Unbound Deathlord: Challenge

by Edward Castle

  Ted had pure panic in her voice.

 

 

 

 

  Shai extended her hand to me, and I quickly ducked out of her field of view. Being pulled close to her wasn't in my plans.

  Bear yelled.

  I looked in time to see a small crystal being thrown at us from downstairs. Bear leaped and kicked it back in the hole. The resulting explosion created a blaze that went a few meters up in the air.

  Ted was getting more and more stressed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

  Bear shrugged.

  I said.

  A shadow appeared from the stairs, moving ridiculously fast. It bypassed Bear's sword swing – an incredibly fast reaction from him that surprised me as much as the sudden appearance of the enemy – and came directly at me.

  My first reaction was to put my shield on the way, but that would make it too easy for me to be thrown from the terrace. Instead, I threw a fireball to make the shadow dodge and jumped ahead, right after the spell.

  It worked. The shadow ducked, and while I jumped, I also moved my fireball to hit the enemy. My bow would be useless at close range, and I swung it at the shadow as I passed by it, to try and get some more distance between us.

  That didn't work. It dodged the fireball again, slapped the bow away from my hand, and I felt my body be seized. The shadow positioned itself behind me, and I felt the cold edge of a blade at my neck.

  "Don't move!" She yelled.

  Daggers voice was music to my ears.

  Ted pointed an arrow at us. Her hands were shaking like hell.

 

  Bear said.

 

 

  Ted lowered the bow and Bear turned back to watch the stair.

  "Hey, Daggers! I have your purse with me. I had to sell your stuff, but I have your money. Kind of. I invested it, but I'm sure I can give it back to you soon enough."

  "Why did you kill me?" She asked.

  I had no idea what she was talking about.

  "That's a tough one. Can I ask Ted for some help?"

  "No! Just answer me!" I felt the blade penetrate my skin a little and received five points of damage.

  "Ted! There's this girl I know. I saved her, and almost got killed for the way I did it. Then I got publicly flogged for it. Later, I trusted her with my money and asked for no receipts. Right after that, I developed contingencies in my tactics inside a labyrinth so that she wouldn't die. But then, I'm not sure how, I killed her. I'm pretty confident she never saw my face, but for some reason, she thinks I did it. So, any ideas why I'd try to kill her?"

  "Money?" My specter friend wasn't helpful.

  "Remember when I saved her ass? I risked losing all my money doing that, but still went ahead with the saving part."

  "An item she has?"

  I complained in my mind. "I have a legendary circlet on my head." Her eyes popped; Bear knew about it – telling him had been a test of sorts – but Ted didn't. "There, just told it to you. Because I trust you. Anyway, I have it. And she didn't even have a rare item. Except for the cloak, maybe."

  "A legendary circlet? Don't bullshit me!" Ted half-yelled.

  "So, Daggers, as you can see, it makes no damn sense for me to have killed you. Are you going to kill me and loot my body already, or are you going to join the fun? We have lots of people to kill and not enough weapons for that."

  "No, seriously." The specter came close. "Can I see it?" She extended her hand.

  "After the Challenge. Remember when I told you to loot my body and hide if I died? Yeah, also don't forget my rings. Daggers?"

  "I have orders to kill you, sir."

  I felt the tension leave my body and sighed. 'Sir'; that was a lovely word. I had missed it.

  "Whoever gave you those orders is an idiot."

  "I also have orders to deliver you alive to someone else, sir." She took the point of her dagger out of my neck.

  "Huh?"

  "Manhart, sir. He contacted me and gave me a quest to get you to him."

  "Well, that's interesting. Are you going to do that?"

  "If you want, sir. You did save my life, and I saved yours. We are brothers-in-arms now."

  "Damn right we are." I invited her to the party.

  Daggers (level 19)

 

  HP: 485 / 485

  MP: 170 / 170

  Stamina: 284 / 300

 

 

 

  There was another big boom and the building shook again.

  This damn battle is stopping my great lines from being delivered!

  I chanced to look down and saw Shai dismount and enter the building. She had thrown all her spears, and there were five clear paths of gore on the battlefield.

