Warning! You will not be able to choose another Arcane Vocation until Level 20.
Do you wish to accept? Y/N
Oh, yeah. That was what he’d been hoping for. Hawke accepted, becoming the only other person in Orom who could access its Core.
Apparently, doing so triggered some sort of alarm. Hawke’s invisibility spell disappeared.
Uh, oh.
A moment later, a bolt of Death Magic reached from the Orb and hit him for three hundred and twenty-seven points of damage. That was the gross damage; his padded armor subtracted seventeen from the total and then reduced the remainder by fifty-five percent, for a total of one-seventy-three. That was what Hawke’s combat log reported. To him personally, it felt like one moment he was watching Felix and the next he was crumpled up against a wall, wracked by agony and unable to move. A new notification explained why:
You have been afflicted by: Rigor Mortis
Dexterity reduced by 50!
Your Dexterity is below 0! You are Paralyzed!
“Kill the fool, Brunes, if you please,” Felix said, before turning to the Ghouls. “Fetch me another sacrifice.”
The Ghouls went out while Brunes hefted his sword and approached Hawke.
“That’s too bad. I had hoped to cut you down in a fair fight,” the Warrior told the helpless Hawke. “You have made quite the reputation around here, and I love killing heroes.”
“Great,” he replied. Even talking was difficult. It felt like he’d gotten an extra dose of Novocain; drool spilled down his mouth as he spoke. “But I know something you don’t.”
“What is that?” Brunes said as he carefully aimed the death blow. He was going for a clean decapitation. Had to hand it to the bastard, he had class.
I just leveled up, Hawke answered with his mind as he regained all his Health, dispelled the Rigor Mortis effect, and activated Twilight Step.
Both backstabs landed critically; the raw damage from the two attacks was well over a thousand points. Brunes had very good armor, however, so only 739 points got through. Unfortunately for him, that was more than his Health. The big bad Warrior-Gladiator faceplanted as Hawke whirled towards the astonished Prefect.
For slaying your foe, you have earned: 1,100 Experience
Current XP/Next Level: 13,513/14,000
“You are next, Your Eminence.”
That would probably take more time than he had. Hawke charged the Prefect, but instead of stabbing him in the face the way he wanted to, he dropped his left sword, yoinked the Orb out of Felix’s hand, and leaped towards the Town Core. He managed to cast Consecrated Ground and Aura of Healing before two notifications appeared:
You have accessed: Town Core (Orom) (Level 9)
Do you wish to claim Town Core (Orom)? Y/N
Yes.
“No!” Felix shouted before he started mouthing the words of a spell.
You have accessed: Death Orb
Destroy Orb? Y/N
Purify Orb? Y/N
Hawke picked Purify. Why not? Let’s go for all the marbles.
Felix’s hit him with another Death spell. This one was a damage over time curse that began to eat into Hawke’s Health at sixty-seven Health per second! He tried to cast another heal and was notified that he couldn’t while trying to do everything else. He didn’t want to stop purifying the Orb or claiming the Town Core, so he stood there, waiting to see what happened first. The math was simple: his two ongoing spells healed him for a total of forty-two Health per second. The curse’s damage-over-time exceeded that by twenty-five damage per second. That gave him ten or eleven seconds to live.
Felix wasn’t waiting, however. He launched himself at Hawke, too angry or desperate to cast another spell, and tried to take the Death Orb away from him. Hawke raised his hands over his head; the Prefect was a lot shorter than him and couldn’t reach either object. The Prefect tried to claw at his eyes next, but Hawke’s magical helmet kept his fingers away.
Hawke’s Health ticked down to 167. Felix screamed in frustrated rage. The two Ghouls returned, dragging a screaming woman, and the Prefect yelled at them: “Kill him!” Drawing their swords, the Undead guardsmen rushed forward and things stopped being funny. Felix stepped back and started another spell.
