Barbara spun, her sword flashing when it cut into the glob, a small spray of acid hitting her. “I got it, focus on the healing,” she hissed and turned back to Zimoc, her shield just catching the bone club he swung at her.
George stepped back again and cast a heal onto Barbara, noting the debuff that had appeared on her. “Deadly Acid…” his words trailed off as he tried to figure out what it meant. He saw that she had two stacks, but he only had one, and there was no timer for the debuff to fall off naturally. “The globules put a debuff on you if they damage you,” he shouted to the others. George tried to cleanse the debuff off Barbara, but failed to do so with both Remove Poison and Remove Curse. “I can’t cleanse it!”
“Useless Priest,” Geoff snarled as he continued to chain cast Death Bolts. “At least keep her alive.”
Kim went past Geoff with three globs trailing after her very slowly, having been affected by one of her traps. “Mind the edges of the room,” Kim snapped as she went by. “I need the space to kite.”
Rolland waited for the globs to all reach the floor, casting Icy Gust to slow all the mobs’ movement and attack speeds. “On cooldown,” he shouted out to Kim, who gave him a nod and tossed another trap behind her.
Managing to get his ability to speak back, Zimoc growled at Barbara. “Now you shall know darkness.” With a couple of guttural words, he inflicted Blindness on the party. “Now flail as you might. You shall suffer for your impudence.”
Rolland could feel the length of the magic that hung on him. He knew that without sight, they would each have problems. Gritting his teeth, he resorted to something he had sworn to never reveal. Slamming his staff into the ground, a wind colder than he had ever summoned with others present swept through the room. All of the mobs became frozen solid, the sound of Barbara’s sword hitting ice suddenly the loudest thing. “Wait for the debuff to fall off,” Rolland wheezed as he slumped to his knees and downed two mana potions.
“What happened?” Barbara called out.
“Powerful Ability… they will be frozen for at least a minute, and no damage can go either way,” Rolland managed to get out between panting breaths. “I’ll be less effective for the rest of the fight.”
“As if you were effective before,” Geoff said from off to his side. “I’ll manage the globs once we can damage them again.”
“I can kite them,” Kim snapped.
“Or we can kill them and you can help with the boss, since your boy-toy is now useless,” Geoff snapped back.
“Enough,” Barbara scolded them. “Lead them over to me. Geoff can kill them while I hold them.”
“That isn’t the best idea, not with the debuff they apply,” George told her.
“We’ll manage. I’m the tank, I’ll do what I need to,” Barbara said.
“Yes, dear,” George replied after a pause.
As the Blindness wore off, they saw all the mobs frozen solid, but the ice holding them was melting fast. “Ten seconds,” Rolland wheezed as he leaned on his staff, an Ice Bolt ready to throw.
Barbara looked at Zimoc and frowned at what she saw. “Do your best. With the adds dead, we need to burn him down.”
Zimoc Diseasemaker (Level 85)
Aberrant Necromancer
174,955/200,000 Health
Everyone nodded as the ice began to break off the mobs. With a shout, the ice shattered from Zimoc, then the globules. “Mage! I will use your bones for my next set of armor,” Zimoc hissed.
Barbara slashed at Zimoc, “I’m your foe. Focus, moron.”
Kim ran all the globs to Barbara, who used Ground Stomp to stun all the mobs. Once they were stunned, Kim rotated back to get behind Zimoc. A splash of darkness hit the pile of globules, a pool of blackness swirling around them. “Death Embrace,” Geoff laughed. “Just hold them there for a few seconds after the stun wears off.”
The party focused on Zimoc for the next few seconds while the stun lasted. George was near panicking as he downed a mana potion and a health potion; each pulse of Death Embrace splashed him and Barbara with another stack of the debuff, hurting them both as well.
Halo sprang into existence as George tried to buy them time until the stun wore off, “I don’t know what this debuff does, but I’m worried.”
