by Sarah Lin
He could force access to the boxes, but only for a split second. There was no time to talk to Izzy, receive a request, or search through the available traits. When he acted, he would have so little time... what could he possibly do? This was his daughter, suffering in pain... he couldn't allow...
It came to him all at once. Bloodwraith hurled his mind against the barriers and forced his way through to the boxes. Except this time he reached only for one thing, a concept that he wasn't even sure existed in the system but that he demanded exist:
[Freedom
Cost: 0 NP
Your Undead Companion will gain the ability to gather and spend Necromancy Points independently. This will result in relinquishing all control of your Undead Companion.
NOTE: This trait should not exist and should not be taken under any circumstances.]
There was no time to think, he simply thrust his will out toward it. A moment later, Alan's power came down on him, crushing his connection to the boxes. Had he managed to select the trait? Had Izzy realized it? Would it even accomplish what he wanted?
Before he could find any answers, light exploded all around him.
~ ~ ~
When at last Meara extricated herself from the avalanche of stones, the forest had changed. Huge swaths of it had been burned to the ground, though the silver flames of the dragon didn't seem to light permanent fires. There were fragmentary bodies as far as the eye could see, the Fellsilvered ones still twitching to try to attack.
She brushed herself off and sought the others, feeling along their connections. Nearest to her she could sense Gharavi, so Meara headed there first.
The sorceress stood on one side of a clearing that was actually burning, spells lighting up the trees around it. Opposite her, Belkarin sneered and raised his sword again, summoning a wall of floating crystals. Gharavi sent a bolt of lightning shooting from her staff, yet it curved in the air, absorbing into one of the crystals.
"Is that really the best you can do?" Belkarin sneered at her. "Simple elemental magic?"
"You have no right." Gharavi released several spells in rapid succession, both fire and ice. The crystals absorbed the fire while Belkarin merely dodged the ice, his smirk broadening. "Everything is an amusement to you, but these are people's lives you're playing with."
"Indeed. Games grow so dull without any stakes." Without warning Belkarin lunged forward, crossing the distance between them with terrible speed. Gharavi only barely threw herself out of the way of his thrust, hitting the ground and rolling to her feet.
Though Meara started to cry out a warning, she was too late. One of the crystals flew out and struck her as she rose, her own fire exploding against her. Gharavi grimaced in pain, but managed to dodge backward when Belkarin thrust at her again.
Grinning broadly, the Aesidh swung his sword from side to side, summoning all his crystals to float behind him. Gharavi tried to release another burst of lightning, but it was again absorbed by one of the crystals. Meara watched helplessly, wishing that she could become involved and wondering if she could bring herself to move on to help someone else.
"Really, more of the same?" Belkarin shook his head mockingly. "Such a disappointment for a half-breed."
"You knew?" Gharavi bared her teeth at him and Belkarin laughed.
"I knew the moment I laid eyes on you! There are a surprising number of half-breed spawn like you throughout the worlds, though not many grow so bored as to consort with orcs. I'm surprised your Aesidh parent didn't amuse themselves with some infanticide... but perhaps they found it more entertaining to watch your miserable life."
"Shut up!" Gharavi let out a roar and began to fling more spells. Belkarin laughed as his crystals absorbed them and Meara watched in horror. She knew that Gharavi wasn't normally this emotional... was the sorcerer affected by something, or was she that angry to be facing an Aesidh?
"Oh my, they made the right choice. I was thinking of killing you, but I've changed my mind. We can take you back to the Mirror Court and have such fun..."
At that moment Gharavi jerked her staff back, bringing it up to her shoulder and sighting along the axe blades. Her face became utterly emotionless and a beam of gray power shot out at her opponent. Belkarin barely managed to dodge aside and began to laugh.
The beam had struck the crystals behind him.
Gray light rapidly spread across all the crystals in intricate lines and then they exploded all at once, the full fury of all of Gharavi's spells unleashed in an instant. Belkarin let out a scream as fire and lightning flooded around him, staggering free of the blaze with his composure utterly broken.
