversized sword.
There was a flash where the glowing blade struck the Trogg. The sword didn’t cut through her defenses, but the spells she and her pets had been prepping dissipated. With a roar of frustration, she hit the Engraved Warrior with a full spread of Doom Spears. Desmond reeled back, but only small scorch marks appeared on his scarred and inked skin. Her pets started to recast Chaos Bonds to ensnare her tormentor. That was a mistake. While her back was to him, Hawke’s stun wore off. The distraction gave him enough time to act.
Two seconds later, Hawke created a Chaos Funnel aimed at the Node below the tower. Five thousand Mana flooded his system, but only for as long as it took him to create an Order-flavored Tulpa Weapon, backstab the Arch-Priestess with it, and use the weapon as a conduit for half of that power, delivered through an Elemental Blast. He was careful to angle the energy torrent away from Desmond.
Urgah Thul was tough. She was still moving, trying to cast another spell despite the basketball-sized glowing hole running clear through her midsection, when Hawke stepped forward and landed a critical hit with Saturnyx that removed her head.
“You’re welcome, bro,” Desmond said. The Engraved Warrior had shaken off the effects of the Chaos Bonds with surprising – and worrying – ease.
Hawke nodded before turning toward a bunch of Trogg casters that had reached the tower. He burned off the rest of his excess Mana with a full spread of enhanced spells, wiping them out.
Guilds at War: The LitRPG Saga Continues Page 25