Induca’s control altered Deia’s spell, refining its targeting while their power worked together to make it three times more powerful than just twice. Their spells combined to cover each other’s weaknesses to make a more powerful and refined spell.
It was like Dave’s runes, where he combined Elven and Dwarven magical runes to create a circuit. Neither were perfect, but together they looked to improve the other and create a greater Magical Circuit, or in this case a higher class spell.
The Scorching Rain hammered the cultist’s shield, making it turn from its work to reinforce its shield. In one hand, its hands held the neck of a dead dwarf; with the other, Dark energy flowed into its shield.
Deia saw its eye holes staring at her, its skin decayed and mummified as it looked at her with cold hatred. It might not have eyes but she could understand the emotions behind it.
“Again,” Deia said, getting a better idea of the spell and shortening her chant. Induca adapted and added in her own power.
“Darkness’ Tears,” Malsour said as Induca said her words.
Black fire with blue centers hit the cultist’s shields; Dark and Fire magic slammed into the shield. The concentrated power in the spell broke the cultist’s shield; it left ragged holes in its tattered black habit and burned into the pile of bodies around it.
All manner of attacks that had been hitting the shield now scored hits on the cultist.
Even with all of the incoming damage, it started a chant that Deia couldn’t hear but made her guts twist in its unnatural feel as a Dark magic and corrupted Earth magic pooled around the cultist and flowed into the forty beings around it.
The first started to rise: an Elf, its head caved in by a mace or some other blunt melee weapon. It grabbed its arrows and fired with its bow.
“How the hell can that move?” Deia asked.
“They’re not undead; they’re soul-bound skeletons. He took their souls, bound them to their bodies and powered them with his magic,” Malsour spat.
Deia squinted at the Elf and the other dead now rising. There were two to three hundred of them, with more being pulled from the area.
Flesh-Covered Skeleton
Level 53
Soul-Bound Elf
Deia sent blue fire bolts at the cultist as it continued to bring more of the creations back from the grave.
He stumbled with the hits, his chant backlashing as he screamed out in pain and ecstasy. The mixture of emotions and the look on its face sent a shiver down Deia’s spine as she sent more attacks at the cultists.
Induca and Malsour added in their own attacks.
“How do we defeat them?” Jules asked as she sent a stream of healing light to Esa.
“Usually a big enough hit from a blunt weapon would smash the bones apart and it would collapse. With the flesh, the best thing to do is burn the physical body away and then take out the skeleton beneath. Otherwise, just damage them so much that their bodies fail. They are mindless beasts that feel no pain; closing with them can send them into a blood frenzy,” Malsour said.
Jules repeated what Malsour had said into the information chat; it automatically changed it from spoken words to written text.
“Weapons with soul-stealing enchantments will be the most powerful,” Dave said.
Malsour nodded.
“Fire Shot?” Induca asked.
“I’ll combine with Equalizer,” Malsour said.
Deia began the chant for the spell as black lightning arced toward them. Deia almost messed up the chant as it slammed into a magical shield.
“Fuck off, you undead pricks!” Dave barked, holding up a magical shield as they worked.
The lightning disappeared. Black smoke drifted into Dave’s armor; he’d pulled the spell apart.
Jules worked on a dwarf who had caught an arrow to the neck and Esa was continuing to fight.
Induca, Malsour, and Deia’s spell came together. It was a javelin of Everlasting Blue Fire with black streaks spiraling around them.
“Refine,” Dave yelled, falling to his knee as Deia felt a massive burst of power in the projectile. Streaks of every kind of Affinity twisted to turn it into a core of white with streaks of exterior color.
It hit the cultist, ending its chant and taking it from half Health to about fifteen percent.
It seemed to have a rallying effect on the other casters and long-range attackers. The cultist was reeling from the attack and the backlash of its own chant when the final attack cut them down.
“Why the hell didn’t his skeletons drop?” Jules asked.
“He soul bound them—they are his minions but they are powered by their own energy, not his,” Malsour growled.
Deia moved to Dave, the two of them panting from the Mana that they had just hurled around.
“You okay?”
“You’re the one on your knees,” she said, breathing heavily.
“Heh, where’s the Dwarves with a good innuendo like that one?” Dave laughed, which turned into a cough from lack of oxygen.
“What did you do?” Deia asked.
“I added magical power from the other Affinities. It was like a Magical Circuit and I just cleaned it up a little bit and added some more power.” Tired from thinking that fast and that hard, Dave pulled out a waterskin and drank from it, and then gave it to Deia.
She took it, looking up as she heard the first real sounds of battle of shields and swords meeting.
The flesh-covered skeletons ran into the Dwarven line without a care about their own safety, doing everything they could to get at their old and living comrades. There was none of their true selves left. Even if there were, the dead pulled back to fight them. It was hard to fight something that looked like your buddy who you’d had a drink with, or joked with.
Deia saw more than one tear-stained face as they plunged their swords into their old comrades, now fighting their corpses in order to survive.
