by Aleron Kong
Richter has struck Nien with a dual cast Weak Aura Lance. All spell-type resistances of the Death Knight are decreased by -11.8%. Any resistance dropping below 0% will cause a resultant susceptibility to that spell type.
With a grim smile, Richter sent a command to his remaining summoned creatures.
*Attack.*
The fox, spider, forest elemental, rats and wisp all surged forward. The ghast wasted no time and laid waste to the defenseless bodaks at his feet. With his high attack speed and massive Strength, the damage was devastating. Before he could dispatch all of the reanimated skeletons however, the frost bodak struck. With an ice-blue fist of bone, it punched the Death Knight in the leg. A surge of Water magic spread through the ghast’s body, afflicting him with Slow. A final swing of the undead’s sword made the frost bodak’s head go flying, but then the other summoned creatures attacked.
Meanwhile, Richter reached into his bag for three mana potions. Plucking the stoppers from each, he downed them all, suppressing a faint gag at the licorice taste. His mana bar began refilling rapidly and the chaos seed ran forward. By the time he had crossed half the distance, the ghast had already killed his spider. The rats were next to useless and a few had already been ground into paste under the undead’s boots. They posed less risk to Richter’s enemy than a banana peel did to a cartoon character.
The wisp was actually having an effect, being able to pass through the Knight’s armor freely. Now even more susceptible to Life magic than before, each of the wisp’s melee attacks was costing Nien over a dozen HP. The hardwood saproling, in contrast, was attacking for all it was worth, but was doing almost negligible damage against the ghast’s high level armor.
Richter took another step and the wisp’s luck ran out. Performing a perfectly executed sword strike, the Death Knight cut the Life creature in half. In a flash of sparks, it winked out of existence. Nien turned to look at the chaos seed, fury evident through the slats in his helmet. He kicked the saproling, sending it flying through the air. Then the Death Knight started running towards the chaos seed. Which was just what Richter had been waiting for.
The chaos seed raised an arm, and the Death Knight lifted his shield in response, expecting a spell. That’s not on the menu, Richter thought. Instead of magic, he accessed Alma’s primary attack Psi Blast, and concentrated the beam. The ray of pure psychic energy passed through the solid matter of the undead’s armor as if it weren’t there. Once it reached the ghast’s rotting flesh however, it played havoc. Nien had had Mental resistance at the beginning, but now he had nearly a -12% weakness to the Deep Magic. All conscious thought fled the Death creature’s mind and he fell in a clatter of armor.
Richter had no idea how long the Stun effect would last, but he wasted no time. Reaching down, he ripped off the creature’s helmet. Grabbing the ghast’s face in both hands, Richter pried the jaws apart. Richter drew in a deep breath and time seemed to pause for a moment, then he used Glass Flame. Nearly invisible fire poured from Richter’s mouth and into Nien’s like a sparrow feeding its young. Mania widened his eyes as he thought, burn you bastard. Burn!
He kept the flame on for the full seven seconds, hollowing the undead out. The fire burned through in places and began to do massive damage to the ghast’s armor. The Knight’s health points plummeted towards zero, further hastened by an instinct inside of Richter to drain away the creature’s life through his taloned hands. For the first time, he felt the ecstasy of using Brain Drain. He drank the ghast’s very thoughts, and felt like a god! Alma’s psyche reveled inside of him even as she continued to fight the red fog that was still encroaching on his mental castle.
In seconds, it was over. Richter dropped the burnt-out husk in disgust and threw back his head. A draconian roar of triumph burst from his throat, and he cast his gaze around at the skeletons lining the room to see if they would try to avenge their master’s death. None moved. Richter’s dragon lips pulled back in a sharp-toothed smile. He had won!
