Occultist

by Oliver Mayes

  “You can’t possess the wraith yourself.”

  Noigel brought his hands together in a beggar’s grasp, exaggerating a trembling lower lip.

  Damien had an idea. “All right. But you might be sorry. You, wraith,” he ordered. “Pick up Noigel, climb to the top of the ceiling and then run down the wall.”

  Noigel whooped, cackling with glee, and danced off toward the wraith, fists punching the air.

  The wraith considered Noigel in silent menace before dragging him toward the wall. Noigel’s face was a picture of anticipation, as though on a rollercoaster winding slowly to the peak of the tracks.

  Damien watched as the wraith climbed slowly, then descended at pace as ordered. Noigel screamed in delight.

  Damien couldn’t help but laugh. After the day he’d been having, it felt good to be laughing about something.

  “Again,” he said, sending the pair off once more.

  Bartholomew appeared like a ghost by his side, putting the wraith’s stealth to shame.

  “You don’t have time for childish games.”

  And the moment was over.

  “I’m collecting myself.”

  “I set you a task. Kill five enemies using your new minion. Not giving Noigel a treat.”

  “He’s just having some fun,” Damien said. “He did build the Soul Well quick enough. He’s okay reall—”

  Noigel’s joyful cheering was cut short by a retch, followed by a loud wet splat. The wraith returned a few seconds later, still holding Noigel by the arm. The imp’s face had gone a vibrant shade of green. The wraith let go and Noigel collapsed on the ground, mewling pathetically.

  Damien cleared his throat.

  “Fine, I’ll get going. I’ll just wait until my mana replenishes. These rats roaming around should go down fast enou—”

  Bartholomew interrupted him with a loud tut and a waggling finger.

  “That will not do. The rats no longer constitute a threat to you. I do not recognize them as enemies, nor will they grant you soul energy.”

  The vampire pointed upward.

  “You’re going to take this outside. And having precipitated your minion… sullying my generously donated living space with the contents of its stomach, you’re going to leave immediately. Otherwise I shall grab you by the back of your head and use your face to mop it up. Get out of my dungeon, and if you have any common sense you’ll bring something to clean up with when you return.”

  “Ooh, is that a new quest? What’s the reward?”

  “Your life. Now get out.”

  13

  Goblins!

  Damien reached the top of the stairs and stretched. He’d only been in The Downward Spiral for a few hours in total, but it felt like days. Even the miserable clearing, complete with the creepy trees casting ominous shadows in every direction, seemed pleasant after what he’d been through.

  It might have been dark in that forbidden copse but it was nothing compared to the evil that lay beneath. If Damien had thought the bottom floor of Bartholomew’s dungeon was bad, the floors above it had been only a little better.

  It was a long way from the bottom to the top, and the entire pathway was riddled with traps. He’d skipped them all on his first entry by taking the faster, less advisable route. Courtesy of his alliance with Bartholomew the traps had all been helpfully highlighted red, but there had still been a few close calls. Noigel had screamed more than once to prevent Damien from putting his foot somewhere he might not get it back.

  Still, he was out now. It felt good to be back in the overworld; he’d had his fill of dungeons for the time being.

  Damien took a long-awaited breath of fresh air and smiled, just before his eyes fell on the place where Aetherius had tried to kill him that morning. The smile wavered. Despite the long walk through Bartholomew’s gauntlet of death, he suddenly didn’t feel like hanging around. He turned and beckoned toward Noigel, who’d stopped following him to peer over the small stone wall surrounding the entrance.

  “Come on, Noigel, don’t be a chicken.”

  The imp gave his surroundings a last furtive glance before scurrying behind Damien’s legs, still apprehensively scanning the trees. He didn’t look very comfortable being outside. The wraith glided into position behind them both, as reticent and emotionless as ever. Damien picked his way through the undergrowth, not really knowing which way he was going. Once he got out of the forest he’d know where he was. He found the edge of the trees and stepped out into the afternoon light.

