While his words should have concerned me, I’d already known that, so this just served as a confirmation. We had to recover the last of the items if we were to win the fight.
“What do you think this is?” Sabre asked, pointing to the broach she had pinned on her chest. “Something I got for looks?”
“Yeah, and I’ve got the medallion,” I replied, pulling the item from my quest inventory and showing it to the lich. “We’re almost there.”
“Almost is meaningless,” the lich said, turning to glare at me. Only, as he did, his eyes widened, and a cruel smile flitted across his face. “Necromancer…” Laughter burbled from his throat. “You think you know the powers of death?” More laughter, and this time it hit me like a punch in the face. I stumbled backward in sudden pain as my synchronization numbers began to climb. My blood pounded in my ears and my heart started to race as the lich took a step toward me. “Your mastery of death is meaningless. It will not save you from me nor be enough to stop the Skeleton King.”
“Then teach me,” I cried, barely getting the words out past the pain. “Help us defeat him. Have your revenge.”
“You will not bait me into helping you,” the lich said, waving his hand dismissively at me, and as he did, the pain vanished, and my synchronization numbers went back to normal. “You are not worthy of it.” He spun on his heel. “Kill them.”
“Was this how it was supposed to work?” Two’ Manchu asked as the skeletons surged forward.
“No,” Sabre said, shaking our head. “He’s supposed to just give us the hilt and send us on our way.” She bit her lip as she took a step backward. “Something is wrong.”
“Or it’s changed in the last forty something patches,” Crash said, raising his hand and summoning his spectral blades. “Hard to believe, I know.”
“Well, figure it out! I’ll buy us some time,” Dark Heart cried as she raised one hand upward. “Provoke!”
As she spoke, bright red light exploded from her hand before sweeping out across the room. The skeletons moving toward us turned in unison, focusing their eyes upon her. Then their cries exploded from their lips as they ran at her.
“George, I need one dead one. Can you do that?” I asked as I pulled myself to my feet.
“Sure as shootin,’ boss,” George said as frost magic began to swirl around him. Snow fell from the sky as he let loose with a backflip that sent a wave of cold magic at the charging skeletons. The first wave shattered into icy shards, and unlike last time, didn’t rise. Thank the gods.
I raised my hand toward the bodies. “Raise Golem,” I said, and as a bone golem rose from the bodies of the fallen, I cast Reflecting Fog.
System Message: You have raised a stone golem. Health: 250 Mana: 0.
“Dark Heart, transfer threat to my golem!” I called, pointed at the creature.
“On it,” she said, spinning toward my creature. “Pass the Blame!” Yellow light leapt from her fingers and hit the golem like a wave of sunlight. All at once the skeletons stopped and spun to attack the golem.
Their skeletal fists shattered as they hit the golem standing in the midst of Reflecting Fog, causing them to take double their attack as damage.
“Impressive,” the lich said, turning to regard us as his skeletons pulverized themselves upon my golem’s bony form. “That is a clever combination of skills and teamwork.” He rubbed his chin as another skeleton shattered into shards. “Perhaps you could win, but not with your skills as they are.” He held up one hand, and the skeletons stopped mid-strike. With a flick of his wrist, the skeletons parted to allow him passage.
“So you will help us?” I asked, somewhat surprised. I mean, I was sure we’d been about to die under a horde of undead. I hadn’t expected my trick with the golem to impress the lich.
“No. I shall just allow you the use of a sword,” the lich said, reaching beneath his black robe and pulling out a damaged hilt. Then he tossed it to the ground at our feet. “Take that and be gone.”
He began to walk away, and as he did, a sapphire portal opened up between us.
“What about the ring?” Sabre asked as Two’ Manchu moved to pick up the hilt. The lich turned to look at us as the barbarian grabbed the weapon and placed it into his inventory.
“The Ring of Strife can be found in the Citadel of Evil. It currently resides on the finger of Prince Asmodai. Good luck with that. He’s an interesting character.” The lich chuckled, waving us away like we were less interesting than a conversation about laundry detergent.
