Most people nodded. A couple gave him looks that might be skeptical or even challenging. A few gamers were already questioning why Hawke was in charge. They had a point; he hadn’t been elected to any of his job titles. His counterpoint was that they had two choices: his way or the highway. Luckily, the bonus to his Reputation from the Quest, plus normal gratitude, had left most Eternals with a positive disposition toward him. There was no telling how long that would last, of course.
“Any other questions? No? All right, I’ll lead the way with Team One, then Tava with Team Two, Gosto on Three, and Calvo bringing up the rear with Four.”
Team One was the biggest, with twenty-eight Eternals and a couple of new Adventurers from the Volunteers (Deonos the Ranger and Maxom the Paladin) acting as minders. Hawke’s Leadership raised everyone to at least third level, which would help them survive any trouble they encountered along the way. The other groups had four noobs apiece, as well as a leader and another Volunteer. Three Dwarven Eternals had been left behind with Korgam’s team. They would make the trip the next day.
Getting the whole thing organized had been a major pain. Among other complications, four Orcs, a Lizard-Man, two Elves and two Goblin characters didn’t speak Vulgate. They were all in Hawke’s group, since they all could use English to communicate with him. Most of the players had been from North America; it looked like the Arbiters or Makers responsible had kept arrivals grouped by geographical location.
He hadn’t left the Stronghold unguarded, either. The Sterns were still there, although for the most part they were prospecting. So were ten Volunteers under Marko’s leadership. With the Arachnoids no longer presenting a threat, that should be enough – as long as the Necromancer didn’t pick that time to strike. Hawke was worried about that, but he needed to get the Eternals to safety. The two-day trip should be safe enough, but he couldn’t send off the Eternals by themselves. In any case, his Node Mastery abilities would let him check on and travel to the Town or the Stronghold in a matter of seconds.
Hawke started walking out of the ground-level tunnel, followed by the new Eternals, some of them squinting in the morning sunlight as they saw the new world for the first time. He wanted to get them to Orom as soon as possible, and then teleport to the Stronghold and figure out where the Necromancer was. The nameless Scout’s claim that Greg was still alive had been hard to swallow until the Fae said that he had accepted a Quest to capture or kill Domort – and the Quest was still open. The Arbiters didn’t make mistakes about that sort of thing. If the Quest was still active, that meant the Necromancer was still around.
That had prompted Hawke to swear to kill Gregory, spawning a Quest of his own:
QUEST ACCEPTED: Slay the Lord of the Dead
The Necromancer has lost his Stronghold but remains at large. You must find and destroy him permanently.
Quest Objective: Make Gregory Ballantine suffer his Final Death
Rewards: 2,500 XP, 50 gold, one random item (Masterwork Quality), +150 Reputation with (Unknown).
How the hell did he get away? He broke the truce!
But that also led to my death. Doesn’t that violate the rules against breaking a Parley?
“Somebody up there doesn’t like me,” Hawke muttered as he checked the Party Interface.
Everyone in the four Parties was sticking together so far. A couple of stragglers were being rounded up by their minders. Maybe he should have hired a couple of shepherds to help get everyone to Orom. And he missed Alba, who had left the day before, intent on tracking down Desmond. Hawke didn’t think she would find him, but if she did, well, maybe she could work things out with the Warrior.
The plan was to get people situated in town ASAP, and set their respawning site in the Temple of Shining Father, which would fulfill their Quests and push them a good ways towards their next level. He was going to let the Eternals use some of the vacant houses the town had inherited after the recent troubles. Eventually, he would start charging them rent with an option to buy. He would use the Town Interface to start assigning them Quests related to improving Orom. That would both level them up and help the town. After that, it would be mostly up to the Eternals themselves. He hoped many or most of them would stick around and either join the Defenders Guild or form their own. Anybody who wanted to behave like a murder hobo would be thrown out, of course.
Hopefully, we won’t have any. But if we do… Final Death, for any who kills an innocent person.
The sword didn’t say anything else, seemingly satisfied.
Team One reached the river ford. Hawke reminded himself to get a bridge built sometime soon. With mines opening up and a friendly Stronghold on the far side of the Auric, using a slightly less-shallow part of the river to cross was not going to cut it. Unfortunately, that was all they had. He went ahead first with two ropes, which he secured to trees. The newbies crossed one by one, using the ropes for support and with a third line tied to their waist in case they fell. A couple of them slipped and had to be pulled back to dry land by their safety lines, but the rest managed, unsurprisingly enough, since their Attributes even at first level were far above average for their species.
After Team One crossed the ford, Hawke had them wait a short distance away under the care of Paladin Maxom and watched over the next team to cross. The first person – Moe Butts – was halfway across the river when Hawke heard the distant sound of… barks? It wasn’t exactly like the sort of noise dogs would make; there was a whiny almost laughter-like undertone that reminded him of hyenas. Hawke had a Nature’s Guardian in eagle shape flying overhead; he sent it towards the source of the noises.
“Don’t send anyone else through!” he called out to the other side. “We might have problems.” He waded in after Joey, who had frozen in panic three-fourths of the way in, and all but dragged him onto dry land. “No time, bro.”
