Korgam was the tank, equipped with a tall and wide shield; every few seconds, he shouted a war-cry that forced all the skeletons in range to attack him, spending their energy uselessly, because none of the low-level creatures could pierce his heavy armor the few times they managed to get past his shield. He kept luring skeletons into the Consecrated Ground; after a while, he had to kick piles of bones aside to let more monsters approach. Daggon the Warrior was the off-tank, fighting with a smaller shield and a long-handed-axe. He moved quickly around the barricade, chopping off heads and making sure nobody struck Korgam’s unprotected flanks.
Crommen did more than buff the party. He joined the fray with two hand axes he wielded with swift, precise moves, sending limbs and necks flying off like a living chainsaw. He only wore furs rather than armor, but his war songs protected him, much like Hawke’s magical auras. The Battle Bard survived blows that should have killed him, and the ongoing Life healing under his feet was enough to keep him going. In the center, Egg and Taggan unleashed all sorts of magical mayhem on the relentless attackers. Taggan created boulders that smashed a dozen skeletons at a time, quicksand traps that slowed enemies down, and sent accurate stone shards flying toward individual targets. Egg showed how effective a Priest was against the Undead: his area of effect spells sent entire columns of Legionnaires back to wherever they’d come from.
On Hawke’s side, Kinto held half of the barricade on his own, his spear whirling like a staff as he killed or pushed back anyone who came into range. Gosto concentrated on ranged ‘heals’ aimed at the Undead, thinning their ranks before they reached the top of the hill. And Tava took down one target after another, occasionally using her new AOE ability, Arrowstorm, to wipe out a knot of attackers.
Hawke kept an eye on his fellow Eternals, who were the weakest link in the group. Nadia tried her best, helping Tava take out skeletons with her spell until her Mana was drained. She then picked up a crossbow – and missed her target. And when a couple of Undead slipped through the lines, Desmond kept them busy long enough for either Consecrated Ground or one of the ranged defenders to finish them off. Neither of them panicked or broke ranks, which raised Hawke’s estimation of them by several notches. He wasn’t surprised, however: he had half-expected that their characters’ natural instincts would come to the surface in times of stress, much like had happened to him during his first fight, a couple of weeks and a long lifetime ago.
Forty-five minutes after the fog had appeared, the surviving skeletons withdrew. The exhausted party hurriedly drank Mana and Endurance potions to recover as a new message appeared in front of them:
Phase One Completed
Skeletons Destroyed: 500/500
Hawke glanced at the misty area surrounding the hill. There were piles of bones, broken weapons and armor, and bits of clothing strewn as far as he could see before the fog obscured vision completely. Dozens and dozens of lifeless skulls seemed to grin back at him. Was that what five hundred skeletons looked like?
“I wonder how much experience we’ll get out of this.”
“Not as much as you’d think,” Desmond said. “I read the game’s FAQ, before all this. Events give you a flat XP reward for each phase, rather than for each monster you kill. And you can’t level up until the end of the Event. Assuming that the game rules apply to reality.”
“They have so far. That’s a rip-off, though.”
“The Arbiters are harsh but fair,” Korgam said.
Hawke kept himself from cursing the Arbiters. They might be listening, and this was a really bad time to get on their bad side.
“How many phases does an Event have?” he asked instead.
“As few as three, or as many as seven,” Kinto told Hawke. “The next phase will begin in fifteen or twenty minutes.”
“It’s a rare thing for an Event this size to happen. More so this far from a city or a town,” Korgam noted.
“This didn’t just happen,” Hawke said. “The Necromancer knew we were coming. He set this up.”
Kinto nodded. “That means the Prefect betrayed us to Domort.”
“I knew we should have killed him!” Gosto yelled.
“This Domort is a mighty dead-worker, to trigger an Event,” Egg said. “May Gaon lend us the strength we need to survive this day.”