“You should be, fool,” Zimoc yelled, slamming his hands together. Everyone staggered in place from the shockwave that came from him. “Death is all that awaits you.” With a roar, Zimoc began to grow, all of his armor shredding minus the hood. By the time he stopped yelling, he was as big as Gatkic had been. “I’ll make a paste of your blood and use it in my spells.”
Shaking off the stun, Barbara managed to get her shield up in time to block the swing of his oversized hand. Even with the shield, she was thrown back into George, sending both of them sprawling right next to the globs. The monsters covered them, stacking the debuff higher and burning them.
Calling down a Blizzard, Rolland watched as all of the globules started to shatter and free his friends, who were looking bad. “Kim, take him until George can get Barbara up.”
Kim’s eyes went wide, but she nodded and tossed a rarely used trap at Zimoc’s feet. The trap instantly went off, a cloud of pink gas getting inhaled by the startled boss. “If you catch me, you can have me,” Kim stuttered as she turned and ran for her life.
Rolland cast Swiftness on Kim as she ran, giving her more speed as Zimoc’s eyes focused on her. “I’ll have you now,” roared the boss as it leaped after her.
“Right!” Rolland called to her when he started to cast Icy Chains.
Kim went into a roll to the right, just being missed by Zimoc as she landed. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Kim cursed, getting to her feet and running back the way she had come.
“I will show you what happens when you tease me,” Zimoc said as he spun to leap again.
Before he could jump, Icy Chains sprang into being, chaining him in place. “She’s with me,” Rolland shouted, feeling his energy waver, forcing him to drink his last mana potion.
Death Bolts had continued to rain down on Zimoc the entire time. “Come on, stop screwing around! We need to kill him,” Geoff shouted.
“I can’t heal us,” George called out in a panic as he wasted another spell on Barbara, her life refusing to go up. “The debuff stacked to twenty and changed to Death’s Herald.”
“Damn it,” Rolland said. He saw that Zimoc was taking increased damage now that his armor was gone, and was just about to hit half-life. “Transition coming in a few seconds.”
“I got it,” Barbara said, setting herself to face Zimoc who was still struggling against the chains.
“But Bar—” George began, but cut off when she looked back at him.
“This is what I do, you know that. We’ll be fine,” she gave him a smile as she drank a healing potion, but it did nothing for her. Focusing on Zimoc, she took a deep breath, “Hey, you sorry-ass excuse for a Necromancer, did you want a real challenge?”
Zimoc stopped struggling as his head turned to focus on Barbara, the taunt having been effective. “I’m going to twist your head off and drink your blood, Human.” The Icy Chains shattered when the spell ran out. With a snarl, he spun, his first hit glancing off Barbara’s shield.
“Get him!” Barbara shouted, triggering her defensive cooldowns to last longer.
Kim spun back as Zimoc turned on Barbara, her last few prepared traps flying toward the boss. “Explosives incoming,” she shouted as the traps skidded to a halt by Zimoc’s feet, exploding in fire and shrapnel.
Zimoc roared. The traps had been enough to push him past the halfway mark. Chest swelling, his smile went feral, “Now you shall see what a true believer can do…” With a cry in the same spell language he had been using earlier, the group clutched their ears against the pain.
Getting back to his feet as Zimoc went to a knee, Rolland blinked when he saw both Barbara and George were on the ground, unmoving. “George! Barbara!” Rolland felt an upwelling of rage inside his chest as his fri
ends lay still.
“No!” Kim shouted her, eyes wide as she also stared at her friends. They had never had two of their party go down during the same fight.
“Focus! We need to kill him still,” Geoff snarled.
The rage brought with it a sense of energy that Rolland hadn’t expected. He realized that his hands were shaping a spell he didn’t know. “Back, get back,” he managed to say while his hands crafted the spell.
Geoff frowned as he downed another mana potion, “Why?”
Kim didn’t question him, just diving away as Zimoc got back to his feet. Before the boss could do anything, twin Elementals of ice and wind formed beside the Orc and began to attack it.