  The number of players had been halved by now. The drow had only lost about twenty of its members, and so had the ghosts. I noticed they didn't attack each other, nor did Dakar's ghouls. The assholes were helping each other kill the players.

  Of the players, only the Zombies 4 Life were doing well. They had lost about fifteen members, but those who were still alive looked very healthy, eating people and tanking attacks like crazy. I even saw one of them eat a Blackguard. That Feral shit was good.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  Bear snapped and looked my way.

 

 

  He ran to the edge.

 

 

 

 

  "STOP!" The yell was like a million male voices screaming, it was so loud it hurt. Putting my hands over my ears, I looked at its source.

  Seven elven specters, all in golden robes with crowns of different colors – purple, red, green, translucent white, blue, black and light gray – were close to the Catacombs. They were blond and had completely white eyes. They floated about ten meters from the ground, even though they had whole bodies.

  Each of them
had twenty morbs of the same color of their crowns: gravity, fire, earth, air, water, darkness, and death.

  Ted was panicking more than ever.

  "We contacted the drow leaders, and they don't officially recognize you, rogue Blackguards." All seven of them spoke as one, moving their mouths in perfect synchronization. "We contacted the firebound deathlords, and they told us of your treachery, Blademaster Shai. And we never ordered a charge, traitor specters. Surrender now and we will strip you of your possessions, but allow you to leave."

  Someone screamed. All of us had stopped to look at the sound of millions of voices, but the feral zombies had just kept eating.

  "You made your choice."

  I saw all Blackguards, ghouls, and ghosts retreat at once. I saw Shai leave the building in a hurry, jump on her lizard and flee.

  And I heard a song.

  "Fire, Holy Fire,

  Destroyer, Purifier,

  Come, my Raging Child,

  Caress the sinners,

  With your painful love,

  Fire."

  Now only one of the Mage Kings spoke, but it was as loud as the million voices had been. It was also in a strange language that I didn't know, yet somehow understood. When the Fire King stopped speaking, all twenty of his morbs merged and flew like lighting, hovering right above the Slums.

  "Divine Purging Rain of Fire."

  The merged morb expanded in a beat and became a ball the exact size of the slums.

 

  Creating a second death morb, I pulled everyone with me and ran to the stairs.

  The fire got to us on the way there. It poured and burned, and I heard thousands of people screaming, including all of us in the terrace.

  100 divine fire damage received

  HP: 460 / 620

  The damage repeated itself each second, as the fire kept coming. I healed Ted twice, but she would die nevertheless. Then I saw Daggers icon move incredibly fast on the minimap, together with Ted's. They got inside; then Daggers came back, and I felt her grab me and pull.

  She threw me at the stair opening. Fire still kept pouring through the opening, but inside the building the damage it dealt was halved. Ted was running to the General's room.

  She ignored me and kept going.

  Five seconds after the fire started, it ended. The pain was ridiculous, but I forced myself to create more death morbs. Bear dropped from the opening, his helmet gone – probably thrown somewhere after he had started boiling inside it – screaming in pain.

 

  We had to leave. If Shai had fled, we had no chance staying in here.

  I healed myself three times before a new voice sang.

  "Life-giver,

  Life-maintainer,

  Soft, gentle,

  Swift, cruel,

  Water."

 

  I pushed her to the zombie, and I jumped over her, healing myself once more.

  "Divine Ever-Growing Ice Forest."

  The temperature dropped and out of nowhere I felt cold spikes enter my back.

  All around us, coming from the floor and ceiling and walls, appearing from thin air, were ice spikes. They formed and melted away ridiculously fast, piercing my body for a hundred damage per second, completely ignoring my armor.

  The world of pain ended five seconds later, and I forced myself to create death morbs.

  Ted was dead. She had died with a horrifying scream.

  We had fought together enough for her to know better than to run away from the group, but we had never faced such odds; some people were not cut out for this kind of battle.

  Only then did I realize that Daggers was still full HP. Bear had a little more than three hundred, and I had slightly less than a hundred.

 

 

 

 

  Bear said, visibly in pain.

  Daggers asked.

 

  That's the internet for you, destroying secrets since forever.

  I healed myself two times and Bear once before another male sang.