It was a little after noon; the group had been planning to stop for lunch when the Event started. While they waited for new enemies to emerge from the mist, everyone grabbed a bit to eat. Egg turned out to be a godsend; the priest reached into a bag of Holding and doled out an Arcane Dish he called Gladiator’s Repast. It was hard-baked bread stuffed with sausage and cheese, kind of like a Stromboli except the bread was cold and had the consistency of a pretzel. The resulting stuffed loaves were tough and chewy but surprisingly tasty; more importantly, the magically-enhanced food gave anyone who ate it a fifty percent bonus to their Mana, Health and Endurance regenerations for an hour.
Just as Hawke washed down the meal with one of his water bottles, a new message flashed up.
Phase Two Has Begun.
Fifty-Five
New noises filled the mist, sort of like what a branch breaking would sound like, but multiplied by thousands of times, faster than machine gun fire and just as loud.
“What is that?” Desmond shouted; it was the only way he could make himself heard over the crackling sounds.
“No idea!” Hawke yelled back. “But I know we aren’t going to like it!”
The deafening cracks multiplied until they became a continuous roar that went on for several minutes before stopping as suddenly as they had begun. The silence that followed made Hawke feel incredibly isolated, despite being surrounded by friends and allies. Between the mists and the lack of normal forest noises, it felt as if the world outside the small hill had disappeared, leaving them stranded.
The new sounds were distant at first. Hawke stared into the mist. Some of the larger trees could be seen as lean shadows in the middle of the gray-white expanse; he saw one of them lean to one side before it broke with a loud crack and fell over. Something nearly as tall and much wider moved closer, knocking down any trees in its way.
“Giant monsters!” he shouted.
“I can’t see anything,” Desmond said; his Perception was probably lower than Hawke’s. “Are they like, bear big or Kaiju big?”
Thinking about bears made Hawke wince. “Somewhere in between, I think.”
“Shit, I think I see one now.”
One of the shapes had lumbered close enough to show its outline. Before he could see any details, Hawke’s True Sight kicked in and he was able to see the critter’s stats:
Lord of Bones (Undead)
Level 7 Aberration
Health 700 Mana 140 Endurance n/a
The numbers were bad, but seeing the creatures was worse. The monster emerged from the mist, revealing its full awfulness even as other dark outlines rose behind it. It was made of humanoid bones, thousands of them, fused together into an exoskeleton, pun intended, a suit of Undead armor made of overlapping ribs and femurs. The cracks from before must have been from thousands of skeletons melding into the new shape. Its body was bigger than a wagon and stood several feet high, held up by six insect-like legs, each ending in a spike that stabbed the ground with each step. Its head was made of dozens of human, Dwarf and Elven skulls stacked together into a mockery of its components. Its eyes were two glowing purple orbs filled with Undeath energies. A mouth lined with jagged bones instead of teeth gaped underneath, large enough to bite off a man in half. When the monster spotted the hill and its defenders, it lifted its forelegs, clearly planning to use them to impale its victims.
The leading monster paused at the edge of the tree line
. Two others with the same stats were coming behind it. And more were headed to the hillside the Dwarves were watching.
“Can’t let them reach the top of the hill,” Hawke said. “The barricades are useless against something that size. Its legs can go over our heads and hit anybody in the center.”
Kinto nodded. “We will have to meet them at the bottom of the hill.”
“You have to stick close to me,” Hawke told him. “Only hit the one I’m hitting. If you draw aggro, they’ll murder you.”
“I know. I have been doing this a mite longer than you,” the Hunter replied with a grin. “And by ‘aggro’ I take you mean their attention.”
“Yes. Sorry.”
“You’ll do well after some seasoning, Hawke. My daughter could do a lot worse. Would likely have, had you not come along.”
“Thank you, man. Means a lot.”
The brief speech also sounded a bit like someone’s last words, but Hawke wasn’t going to let that happen.
“Tava, Gosto, you know the drill. Nadia, same as before. Desmond, you’re in reserve.”
