Ascend Online

by Luke Chmilenko

  Our blades slammed together as I met Graves’s charge head on, his overwhelming strength having vanished with the spirit’s departure. He seemed surprised to find me not only having blunted his assault but to be forcing his blade aside.

  “Give it up, Graves!” I taunted the man, suddenly pulling back on our exchange and landing a heavy kick in his stomach sending him reeling backwards. Disengaging, I quickly ran in the direction I had seen the sphere roll. “I beat you senseless when you still had your armor’s fancy stat boosts! Without those you’re nothing but a scrub novice now!”

  “I’ll show you how well I fight if you ever stop running from me!” Graves roared as he gave chase, swinging his sword in a vicious overhand chop at my head as I ground to a stop, spinning to face him.

  Easily sidestepping the wild swing, Graves’s charge carried him rushing past me, allowing me the opportunity to land a bleeding slash across his arm.

  “Last chance Graves, surrender!” I called to the man, as he reflexively clutched his wounded arm.

  “I would rather fucking die!” Graves spat at my feet as he launched into another set of attacks attempting to beat my defenses into submission.

  “If that’s what it takes!” I was forced to pick up the pace as I worked to parry Graves’s increasingly desperate attacks. After nearly nonstop combat since we arrived at this Tower, mental fatigue had begun to set in, exacerbated by the attribute and skill penalties I was suffering due to Amaranth’s death.

  I have to end this! I felt myself breathing heavily as I forced myself to keep up with Graves. A huge flash of light burst from behind me, instantly making me worry on how the others were faring against the Slave-King.

  Catching Graves’s blade on Razor, I channeled a Shocking Touch into the metal. The shock instantly traveling through both our blades and into Graves’s hand holding his sword. With a yelp, Graves’s grip faltered long enough for me to knock the blade from his hand.

  With no blade to block with, Graves was helpless as I ruthlessly thrust Razor into his gut, his mouth opening wide to scream. I followed up with a vicious kick to the side of his knee, shattering the joint as he instantly fell to the ground writhing in pain.

  “Sit tight here for a second!” I told a screaming Graves, kicking his sword far away from him. “I want you to watch what happens next.”

  Having tracked the direction of the Annulment Sphere’s journey, I found it nestled amid a pile of debris. Reaching for it, I paused for a heartbeat, steeling myself for what was about to come. This seemed to hurt Graves when he picked it up.

  Grabbing the sphere, I instantly felt a freezing cold sensation run up the length of my arm. Fighting the instinctive urge to drop the sphere, I tucked it under my arm as I turned to sprint towards the middle, where the Slave-King loomed over my friends. Time appeared to slow as I ran, giving me a chance to read the alert messages streaming into my combat log.

  You have picked up an [Annulment Sphere!]

  Warning! Holding an [Annulment Sphere] will drain your mana at a rate of 10% per second! If you run out of mana while carrying an Annulment Sphere, it will begin draining life 10% per second instead!

  [Annulment Sphere] drains 64 mana from you!

  [Annulment Sphere] drains 64 mana from you!

  This is going to be close! I saw my already diminished mana pool bleeding away at an incredible rate, giving me seconds before it started draining my life. I charged forward, hoping to make every single step count.

  Glowing like a blazing furnace, I saw the Slave-King standing ahead of me, my friends scattered around him. In one hand he held a struggling Caius by the throat, a wicked laugh echoing through the air. With a flash of magic, I saw Caius’s body fade to dust, his presence vanishing from Party Sense.

  I hope this works! I triggered Blink Step one last time, a heartbeat before the last dregs of my mana was consumed. My world blurred in a kaleidoscope of colors as I reappeared barely ten feet away from the Slave-King. Continuing my desperate sprint forward, I banished the sudden pangs of Thirst and Hunger my lack of mana brought upon me, not wavering in the slightest.

  At the last instant, before I collided, the Slave-King turned, somehow sensing my approach. But it was too late. I leaped from the ground the same instant a deafening shout filled the air, the Annulment Sphere outstretched before me. I passed into the Slave-King’s corporeal form, the sphere suddenly anchoring in the heart of his being, jerking me to a halt as my hands stuck to it, leaving me suspended inside the spirit.

  As with the Ley Line I had fallen into days before, the Æther contained within the Slave-King’s manifestation burned me right down to my very core. This time, however, there was no relief, my mana starved body desperately craving the fuel that it had grown accustomed to. My body began to draw on the Æther within the Slave-King, the Annulment Sphere then hungrily drinking from me, forcing my body to draw even more.

  I lost track of time, as the cycle repeated itself. Hunger and Thirst at one moment satiated, then the next starving. I felt something change within me as my body struggled to find a way to survive.

  The next thing I knew, I was falling, blacking out as I fell to the ground.

  I awoke almost instantly, only to find the remaining members of the party standing over me, concerned looks over the faces.

  “Lyrian!” Freya called to me, rushing to bend down beside me. “Are you okay?”

  “I-I don’t know.” I felt strange, in a way, I couldn’t quite pin down. Flashing system alerts danced in my vision, causing a spike of pain to shoot through my head as they cried for attention. Dismissing them for the time being, I tried to stand.

