by Jez Cajiao
I used the momentum to flip myself up to my feet and stabbed out, getting a glancing blow on the nearest Drow’s thigh, before barely parrying a thrust from my left, where the Drow whose legs I’d swept got back into the fight.
The goddamn Drow were too fast; in close combat, without the element of surprise, one-on-one just couldn’t work, not without an equalizer…
I had only one point of mana and couldn’t use my newly learned ‘Mana-Overdrive’...it’d be over before it was useful, and I frantically tried to think while parrying a second and third attack.
Barrett screamed in pain as his opponent dodged his axe; the short spear the Drow wielded lanced forward and sank into his shoulder, punching through the gap between his breastplate and pauldron, making him drop his sword and grab at the wound.
I shoved Barrett back with my shoulder, pushing him back out of the way and off the spear, before lashing out with a quick snap kick at the Drow I’d been fighting. He took the hit, grunting as it connected with his leading knee, and slashed down into my leg as I pulled it back.
I staggered. The links of blackened chainmail in my leg armor crunched and split under the impact, and I backed up, gritting my teeth against the pain.
Oracle screamed in fury, flying forward to distract the Drow and making him swing at her reflexively.
She dodged, and backed up, hovering between us, and hissing at them like a scalded cat as I backed up further.
I could feel blood running down my leg. I knew instinctively I couldn’t put my weight on that leg properly now, and I saw the ‘bleeding’ debuff appear in my vision again, making me grit my teeth and check my mana…two points. It wasn’t enough!
I moved back again as the Drow I’d been facing off against lashed out with his sword, and the spear wielder moved to flank Jian as Lydia appeared, having been on the far side of the cavern when the fight started.
She barreled between Jian and I, screaming in fury as she saw her people being beaten back. The tank in her rose to the surface as she jumped at the spear wielder. Leading with her shield, she smashed her opponent from his feet as she put all of her armored bulk behind it.
The ‘boing’ sound of metal hitting the Drow echoed around the clearing, and Lydia grunted as her target fell to the floor and rolled back. He regained his feet with a growl of fury as he stepped back into the tunnel, fumbling in his pouches.
“Squad UP!” Lydia screamed, stepping forward and taking the sword strike from my opponent on her shield, while striking out at Jian’s target with her mace.
Her sudden arrival turned the tables for Jian drastically, as a raging wall of pissed off tank joined the fight.
The Drow she was facing dodged the mace strike, but couldn’t dodge both of Jian’s attacks, as he used a skill he’d gained from the books Oracle and I had given him.
‘Icewind’s Fury’ coated his blades in a layer of magical ice for a handful of seconds, magical winds speeding up his attacks as he landed a half dozen minor cuts in less than four seconds. His opponent leapt back, cursing as each cut added a ‘chilled’ debuff, reducing his speed by two percent.
I backed up further, gripping my thigh as blood ran from the wound, and saw Bane throw another dagger at the spear wielder. The dark elf ducked, then threw something back that landed just in front of his companions, shouting something that made them disengage immediately.
All three fled down the tunnel away from us as noxious green smoke rose from the shattered vial, and everyone backed up instinctively, Jian swearing up a storm as his ability ran out.
“Stop!” I shouted; gritting my teeth as I spoke through the pain.
“Poison!” Lydia confirmed, as she coughed, and backed up.
“How bad?” I asked and she spat on the floor, backing away further.
“Ten points a second for twenty seconds… almost half my pool.” she muttered, and I looked at her in surprise, realizing that meant she had over four hundred health, considering she was only level twelve, that was impressive.
“Okay, people, everyone stay back, but be ready!”
I called, and I looked over to Oracle, who hovered nearby, as a thought occurred to me. “Oracle, that bitch of a Drider was desperate to get somewhere, is there anything up high she could have been headed to?”
Oracle spun around, searching the ceiling and walls until she spotted a recess high up on one side.
