by Ivan Kal
The Mayor sighed and looked back to his Captain. She took a deep breath and spoke. “A few weeks ago we had an incident down in the mines. We’ve been expanding the tunnels, digging deeper, and one of our groups inadvertently found something.”
When she paused, Morgan got just a tiny bit annoyed. “Found what?” he asked. Goddamn dramatic pauses. Why do people think that that works in a real conversation?
“They broke the walls and entered an old dungeon. It had probably been buried long ago from what little we know, since there are no other entrances other than through our mine,” Captain Henna said. “And it was not empty.”
“Wait.” Vestella frowned. “How could it be populated if it had been buried?”
“The things inside were undead. They spilled into the mines and slaughtered many of our workers, as well as some of my guards who were there to protect them,” the Captain told them.
“Excuse me.” Morgan raised a finger. “Like, undead undead?”
Everyone turned to look at him.
“What I meant to ask,” Morgan continued as he raised his hands and made grasping motions with his fingers, “is if they’re like rawr-rawr-eat-your-brains kind of undead? Because if so, I’m out. I hate zombies.”
The Mayor and his Captain just blinked with a blank look on their faces. Clara was the first one to break the silence.
“Morgan, what in the Great Lord’s name are zom-bies?”
“Like dead, but not dead people? Walking corpses that feed on brains?”
Clara just shook her head. “What kind of a fucked-up world did you come from?”
“What?” He frowned at her. “My world is fucked up? Gurl, we are discussing undead as if they are a real thing! At least in my world they are all fantasy.”
Before she had a chance to answer, Vestella interjected, “So what kind of undead are they?”
The Captain shook her head and decided to ignore the Guild mates’ conversation. “The undead are skeletons. We don’t know anything more about them other than the fact that they are hard to put down. We barely managed to take down two with a dozen guards.”
Morgan frowned as something just occurred to him. “Wait, can’t they just like…come out of the mine?”
“No,” the Captain said. “For some reason they are moving only through the mine. We think that our opening the passage has somehow made the mines a part of their dungeon, and so they are not exploring beyond its borders.”
“Right,” Morgan said. “So I assume that you want us to do what? Clear the dungeon? That would only work for a short while until it is repopulated.”
“It probably won’t be repopulated, seeing as it is now connected with the mine. Dungeons are only repopulated when they are empty. But we should plan on sealing the hole back up, just in case,” Vestella said.
“We thought about closing the hole already,” Captain said.
“Well then!” Morgan clapped his hands. “I guess we are going dungeon diving.”
“There are only three of us here,” Clara cautioned.
“Dungeon diving is dangerous, Morgan. We should at least get Ereden,” Vestella said.
Morgan snorted. “We are awesome. And it’s an old dungeon. It can’t be all that bad, can it?”
“The problem is that we don’t know if it is or isn’t,” Clara said.
“Fine,” Morgan said, turning to the Mayor and the Captain. “If you could send one of your people back to the town to bring our man here, I would appreciate it. Unless your guard might want to come down with us?”
Captain Henna shook her head. “We tried to assault the mines. It did not go well. We are not ascended. We do not have the strength to do it.”
Morgan nodded. It was strange feeling, knowing that you were so much stronger than ordinary people. Even now he knew that all those people outside weren’t really any kind of threat to him. Only other ascended and monsters could be threats to him now. “Why didn’t you try to ascend?”
“We were debating about doing that just before we got the letter from Terbon. After, it seemed unnecessary risk, as we knew you were coming here eventually.”
Morgan nodded in agreement, but inside he was a bit disappointed. He knew that there was a reason why these people were not ascended already—they lacked what the others who ascended had. They were good people, but not brave.
“Well, then, I guess we better go and prepare,” Morgan said as he turned to Clara and Ves.
Clear the Mines — Quest acquired (reward: gain control of Gebel and increase your domain)
And here we go.
INTERLUDE I
Korvorok, Great Leader of the Seventh Wandering Fleet, sat in his command chair on the bridge of his flagship Enduring Might. He watched on the screens as the world beneath his fleet burned. It had been a nice-looking planet, blue and green, filled with life—and it had been the home of a race known as humans. Korvorok’s Wandering Fleet had become aware of this system a while ago, as they had caught signals coming out of the system. Upon inspection they had found a race of beings living on the third planet from the sun, a race that had just barely started exploring space. Their system was extremely rich, a perfect target for their needs.
And so Korvorok had moved his fleet into the system, announced his intention to the primitives, and began plans for the harvesting of resources across the system. Much to his surprise, however, the natives refused to stand aside. It happened from time to time, but usually most races that were so inferior they simply kept their heads down until the Wandering Fleet finished and left. But these humans were different; they even attempted to fight them. A stupid decision, but one that he had to respond to. He bombed several of their cities and thought the matter resolved.
Until a few months later when the humans attacked again, and in their suicidal and idiotic assault managed to damage one of his civilian ships. They killed several hundreds of the Go’blavar in their attack—and he, as the Great Leader, had no choice but to respond. The deaths of his people could not go unanswered, not when there were just so precious few of them left, and so Korvorok bombed the planet, burning it all to ash and dust. Every part of that world was now uninhabitable; if any humans had managed to survive the attack, it was certain that they wouldn’t for long. He hunted down all the ones in their stations and primitive ships around the system, and then settled to watch the burning planet.