A massive spear of ice stabbed through his chest the next moment, impaling him to the ground. Though his body sagged, Gharavi didn't hesitate, she simply dropped to one knee, focusing on him and gathering mana. When her bolt of lightning finally seared through his body, it was so bright that even Meara went blind for a moment.
Yet something was wrong... the body impaled on the ice flickered slightly. Again Meara wanted to call out a warning, but she was too late: the air rippled and Belkarin appeared behind Gharavi. He was bloodied and burned, but clearly alive and thrusting his sword toward her back.
Lightning shot backward out of Gharavi's staff, straight through his chest.
Belkarin collapsed to the ground with another cry of pain. Gharavi rose to her feet, drawing her staff to her side. She didn't declare victory or even smile, but the hard look in her eyes said enough. On the ground, the Aesidh gave a bloody cough and then laughed.
"Well... I am impressed! Not such a barbarian... after all..."
Without warning, Belkarin plunged a hand into his own chest. Meara and Gharavi both flinched in surprise, wondering if he was killing himself like the previous Aesidh had done. Too late, they realized that it wasn't that.
Liquid silver began to slide from the wound in his chest to cover the rest of his body. Gharavi reacted swiftly, throwing spells at him from all sides, but they slid off the silver. Suddenly Belkarin was back on his feet, thrusting forward.
His sword opened a large cut on Gharavi's side. She grunted and staggered back, trying to put distance between them. Belkarin kept after her, not laughing now, his entire body coated in silver.
Bringing up her staff, Gharavi released a strange shard of ice that stabbed into Belkarin's chest, then exploded into fragments. Yet though he grunted as if in pain, he kept coming forward.
Though Gharavi dodged the next thrust of his sword, Belkarin lunged in, his other hand reaching up to grab her staff. Gharavi desperately grabbed his head and shot a bolt of lightning directly through it, yet somehow Belkarin just kept moving. He tore the staff out of her grip with one hand and punched her in the face with the other, the impact sending her tumbling across the clearing.
Gharavi slid to a halt and was still for a time. Belkarin glanced at her staff, then laughed. "Not bad, little half-breed. But you're just learning to play this game, and I have been playing it for a long time."
"That's the problem with you Outsiders." Gharavi slowly got to her feet, body trembling from her injuries. She struggled to pull something from her belt while snapping off her necklace with her other hand. "This isn't a game."
"Isn't it?" Belkarin began to channel mana into the staff, preparing to kill her with her own weapon. "You're certainly doing a good job trying to play it."
"No." With that word, Gharavi dropped her necklace into a bottle of blue liquid. Meara's eyes widened as she realized what it was, but Belkarin wasn't quite fast enough.
Gharavi hurled the bottle toward her opponent, who contemptuously struck it out of the sky. But the moment his spell struck the bottle, the necklace within detonated in a terrible explosion of power that pushed even Meara backward.
A sphere of gray expanded in all directions, tearing through the silver covering Belkarin's body as well as much of the flesh below. He collapsed to the ground, both sword and staff falling from his fingers. Gharavi limped closer, painfully picking up
her staff.
"For all your power, you aren't willing to sacrifice anything." Gharavi stared down at him with a deadly glare. "I am."
"Oh, very good..." Belkarin spat up more blood, but still managed to give her a mocking chuckle. "I'll admit, you've won this game. But the thing is... now that I can't win... I might as well ruin the whole board..."
Belkarin clenched his fist and Meara felt something shift, something fundamental that made her stumble. Gharavi thrust the axe blades of her staff into the Aesidh's chest and fired a gray bolt directly through his heart, but it was too late. He might be dead, but he had already sent out a signal changing his magic.
All around the forest, Fellsilvered creatures began letting out roars like they hadn't since they had been alive. Gharavi jumped in surprise and turned to look. At that point Meara rushed up to her, supporting the sorcerer as she tried to walk.