“There,” she said, pointing. “There’s a lot of webs over there, but she kept the other two away from it, it might be…”
“Her stash.” I finished for her, nodding. “Get up and check it out please. If anyone had healing or mana potions in here, it’d be her.” As Oracle vanished up into the web-covered darkness, I turned back to the rest of the group.
“Barrett!” I said, and he looked over at me. “Are you okay?”
“Not so much,” he replied, gritting his teeth, and I checked my mana, five points…nowhere near enough. “Miren, get the healing potion and give it to Barrett.” I ordered, and immediately the prisoners started to complain, the older man going so far as to try to grab the potion before she could get it.
Bane was there in an instant, blades drawn and ready. Like Lydia, he’d been too far away to get involved in the fight and had to make do with throwing knives. Now, he slashed at the hand that reached for the potion, and the older caravanner jumped back with an oath.
“Are you crazy?!” he snapped at Bane, before turning to plead with me as Miren scooped up the potion and ran to Barrett. “Look, we can do a deal, okay? She needs that!”
“I can heal her.” I said, cutting him off with a shake of my head. “I’ve not got the mana right now, but when I recover it…”
“She could be dead by then!” he snapped, and I glared at him.
“And if we lose this next fight with the Drow, she will be! Barrett…drink the potion.” I ordered through gritted teeth, knowing the old man could see my leg.
“Aye sir.” Barrett said, before downing it. He stiffened as the healing rushed through him, knitting muscles and flesh together, pain flooding him for a few heartbeats before he sighed in relief.
“Now everyone get ready; those dickbags are out there somewhere, and we need to kill them.” I ordered, then called up to Oracle. “Anything?”
“I can’t tell. There are so many webs covering the entrance, and they’ve got magic in them, so I can’t just pass through…”
“Bane.” I snapped and he nodded. “Get your arse up there and help her.”
“Yes, Jax,” he said, rushing across the room to kick off the wall, grabbing onto a rocky protrusion and starting to climb.
“Lydia, Barrett, and Jian get ready by the tunnel. Miren, Stephanos, either side of them with your bows ready. Arrin, I want you with these assholes. If they try something like stealing a fucking healing potion we need again, burn them.” I snapped the orders out, making sure the caravanners heard the last ones. Some of them swallowed hard, while the grey-haired older man just looked pissed.
I hobbled to a stool that had been knocked over during the fighting and straightened it, sinking onto it with a groan as my leg bled some more. I looked down at my pants, seeing the bloody footprints I’d left in my wake, and the continual ‘bleeding’ status that told me I was losing one HP per second until I dealt with my wound.
I pulled the cinches on either hip and forced myself to my feet, dropping my pants, and getting a low whistle from Lydia.
“Yeah yeah…” I muttered, forcing a grin, knowing she was doing it to try and raise spirits after our little ass-kicking.
Before I could do anything else, Miren was there, setting her bow on the floor and pulling a bandage out of her pack to wind around my leg, pulling it tight and getting another groan from me.
“Best I can do…sorry Jax.” She whispered apologetically, and I shook my head, forcing my breath out between my teeth as I stood, letting her help me into my pants again as the bleeding debuff vanished.
“It’s what I needed,
Miren…thank you.” I said, catching my naginata as Arrin threw it over to me, having recovered it from the corpse of the Drider on his way to the prisoners.
“Cheers, dude,” I said, nodding to him, and I forced myself to walk over to stand closer to the webbing that Bane was climbing up to.
I checked my mana, finding that I was up to… six points of mana now, and I ground my teeth as the slow regeneration.
The debuff from using the Mana-overdrive was there, along with my lowered regeneration, and it was kicking my ass!
I moved back to stand with the others by the entrance to the tunnels and hefted my naginata, hoping we’d have time to get the team up to strength before the next round.
