Lord of the Dead: A LitRPG Saga (The Eternal Journey Book 2)

by C. J. Carella

  Name: Hawke Lightseeker. Race: Half-Elf, Eternal Class: Twilight Templar, Monster Trainer. Level: 14

  Experience/Next Level: 7,392/30,000

  Attributes:

  Strength 26(54), Dexterity 20(43), Constitution 37(69), Intelligence 22(26), Spirit 22(28), Perception 24(30), Willpower 20(26), Charisma 20(22)

  Characteristics:

  Health: 686 (20.9/min)

  Mana: 528(828) (20.8/min)

  Endurance 574 (19.9/min)

  Identity: 18

  Skills

  Blacksmithing 4, Climbing 2, Detect Traps 3, Disarm Traps 2, Dodge 7, Lore 4, Shield 7, Spear 4, Stealth 4, Survival 3, Sword 7(21), Swimming 2, Tracking 3

  Languages: Common Fey, Vulgate, Lesser Celestial

  Perks

  Aegis of the Fae, Dark Vision, Elementalist, Mana Sight, Sidhe Caster, Sidhe Speed Casting, Speed-Casting (Life and Light Magic), True Sight, Undying, Unlimited Potential

  Spells

  Animate Shadow, Armor of Life, Aura of Light, Bless Crops, Bolt of Darkness, Bolt of Life, Bulwark of Light, Burning Light, Consecrated Ground, Dark Step, Enlightenment, Dark Tendrils, Deadly Roots, Fireball, Gift of the Martyr, Growth, Hammer of Light, Hammer of Twilight, Healing Blows, Healing Wave, In Extremis, Indomitable Aura, Lesser Healing, Nature’s Grip, Nature’s Guardian, Sense Life, Shadow Leech, Shadow Step, Shield of Light, Shroud of Darkness, Shroud of Twilight, Simple Spell Inscription, Touch of Light, Transference, Twilight Mantle, Twilight Step.

  Special Abilities

  Analyze Monster, Dual-Casting, Evolve Monster, Greater Bond, Identify Spell, Mana Channeling II, Dispel Magic I, Leadership VII, Node Mastery IV (Node Recall, Node Sight, Advanced Node Travel), Ritual Magic I, Seal Inscription I, Spell Deconstruction, Spellcraft II, Stop Monster, Summon Monster, Tame Monster, Tantric Touch, Timeless Mind, Tulpa Creation I

  Arcane Vocations

  Blacksmith (Level Four), Mining (Level One), Skinning (Level One), Steward (Level Four)

  His monster mount headed down the road, heading west. The other Shadowling giant followed a short distance behind, and then the rest of his foot critters, while the flock of Harpies and fake eagles orbited overhead. Hawke looked behind him. People were waving goodbye from the battlements of Orom. He spotted Tava and Kinto there. Helmets and spearpoints reflected the morning sunlight. The town was ready for war, its gates closed, and its people armed. If he did his job, they wouldn’t be put to the test.

  “Let’s go get them.”

  Sixty-Five

  As the minion force left Orom behind, Hawke formed an Adventuring Party of twenty-five members that included himself, both Darkness monsters, ten Harpies and twelve of his other ground troopers. After that, there was little left to do but march. He soon learned firsthand that his brother had been right about military life: a lot of it was nothing but boredom and drudgery. Walking or driving around, digging holes and filling them up again. Or, in Hawke’s case, going up and down like a seesaw every time the giant monster he was riding took a step.

  “Any thoughts?” he asked Saturnyx.

 

  “I know. But I want those players to have a chance to level up a few times before risking more Identity losses. And I have a way out if things get hairy.”

 

  Hours went by as the small army left the main highway and followed country roads to the north, with his aerial scouts keeping watch. Hawke spent the time setting up spell rotations and ‘saving’ them in the magical record-keeping system that held his stat sheets and other information. He made one rotation against Undead, one as a main tank and secondary healer, and one for mass combat, specializing in area of effect spells, which he expected to use in the upcoming battle. To that he added a pre-fight rotation with all of his buffs. A simple mental command would make the spells in each list appear and he would only need to see which ones were ready to cast and make his selection at a glance, without having to think about it. Satisfied, he settled down on the uncomfortable mount and wished he could take a nap.

