by Oliver Mayes
Roranoa had encountered a problem, but he wasn’t aware of it yet; he’d failed to learn from Shankyou’s mistake. He was too absorbed with Jinks’s dilemma to notice the boss swiveling to face him, a heavy, red-hot hand raised. Rhinohide called out, trying to warn him of the danger. Too late. The golem squashed the off-tank flat, searing him inside his armor like a burger patty. White light radiated from his armor as Dryfus abandoned Jinks to cast a new Holy Barrier on the errant warrior instead, but the healing spell he was following it up with sputtered and died as the wraith’s first armblade passed through the back of his throat.
The remaining three party members were all busy fighting the boss and could only look on helplessly as Jinks, Dryfus and Roranoa fell one after the other.
All that remained of the once-mighty party was the main tank, the primary healer and the gunslinger, Metalstorm.
While the group might have been brought to its knees, the three of them together would still be more than enough to handle Damien’s disruption if they dealt with the boss first. Metalstorm demonstrated as much when he raised his hands, each holding a preposterously large revolver, and pumped two explosive shells into the golem’s exposed chest gem. On the second shot there was a distinct clink of shattering glass and a pained roar.
Damien was running out of time. He sent his wraith and his hell hound straight toward the survivors, hoping to deal some damage and disrupt them so the boss could finish them off. The wraith extracted its arm blades from the priest and went straight for the next one while the hell hound ran down the lava track the boss had left in its wake, sprinting between its legs before lunging at the tank’s throat. Yet now the party had appraised their new enemies, Damien’s minions posed little threat to the higher-level characters.
The wraith made it halfway before the gunslinger swung his hands around and took aim. The shells he used were designed to kill far stronger enemies and it only took one shot for the exposed wraith to be blasted to bits.
A perfectly timed shield bash saw to the hell hound. It was knocked back, stunned and at low health without having inflicted a single point of damage. To add insult to injury, Rhinohide had used Damien’s own strategy against him: the hell hound was knocked straight back into the path of the boss and was swiftly crushed underfoot.
With his wraith and hell hound destroyed, Damien could only look on as the three survivors put everything they had left into their attack. They were visibly worn down, having fought for five minutes with no break. Without a stand-in, the priest’s healing was becoming slower and slower. He was almost certainly running out of mana. The tank’s health bar would spike up, only to be brought to the very edge of zero by another absurdly overbearing attack.
But the gunslinger still had one final trick up his sleeve.
He dipped a hand into his pocket and leapt off the tank’s back, throwing a fistful of gunpowder directly at the boss’s head. It ignited upon contact with the lava oozing from the cracks, with predictable yet impressive consequences. The Boulder cradled what was left of its head in its hands, leaving the crucial chest gem exposed. With barely more than a quarter of his health remaining, Rhinohide committed his remaining stamina to an all-or-nothing final lunge. Despite being swatted around by the house-sized boss, his accuracy had not been diminished. He struck true.
A sound somewhere between the crunch of gravel and the tinkle of broken glass echoed throughout the arena. They had done it.
The boss clutched at its chest as green light spilled out between its fingertips. It was going to blow, but Rhinohide didn’t even have enough stamina left to run. The gunslinger and the priest quickly ran to his side and put one of his arms over each of their shoulders, dragging him out of the blast zone.
Had they backpedaled and kept their eyes on the boss, they’d have noticed the small red body clambering up onto its shoulder.
Noigel had been parked on the golem’s back, dodging the lava flow as he waited for the gem to be destroyed. Now his moment had come. Damien sent him in.
Noigel swooped down and dropped to the floor at just the right distance, putting the retreating trio at maximum Implosion range. Damien said the magic word, and it wasn’t ‘please’. The players were caught completely off guard.
They were still clutching each other tightly as they hit the ground at the golem’s feet. They only took the most minuscule damage from the fall, but that’s all Damien needed. Rhinohide barely had time to sputter one final curse before the boss collapsed on top of them and all four were enveloped in a perfect sphere of opaque green light.
When the dust settled, Damien was quite alone. He blinked, not quite believing what he’d just accomplished. It was only when he tentatively checked his stats that the enormity of what he’d done sank in. Out of the nine players in the raid, he’d only failed to claim experience for one. In addition to the eight players he’d managed to damage before their deaths, he’d also managed to steal experience for the boss. He didn’t know whether he’d shared it with the three players who had been killed in the aftermath of the golem’s death, but either way the rewards of his labors were clear to see.
He’d entered the dungeon at level 10. Now he was level 17.
20
To the Victor, the Spoils
Damien whistled slowly.
“Wow…”
He’d never heard of anyone leveling up so quickly, aside from players being boosted when they’d just started the game. He’d achieved this all by himself. Seven levels in five minutes was absurd.
Shiny clouds of soul energy hung above his victims and he felt like he’d just woken up on Christmas morning. There was enough soul energy here to fill his Soul Well twice over! Too bad he had no way to store the excess. On top of that, there was still looting to be done. Damien reached out to touch Rhinohide’s charred remains while thinking ‘loot’.