“Screw that,” the Warrior said, standing by Hawke’s side. “Got no ranged weapons. Tried the crossbows, but I don’t have the skill and all I did was waste two bolts. You need all the DPS you can get.”
“Okay. Same goes for you as for Kinto. Don’t go after one of those things alone or you’ll be respawning four days away from us.”
“I hate walking. I won’t die.”
The lead monster picked that moment to rear its head and let out a sound that was like a howl, screech and a trumpeting call combined. It sounded as if all the damned from Hell had picked that moment to scream in agony. Desmond went pale at the sound and Hawke was grateful nobody could see his face under his helmet. And that he’d taken a leak a few minutes before the Event began.
“Having second thoughts, Desmond?”
“Just tank your ass off, bro.”
The monster resumed its advance before the echoes of the death-cry faded away. Twilight Templar, Hunter and Warrior charged down the hill to meet it.
Hawke opened up with his two energy hammer attacks, focusing the spells through the sword on his left hand for a bit of extra damage. The Light one did 78 points of damage; the Twilight version a mere 61. More importantly, the attacks had their intended effect: getting the creature’s full attention. The composite skull turned towards him and a ‘tongue’ made of linked spinal cords flew out of its mouth with the speed of a crossbow bolt. He rolled under the attack, hearing the bone tip crunch loudly into the ground behind him, and came to his feet right next to the monster. He stabbed its underside with one hand and threw down a Consecrated Ground with the other, burning it.
Kinto and Desmond arrived a moment later and struck their blows while Tava, Gosto and Nadia did the same from range. Their combined damage amounted to less than a hundred points, however; the Lord of Bones had an ungodly level of resistance to all forms of attack. Hawke was chief DPS at the moment, which should help him keep aggro. Problem was, the monster’s Health was still at two thirds its maximum and its two buddies were seconds away. Time to do some Paladin Ninja stuff.
Twilight Step took him to the rear of the Lord of Bones for a backstab with both weapons that delivered over four hundred points of damage after physics and the rules of the Makers had all been accounted for. The rest of his party finished the monster off in a quick flurry of spell, arrow, and attacks.
“Stay in the shadow cloud!” he told his friends as he stepped into full view of the other Lords of Bones and hit each of them with his energy hammer spells. He set up another Consecrated Ground and waited for them to come to him. If he charged one of them, the other might go after the more vulnerable party members.
“Don’t attack until they…” he started to say when he got hit by two bone tongue attacks in the space of a couple of seconds, each doing over a hundred damage apiece.
Lucky for him, all his buffs were up. His Bulwark of Light absorbed one of the tongue attacks completely. The other stabbed him through his armor; twenty-six points of damage got through. He could handle that just fine, but the thought of what would have happened to Kinto or Desmond it those attacks had hit them sent a cold chill down his back as he set up to receive the charging bone giants. His friends waited, hidden by the darkness, just like he wanted them to. He had to survive the next few seconds alone.
Hawke put up a new Bulwark and parried or dodged two out of four attacks as the Lords of Bones lashed out with their forelegs. The others landed on his armor, and they did a lot more damage than their bone tongues. Another sixty points got through to him. At the same time, however, his Aura of Light and Consecrated Ground healed him for thirty-five Health and inflicted seventy-eight points to both Undead.
He was hurting however, as his status bars let him know:
Hawke Lightseeker Half-Elf (Eternal)
Level 7 Twilight Templar (Appears as Paladin)
Health 166/267 Mana 321/404 Endurance 125/149
“Can’t stop, won’t stop,” Hawke gasped, slashing at the two monsters to keep their attention. “Left!” He shouted so everyone knew which one to concentrate on.