“What’s happening?” the Orc player asked.
“Trouble. Better call your pet and join the group.”
As he walked up the natural embankment, Hawke mentally reached out to the aerial Nature’s Guardian and looked through its eyes. There was nothing to see but trees so far. Meanwhile, Maxom had organized the newbies on top of a slight rise where a fallen tree – from the looks of it, a victim of Urso or one of the new Dire Bears haunting the forest – had created a small clearing.
“Form a circle. Melee fighters on the outside,” the Guardsman was saying. “Ranged and casters in the center!”
The flying Nature construct spotted movement through gaps in the forest canopy and swooped down closer. A four-legged canine ran past. It looked like a hyena crossed with a porcupine, with a long neck and oversized jaws; rows of spines covered its shoulders and back:
Anger Hound (Fae Mutation)
Level 6 Dire Beast
Health 210 Mana 80 Endurance 210
Those critters were almost as tough as Urso the Dire Bear, and there were almost twenty of them! The pack was rushing towards the ford and the twenty-odd first-level Eternals in the clearing. Hawke looked them over. Nine Warrior- or Rogue-types with melee weapons were on the outer circle; the rest included a few Hunters and Rangers with bows, and assorted magic-users and healers. Moe’s pet, a blue chimpanzee-like critter by the name Little Moe, stepped up to the front line. Hawke set up his auras and dropped Consecrated Ground to help heal people.
“Stick together and we’ll be fine,” he said as the Hounds came into sight.
The monsters received a warm welcome: Hawke’s Fireball exploded on an earth embankment, engulfing several critters. They yelped and whined but ke
pt coming, despite their Health dropping by half and the ongoing damage-over-time the clinging flames continued to inflict. Arrows and spells from the rear ranks landed among them, killing one and injuring a couple of others. The Hounds returned fire: spines on their shoulders and haunches shot out towards the gathered Adventurers. Three missiles bounced off Hawke’s Shield of Light. On his left, a Duelist by the name of Scarface staggered back, a spine protruding from his chest and his Health down to sixteen out of twenty-eight; luckily for him, Hawke’s healing AOEs brought him back to full health a moment later. More cries of pain erupted all around him as the missile barrage fell among the newbies.
A Healing Wave restored everybody who could be saved; a Mage dropped out of the Party as his Health went down to zero. Hawke clenched his teeth and fired off Burning Light at the predators, followed by his Hammers and one of his new Darkness spells, Dark Tendrils.
A dozen shadowy tentacles emerged from the ground and wrapped themselves around four Hounds. He insta-cast Deadly Roots a moment later, immobilizing three others. A couple more were already down, burned or shot to death. But half a dozen monsters charged on; out of spines to shoot but trying to close in with the defenders. One more fell from spells and missiles, but the rest leaped towards the waiting front-line fighters.
Hawke beheaded the one coming at him, then turned and stabbed one who had knocked down Scarface and was about to bite his face off. A second Fireball took care of the immobilized bunch, but the rest of them were too close for AOEs. Hawke used his area heal on his companions and picked off Hounds with single-target spells. Maxon was also using his heals on cooldown while he fought on. Everything would have been fine, except that a couple of newbies panicked and broke ranks, running into the woods – where they discovered that half a dozen more Hounds had crept silently around the clearing and were angling for a real attack. The monsters tore into them, killing them both in a few seconds.
Their deaths served as an alarm of sorts. Hawke had posted three fighters to watch the rear, but all but one of them had moved toward the battle. By the time Hawke reached the rear, a Rogue and another Mage were badly wounded, the former transfixed by four spines, the other with her throat nearly torn out. Hawke healed them and wiped out the rest of the Hounds. That was the last of the creatures. The brief battle had torn through eighteen monsters.
For slaying your foes, you have earned: 16 Experience (1 diverted towards Leadership; 1 diverted towards Node Mastery).
Current XP/Next Level: 5,776/30,000. Leadership XP: 14,253/15,000
Current Node Mastery XP/Next Level: 3,876/5,000
They had won, but three Eternals – the two who had run away, and the one killed by the first volley of spines – were off to respawn at the Stronghold. One of them, a Mage by the name of Motown, would have his Identity reduced below 10. Hawke shook his head, wondering what the poor bastard would forget when he woke up. On the plus side, if the ambush had a plus side, was that the rest of the Eternals had leveled up.
“You said it wouldn’t be dangerous,” Moe told him. A wave of notifications let Hawke know he had lost a good chunk his positive Reputation with the new Eternals.
“Those things weren’t there three days ago,” he said, the excuse sounding lame to his own ears. “We have to keep going, in case more come after us.”
Moe shook his head. The Orc Summoner’s green ape was making obscene gestures at Hawke. “This sucks, man. This isn’t cool.”
There was nothing else Hawke could say, other than to order the march to continue, after overseeing the river crossing for everyone else. People followed his orders, but he caught plenty of dirty looks and muttering along the way. It hadn’t occurred to him that a group that size would be attacked by anything more than a Dire Bear he could easily handle himself.
Whoever they are, they won’t be around for much longer. I’ll destroy them myself.