  “Careful there, Lyr.” Drace’s hand appeared before me, as he helped me stand up. “You don’t look so great.”

  “I’ll be fine-” As I reached for Drace’s hand, I caught sight of mine, the glove having been completely burnt off and seeing that it had suddenly become emaciated. It reminded me of the ghouls that we had fought just a short time ago, minus the razor sharp claws. Nothing left but tendons, muscle, and bone.

  “I don’t know what you did, Lyr… but you killed the Slave-King,” Drace told me as I wavered on my feet unsteadily. “After you jumped into him, that orb you were holding went completely black. It just, sucked him up.”

  “I’m glad it worked out.” I slowly scanned the room, seeing Natasha in the distance, kneeling amongst the Expedition members held prisoner by the goblins what seemed like a lifetime ago.

  “Where is he?” I asked Drace, feeling my balance steady under me. “Where is Graves?”

  “Over here, Lyrian,” Constantine called to me from a short distance away. Both he, Helix and Abaddon stood around the kneeling form of Graves, his head staring down at the ground. “We haven’t decided what to do with him. We were waiting until you woke up.”

  “We can’t take him back,” Freya said softly. “Best case scenario, it’ll start a riot.”

  “We can’t leave him here either,” Drace replied. “He’ll escape.”

  I slowly began walking towards Graves, my feet echoing through the near silent chamber. There was only one way that this could end, only one way to be sure that Graves would leave us alone for a time.

  Graves’s head slowly rose as he heard my approach, his expression widening in fear as he saw my face.

  “If only you came with an open hand, Graves.” I stopped directly in front of the man, forcing him to look nearly straight up at me. “We could have worked something out, something better than this.”

  Graves swallowed hard as I put both of my hands on either side of his head.

  “Either way, you gambled and lost.” I bent down slightly, angling Graves’s head so he could see my face clearly. “I don’t ever want to see you in this region again, Graves. Go play your game somewhere else, far, far away.”

  “This wasn’t how it was supposed to work out,” Graves whispered, his eyes fixated on me. “I was supposed to be King! You can’t do this to me! I-I…”

>   I gripped Graves’s head tight, looking him straight in the eye. “Goodbye, Graves.”

  And then I snapped his neck.

  Chapter 44

  I let out a weary sigh as I dismissed a menu from my vision, my eyes having gone far too blurry to see straight as I attempted to categorize and note the dozens of items laid out on the table before me. Walking over to a nearby stool, I gently sat down, my eyes staring out blankly at the now overflowing workshop.

  It had been close to nine hours since the battle with the Goblins, Graves, and Slave-King Abdiel. Night had fully fallen by the time we arrived back at Aldford.

  After watching Graves’s body dissipate into nothingness and hearing Huxley confirm his revival far away to the south, a sense of relief came over us as we began to decompress from the final battle. The region was safe, the dead were avenged, and those that still lived were rescued. Only Carver’s escape marred our otherwise successful day. But given the alternatives, we felt it was a small price to pay.

  He’ll either turn up at some point, or we’ll never seen him again, I thought to myself with a mental shrug, rubbing my face as I tried to clear my blurry eyes. Blinking slowly, the workshop came back into focus, my gaze falling on a long bone staff that once belonged to the Goblin Shaman, resting on the far side of the table before me. I should probably double check everything again because for the life of me I can’t even remember what I was just looking at.

  With a grunt, I forced myself back onto my feet and shuffled over to the staff, bringing up the item’s information.

  Flamespit

  Slot: Primary Weapon

  Item Class: Rare

  Item Quality: Exceptional (+20%)

  Damage 22-42 (Bludgeoning)

  Intelligence: +4 Willpower: +4

  Durability 180/180

  Weight: 2 kg

  Favored Class: Any Arcane or Divine.

  Base Material: Bone

  Special Ability: Wielder gains the ability to cast Fireball and Spewing Flames. Effect scales based on Class Level and Evocation Skill.

  Level 12

  “I think Caius is going to get dibs on this one,” I whispered to myself, slightly envying the Warlock and his future prize. Whatever gets in his way after he gets used to wielding this, won’t have enough time to regret it!

  Setting the staff down, I moved over to a rather foul smelling pile of furs that had also been taken off the Goblin Shaman, something that I had claimed for myself. Maybe I’ll wear it after I wash it in the river, two, three, or nine times! Gods this stinks!

  Fur Mantle of Swiftness

  Slot: Back

  Item Class: Magical

  Item Quality: Good (+15%)

  Armor: 19

  Agility: +4

  Durability: 80/80

  Base Material: Fur

  Weight: 1 kg

  Favored Class: Any Martial

  Level: 12

  I’ll need to make some modifications to it. I made a face as the pungent smell of goblin funk wafted up from the furs, forcing me to let go of it. And sew a longer second length of furs in, to have it cover my lower back.

  Stifling a gag, I took a step away from the foul smelling mantle as I searched for cleaner air. Coughing slightly to clear my throat. I looked back down at the table, my eyes falling on a pile of chainmail. Maybe I can turn this mess into something useful too.

