by A. J. Markam
So I opted for some real-world strategy instead.
“Kids – bite their hands!” I yelled.
The children must’ve followed my orders, because every single bandit screamed and let go of them.
“Go to town and get help!” I yelled, and the children took off for the woods.
Of course, that meant three bandits were coming right at me.
I called down Unholy Quartet, then hit each bandit with a dose of Darkfire, setting all their souls ablaze. Stig joined in, too – but I was afraid this time it wasn’t going to be enough.
The first bandit went down without too much of a hitch, but by then his two friends were already starting in on me with their blades. My health points began to drop.
The imps dealt some significant damage before they disappeared – but I was at 50% Health, Bandit Two was at 20%, and Bandit Three was still at over 70%.
Stig jointed in as I hit Bandit Number Two with Darkbolt after Darkbolt. Just as he collapsed, my hit points dropped below 20%, and the edges of my vision begin to grow dark and blurry.
And that’s when I got saved just in the nick of time.
Golden light enveloped me, the trumpet sounded, and ‘Level 4’ appeared midair. A new ability appeared in my action bar. Without knowing what it was, I activated it blindly, praying that it might help.
Boy, did it ever.
Blue lines of energy shot out from my hands into Bandit Number Three’s chest. He got a look on his face like Oh shit, what is THIS?
Suddenly his hit points begin to fall as mine began to rise much faster than normal.
Not only that, but it was almost like his spirit came out of his body. As the blue light zapped into his chest, a ghostly image of his face kept getting pulled beyond his fleshly facial features – sort of like I was physically pulling his soul out of his body. Really creepy, but super effective.
I was stunned. I’d never come across this ability before – what the hell was it? I could attack somebody and basically drain their Health and transfer it to myself?! If this was an everyday ability of a Warlock, I was pissed that I’d never played a Warlock before!
It didn’t really matter, because it was awesome. The remaining bandit’s hit points fell to 45%, then 40%, then 35%, while my hit points rose almost as fast: from 10% to 14%, then 18%, then 22%.
The only downside to all this blue lightning action was that my Mana bar was dropping rapidly. Apparently Darkbolt and Darkfire weren’t much of a drain on my resources, but this blue lightning thing was.
The bandit got in a few shots with his knife, but even those weren’t enough to counteract the effects of whatever the blue lightning was doing to me. He took off about five hit points, but by the time he drew back his knife, he collapsed on the ground.
80 XP.
Stunned by my good fortune, I paused just long enough to check out the ability’s name.
Soul Suck – the ability to feed off an enemy’s soul, draining his life energy while you increase your own Health.
Well, that certainly fit what I had seen.
Instantaneous cast time
Duration: 5 seconds
Stationary
10 damage per second to enemy
+6 Health per second gained by Warlock
10 Mana per second to cast
Range: 50 feet
No timeout – awesome! That meant I could cast it all I wanted. Well, in five-second bursts, at least – and until my Mana ran out.
Another scream from the house jarred me out of my stat-induced wonder. I jumped over the dead bandits’ bodies, not even pausing to loot them. I was too afraid of what might happen inside the house if I waited a second more.
As soon as I stepped around the corner, my fears were borne out. Three bandits had the farmer on the ground, another bandit was holding down the wife on a table, and a fifth bandit was trying to lift her dress up.
Screw these assholes – they were dead.
I activated Soul Suck again and was rewarded with another blast of blue lighting that went right into the guy attacking the wife. He screamed in terror, then turned around. Meanwhile, my hit points were slowly edging up – 26%, 30%, 34%, 38%.
But my Mana was dropping at the same time: 45%, 40%, 35%.
Damn, the trade-off was pretty severe.
Mr. Would-Be Rapist rushed towards me. Stig hit him with a couple of fireballs, but this Soul Suck thing was a far more effective weapon. The bandit stabbed me twice, but he did nothing more than slow down my hit point regeneration for a second or two.
“Well, you fool?” one of the bandits holding down the farmer yelled. “Go help him!”
The other bandit let go of the woman, then ran over to help his buddy.
No problem – as soon as Soul Suck ran out, I flung some Darkfire at number two, hit the first bandit with another dose of black flames, and then resumed the blue lightning.
Both bandits got in a couple of shots, temporarily dropping me down to 33% hit points, but I started steadily going back up.
I swear I saw the other guy’s soul emerging from his face, too, like a transparent mask. Then he collapsed in a pile on the floor.
80 XP.
I turned my attention to Bandit Number Two, and started messing him over pretty badly. Ten seconds later I was back up to 80% Health, and he was dead.
I hit the remaining three bandits – the ones holding onto the farmer – with Darkfire. Unlike the kids I’d saved earlier, I wasn’t quite as concerned with making an adult NPC into collateral damage, so I didn’t hesitate. Apparently I didn’t need to worry: the Darkfire only affected my targets, not the farmer.
I guess the three bandits realized that one-on-one or even two-on-one wasn’t going to cut it, so they hit the farmer over the head and descended on me all at once.
What was even worse was one of them pulled out a gnarled wooden staff and started doing some complex movements with his hands.