The moment was ruined when Alma called out to him, *Master! Something is wrong.*
He cast his focus inward, and saw that not only had the red fog not dissipated, it had thickened and was spreading faster than before. Despite Alma breathing Glass Fire and throwing lightning bolts, it was accumulating faster than she could disperse it. She was in no danger, being able to fly, but it had long since overrun the outer walls. The crimson mist had reached the base of the castle and was starting to climb the structure. The construct that represented his consciousness had nowhere to go.
*If the ghast suffered the final death, then his aura should have dissipated!* she cried out.
That was when Richter heard it.
A large sucking sound heralded the appearance of a purple-black vortex over the Death Knight’s body. It covered the corpse in a shell of the same color and a tether shot out to connect to each of the creature’s minions. Richter had seen something similar before, in the memories of Jorgen. The fucking thing was trying to siphon strength from the other undead to regenerate!
“No!” Richter shouted, swinging his elementum blade at the Death magic dome.
He might as well have attacked a mountain.
The magic at play was primordial and as old as The Land’s Places of Power; it rebuffed Richter’s attack as if it had never happened. Though he did not know it, Richter was witnessing an ability that could only be obtained by advancing a Death Place of Power to level two. The Death’s Servant ability let the Death Master transfer his death to seven of his pledged servants who would die in his stead. The ability was not limited to just seven victims though. It could be spread to as many of the Master’s servants as were willing and nearby. Every seven victims increased Nien’s power by another 30%. Triggered at the moment of death, the process could not be interrupted and the Master was effectively invulnerable until it finished. As the bodaks had no free will to speak of, they were all being sacrificed to feed the ghast’s life and boost his power.
Before Richter’s very eyes, the bones of all the bodaks began to blacken as they took on the damage the ghast had suffered. Nien’s own body regenerated, and even worse, the debuff from the aura lance was transferred as well. He got up into a kneeling position, the maximum height the dome of Death magic allowed, and glared at Richter with pure hatred.
The chaos seed didn’t know exactly what was going on, but did know it was most likely bad enough to end his life. It was not the time for half measures. Reaching into his Bag of Holding, he pulled out every psi crystal he had gathered in the dungeon. He held them in his cupped hands and breathed deeply. Pure Mental energy poured into his body even as Death energy poured into the Death Knight. Both Nien and Richter willed the power to flow faster, but neither had control as they called upon Powers greater than either of them could ever hope to control.
Richter won the race. He finished absorbing over three hundred levels worth of psychic energy a moment before the vortex of Death energy winked out of existence. He knew he had no chance of defeating the ghast by strength of arms so he did the one thing he knew he shouldn’t do. He looked Nien in the eyes. The Death Knight’s own gaze widened in shock as a psychic bond was created. A moment later, Richter recalled the warning that a door, once created, can swing both ways. At Psi Bond level seven, the bond was stronger than he had ever experienced before. For the first time, Richter experienced an ancient form of Thought combat.
You have engaged in Psychic Battle with the Death Knight Nien.
Richter’s mindscape remained the same, and he still stood atop the castle of his mind’s defense. The red mist reached halfway up the walls of his mental defenses and were continuing to rise. As he stared out over his settlement, he saw that the forest directly outside of his village had disappeared. Now it was a barren wasteland of black rock and twisted trees. A roiling sky of dark clouds hung over the tableau, blocking all direct light. In comparison to the sun shining above his own green land, the two mindscapes were the very essence of life and death.
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nbsp; The mental representation of the Death Knight stood at the border of the two lands. No fortifications were present within the ghast’s mind, but as Richter watched, skeletons rose inside the deadlands. The minions were a function of a Warrior Talent, Intimidation, adding to Nien’s Mental attack strength. The Knight was also wearing armor that represented another Warrior Talent, Mental Fortitude. Nien had always used the Talent to protect himself from mind-altering spells in battle. In the ghast’s mindscape, it served a more direct function in protecting the creature’s body, which was, just as it was with Richter, a representation of his mind.
