Extra Credit

by J. Arthur Klein

  “Oh yeah!” Kelikk replied as Leilani and Cedric nodded.

  “Do you guys need to pick up anything before we go? I need to restock on potions, especially since we’ll be heading into the unknown. Give me a minute and I’ll grab some from the auction house,” I said and headed over to the kiosk, doing a quick search and picking up a few health and mana potions for a gold a piece.

  The others did the same, picking up some supplies they thought they might need on a dungeon delve, and then we were off.

  We arrived at the cave a short time later, Chief and Chevy rounding out the party with a second tank and ranged DPS. I wasn’t sure if we would have to worry about any respawns within the cave so we decided to be cautious and buff up before going in.

  I cast Dark Shield on everyone, earning some surprised looks from the party. “I finally raised it to rank ten and now I can cast it on others. Those level ten perks are quite useful.” I also cast Vampiric Link, enchanting Kelikk’s axe to feed health to Cedric, making our tank even more survivable.

  The dwarf looked at me and smirked. “You sure are full of surprises today. Wait ‘til I get to show off my new tricks!”

  I sat down to rest while my mana recharged, watching the other party members dole out their spells. Cedric had a few self-only buffs that I hadn’t seen him use before. A Strength and Constitution buff called “Power of Faith”, and an active threat generation aura aptly named, “Light of the Martyr”.

  Leilani had some new ones as well, increasing each of our primary stats by five each with a spell called “Blessings of the Moon”.

  She’d also picked up some additional crowd control abilities and an area healing aura she could channel if things got dicey.

  I put up the Aura of the Grave and we headed in with Cedric and Chief forming a shield wall at the front.

  Leilani created a glowing ball of moonlight with another spell as we left the daylight behind, producing enough light for our human companion to see by, but not enough to be a problem for my sensitive eyes.

  We moved slowly through the tunnels, but after we reached the cavern with the pool it became obvious that we didn’t have to worry about anything respawning. Even the nests of the beasts had despawned, leaving a peaceful pool of water.

  We continued on, single file with Cedric in the lead, until we reached the room where the Alpha’s nest had been. That cavern was empty as well, and I started to panic thinking that the entire thing was gone, including the hidden entrance.

  I rushed over to the crack and pulled out the bits I’d piled to hide triggering mechanism and let out a loud sigh when I found the chain in place.

  “Here we go,” I said, giving the chain a tug and gesturing towards the wall. “Open Sesame!”

  With a slow rumble, the cavern wall opened to reveal the dungeon entrance.

  Cedric and Chief lead the way forward with myself, Chevy, and Leilani in the backfield. Kelikk stood behind the warriors, ready to strike should the opportunity arise.

  The rough stone of the cavern walls changed over to worked stone as we descended. The gradual ramp downward soon became a stone staircase that descended even further into the earth.

  The floor was coated with a thick layer of dust, and when I glanced behind us, I could see where our footsteps showed our passage into the dungeon, marking us as the first adventurers to enter it in many, many years.

  The staircase ended abruptly at a set of large, intricately carved doors. Each door was embossed with the image of a radiant sun, a few flecks of gold still clinging to parts of the once richly decorated carvings.

  The style of the stonework surrounding the door seemed different than that of the stairway, but I couldn’t put my finger on why.

  Kelikk seemed to come to the same conclusion and stared the seam where they came together. “This staircase is a lot newer than the door,” he said, bending down to get a closer look. “My Delver’s Sense is telling me that these stairs were built at least a century after the door, and the rest of the tunnel is the same as the stairs. Like someone had to dig through the mountain to get to the entrance.”

  “Weird,” I said. “do you know what it means?”

  The dwarf shook his head. “Not in the slightest. Maybe it’ll come up later? Maybe it’s just some fluff for the dungeon. Won’t know ‘til it becomes relevant… if it does.”

  Kelikk got back into place, and I sent Chief forward to open the door. It resisted for a moment, but then popped opened with a loud creak that could likely be heard throughout the dungeon.

  Leilani sighed. “Well, whoever, or whatever, is inside now knows it has visitors.”

  I looked to her with a shrug. “Let’s hope it’s more ambiance than alarm system.”

  The zombie pulled the door the rest of the way open. A gust of air emerged from the tomb, carrying with it the faint smell of incense and something I couldn’t identify and carrying away a lot of the dust in the corridor as the air pressure inside the building equalized.

  Cedric and Chief led the way through the door and into the tomb, their eyes frantically scanning the room beyond for any threats.

  Leilani’s glowing ball flew with them, its soft light revealing a small stone antechamber. The walls on our left and right were lined with statues of elves and humans, their features intricately carved in an effort to immortalize their subjects. Words in an ancient language were inscribed into the stone bases at the statues’ feet, unreadable to any of our party members.

  Each of the statues were carved with the same style robes, and each held a staff in their right hand topped with a radiant sun identical to those carved on the doors.

  At the end of the chamber was a large open doorway, the radiant sun again making an appearance in the archway overhead.

  “Anyone else finding it a bit strange for something so obviously related to the sun to be buried underground?” Leilani asked, gesturing around the room. “Sun doors, sun staves…”

  I just shrugged. “Who knows what weird video game logic is at work.”