Seeing the result of his handiwork made him grin in satisfaction. There was beauty in death and destruction. He was so engrossed in his appreciation of the decimated planet that he nearly missed a person stepping on his bridge, just next to him.
Korvorok stared at the being who had just appeared out of nowhere. He recognized it as a human immediately, one wearing a strange coat, but his mind could just not comprehend how it was possible. He opened his mouth to order his guards to seize the human, but suddenly his entire body was locked in place. Around the room, he could see that all of his crew was in the same situation.
The human looked at the screens and the decimated planet. “If I had just come a few days earlier…” the human said with a shake of his head, before turning to look at Korvorok.
“You have cost me a lot of time, and pushed back my timeline quite a bit in this universe. I had intended on enlisting this Earth’s help with a project…but now all that preparation is wasted. A pity…” the human said, his eyes boring into Korvorok’s. “Well, now, I guess I should hand out some type of justice, shouldn’t I? They were not my humanity, but I suppose the differences are negligible enough.”
Korvorok struggled to move, to talk, to do anything other than stay frozen, but it was impossible.
The human noticed his struggle and chuckled. “There is no point in trying. You are not strong enough to break my hold.”
The human then tilted his head, studying Korvorok intently. “You feel familiar… Ah, I see. You are this universe’s version of the Wanderers, the Orkvar. But you look different…a devolved form? No—there is something else…
” Korvorok felt the man’s mind reach inside his own, then spread through his memories, and then something filled his entire body. Korvorok wanted to scream, but he couldn’t even move a finger. “Ah, there it is. You did this to yourselves… Destroyed your homeworld, genetically changed yourselves to better survive. Made yourselves smaller, more resilient. Interesting, but not important in the end.”
The human waved a hand, and all of his crew disappeared as if they were never there. “I think I have just the right punishment for them. But you…you were the one who gave the orders. For you, I think I have something special.”
The human put his hand on top of Korvorok’s head, and everything went black.
CHAPTER FOUR
“What can you tell me about the undead?” Morgan asked. He had already tried thinking on the subject, but apparently his Monster Lore skill was still too low of a level to have information about them.
“Skeletons are generally considered the least powerful of the undead,” Ves said. “If what I have read from my parents’ books is correct, and I have no reason to believe it is not, then we may expect mostly skeleton warriors. They are very weak to blunt-force attacks, as the easiest way to kill them is to break them apart. They are animated by a source of power that resides inside their skulls. To kill them, one needs to get rid of the head. As undead, they are tireless, and immune to poisons and any other flesh-damaging abilities.”
“So basically similar to what I already knew from my world. All right, Clara”—Morgan turned to look at the orc—“are they weak to anything like holy magic? Healing spells, that kind of thing?”
“There is no such thing as holy magic, and no, I have no idea how you think a healing spell could injure a skeleton.”
Well, fuck, Morgan thought to himself. “No matter. So my regular arrows will be useless, I guess, if we need to destroy the head completely. My binding ones will be useful, I suppose, but what about my Arrows of Decay?”
“Your arrows weaken the body,” Vestella said. “I guess that that might work on their bones, but I do not think that the effect of your arrows is powerful enough to do anything.”
Morgan nodded. “So I am down to my Exploding Arrows, which should have enough power to blow the skeletons apart.” And my sword, but fuck do I not want to get that close to a skeleton.
Slowly a plan was forming inside his head. “I think that I know how we should proceed, but we should wait for Ereden before I explain.”
Vestella nodded her acceptance, while Clara looked at him for a moment but didn’t say anything. Sure, the two of them poked fun at each other, and Clara liked to act as if Morgan was an idiot, but she remembered that it was his instruction that they had followed both in their previous dungeon run and during the defense of Reach. She knew that he made good plans. Who would’ve thought that playing games and learning tactics would pay off?
Ereden arrived only about two hours later, and soon enough the four of them were gathered around the maps of the mine. Captain Henna was there to provide any information that they needed. Morgan knew the strengths and weakness of his people, and slowly he explained the plan. Ereden was the weak link, as he was only level seven. With Knight and Soldier classes picked up and a fire alignment, he was like Vallsorim, so all the abilities he knew were those that Vall had taught him. He carried a two-handed mace that the Guild had provided to him, a part of the loot from the battle for Reach. His Bone Mace of a Fire Drake gave him a small bonus to his fire-aligned abilities. It was a good weapon for fighting skeletons, but he was still the lowest level among them—so he had him on Clara protection duty. Ves would take the point, and Morgan would support her. Clara was level twelve, so not too far behind Morgan and Ves, and she at least had her upgraded class.
Before they set off, they all took some gear from what they’d recovered from the battle at Reach and from what Artos, their smith, had crafted them. Ves had her shield, which Morgan had enchanted, but it was more gear toward helping fighting living things. Clara had a simple staff which was used by one of the goblin shamans, which gave her an increase to nature alignment. And Morgan, aside from his trusty Short Sword of Frost, also had the gauntlet that he had enchanted with the ability to siphon life energy from anything he touched, which again wouldn’t do him much good here. From what the others said, the dead were not reanimated with life energy, but something else entirely, except that they didn’t know what that was.