Fighting two giants at the same time meant that he couldn’t do the backstab trick yet; disappearing might allow one of the monsters to turn on his friends, who had finally joined in the attack and were chipping away at the giant on his left. Instead, he kept whaling on them with sword and spell, making sure to spread the damage between both critters to keep them interested. It worked, if by worked you meant that the two bone giants nearly tore him to shreds. Even with Gosto switching to healing from attacking, he was down to fifty-seven Health when the designated Lord of Bone collapsed. He slashed the remaining monster a couple more times and repaired himself in between attacks, mentally thanking his ability to instantly cast several healing spells. After he was back to full Health, it was backstabbing time.
He did the same Twilight Step-double lunge move on the survivor; a few more seconds of fighting and damage-over-time finished it off.
“Back to the hill,” he said. Fighting was still raging on the side the Dwarves had been protecting.
When they reached the top, they saw Korgam, Daggon and Crommen surrounding a single Lord of Bones. The remains of three other giant monsters were spread out at the bottom of the hill. The Dwarves had kicked ass but all the front-line fighters’ Health scores were below fifty percent. Gosto lent his aid; so did Hawke, casting a Bolt of Life on Korgam before he launched another Twilight Step to take the last critter down.
After the bone giant stopped moving, silence descended over the mist-shrouded battlefield once again.
“What in Gaon’s name was that?” Egg asked Hawke, referring to his teleport-backstab combo. “That’s the sort of magic a Shadow Assassin or a Blood Elf Spy employs, not a Paladin of Light.”
“It’s a secret,” Hawke said, mentally kicking himself for showing off his abilities. “Thanks to it, we won.”
“One does not question an ally’s prowess, Egg,” Korgam told his cousin. “Twice we have fought together this day, and twice we have prevailed. I call Hawke Lightseeker my friend and will gladly have him take a place on my shield wall.”
Egg looked unconvinced.
Hawke shrugged. “I will explain later, if you will vow not to reveal what I tell you.”
He would rather risk his secret than have people he needed distrust him. That might annoy Tenebra, but sometimes keeping secrets was not the right thing to do.
“There will have to be conditions to such an oath,” Egg said as everyone gathered on the hilltop and tended to their wounds or drank potions. “I will not keep an evil secret, or one that may bring harm to my people.”
“Sure, we’ll get it all nice and legal,” Hawke assured the P
riest. A moment later, a new announcement appeared:
Phase Two Completed
Lords of Bones Slain: 8/8
The Adventurers on the hill had taken care of seven monsters; somebody else had killed the eighth one. Hawke mentally tipped his hat to whoever they were, even if Woodlings had done the deed. If they hadn’t, the extra Lord of Bones might have killed someone. He hoped the second phase had been the last, but when the mist didn’t vanish and no other messages appeared, he started munching down on another Gladiator’s Repast and waited for more trouble to arrive.
Desmond sat by his side. “I’m still getting used to this,” he commented. “The swamp was bad, but we never had to deal with more than a few creatures at once. This… this is like war.”
“It’s my first Event too,” Hawke confessed. “I’m still a noob, just like you. I just had a few extra days to learn this crap. Thanks for pitching in, by the way.”
“Shit. I barely scratched those things. I think I did maybe nine points of damage total, spread among all three of them. And got an assist on a couple of the small skeletons. Next time I make level, I’m dumping all my points in Strength.”
“Better gear will help. I wish I’d kept some of the magic axes we found at the Lair we cleared. You would have been a lot better off. Kinto sold them off at Akila, though.”
“He wouldn’t have given me one anyway. I don’t blame him, either. I was an asshole.”
“You dissed him, he punched you in the mouth. As far as he’s concerned, that settles that.”
“Okay. That seems fair, I guess. I’ve never been in a fight before, not even a schoolyard brawl. Zero tolerance, you know.”
“I got in a few, back in the day. Maybe all kids should learn what it’s like to take a punch. At least boys. Kinda teaches you that life doesn’t work like social media.”
Desmond chuckled. “Yeah, guess it doesn’t. Especially here.”
The Warrior got up, smacked Hawke on the back, and went off to talk to Crommen. Tava took his place.
Twilight Templar (The Eternal Journey Book 1) Page 33