by M J Sweeney
The guards and scouts clapped, cheering the little performance, and Elz gave a short bow. “Where’d you learn that Elz?”
“Here’n there,” he said briefly, then closed his lips tight. I didn’t think I was going to get much more out of him than that, so I let him be.
When I put on my full set, my interface dinged.
/ Quest Complete—Liked Disposition with Elven Armourer’s Guild / Master Armour Equipped
/ Quest Complete—Repay Maximus and Alhain the agreed fees for goods borrowed or bought /
/ Quest Complete—Fully Equip Elz despite negative dispositions / Gain increased disposition with Elz and Goblins
Max, Alhain, and the regular guardsmen left shortly that afternoon, but six of the scouts remained, including Sacheen. His men were going to camp a little away from our base of operations—one small group to the north-west and another to the south-west. These were the two most likely paths that we figured the brotherhood would arrive from—either from the direction of Geras, or from the direction of the towns to the south. It was possible the brotherhood would take the Portal from Geras Anandiel to Bolgas Dizzini and then come down the mountain pass, but I thought it unlikely they’d want to pay the fees involved, even though it would be quicker.
Basically, I wanted the scouts to warn us before the brotherhood got too close, so we’d be prepared. I didn’t want them landing on our doorstep with us none the wiser. Elz and I would prepare the ground for the battle, and take no prisoners.
Seeing as how Elz’s improvised club was so effective against skeletons, we decided to make some modifications to it. His short swords were less effective against the “bonymen,” as he called them, but more effective against the zombie goblins. Stoking our camp fire, I first hammered some nails into the head of the club, giving it more bulk and a rather sinister look to the bulbous head. Next we fired the whole thing—burning the outer bark, making it harder and smoother. Trimming any excessive knobs or small branches, I then rubbed the whole thing with oil, sealing it and giving it a bit of a polish. Lastly, I wrapped some thick leather bindings around the haft, and once again hammered a few small nails into it, pinning it in place securely. Now it had a nice two-handed grip, and was less likely to slip from Elz’s grasp, particularly if there was blood involved. Elz gave it a few practice swings, dancing about the fire.
“Thanks boss, it’s even better.”
I had even received a few upgrades to my crafting skill—“woodcrafting and wooden implements.” It was quite satisfying improving the weapon for Elz, not that I was planning on becoming an expert craftsman.
Before Max left I had also bought some gear from him—a bunch of vials of various substances. Most were products from Drognad’s family, the Zahn—anti-aging cream, skin hydration balm, that kind of thing. And so we emptied those and began the process of replacing it with holy water, enchanted by yours truly.
After checking the description of holy water again, I found I could do fourteen vials after one hour of meditation, then the same again the next day. I only had forty empty vials. If my calculations were correct I would do sixty points of damage per round for three rounds (one round = three seconds), or 180 damage all together. There was also the possibility of splash damage to nearby foes. It wasn’t that much, considering, but we could also throw more than one vial on a particular foe, so the damage would stack at least three times, if I understood things correctly.
I also read that undead had anywhere from two to four times the amount of health of their living counterpart, depending on their age. This meant they had a lot more health than us, which I guessed was a counterbalance, as they usually had more limitations in other ways.
After checking the glass vials, I decided they were a little too sturdy. I carefully cooked them in the fire for a little until they started to go black, thinking that should make them more brittle. Then I boiled some lake water, waited for it to cool, and poured it into fourteen of the now empty vials. I told Elz not to disturb me, and I meditated.
This part wasn’t so easy. It wasn’t like my passive ability, but something entirely different. How do you summon your god’s presence? I wasted half the afternoon trying to sit still and clear my busy mind before I gave up. Then, with a flash of inspiration, I decided to play my lute, and as that was calming me down, I felt his presence.
I kept playing and contemplating, allowing the music and mood to fill my space. I visualised Anthul playing a harp beside me, and damned if I didn’t hear some kind of harmony in reply. I then held my holy symbol over the vials and chanted, “Anthul, Anthul, Anthul,” and a bunch of small, silvery stars floated down over the lot.
Later that night, after finishing our evening meal, I had another flash of insight. With some thought into the possibilities, I looked up info on enchanting magic items through the interface. There was an absolute tonne of information—way more than I needed—plenty to be confused about. The basics were like this:
1. Enchanting is limited per level to your mana multiplied by your enchanting skill, called ‘enchanting points.’ The size and quality of an intended magic item, and the quantity and quality of enchantments affected how many enchanting points you used. A skilled enchanter could plan out the exact enchantments, while an unskilled one had to leave the final results in the hands of the gods.
2. Therefore, only if you increased your level, your mana, and your skill could you craft multiple magic items—like a gas tank that emptied, it could only be refilled once you levelled it up—and unlike your health or mana supply, it could not be refilled by resting or spells. Total enchanting points had an absolute definable limit.
3. If you hadn’t used any enchanting points before, all of your previous levels were stored, and you could use the grandtotal in one big attempt. This was not much at lower levels, but it was also why advanced enchanters utilised the mana from their students as a pool, and stored up their own to craft one or two powerful items by the end of their career. (I assumed this last was why you didn’t see thousands of certain items floating around—there was a limited supply for what anyone could craft.)