"What did he do?" Gharavi asked. Meara could only shake her head.
"He sent a command to all the Fellsilvered creatures... I think he's going to try to take us with him."
"Damn. There are still a lot of them, so that might be a problem..."
Meara didn't disagree, but could only help support Gharavi as they tried to join the others. Yet before they got far, an ear-splitting roar sounded overhead. They looked up to see the dragon rushing toward them, its wings beating furiously. Silver fire collected in its throat and for a moment Meara wondered if it was over.
Then she heard the sound of teeth snapping together.
Izzy tore free from the dragon's chest, her mouth dripping with blood. There was an unholy light in her eyes that almost made her look different... no, she had actually changed. Her hair was longer, her hands ended in claws, and her teeth were longer and pointed like needles. Meara realized that she had somehow transformed to the third tier of undead, yet there had been no boxes that she could sense.
The dragon crashed to the earth and drove a massive furrow through it, but Izzy leapt free before it hit. Somehow she landed easily, sending dust in all directions yet not harming herself. Meara wasn't sure what she was doing until she saw Danniah limp out of the trees - Izzy moved to help support her.
As she drew closer, however, Izzy looked up at Meara in concern. "Help Da! Da... Da is..."
Izzy didn't seem able to explain, but the fear in her eyes was enough. Since all of them were together now, Meara led them toward Bloodwraith. Their connections to him should have been strong, considering they were so close, yet Meara struggled to feel him. She couldn't help but rush ahead to see what was happening.
She discovered Bloodwraith pinned to the wall of the prison by shafts of light, more light spells battering his armor. The Keeper was... no, it might be his body, but the Outsider was in control. Worse than the simple magic he used to strike Bloodwraith, his power closed around him like a glove, trying to cut him off from the system itself.
"Enough!" Meara let out a cry and threw herself at him. He had only a moment to look at her before she collided with him and their souls smashed together.
For an instant, she was connected to the Outsider. Not to the Keeper's shell, but the man himself. Meara gathered up all of her years of bitterness and hatred over being trapped in the Forest of Beginnings and hurled it directly against him. He grimaced and pushed back with his own magic, but she kept rolling on and on, willing herself to expend all of her essence in the attack.
"But..." He stared at her, uncomprehending. "I didn't do this to you..."
"You did enough." With that, she gave him everything she had, driving herself against his control of the system.
Suddenly she was standing back in the clearing. The Keeper was now just an old man, wavering on his feet. For a moment he looked confused and a little sad, then he crumbled to ash. Bloodwraith collapsed off the prison wall, but Danniah and Izzy had rushed to support him. They were together again.
Unfortunately, the forest around them was filled with the roaring of Fellsilvered monsters. Not only that, there were glowing fragmentary adventurers still rushing at them. Though the two sides fought one another, the chaos was rapidly approaching their small group, pinned against the very end of the Forest of Beginnings.
"We should heal first..." Meara reached into her cloak and tried to give potions to the others, but all at once her willpower collapsed. She had used everything she had against the Outsider and now she had nothing left, not even enough to protect herself from the combat.
Around them, the chaos drew closer and closer.
~ ~ ~
When Bloodwraith became aware again, he realized that Izzy was forcing a potion down his throat. The healing of the potion did less good for him than the sight of her. Not to mention the others: Danniah's armor was utterly stained with blood from within, Gharavi bore several serious wounds, and Meara looked half-dead, but they were all alive.
But not for long. Around them, he could see that the monsters and artificial adventurers were closing in. Bloodwraith got to his feet and drank one of each of the potions he had remaining, but he knew that it wouldn't be enough. The potions might be able to restore him as far as the boxes were concerned, but too much of this battle had been fought on the level of the boxes themselves. A bit of simple healing wouldn't be enough.
"I don't think we can fight them all..." Danniah kept her shield and mace raised, but he heard the concern in her voice. "There are just too many..."