  There was the road off to his right, just around the bend. He could follow it back down to his early leveling spot, Drum Lake, and start his quest there. He was about to set off when he realized neither of his demons had followed him out of the forest.

  He squinted and saw Noigel’s head poking out from behind a tree. As for the wraith, it was standing directly on the threshold of the forest. Now that Damien looked closer, he could see the same cloak of darkness he’d observed earlier surrounding the trees. He wondered if it was purely aesthetic, or if it had a gaming function. He’d have to ask Bartholomew later.

  “What’s the matter with you two? Get out here. We still have a lot of traveling to do!”

  The wraith immediately complied, floating through the translucent black curtain. The moment it did so, the shadows enveloping it were stripped away and its body started to degrade. It stood there without complaining as the sunlight sizzled against its skin, the blades on its forearms shortening and the muscles wasting away.

  “What the – inspect!”

  Wraith

  Stats:

  Strength 5 - Agility 15 - Intelligence 5

  Constitution 5 - Endurance 10 - Wisdom 5

  Abilities: Shadow Beast, Impale, Slash.

  Status effects: Exposed.

  Damien panicked. He’d spent his last three souls on this thing and now it was weaker than Noigel. What the hell was going on? Then he caught sight of the status effect: ‘Exposed’.

  “Go back into the forest.”

  The wraith leaned back and floated through the curtain again, just a touch faster than it had come out. Damien stuck his head through and breathed a sigh of relief. The sizzling had stopped.

  Within a few seconds the shadows pooled around the wraith and it was back to its menacing self. At least he now knew one practical application of the shady veil engulfing the trees. It wasn’t much of a consolation: Bartholomew had given Damien a quest, requiring the use of a minion that couldn’t handle sunlight, right in the middle of the day.

  Great teaching skills, Bart. Way to go.

  As Damien waited for the wraith’s health to return to full, he eyed up the ‘Shadow Beast’ ability in the still open window. This was probably the culprit, but without any information beyond the name he himself was still in the dark. His own skills all had detailed descriptions, why wasn’t it the same for his minions? It was exactly as he made this observation that a glowing ‘+’ sign appeared directly behind the ability in question. A nod of his head later and he got exactly what he wanted, although it only served to confirm his suspicions:

  Shadow Beast: While occultists have merely adopted the darkness as their ally, others were born into it. Users of this ability will enjoy drastically increased movement speed (100%), the ability to cling to shadows with ease and advanced stealth capabilities (translucence 75%) in poorly lit places. However, upon contact with light sources they are ‘Exposed’, reducing their stats by up to 50% and inflicting damage over time to a minimum of 10% of their total hit points. The speed of the damage over time and extent of the stat reduction are calculated based on the intensity of the light source.

  Well, that was a bit of a mouthful. Damien could see why the developers hadn’t included the full list of abilities in the Stat window, although he’d have preferred it if they’d made finding detailed information a little more obvious. It was something he’d have reported to Kevin, if he didn’t have more pressing issues at hand.

  At least he hadn’t
discovered this flaw in combat. That would’ve been a real problem. He opened the menu and checked the time. It was four in the afternoon. Still two hours to go until dusk started and another half an hour until it fell. Well, he wasn’t going back down without anything to show for it, and he wasn’t going to sit there waiting for two and a half hours either.

  Change of plan. He’d have to find some enemies in a dark place. He opened his map, looking for a cave he remembered from his time as Scorpius, but there were no markers. As far as the game was concerned, Daemien had never been there before and thus didn’t know there was anything to find. Damien knew better. It was about five minutes due west, at the foot of a hill.

  “Follow me.”

  Without waiting for Noigel to start complaining, Damien set out across the open plains at a jog. The sound of his footsteps were soon accompanied by a low hiss and crackle that reminded him of the food processor making his bacon and eggs that morning.

  Noigel ran straight past the simmering wraith to be by Damien’s side, his head swiveling round in every direction, eyes wide with fear. Damien took note and started going a little faster. It wasn’t just the wraith that was exposed out here.