  Kelikk chuckled. “Could be a random dungeon for all we know, location unimportant. Or it could be part of the flavor,” he said as he moved around the room, letting is his racial skill fill in a bunch of the map.

  Finding nothing of interest in the entryway, we continued through the archway and into a gigantic room.

  The glow of Leilani’s spell was insufficient to illuminate the entire thing, but from what I could tell the room was massive.

  Directly ahead of us there were rows and rows of what looked like sarcophagi. I couldn’t be sure with the thick layer of dust on top, but the lids looked like some sort of glass or crystal.

  At the edges of my Darkvision I could barely make out what looked like walls with doors leading off to our right and left near where the corners of the room would be.

  I glanced up, expecting to see fancy arches and buttresses like you’d see in a modern-day church or cathedral but instead there was only rough stone, like the earth had swallowed the place but missed a few places.

  “Hey, Kelikk,” I said, pointing towards the edges where the worked stone and natural stone met, “What do you make of that?”

  “Damned if I know,” he said, shrugging. “What is this place?”

  Cedric chimed in, taking a few steps forward towards the sarcophagi, “And what are these things? They look like some sort of coffin.”

  He took another step into the room and a message appeared.

  Quest Update: The Forgotten Tomb [D]

  Your trespass upon this cursed ground has not gone unnoticed. Those enthralled by its nefarious energies have been awoken. Will you survive?

  Criteria Update: Discover the source of the curse.

  Rewards: 1000xp

  We all looked at one another in confusion and turned back towards Cedric who was staring the nearest sarcophagus.

  A low grinding sound filled the room as the lids of that, and every other sarcophagus started to slide open. Seconds later, a chorus of sh
attering glass filled the room as the lids, which were apparently some sort of crystal, crashed to the floor.

  One after another, undead started to rise from within the sarcophagi, clad in a mixture of robes, armor, and weaponry. They turned their gazes in our direction, the sockets of their bleached white skulls glowing an ominous red.

  “Hey Kababala,” Leilani said with some apprehension in her voice. “Anything you can do about those things? It is your thing and all.”

  “Uhh,” I replied, scanning the four closest undead whose tags all came back as white.

  < Accursed >

  “I have a control undead spell, but I haven’t put any points into it so I don’t see it working. Best to just put them down.”

  “Well, try something,” Cedric said as he and Chief formed a defensive line in front of us.

  “Okay! Okay!” I yelled, as more of the Accursed arrived in our circle of light from further into the room. This spell wasn’t very complicated, but I hadn’t had any opportunity to cast it before.

  Making the appropriate gestures with my hands, I chanted along with the spellcaster karaoke, “adinventionem facito alterum, adiuro te ad voluntatem meam,” and watched as my dark purple mana washed over the closest of the Accursed, flowing into its eyes and turning them purple for a split second before being swallowed by the red.

  Control Undead Failed – The magic animating the Accursed is beyond your ability to control.

  “Yup, these things are too powerful for my spell. Take them out!” I said, having Chevy switch to melee since his arrows were going to be pretty ineffective against the undead. His mace, on the other hand was quite good at smashing bones.

  Chevy took the left flank, with Chief and Ced in the middle and Kelikk on the right. Leilani and I took up positions behind them in support.

  The debuff portion of Aura of the Grave was only going to be half as effective since the foes were undead, but half was better than nothing, and the enhancements to my minions were still at full strength.

  The first wave of skeletal Accursed came into range. Their movements were halting and jerky, much less refined than my own minions, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t rip us all to shreds if given the chance.

  Cedric activated his area taunt, catching the first group of enemies and drawing them in. I instructed Chief to pick off any stragglers with his own skills and to watch Cedric’s back.

  Leilani sent her light flying up to the ceiling further into the chamber, giving us a better idea at the size of the enemy force.

  There were so many I didn’t even bother trying to count them. It was going to be a long fight.

  Our melee fighters seemed to have things in hand, smashing and slashing the undead as they reached our lines. The enemy was still trickling in, so we had time to deal with them in turn. Once their number started to pile up, it might be a different story, so I turned my attention to taking out the newcomers before they could get close enough to add to the brawl.

  I focused on one skeleton after another, my Necromantic Bolts smashing through rib cages and occasionally shattering a skull, but there were so many Accursed that it hardly seemed to matter.

  They were like the ant drones, their difficulty rating less about individual power and more about the overall strength of numbers.

  Soon enough our front line was being pushed back, and even Cedric’s taunt aura wasn’t enough to keep Kelikk and Chevy from taking hits.

  Kelikk’s axe was chopping into Accursed bones left and right, sending an almost constant river of red mist streaming from his axe to Cedric to heal his wounds, but there was only so much a single axe could do.

  Chevy’s mace was smashing away as well, crushing the bones of his estranged cousins with no mercy, and even Chief’s mace had little issue finding targets amidst the press.

  Step by step we gave ground, moving backwards towards the antechamber, leaving the floor littered with broken bones and ceremonial clothing.

  The majority of the Accursed were focused on our tanks, their gilded swords and staves raining blows upon our shields, their sheer weight making it difficult for our party to land any return blows for fear of hitting our allies.

