by Sean Oswald
Emily looked and saw a trio of three humanoid skeletons with bleached white bones and not a fragment of clothing running straight at them. It would have almost been comical, sort of like being attacked by the display you might see in a biology class, but for the fact that she felt an almost irrational rage upon seeing them. “Protect Mira and help me end these as best you can.”
Then without another word, Emily leapt forward past all of the men, pausing long enough to pick up a still smoldering board from the ground. The skeletons moved toward their group without any particular focus on a specific individual but still moving at a speed more akin to a racehorse than a man. That speed still didn’t save the first of them as Emily gracefully stepped to the side and whirled around bringing the board in her hands spinning into the head of the closest skeleton. The combination of force from her spin and even more so the sprinting speed of the creature resulting in the board being ripped from Emily’s hands and the skull being ripped off the skeleton’s shoulders. The entire front of the skeleton’s face was caved in as Emily scored a critical hit causing (92) damage to the skeleton. The head flew off into the side of one of the few remaining houses and shattered into fragments.
Feeling her Wheaties, Emily shouted at the headless creature, “How do you like that?” Dave and Mira spared a moment to look at each other in shock over her behavior, but the greater shock came when the staggered skeleton righted itself and joined in the attack without a head. For her part, instead of acting as stunned as she felt, Emily just took it as a further test and let her anger guide her again. She picked up the board off the ground and began to whack at her beheaded foe. It turned and attacked her, but its attacks were aimless as if somehow it couldn’t correctly direct its attacks without its head. Still, while Emily’s blows would rip a rib lose or smash off a finger, she just wasn’t strong enough to do much damage without the added momentum of the creature’s own speed.
Even as she wracked her brain for other ways to deal with the skeleton, she saw Dave and Mira out of the corner of her eye. Fighting along with them was Conrad and half a dozen loggers. Dave had enlarged and was pretty easily tearing apart one of the skeletons. Its claws skittered across the conjured armor he was wearing while he reached in to grapple. He wasn’t even using his sword. Instead, he was literally pulling apart the skeleton limb from limb. Conrad and the others were using their axes to hack off the limbs of the other skeleton, while Mira seemed to be looking for an opportunity to blast something from behind the shelter of the men. As soon as Dave had finished the one, he bounded over and grabbed the headless skeleton that she was fighting and made all of her efforts seem so futile. She felt rather ineffective but was proud of how the others were doing.
Then looking at the ground she saw the true danger of the skeletons. Each of the limbs that had been pulled off were still crawling along the ground. The heads were attempting to roll at the men. It didn’t seem that anything short of smashing the bones to pieces could stop the creatures. Worse still, whatever stalling tactic Talvenicus and Jarvis had been conducting had obviously ended because twenty more of the skeletons had run up and were now circling around their group. It was as if they were trying to encircle them so there was no room to escape. Individually, the monsters were not that much. Even she could handle one pretty easily. Now though, they were outnumbered more than two to one and she didn’t know how many other skeletons were out there. An image of these creatures reaching her precious little Sara who in her mind’s eye was crying out in terror for Emily to save her invoked a new level of fear and commitment all at the same time.
“Shanelle, I don’t know how this works. This is so outside of my comfort zone. I feel like a blasphemer calling out to this name, but … I don’t know. It seems to be the way it is. If you are really in some way the same God I have always known … or if you are a new way for me to understand God. Well, whatever it is, I need your help. I can’t figure out how all this works, but I need to know how I can defeat these things. You seem to want me to do that, so can you help me. Help me protect my family, help me save these people, help me destroy these monsters. Ummm I don’t mean to be demanding but… Well, if you are what I know as God then you already know what I need. Please show me how to make it happen.” Emily silently had her own version of a foxhole chat with God. It all took place in seconds. Her need lead to pleading, her pleading led to expectations, and those expectations led to imagination deciding how it should all work out.