Falling to the ground as the infusion of energy was sucked out of him with the spell, Rolland started crawling toward his friends. Kim could see him still moving and darted back in toward Zimoc, who was focused on the blizzard Elementals.
Geoff was shocked at what Rolland had managed; he had been certain that the Elementals were a level one hundred Ability for the Elementalist class. Shaking his head, he focused on the boss, wanting to get his hands on the Necromancer class gear.
The fight raged on as Rolland finally made it to his friends. Both were cold, dead, and held a green sheen to their bodies. “Come on, respawn…”
The fight was intense, with the Elementals quickly eating through Zimoc’s health. It had only been a minute, but Zimoc hit a quarter of his life. With another shout and a small leap, everyone was knocked backwards into the walls of the room.
“Now you shall see what awaits you all,” Zimoc hissed, clutching his wounds. A black-green energy shot from him to George and Barbara. “Rise, servants! Rise and kill your friends.”
Both Rolland and Kim froze as the dead bodies of their friends began to climb to their feet with clumsy motions. “That… that isn’t possible…” Rolland stammered in horror.
“Yes! Know your doom,” Zimoc laughed before coughing out a gob of blood. “Kill them, my minions, in His name.”
Geoff staggered to his feet and spat out some blood of his own, as the transition had taken a good half of his life away. “No, you will die,” he managed with a cough. A black orb formed in between Geoff’s hands.
The black orb hit Zimoc square in the chest, eating away at his health and reducing his buffs and resistances. “NOOOO!” Zimoc roared in anger, his eyes latching onto Geoff. “You dare turn this against me!?”
The two Elementals finally pushed off the wall. They had low health but were still alive, and interposed themselves between Geoff and Zimoc, attacking with icy wind blades. Kim was still horrified that her friends had been turned into undead, but seeing that Zimoc was focused on Geoff, darted behind the boss and attacked him for all she was worth.
Rolland swayed on his feet, eyes locked on his friends, “We’ll see you soon.” His smile was fragile as his sole hope kept him going, he used Icy Chains to lock them in place. His mana bottomed out and he staggered toward Zimoc, ready to melee if needed, his life under twenty-five percent.
Between the party’s efforts and the Elementals’ attacks, they were finally able to reduce Zimoc to zero health. With a last cough, the Orc dropped to a knee, his hand outstretched in supplication, “Master… why…?” With one more cough, he slumped to the ground, dead.
Rolland and Kim fell to the ground. They looked to their friends, who had fallen back to the ground, no longer animated. Geoff went to Zimoc and touched the body, looting it. The hood appeared in his hands a moment later.
“Finally. This will give me the sway I need…” Geoff’s eyes were lit with a madness as he held the item up.
Barbara and George both vanished, item bags appearing in their place. “No…” Kim gasped as she recognized that both of them had died the final death, as loot bags had been left.
“Both of them,” Rolland whispered, the horror in his voice thick.
Geoff pulled out his Homestone. “As if it matters. The quest is completed.” Both of the others stared at him, the hatred palpable to Geoff. “Look, I liked them well enough,” Geoff sneered. “Use my portion of the Keep to give them a memorial. Don’t try to find me; it won’t end well for you.” With that, Geoff vanished as his Homestone activated.
“That asshole!” Kim hissed as she staggered to her feet, her eyes smoldering in ager. “I’ll kill him. I’ll kill him until he dies the Final Death!”
Rolland managed to shakily get to his feet and grabbed her into a hug, his mortality laid bare for him. “Kim…” His fear— for him, her, and the loss of their friends— was easy to hear in that single name. Clutching her, he turned her toward him and buried his face in her neck.
Standing there for a while, they both struggled to come to grips with the fact that their best friends had died on the quest to claim the Keep. The quest that Geoff had led them to, all so he could get the Hood of the Necromancer. When they eventually separated, they looted their friends’ remains. They found marriage bands that had not yet been given and two necklaces, each half of a heart that would create one if put together.