Crap – a Mage.
At first I was worried, and then I thought, Eh, what the hell. I was pretty sure Soul Suck would work on him, too.
And it did. I zapped the Mage and watched his soul get pulled out of his face as he tried to keep his concentration long enough to cast the first spell.
Unfortunately, he succeeded – and it was a doozy. As his two buddies were stabbing me with knives, a ball of green electricity suddenly hit me full in the chest. I stumbled backwards, stunned.
All those combined blows had taken off a quarter of my remaining hit points. I was back down to 60% – plus I couldn’t move for the next two seconds. I just stood there as the other two bandits whaled on me, their knives making a disturbing shunk shunk sound as they kept stabbing me in the gut.
Stig, God bless him, stepped up to the plate like a champ. He focused on the Mage and tossed fireballs right in the guy’s face.
That took the Mage’s aggro off of me – but it left Stig in harm’s way.
Meanwhile, the Darkfire had worn off my targets. As soon as I shook off the Stun effect, I hit all three bandits with more black flames to burn up their souls.
The Mage shot off another round of electricity at Stig, whose hit points were already dangerously low.
The green bolt of electricity landed.
My imp screamed, then disappeared in a puff of black smoke.
Damn it, I cursed silently, and started back in on the Mage with Soul Suck –
Except nothing happened.
Shit.
I was out of Mana.
I tried again. Blue lightning shot out of my hands – but only for a second.
Okay, this officially sucked.
What was I supposed to do? I had no idea. I had no hand-to-hand combat abilities.
Meanwhile, the Mage was gearing up for another blast of green energy, and the other bandits were still stabbing me every couple of seconds.
The only thing that saved me was I had gotten my hit points up high enough – but that would only last so long.
What was
I supposed to do until I regenerated enough Mana?
I had no idea.
A second bolt of green electricity shook me to my very core.
32% Health.
Another ten seconds of this and I was screwed.
Then salvation came from the most unexpected place.
The farmer’s wife grabbed a frying pan – a big, heavy, cast-iron son of a bitch – and slammed it into the side of the head of one of the bandits attacking me. It knocked a good 5% off of his hit points. Combined with my two rounds of Darkfire, he was perilously close to death.
Maybe I had no training in hand-to-hand combat, but if a farmer’s wife could wallop a guy like that, then there was nothing stopping me. I ran over to the fireplace and grabbed a poker. Too bad it was sitting next to the fire and wasn’t actually hot.
Meanwhile, both non-magical bandits turned towards the wife.
The Mage was still concentrating, doing his little magical jazz hands thing –
Then the farmer jumped up and started pummeling the Mage.
I now had two allies in the fight!
I gripped the poker like a baseball bat and started a Babe Ruth-style beat-down on the bandit with the lowest hit points. He died within seconds.
The remaining non-magical asshole turned towards me and stabbed me again, but I slammed the poker upside his head. And then the farmer’s wife bonked him with the frying pan.
My Mana bar was up to 10% – so I tried it.
Soul Suck!
My hit points went up by several percentage points, and his completely bottomed out. He collapsed onto the ground with a death rattle.
Both the wife and I turned towards the Mage, who was facing the husband.
I looked at the woman with questioning eyes. She nodded, and we both rushed the Mage at the same time.
He got off an electrical bolt that slammed the farmer in the chest, sending him to the ground – but that meant that he was temporarily unable to attack either of us.
We just went to town on him. It was an old-school beat-down. Fireplace poker and frying pan, baby. Wham wham wham.
A few seconds later my Mana bar was back up to 5%. I was preparing to Soul Suck him when he sank to his knees, dropped his staff, and clasped his hands together in supplication.
“Please!” he begged. “Please spare my life, and I will tell you everything!”
I hesitated. Was this a trick? Some kind of ruse?
Suddenly a window popped up.
Hear the Bastard Out
Listen to the Bandit Mage’s information and decide whether to spare his life. For this you will earn 100 XP.
Oh well, I figured, what was the harm? Extra experience points, and in the meantime my Mana and Health would both regenerate.
The farmer’s wife was about to clock him, but I put out a hand. “Wait – I want to hear what he has to say.”
“But my children!” she cried.
“They’re safe – I rescued them and told them to run into town and bring help. They’re fine.”
I was 99.9% sure they were fine, anyway. There was no way the game was so perverse that it would allow me to rescue three little kids, then blithely send them off to death or slavery.
“This villain tried to kill my husband and take my virtue,” she yelled angrily, “yet you want to spare him?”
“I want to hear what he has to say. Go help your husband.”
The wife cried out and ran to her hubby like she’d just remembered about him. She knelt on the floor, gathered him up in her arms, and kissed his forehead.
I put my hand in front of the Mage’s face like I was about to do a spell on him. “Tell me what you know or you’re dead!”
“I’ll tell you everything, just please back up,” the man choked. “I can barely breathe.”
I frowned, puzzled. “What are you talking about? You’ve got plenty of room.”
“No – the smell.”
He meant my parfum de skunk.
“It’s not that bad,” I snapped.
