Civil War

by James A. Hunter

  At the center, a Thursr corpse lay etched with phosphorescent Infernal runes, his arms and legs outstretched and pegged to an inlaid floor shrine with jagged stone spikes. An enormous [Ravenous Hellbender]—a slimy-looking creature with black spikes sticking out of its spine and a spiked mace-like ball on the end of its tail—munched happily away at the poor bastard’s open chest cavity.

  At the head of the altar was a level 33 Reaver Shaman, [Splatch the Abhorrent]—her name white against a bloody purple-red aura. She leaned on a staff, watching the scene with smug satisfaction.

  “Don’t lose, Griefer,” Zyra whispered, disappearing into a curl of inky smoke before he could say that he didn’t intend to.

  Roark drew himself up to his full height, throwing back his shoulders, and swaggered into the room with an arrogance he didn’t feel. From the shadowy recesses around the throne room, rangy Reaver Champions raised wicked-looking crossbows and glowing daggers.

  Before they could attack, Roark spoke, his voice clear and filled with confidence. “Splatch the Abhorrent, I challenge you for the position of fourth-floor Overseer.”

  The Champions stopped in their tracks, looking to their Overseer for direction.

  At the altar, the Shaman’s eyes lost focus for a moment, roving over unseen words, and Roark knew she was reading the quest.

  “No, this will not do,” she said in a rasping, craggy voice.

  After a moment, a page appeared before Roark’s eyes.

  ╠═╦╬╧╪

  Dual at the Crossroads

  You have challenged Splatch the Abhorrent for the position of Fourth-Floor Overseer, but the rules are a bit different down here on Splatch’s level. Every spell slinger worth their Magick has an animal familiar to fight alongside them in battle.

  Objective: Kill Splatch and her familiar, Gut, in dual combat, aided only by your animal familiar.

  Reward: Become the new Fourth-Floor Overseer; command and deploy Fourth-Floor mobs; create and alter Level-One floor map; 20,000 Experience

  Failure: Die at the hand of Splatch the Abhorrent or Gut the Hellbender in single combat.

  Penalty: No respawn for combatant or animal familiar.

  Restrictions: No assistance beyond animal familiar; no Health potions may be used.

  Accept Quest? Yes/No

  ╠═╦╬╧╪

  Roark hesitated. It was one thing if he died, but to risk Mac’s forever-death as well …

  A gurgling growl at Roark’s side drew his attention. He shut the book on the quest to find Macaroni standing beside him, facing down the much larger, uglier Hellbender.

  “I suppose you want to fight this thing, challenge or not,” Roark murmured, scratching the back of the Elite Salamander’s thick neck.

  Mac looked up at him, blinking bulbous eyes slightly out of sync, and chirped. Roark felt a grudging smile tug at his lips.

  “Bloodthirsty little monster.” He reopened his mystic grimoire, turned to Quests, and selected Yes in answer to the challenge. “Fine.”

  As soon as the quest was accepted the grimoire disappeared, and Roark found himself under attack. The Shaman thrust her palm at him, sending a gout of blue sparks his way. They sunk into his flesh where they landed, corkscrewing inward and chewing away at his Health vial by degrees.

  Roark hit the floor and rolled away, launching Infernal Torment at Splatch as he came up.

  Plum-colored flames licked at the Shaman’s flesh, but she didn’t drop to the floor screaming. Instead, she rapped herself on the chest with her gnarled staff. A bubble of pale blue light enveloped her, flared, then she disappeared.

  Roark cursed, turning in a slow circle as he searched the throne room for some sign of where she would reappear. Infernal Torment—and most of his other Infernal attack spells—required concentration and line of sight. If she could pop in and out whenever she wanted, his Infernal spells wouldn’t be of any use against her. Still, he had his spell tome and a few tricks secreted up his sleeves, though he’d hoped to wait longer before revealing those. Unfortunately, it looked as if he wouldn’t have that luxury.

  Roark dug into his Inventory, pulling free the first severed head. The silver nose chain slapped against its lifeless cheek.

  By the altar, Mac shot forward, his fat-padded body low to the ground. He drove in, vicious and aggressive, latching his Venomous Fangs into the Hellbender’s throat. The Hellbender reared back; Mac released his jaws for a moment, scrambled onto the beast’s back, then bit down once more. In a flash, Mac sunk his claws into the slimy scales and wrapped his tail around the Hellbender’s center, anchoring himself in place. The Hellbender shook furiously, issuing a deep belly roar as it tried to shake off the much smaller Elite Salamander, but no luck. The Hellbender simply couldn’t dislodge him.