  "Unseen, yet everywhere,

  Caresser of all,

  Creator of mountains,

  Deliverer of rains,

  Forever blowing,

  Forever going,

  Air."

  I managed to heal myself once more and tensed, waiting for the skill name.

  "Divine Hurricane."

 

  He obeyed just in time. The ceiling was blown away by a strong wind, and we soon found ourselves being lifted from the floor.

  The world spun. Bear held firmly while my own hands slipped away from him. All around us, flying in the hurricane, were hundreds of bodies, metal, and items. People still screamed, but the sound was muffled by the wind that cut through our body, for fifty damage per second.

  And five seconds later, it ended.

  We were free falling from tens of meters high, spinning all the way down.

  Bear opened his arms.

  Whatever he did, worked. We hit the ground feet-first, in excruciating pain, and fell on him right after that. Daggers HP was halved for being in the middle, but it was better than the alternatives.

  I healed myself once to remove the 'crippled legs' status and did the same for Bear. Nothing to be done for Daggers' legs, though.

  We got up, Bear picked Daggers up, and we ran like hell under a rain of debris.

 

  A large chunk of stone dropped in front of us, and we had to circumvent it.

 

  A body hit the ground right beside us.

 

  "Like the Mother,

  You hold us in the arms of existence,

  Protecting us from the oblivion of nothingness,

  The holder of time,

  Gravity."

  We tried.

 

  Nothing happened. Not to us, at least. I stopped running and looked back.

  Everything in a wide area was being pulled towards a tiny purple sphere. Bodies, live people, metal from the stalls, parts of stone buildings, weapons, shields, armor, even the ground.

  People screamed as they were pulled. Bodies imploded, and the blood was pulled into the sphere instead of splashing away. It created a terrifying giant ball which lasted five seconds, then everything dropped.

  A big wave of blood covered everything.

  I turned and resumed my run.

 

  The more we ran, the fewer people we saw. Only a few were running that I could see.

  "Strong,

  Firm,

  Earth."

 

  "Divine Tomb."

  The earth swallowed everything. As if the ground had become liquid and grown hands, it consumed everything in a it was a roiling chaos of earth. A few seconds later, nothing remained. After five seconds, the earth became solid again.

  It was as if the Slums had never existed.

  "We allow you to run. Let it be known that the Catacombs are sovereign a
nd will not idly sit while destruction rampages through our territory. We will not sit idly while the drow scheme with deathlords, and the vampires search for alliances with zombies."

  The one million voices were even louder now. The next words were full of rage.

  "Let it be known, that we formally declare war against Serharn, against Ashsom, and against Dakar. You are diseases in Valia's bloodstreams, and we will erase you."

  Turning back, they floated to the invisible walls of the Catacombs and disappeared.

  And that was it.

  All my carefully laid plans, destroyed.

  All the loot I planned to obtain, gone.

  All the glory for starting a huge battle and surviving casually swept away by overpowered ghosts.

  The sound of people crying came slowly to me. Perhaps a hundred men and women were standing or sitting in the cave chamber, all in terrible condition. Torn clothes, missing limbs, burnt skin.

  Except for one person in immaculate black armor, who had a fist extended my direction and held an impossibly familiar black bastard sword in her hands.

  Status effect received: Eager Duelist (level 2)

  You have been challenged to a duel and failed to refuse it.

  You must stay within 10 meters of your challenger until one of the conditions are met:

  » 4 minutes, 59 seconds have passed

  » You have killed the challenger

  I healed myself. She ran at me.

 

 

  I did and looked at our HP.

  Jack Thorn

  HP: 136 / 620

  Daggers

  HP: 273 / 485

  Bear

  HP: 234 / 1720

  It was pretty obvious we'd die. I could at least try to save my pals and my items.

  Putting my hands behind my head, I knelt.

  "I surrender! Just let them go!"

  Shai's way of acknowledging my surrender was to put her sword in a horizontal position and yell at me.

  "You killed me, unbound! I will end your miserable existence today!"

 

  Only gaming rules had prevented my items from being blown away by the wind. I took my shield from my back and held it in front of me.

  65 shock + 0 darkness damage received