Tick. Down to 142. A brutal stab from a Ghoul dropped that to 121. Tick. 96. An overhead slash landed a critical on his unmoving head. The helmet helped a lot but the whack still cost him thirty-six Health. Tick. He was down to thirty-one Health.
Congratulations! You are the ruler of the Town of Orom!
There were a lot of other notifications, but Hawke ignored them. Saturnyx had shown him the only one that mattered.
There are currently 674 Undead within Town Limits. Current Status: Invited.
Uninvite, Hawke sent out.
In the Realms, the old legend about how you had to invite vampires before they could enter your home had a grain of truth to it. To keep the Undead out, Town and City Cores devoted much of their energy to destroy any entities that entered their borders without a citizen’s express permission. A few got through by fooling someone into letting them in. The Prefect had done worse and let them all in, but he no longer ruled the town. Less than a second after Hawke rescinded the invitation, every Undead in Orom took one thousand points of irresistible damage. None survived.
Felix froze in mid-casting. He was looking at the pillars of ash that was all that remained of his Undead wife and daughter.
“No! Not again!” He turned back to Hawke, his face twisted in fury. “You will pay…!”
Hawke Twilight Stepped behind the Prefect, who still had his Mana Shield up but had lost all but a hundred Mana when control of the town was taken from him. A double backstab against someone in a hair shirt was a bit of an overkill, but Hawke was down to near zero Health even after insta-casting Touch of Light on himself; he wasn’t in the mood to play. The Prefect died before he could wonder about the darkness surrounding him.
For slaying your foes, you have earned: 1,540 Experience
Congratulations! You have reached Level Twelve!
You have gained 6 Attribute points to distribute (6 unspent points total).
New Darkness, Life, Light and Twilight spells available.
Current XP/Next Level: 15,013/16,000
Sixty-Four
“The view is nice from here,” Hawke said.
The top of the Prefect’s Keep – Hawke’s Keep, now – overlooked the entire town. Orom was bigger than he’d realized, but also more fragile. The walls were too low. The Town Guard had been understrength even before Felix got rid of two thirds of them and turned the rest into Undead. There were all kinds of things that needed tending to. The Town Ruler Interface had all kinds of warnings and alerts. Felix had let the place go to hell, almost literally. Hawke had twenty-seven notifications and other messages in his inbox. He sighed. Nothing was blinking ‘Urgent’ so they could all wait until tomorrow. He took a minute to examine his current level of development:
Name: Hawke Lightseeker. Race: Half-Elf. Class: Eternal (Twilight Templar). Level: 11 (Level 12 unclaimed)
Experience/Next Level: 15,013/16,000
Attributes:
Strength 26(41), Dexterity 20(37), Constitution 31(45), Intelligence 20(22), Spirit 20(24), Perception 18, Willpower 18(22), Charisma 19
Characteristics:
Health: 312 (15.5/min)
Mana: 348(648) (16.4/min)
Endurance 277 (15.5/min)
Identity: 23
Skills
Climbing 2, Dodge 7, Lore 3, Shield 7, Spear 4, Stealth 4, Survival 3, Sword 7(19), Swimming 2, Tracking 1
Languages: Common Fey, Vulgate, Lesser Celestial
Perks
Dark Vision, Speed-Casting (Life and Light Magic), True Sight, Undying, Unlimited Potential
Spells
Animate Shadow, Armor of Lif
e, Aura of Light, Bless Crops, Bolt of Darkness, Bolt of Life, Bulwark of Light, Burning Light, Consecrated Ground, Dark Step, Enlightenment, Gift of the Martyr, Growth, Hammer of Light, Hammer of Twilight, Healing Blows, Healing Wave, Lesser Healing, Sense Life, Shadow Step, Shield of Light, Shroud of Darkness, Shroud of Twilight, Touch of Light, Transference, Twilight Mantle, Twilight Step
Special Abilities
Analyze Monster, Evolve Monster, Greater Bond, Mana Channeling II, Stop Monster, Summon Monster, Tame Monster
“So many cool spells. Hopefully I’ll be able to go out and use them, one of these days.”