“It’s that bad,” the wife said from where she was cradling her husband’s head in her lap.
“It really is,” the Mage moaned.
“Good,” I said, and moved right up in the Bandit Mage’s face. “Tell me now, or you can keep breathing my stank.”
“Alright!” he cried out in anguish. “You have an enemy in your midst. He is planning to sell off this entire town into slavery to the orcs – in fact, he was the one who ordered us to attack this farm.”
“Who is he?”
“I only know him as the Spider. But his rapaciousness knows no bounds.”
The Spider – that was the guy that the bandits back at the other campfire were talking about.
Suddenly a window popped up.
The Fly’s Revenge
Find the secretive villain known only as the Spider, and make sure he pays for his treachery with his life.
1000 XP
50 silver
Not bad.
I hit ‘Accept,’ then turned to the Mage.
Find the secretive villain known only as the Spider…
Maybe I could apply a little pressure on this guy – use a little more of Mother Nature’s chemical warfare. Maybe it really would be that simple.
“How do we find him?” I demanded.
“Certainly not with my help,” the Mage grinned as he spun across the floor, grabbed the wife, and pulled her away from the still-unconscious farmer.
Of course it wasn’t going to be that simple.
The farmer’s wife tried to wriggle away, but the Mage was too quick. He wrapped his arm in a chokehold around her neck.
A quick glance at his hit points showed me he was back up to 30%.
Unfortunately for him, my Mana was back up to half.
“Let me go,” the Mage warned as he tightened his arm around the woman’s neck, “or I will – ”
I hit him with Darkfire first.
He screamed and started flailing.
The wife broke free and ran across the room.
That’s when I activated Soul Suck.
Blue lightning shot out from my hands and into the Bandit Mage’s chest.
He dropped to the floor, scrambling for his staff –
I stepped on the staff before he could get to it, pinning it to the ground, as I sucked the last bit of hit points completely out of him.
His soul pulled free of his body and disappeared into the air – and then his corpse fell back on the ground, lifeless.
Now that he was dead and we were finally safe, obviously it was the perfect time for the authorities to show up.
13
“Halt!” a gruff voice behind me said.
I turned around to see a guy in full plate armor with his sword drawn. Two archers flanked him on either side, their arrows pointed at me.
The three kids were behind them, eyes wide. “Mama, mama!” they screamed, and raced past the soldiers into the arms of their crying mother.
I raised my hands. “Don’t shoot, I’m the good guy!”
“No you’re not!” the armored guy snarled. “I saw you using witchcraft on that man! You used a soul extraction spell to drain his life! According to the laws of the goddess Chalastia, the penalty for that is death!”
Well, shit.
“And,” the soldier said, his face wrinkling in disgust, “you have the stench of evil on you.”
“That’s just a skunk,” I snapped.
“Wait,” the farmer coughed as he sat up on the ground, suddenly awake. “This man risked his life to save my family. In fact, he saved our life twice – once when he first came in, and another just now when he killed the bastard who was about to kill my wife.”
The soldier shook his head. “The law about witchcraft is quite clear – ”
“And Chalastia spake, ‘Mercy above all else, especially to those who do good unto others,’” the farmer said, sounding like he was quoting some videogame version of the Bible.
The sol
dier looked at me warily, then looked at the farmer’s wife. “Elsa, is this true?”
“Yes,” she nodded tearfully as she hugged her children. “He saved me twice.”
“He saved us from the bad men!” the oldest boy said.
“And he has a funny little devil!” the little girl called out.
The soldier looked at me again and raised his sword. “A devil?”
“An imp,” I clarified.
“We kill imps around here, warlock.”
“Well, the bandits saved you the trouble. He’s already dead.”
Not really, of course. Stig was just banished to whatever dimension he was from until I summoned him back here – but the soldiers didn’t need to know that.
The armored soldier hesitated, then finally nodded at the archers, who lowered their bows and arrows.
“For the kindness you’ve shown this family,” the soldier said, “we shall spare your life. But do not practice your vile magic here anymore, warlock. You have been warned.”
“Unless I need to save somebody else?” I said sarcastically.
The soldier raised his sword again. “Your flippant tone does you no favors, trafficker in the dark arts.”
“Okay, okay,” I said. “I’ll go peaceably.”
“Good.” Then he wrinkled his nose. “And for the goddess’ sake – take a bath.”
With that, the soldier and the two archers left.
I turned to the farmer and his wife. “You mind if I take some stuff from the bandits?”
“Not at all. In fact, I would like to make a gift to you.”
A golden ‘?’ appeared over the farmer’s head as he staggered to his feet. He walked over to the mantel above the fireplace and pulled out a tiny purse from a hiding place, along with something else. “I would like to give you what little we have as thanks for saving our lives.”
I was about to say, No, really, I can’t – you guys are too poor as it is, I can’t take anything from you –
And then I remembered I was in a videogame. These people didn’t even exist except on a computer server.
“Okay,” I said instead. “If you insist.”
He handed over two silver and the Ring of the Shepherd’s Grace, which gave +5 Intelligence and +3 Stamina.