  I picked up the remains of a damaged chain shirt, my eyes following a long slice of broken links. I reverently ran a hand over the break, wondering what long lost battles it had seen, that had since been forgotten by this world’s history.

  Thinking back to the chamber under the Tower, I realized now that it had taken an embarrassingly long time after Graves’s execution before we all realized that we hadn’t quite explored the underground chamber we had urgently rushed into. I vaguely remembered walking around the perimeter of the room, finding only two points of interest. One was a collapsed stairway leading upwards to where the Tower once stood, having filled with debris when it fell.

  The second was a small storage room that had somehow remained intact over the countless years since the Tower’s fall, filled nearly to the brim with a variety of supplies, sundries and cast off pieces of equipment in desperate need of repair and re-forging.

  Among the dozens of prizes we found within the room, one was a barrel filled to the brim with broken and incomplete lengths of chainmail. Judging by ragged cuts and missing links in some of the samples we looked at, it was our belief that they had been deemed too damaged or too time-consuming to warrant repairing at that moment in time and had been stowed somewhere out of the way.

  A few of these pieces still bear the remnants of ancient enchantments, just like Razor did when I first found it. My eyes narrowed as I inspected the chain shirt even closer, feeling the coolness of the dark colored metal in my hands.

  Blackened Chain Shirt

  Slot: Chest

  Item Class: Relic

  Item Quality: Fine (+10 %)

  Armor: 0

  Strength: +3 Agility: +3

  Durability 0/0

  Weight: 2.5 kg

  Note: A skilled smith might be able to re-forge this item.

  I should be able to repair a few of these semi-intact shirts, and build a new set of armor from the rest of the scrap. I’m need a new set of armor for myself anyway. I turned my head over towards the charred mess that was once my Webwood Striker Armor Set, having been forced to cut the melted remnants of the armor from my flesh.

  Looking at the tattered scraps of the armor, I felt a momentary sense of loss wash over me, knowing that the first set of armor I had ever made was destined for the fire pit. If nothing else, studying these chainmail scraps should teach me how to properly make chainmail.

  Setting the chain shirt down, I moved to the next item on the table, spotting several glowing jars of [Mana-Infused Ectoplasm] that one of the group members had looted from the remains of the Slave-King’s corporeal manifestation. The jars cast an eerie orange light on everything around them, and I wasn’t quite sure what I was going to use the goopy substance for. Given where it had come from, I had half a mind to destroy the slime. But pragmatism had stilled my hand since I didn’t get the impression that it was actually dangerous.

  Maybe I’ll find a stick later and stir it for a bit, see what happens. I moved on with a shrug, my tired brain unable to come up with any other ideas for the time being.

  Unfortunately, the ectoplasm was the only item that the Slave-King had dropped. Since for reasons we didn’t quite understand, the [Annulment Sphere] had shattered itself after absorbing the Slave-King’s essence, leaving two broken halves of what appeared to be plain, mundane iron on the ground.

  Probably for the best. I thought to myself, remembering the deadly touch of the sphere. At least for the time being. Now that we know such an item is possible, we’ll find out a way to make a new one if we really need one.

  The next item on the table was a finely lacquered rectangular box. I carefully spun the box to face me and unclipped the clasps keeping it securely closed, gently opening it. Staring back at me were a dozen intricately crafted [Ætherscopes], all laid out perfectly with little metallic clips to hold them in place. Running a finger along one of the wands, I found it to be somewhat rough and grainy to the touch, a huge contrast to the one Donovan had.

  But that was because these Ætherscopes appeared to have been made of bone and not metal, something that Donovan said had never been attempted back in Eberia. Every Ætherscope ever made since the start of The War had always been metallic. He and Halcyon were both eager to see how these ancient bone Ætherscopes would measure up against the metallic version.

  So long as they don’t burn my hand to a crisp when I use them, I’d consider that an improvement. I snorted to myself, closing the box carefully and sliding it back into place beside a pile of carefully stacked scroll tubes. Ah! This was probably the best part of our haul!

  Tucked deep away in the room we�
�d uncovered, we had found six scroll tubes filled to the brim with a variety of common spells. Each tube containing nearly a dozen spell scrolls each, with multiple copies of the same spell. We now had access to spells such as Jump, Force Shield, Lesser Shielding, Flame Dagger, Fireball, Fire Whip, Pyroclap, Shocking Touch and a handful more that we had yet to successfully interpret due to their complexity.

  The new spells would give our immediate circle of Spellcasters a chance to greatly increase their versatility and not have to spend precious Class Skill Points on learning lower level spells. Whatever our casters couldn’t use, I planned to sell to the other Adventurers in town or offer them up as rewards for the endless list of tasks and projects that Aldford needed to have done. I can probably sell these spells for two to four gold each, and start earning back some of that gold I spent buying crafting materials.

  That’s of course after I take a few of those spells for myself! A spark of excitement couldn’t help but flare through my exhaustion as I looked forward to experimenting with a few new abilities. I smiled to myself, already imagining the future possibilities as I turned my attention towards a large crate on the floor. Almost done, just this last box and that hunk of scrap.