The warrior's body was immediately replaced with a bountiful brown sack, tied at the top with golden rope. Rather than emptying the bag, Damien repeated the process with all the players' remains, turning the battlefield from a macabre open graveyard to a glorious collection of loot bags, each filled with the promise of unknown rewards for his endeavors. He’d receive a random item of equipped gear from each of them, as well as a small portion of their materials and gold, if they had any.
He quickly checked to make sure his headset had been recording and was delighted to confirm it had caught the entire battle. As soon as he decided to declare against Aetherius, this would get everyone’s attention very nicely. For now, though, he had better get a move on. He knew the bags would last for about an hour before they faded away, but he had no idea how long the soul energy might linger.
First things first. He pointed at the ground and re-summoned Noigel. The imp spun through at speed and twisted in mid-air, his wings stabilizing his movement with cat-like reflexes to land him on his feet. He quickly surveyed the scene in front of them to confirm all the targets had been eliminated before standing at ease, throwing Damien a thumbs up. Damien returned the gesture in kind before going into his Stat page.
He had 35 unallocated stat points. Damien thought about it, but not for long. There was only one trait he really needed to grow, and that was his Soul Summon Limit. He dumped all his points into wisdom.
Account Name: Damien Arkwright
Class: Occultist
Level: 17
Health: 410/410
Stamina: 410/410
Mana: 783/1210
Stats:
Strength 26 - Agility 56 - Intelligence 26
Constitution 41 - Endurance 41 - Wisdom 121
Stat points: 0
Experience: 3598/17000
Soul Summon Limit: 1/14 - Soul Reserve: 9/10 (0/1)
Damien’s grin became a little broader. The increase to his Soul Summon Limit was a touch more than he’d expected. The boost in stats had been high enough to push his Soul Reserve up a whole two points as well, combining with the Soul Slot in the dagger for a maximum total of el
even.
As for the loot, he wanted to make sure he gathered every single resource he could. He took a brief look into his skill tree to double-check how his portal worked. It very specifically stated that if he passed through his own portal it would close. It didn’t say anything about demons. The gears turned in his head and it wasn’t long before he had a plan.
Filling his empty troop roster with imps still didn’t come close to using all the souls available to him right now. Gathering souls, he’d found, could be a slow process, a check on the occultist’s power. Yet not everyone could be expected to wipe out a raid group alone. He had to pause to regenerate mana after the ninth imp, but at least his high wisdom had also increased his mana regen.
Imps parading around the chamber, Damien pointed at the floor and activated the gateway. The portal that appeared was just like those he’d seen his minions using so regularly, only this one had his base on the other side.
“All forces, carry the loot bags back to my base for inspection and bind yourselves to my Soul Well. Clear?”
The imp battalion immediately went to work. They followed his instructions perfectly, gathering up the bags and carrying them away into the portal. Damien kept an eye on his minion count, watching it drop as the imps bound themselves to his base.
After ten of them had gone through, the remaining four stopped and looked at Damien. He was halfway through repeating his instruction when he realized what had happened: his Soul Well had hit full capacity. The new one had a maximum capacity of 20 souls, but he hadn’t embedded any new souls in it since the upgrade. 10 would have to do. He closed the portal to preserve his mana, waiting a few more minutes for it to regenerate, then summoned a new team to repeat the process. This time he recruited two hell hounds and a wraith, as well as one final imp to bring his Soul Summon Limit back to full. There were still a few souls left behind after his Soul Reserve had refilled, but he’d done as well as he was able.
Damien now had a full count of 14 minions at his back, a team of ten imps attached to the Soul Well in his base and a full Soul Reserve. He took one last look around before ordering his team through a new portal, passing through it himself last. As he set foot on the raised stone platform housing his Gateway, the portal closed behind him with a squeaky pop.
The base was usually quiet and dark, but the enflamed hell hounds were lighting it up and the imps had scattered themselves across the room to dance, sing and fly, sometimes all at once. The wraith Damien had summoned quietly retreated to the darkest corner, immune to the imp revelry. His base had turned into a satanic frat house party.
Bartholomew was standing next to the Soul Well in plain view as he examined the huge pile of loot, his face a mixture of surprise and pride. It was the first time Damien had spotted Bartholomew before Bartholomew spotted him. Another victory!
Damien slipped down the stairs past his minions and lightly tapped Bartholomew on the back of the head.
“So, how did I do?”
Bartholomew turned, his mouth working between a grimace and a smile, but he couldn’t even pretend to be angry. A window popped up next to his head, looking uncannily like a speech-bubble:
‘Your reputation with the Occultist faction has risen to ‘Honored’.
It was about time he got a bit of recognition around here. The window faded and he looked back at Bart to find he’d grown an unsettlingly warm smile. It really was quite disturbing.
“I can see why you had little interest in accepting quests from me this morning. Well done. Don’t let me keep you; it looks like you have some base management to attend to. Not to mention examining your spoils of war.”
Damien nodded and stood in front of his hoard of treasures, trying to decide which one he would open first. He was grateful for the loot bag system. It made life considerably less gruesome than if he had to rummage for goods in dead people’s pockets. Yeesh. No thanks.