  Noon came and went, still without any signs of the enemy. Hawke had the critters stop for an hour so they could replenish their Endurance pools, grabbed a quick lunch, and resumed the march. It wasn’t until mid-afternoon when one of the Harpies spotted the enemy and squawked a warning. Hawke looked through the flying minion’s eyes and saw movement. Bands of Woodlings were moving from one patch of forest to the next, avoiding open fields whenever possible. Packs of Hounds ran on their own. And marching behind them was the core of the Fae army. The Revenant was in the center on his giant mount, surrounded by ambulatory trees. When one of Hawke’s Harpies flew too close, the Fae leader obliterated it with a Greater Lightning Bolt.

  That was Hawke’s target. The Necromancer had released the Undead-Fae hybrid, who had somehow assembled an army of Woodland creatures. If Hawke could destroy it, he was sure the Woodlings would return to their forest. All he had to do was smash through any scattered bands in his way and get to the Revenant. Hawke sent one Harpy off as a messenger, and drove the rest of the force forward.

  After another half hour of marching, the first enemies made contact. Woodlings and Hounds began shooting enchanted arrows, spines, and spells at the Animated Shadows that led the way. Hawke sent his Harpies to clear the way. The battle was joined, with missiles and magic from both sides filling the air. Two of his Shadows went down, but the Fae critters scattered away, leaving a dozen dead behind. A few of the small humanoids kept shooting at his force’s flanks, but he sent ten Harpies off to keep them away. Any Elementals wounded in the brief skirmish returned to him so he could heal them. Not the Harpies, of course; they could only be healed through Death Magic, which Hawke didn’t have.

  Twenty minutes after the brief skirmish, the enemy leader came into view, standing on top of a hill, less than two hundred yards from Hawke.

  “Charge!” he shouted, adding a mental command that all his summoned creatures heard. Led by the two Darkness Guardians, his army rushed forward while the Harpies and flying Nature Guardians dived on the enemy or cut loose with bows or spells.

  Hundreds of Wildling archers fired a volley of arrows in return. Hawke saw the shafts rising up, deceptively slowly at first, until they became a rain of missiles. Most struck nothing but the dirt between his Elementals, but not enough. Hawke kept using Healing Wave on his forces as the bear- and deer-creatures began to sprout arrows by the handful, and eventually by the dozen. Here and there, a Guardian or a Shadow that had strayed out of range of his healing spells went down. Anger Hounds charged in, stalling his advance until the Darkness Guardians moved forward and cleared the way with their flailing tentacles, sending the doglike critters flying or crushing them to the ground. Losses continued to mount, however. Thirty became twenty-six, which in turn became twenty by the time his force had covered half the ground toward the enemy. And then the enemy spellcasters joined the action.

  Mass Blast Undead spells wiped out half of his Harpies. The survivors climbed out of spell range and tried to pick off Woodling Shamans with arrows or dropped rocks. Nature, Air and Earth magic began to whittle down his creatures’ Health faster than he could heal them. Entangling spells immobilized half a dozen of his pet monsters. Only the Darkness Guardians were strong enough to rip through the obstacles and keep going.

  By the time Hawke reached the hill, only the two giant monsters and the ten Harpies he had placed in his Party remained. He was unhurt, and he had kept the two big beasts healed, but now a solid wall of Sapling Warriors stood between him and his target, who joined the action with a Death Cyclone. Hawke withstood the 600-point blast and concentrated on healing his mount. All the arc
hers and spellcasters still standing were pouring their fire on the two Guardians. Despite their high defenses, their Health was pouring out like water from a ruptured water tank.

