Greg insta-cast Mana Shield as soon as he Reincarnated.
The spell was a mainstay of Mages and Sorcerers, and apparently also Necromancers. It was similar to Hawke’s Transference and made any damaging attacks that got through the caster’s defenses reduce their Mana instead of Health. Which effectively gave Greg over twelve hundred ‘hit points.’ Gritting his teeth, Hawke hammered away with sword and spells, but the Lord of the Dead had time to defend himself. A Death Cyclone smashed into Hawke’s defenses and tore them apart, forcing him to spend several seconds to heal himself, plenty of time for Greg to put on all his gear. Domort’s stats jumped up as his items boosted his Attributes and Characteristics. He no longer had the extra five levels from the Stronghold, which meant that he and Hawke were almost evenly matched, and they were in close combat, which should give a Twilight Templar the advantage.
It didn’t. The two Eternals tore each other apart without inflicting a killing blow. Greg used a nasty Death spell that healed him by draining the target’s Health. Hawke’s counterattacks drained the Necromancer’s Mana some more but didn’t stop him. A Major Death Curse followed; the spell reduced Hawke’s Health by 105 per second. He used his energy Hammers and healed himself while he continued hacking and slashing.
Greg kept grabbing Mana potions out of his inventory to replenish his losses; Hawke did the same. He had thought his supply of potions was effectively inexhaustible, but within minutes he was down to a handful of each type. Domort kept chugging them as if he had hundreds of them at hand. He probably did.
Summoned Wraiths and Skeletons joined in the fray. Hawke countered with his Nature’s Guardian and Animated Shadow, keeping the ghosts busy while he concentrated on their creator. When his summons went down, he used his AOE spells to finish off the minions. Things didn’t look good, though; Greg had managed to keep his Mana Shield up despite Hawke’s best efforts. He had a couple of aces in the hole, though; he only needed to play it at the right time.
Shadow Leech
Time to Cast: 2 seconds (Instant). Cooldown: 1 minute (48 seconds). Cost: 20(12) Mana. Duration: 3 seconds. Range: 100 feet. Effect: Target loses 15 Mana per level and is unable to cast spells for three seconds.
Hawke kept dishing out damage and waited until Domort unleashed another Death Cyclone and a Major Death Curse. Near death, the Twilight Templar dumped his unused Attribute points into his Constitution, healing himself and removing all the negative effects as he finally reached thirteenth level. The Necromancer’s Mana had just dropped below 1,200 when Hawke used Shadow Leech, depleting Greg’s pool by 360. As the Necromancer staggered in shock, Hawke teleported and backstabbed the helpless target, piercing Greg’s kidneys for massive damage that drained his Mana Shield even more. Three seconds weren’t a long time, but he made the most of it. Saturnyx ripped into the Necromancer, going for vital points that almost always resulted into criticals. The rain of blows was delivered at inhuman speeds. He also kept insta-casting spells as quickly as he could. When Domort summoned a potion, Hawke slapped it out of his hands with a swing of Saturnyx before the Necromancer could drink it.
Against somebody with the Health and Mana of the Necromancer, that wasn’t enough. Unfortunately for Greg, Hawke had another ace in his figurative sleeve. He had spent some of his down time using his new Simple Spell Inscription ability. In the process he had used up almost all his Mana – 660 total, even with discounts; it had taken over half an hour to regenerate it – to Inscribe two more Shadow Leech spells right next to Domort’s Reincarnation site. Just as the three seconds from the first Leech were up, all Hawke had to do was use the activation words – ‘Screw you’ – and both spells went off, hitting Domort for another 720 Mana loss – dropping him below zero Mana and preventing him from spellcasting for another three seconds.
The negative Mana Pool inflicted wracking agony on the Necromancer – his Health and Endurance were reduced by the excess Mana decrease – at the worst possible time, while Hawke kept him from drinking any more potions as he sliced and diced the Lord of the Dead. A Fireball, delivered at point-blank range, drove Greg to below a hundred Health. He fell to his knees, screaming in pain until Saturnyx’s double edges met in a scissoring cut that chopped his head off.
