by M J Sweeney
“Oh. Thanks.”
Nervous young fellow. Once the cascade of undead had been de-animated, I threw whatever items were too close to the door back inside.
“What’s wrong with them?” Elz asked. He was looking around curiously, and sniffed slightly, rubbing his nose. “Place smells bad, but smells the same,” he murmured, then looked over to me. “I’ve only been inside once before.”
“Really, when was that?”
“With you and Marcus…” He trailed off, looking a bit guilty.
“Ah… right.” When Marcus and I had to run like the wind, fleeing from backstabbing rogues. Elz was looking at me nervously, obviously wondering if I’d get mad about it. I remembered it well, and slowly started to laugh, so he chuckled a little himself.
“No harm, no foul. I’d actually wondered if that was you, watching your skinny white ass disappear up the stairs… but later forgot about it.”
He chuckled a little evilly, but also muttered, “Skinny white ass? Hmph… yentik.”
“Skinniest and whitest I ever saw…” I laughed. “As for this loot here, you see, it’s cursed.” I continued explaining. “Something to do with how the fair folk living here were enslaved by the necromancer and forced to this never-ending unlife.”
“Evil…” Elz shook his head in dislike.
“It’s my hope that if we defeat the necromancer, once it arises, we’ll be able to cleanse the curse and take even more loot.”
“All right… uh, boss?”
“Yes?”
“I think it’s too much risk to fade with spirits about—I don’t want to be mobbed. Or summon greater-fae.”
I wasn’t sure what that meant, so I asked him to explain it later. We continued on down the main long corridor, and with his oh-shit out, Elz was now taking point. He had a much greater find hidden/detect traps skill than I, and seemed actually inclined to enjoy that kind of thing. Which was more than fine by me.
When Elz leaped back, the very tip of his oh-shit sheared off, I gave a chuckle at his alarm and contorted expression. It was a lot funnier when it happened to someone else. The blade trap had whizzed past with barely a noise, with only its afterimage to confirm it had actually passed.
“Crazy fast,” he commented.
“Yep.” I was genuinely surprised to find that this first trap—the one Marcus and I had dismantled (or smashed up, rather)—was now operational again. I didn’t think this was some kind of dungeon-core monster thing. You know, the idea that the delve was operated by some evil inanimate mastermind at the centre of the lower complex, self-repairing at will. There had to be some more rational explanation. And then I remembered the zombie goblins. They’d all held work tools, so maybe they were capable of a fix.
Elz offered to dismantle the trap and collect some of the parts, but I shook my head. “No, I think we should keep it. For later, you know what I mean?”
We shared a conspiratorial smirk.
“Yeah… yeah.”
“We also have a limited supply of jars of fiery burning and oil,” I commented.
“Yeah?”
“There are these undead zombie goblins that can regenerate like trolls.”
Elz slowly nodded, his expression hardening, then growing distant.
“I don’t have a good memory of them.”
Right. They’d attacked his village, after all. “But we do have the option of lots of firewood.”
“Yeah. Shall I go get it?”
As we had over two hours before the skeletons respawned, there was plenty of time to collect firewood. As the weather had definitely dried up, we also found plenty of timber for the purpose. Once back inside, and after over an hour of dragging logs and branches of various sizes—not back-breaking perhaps, but certainly hard work, we took a break and short rest to go over the plan.
“We can get past the first trap easy enough if you stand on the first pressure plate, but then we’ll be stuck on the second and third plate.”
“I can fade, and avoid… some of it. At least if fast. Small risk,” he offered.
“Really?”
“Yes. Fade makes body… not all here. Reduces physical harm. Small risk of fae. But I’m a little worried about cursed spirits… but if quick, mebbe they don’t spook? Should be easy. Also, against many traps, mebbe too much risk, not so good.”
I’d have to ask Elz more about how fade worked, very soon. Right now, however…
“If we set the fire here, just after the first trap, we can then drag the bodies to the fire and toss them in. I don’t think they can cause us harm while they’re dismembered and trying to regenerate.”
Elz stood on the first pressure plate while I stacked the wood into a bonfire pyramid. I got everything ready for lighting, but waited until we did the next part. When he stepped off the pressure plate and faded, I held my breath a moment. He must have jumped or leaped the gap, because when he reappeared again, the blade trap hadn’t even triggered. Once again, Elz stood on the next pressure plate, and I walked past the immobilised blades (all seven of them), until the low sounding alarm went off.
When the first of the goblins came out, I ran back to Elz, so we quickly swapped places while he ran to the fire to light it. He hadn’t wanted to agree to that part of the plan, but eventually acquiesced. I waited for chopped goblin soup, and then chaos ensued. When I stepped off the pressure plate to activate the trap, a number of goblins hesitated as the first ones were dismembered. Instead of bunching up, they started leaping forward… and disappearing. What the—? As each second passed, a new blade trap swung down, and one by one, half of the little green creatures started reappearing on this side of the trap. Holy mother!
Some were still sheared in two, as they didn’t make it all the way, as the traps ran most of the length of the side corridor, but many of them were now moaning and running directly at me. “Elz!” I shouted out in vain hope.
