She cupped my face and smiled. “It’s okay, James. You went through a traumatic experience. The doctors warned me that you might be bottling it up, but you seemed so calm about it all so I didn’t want to say anything.”
“Well that certainly sucked,” I said as I sat up, looking around the room and seeing the dead abomination sprawled on the floor, its head split in two. “Nice work. See ya later undead gator!” I added and laughed at my own joke.
Trying to shake myself free of the last remnants of my panicked state, I stood up and looked around the room, spotting the boss chest against the far wall.
“Care to join me for some good old fashion looting, m’lady?” I asked.
She gave me a look that said we were going to need to talk about this again later, but came with me across the room.
As we moved past the area on our way to the chest, I saw that there were still some faint traces of sand on the floor where Amenhotep had disappeared.
Even though we’d just beaten the boss there were no quest updates about completing the mission so there were still undead left to kill, and I wondered if I would be able to re-summon the Temple Guardian after whatever ability that was that he had pulled out of nowhere.
The uncertainty was starting to send me back down a path towards panic, so I dropped that line of thought and focused on the loot.
I gestured to the chest and said, “You scored the final blow, I think it’s only fitting you get to go first.”
She flexed playfully and then popped open the lid and reached inside, pulling out an ornately tooled quiver of some sort.
She studied it closely with a giant smile on her face.
“Wow,” she said and continuing to stare. “The Quiver of Plenty… interesting. So… If I fill the quiver with twenty of one type of arrow, from then on the quiver will replenish one arrow a minute until full. That’s amazing! I’ll never have to buy replacement ammo again!”
“That is amazing,” I agreed, and looked into the chest for my own reward. I reached in and pulled out a pair of hardened leather boots with what looked like steel thread woven through them.
I read through their description, crossing my fingers and hoping they would be something amazing like my prior two drops.
*** Boots of the Desert Storm – Increased lightning resistance. While wearing these boots a portion of all lightning based energy damage taken will be collected into a pool. This pool can be expended to use the ability Thunderstrike. Thunderstrike creates a blast of force that does concussive damage and knocks back affected enemies. ***
The metal thread made them better defensively than my current boots, and the abilities would be useful if I ever encountered something throwing lighting, so I swapped out my boots for the new ones and tucked the old pair into my pack.
When I put them on a small yellow globe appeared next to my other gauges to keep track of the boots’ pool. It was about half full.
I read the description out loud to Kjara as we sorted through the rest of the loot. All together we managed to replace the potions we had used during the battle and added another moderate healing potion on top of that.
We agreed that Kjara should hold on to the potion since I could heal myself.
On top of that there were about a hundred gold in mixed coins, and a bunch of crafting components that neither one of use knew the use for but could probably fetch us some more coin if we could find a buyer.
Our armor was pretty beat up, so we took out our repair kits and got to work. One of the rank five benefits of my Armorer skill kicked in and I finished my repairs pretty quickly, after which I offered to help Kjara out but she declined since she wanted to level up her leatherworking.
With a little unexpected free time on my hands, I decided to review the logs from the end of the fight to see what I had missed while I was freaking out.
*** Fleshforged Abomination strikes you with its iron gauntlet, inflicting a serious wound! ***
*** Congratulations! You have become more skilled with your Medium Armor and have reached Rank 6! ***
*** You are Bleeding! ***
*** You are Stunned! ***
*** Kjara dodges the Fleshforged Abomination’s claw strike! ***
*** Kjara parries the Fleshforged Abomination’s claw strike! ***
*** You are bleeding! ***
*** Kjara uses Riposte! Kjara critically strikes the Fleshforged Abomination with Riposte, causing a serious wound! ***
*** CHAIN – Riposte – Kjara uses Press the Advantage! Kjara strikes the Fleshforged Abomination with Press the Advantage, causing a mortal wound! ***
*** Kjara has killed the Fleshforged Abomination! Your party gains 2500xp! ***
*** Your party has released the tormented souls of the Fleshforged Abomination! You gain 3 Divine Favor! ***
*** You are bleeding! ***
*** WARNING – Your hit points are at a critical level! ***
*** Kjara has used First Aid on you, slowing your bleeding. ***
*** Kjara has used First Aid on you, slowing your bleeding. ***
*** You are no longer bleeding ***
I read through the last moments of the fight, wishing the game logs actually revealed more than just a description of the strength of each attack.
“Hey Kjara, I’m looking through the logs. What’s up with this chain attack thing?” I asked.
She continued working on her armor as she responded, “Oh, I have a few skills that chain off of other skills. Like Riposte, which I can use on the next attack after I parry successfully to get a bonus to crit. Then if Riposte hits I can use the Press the Advantage skill which makes my next attack do a ton more damage. From what I’ve read there are additional links in the chain, but I don’t have them all yet. When you can get the chain going the damage builds up fast. Warriors have a few chains, but I hear they are a rogue’s bread and butter.”