Undead were created by powerful necromancer classes, and were usually capable of moving only for as long as they had energy. If what the people of Gebel told them, then the fact that these skeletons were still capable of movement meant that they had had quite a lot of such energy.
After he told them his plan, they each went separately to prepare. Clara was using the herbs she purchased in Terbon to create healing poultices. Ves had the Gebel guards bring her several buckets of water, and she pulled them over her body, creating her ice armor. Ereden was practicing his swings by himself, and Morgan was enchanting arrows. He had the guard bring him any arrows that they had available. Half of them he enchanted to be Arrow of Binding, and he even overpowered a few hoping to try out something new. The other half were Exploding Arrows.
They spent the next few hours preparing, and then they were finally ready. The stood in front of the dark entrance to the mines, Vestella holding a torch behind her shield and Clara murmuring a few words into her fist. When she opened it, a ball of light flew from her palm to settle above her head. Then she murmured a few more words and Ereden’s armor became covered with a thin layer of bark, providing additional protection. Finally she pointed a finger at Morgan, and a strand of energy attached from her to him, and he could feel the small boost to his stats.
“All right then, let’s go!” Morgan said, and Vestella stepped forward, taking the lead. Her ice-covered form made her look quite terrifying as they entered the dark, and both the ball of light above them and her torch reflected off the ice in strange ways. Morgan was just behind her, his bow ready and an arrow in his right hand. Following him was Ereden, and Clara brought up the rear.
The mine didn’t really have many tunnels, but they knew from the maps that most of them were interconnected. They were paying close attention, trying to make sure that they didn’t get flanked.
They found the first skeleton relatively quickly, and Morgan nearly froze. There was just something about seeing a skeleton move, turn around and look at you. There were lights in its empty sockets, but it made little sound. There were no growls and yells of the goblins; there was not even a different smell. It was just there, unnatural as it moved, the only sound the clicking of the weathered armor on its body. It raised its rusty sword and charged.
Morgan turned on his Nature Sight and looked at it. There was no life energy in it—like he had been told, it was a complete absence of life. He quickly used Inspect as Vestella took a step forward and swiped with her one-handed mace.
Skeleton Warrior LVL 12
He was surprised that it was such a high level. The fact that the guards had managed to kill two made him think that they were about level five at most. Still, it was not really strong—Vestella’s mace smashed through its skull, breaking it into pieces and sending the skeleton tumbling to the ground and collapsing into a pile of bones.
“Well, that wasn’t so bad,” Morgan said.
Clare walked over to him and looked at the undead’s remains. “Individually skeletons aren’t all that strong. Their strength comes from being in large numbers, and the fact that they do not tire out.”
Sounds of running turned their heads to one of the tunnels leading deeper into the mine.
“Ves, get ready,” Morgan said. “Clara, can you send that light down that tunnel?”
Clara pointed in the direction of the oncoming sounds and the light shot down, illuminating the corridor and showing several skeletons running toward them. Vestella took position at the front, putting her shield up. Morgan stepped just next to and behind her and pulled back
his arrow. He took the time to aim, and then let the arrow fly.
It flew true and struck the first skeleton in the chest, punching through the armor and deep into its empty chest cavity. The skeleton didn’t even pause, as the arrow did nothing to it; but then the Arrow of Binding exploded with branches and roots expanding from the arrow, and in a moment they filled the skeleton’s ribcage and then broke it apart from the inside. Pieces of the skeleton flew off in different directions. The other skeletons didn’t even turn at their kin’s demise, so Morgan pulled on his string again, this time empty handed. An energy arrow formed in his hand—and then three more appeared, as he mentally marked the four skeletons at the front with his Arcane Mark.
Once he had them all marked, he let loose. The four energy arrows flew and homed in to the marks on the skeletons’ skulls, before striking their targets and exploding. The blasts were nothing spectacular, but they did hurt. He could see their skulls crack as the force sent their skulls backward. But they were not down, only slowed, and soon enough the skeletons continued forward. As Morgan reached in his quiver for another Arrow of Binding, Vestella took a step and bashed forward with her shield at the skeletons, who were just a few meters away from them now. The spikes on her shield exploded forward, showering them with icicles. Two of the ones he had damaged got an ice spike through the head, and collapsed into piles of bones. The others had their limbs broken—legs, arms—but most simply got new, spiky ornaments stuck in their armor and continued on without a bother.
Morgan let two of his arrows loose at the floor in front of the oncoming skeletons and roots and branches exploded, tangling in the skeletons’ legs and forcing them to stop.
“Ereden!” Morgan yelled out to the Skyreach Guardsman. The man ran forward immediately. Before the skeletons—who were hacking at the roots keeping them snared—could free themselves, he smashed his long mace into the skull of the closest. The still free undead behind the snared ones had no room to push through, but they were trying to get by their kin. The tunnel was wide, but not wide enough for all of them to get through at the same time as they were attempting to.