“Well, thanks for everything,” I said as we approached the portal. I wasn’t quite sure what to do now other than find the ring and repair the sword. I guess that was good. Not only had we finished the dungeon with both pieces of the weapon, we had two of the three items required to wield it, and we knew where to get the last one.
“You’re welcome, necromancer,” the lich said. “You stay. The rest of you go. I wish to speak with you alone.” Then, without another word, he sat down cross legged on the stone floor and waited.
I’d be lying if I didn’t say his words concerned me. He was the Lord of Liches and could have swatted us out of existence with his skeleton army, and now he wanted my friends to leave so he could speak to me alone? Still, this was a game, and even though it could kill me, it probably followed game rules. Maybe he was about to offer me a quest or something? I mean, if he wanted me dead, I’d probably already be engaged in a boss fight.
“Um… that’s weird,” Sabre said, glancing at the lich, her face screwed up in confusion. “This has literally never happened before.”
“Have you ever brought a necromancer here?” I asked, raising an eyebrow at her, smug satisfaction settling over me. “I mean, disregarding the whole many patches ago thing.”
“No.” She squinched up her face. “No one plays that trash class. It takes way too many skills to be viable. There’s just not enough slots.”
“Well, there you go then,” I said, brushing off her comment. Part of me wanted to argue, but she was sort of right. My necromancer in Titan Gate had all three hot bars full of skills, and I’d constantly been casting them all the time. Ten would be pretty damned limiting. Especially once I started getting some of the higher passive buffs…
“Let’s leave him to talk with the creepy monster,” Dark Heart said, looking at me carefully. “We’ll go back to town and see about getting the sword repaired. Meet us at the smithy when you’re done.” She smiled at me. “And don’t die, okay?”
“I’ll do my best. Oh, and George, can you look after Two’ Manchu please?” I said as my party members waved at me.
“All right, but you’d better come back because there’s no way I’m staying with Fatty,” George grumbled before following the barbarian through the portal, leaving me all alone with the Lord of Liches.
The moment they were gone, the lich turned his eyes upon me, and because I couldn’t think of what to do, I spoke first. Might as well get this over with. I wasn’t sure if we were gonna wind up fighting fight, but either way, I didn’t want to waste time here chatting, not with the Skeleton King bearing down on us, anyway. “Finally, we can talk in peace, dark one.”
“Indeed,” the lich said, rising to his feet. “It has been a long time since I’ve seen one of your kind.” His skeletal teeth bent into a twisted smile as he looked me up and down.
“What did you want to speak to me about?” I asked as the lich began to walk around me.
“When you face the Skeleton King, I wish for you to bind his soul into this gemstone,” the lich said, pulling a sapphire skull from beneath his robe and holding it out to me. “If you do so, I will reward you greatly. All you must do is have it on you when you strike him down.”
“That’s all?” I asked, arching an eyebrow as he pressed the skull into my hands.
“That is all,” The lich said, leering at me in a way that made me think I was being played.
System Message: You have been offered the quest: It’s all in your he
ad. Do you wish to accept? Yes or no?
“What do I get out of it?” I asked as I stared at the text hovering in front of my face.
“I already said I’d reward you greatly,” the lich replied before laughing at me.
“Okay,” I said, annoyed because I’d hoped he’d be a bit more specific with his answer, but I guess there was nothing for it. I accepted the quest and put the skull into my quest inventory tab. “Lay your quest upon me, oh, Lord of Liches.”
System Message: You have accepted the quest: It’s all in your head.
“Go forth and conquer, young necromancer,” the Lich replied, reaching out to me with one skeletal hand.
System Message: You have received the buff: Touch of the Lich. The amount of undead you can control is now based upon your intelligence divided by three rounded down.
26
As I exited the portal and stepped into the Town of Silver Gables, I was pretty stoked. In addition to now being able to summon six undead instead of two, I’d been able to learn that Chaotic River spell from the Duplication menu. I’d wound up gaining another synchronization, so I now had 90% synchronization, which was worrisome, but the skill had seemed so awesome, I couldn’t pass it up. While, I’d have to be more careful in the future, at least until I found a way to decrease my synchronization, staring at the skill in my skill window almost made me want to ignore that.