This time though there was no column of light descending from the heavens to surround her. There was only silence. As the seconds passed and her imagined solutions didn’t come to pass, her expectations began to be shattered and a resolution began to form within her to solve this on her own. Still, her helplessness persisted, and just as she bent to pick up the battered board from the ground again, she heard a single word spoken in a whisper, “Abjuration.”
She gasped. Waiting to hear more but the seconds passed and the fighting around her became desperate. “Perhaps she had imagined it. Oh well, what did she have to lose?”
“Dave, what does abjuration mean?” she cried out over the sounds of the fighting. She saw that he was struggling desperately against half a dozen of the skeletons. He kept smashing them apart, but all of the parts kept crawling back at him. He had a disembodied head clinging to one forearm, trying to bite down on him and several boney hands clinging all over him with or without the associated arms all trying to dig into his flesh.
Still, he made time to answer her. “It's a school of magic, usually has to do with protection or ending magical effects.” His voice was pained and almost caused her to lose her focus.
She hoped she was understanding this correctly as she opened her character screen and dumped her remaining 25 character points into Abjuration.
Abjuration: The magic of protection and negation. It is never the aggressor, rather it always responds. Yet those who use Abjuration magic know that it is not he who has the first word which matters as much as he who has the last. With this, you may protect yourself or others and undo the spells of your foes. Effect: Determines the highest tier of Abjuration spell accessible to you as well as increasing the effectiveness of those spells by 5%/level. Divine favor invoked- only two spells will be gained but they will not be random.
Lesser Cancel Magic: Negate magical spells or effects which are already active. Cannot be used to counter an uncast spell. May be used on effects up to 4th tier but with a 33% penalty for each tier, the effect is above 2nd. May be used to target a specific spell or effect in an attempt to permanently negate the effect or may be used as an area of effect to temporarily suppress all magical effects within the area. Each effect resists independently. AoE: 1’/level diameter. Duration: 1 tick/level. Cast Time: 6 seconds. Cooldown: 90 sec-1 sec/level. Mana: 50.
Lesser Consecration: Abjuration and Essence Magic- Divine Caster only. Caster must have the favor of one of the Gods. This spell seeks to sanctify an area in the honor of the named deity. In the set area, all evil magics are negated. All evil summoned creatures are banished. All evil creatures suffer penalties dependent upon their tier. Certain resistances may apply. AoE: 1’/level radius centered on caster- immobile. Cast Time: 1 minute. Cooldown: 24 hours. Mana: 100.
Emily didn’t know what to say. She just hoped that these spells would turn the tide. The consecration spell was going to take a long time to cast, but even to her non-gamer mind, it seemed the best option. She understood the idea of consecrating a place far better than she understood how skeletons could be walking around trying to kill her.
Shouting out for all of those fighting around her to hear, “I think I have a spell that could save us, but it takes a full minute to cast. Can you all keep them off of me for that long?”
Dave answered before any of the others, “Conrad and Mira you protect Emily. The rest of us will try to keep them back, but if they get past us make sure she finishes her spell.”
It was strangely sexy to see her husband fighting
off undead monsters, streaked with numerous little wounds but undaunted. “Wow, where did that thought come from. Need to focus.” As the loggers set up a ring around her, her daughter and Conrad came to stand next to her facing outward in opposite directions, one with a pair of smithy hammers in his hands and the other with a bone staff; she felt excited to be part of this. Maybe she could understand a little bit of why Dave had liked all those silly games. It was kind of a rush. Then not wanting anyone else to be hurt because of her delay, she began to cast. The spell was much longer than any other she had cast so far and more than that it seemed to drain her emotionally. She began to feel an otherworldly presence suffuse the area. Her skin was covered in goosebumps and even the hair on her head started to feel as though it was standing on end from static electricity. She felt the power building and the energy was almost blissful. Then to her horror, she saw another dozen or more of the skeletons arrive. Dave cast his Enlarge spell, but she couldn’t imagine that he would have the mana to do that many more times, so she had to hope that Consecration would work. One of the loggers fell then in a scream as his throat was ripped out by a clawed hand and the gap in her protective circle was covered by Mira launching a web that tangled up four of the bony monsters.