“Ah okay,” I responded. “I have something similar, but they aren’t something I can initiate skill wise. When I got rank five in shields the skill gained a benefit that could get me a bonus to critical chance on my next attack, and rank five spears gave a small chance to cause a bleeding wound on a crit. Combat Caster gives a small chance to get a free spell cast when I crit too, but they’re all random. I can try to do things in the right order to maximize my chances, but nothing’s guaranteed.”
She looked up at me and teased, “Priest is a support class, Kheph, however much you wish it were otherwise. Can’t have our healer going full murder hobo during the fight, now can we?” She looked up and winked.
I laughed and then continued my review of the combat logs, looking back to where Amenhotep had gone all glowy and focused on the name of the skill he had used:
Spirit of Vengeance
A variant of the "Last Stand" skill available to some warrior specialization, this skill provides a powerful boost to attack speed, accuracy, and damage at the cost of the user’s life force. This skill may only be invoked when below 1/3 of the users maximum hit points and during its use the character cannot be healed by any means. The character loses 1% of their maximum hit points per second while this skill is active. The skill ends on character death.
“Oh, that crazy bastard,” I said after reading the skill description. Kjara looked up at me and I relayed the info to her as well.
“Remind me to thank him next time he’s back,” she said. “He probably saved both of us from being eaten by that thing.”
She wrapped up her repairs and we readied ourselves to move further into the sewers, hunting for the rest of our prey.
We searched through the remains of the room but there was nothing else of use. I tried calling Amenhotep back from the underworld, but the spell just fizzled before I could power it with a message stating that I couldn’t re-summon a legionnaire who had been destroyed in combat for twenty four hours.
Not having our tank was going to make this a bit more challenging. I informed Kjara of the issue and we agreed that we should continue f
orward anyway to see if we could finish things up. And if we died well… thems the breaks.
There were two unexplored tunnels leading out of the room, one to the north and another leading back to the south.
“What do you think? Continue north or explore to the south?” Kjara asked.
I shrugged, “May as well continue north. We can always backtrack later.”
We readied our weapons, made sure our buffs were still in full effect, and headed down the northern tunnel. The tunnel turned to the left and extended further under the docks, and then left again into a small room.
The room was illuminated by rows upon rows of candles, casting hundreds of flickering shadows on a robed man reading from a large book near the far wall. I focused on him as we stepped into the room.
*** Unknown Karillian, Level 15 ***
*** HP: 100%, MP: 100%, SP: 100% ***
He glanced up as we entered the room, his expression that of indifference as he waived his hand and released a wave of energy that wrapped me in a cocoon of force.
*** You have failed to resist the Wave of Paralysis spell, Rickard Darmonte has afflicted you with paralysis! ***
Out of the corner of my eye I could see Kjara locked in place as well. The Karillian nonchalantly continued reading from his book, ignoring us completely.
I focused on the icon for the spell holding me in place and saw the timer had a full three minutes remaining.
I struggled against the magical force holding me to no avail, battering my will against an unbreakable wall.
The mage reached down and closed the book, setting it to the side and turning towards us.
“Let us see what has decided to come trespassing into my domain this time,” he said, reaching out an ink stained hand to tilt my head more into the light.
“A Saa. As expected in this foul city. It was only a matter of time until someone made their way down here. You’ll make a fine specimen for my experiments.”
He turned towards Kjara, an evil grin blooming on his face as he examined her. “And a moon elf? Oh, what a rare treat. I have had very little opportunity to work on one of your kind before." He hummed to himself. "Now, where was that book on elves.”
The Karillian began to search through his bookshelf, pulling out books and searching through the pages.
I watched the seconds count down on the paralysis timer and thought, Less than a minute now and I’d show this bastard a thing or two.
My muscles and mind flexed again, trying to break free of the spell ahead of time to no avail.
The mage grinned at me and raised his hand. Another pulse of energy washed over us and reset the spell holding us in place.
I silently cursed.
The mage walked over and grabbed another, smaller book from a pile on the side and started reading something within its pages.
I focused on staying calm. There had to be a way around this. I couldn’t move but could I cast? I summoned the glyphs for my newly acquired cleansing spell to mind and fed mana into it, targeting the paralysis holding me in place.
The spell began to eat away at the paralysis but it was like using a dagger to break down a door, and before the spell could make any real headway my purification spell was over.
I cursed as the mage glanced back over briefly, possibly sensing my attempt.
After a second he went back to his reading. Whenever the timer got low, he would wave a hand and renew the spell, but otherwise ignored us.
Ah fuck it, I thought and used my last two divine skill points to rank up the cleansing spell.
