Gary, his shield glowing white in front of him lunged at the large Racer. With a thunk when a furry head met steel, the pack leader was stunned, swaying like it was about to get hit with a Mortal Kombat fatality. Garath jumped back to avoid a mouthful of blood-stained teeth and jumped to land on top of the abandoned vehicle to his side. He stole a glance to check on Bill.
The Hound’s fight was all but over. The Racer he had been assigned to was bleeding on the ground, one limb short of a quartet. The Healthbar affixed to its head showed 24/640. Knowing that his Plague would finish it off, Garath sent Bill a mental command to aid Gary by attacking the larger Racer. Bill reluctantly dropped the hunk of meat-covered bone in his mouth and charged at his new target, gripping one of the pack leader’s hind legs with his long teeth.
It didn’t take long for Gary, Garath, Bill, and Handsome to mop up the small group of magically enhanced raccoons, though Gary’s involvement was limited to the single Shield Bash. When the last of the odd quadrupeds fell lifeless to the ground, Garath closed his eyes and bathed in the sweet power as the Experience Points flowed into him.
Begin combat log:
[you have been awarded 432 Experience Points for slaying Level 7 Racer]
[you have been awarded 432 Experience Points for slaying Level 7 Racer]
[you have been awarded 432 Experience Points for slaying Level 7 Racer]
[you have been awarded 370 Experience Points for slaying Level 6 Racer]
[you have been awarded 638 Experience Points for slaying Level 9 Racer Assailant]
End combat log.
He opened his eyes to Gary looking down at him like he was some kind of monster, knuckles white around the leather grip of his shield. Garath was confused. Why would Gary be afraid of him? He turned his head to see if there was an enemy he’d missed or something. Behind him, Bill was gnawing happily on a femur that he must have ripped off of one of the dispatched Racers while Handsome tore through hair, skin, and muscle with both gnarled hands to get at the pack leader’s heart. Then Garath understood Gary’s expression. He briefly considered dismissing his summoned demons for Gary’s sake, but ultimately decided against it. As far as he was concerned, Bill had earned every bit of the bone hanging out of his mouth and Handsome gained power from eating the hearts of monsters. No, he wasn’t going to slow his own progression, or that of his demons, just to save Gary from a little discomfort.
Gary continued staring, his expression turning from fear to genuine concern. “Are you feeling okay?”
Still in his adorable, fluffy white form, Garath looked back flat-faced at the bearded man. *I’m great. You don’t look so good though, honestly. Why don’t you head back to HQ? I’ll go check out the World Boss and let you know if it’s anything we need to worry about.*
Gary stayed silent for a long time.
*Something else on your mind, Gary?* Garath was getting frustrated with the judgmental ginger.
Gary’s face took on a still-worried, but speculative expression, as if he were trying to decide whether or not to tell Garath something. He unequipped his shield and sighed.
“No,” he said, looking down at the little white cat. “I guess not. Make sure to let somebody know if you need help, Garath. Nobody made it through The Culling without some scars, body or mind. That’s all I wanted to say. And if you need an ear to vent to, I’ve got a couple of good ones.”
The bearded man waited briefly for a response. When he saw he wasn’t going to get one, he nodded at Garath and took his leave. As he walked away, Garath found himself tempted to take the several thousand Experience Points he would get from killing the Armoron with his back turned. Gary couldn’t stop him and, being over a mile from HQ, nobody would know what he’d done. He could tell everyone the Racers got him. That’s when it hit Garath like a wrecking-ball-sized dragon cock to the face. The Tainted Soul effects had crept up on him in the time since he’d left the egg’s resting place atop the cliff. He hadn’t even noticed.
Quickly, Garath shifted out of the House Cat form that had racked up more soul taint than Britneys at a frat house for white trash bash. Once he was back in his natural form, Garath accessed his Items panel and retrieved his Refilling Pouch of Concentrated Crystillium. Even after downing the cloyingly sweet blue liquid and shifting into a less tainted form, the hunger for more power still tickled the back of his consciousness.
Closer to being in his right mind, Garath looked around at the gore-soaked street, and understood why Gary reacted the way he did. Five abnormally large raccoons lay motionless, still bleeding. They looked smaller now that he wasn’t seeing them from a cat’s eye level. They were still larger than any racoon he’d ever seen, but appeared much less menacing than he had perceived them to be only a few minutes before. Guilt stabbed him like a knife through the heart as he looked at the lifeless trash pandas lying dismembered all around him. With their fluffy tails and non-discriminating taste in food, raccoons had always been one of Garath’s favorite animals. Seeing them now, Garath couldn’t believe that he had just killed these creatures without a second thought, all for a few hundred Experience Points. A chilling reminder that he needed to keep himself in check.
With great effort to pull himself together, Garath reminded himself why he was there. He looked to the sky and located the column of smoke that would guide him to his destination, then turned to his minions.. He turned back to check on his summoned demons before they made their way to the World Boss.
“Handsome, stop that! Are you freaking kidding me?” he said aloud with both arms held out wide. The gruesome little demon was working his way through the ribs of a third Racer, blood dripping down his chin and onto blue-tinted skin stretched tight over a too-full belly. “How are you supposed to fly if you eat all that? I’m going to have to carry you to the World Boss!”