Next thing I knew I was swinging madly, and almost panicking from being mobbed by over six or seven of the little beasties all swinging at me. I killed one, but got pounded on one foot by another, and stabbed in the ass by a third. “Elz!” I yelled again. I needed backup. They were starting to push me along, toward the next set of blade-traps, down the opposite corridor only a few metres distance. Shiiit. I could do little to prevent it as more of the creatures flashed away from their first diabolical mince-meater toward the other.
Then Elz was there, taking big wide swings, and gave me a second to break the grips of three of the goblins dragging my arms and legs, claws embedded in my armour. One last creature was up on my back, trying to bite through the thicker leather on my chest. I left that one there for a moment, as all the remainder had come through and started attacking us both.
I already had Breath of Life applied, and despite my Holy Aura, the creatures still came on. Next, I had Heart of Oak and Frenzy going in a jiffy, and another Breath of Life slapped on to Elz’ back; and then I had to apply everything I’d learned of footwork from my teachers. Not only were these creatures fairly agile—deceptively so compared to the skeletons, they also seeped sickly green fluid, which then made the dusty stone floor slick with slime, and easy to slip. But Frenzy was such a rush. Speed, speed, speed!
I smashed the one attached to my back—by conveniently shoulder-charging the nearest stone wall with a sickly crunch. As it fell off in a crumpled heap, I had to slide-step away from the rest. With my greater weight, I pushed past a couple more that also tried to drag me to the blade traps. I must have been only a few centimetres away from the lethal metal at that point, but once I had all of them off me, I activated Charge through the central mass. More speed! I hit five or six going through, and killed the one at the end with my spear impaling its chest.
There was still plenty more. I sliced my spear into another set of the creatures, keeping as far away from both sets of blade traps as possible. Despite my healing, I was just over half health, and bleeding from multiple wounds. Elz was slightly better, as he’d avoided
the initial onslaught. I could now see and hear the flames building behind us, the bonfire gradually growing and catching. Luckily, this caused the closest goblins to shy away from the heat, helping us control their movements.
Eventually, Elz and I were able to stand back to back and start lashing out with our larger two-handed weapons—also with minimal risk to eachother. A few minutes after that, the pressure was off, and we killed the last of the mindless creatures.
“Damn, that was close.” My heart was still beating wildly, imagining what it would have been like going through those traps with zombies attached to me. Frenzy expired and I leaned over, panting and heaving, not liking the fatigue state at all. Elz didn’t look much better.
“Gotta work on your cardio, eh?” I commented.
“Wha?”
“Never mind, later.”
We quickly gathered the dead and slithering zombies before they slimed their way back to respawn, and threw the body parts, onto the pyre. The fire was quite large now, the corridor filling with cloying smoke, so we wrapped bandanas around our faces and continued. Fortunately, most of the smoke was soon flowing toward the still-open entrance, up and out. Elz didn’t seem to want to get too close to the overlarge bonfire, and flinched more than once as the flames licked out or a log popped.
As we were both covered in goblin muck by now, getting our hands dirty wasn’t an issue. We were also on a time limit. As my health was renewing steadily, we decided it would be better to clear the next lot also. I added more wood to the pyre, stoking it up. This time, Elz stood on the pressure plate, and I ran in, set off the alarm, and ran back, keeping a little distance and waiting to Charge.
When the next set of zombie goblins blink-stepped through—I think that was the spell—I waited till there was a cluster running towards Elz, and then Charged into the middle. I damaged most of them, killed one, and then Elz was at my back and we just hacked madly at them. This way they couldn’t get more than two or three of them on each of us at a time. Hack, slice, take a small step, back up, head weave, dodge-strike, step back till I felt Elz, turn and deflect, deflect again, hack, slice, and repeat. This way was a lot better. We only got minor cuts and scrapes once we knew what to look for. As the goblins were lighter and smaller than both of us, their main advantage was numbers. That and the sinister blade traps.
We burned them up, and I made level 24.
At the end, we checked the final area—the worker’s quarters—and examined the blade traps in more detail. We found the two sets of seven traps all swung down at similar intervals—about one second delay each, but also at different heights—some just off the floor, and some at about chest height for an average person. This made them basically impassable unless you were immune to physical harm.
That gave me an idea, and so I examined the original first trap, the one that moved super-fast and was the hardest to detect coming. It swung down at the same height each time: waist level on me. This meant if we were careful we could crawl under it if we had to.
Chapter 33
Before taking on the card-players, I told Elz we should go back up top and have a brief rest. We’d managed to collect some decent loot from all of the lesser minions so far, and already the gear was improved in quality to match their increase in power. The sergeants were particularly better equipped; from one we looted an ancient steel blade, and another an ancient recurve bow, and the last some high quality chain mesh.
/ Ancient Longsword / Uncommon Steel
[+5% Damage]
/ Ancient Recurve Bow / Uncommon Oak
[+5% Armour Piercing]
/ Chain Mesh / Rare Steel
[Unidentified]
Using my handy gift from Anthul, I cast Identify to detect what features I could. I was able to read the uncommon items, but not the rare one. I was also surprised to know Elz had this ability also.