*** You spend 1 skill point and raise your Sehkmet's Cleansing spell to Rank 2! ***
*** You spend 1 skill point and raise your Sehkmet's Cleansing spell to Rank 3! ***
I cast it once again, feeling the spell flow over me and begin to wash away the paralysis before once again failing.
My mana was almost out, and I had one more try before it I’d be completely tapped. It was time to go all in.
The mage usually waited until there were thirty seconds or so to go on the timer before renewing the spell, so I timed my last attempt for right before then.
With forty-five seconds to go I brought up the cleansing glyphs and filled them with all of the mana I had left and then adding in some divine favor as well, releasing the spell in a burst of golden light.
The paralysis spell disappeared in a flash from around me and I leapt into action, thrusting my spear into the mage’s side as he looked up in surprise.
The blade met some resistance but still sank several inches into the mage's side, dropping his health to seventy percent and wiping his self-satisfied smirk off of his face.
The mage hissed and spat out a quick spell, a wave of sickly green energy pulsing through me, dropping my health by almost fifty percent.
I bashed the edge of my shield into his face and he stumble back. His hit points dropping to further.
The mage made a circling motion with one hand and his skin took on the look of bone. I rushed forward, doing everything in my power to keep him from being able to cast that damn paralysis spell again, smashing with my shield while slashing and stabbing with my spear, doing little damage but keeping him from being unable to concentrate.
The mage changed tactics, surprising me as he dashed towards me. He reached out and laid his hand upon my chest and I felt a lancing pain deep in my center.
It felt like something had been driven through my heart and I stumbled backwards as my health plummeted to thirty percent and my body was wracked with a freezing cold that made it almost impossible to move.
The mage advanced on me, a wicked grin on his face as he began to draw glowing green runes in the air between us, forming some spell that I could not decipher but that my necromantic lore told me was very bad for me.
I saw a flicker of movement behind him and fought to keep a smile from my face as the paralysis finally released Kjara.
The necromancer's spell was almost completed when her blades erupted from the man’s chest, spraying blood over my prone form. The necromancer’s health plummeted to near zero from the deadly blow, and his spell fizzled out of existence.
The cold afflicting me disappeared and I could move again.
I started to rise as Kjara executed a stunning roundhouse kick to the side of the mages head as she ripped her blades free, dropping the necromancer’s corpse to land sprawled amongst his books.
A wall of text filled my vision.
*** Kjara has killed Rickard Darmonte! Your party gains 750xp! ***
*** Kjara has reached level 8! ***
*** Quest Complete: Tainted Roots. ***
*** You have successfully eliminated the necromancers attempting to set up shop in Sehkem! ***
*** Your party has gained 5000xp! ***
*** You have gained 20 Divine Favor! ***
*** You have gained reputation with the Temple of Heru-et! ***
*** Quest Update: Unknown Origins ***
*** See Anpu at the Temple of the Restless Dead for your reward. ***
*** Kjara has reached level 9! ***
*** Congratulations you have reached Level 10! ***
*** You have gained 2 Combat Skill Points. ***
*** You have gained 2 Divine Skill Points. ***
*** You have gained 2 General Skill Points. ***
*** You have gained 1 Attribute Point. ***
*** You have gained 15 maximum Hit Points. ***
*** You have gained 18 maximum Mana. ***
*** You have gained 7 maximum Stamina. ***
Congratulations! You have reached Level 10! You are now subject to death penalties! Upon death you will be subject to a 25% penalty to all stats and skills that lasts for 1 minute per character level after resurrection. You also have gained access to the Risk/Reward experience boost system! For more information on this feature please see the in-game help menus.
***Quest Offered: Cleanse the Sewer. ***
*** Clear out the remaining undead from the
necromancer’s lair. ***
*** Rewards: xp, Reputation with the temple of Heru-et and merchants of Sehkem. ***
*** Accept (Y/N)? ***
I quickly adjusted my filters to remove the death and xp messages again, and then accepted the new quest without a second thought.
Divine favor was proving to be a damn powerful resource, and not just because it was required to summon Amenhotep.
Using favor in addition to and in combination with mana to fuel my spells was like throwing jet fuel onto a fire.
There was a lot of information to digest after that last “fight”. I’d gotten two skill points in each category, and a stat point which I immediately put into Presence.
My mana went up again and I felt a renewed sense of conviction.
My quests had both updated, requiring me to visit the afterlife in order to complete them… Now I just had to figure out how to get to the temple without dying first.
Kjara had gained two levels from that last fight and the completion of the quest.
She was so excited by her double level gain that she was practically bouncing. When I came over to congratulate her, she grabbed me in a hug, and we ended up hopping around in a circle in an impromptu happy dance.
It was a bit silly but the happy expression on her face was worth every moment of awkward hopping. I gave her a giant hug and then we parted, smiling at each other for another moment before looking away.
Crimson Sands Page 45