Bane reached the thick webs covering the recess and started cutting into them, swearing as he tried to saw them apart, when a loud whine sounded from the tunnel the Drow had fled down. Flashes in the distance, and then a loud explosion, echoed off the walls. Dust blew into our faces as the air hurtled towards us and screams of pain and fury rose in the distance.
We looked at each other in confusion before I started snapping out orders.
“Jian, Barrett…get those crates over here and arrange them in front of the tunnel. Lydia… you, Stephanos, and Miren keep watch… Bane! Get that stash found! Arrin, I want one firebolt down that tunnel right damn now. See how far you can get it before it hits something.”
Arrin fired his Firebolt off without his usual flare, the loss of his friend clearly weighing on him, and it flew down the tunnel to impact on a wall over a hundred meters away, illuminating a bend in the path.
“Okay, nothing coming yet, but be ready.” I muttered.
I stood alongside Lydia, naginata lowered and pointing toward whatever might try and attack us, when my notifications started flashing again, the speeded-up flashes and additional numerals on the image letting me know I’d just received several more…
I growled at the timing, but waited until Jian and the others had formed a small defensive wall out of the stolen shit in the tunnel, before moving out of the way and leaning against the wall behind some boxes to start pulling them up.
Congratulations! You have killed the following:
1x Drider for a total of 11,000xp
2x Drow soldiers for a total of 1,260xp
As leader, you receive a portion of the experience earned by troops when they fight under your command:
1x Drow Torturer for a total of 2,000xp
6x Drow Soldiers for a total of 9,600xp
2x Drow Spiderkin for a total of 10,400xp
Total party exp earned: 22,000xp
As party leader, you gain 25% of all experience earnt
Progress to level 15 stands at 125,703/140,000
Congratulations!
You have cleared ‘The Smugglers Path’ and have the prerequisite authority and abilities to claim this hidden location, adding it to your territory as an occupied base. As this location holds less than Ten (10) percent of sentients that are actively hostile to your rule, it can be claimed…
Do you wish to annex this territory now?
Yes/No
The last notification had me blinking in surprise, and I pulled up the quest notification…
It’d credited me with the deaths of the last three Drow, but comparing the experience list, I realized that we’d not gotten experience for them.
Congratulations!
You have completed a Quest from your Goddess: ‘Keep your Word’
You have given your word to an ancient Cave Spider Queen. Kill her enemies, grant her and her brood safety and food, and she will consider her Broken Oath to be renewed, binding her and all her brood to your orders and laws. You must kill thirty-five (35) Drow and their leader…
Drow Killed: 35/35
Locations Cleared: 3/3
Drow Leader Killed: 1/1
Reward: Oracle’s Freedom, Sworn Allegiance of One (1) Greater Cave Spider and her Brood, access to Cave Spider Silk, Cave Spider Nest Treasury and 62,500xp
Someone else had killed them, damn fast and noisy, and who or whatever it was, was headed this way.
At the end of the tunnel came a blue light, as a shimmering form stepped into view and started towards us, at the exact moment that Bane shouted down to me.
“I’m in! There’s a load of gear up here, including some potions, and…”
“Just get them and get down here!” I snapped at him, readying myself for another fight. The notifications had said there were less than ten percent actively hostile to me.
Was that a general notice, or a hint about how many were down here? I shook myself and dismissed the prompts without making a choice.
We had a half circle of boxes arranged a few feet back from the tunnel, giving us something to hide behind. I moved out ahead of the boxes to stand between them and the tunnel, with Arrin in the middle behind me, Miren and Stephanos on either side of him, and Lydia and Barrett flanking my right and left directly. Now that we had a chance to fall back behind cover if need be, I felt a little better about things, but judging from the swirling blue-white radiance that was approaching down the tunnel, we were facing at least one magic user…hence us being on this side of the barrier. At least we would be able to rush the fucker if we needed to.
I stood waiting, naginata in hand, breathing deeply as Bane clambered down the wall. Oracle had come to hover just behind my shoulder, and I listened to the quietly ragged breathing of my teammates while we watched the fucker approach.