Chapter 34: Death Walks in the Shadows of Night
Boran-al looked over his cultists. The forces of the area were putting up a good fight but in an hour they had only been able to kill three cultists. The wounded had been pulled back to the people at the base of the hill, while those around the citadel’s spires continued their chant, untouched and unafraid of the mere mortals who dared to interrupt their master’s commands.
The Players and People of Emerilia were tiring but they had finally reached the closest cultists.
The cultists had few close combat abilities other than their Touch of Death.
Each of them had their own way of dealing with those who got close, from creating a vortex of dark energy to arcing black lightning or area attack spells. The dead rose around a cultist, turning back those who had taken it to forty percent of its Health.
In the melee, the allied forces had been so distracted by the fight that they forgot that their dead were a weapon. Undead attacked until they fell. If there was any strength left in their bodies, they were called forth again as zombies.
Boran-al watched a group that sent another powerful bolt of energy into a cultist’s shield, destroying it as a force of Dwarves and Players surrounded the now stunned cultist and laid into it with their weapons.
Its Health dropped considerably as the attackers were buffed and healed, not caring for the other cultist’s attacks. Magical shields were erected by the enemy’s mages, protecting the melee fighters from magic as they tore through the cultists.
Their Health was high, but in close combat they were nearly useless. They killed a person here with a Touch of Death, or gained some Health back with their draining spells.
Blessings and healing were fired off, keeping the people from dying or breaking the draining spell.
Cultists with an army of undead were nearly invisible in their ranks and commanded great power. Without their armies, they had powerful spells but they were out of their element and at their most vulnerable.
The allied creatures didn’t cheer in victory as the fourth cultist fell. They
pulled back their wounded and almost dead, cleansing those who were dead so that they couldn’t be revived, and hustled back into the shield wall.
Spells blasted out, trying to get through the wall and open the ones behind it for attack. A wall of Darkness erupted behind the retreating melee fighters, absorbing the attacks.
Boran-al looked at the creature who had created the shield. Boran-al could sense great power behind them, great power that they hid. The man who stood beside them was even more odd. Mana from broken spells and the cultists’ own souls seemed to be absorbed by him.
Boran-al had never seen anything like it. The amount of magic and sheer power that was being thrown around hadn’t been seen since the portals were last closed a century ago.
Magical potions, meditation, food, soul gems: all of them were used in combination to continue the flow of Mana.
The entire citadel square was a scene of destruction: lights of all types of magic, catapults, and ballista littered the area. Arrows filled the sky as shields of metal and those of Mana were lit up with Mana and violent blows.
Boran-al looked at the four spires. They glowed with Dark energy, most of the runes now lit with smoke swirling around the creation.
Soon it would matter little.
***
“Forward!” Lox cried out, his voice rough from the constant yelling. His mind was foggy from the constant effort, but his body was ready. He didn’t know what Dave had done but he knew the man had changed the Magical Circuits on a few shields, reinforcing the entire Dwarven lines.
The Dwarves and Players listened to his words, moving forward even as magic tore at their shields.
To Lox’s side, Max went down in a shriek. Gurren stepped over him, taking his spot. A healer would look after him; his Health was at ten percent and dropping. It got to five percent before it started to crawl up.
Lox put it to the back of his mind as the line closed on two cultists along the southern front of the citadel’s square.
“Making up for a little something? Like you’re overcompensating for not having a dick, you mummified fucking raisin!” Gurren yelled.
“Fuck sakes, I think the leaf I use to wipe my arse is more comfortable than your skin,” Lox added.
“Boran-al’s cultists? Bunch of fucking Air mages to me—all talk, no strength!”
“I’m an Air mage and I think even we can do a bit better. These fuckers can’t even talk properly. Got hit in the head a few dozen times as children!”
The Dwarves yelled obscenities and their anger at the cultists; the Players did the same.
They might not be mobs, but any sentient would’ve been incensed by the words.
As more magical attacks hammered into their shields, Lox started to laugh. He might die here, might turn into an undead, but it was kind of funny to make fun of some hundred-year-old friggin’ dried-up prunes.
“I met the Boran-al cultists,
Let me tell out about those dipshits.
Couldn’t cast a spell, no,
Couldn’t make a noise, no.
But boy, did they make a stink ho!”
It was crude and it was barely a song, but the Dwarves took it up.
It was one thing to face the forces of Darkness in their citadel. It was another thing to make fun of those so-called powerful cultists in a song and march toward them.
The lines moved, forming a twenty-foot horseshoe around the cultists, as the shield wall moved up to support their farthest edge. The terrible song continued as Lox slammed his blade into the shield. It skidded off but flared with the energy expressed on it. Magical shields were meant to stop all types of energy, from kinetic to direct or light.
Lox slammed his blade in a second time and it didn’t skirt off; instead, it stuck into the wall and started to draw power out from it. Lox looked at his blade in shock. He wanted to turn to look at where the power was disappearing off to, but his training kept him focused on the cultist who was inside the shield and now starting to rapidly chant something.