“Good. I don’t want to spend the rest of my time on the Realms behind a desk.”
“No need to threaten me.”
“Saturnyx bothering you again?” Tava asked, coming up behind him and putting her arms around his waist. Having her leaning against him felt good. Turning around and kissing her felt better.
“I only wish we could have saved everyone,” he told her after they came out for air.
Over four hundred townspeople had died. They had found hundreds of prisoners in the Keep; Felix had been saving them as eventual human sacrifices. The death toll hadn’t been as bad as Hawke had feared when he first saw the deserted town, but it was still terrible. One in six people had perished, which meant everyone had lost at least a family member or a friend. He could hear people sobbing or wailing out in the distance, as those looking for a loved one found only tragedy. Funerals would start the next day, and he would do his best to see that all the dead were honored. It was the least he could do.
“You are not a god,” Tava told him. “And even the gods can fail. Don’t be so arrogant that you start to believe you can do everything.”
“You are right, of course.”
“But I love you for trying.”
“Love you too.”
“Dorrham is about finished setting up the banquet, so come down whenever you are ready.”
“I will be there in a minute.”
“I’ll see you there, Prefect Hawke.”
“Don’t even start with that.”
He watched her walk down with a smile. She is really something.
“You are really something too, Saturnyx.”
“Things are going to get busy as hell,” he said. “We have to take Domort down. The bastard lost a lot of Undead, but Necromancers can always make more. I have to write a Guild Charter…”
“… and remember to keep feeding moonlight to my twin Fey monsters in their golden egg. Got to claim that Darkness Mana Node. Maybe take the new Guild to the Lair we found under the Faerie Ring, to pick up some levels and gear. Plus I’ve got to figure out a way to watch out for the Nerf Herders; I bet they’re still looking for me.”
“Okay. I’m going.”
He stopped only to take a final look at the galaxy that filled the heavens above him.
“I’m playing your game, for now,” he said to the alien sky. “But one day you’re going to be playing mine.”
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The Adventure continues! Lord of the Dead, Book Two of the Eternal Journey, will be released in August. You can read the Prologue and first chapter below:
Lord of the Dead Preview
Hawke Lightseeker and his friends have saved the town of Orom, but the Necromancer remains a lethal threat. Sworn to save his fellow Eternals, still being preyed upon by the Necromancer. Hawke must clear a Lair and level up before challenging Domort – the Lord of the Dead – in his Necromantic Stronghold.
Prologue: Ripples Across Realms
Arbiter Vicesimo – government name Larry Maurice Higgins – had seen a lot in his life. That didn’t mean he couldn’t be surprised, only that he hated surprises.
Born in the glory days of the 23rd Century – he had been a teenager during the Alien Singularity – he had watched everything he had taken for granted be destroyed, been one of the lucky few who survived the change, and been one of the unlucky who landed at the bottom of the new hierarchy. For the last six thousand years, he had done the equivalent of custodial work. He had more power than any superhero in the old movies he loved, but he mostly used it to clean up the messes created by mortals, gods who went off script, Arbiters who forgot their mandates, and, worse, the Makers of Universes themselves.
The most recent mess was… confusing more than anything else. It annoyed him that Arbiter Primus had put him in charge of dealing with it, but he’d learned better than to question orders. Arbiters who did that got reassigned to the Realm of Gates. Vice had done a few tours in the Breach. That had been enough to convince him that anything was better than that.
“Hey Vice!” Arbiter Nonaginta said, materializing in front of him. “Heard you could use some help.”
“Yeah,” he told her, creating a hologram pillar for her; showing was easier than telling. “One of the new recruits is pushing the envelope. From the new batch, of course.”
Nona’s smile disappeared. “Oh. One of them. Who thought it was a good idea to drop sixty thousand Eternals into the Realms?”