  Hawke cast another Healing Wave, then began his rotation: Fireball, Burning Light, then a couple of heals on his dying pets as they struck out at the tree creatures barring their way. The charge came to a standstill as the giant Shadowlings were surrounded. Hawke finished off a couple of enemies with single-target spells, repeated his heals, then started his rotation again just as another Death Cyclone struck. The area effect Death spell hit the Sapling warriors near Hawke as well as its intended targets, but the Revenant didn’t care. More Woodlings were converging on the hill, filling the air with shafts while the Shamans in their midst burned through their remaining Mana, intent on smashing the last titan and the handful of Harpies still aloft.

  Just as one of the Darkness Guardians finally collapsed, the cavalry arrived.

  Three hundred Harpies descended on the distracted enemy army, coming from behind the setting sun, unnoticed until they entered arrow and spell range. Hawke had burned over half the stored Mana of the Domain to summon that horde, and had tried to arrange things so the giant flock would arrive in the middle of the fight. He hadn’t quite gotten the timing right, but late was better than never.

  Low in Mana and taken by surprise, enemy Shamans went down in droves as arrows, lightning bolts and death curses from the Harpy casters tore into them as well as the few surviving Sapling Warriors. The few enemy spellcasters left didn’t have enough power to cast Mass Blast Undead, and the Harpies soon made sure they wouldn’t be able to cast any kind of spell, ever.

  Hawke summoned his personal Darkness Guardian to replace the one that had been destroyed, leaped up in the air, and Twilight Stepped towards the Revenant, who was recoiling from dozens of arrow and spell hits. He drove the Saturnyx Twins right into the Undead’s back and followed up with his AOE spells, which incidentally killed the Revenant’s giant mount. Most of the Fae’s bodyguards were down or still fighting the Darkness Guardians. For a few seconds, it was only the two of them, Hawke and the Revenant.

  The Undead Fae hit back with another Death Cyclone and a curse that tore through Hawke’s defenses and would have killed him except for the In Extremis spell he had cast on himself. Hawke kept using his swords while he called up his anti-Undead rotation, using healing spells for the dual purpose of keeping himself alive and damaging his target. In a matter of seconds, he had reduced the monster-in-chief to less than half its Health, just in time for another Death spell barrage that would have killed him if it wasn’t for his new magic cloak, which kept him alive long enough to heal himself. He had the Undead critter right where he wanted. It was simple math: he was doing more than enough damage to destroy the sumbitch before it could repeat the Death spells.

  The Revenant could work out the math just as well as he did, however. Hawke chopped off one of the hybrid creature’s hands, but whatever spell it had been casting worked. The Revenant vanished from the battlefield with a loud pop.

  “You bastard!”

  The sight of their leader disappearing, not to mention the loss of most of their Shamans and Sapling Warriors, was enough to break the Fae creatures’ morale. The Woodlings and the few surviving Hounds broke ranks and fled, chased mercilessly by Harpies. Hawke had read that most of the losses incurred in medieval combat happened when one side routed and was massacred. That was what happened next. Hundreds of Woodlings were shot of spelled to death as they tried to escape. Hawke turned his attention to the few remaining Sapling Warriors, making sure none of them lived to return to the Foothills. Hopefully the terrible casualties would teach the Fae not to threaten the Valley again.

  The Revenant was still on the loose, however. And the Necromancer hadn’t even shown himself.

  Sixty-Six

  People in town were still celebrating the victory, but the noise had mostly died down.

  It was late; Hawke had spent most of the day chasing the Woodlings back to the Foothills. After he was done, he teleported back to the nearest Node and visited the Stronghold. He and Nadia returned to town just in time for dinner and a long meeting with the Town Council, involving after-action reports followed by a Q&A session. By then, news of the victory had spread out and everyone in Orom who wasn’t on wall duty went off to celebrate in a town-wide party that Hawke had missed. Life was never fair. But he was back at his villa, with the women in his life. That was more than good enough for him.

  “You did it, Lord Hawke,” Tava said as he stepped out of the bath. “You have conquered.”

  “I killed a bunch of Fae that probably would have never bothered us if not for the Necromancer’s pet, and I let the pet get away. Not exactly a massive success.”

  “They won’t be attacking again,” Nadia said, stretching by the bed in a very distracting way. “And the Sunset Mountains are safe.”