4. Anyone with a chosen deity could attempt to enchant an item. Chances of success were based on enchanting skill, position and influence of each of the moons, and luck. Enchanting was enhanced by holy altars, prayers to the personal deity, prayers to deities that held influence that month, and some magic items.
5. Enchantments could only be added to a previously enchanted item by the same original enchanter.
What the hell, I thought and I motioned Elz over. I asked him to hold his freshly improved club in front of me. I reached over and grabbed one of Elz’s now discarded ‘uncommon’ magical shortswords. Thinking it couldn’t hurt, I unstoppered some holy water, and offered a prayer to Anthul and White Ei for a blessing. I poured two jars of the water over the large club, and sprinkled Elz’s hands for good measure.
By the light of the flickering fire, I intoned, “May Anthul and Ei please bless this holy weapon. Bestow grace upon my companion Elz in our efforts to overcome the curse of the Eragdas Ruins.”
And damn me if it didn’t work. With a kind of buzzing like bees, the weapon absorbed the holy water, and pulled power from the olde magic shortsword. Elz’s hands began glowing faintly.
“Ech!” he yelped and dropped the large weapon, his fingers were twitching spasmodically. “Magic!” He also farted loudly in surprise, which was funny.
I laughed and pointed a finger at him. “Talk about stating the obvious. You’re all nerves, champ.”
“They keep me alive,” he commented, looking at me shrewdly.
“Nerves or farts?” I asked, shaking my head.
“Yes, both,” he replied with a smirk.
We examined the club now. “Lucky magic, I think, blessings from Anthul,” I murmured. Physically it looked no different, but…
/ Blessed Bludgeon / Rare Oaken Great Club
[+5% More Damage versus Undead, +5% Attack and Movement Speed]
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br /> We high-fived that little impromptu success. The adrenalin glow from successfully crafting my first magic item, and a rare one at that, was almost enough to change my mind about not working on those skills. I had splurged all of my enchantment points in one fell swoop, but what the hey! The results were nice.
Lastly, we packed up all the holy water vials carefully, but I explained to Elz that I wanted to save as many as possible for use against the necromancer later—if it ever showed up.
“But I think at least a few we can use against the mini-bosses, no?”
Elz grinned nervously, stroking his new armour.
“Should we do that first, or just melee?” I asked.
“Use the blessed water, boss. They don’t like it, and makes ’em pause, what’s that word you use?”
“Ahh… oh, interrupt?”
“Yes, it interrupts ’em. Then you charge, I’ll sneaky-sneaky, stabby-stabby. Kerjiggy dance after.”
“All right. Once the rogues fade, if I use the brightest light—” I patted my new spear. “—that will hopefully stop the rogues from attacking, so you should be able take out the mage. We still may have to take a backstab or two… not sure if I can prevent that.”
“Plan?” Elz asked.
“Yep, that’s the plan.”
Chapter 35
We went back down. I activated Breath of Life on both of us first. We threw vials simultaneously. The sizzle of holy water did cause them to pause a moment, howling their displeasure, so I Charged the major-domo and stunned him. The new spear felt awesome in my hands; the spear-head seemed to be literally seeking out the vulnerable spots in its necrotic flesh. A couple of seconds after that, Elz appeared and stabbed it, causing the mage to drop its magic glowing staff—fortuitous chance, that. It still blinked away, behind the cook. The rogues disappeared, and the cook flailed at Elz, who was closest. But then he disappeared also.
The cook was wielding a rather large magical cooking cleaver, and was moving a lot faster than normal. I think it had activated some kind of Frenzy ability. It then turned to me, sunken face grinning evilly. So I did the same, with Frenzy speeding me up, and I squared off and dodged the first few strikes, but then took a few heavy slashes before finding my ground. I booted the mage’s staff further away from its reach. The mage then cast its Slow on me, and started to summon its black energy missiles.
There wasn’t much room to jump or move about, considering Slow was negating my Frenzy. Next, I activated Light at full brightness and held my spear down. The silver metal-head glowed brilliantly, making my eyes water.
One of the rogues was caught in the brightest section, and it was pulled from the fade. It covered its eyes and thrashed a moment, its abilities interrupted. The other was still nowhere to be seen. Both the cook and the mage stopped and howled, the light causing them pain—and also interrupting the gathering of the mage’s dark missiles.
Then Elz was behind the mage and struck it full through the ribs and chest with both swords. It crumpled. I kept slashing and deflecting from the mad cook, so I decided to drop the bright light. The staff-spear’s mana was at 20%. I pivoted slightly, getting the now overturned table between me and the cook, and attacked the second rogue before it could also attack Elz.
After a bit of back and forth, while the creature stayed with me in melee, I thrust my spear through its chest, splitting the leather armour there. With a tight overhand swing, I clubbed its head, breaking its neck—two critical hits in a row! Dead. Its health and combat abilities were not my match, not including the bonus damage to undead from my new spear. Suddenly, I felt two blades pierce my back, one after the other. It hurt, but not as badly as before. Something was different. The other rogue did not appear.