Handsome stopped what he was doing just as he got a grip on the third heart and was pulling it from the Racer’s chest cavity. The Flayer looked up at his summoner. Confused innocence looked comically out of place on his hideous face. For a moment, the Necrologist and his demon just held eye contact. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, Handsome raised the heart toward his mouth. Garath folded his arms and Handsome stopped moving entirely, but his bulbous eyes pleaded.
“Oh fuck it. Go ahead,” he conceded. “But I’m putting you back in my brain for a few hours so you can sleep that shit off.”
Chapter Four – Emissary
With a full-bellied Handsome sleeping soundlessly within the confines of his mind, Garath , still in his human form, and Bill picked their way through the broken city toward the mysterious pillar of smoke. Garath moved casually, his mind preoccupied with what he could do to counter the soul tainting effects while Bill scouted ahead. After a quarter hour of maneuvering around long-dead car fires and broken asphalt, they finally caught sight of their quarry. It was not at all what Garath had been expecting.
Like the icon on the world map, Rum’bah resembled a massive turtle. The armored reptile was even larger than Aldrasyl, with a burnt orange shell and a long, hooked nose. The smoke that had led Garath to the gargantuan turtle was not coming from the monster itself, he noticed, but rather was rising to the sky in its wake. Behind the turtle and the smoke, a variety of flora completely foreign to Garath was sprouting into existence and growing at an unnatural rate from the ashes left behind by the World Boss. The Necrologist triggered Inspect.
Rum’bah
Emissary of Vy’thishrak
Health: 43,000/43,000
Level: 20
Station: World Boss
Mana: 200/200
Description: An Emissary of Vy’thishrak, dispatched to spread the life of The Tower to all of Vy’thishrak territory.
Garath was pretty sure he could take the big monster down. As slow moving as it was, Garath would be able to avoid its attacks indefinitely and defeat it with DoT spells.
He forced himself to take a step back, and consider whether attacking the emissary was something he should
do.
The last thing his soul needed was more corruption. But it occurred to him that his Crow form hadn’t been tainted at all to that point. He made a mental note to acquire more BeastScape forms in order to always have an untainted option, at least until he figured out a more long-term solution.
The familiar tingle at the back of his neck spread over his rapidly shrinking body, Garath’s arms lengthened into wings and black feathers sprouted to replace his skin and worn clothing. With a forward run and a few flaps of his wings the Necrologist took to the sky, landing a moment later on a bent telephone pole. He watched from his perch as Bill ran toward the monster, barking and growling as Rum’bah continued his painfully slow march north, unconcerned at the demon dog’s approach.
With a thought, Garath dismissed Bill back into his mind. His very clear mind, he noticed. For the first time in recent memory, the lust for greater power was completely absent. As any good gamer would, Garath still had the drive to improve his character, himself in this case, but he was now able to differentiate the healthy desire for improvement from the murderous lust that often threatened to overtake his rational mind. It was a relief to know he could still tell the difference. Garath made a mental note to shift into Crow form if he found himself tempted to murder someone he considered a friend for something as easy to come by as Experience Points in the future.
From his perch, Garath was able to gather a much clearer picture of exactly what this Emissary from Vy’thisrak was up to. Big Mac crushed and burned everything he landed on with each massive step forward. From the ashes of destruction left in his wake, countless young trees, ferns, flowers, and other flora that Garath couldn’t put a name to rose from the charred earth, leaving a world of green growth and new life in the wake of the huge, armored reptile.
For the better part of an hour, Garath watched in wonder as the foliage that had only just entered the world grew into a verdant forest, dense with every shade of green and a myriad of other colors speckled throughout the underbrush. With the eyes of a crow, he could even make out tiny creatures flitting about between the quickly growing stems and trunks.
He wouldn’t attack this creature. Even if he could defeat the World Boss by himself. It wasn’t a life-taker like the monsters of The Culling had been. If left to his task, Rum’bah would take care of the health concerns caused by the thousands of rotting corpses before they ever became a problem. There was one foreseeable complication though - the huge turtle was headed straight for BoTH HQ.
Considering its agonizingly slow pace, Garath’s best guess was that the massive turtle would make it to the old brick building in around four hours. It was a rough guess, but he was fairly sure they had a minimum of at least two hours to get everyone out of Rum’bah’s way if need be. He hoped that wouldn’t be the case. It would be a shame to lose the building that had kept them safe throughout The Culling, and that The Band had made their home in the time since. Garath wouldn’t condone any course of action that would lead to a fight with the big turtle, though. Not even if it meant losing BoTH HQ.
Garath spread his black wings and took off, leaving Rum’bah to his work and heading back to HQ. As he flew north, Garath’s sharp Crow eyes caught sight of an osprey scanning the waters below for prey. Garath had always been a big fan of the graceful aerial hunters native to his home, and this was his chance to unlock the BeastScape form.