  While Hawke had gone off to war, the Elf had gone through her own battle. A bunch of Arachnoid tribes from farther up the mountain chain had been enticed by the Necromancer to invade the lands around the Stronghold. Nadia and the Dwarves had led a coalition of friendly tribes against the invaders. The fight had been decided swiftly, thankfully, with few casualties on either side. Nadia’s Scepter had quickly ended the fight. She had brought back a treaty that should bring peace to all the Murk Arachnoid settlements in the surrounding mountain ranges.

  “I really could use eight or nine hours of sleep, but I’m still worried about Greg messing with my head.”

  “It’s got to be Mind Magic,” Nadia said. “The game’s Wiki didn’t have a lot of info about it, since it wasn’t something starting characters could get, but it said it was more powerful than normal Elements and Schools of Magic. Maybe he’s trying to turn you into a pod person.”

  “A what?”

  “Invasion of the Body Snatchers mean anything to you? No?” Nadia asked with a shrug. “Sometimes I forget I was like twenty years older than you back on Earth. Anyway. Mind control. Use you like his personal sock puppet.”

  “Well, that’s gross. I scanned myself and couldn’t find any signs of mind control, though.”

  “Maybe you should do it again. Use those awesome Mana Channeling powers you keep meaning to teach me.”

  “I too would like to learn such abilities,” Tava said. “Especially the latest one.”

  “I promise I will teach everyone. I guess since we are all awake, this is as good a time to start the lessons as any.”

  A couple of minutes later, the three of them were sitting in the lotus position around the bed, taking long slow breaths and trying to visualize the Mana flows in their bodies. Hawke was already an old hand at that, of course, but his students were catching up quickly. He extended his senses briefly and saw Nadia was already beginning to explore her solar plexus Chakra. Tava was still behind, not having the senses of the Fae-blooded or as much experience using Mana for anything other than her abilities. He hoped neither of them hurt themselves; he had warned them about the things he had done wrong, but was having trouble showing them how to perform the Chakra awakening.

  Saturnyx said.

  Hawke turned his attention back to himself, to his own Mana flow. He had gotten pretty good at seeing how emotions and different Schools of Magic altered the energy inside his body. At first glance, he couldn’t find anything wrong, so he went deeper, looking for any changes in his energy channels. He had managed to invade the Necromancer’s head. What if the evil bastard had returned the favor? He kept looking until something finally showed up.

  There were two Chakras in his head. One was right between his eyes, the other on the crown of his skull. He had left them alone because the Quest had suggested those were harder to awaken than the ones in his lower body, but as he took a close look at them, he real
ized the Crown Chakra had unfurled, not up to a full awakening, but a lot closer than it had been, and he hadn’t touched it at all. There was something working inside its energy folds, and he instinctively knew that whatever it was, it didn’t belong there.

  Saturnyx, I think I…

  White-hot pain ripped through his Crown Chakra. For several moments, he thought he was dying.

  When the paralyzing agony finally dissipated, Hawke found himself somewhere else. The bedroom in his villa, as well as Tava and Nadia, were all gone. It was still night out, but he was lying next to a pile of loose dirt on a grass-covered field. There was a man-sized hole on the ground next to the dirt pile, and little stone markers stood on the grass, all around him. He recognized the markers from the funerals he had attended at Orom. He was in a graveyard, and he was wearing an uncomfortable, poorly-woven robe. And he wasn’t alone, he realized when he heard somebody rising behind him. Hawke twisted around, leaped to his feet – and found himself facing Saturnyx in her human shape, with regular hair instead of living hooked chains, and as beautiful and naked as she usually was.

  “What is this?”

  “We have fallen into some sort of construct,” she said. “Similar to my personal sub-realm and the Dimensional Pocket the Necromancer used as a bolt hole. And it seems you have assumed his role.”

  Hawke checked his status, realizing she was right:

  Hawke Lightseeker (Half-Elf, Eternal)

  Level 1 Necromancer

  Health 55 Mana 47 Endurance 46