Greg went down for the third time.
For slaying your foe, you have earned: 1,200 Experience (150 diverted towards Leadership; 150 diverted towards Node Mastery).
Congratulations! You have reached Level Fourteen!
You have gained 6 Attribute points to distribute.
New Darkness, Fire, Life, Light, Nature, and Twilight spells available.
Current XP/Next Level:19,054/30,000. Leadership XP: 12,642/15,000
Current Node Mastery XP/Next Level: 3,105/5,000
You have found: 23 gold.
You have found: Lesser Ring of the Adventurer (Masterwork Quality): +2 to all Attributes.
You have found 4 Rejuvenation Potions
“That was rough,” Hawke muttered as he gratefully put on the ring. “I wish I knew how much Identity he has left.”
“Wow. Spawn camping really does a number on you.”
No wonder the Necromancer had gone to such lengths to protect his Reincarnation site. And Hawke was lucky he’d been able to use his new Inscription ability to give him an edge during the fight. He would do that again for the fourth fight. How many times was he going to have to fight the same battle, knowing one misstep would undo all he had accomplished so far? He was beginning to realize why the Greek version of Hell consisted of doing the same thing over and over. Grinding had been a pain in games, but the real-life version was much, much worse.
Hawke had finally made level fourteen, although he was shocked to realize that reaching the next Milestone was going to take an enormous amount of XP. He could only hope the rewards would be worth the effort. Meanwhile, he had to make a choice: save his new level for an emergency and risk losing it, or accept all his bennies right away. He was going to need every last bit of power he had to take out the fifteenth level Necromancer, but being able to recover immediately could come in handy on their next battle – and the one after that, and however many more times he had to beat Gregory.
He decided to save the level, but he still had two new spells to pick, and five schools of magic to choose from. There were over twenty spells available, but luckily most of them were weaker than spells he already knew, or were so similar in effects that there was no point in taking them. His final choices concentrated on survivability. He had to outlast Gregory in the next mano a mano fight.
In Extremis (Life)
Time to Cast: 30(15) seconds. Cooldown: 5(3) minutes. Cost: 30(23) Mana. Duration: 1 hour. Range: Touch. Effect: Imbues one person with a healing charge that can restore up to 20 Health per level. This charge is activated the moment the subject’s Health drops below 10%. Only one In Extremis can be applied on a subject, and the Mana spent in the process cannot be regained until the spell expires or is used.
Indomitable Aura (Light)
Time to Cast: 5 seconds (Instant). Cooldown: 15(12) seconds. Cost: 50(38) Mana. Duration: 6 minutes. Range: 30-feet radius around caster. Effect: Increases Resistance against all Elemental and Forces effects and damage by 5% plus 1% per level. Your total Resistance values cannot exceed 95%.
The higher-level spells were more expensive, but the effects were worth it. He now had a way to avoid being killed without dipping into Timeless Mind, which he had already used more often than was good for him, and the increased damage resistance would come in handy against the Death spells the Necromancer loved to throw around. He redid the Simple Spell Inscriptions: three Shadow Leeches were now a
word away from dropping Greg’s Mana by 1,080 points. All he had to do was wait for the right time.
Feeling better about his chances, and with about an hour to kill, Hawke went back to meditating. Unlocking the second Chakra was tricky – even a small mistake sent pulses of Mana right into the attached nerve clusters, with results that would be considered torture under the Geneva Convention – but after a couple of minor mistakes, he got the energy center to glow and blossom. Where failure had been agonizingly painful, success felt quite nice indeed:
Congratulations! You have awakened your Sacral Chakra!
You have earned 400 Experience (50 diverted towards Leadership; 50 diverted towards Node Mastery).