  Luckily my debuffs didn’t need accuracy, just a valid target within my line of sight. I targeted one of the skeletons near the front of the press and cast Cripple and Rot in rapid succession. Its health bar dipped to almost zero as Chief smashed its ribcage apart with a well-timed counter, and I barely finished casting Miasma before it was destroyed.

  Luckily the spell spread my debuffs to a good portion of the pile before patient zero was put down, making their blows hurt a little less when they did get through, and doing a little bit of damage over time, even if they had no flesh left.

  I glanced at my minions’ health bars and saw that Chief had taken quite a bit of damage. Chevy had some wounds, but was holding up ok.

  I cast the improved version of my mending spell and targeted Chief, dark magic streaking from my hands to cover the zombie and repair his rotting flesh.

  “Sis, let me get below fifty percent so I can use my pulse!” Cedric shouted from the pile, barely audible over the sound of weapons striking metal and bone.

  Leilani abandoned her current spell. “I hope you know what you’re doing, Ced,” she called out and switched her attention to her husband who could do with some minor healing.

  The paladin’s health started to drop as the blows from the Accursed horde broke through his defenses. His health bar jumped up a tiny bit every time Kelikk landed a blow, but it was a pittance compared to the rate at which the skeletons were doling out damage.

  We lost another few feet of ground as the enemy forces surged forward, the sheer mass of their numbers enough to force our retreat.

  Cedric’s health hit the fifty percent mark and he raised his sword to the air and shouted “You. Shall. Not. Pass!” in a poor Gandalf impression, taking several more wounds as the skeletons made their critique of his performance known.

  A second later he drove his sword into the ground point first. A bright golden aura erupted from the point of contact and blasted through the skeletal horde, destroying those at the center of the blast and sending the rest flying through the air, giving us a respite from the constant press.

  There were maybe twenty of the Accursed left after the explosion, and Cedric was on one knee, breathing hard.

  The surviving Accursed pulled themselves to their feet, and those who were out of range moved forward to take their place.

  Chief stepped forward, guarding the exhausted paladin as the Accursed returned, his rotted flesh knitting together as I hit him with another casting of Mend Flesh and Bone.

  I moved forward to keep him and the enemy within my aura, as well, and helped as much as I could with conveniently placed bolt spells.

  Some of the first wave of skeletons never regained their feet, the damage from my Rot spell, combined with the increased necromantic damage from Cripple, doing them in.

  Kelikk and Chevy rushed forward to support the Zombie Warden and keep him from being completely surrounded by the seemingly endless horde of Accursed.

  Several of the newcomers ignored the tanks and focused on our flanking warriors, their gilded swords and spears taking chunks out of the less beefy warriors’ hit points.

  Leilani cursed as she was forced to split her healing between her husband and brother who was still struggling with the aftereffects of his ability.

  I started casting repair on Chevy but was too late. His own skeletal form, even armored, wasn’t durable enough to take the pummeling from multiple opponents, and a particularly nasty crit from an enemy sent his head flying into the darkness, his body dropping like a puppet with its strings cut.

  Cedric regained his feet, but still looked exhausted. He headed back towards the fight, pushing through his weariness and striking at the Accursed that had destroyed my minion.

  His hit points were back up to eighty percent after his brief rest, and the healing pouring
in from the Vampiric Link and Leilani’s healing. He smacked his sword on his shield, activating his taunt ability once again, relieving the pressure on Chief and Kelikk enough to give them time to recover.

  The enemy came close to surrounding Cedric as he slowly retreated, kiting them backwards in an undead conga line.

  Seeing the enemy strung out like that gave me an idea. Their line would be a perfect target for my new dragon’s breath skill, and I was dying to try it out.

  “Hey, Ced!” I called out and rushed towards the tank. “When I say ‘now’, spread your legs and raise your shield!”

  “Uhmm. Okay,” the paladin responded and readied himself. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

  I got into position directly behind him, waiting for his next step.

  “Now!” I said, and ducked under his legs, activating my new Lesser Breath Weapon attack. I could feel a burning pressure in my throat, yearning for release. And I did. I thrust my face forward and opened my mouth, expelling a bright cone of fire over the line of Accursed, incinerating those closest to me and badly burning those towards the back.

  I turned my head from side to side, washing the enemy with my flames. Those who were not destroyed were left on fire, slowly burning away.

  The fire came to an abrupt halt to be replaced with a crushing exhaustion and I stumbled backwards, falling to the ground.

  The horde had been mostly destroyed, and the remaining Accursed were quickly cut down or succumbed to the flames.

  Your party has defeated The Accursed Horde.

  You have gained 500xp!

  Quest Update: The Forgotten Tomb

  Broken and burned, the Accursed horde has fallen… for now. The curse permeates every inch of the once proud Hall of the Setting Sun and will restore the Accursed within 2 hours of their destruction.

  Quest Timer Active: 2:00:00 until the horde will be restored.

  “What kind of dungeon did you bring us to Kababala? A horde of undead, quest timers. And what the hell was that fire thing! Kobolds can’t breathe fire!” Kelikk said with a laugh.