  The opening in the hill appeared exactly where he’d remembered, and he smiled before realizing the sizzling had stopped.

  He turned and was surprised to find his wraith was no longer cooking but had become little more than a stick figure. On top of that, it was struggling to keep up the pace, lagging behind and then sputtering forward in short bursts. The only thing Damien could do for it was reach the cave as fast as possible.

  They arrived without incident and Noigel immediately ran straight inside while Damien waited for his wraith to catch up. As he was standing there, he saw a sign posted to one side that hadn’t been there in his last play-through. He approached it, his brow furrowing. There were words printed entirely in white block capitals, sandwiched between a skull and crossbones at the top and Aetherius’s guild symbol, a swirling red vortex, at the bottom. As he read it, his jaw dropped.

  THIS CAVE IS RESERVED FOR MEMBERS OF RISING TIDE. IF YOU ARE FOUND USING THIS CAVE WITHOUT PERMISSION YOU WILL BE KILLED, YOUR CORPSE WILL BE LOOTED AND YOUR DEATH WILL BE POSTED ONLINE. K THNX BYE

  – RISING TIDE

  Damien knew vaguely that Rising Tide had started to appropriate large areas of the game world as their own, but he’d never imagined it would affect him directly and thus had never given it much thought. Like so many injustices in life, the appalling unfairness of it only became apparent when it happened to him personally. Having been kicked down a pit by their guild leader that morning, Damien took this very personally indeed.

  Tintagel wasn’t a heavily contested zone. This cave was only a short walk away from Camelot itself, a place designed to allow people to safely level up. Yet Rising Tide had not only decided the world wasn’t big enough to share, but were also threatening to kill anyone who used it ‘without permission’?

  He finished seething and turned to find the wraith had caught up. It looked terrible. He could either search for another place, which would mean another long march through the countryside with a scared imp and a floating trash bag in tow, or he could risk being discovered by the very people he wanted to destroy.

  He’d just go in, do the quest and leave. He wouldn’t be there long enough to get caught. Besides, the really dangerous members of Rising Tide would have better things to do than killing goblins in a cave. Glancing around to make sure no one was looking, Damien ushered the wraith ahead of him.

  As soon as the wraith stepped across the threshold and into the shade it began restoring itself. The damage was extensive, so it took longer than the first time round, but Damien brought up the wraith’s Stat bar after it was finished and confirmed it was good as new.

  Noigel looked considerably more comfortable as well. He either hadn’t seen Rising Tide’s sign, couldn’t read, or both. Damien’s gamble to drag the wraith through sunshine had paid off; now he needed to make it count.

  He quickly pointed Noigel in front of them and the imp led the trio down the passageway into the depths of the hill.

  Damien couldn’t remember the layout, but he knew what to expect. It was a series of tunnels that occasionally opened up into wider spaces, like a rabbit warren but bigger. The main difference was the inhabitants. Unlike rabbits, brown gobbos were coordinated, vicious and fiercely territorial.

  Some goblins were smart and capable of complex thought, but not the brown ones. Their defining characteristic was hunger, and not for carrots either.

  As a warrior who’d come here when he was good and ready, Damien had simply stood at the entrance of a narrow passageway and bellowed down it so all the enemies would come running at once. Then he’d slaughtered them one by one in the enclosed space, where their numbers counted for nothing. It had also meant he didn’t need to worry about being attacked from behind.

  As a fledgling occultist who’d come here out of necessity, still wearing rags and more worried about a possible attack from behind than the certain one in front, Damien would require a different approach. He wasn’t strong enough yet to attack or be attacked by a party of players. Being stealthy usually took time, but this needed to be done with speed. First things first, he needed Noigel on board.

  “Noigel, you’re going to watch the entrance. If you see anyone coming, you’ll run here and… tell me so… crap. Hang on.”

  Damien was going to have to possess the wraith to complete the quest, and his real body would be quite unoccupied. Time for more tests.

  He sat down with his back against the cave wall, pointed at the wraith and thought ‘Possession’.