“I’m an honorary goblin,” he explained with a smirk, but that didn’t explain anything. I looked up goblin racial benefits—they seemed to have bonus agility, and an ability to cast Identify, plus minuses to luck and social dispositions. As Elz wasn’t actually a goblin, this didn’t really make sense, but it appeared he had more goblin abilities than basic human ones.
With my lore skill at 27 (including the bonus from my holy symbol) I could now identify uncommon items about 43% of the time (with the identify spell). This was reduced by 25% for each tier, so rare items had only an 18% chance and elite and legendary items would be impossible unless I significantly increased lore. In cases where I couldn’t fully identify the item this way, I could still usually identify the item’s level (uncommon, rare, elite, or legendary) and sometimes the item’s name if I was lucky.
Back at the oak tree, I made some tea from my pot and handed a cup to Elz. He was playing with the Divine Deck, and laid out a small spread, nodding his head. I looked over and saw a picture of some undead crossing Durdain, Aras crossing Ker-Mordann, and Baeloth crossing a picture of a group of high elves. Aras was the god of war and warriors, Durdain was the god of dwarfs and weapon-crafting, Baeloth was the god of murder and strife, and Ker-Mordann the god of justice and paladins. The first and last cards—seelie and unseelie races—were minor arcana; the Gods were major arcana. I wasn’t sure if those were good or bad signs.
“No sign of Isserad, is good. But no sign of Seti or Cylvai.” I had no idea what that meant, perhaps I’d learn more about it later.
“Elz, how about now… can you explain a bit more about how the fade works?”
He frowned and scratched his neck scar for a moment. “Yeah, but I’m no expert…”
Despite his claim, he still knew a lot more than me. It seemed it wouldn’t be wise for him to fade with undead spirits about, as he’d likely attract their attention and get attacked en masse within the fade realm itself. But he did say he’d probably take the risk anyway, if necessary, and simply try and run away within the invisibility the fade offered. As the spirits in question were also quite calm until you tried to take their stuff, it was also possible fading might be risk-free.
The main problem was in a worst case scenario; within the fade, any rogue could attract one of the greater fae. And this was more likely when the fade was disturbed by unholy powers. The fae were disembodied entities lost in between the two realms—neither living nor dead, nor undead. Dispossessed spirits seeking release and life forms from which to drain their essence. Elz was understandably nervous about that.
It was news to me. It also seemed the “normal” undead, the corporeal ones at least, were unaware of the fade like most earthbound creatures. But spirits and ghosts and the fae could attack unwary rogues; the longer they stayed in the fade, the more they risked provocation. In addition, such disembodied entities were more powerful in the other realm, and capable of greater harm, particularly with things like psychic attacks.
After resting we had to clear the upper levels of skeletons again, but as it was giving us a really nice experience boost, we had no complaints.
Killing the massed undead spirits on the second level—Elz once again refrained from fading when in this area—I received another big jump of experience and gained level 25. Horns and fanfare! With some bonus abilities to choose, I’d already calculated that at level 40 and 60 in particular I’d need quite a few spare points, in order to upgrade all my abilities from level 2 to level 3 and 4, respectively. This meant I’d have to go a bit lean with ability allocation for the next few levels. Not great for the immediate future, but better to wait and be cautious.
Decision made, I kept two active abilities aside, but allocated the two passive ability points: Two Hander Level 2, which gave +10% More Damage when using a two-handed weapon. I was excited about that, time to increase my damage output! I also put three attribute points into intellect and one into vitality, and had to sit on the floor while Elz watched over me—I was panting and giggling at the waves of pleasure. Elz seemed to take all of that in his stride, good fellow.
/ Cordaen Sequoia / Level 25
Warrior-Priest /
STR 24
INT 36
AGI 45
VIT 43
CHA 29
LCK 19
Health: 1320 (+50%)
Mana: 828 (+15%)
Stamina: 890
Levelling up and putting myself at risk, without dying of course, was fortunately adding to my luck statistic once again. I’d lost seven points from two deaths, but was increasing it on average by one point every couple of levels. For the rest, I was happy enough with my growth.
We snuck into the final nine rooms on the second level, and when I explained about the rogues, Elz understood.
“Yes, I remember from first time.” He was frowning and scratching at his scars, clearly thinking about tactics. “They can sense me in the fade,” he told me. “Hard to backstab. If we’re fighting, I can do it easier if there’s noise and distraction, but at rest one is likely to sense Elz.”
I thought about that a moment. “Yes, understood. Look, I think if I Charge one of the rogues, I can pin it down. If you can engage the other one and stop it fading, then we can take out the two fighters once we kill those. All right?”
He nodded.
It didn’t go quite to plan.
The first part worked, my Charge briefly stunned the first rogue. My weapon damage had definitely increased, particularly with the new two-hander ability. Positioning myself so that the two fighters couldn’t get an easy strike at me, I continued to slash at the rogue, and damaged it significantly along one arm and leg, although it didn’t expire. Elz shortly appeared from fade and struck the second rogue before it had fully stood from its chair. The cook howled his fear attack before manoeuvring closer to me, but my aura negated that, and as Elz was quite close, he resisted also.