He went for the bag the boss had dropped first, easily distinguished by its larger size. The cloth unraveled itself to reveal a small pile of gold coins, a block of glowing green ore that Damien would’ve run away from in real life and a clunky war hammer with excellent stats. Damien sighed. Not only was the war hammer too high level for him, but it was also a strength-based weapon. Too bad. It would’ve been nice to get a weapon upgrade. While it wasn’t quite as useful as new gear, at least it looked big enough to provide the iron for Bart’s quest quota all by itself. The glowing rock was a mystery. He’d never seen anything like it.
“That’s an interesting item you have there.”
Bartholomew had silently followed him to examine his hoard, his voice coming from directly over Damien’s shoulder.
“Which? The green rock?”
Bartholomew picked it up in the palm of his hand and brought it up to his nose socket for closer inspection.
“I believe I can turn this into a magical artifact for you.”
Whoa, really?
Damien knew some bosses dropped rare items that could be turned into powerful trinkets, but he’d never been able to test it in his offline beta. Even the low-level elite dungeon bosses were too powerful to be taken on alone, and the drop rates for magical crafting materials were very low.
“Great! Go for it!”
Bartholomew turned it over in his hand before eyeing the gold on the other side of it greedily.
“It will, of course, require a small fee. One hundred gold coins should cover the expenses, plus my time.”
Damien looked at the pile of gold sitting on his Soul Well and a number appeared over it. It was a hundred and twenty-six gold coins exactly. Had it been two hundred and twenty-six gold coins, he was pretty sure Bartholomew would have asked for two hundred gold. It didn’t really matter. The artifact he created would have a unique ability on it and could be worth hundreds of times more.
“All right, Bartholomew. Take the gold and make me the artifact, please.”
Bartholomew removed a purple bag, inlaid with golden summoning sigils matching those on the gateway, and set about clawing the vast majority of Damien’s wealth into it. Oh, well. It wasn't as though he could have popped into a shop in Camelot and used it himself, anyway. Perhaps having a class trainer who could craft items was supposed to compensate for the occultists' inability to enter towns or trade with local NPCs. Bartholomew picked a last coin off the tabletop and Damien was left with twenty-six gold.
“Oh, and it will take me forty-eight hours to finish crafting the item.”
The vampire floated away, leaving Damien to grumble alone. Still, it was something to look forward to. If it was really good, it could be one of the permanent artifacts that some of the players had, with skills so powerful they could be incorporated into their playstyles. That was worth any price.
Damien picked through the rest of the gear and piled up all the useless equipment on one side, taking the additional gold into his inventory and leaving anything he wasn’t sure about in a second miscellaneous pile. He was about halfway through when he found something worthy of consideration: a dagger with a vicious curved blade the length of his forearm, sharp on the edge with a cruelly serrated spine. He picked it up for inspection.
Shankyou’s Striking Dagger
Level Requirement: 19
Durability: 23/50
Damage: 50 + (Agility x 0.5)
Stats: 30 Agility
Description: A dagger designed to pierce deep with the sharp edge before the serrated spine tears muscles and ruptures organs as it is withdrawn. Business up front, party in the back.
Special Ability: When this dagger is drawn out after a piercing strike, it deals an extra 50% of its damage.
Damien read the description and the special ability several times before depositing the dagger in his backpack. Shankyou had good taste. Until he hit the level requirement, though, it would be slightly less useful in his hands than his trusty shattered rib. It might take a little longer before Damien reached level 19, but it would be worth the wait. Especially since he
could use a dagger in each hand.
There were a few other pieces of above-average gear, but nothing Damien could effectively use. With all the bags looted and the metal items piled at his feet, Damien checked Bartholomew’s quest to see how close it was to completion.
‘Rock? Heavy Metal! - Gather twenty (0/20) units of iron ore.’
Damien blinked. There were definitely more than twenty units of iron here. Maybe it needed to be refined? How was he supposed to do that without access to a blacksmith? Setting the quest aside for now, he examined his Soul Well to see if he could upgrade it yet.
Soul Well II
Health: 200
Soul Capacity: 10/20
Upgrade Available! Soul Well III
Requirements: 30 stone blocks, 10 iron bars, full Soul Capacity (20/20)
Great. Now he needed iron even more. He was just about to give up and go to Bartholomew for help when he felt something tugging at his trouser leg. He looked down to find an imp had split from the festivities and was vying for his attention.
“Hey, Noigel. I’m a bit busy right now.”
Noigel was undeterred. With one hand he continued pulling at Damien’s leg while the other beckoned him to come closer with a twisting finger. Damien sighed and lowered himself to one knee.
“Look, Noigel, you did great today, but I don’t have much time and I have t—”
“Open your menu, scroll down to the Structures tab and construct a Demon Forge. Then you can smelt the equipment into purified bars and collect on Bartholomew’s quest.”
Damien stared at the creature googly-eyed. He knew Noigel could speak in theory but had gotten so used to watching him communicate in pantomime that the sudden eloquence came as a bit of a shock. The imp’s eyes flashed as he noted Damien’s surprise before he reached forward to pat him on the head.