Robert left at the customary time. We still waited twenty minutes before going there so he would be as far as possible from us. There was no telling if he would have people watching his house's entrance for him, or if there would be magical alarms in there, so the farther he was when he was warned of thieves, the better.
The zombie sentry went after him to make sure we got word of his return, and the rest of us approached the fruit stall right next to the house's entrance. We started to browse the products while the gnome fumbled with the magical lock of the pocket dimension.
As far as I could tell, he was simply looking at the air with utmost concentration. However, something was happening; the air in front of him was being distorted, as if it were heating up.
"Sí, sí!" He said louder than I wished; he had refused to join our party. "Yo soy el mejor!" He was bragging.
The ghoul vendor looked in the direction of the voice, but two big zombies were in his way, while Bear's hands were touching a lot of fruits. The guy didn't want to be robbed and had no choice but to turn his attention back to my zombie companion.
A feeble purple light appeared from a kind of opening in thin air and the gnome put a black rod in it. Then, he began to shape the opening. Using raw strength — as far as I could tell at least — he pushed and pulled with the rod to make the opening larger.
"Why isn't the portal closing by itself?" I asked him, surprised.
He told me portals couldn't be closed; once opened, they would stay open forever. If destroyed, the pocket dimension and everything inside would be destroyed with it.
What he was doing was applying pressure to the magic spatial door in front of the portal, the magic which allowed people to walk through it without going to another dimension. Since spatial magic was the most physical of them all, it could be physically forced open as well.
"What about the beginning?" I asked. "You were just looking at the place."
Apparently, gnomes had a racial innate magic that allowed them to find a way into wherever the hell they wanted. It was way too costly though, so he preferred to use raw strength after he had an opening.
I offered help but he told me that he wouldn't lend me the rod. I suggested using my sword and he explained that his rod was special and that trying to use any other tool in the opening would be bad for my health.
Meanwhile, the ghoul vendor was beginning to get nervous. I was talking to someone he couldn't see and we weren't buying anything.
"Buy something or leave!" He yelled, attracting unwanted attention from nearby.
"Jeez!" Melkier said. "Okay, okay! Here, I'll have this apple first. Two silver, right? Can I keep browsing now?"
That mollified the vendor enough for him to allow us to stay. Finally, after ten minutes, the gnome was done and asked me for payment.
"Are you sure it will hold for half an hour?" I asked as I paid him.
"Sí, sí!" He confirmed, then told me the magic door would stay open until someone with the key, or a spatial mage, came to close it.
"Good. Thanks, my friend." I took my communication crystal out. "I might have other opportunities for you in the future. What do you say we change contacts?"
He thought for a few seconds before producing a crystal out of nowhere, touching it with mine and disappearing right after.
Bear crouched to go through the opening that was half his height. He came back after a moment and told us it seemed alright. Next, Daggers went in, to check for physical traps. She also came back saying it was okay. Finally, I also went in alone to check for magical traps.
Robert's house was... Small. Ridiculously so, for someone titled 'the Great'. It had no walls, as usual within pocket dimensions, only small wooden fences to divide three rooms. The floor was also made of wood, and so was the bed in the last room, and the table and chairs in the middle room.
Except for that, there was no furniture whatsoever.
The fact that it was all wooden spoke of Robert's wealth, but the lack of anything else at all spoke of... I had no idea what it meant.
Did he take everything with him every time he left the house? That would be way too cautious for anyone but the most neurotic person. At least some cheap stuff should have been left behind but there was nothing anywhere.
Was he a miser who didn't buy unnecessary things? It couldn't be, since everything was made of well-maintained wood, which should have cost a lot in the Underworld.
Well, it could be an illusion, or weird magical trap, or something. So, I closed my eyes.
A gray sphere in my conscious appeared right away with my body in the center. I began to will my will — that's weird — to hit random places in front of me but no magical light flashed. I took a few more steps ahead and kept doing that, but nothing different showed in my mind's eye.
Unfortunately, the estimated location of the item we had come to steal, as I could see in my minimap, was in the bed in the last room. I went back to get Daggers and Bear, confirmed with the tailing zombie that Robert seemed to be acting normally, then reentered the house to begin the laborious search.