Unlike in the real world, the Knight’s body was only five feet tall and his physique was little more than average. That was because in the mindscape one’s power was affected by many factors, but the attributes of Strength and Constitution were not among them. Intelligence, on the other hand, did have a direct impact on one’s base mental attack and defense. As Richter’s stat was much higher than Nien’s, his mental strength was actually higher even without taking his training with Alma into account.
That advantage did not last.
Nien looked around in confusion, but then realization crossed his face. The ghast examined the castle and saw Richter’s avatar was still standing atop it. The creature began to laugh, the same sludge-filled chortle that the chaos seed had heard before. “You think these mental games will protect you?” the Death Knight shouted. “My master told me of your Thought magic and placed a piece of himself inside of me! Witness the power of the eldritch!”
With that pronouncement, the Death Knight stuck his gauntleted fingers into his own neck and grabbed a bone his lich master had placed under his skin before sending him to the surface world. The reliquary was a gift from the eldritch master and had been flooded with parasitic magic. In the mindscape, there was no actual bone under the ghast’s skin of course, but the action still served to express the undead’s desire. In the real world, the eldritch magic in the bone responded to the Death Knight’s will.
The Power contained within the reliquary flooded the ghast’s body. Veins stood stark against his exposed skin, glowing neon green, and his eyes shone like spotlights of the same color. Nien’s body grew by seven feet and his muscles grew to match. The armor he wore enlarged to suit its new frame. From his now twelve feet of height, the ghast looked at Richter’s Mental defenses in contempt. When he spoke again, there was a resonance to the undead’s voice that sounded like the lich’s voice was superimposed over his own.
“Now you can witness the foresight and power of the eldritch. You are not safe behind your paltry walls, foolish human. I will sweep aside the defenses of your mind and visit horrors upon you that shall make even your nightmares flee in terror. You shall tell me all that you know and soon, your dominion will be mine. Now,” Nien pronounced, pinning Richter with a baleful glare that promised tortures beyond the chaos seed’s imagination, “you shall learn the true meaning of pain.”
Richter glared back for long seconds before his face relaxed and he shouted his response, “Yeah. You’d probably be right, but you forgot one thing.”
The ghast cocked his head in query, right before a shadow crossed over the illusory sun overhead. Nien looked up, and got to see the rare vision of a dragon. She was no longer the size of a large dog, but instead was now the size of a greyhound bus. Swelled with the power of three hundred levels of psychic energy, Alma descended like the wrath of the banished gods.
Confronted with the monstrosity attacking him, Nien completely forgot about Richter. The Death Knight started to marshal the eldritch magic he’d been given in a vain attempt to protect himself. Even though the chaos seed was now being ignored, he still decided to finish his earlier statement. In a normal voice that had no chance of being heard by the Death Knight, he said, “You forgot that if you mess with me, you mess with my whole crew.”
Alma struck. One taloned claw the size of a dinner table smashed Nien to the ground and the neon green glow of energy snuffed out from around the Death Knight. The ghast cried out in pain and fear as her talon pierced straight through his entire body. With deliberate care, she tore off his limbs one at a time, reveling in his terror. The mental anguish the undead was experiencing was almost “physical” in this realm, and she drank in the sensation. When only the head remained, she drew her claw, letting her talon slide out of Nien’s body.
She was not being merciful. There was no mercy in her gaze as she stared in pure hatred at the creature that had tried to kill her master. Nien looked up with an expression of shock and horror on his ruined face. He opened his mouth to speak, either to beg, threaten or bargain. The words were never heard.
Alma breathed glass flame down on Nien’s head and torso, turning the body into cinders, and then dust. The particles blew away in the wind of her breath, and all traces of the undead were scoured from Richter’s mind. With her foe utterly vanquished, Alma reared back in all of her draconic glory and showed her master what the roar of a true dragon sounded like.
Looking at her in love and astonishment, he whispered, “My little predator.”