Current XP/Next Level:19,454/30,000. Leadership XP: 12,692/15,000
Current Node Mastery XP/Next Level: 3,155/5,000
You have gained +10% to Mana Capacity and +1 to Mana Regeneration per minute.
You have gained Tantric Touch (Mana Channeling Ability)
Tantric Touch: You can now use your Mana to stimulate a target’s pleasure centers. Cost: 1-10 Mana; the more energy spent, the more intense the stimulation becomes. Range: Touch. Unwilling targets have a 25% (+10% per Willpower level over 10) to resist this effect.
“In the immortal words of George Takei: Oh, my.”
Hawke checked his timer. “We have thirty minutes to kill. Want to take it for a test drive?”
* * *
The next time, the Necromancer didn’t fight. Instead, he fell to his knees and cried out: “Parley! Parley, I beg of you!”
Hawke ignored Greg and attacked – only to freeze in mid-swing.
You have been offered: Parley. Neither side can act until the offer is accepted or rejected.
Accept? Y/N
Damn game rules. How does this work? Hawke asked Saturnyx while he kept an eye on the Necromancer. Greg was also paralyzed, so both sides were safe until he made his choice.
Hawke’s first instinct was to reject the offer and keep whaling away at the mad bastard. He had no intention to let the Necromancer live, so why prolong the misery for everyone concerned? And he really wanted to spend some more quality time with Saturnyx, and, as soon as he could arrange it, with all the other women in his life.
Okay, there was that, Hawke admitted to himself as he agreed to the parley. Maybe he would learn something useful before finishing off the mad bastard. A fifteen-minute timer began to run.
“Speak your piece, Greg. I’m in a rush to kill you and get back to my life.”
“Listen, I know we got off on the wrong foot,” the Necromancer began.
“You literally sucked the life out of me, and who knows how many other Eternals. All innocent victims, just like you once were.”
“You seem to know a lot about me.”
“I took a trip through Memory Lane. Your Memory Lane, Greg. I saw you and that big-haired weirdo, Valentino, and his two girlfriends.”
The Necromancer hissed at the name. “So you know what he did to me. I’ve forgotten most of my past, my life on Earth. But I never forgot that day. Did you see who he was? What he was?”
“I’m going to guess that he’s an agent of the Laughing Man. Maybe a Fae? He was tall and skinny enough. But I honestly don’t care enough to trade you your life for that information.”
“This doesn’t have to end this way. I have massive amounts of wealth. Hundreds of magical items in my Bonded Vault. If you kill me, all of that treasure will be lost.”
“Not good enough.”
“I can teach you. I know four Schools, three Elements, and one Force. I can teach you to unlock all of them. I can swear any oaths you want me to, in triplicate and witnessed by the Arbiters. To never come back. Never bother this miserable valley. Anything.”
That was actually tempting, but Hawke found himself shaking his head. Gregory Ballantine had proven himself to be a murderer, a psycho who thought he was better than anybody else and treated people as things to be used and discarded. That way of thinking, combined with his power, made Domort too dangerous to live. If Hawke let him go, any victims the Necromancer claimed from then on would be on his head.
“It’s a no, eh?” Greg said, sounding almost resigned. “Well, I suppose it makes sense. Too bad.”
Before Hawke could react to the words, the Necromancer dropped to the ground, dead. Hawke didn’t gain any experience or treasure. He guessed that when Greg threatened him, the Parley’s rules had killed him. Final Death for the bastard. Greg’s body vanished before Hawke could loot the corpse. And he didn’t get any experience, since Greg had self-owned himself. Bastard.
“Too easy,” he said. “What is the catch?”
Pocket Dimension Self-Destruct Initiated: Time to Self-Destruct: 15 seconds. 14 seconds…
Fifty
There was no time to do much.