Our process was simple: Daggers checked for physical traps while I took a little longer to check for magical ones. Bear would then be the first to step forward, since he had the most HP and the best defenses. After that, we repeated it all.
It took us twenty minutes to get to the end of the small house.
And there was no map for us to steal there.
We did it with a lot less caution after not finding any traps whatsoever before. Still, no map popped out of the blue.
I thought for a second before replying.
It wasn't that much of a surprise that the game would make me fight Robert; I had expected that and prepared the zombies for it. However, the fact that Manhart had set me up made me downright pissed.
That was a fair point. After thinking about it, I sighed.
I really wanted Daggers by my side as we attacked a stronger guy. Bear was stronger than her in a direct confrontation, as proven by fair combat. As far as I was concerned, knowing what to do in a fight was as important as raw strength, so Daggers' claim of Bear being lucky was bullshit; she had messed up and paid for it. Still, having her help now would have been good.
We stood side by side in a half circle right by the entrance of the house. I had five fire morbs and five death morbs ready. All that was left now was wai
ting.
And wait we did.
We were all tense as hell. Bear not being there put us all even more on edge; his carefree attitude was more important for morale than I had realized. Now that I thought about it, he was probably the whole reason the zombies had endured the training, even with me toning things down a bit.
I mean, Daggers had called them names more than a few times; the least of her offenses had been calling them useless illegitimate sons that made their mothers ashamed of having slept with their fathers. Only using less polite words.
My job was making sure she didn't offend them too much, and telling her what training I thought they needed.
Bear, I now realized, had always eased the tension and helped everyone improve through leading by example; he was a splendid fighter and it was obvious how much he was investing in the game.
Thinking about it made me feel worse for indirectly taking Ted away from the game and from him. And guess what? He wasn't here to make me feel better about it with some idiotic joke.
Damn, I had found two good friends in Daggers and Bear.
What the hell was wrong with me? I mean, good friends? Me? That was way out of character.
My musings were interrupted when two people suddenly shot through the entrance. They both fell on the floor and the one on top was Bear, wearing his black armor which covered his whole body.
Just as my first spell was about to connect though, the man simply... Vanished. Bear, who was on the process of holding Robert, fell on the floor and some of the zombies' attacks hit him instead. I barely managed to redirect my spells on time.
Someone screamed right behind me and I turned to see a bald blue man in leather armor pulling a spear out of a zombie head.
Robert's skin was blue. His eyes too were completely in shades of blue, without whites. His teeth looked like a metal saw and he had no nose, only two small slits, like a snake. Not only his scalp was hairless, there were also no hair in his face or in his body, only something that resembled underdeveloped scales. His hands had six fingers, with two of them being opposable thumbs. I couldn't even begin to guess how much more effective it could make his spear skills.
He sneered at me and jumped back, all the way to his bedroom. When my deathball was close, he simply destroyed it by swinging his metal spear, an iron looking shaft with a stone spearhead affixed to it. His movement was so fast and fluid I couldn't even change the spell's direction in time.
He didn't waste any time. Almost transparent white morbs appeared above his head and a few seconds later, when the zombies were barely halfway to him, three of the morbs joined and a damn tornado appeared in front of Robert, coming right at us.
One of the zombies tried to dodge but was swept away by the wind and thrown into the mists. He shouted, but the moment the mists enveloped his whole body, it was cut off.
Just like that, he was gone.
Two people dead and we hadn't even landed a single hit at the bastard.
Goddamn Manhart!
I managed to stay half crouched and, after taking my bow, fired an arrow just to test Valia's physics. Unfortunately, as expected the arrow was swept away by the wind.
The tornado got to the other zombies but they avoided being sent flying. Robert hissed angrily at that and the tornado kept coming at me while he advanced to meet the seven zombies in his way.
Next, I tried creating a fire morb and sending a fireball through the tornado, and surprisingly was met with a damage message.
Attacked a physically immune target for 2.0x damage!
250 fire + 62 burn damage dealt to Tornado (312 total)
Of course! The tornado was a spell and when hit by other magical energies, like spells, it would be damaged! It was cool that it was balanced, too; since the tornado couldn't be damaged by physical attacks, magic dealt double damage to it.