Hawke ignored the Quest notification that popped up a moment later. He’d get the job done, Quest rewards or no rewards.
Fifty-Seven
“Here you go,” Greg said, leaning over and handing Saul the completed character sheet. “I went mostly for the Mental Attributes.”
The system wasn’t too different from other games he’d played, except you got a lot more Hit Points. Greg figured the damage would also be higher. That was okay; he loved rolling big handfuls of damage dice. That time he had finally gotten to roll a ‘ten-d6’ Fireball had been lots of fun. Imagining people – often with the faces of those who had annoyed or messed with him – running around while being slowly consumed by magical fire had been awesome. Almost as awesome as having Cheerleader lean against him; his elbow was touching her boob, he was sure of it, but he didn’t dare turn his head to make sure.
“Looks good, Greg,” Saul said, handing the character sheet back. “Now, I want you to close your eyes for a second and picture yourself as your character.”
Now, that was weird, the sort of thing people who badmouthed roleplaying games spoke about. But what the hell, a little visualization couldn’t hurt anything. He did as he was told and pictured himself as a Necromancer, raising the dead and…
… he was falling. He opened his eyes and only saw clouds of oily darkness all around him. What the hell? His legs kicked wildly but couldn’t find anything solid; neither did his flailing arms. He screamed as panic overwhelmed him.
He never knew how long the fall through the smoke lasted. At some point, he must have passed out, because the next thing he knew was that he was lying on a cold, rough surface, and his clothes had been replaced by some sort of bathrobe made of a coarse and itchy material. Where was he? A floating piece of paper that glowed with its own light appeared in front of him. He had to read it three times to make sense of the words. And it took him another three minutes to understand that he was in a cemetery and that his first-level spell was Raise the Dead.
His first time he used magic was shockingly easy. So was his first murder, fifteen minutes later.
* * *
“What the hell?” Hawke yelled as he sat up in bed, rudely awakening Tava and Nadia.
That was never a good thing to do, startling two experienced Adventurers. In the time it took him to fully wake up and sit up on the oversized bed, Tava was on her feet, a dagger in her hand and a bedsheet wrapped around her left arm to serve as a makeshift shield. Nadia had prepped an Ice Dagger and was looking for a target. The fact that neither woman was wearing any clothes made the whole situation more than a little distracting.
“Sorry,” Hawke said, laying back down. “Had another Necromancer dream.”
Saturnyx said.
“I guess not. Both times have been very vivid. Like I was inside the guy’s head, and trust me, it wasn’t a good place to be. He was happy when he realized he could create a zombie and use it to kill someone. Freaking delighted.”
“You were inside his memories when you followed him into his Dimensional Pocket,” Nadia said. “Without bothering to tell anybody, I might add. Maybe you got contaminated with them.”
“Or perhaps he is working some witchery upon you, my love,” Tava said, putting away her dagger and cuddling back with him. “When we find and inflict the Final Death upon him, then it will be over.”
“I hope so.”
It had been a rough day, and only some late-night ‘bedding’ with his fiancées and mistress had brought him any peace. To have it messed up by those weird nightmares was annoying as hell. Endurance potions were great, but if you didn’t get your eight hours of sleep, your mind started to suffer. Apparently, the Makers hadn’t figured out how to cure the effects of sleep deprivation. If you couldn’t dream and clear out the garbage that accumulated inside your brain, you could go crazy.
&n
bsp; And he was tired. After reaching Orom without further incident, Hawke had spent most of the day making sure everyone got housing. The new Eternals were given a choice of either a small hovel for themselves, or sharing one of the larger homes or villas with three to six other people. Most of them went for the shared housing; the idea of sleeping alone in an alien environment hadn’t been very appealing. He made a note of the three exceptions who asked for private quarters, a Rogue, a Warrior and a Battle-Mage. They could be simply shy, or they might have something to hide.
After that, he had used Node Travel to commute from the town to the Stronghold, confer with Korgam, who was happy to report that the Arachnoids were leaving the Dwarves alone, and welcome the three unfortunate Eternals who had been killed by the Anger Hounds. Afterwards, he and the Dwarves had escorted the rest of the former players back to town. Hawke arrived just in time for one more meeting with the Town Council this time, followed by a dinner Q&A with all the Eternals. It had been nighttime before he finally enjoyed a couple of hours of pre-bedtime fun with the future wives and went to sleep. Except the sleep had been short-lived.
“What sort of magic could be doing this?”
“Yeah, although from what I saw when I was looking through his memories, he didn’t do a lot of leveling up. He spent most of his career in one hiding hole or another. The Stronghold was the latest one.”
Hawke used Mana Sight on himself, but even a full scan didn’t show anything wrong. He checked his timer. About four-thirty in the morning. Too late to go back to sleep. He had things to do at six. Might as well get an early start on the day.
“I’m heading back to the Stronghold,” he said.
“Must be nice to be able to teleport back and forth, rather than spend a day or two on the road,” Nadia said. “I picked up a short-range teleport myself, but by short range I mean thirty-feet. Not exactly a way to get anywhere fast.”
Lord of the Dead: A LitRPG Saga (The Eternal Journey Book 2) Page 33