Then just as each of the men around her was on the verge of being overwhelmed, the building crescendo of her spell came to fruition and the magic whooshed out from her in a faint pure white mist like a rush of energy. Everywhere that the mist went, the skeletons dropped without so much as a twitch, just so many dry bones. The rush of energy had a vaguely revitalizing effect on all of the humans and elves in the forty-foot diameter circle even though it didn’t heal any of them.
Both Emily and Mira were low on mana but started utilizing what little they did have just as soon as Emily downed a mana regeneration potion. Dave waved them off saying that his health regeneration potion would be okay for him. The rest of the men were seriously injured but mother and daughter were both only able to cast two healing spells before being completely out of mana even with their potions increasing the regeneration rate. Emily was forced to fall back on her nursing knowledge as she started trying to bind wounds on one of the men that she didn’t have mana to heal.
Back near the bridge, three other skeletons controlled by the goblin shaman were struggling to hold the death knight, Draznei’kai still so that their master could place a magical enslavement bracelet upon his wrist. It wasn’t much to look at, just a small ring of yellowed bones from an assortment of animals strung around a band of leather and made to be secured with a crude iron lock. At first terrified, but then seeing that the so-called bone man couldn’t break free from his skeletal minions, the shaman grew bold enough to pause and taunt the one who had been such a pain in his backside. “Not so mighty are you now. Know that you will serve me now. If you are lucky, I will use you as my footrest and not something worse.”
The transformation in the death knight from a powerful warrior to begging victim was both unnervingly complete and instantaneous as soon as he heard the shaman’s words and saw the grungy bracelet in his hands. “No, no!” he wailed. “Where did you get that?”
Being completely without sympathy or remorse, the shaman delighted in the sudden terror being expressed by his foe. “Did you really think that you could abuse us goblins like this and not pay the price? You are nothing, you have been our pawn this entire time. You serve the glory of the goblins, and now you will do so forevermore.”
Seemingly struggling to pull back as far as he could, yet held in place by the implacable strength of the shaman’s minions, Draznei’kai said, “The chieftain swore that he had that destroyed. No this isn’t fair. Spare me, and I will serve you, just whatever you do, don’t put that horrible thing on me.”
Laughing maniacally at the helplessness of the mighty being standing before him, the shaman moved forward in exaggerated slow motion until he finally secured the bracelet upon Draznei’kai’s wrist. To his delight the proud warrior who had so terrorized the goblins on this raid for the past few weeks began to shake and wail as if in agony, even falling to his knees despite being held by the skeletons.
“Does it hurt? I hope it burns your soul. Tell me of your agony and make your master laugh.” The goblin shaman now stood mere inches from the kneeling death knight and had a green clawed finger wagging in his face. “You are my…”
Whatever triumphant proclamation the shaman had been about to make was cut off by his shock as Draznei’kai’s left arm shot forward ripping the arms of the skeleton holding him on that side off at the same time. His hand striking as quickly as a viper wrapped around the shaman’s scrawny neck. The death knight’s eyes glowed bright red for a moment as he activated a class skill and seized control of the undead minions who were up to that moment struggling to hold him back.
“Did you really think that I wouldn’t be prepared for anything that you could send at me? Or that weak little puppets such as these could restrain me? I am the master of the grave, no
undead thing can challenge me. For you, my mouth lays wide like the gates of hell, and I will devour your soul and feed your corpse to the younglings of your tribe before I animate your skeleton to slaughter them all.” It was now the undead warrior’s turn to gloat as he stood to his full height and held the shaman high in the air with his feet desperately kicking as he futilely tried to pry the vise-like grip from his neck.