I sent my remaining death morbs and more fireballs at it and it dissipated when I had dealt a little more than a thousand damage to it.
With the tornado gone, the zombies started fighting Robert, and it was much better than I expected — they were actually acting in a coordinated manner. They kept a half circle around the blue guy, and none of them got in the way of the other. The spear still hit them a lot, but they took advantage of the openings to counter attack Robert.
Not that it was easy; the guy was truly a powerful spearman. His spear flowed like an ethereal thing in wide arcs and short stabs, creating a nearly impenetrable wall around him.
He hadn't calculated the ruthlessness of the zombies though. Even when receiving damage, they still attacked, just as they had been trained to do.
'When facing stronger enemies, use our numbers against them,' I had taught them. 'Don't fight like idiots, fight the way Daggers showed you, acting on the little openings the enemy will present. Even if you end up hurt or even dead, it's still a good trade, since a stronger enemy would kill us all anyway.'
They obeyed and I began to heal the zombies. I couldn't see their HP bar but I used their visible wounds to determine who needed healing the most.
For a full minute, nothing happened. It was clear that we would be able to slowly tire him. Since things were looking good, the universe decided things needed to change.
Robert jumped. Not a low jump, but a three-meter vertical leap that placed him above the zombies. He pointed his spear down and dropped fast and hard on one of them, as if he was propelled towards the ground instead of just falling.
He targeted the zombie with the lowest HP, the one I hadn't healed yet. The spear skewered the zombie's head, neck, and body, before the zombie simply exploded in gore. Then, his spear shone red as he spun it in a circle around him. All the remaining zombies took damage, and by the amount of blood and cuts on their armor, it wasn't just a little.
Daggers had taught them too well though. The moment they realized Robert was locked in the middle of the spear-spinning skill — one of the biggest disadvantages of using skills —, they rushed him with open mouths.
Unfortunately, it didn't matter. Robert had already summoned a wind morb above his head and flew upwards without jumping. Then, he used his spear stomp again.
Another zombie exploded and I could almost feel the morale of everyone dropping.
Bear leapt in like a freaking comet, swinging his greatsword with abandon. Robert moved his spear to try to make Bear impale himself with the momentum but my zombie was too quick for that; he put one hand forward, let it be stabbed, and didn't stop moving forward.
The spear kept going through his hand. Robert tried to rip it out but no matter how strong he was, it wasn't enough for the spear handle to cut through Bear's flesh. Robert had no choice but to release the weapon. When he did so, one of the zombies grabbed the spear from behind Bear and pulled it the rest of the way through his hand.
This made me so damn proud! They had thought for themselves! It was like watching a puppy fetch a ball for the very first time!
Bear attacked with a vertical slash, still moving on with momentum, but Robert dodged. However, as Bear's passed by the blue man, the zombie's head moved in a weird angle and his teeth met the spearman's neck.
Blood flowed as the guy yelled. My deathballs kept healing everyone.
He took two knives from
hidden sheaths in his clothes and began to dance a lethal death. He stabbed two helmetless zombies in the eye, killing one of them, and cut another's hand off.
Even so, it wasn't enough. There were too many of us and we had something very important which he didn't, a healer. My deathballs made a huge difference.
Things were looking good again. So, obviously, Robert's teleport skill came off of cooldown and he teleported to the middle room.
At first, I thought it was great. If he had teleported close to me, there was no way Melkier and I could hold him in the room. However, wind morbs began to appear above his head. I tried to attack him to prevent it but he slashed my spells and arrows out of the air with his daggers.
This time, he only created two morbs and when they joined together, a new tornado appeared. Only, it didn't move towards me or the other zombies, it kept spinning around Robert.
He began to walk in my direction.
I passed back through the portal first.
9. The Heroes and the Demon Horde
The world outside was not the way I had last seen it.
Five people wearing the uniform of the town guard were dead around Daggers, who held blades in her hands that were dripping blood. Another guard was looking on from afar, his face pale, clearly waiting for reinforcements.
Her dark hood didn't even turn in my direction when I told her to get away, she simply obeyed first and looked after.
I also ran away with her and when I decided I was distant enough, I stopped to create new fire morbs. Melkier left the portal shortly after me and followed along.
Unbound Deathlord_Obliteration Page 10