Instead of saying anything, Vice pointed up and then used his fingers to pull the corners of his mouth into a distorted grin. He was reasonably sure that nobody was watching them, but Somebody might be listening.
“Oh,” Nona repeated. “Say no more.”
“You hadn’t heard about the newest project?”
“I know we need more cannon fodder for the Breach.” They both shuddered at the name. “But this seems excessive.”
“Yeah. Nobody asked us, of course. We just get to wipe the blood off the floor and walls when a brilliant strategy fails.”
Nona sighed. “Anyway. Who is making waves?”
“This guy.” The 3D image showed a seemingly ordinary denizen of the Realms. A guy in armor.
“Let’s see… Half-Elf, Paladin – no, Twilight Templar and Monster Handler. They are handing Elite classes to first-timers now?”
“Look again, Nona,” Vice said. “You were right the first time. He arrived at the Realms as a Paladin. Turned into a Twilight Templar a few levels later. He’d been in-theater for under a week.”
“Switched Classes? How?”
“Divine intervention. All legal, just unusual as hell.”
“Freaking gods. Another brilliant idea, to actually bring Hyper-Jungian Archetypes to the Realms and expect them to follow orders. They had to expect those entities would have their own ideas on how to run things. Anyone who’s been worshipped for thousands of years is going to resent being told what to do!”
Vice shrugged. They and other Arbiters had had that very conversation for literal centuries. Arbiters had more raw power than gods, but the old bastards weren’t pushovers. A few Arbiters had been perma-killed in the line of a duty. More than a few gods had gone bye-bye as a result, of course: there was a reason Zeus and Jupiter were no longer in the Realms, and that their place had been taken by the more archaic Shining Father. Most of the pantheons had gotten the message and no longer challenged the Arbiters. Not directly, anyway. The gods had other ways to throw monkey wrenches into the works, however.
“Anyway, the same guy has also started Mana channeling, about ten levels too early. And just became Ruler of a Town.”
“Not even a month.”
“I can see why Primus wants to keep an eye on him. He’s going to be trouble.”
“We are going to increase the Mana levels in the local zone. A Necromancer Stronghold, a Lair, two Dungeons and a Labyrinth; everything is getting boosted. Things were already ramping up, on account of the Necromancer eating a bunch of Eternals, but now it’s getting pumped up even more.”
“Why? Whatever doesn’t kill that Eternal is only going to make him stronger.”
“Primus wants to put pressure on him. If he makes it, we can use him in the higher Realms.”
“And if he doesn’t, he’s not our problem anymore,” Nona said. “Gotcha.”
“Hawke Lightseeker is his name. He’s surprisingly hard to keep under surveillance, too. One of his patrons is Tenebra.”
“She doesn’t do anything without at least three schemes in mind. This is going to be tricky.”
* * *
Kaiser Wrecker, Guild President of the Nerf Herders, was not having a good day. That was unusual. The past few months had been very good to him.
“Where is he? Where is Hawke Lightseeker?”
The highest rated spell-slinger in the Guild, Aristobulus Highgarden (Level Fourteen Mage and Scryer), looked downright terrified but he knew sugarcoating the truth would be worse than giving bad news to the boss. Kaiser knew better than to terrorize his underlings into lying to him. That had been the downfall of many a ruler. He had no intention to undergo any sort of fall.
“He’s got some means to block divination spells,” Aristobulus said. “If he is in Gallia Nova, I should be able to get his general location, within a hundred miles at least. And if he isn’t in Gallia Nova, I should be able to sense that, too. My best ritual – cost almost a hundred gold in materials and a permanent Mana sacrifice – worked about as well as a freaking magic 8-ball. It makes no sense.”
“All right,” Kaiser said, forcing himself to adopt a more relaxed posture. Aristobulus exhaled in relief. “Can we hire someone higher-level to try?”
Twilight Templar (The Eternal Journey Book 1) Page 39