When one of the old paper bags got to chanting, it meant that something powerful was coming.
The shield came down, just as the cultist finished its spell.
A black haze floated through the ranks.
Lox moved forward, moving to engage the cultist, who was firing off bolts.
Someone stepped out of line, their shield no longer connected to the others and being supported by the others’ runes.
“Charge!” Lox called before the cultist could start firing into the new gap.
The Players and Dwarves headed in.
Lox coughed, sucking in more of the black haze. He felt lightheaded as he reached the cultist. He got there with the others. Their numbers had thinned, and most were on the ground, coughing. It felt as if Lox were drowning. He closed his mouth, realizing that there was a poison around him.
The cultist couldn’t stop them all, even with its poison cloud that rested over many of them.
Lox needed to kill it now or else its spell could kill too many of their allied forces and turn the tide.
Others reached the cultist first. They took down its Health but it was minimal. They just didn’t have weapons to do the damage.
Lox just hoped that they did enough damage so that the long-range weapons could take the damned thing out. Lox felt the blade in his hand vibrate and grow hot. He put it down to the lack of oxygen going to his brain as he plunged the blade into the cultist’s side.
It screeched out in pain, losing a full five percent from the attack.
Lox, seeing his chance, attacked the creature with everything he had. The others saw its Health going down, even as the first of those to reach the cultist fell due to the poison in the air.
Lox saw fire burning through the sky but he didn’t dare look away from the cultist as he fended off its limbs with its shield and cut with his sword.
Conscious thought no longer held precedence in Lox’s mind. Oxygen-starved and with the knowledge of his own demise near, he fought with everything in his soul. As if answering his call, he felt power fill his body.
He deflected a Dark Mana bolt, plunging his sword into the creature’s chin and into its head. Its remaining twenty percent Health dropped as the cultist wilted, turning into dust and floating away.
Lox’s energy left him as he panted for air, only to find that his lungs were filled with his own blood. He collapsed as the allied forces moved forward over his body.
Fear crept into his mind—fear of death—but it was pushed away as he thought of his friends he had saved. He coughed, his whole body shaking in turmoil, a smile on his face as he heard his terrible song.
***
Dave pulled back his conjurations on Lox’s armor, changing them to try to heal and bless the man, keeping him alive for long enough for the healers to reach him.
Dave cried out. Even with all the power he had gained, the cultist’s own soul powering his spells, he was losing hold on too many of his conjurations. He took a few short breaths, knowing what he needed to do. It wouldn’t give him a ton of power, but it would mean that he lost less of what he got.
“This is going to suck.” Dave lay down. The first part was easy—bit of fire right along the spinal column. He moved his head but otherwise his body was useless, couldn’t move a damned thing. He needed to work quick.
He pulled up an idea he had thought of for a while but he had never needed to put it into use and really hoped he didn’t need to. Using fire and his power of conjuration, he started to carve out all of the runes in his mind at once. This time he wasn’t engraving it into metal. He was using his own body, establishing a stronger link with the Mana stored within his armor and making it easier to transfer.
He heard Deia yelling and moving to him. He needed to finish up quick. Pissing off the fiancée would not do.
He applied healing but in a way that made the changes permanent—the runes part of his skin from his legs across his back and chest and down his arms, a few reaching to his neck
.
That done, he healed his spinal column. He knew as soon as it was connected. He could feel the pain of the rest of his body. It was not a pleasant experience but as he’d thought, he was burning through his Mana at a slower rate.
“Sorry, just meditating.” Dave got to his feet, not wanting to scare Deia more.
She just hugged him. It had been five hours since the fight had started and everyone was tired. He put it down to that and almost put the fact that there was purple and black lightning arcing between the four spikes to the same reason until he realized that he was picking them up with his Touch of the Land as well.
“Well, that ain’t good.”
The universe really seemed to have it out for Dave that day.
The lightning continued, faster and faster, illuminating the citadel and the surrounding area. People from Omal and Cliff-Hill could see the lights as the air seemed to crackle with energy.
Dave stopped staring and started pulling apart the spells as fast as possible. The sheer power that he was siphoning off served to scare the shit out of him.
What the fuck would they need this kind of power for?
A shape formed between the four spikes, standing over the altar.
***
“The fuck is that?” Dave asked.
“An undead demon, or several of them, put together and with all of the souls that they had in life bound to them in the afterlife and controlled by the cultists,” Malsour, always such a helpful guy, said.
“Oh, come the fuck on!” Jules yelled.
The demon, big and ugly and annoying as he was, decided to step out of the damned spikes, which must’ve been some kind of portal from whatever place people thought it was cool to play fucking Frankenstein with thirty-foot-tall, black armor-covered demons.
“Sounds like a fucking bad B movie,” Dave said, his adrenaline cold in his veins as he tried to think of something to beat this damned fucking juggernaut.
The Trapped Mind Project (Emerilia Book 1) Page 47