"Can we go through a portal to another world?" Gharavi glanced at him and then nodded toward the ancient door. "We'd be stranded in an unknown world, but it would be better than dying here."
"Do you think that's our only choice? Bloodwraith?"
Though Bloodwraith was listening, he was paying more attention to something else. The boxes were back, as usual giving him far more information than he needed. He only had eyes for one detail:
[EXP: 58,190/2,435,800]
That meant he should be Level 20. Yes, he confirmed that he was. The boxes had been suppressed when he gained the Level, so he hadn't seen it, but that scarcely mattered. He didn't even care about the unassigned points sitting on his character sheet. All that mattered was what his new Level meant, so he desperately searched for the box until he found it.
[Congratulations! Upon reaching level 20, you have attained the third tier!
Natural skills are 50% more powerful.
Core natural skills can now be customized.
Third tier equipment can now be used.
EXP from creatures that are second tier threats reduced.
EXP from creatures that are first tier threats reduced to zero.]
He chuckled darkly, drawing everyone's attention. Yes, this was good. Though he had expected a simple multiplication of force, this exceeded his hopes.
"Bloodwraith?" Danniah asked. "Are you alright?"
"I'm fine." He threw aside his greatsword and drew the Fellsword out of his bag. "They've tried to use the boxes against us, but they're ours now. We can use them as we see fit."
"That sword is good, but not that good." Gharavi raised an eyebrow at him. "Do you really think that will make a difference?"
"No, it's not that... just wait." As their enemies pressed closer from all sides, Bloodwraith closed his eyes and concentrated.
[Attempting to create new skill...
Character level adequate.
Might level adequate.
Intellect level adequate.
Willpower level adequate.
Skill levels adequate.
...
Skill creation successful!]
He sought the rage within himself, but not like before. Raigar was the one who had wanted to be the shouting barbarian rampaging with bloodlust. Trying to follow that path had been denying who he was.
Because Bloodwraith definitely had rage. It was not a wildfire but a coldly burning flame. It was hatred of those who had manipulated his world, anger toward those who would harm his allies, and rage at everything that had been done to them.
Deep wit
hin himself, he felt it rising...
[New Ability Created: Lich's Rage!
While Lich's Rage is active, the following effects are in place:
- Rage skills can be cast at a distance as spells.
- Fist of Rage and Sword of Rage damage increased by 50%.
- Mana consumption of Rage skills reduced to 25%.]
Bloodwraith opened his eyes and they glowed blue, not red. The rage flowed through his body in a surge of raw power, but this rage did not consume his mind, it fueled his thoughts.
For too long, he had assumed that either his old life or his new life must be true and the other false. But now, he was both. Not a brute barbarian and not a calculating lich, but something that fused the two of them and became greater than either.
He raised a hand, just like he had once cast spells. A burst of force exploded within the chest of an advancing monster, tearing it apart. With his other hand he swung his new greatsword, an arc of force slicing one of the artificial adventurers in half.
Yes, this was perfect. Bloodwraith smiled and let his rage fill him.
As he cut a devastating swath through their enemies, his allies joined him as if fueled by his new purpose. Danniah knocked foes aside with her shield, Gharavi annihilated them with spells, and Izzy tore them apart. In the lead Bloodwraith spun, both casting and swinging his sword as he laid waste to all before him.
By the time his rage faded, the battlefield was clear. He felt drained and knew that he would not be able to do such a thing again soon, but it didn't matter: unlike his old rages, now his mind felt clear. Even better than normal, with a sharp focus on what mattered.
"Did... did we win?" Danniah lowered her mace and looked around in surprise. Bloodwraith raised a hand.
"Not quite yet. We have to go inside." He led them through the door, half-expecting it to resist him, but it opened as easily as any other. Bloodwraith walked through the single hallway of the dingy prison with his comrades behind him, knowing exactly what he would find.