  Now controlling the wraith, he gently leaned forward and poked his unconscious body in the head. He immediately felt pressure in the middle of his – well, the wraith’s – forehead. He’d become his own voodoo doll. Canceling the possession, he turned to talk to Noigel.

  “If you see or hear anyone coming, start poking me in the head. That should make you happy, you little sadist. Don’t do it unless it’s an emergency, otherwise we’re going to be here for a while. Those are your orders.”

  Damien possessed the wraith again and lined himself up with the passageway. The movement was quite easy to control if he wasn’t moving too fast, but he had yet to test it in combat. If he didn’t get it right the first time, he wouldn’t have the souls to summon another one. That would put him in a very bad position indeed.

  Well, he thought in the silence, better get it right first time.

  He leaned forward carefully and glided down the passageway until he arrived at the first doorway, peering around the corner discreetly. There was a lantern hanging from the ceiling, but otherwise it was poorly lit. Good. A modest, earthen chamber with three passageways leading out of it, not including the one he’d entered by.

  He poked his head into the passageway on the left. It was a small room, the only feature of note a dirty stack of hay in the corner with a pillow and empty sleeping sack. Probably a guard kept watch here at night, since this seemed to be some form of crossroads.

  And if it wasn’t here, it was probably patrolling, as many mobs do.

  Damien floated inside the chamber, avoiding the lantern light. He had reached the passageway on the far side when he heard something grating against the floor ahead of him. A few moments later a brown gobbo plodded lazily into view, dragging an axe behind it and picking its bulbous nose.

  Damien drew back behind the doorway. It was level 7. Not too much higher than he was, thankfully. Still, he’d rather have the element of surprise than a fair fight.

  He quickly rotated and forced himself to lean a little further than he was comfortable with, speeding back toward the empty room with the hay. He cut straight through the torchlight and felt his skin burn, but the sensation was gone as fast as it had come and he was safely concealed by the time the brown goblin entered.

  Damien watched it traipse into the middle of the chamber. It lingered a
little longer before turning around and going back the way it had come, still dragging the axe.

  As soon as it turned, Damien was soundlessly creeping along the side of the chamber toward it. It hadn’t even managed to leave the room before he drew back the wraith’s arm and drove the attached blade straight through the goblin’s back.

  Sneak Attack Multiplier Added!

  Damage: 90

  No critical, Damien thought. That’s strange. It looks pretty critical to me.

  The axe dropped out of the goblin's fingers as it fell to its knees with a groan, looking down to find a blade growing out of its chest. It started to cry out, but Damien was faster. He brought his free arm across his body and sliced straight through the neck, the blade passing through it faster than coffee through a finals student.

  Sneak Attack Multiplier Added!

  Critical Strike Multiplier Added!

  Damage: 180

  Damien didn’t know exactly how much health the goblin had, nor did he need to. Unless brown goblins stored their brains somewhere besides their heads, this one was a goner.

  He stopped for a moment, listening for any signs he’d been discovered. When the tunnels remained deathly silent, he withdrew his blade and allowed the goblin’s body to slump to the floor. The soul energy twisted out of the goblin’s newly vacated neck cavity and formed an orb, which floated into the wraith’s hand before being absorbed. So Damien could gather souls this way as well. Very useful.

  Inside, Damien was elated. Wraith combat handled like a dream embodied in a nightmare. For the first time since he’d started playing as an occultist, he felt powerful. It was all he could do to prevent himself from rocketing down the passageway to find his next target.

  So giddy with pleasure at the wraith’s effectiveness, he forgot about its aversion to light and backed up under the lantern, his skin immediately hissing and boiling. He recoiled and stared up at it angrily. This was something he could do without. Sweeping forward, he swung at the rope holding the lantern in place before propelling himself back to his safe haven, the empty sleeping quarters. The wraith was incredibly quick when he needed it to be. He was already through the door when he heard the glass shatter behind him, followed by the whoosh of igniting oil.