“Ah, but you must be wondering why your little trinket didn’t work. Well, if it's any consolation, your tribe didn’t betray you, they actually thought that this pathetic thing would work on me. None of you knew anything about my resistance to mental magics. I could never be controlled by a low tier piece of junk like this. This and all of your life has proven to be futile.” The death knight seemed to savor the torment that he inflicted and while he knew that the shaman was a selfish slug, he wanted to make sure he fully understood what would happen because of his actions. “You have not only undone yourself but also all of your tribe. I will live for as long as there is a moon in the sky and for all that time, I will hunt down all of your kind like the spiritless rats that you are, until no one even remembers such a thing as a goblin.”
Reaching slowly for a knife, Draznei’kai intended to begin carving up his victim to draw out his torment, when suddenly a magical backlash blasted into him. His hands involuntarily grasped at full strength and in that one instant, the shaman’s neck was broken, sparing him hours of hellish torture. The death knight shook his head trying to clear his thoughts and sort out what had happened. Soon it became apparent to him. He had lost the links to more than thirty of his skeletons all at once. He wasn’t sure what to think of that. It would take powerful magic or perhaps an adept priest to destroy that many undead creatures at the same time. No warrior or group of warriors would have been able to simultaneously end so many of them, as they were notoriously hard to end physically. So, there was more to this last little town than he had expected. It seemed unlikely that the nation had been able to mount much of a defense with such short notice. This meant that there was only one likely possibility. Annoyingly, his drakes must have failed to destroy all of that Purple and Gold squad. Now it would fall to him and his remaining skeletons. He needed to hurry and get there before the rest were destroyed. Knowing his master, failure was not an option.
Max’s short run came to an end as he came upon a group of villagers to the south. It was mostly women and children with only a few older men left to guard them and the entire group seemed to be distraught. As Max scanned the area, he realized that this must be a goblin attack, but that didn’t make any sense. The goblins had never attacked from anywhere except the Halcon Mountains. Yet there was a dead goblin rogue on the ground. A few feet from the goblin lay a dead human with a woman huddled over, weeping out her grief. The most bizarre thing that he saw was an adolescent not far from manhood propped up against a tree with an elderly woman struggling to treat a gaping stomach wound. That was sad, but what was strange about it wa
s that the boy was clearly a half-elf. How would a half-elf be in a remote logging village like this? That simply didn’t make any sense.
Just as he finished taking in the scene, one of the villagers worked up the courage to speak to him. It was a man in his late 30’s who said, “Are you from the army? Are you here to help us?”
“Captain Maxwell Smart of the King’s Purple and Gold,” Max replied sharply without thinking about his tone.
“Begging your pardon, Captain. No offense meant,” came back the man’s sheepish response.
Shaking his head, even after all this time, he had a hard time adjusting to the mentality that these serfs had. Where he had been raised you learned to stand up for yourself, but that just wasn’t permissible in good serfs, and so Max realized he needed to be mindful of that. “The king sent my squad to investigate the shortfall of lumber production, but it appears that there is more at play here than we knew about. Can one of you tell me what has happened so far?”
With that, the floodgates opened up and two dozen villagers all tried to answer him at the same time. After patiently sorting through what he was being told, he began to understand that some force had attacked the village and that a young girl had been kidnapped. He didn’t quite understand what he was told about this mysterious priestess, but it was clear that the attack might not be over yet. It sounded as if some of the villagers were still fighting.
Only then did another group of villagers, this one comprised of all men, come running from the village toward the south, shouting about skeletal monsters. Hearing these tales Max didn’t wait any longer, but instead reactivated his Forced March ability and with a burst of speed headed for the town square. He was assuming that Eris’ Rise was laid out like most small Albian towns. In fact, he was counting on it. If this sheriff he had heard about was any type of warrior he would undoubtedly be marshaling whatever sort of resistance he could in the town center, and that was where Max needed to be.