Skill: Chaotic River
Cost: 74 Mana
Cooldown: 300 seconds
Range: 10
Effect: Summons Intelligence minus 1 skeletons to fight for you for twenty seconds.
Given that I had twenty intelligence, I could summon nineteen of those badass black skeletons to fight with me. Sure, the mana cost was a bit high, but those combined with my newly enhanced abilities meant that even with the Medallion of Courage’s stat penalty, I could bury my opponents beneath a wall of undead. Mwa, ha, ha.
I was well on my way to becoming a proper necromancer. I almost couldn’t wait until I hit level fifteen because then I’d be able to learn the Summon Undead skill, which would allow me to summon skeletons without having dead bodies around. Sure, it wouldn’t be as good of a skill without an Edifying Compasses and a Topaz Ring of Summon control, since I wouldn’t be able to choose what type of undead I summoned, nor keep them around for very long, it was still nice to know I was only a few percent away from not being totally hamstrung by not having corpses around.
That said, I was anxious to meet up with my friends at the blacksmith’s shop, but I had one thing I wanted to do first because, with the way this adventure had been going, if I didn’t do it now, I might not have time later.
“Hey, Gereng,” I called, waving to the wizened old mage. At the sound of my voice, he turned away from a very engaging group of pigeons and glanced at me like I was something he’d stepped in.
“I know you don’t have the sword, so why are you here?” He pointed a decrepit finger at me. “Are you being lazy?”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “I just wondered if you’d be willing to teach me the level three spells?”
“That can be arranged,” Gereng said, steepling his spindly fingers as he looked me over. “There are five level three spells I can show you, and I’ll gladly do it for nine hundred Rhuvians per spell.” His leer widened, revealing his yellowed teeth.
It was a steep price. The whole shebang would cost me forty-five hundred Rhuvians, but I had nearly twenty thousand, thanks to all the monsters we’d killed in the dungeon. It was worth it.
“Only if you throw in a haste buff,” I said, holding my hand out to him, and as I did, the wizard glared at me.
“Very well,” Gereng replied, taking my hand, and as he did, my wallet decreased by forty-five hundred Rhuvians. Heat leapt across my palm as a series of training montages flashed across my eyes.
“You have learned the magic spell, Turn Undead. When successful, it will instantly kill an undead opponent,” Elizabeth said, and I’ll be honest, after all the system messages I’d seen lately, it was a little weird to hear her talk. I wasn’t exactly sure what was going on, but ever since that system update in the cave, I’d been getting way more system messages. “You have learned the magic spell, Water Wave. This spell fires a wave of water-type magic at a group of opponents to knock them back. You have learned the magic spell, Earth Wave. This spell fires a wave of earth-type magic at a single opponent to knock it back. You have learned the magic spell, Slow. When successful, it will decrease an opponent’s speed by 50%. You have learned the magic spell, Resist Elements. This spell allows your target to resist elemental effects by ten percent for thirty minutes. This spell will automatically renew itself every thirty minutes at a cost of six mana when cast on yourself.”
“That’s a lot of text,” I said, trying to remember everything Elizabeth had just told me while Gereng waved his fingers at me, hasting me and causing an icon to appear in the corner of my HUD with a timer for four hours beneath it.
“Don’t mention it,” Gereng growled, turning back to his pigeons as I opened my spell window to get a better look at all the spells.
Spell: Turn Undead
Cost: 20 Mana
Cooldown: 3 seconds
Range: 6
Effect: Rolls user’s intelligence plus spell power against an undead opponent’s magic resistance. If successful, instantly kills target.
Spell: Water Wave
Cost: 34 Mana
Cooldown: 1 second
Range: 4
Effect: Knocks back a group of opponents Intelligence divided by three feet.