With nothing left for them in the Keep of Death, the two used their Homestones, appearing in the Portal Guild’s guild room. The head of the Portal Guild was there to congratulate them, but faltered upon seeing their faces.
“All of them?” He asked.
“Barbara and George fell during the fight. Geoff left after getting the Hood of the Necromancer,” Kim said in a dead voice. “If you’ll excuse us?”
Letting the pair go, he watched them grab hands as they walked up the stairs toward the dormitories. “I shall have to let the others know about Geoff…” the Portal Guild Master said as he stood there for a minute. “At least something good came from this.”
~*~*~
The couple was married a few days later, and accepted the positions within the Portal Guild as Portal Mage and Receptionist. Setting up a memorial at the Keep before selling it to the Portal Guild, they would make yearly trips to it to honor their missing friends. The years rolled by, both of them finally able to suppress their anger at Geoff as they settled into a new life. Neither of them expected to ever pick back up the mantle of Adventurer again until Alburet asked them to accompany him into the Dead Lands...
Author’s Note
Please consider leaving a review for the book, feedback is imperative for an indie author. If you don’t want to review it then think about leaving a comment or even just a quick message. Remember, positive feedback is always welcome.
If you want to keep up on the latest updates, or the one stop shop for all the links, my website is the best place for that. Remember to subscribe to the mailing list to know when I publish a new book, and you get an exclusive short when you sign up.
http://schinhofenbooks.com/
Other places you can keep up to date on me and my works:
https://www.patreon.com/DJSchinhofen
https://twitter.com/DJSchinhofen
Fan group on Facebook for Daniel Schinhofen
https://schinhofenbooks.blogspot.com/
If you LOVE LitRPG, then check out these pages full of awesome LITRPG goodness. You can interact with authors like me and many more. Find banter, good times and a lot of likeminded people.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/LitRPGsociety/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/haremlit/
A big thank you to my editors, Jennifer York and Samantha Bishop. Also props to Geno Ferrarini and Sean Hickinbotham for being my Alpha Readers.
A special thanks to an anonymous Patreon backer who helped spur me into writing these (you know who you are). I should also thank all of my Patreon supporters as well; they have gone above and beyond to help support me as an author. I’d also like to give thanks to anyone who leaves a review for this book. Reviews matter for authors more than we can say.
For those who are wondering about the series name: NPC’s Lives will be collections of short stories based out of all my worlds. This set of stories is exclusive to Alph
a World, but the following books might be stories from any of my worlds, or maybe exclusive to a single world.
The cover for NPC’s Lives is brought to you by Anthony Bishop, a very talented artist. You can find him at https://grimmhelm.artstation.com/
A big thanks to my Patreon supporters who have gone above and beyond in their support:
Robert Shofner~*~J. Patrick Walker~*~Kevin McKinney~*~Terry Wood-Davies~*~Spencer Jefferson~*~Kyle Gravelle~*~Jack Ling~*~Timithy Klesick~*~Chanh Pham~*~Anthony Olson~*~Kori Prins~*~Christopher B. ~*~Grimmhelm~*~Susanne Lofbom~*~Chace Corso~*~Jason Broderick~*~Alexis K. ~*~Alexander Rodriguez~*~James Domec~*~Stephan Juba~*~John Flenady~*~Jim Carmon~*~Blake Cawthon~*~Sawyer Aubrey~*~Jacob Tackett~*~George Ueland Jr~*~Michael Moneymaker~*~Jeffrey Buchanan~*~David Florish~*~Adrian Sinclair~*~Korbin Wilson~*~Brian O. ~*~Cody Carter~*~Travis Hilliard~*~Kevin Harris~*~Charles Groark~*~William Merrick~*~Karl Poff~*~Aztoroth~*~Derek Morgan~*~MrNyxt~*~John Curtis~*~Flynnius Szubart~*~Damien Osborne~*~J.G. Patton~*~Kevin Kollman~*~Jeff Ford~*~Theodore Ursa
Tales from the Dead Man Inn Page 31