Hawke tried Node Recall; it didn’t work. Wherever they were, it was out of range of the ability. Less than ten seconds to go, and he didn’t have time to figure out how to escape the dimensional pocket before it ceased to exist. He spent his Attribute points so he wouldn’t lose his new level. Two points on Intelligence, two to Spirit, and the last two to Willpower. He was going to die. Again. Maybe for good? He didn’t know what would happen when the little miniature dimension ceased to exist.
“I love you,” he told Saturnyx, wishing he’d been able to say that to Tava. And Nadia. He sent all his gear into his inventory, to spare them the damage he was going to endure. He wasn’t sure if that would spare the sword, but that was all he could do.
Poof.
* * *
Hawke sat up in the purple cave.
“I’m back!”
He put all his stuff back on, including the Twins. He didn’t remember dying. Whatever the collapsing pocket dimension had done to him, it must have been so quick that it hadn’t even hurt. A quick look at his stats showed him his Identity was at 18. He had gained two points for leveling twice, and lost one when he died. It could have been a lot worse.
Hawke checked his clock app. It had been a bit over thirteen hours since he’d followed the Necromancer to his dimensional pocket. He had no idea what had happened since he’d been gone. With his death, the Party had been dissolved, so he didn’t know where everyone was. Next, he took the Stronghold Core. It was still there, but it informed him he had fifty-nine hours to return it to its usual place. He accessed his Node Travel ability and found that the Death Spire Stronghold was on his list of teleport locations. Whew!
Seventy-five Mana and one teleport later, Hawke was back in the laboratory where the whole mess had started. Tava was sleeping in a bedroll near the spot where he had disappeared. The teleport pad to Greg’s now destroyed Pocket Dimension was gone, of course.
“Hey,” he said gently.
Her eyes opened. “You said you would stop dying.”
“I’m trying to cut back, I swear.”
“And you came back,” she said, hugging him. “And congratulations on your advancement on the Path.”
“Thank you. What did I miss since I was gone?”
“First Sergeant Marko had the courtyard and the barracks cleared of Undead. That took them until nighttime, not that it makes a difference in these caverns. We all helped. Korgam’s Adventurers used their spells to dig up pits, and between their magic and a lot of hard work, we removed the sickening bodies.”
“Th
at’s great.”
“Much work remains, of course. This Stronghold is not fit for the living. The place still has a foul stench.”
Hawke sniffed and nodded. “I’ll see what I can do about that.”
“You claimed the Stronghold as your own, didn’t you?”
Hawke grinned. “Don’t worry, wife to be. You get half of everything. Or, well, whatever share the first wife gets.”
“I am sure Saturnyx knows all the proper laws, but I wish to have little part of dealing with a haven of Undead.”
“Yeah, there is that. The Stronghold Core is also sort of alive.”
“How is such a thing possible?”
“Something else to worry about, I guess. How about Nadia? I tried to reach her but she seems to be out of Saturnyx’s range.”
Tava smiled. “She met with several of the closest Arachnoid chieftains. She even turned into a spiderling herself during the negotiations. She has gone to meet with others, deeper into the mountain range.”
“By herself? Is she nuts?”
“Not now,” Hawke told the sword.
“She is with Korgam and the Sterns,” Tava explained. “She will be safe enough. All the nearby tribes have sworn their allegiance to her and renounced any and all agreements they had with the Necromancer.”
“They accepted her as a ruler?”
“As far as those six chieftains are concerned, she is now the Spider Empress. She expected the rest to follow suit. I do not think she will agree to become your third wife, darling. It probably wouldn’t be fitting for someone of her rank.”
“I guess so. I’m just a Town Prefect, and she is an Empress.”
“Well, the title is largely honorary. She has convinced the chieftains of those tribes to sue for peace but they will conduct their other affairs as they see fit. She and Korgam are working to negotiate for mining rights, and she has offered to act as an intermediary between them and the new Lord of the Dead. That, my love, would be you.”
Lord of the Dead: A LitRPG Saga (The Eternal Journey Book 2) Page 29