It took just over a minute for the swirling light to resolve into a mage shield. The length it had been held alone served as a warning to the depths of their manapool, when they stopped, and a calm voice called out.
“We seek a truce!” The words echoed for a second, while I considered. Could this be a trick? A trap?
“Fuck it,” I muttered before raising my voice. “Then drop the shield and let us see you!” I called out.
“Do you give Oath that you do not intend an attack? Do you agree to a truce?” The voice came again, and I blinked, having never thought of this use for the Oaths. I looked to Oracle, who seemed shocked.
“What’s wrong?” I asked her, and she moved up alongside me.
“Ask them to swear their Oath by their name and by the Empire…” She whispered. “Offer yours as Acknowledged Scion of the Imperial Line.”
“I…I ask you to swear by your name…and by the Empire? I am Jax, Scion of the Imperial….”
“Acknowledged!” Oracle hissed and I glared at her, before going on.
“Jax, Acknowledged Scion of the Imperial Line…” There was a long pause, and I could hear muttering behind the shield before a different voice called out.
“I am Yen, Speculatores of the Dravith Cohortes Praetoriae, and I give Oath to a truce of one hour with Jax, who claims Acknowledged Scion of the Imperial Line.
“Say you accept the Oath and offer your own!” Oracle snapped quickly to me.
“I…uh…Accept the Oath given by Yen, and I offer my own, as Jax, Acknowledged Scion of the Imperial Line, to one hour of truce.”
I felt the dregs of my mana ripped from me, and Oracle hissed in pain as some was taken from her as well. I coughed blood up, staggering as pain ripped through me, and I saw my health drop by a third, but as I straightened, wondering what had gone wrong, the shield between us was dropped.
Three people stepped forward, two tall elves dressed all in greys and greens, and a thing that looked like an eagle with legs and leather armor. I stared at it for a long second before Oracle hissed at me, and I straightened up, looking back at them all.
They walked forward into the cavern, stopping and looking at our ready weapons pointedly, until I shook myself and snapped out an order to my team.
“Stand down, people. Bane, where the hell are those potions?”
“Here,” said Bane, stepping out from behind a box near the trio and walking over, ignoring their glares. He passed me a mana potion first and I bit down on the cork, pulling it out
and spitting it onto the floor before chugging it. Oracle went to work almost before I’d swallowed the last drops, channeling ‘Battlefield Triage’ into me with tremendous power, I stared in shock as my mana bar barely dipped, before refilling to full, and I grinned through gritted teeth as she went on, hitting Barrett and Bane next.
“It’s considered bad form to cast spells under a flag of truce, friend.” The first elf said, glaring at me.
“Aye, well, is it better or worse form to let people die while we talk?” I asked, gesturing to the wounded girl.
“Hmmm…”
“Exactly. Look, I don’t know who you are, beyond one of you is called Yen, but I’ve had a pretty shitty day so far, so why don’t you fill me in on who you are and what you want while I heal her, or we can just cancel the whole ‘truce’ thing and go back to killing each other?” I said, gesturing towards the girl strapped to the table at the back of the room.
I turned without waiting for an answer and walked in her direction, checking my mana levels.
“Bane, how many…” I started to ask before he threw a second potion to me.
I snagged it out of the air and looked at it, noting the filigreed silver chasing on the bottle and the thicker glass it was made from.
Greater Potion of Mana
Further Description Yes/No
Details:
This mana potion will restore 400 mana immediately, followed by a further 20 mana per second for 90 seconds.
Rarity
Magical
Durability
Charge:
Rare
Yes
99/100
N/A
“Damn…” I muttered seeing the strength of the potion, and I checked my mana, seeing it was rising steadily and was close to full again. I pocketed the potion and drew in a deep breath as I walked over to where the girl had started to make faint sounds, her Grandfather crouching down next to her.