Leaving the tableau of his mindscape, he turned his focus back to the real world. Once again, only seconds had passed, though the ghast’s mental torture had lasted for a quarter of an hour. Stalking forward, Richter had both of his weapons raised to attack if the undead managed yet another trick to defy death. Nien just stayed on his knees though, staring forward with a slack-jawed expression and completely vacant eyes.
His mind had been utterly destroyed, and only fragments of the ghast’s self remained in the empty shell of his body.
Richter’s lips pulled back in a snarl and one hand wove in an arcane gesture. Golden light surrounded his fingers. When the spell was done, for the next two minutes the ghast’s soul was bound to this realm. Placing both hands on the creature’s head, the chaos seed used Brain Drain again. He was worried time might run out as less than a minute remained for the Messeji, but the energy he had absorbed from the psi crystals turned what was normally a stream of psychic energy into a raging river.
The ghast’s health, mana and stamina sank like a stone through air, but still it was not enough for Richter. As he feasted on the residual psychic energy in Nien’s body, his bloodlust rose. The chaos seed’s taloned hands dug into the flesh on either side of the ghast’s neck. Deep furrows appeared and putrid fluid squirted over Richter’s hands. With a roar of savage anger, Richter wrenched the head left, then right, then left again. With the final twist, Nien’s head came clean off his body. All of his status bars bottomed out, this time never to rise again.
As the rainbow of the undead’s soul stuff swirled around Richter, the chaos seed allowed himself a faint chuckle. I captured the soul of a Soul Eater, he thought. How wonderful. The ribbon of colored energy disappeared into Richter’s bag. With a dismissive scoff, Richter let the head fall from his hands onto the ground with a wet smack.
So ended the story of Nien the Reaver.
CHAPTER 71 – Day 144 – Kuborn 34, 0 AoC
A kaleidoscope of notifications flooded Richter’s vision. The first told him about his haul thanks to Soul Trap.
You have captured:
Soul of Ghast Death Knight
Durability: 25/25
Item Class: Uncommon
Stone Level: Luminous
Soul Level: Luminous
Status: Filled
Weight: 0.4 kg
He minimized all the rest. Richter still wasn’t alone in the room. The stone door had now reopened, but the dozen or so bodaks had all turned their heads to look directly at him. Richter panned from left to right and back again. He’d known from the beginning that even if he killed the Death Knight he might still be killed by the undead’s minions. He had made his peace with it. What was important was that he had removed the threat of the Death Knight and had preserved the lives of his people. Waiting for whatever would come, he just held his elementum short sword in one hand and his mace in the other. He wasn’
t going down without a fight.
Richter was ready for anything, or so he thought. He felt nothing but astonishment when the bodaks clapped their fists to their chests in salute one after the other. First the Warriors at the bottom of the dais, then the rime skeletons, paid him deference. The skeletons on the final level of the dais did the same, before each monster turned towards the throne and went down on one knee. There, with heads bowed, they froze into immobility.
A flash of light appeared above the throne. It flickered several more times before resolving into a four-and-a-half-foot-tall figure with a crown upon his head. The spirit turned towards Richter and regarded him calmly. After about a minute, the king started walking down the dais towards Richter. He was neither hurried nor threatening. Still, the chaos seed had learned his lesson about trusting random spirits.
Sheathing his short sword in a smooth motion, he cast Weak Detect Hostile Intent. Gold light surrounded his hands for the two-second cast time. After he finished the spell, an invisible pulse radiated out from his body, illuminating anything hostile in red light. Unfortunately, it only worked on creatures within ten yards of him so he had to wait until the spirit got within range. Richter kept a taloned hand wrapped tightly around the hilt of his mace, but, thankfully, violence was not required.
When the spirit entered the spell’s radius, its body remained a ghostly white. Richter still did not fully relax his guard, but he did breathe a bit easier. It raised both hands and he saw they were covered in ghostly rings, all except the index finger on its left hand. It looked at the body of the slain Death Knight then back at Richter meaningfully. The spirit did not speak, but it clearly felt it had communicated its message.
The Universe apparently agreed.