The cook had turned to Elz, and they were fighting it out. I then struck the cook from the side and managed another critical hit. It expired. I felt another set of strikes to my back, and my health dropped more.
“Throwing knives!” Elz cried, and dropped back into the fade himself.
I looked about wildly, but couldn’t see anything. All my senses alert, I held my staff across my body in full defence mode. Briefly, down the end of the passage of rooms, the rogue appeared, a knife in each hand. When it flung them toward me, I deflected one, and the other landed only a glancing blow on my armour. I activated Heart of Oak. Both heals started ticking over nicely.
Next we began a game of cat and mouse, me in defence mode, and Elz yelling from the fade, “Left!” or “Right!” before the rogue appeared in that room, giving me time to deflect or dodge. I took a couple more hits, but my health renewal took care of that. Eventually, Elz got the drop on the creature and managed to time it just right to backstab the thing just after it appeared to throw knives at me. Its fade disrupted, I Charged in and killed it. We high-fived.
“Kerjiggy!”
I didn’t know what that meant, but when he started dancing again—his epileptic freak show—I think you get the picture. Funny kid.
Level up! I was now 30.
Phew. “Shit, Elz. You’re good.” I stood there panting, recovering from my Frenzy. It took the wind out of me.
Elz smiled. “Thanks, boss.”
I smiled a little at the title. He seemed to have shifted his allegiance from a bunch of rogues… to me. I wasn’t sure if that was significant, but didn’t want to make a big deal of it.
We collected the loot. I saw there were more coins spilled on the floor by the overturned table—another seven gold pieces and over forty silver. The rogues had a couple more olde gold pieces and some silver in their pockets. Every little bit helped. Each of the rogues had a magic sword, one had a rare magic ring, the cook had a magic dagger and a rare magic cleaver, and the major-domo had a rare magic staff.
The staff was a curious one. It looked to be made of hickory and was straight and simple, with a murky grey quartz gem in a metal clasp at the head.
There was also a quest update notice from the interface.
Entry added
/ Quest of the Elven Quadrinity / Part One (of Four)
/ Explore all levels of the Ruins of Eragdas Alfar and clear them a second time during Dray or Dolce / Part Two (of Three) Completed
Ha! That’s it, I thought. Part two completed; one more to go. It was nice to have my suspicions confirmed. For about ten months of the year, the place was infested with fairly low-level undead. For three months of the year, it held more powerful creatures, and for only one month of the year it would house the necromancer, who would then issue forth. Elz and I had just cleared the ruins during that second phase; now there was only the necromancer at the last phase to go.
We had rested enough and were not badly damaged so we ventured down to the last level. The alchemy lab was as Marcus and I had left it—mostly dismantled with nothing left of value. We ignored that and continued in. I braced myself as Elz opened the double doors, ready to Charge in or run away as needed. But nothing. Once more, the large, church-like room was empty, other than the flickering blue eldritch fires.
Elz checked the throne, looking for secret compartments and levers, or even traps, but eventually he grimaced and gave up—packing away a clever set of tools that he had in a flat leather satchel, which he kept strapped around one shin. He also peered at the two ever-burning fires at the far back corners. The brass braziers, with flickering magic flames, emitted thin wispy trails of blue-black smoke that dispersed as it touched the ceiling. When he passed one hand over the spooky blue flames, he yelped and quickly withdrew, both hands twitching abruptly.
I almost laughed as he sucked at his fingers, but simply quirked one eyebrow when he turned to me. “Burns, but cold, cold, like freezing ice…”
Eventually we checked the two side rooms, and Elz angrily pointed at the clustered bones lying on the hospital cots. “Bad…” he murmured, “Bad, bad, bad…”
“What is it?” I asked.
“These… remind me of burning.” He shuddered a moment, unconsciously scratching at the old
burn marks along his neck. “Fire… dogs,” he finally added. Each of the sets of bones glowed and faded, glowed and faded, even despite not being animated; dull red runes clustered along their lengths.
“Fire breathing? Undead?” He slowly nodded. “Like… a hell-hound?” I asked.
“Evil. I don’t like ’em.”
I could understand that, and so I thought about it a little. “What do you think? If the necromancer comes back, these creatures are likely to animate, right?”
“Yes. Fire is bad,” he shuddered, and then seemed to shake himself out of it. He’d seemed okay building our bonfire on the first level, but he had been reluctant. “I don’t like fire.” That made two of us.
“What if we destroy them now?” I asked, as much to myself as to him.
He looked hopeful a moment, and then his shoulders sagged. “They’re bonymen. They’ll just come back.”
“Yes, you’re right. I’m not even sure if we can destroy these anyway, or how. How about something more mundane? Spike the doors shut and jam the hinges somehow so they won’t open?”
He grinned finally and jumped up from where he was crouched over the bones. Even if this only delayed the creatures, we would hopefully get some advantage from this. We hammered spikes along the bottom of each of the doors, and hammered nails into the hinges from each side, so they could barely move. Even if the creatures tried to break through, they’d likely get a massive piece of timber landing on their heads.