He banked left, nosing down slightly for the extra bit of speed. As he neared the osprey, Garath slowed to watch as it moved easily over the Pacific. He didn’t want to get too close, knowing the agile predator could easily outrun him if it chose to, but he’d have to get close enough to make eye-contact. The osprey dove toward the water, and Garath saw his chance. He broke into a dive as well, quickly losing altitude on an intercept course. The osprey smashed into the water with its clawed talons extended, reaching for its lunch as Garath pulled out of his own dive a few feet above the water’s surface. The osprey, lunch in hand, flapped its wings wildly to get back into the air. That’s when it locked eyes with the crow uncharacteristically skimming the ocean’s surface.
Congratulations, Garath! You have unlocked the BeastScape form - Osprey.
***See the BeastScape partition of your MENU panels for additional information.
It was a bummer that Garath didn’t get a Class synergy with his new BeastScape form, but he figured not every form he unlocked would be synergistic with a Necrologist. The fact that the first two forms he’d unlocked were both synergistic with his Class was a like gift from the Gods of Machina. If nothing else, at least now he had a new go-to form to get from A to B as fast as possible, without a single soul-taint.
A short flight northeast, and Garath landed back in the comforting presence of his planted egg atop the cliff overlooking the Pacific. He shifted back into his natural form and willed his MENU panels into existence. He pulled up his Friend list and drafted up a message to everyone that had been in the Raid group, as well as the ‘bimbo sisters’ that were unable to join the Raid group before Garath dissolved it. The message was simple: Danger heading for HQ. Meet me in the main hall in an hour.
Chapter Five – Manifest Destiny
It was late afternoon and the main hall of BoTH HQ was filled with sound. The majority of the remaining population of what had once been a thriving city were packed into the cavernous room. Families and small groups talked together sitting on couches, love seats, tables, and desks, all arranged to face the back of the room. Brandon’s Crow, Dave, flew overhead, swooping low when his Tamer tossed a morsel in the air for him to catch. Garath could smell the growing anxiety filling the room. It was time to say what he came to say.
The Necrologist expected to feel nervous as he stepped up onto a long oak table in front of the buzzing crowd. He'd never had a problem with public speaking, but he always had to fight back a bit of anxiety. This time, however, there wasn’t a single butterfly in his stomach. He felt more confident than he ever had. Dismissing the sudden confidence as just another unspecified perk from his Leader of Man status, Garath lifted his hands and the noise quieted.
"Thank you for coming," he started, raising his voice and projecting to the far side of the room. "I asked you all to come because there are a few things we need to talk about."
Questions started pouring out of the crowd. "What happened with Leviathan?" one person asked.
"Did he leave?" another shouted.
"No way!" came a third voice over the rising ruckus, "G took him out, didn't you G?"
Garath raised his hands again in a plea for silence. The effects of the tainted soul had been creeping forth from the back of his mind since he left the comforting presence of the egg buried in the soil on the clifftop. The egg that seemed so far away now, as he stood over the small crowd in the main hall of HQ. He saw everyone in front of him, sitting at attention with their Healthbars affixed to their heads. He inhaled deeply through his mouth and could almost taste the Experience Points contained within their still-breathing bodies; he craved the feeling of his Plague draining the life from them. He knew he could always shift back into Crow form if the murderous urges got too strong, but felt that he could keep himself together for a few more minutes. It was time to get to the point.
"I'm not here to talk about Leviathan,” he told them frankly.
“Your message said there was a potential danger?” a woman asked from a couch where she sat with her two children and her husband, TodoroKen. Garath checked her nameplate to refresh his memory when he couldn’t remember her name. Heather#1417.
“Right,” he nodded. “Thanks for reminding me, Heather. Some of you may have noticed the smoke pillar to the south. I went to check it out. It’s coming from something called a World Boss, and it’s headed this way.”
The worried murmurs grew, and Garath worried he might lose control of the conversation. He raised his hands again, patting the air in front of him to quiet the crowd.
“That’s just the bad news, though. The good news is that I do
n’t think it’s particularly hostile. It’s been burning away the wreckage of everything in its path and new plants are growing from the ashes. The other good news is that by creating a Guild, we can make this building into a Guild Hall. There are a lot of details, but I’ll keep it simple. By creating a specific type of Guild, we can make the Guild Hall what the system called ‘inviolate’. I’m not positive, but I am pretty sure that’ll keep everyone safe as long as we stay inside as it passes. It’s coming at us from the south, so we’ll get the Guild set up to make the building a safe zone, then have everyone wait at the north end of the building to see what happens when it gets here. Ideally, it’ll just go around us, but if not, we’ll head out the north doors and figure it out from there. Like I said, it’s moving very slowly so we’ll have time to get out of its path if we need to. Any questions before I move on to the next topic?”
An older man with a round belly and a bristly mustache stood up to speak. Garath recognized him as the contrarian asshole that had given him some flack about being this group’s so-called leader during The Culling.
“Pardon me for not being comforted when you say that you think,”—the man, Phil, raised his hands in exaggerated air quotes—“that it ‘isn’t particularly hostile.’ I don’t think I’m alone when I say that I think it’s a bad idea to wait here and keep our fingers crossed that your half-baked plan keeps us all alive.”
The Tree of Ascension: A LitRPG Apocalypse (Peril's Prodigy Book 2) Page 4