Spell: Earth Wave
Cost: 20 Mana
Cooldown: 1 second
Range: 4
Effect: Knocks back a single opponent Intelligence divided by two feet.
Spell: Slow
Cost: 14 Mana
Cooldown: 10 seconds
Range: 3
Effect: Rolls user’s intelligence plus spell power against an opponent’s magic resistance. If successful, reduces target’s speed by 50%.
Spell: Resist Elements
Cost: 6 Mana
Cooldown: 10 seconds
Range: 10
Effect: Increases target’s resistance to Earth, Wind, Water, and Fire by 10% for 30 minutes.
I spent a couple minutes looking over the spells, trying to commit their names and effects to memory before nodding to myself. Then I cast Resist Elements on myself so the buff would be based off my own mana and made my way toward the blacksmith’s shop. Only, when I got there, I only saw Two’ Manchu and George outside which seemed odd.
“Um, where is everyone?” I asked, raising an eyebrow at the pair of them.
Two’ Manchu looked up from the turkey leg he’d been eating and chewed thoughtfully in my general direction. “Mmph, ermph, ghuhg.”
“Come again?” I asked, raising an eye at him. He shook his head sheepishly and shot a knowing look at George who bounded toward me.
“The others are inside arguing with the lady.” As he opened his mouth to say more, the door flew open and Sabre marched out.
“Honestly, can you believe it?” She stopped speaking as she saw me and settled her fists on her hips. “Nice of you to join us, Kahn. Get the curse removed from your medallion, yet?”
“No,” I said, shaking my head, feeling a bit silly because I’d forgotten about it, which was exceedingly dumb because it reduced all my stats by five. “Um… what’s going on with the sword?”
“She says we need Magestone,” Sabre said, rolling her eyes. “That wasn’t part of the quest before.”
“So, uh, where do we find that?” I asked as Two’ Manchu shook his head violently.
“The fucking dwarves!” she snapped like the word was somehow offensive. “I fucking hate dwarves.”
“Um… okay,” I said, shaking my head. “So what are Dark Heart and Crash doing?” I pointed past her toward the blacksmith’s shop.
“Finding out where the dwarves are,” Sabre
growled, throwing her hands in the air. “I can’t believe we’re going to see King Nimrod of the Dwarves. That dude is a creep.”
“Right, okay,” I said, glancing at George who yawned at me. “Say, was my scythe ready?”
“No,” Two’ Manchu said around a mouthful of turkey leg. “I asked, but she said it’ll be a bit longer.”
“Great,” I grumbled as I turned back to Sabre. “What’s say we go get the medallion uncursed?”
“Fine,” she growled, clearly still pissed about the whole ‘dwarves’ thing. It was weird because I didn’t remember dwarves being particularly annoying. I mean, okay, they were kinda rude and were tribal monsters, but they were otherwise fairly tame. “You and the bunny wait here,” she added, pointing at Two’ Manchu.
“Who you calling ‘the bunny,’ bitch?” George roared as the ground beneath his feet began to take on a decidedly frosty sheen. “Your tits aren’t nearly big enough for you to talk to me like that.”
“The priests will charge us by the number of players, not per item,” she said, ignoring his outburst as she turned toward me. “That’s why we should go just the two of us.”
“Seems reasonable…” I said as a sneaking suspicion filled the back of my mind. Sabre was a bit weird, and I still wasn’t sure I could trust her. Even assuming I believed her story about being trapped here for over half a century, I had to believe she’d have gone crazy just sitting there as a statue after all this time.
“Are you really gonna go off with this chick, boss?” George asked, glaring at me. “Because I think that’s a bad idea.”
“We’re in town,” I said, trying to ignore how I’d nearly been eaten by undead in town. “If I’m not back in a few minutes, just come find me.”
“You hear that, George? Looks like it’s the two of us on ‘waiting’ duty again,” Two’ Manchu said as Sabre sidled up to me and took my hand in hers. “Wanna work on some skills?”
Soulstone: The Skeleton King: A LitRPG Novel (World of Ruul Book 2) Page 18