  There was a sound like a sharp intake of breath behind Roark.

  Roark spun, cocking back the severed head. He pulled the nose chain free with a gruesome tug, triggering the curse inscribed upon the simple piece of jewelry.

  “What ...?” Splatch cocked her head, scowling, and lobbed a ball of cerulean lightning at Roark.

  He sidestepped the spell and threw the severed head. The Shaman batted the head with her staff, trying to deflect it, but at the moment of impact, it exploded. Gore and bone fragments flew in all directions, showering Splatch in rotting brain and flesh, and tearing away a handful of her Health bar.

  [The corpse will explode seven seconds after the Tooled Silver Nose Ring is removed, causing fire and shrapnel damage to anyone within a fifteen-foot radius.]

  Roark grinned from ear to ear. Perfect. And with the slight delay built into the curse, he’d found an effective way to weaponize curses.

  With a scream half fury and half pain, the Shaman shoved her fist at him. An icy tornado cut across the throne room. The grin vanished as Roark threw up his left hand, casting Infernal shield out of instinct, though he knew it wouldn’t do any good. The ice tornado slipped through the violet barrier as if it didn’t exist and slammed into him, sapping all of the purple liquid from his filigreed Magick vial. Had he been relying on his Infernal Jotnar spells alone, that might well have been a death blow. Roark, however, had known exactly what kind of game she would play—thanks to a little intel from Grozka—and had come prepared.

  He pulled free his grimoire, which floated above his left palm, and cast his level 3 Rebound spell, offering him some small measure of protection from Splatch’s formidable magical attacks.

  [55% of all damage done to target rebounds to the opponent for the next 30 seconds.]

  He dug another severed head from his Inventory with his free hand, but from behind him, a tinkling sound like a shower of broken glass drew his attention. The Hellbender had dislodged Mac and was vomiting a beam of deep purple energy at the Elite Salamander. The beam struck Mac’s foreleg, dissolving the appendage and eliciting a pained yipe as it drove him to the floor.

  Distracted, Roark saw the ball of cerulean lightning coming too late to dodge. It slammed into his chest, knocking the head from his grasp and sending him flying backward as his muscles jumped and spasmed. His HP took a sharp plunge, but he heard a pained shriek as the majority of Splatch’s spell damage landed back on the caster.

  A moment later, he crash-landed on something fleshy and slimy.

  A set of razor-sharp teeth tore into his left ear. The Hellbender. Roark cried out in pain and threw a wild right at his attacker. His fist slammed into the Hellbender’s flat face where its nose would have been if salamanders had noses. With a surprised bark, the creature’s maw snapped open.

  Mac took an off-balance leap onto the Hellbender, clawing chunks from its flesh with his three remaining legs, but the creature slapped Mac away with his macelike tail. The Elite Salamander was just too small to beat the Hellbender alone. Roark shoved his right palm against the creature and cast a pre-inscribed level 2 Fireball from his grimoire, blasting the creature sideways. His spell had done precious little to damage the creature, but it
did buy Mac some time. Quickly, Roark cast Infernal Invigoration on Mac. His bleeding stump of a leg healed back to the knee, and his Health vial lurched back up above seventy percent.

  Roark cursed. He had to find a way to help Mac kill the Hellbender.

  A fountain of blue sparks sizzled to life, reminding Roark that they were fighting two enemies, not one. The burning embers ate through his leather armor into his shoulders and licked away at his Health—though once more, partial damage was reflected back on the enemy Overseer.

  Roark scrambled to his feet, fishing another head from his Inventory. There was a flash of movement off to his right. He hooked his finger into the loop of a fat, golden earring, activating the curse, then lobbed the head at the Reaver Shaman. She dodged this one, but it slammed into a Champion behind her and detonated. Another handful of Health disappeared from her red bar. Before Splatch could retaliate, Roark scooped up the head he’d dropped, ripped out a nose ring, and pitched it at her sidearm.

  The Shaman threw up an azure shield, the equivalent of his Jotnar shield. The head exploded against the barrier without harming her.

  But it had distracted her long enough for Roark to find the scroll of Summon Venomous Manticore that he’d taken off one of PwnrBwner’s mercenaries. He hoped that invoking the beast wouldn’t break the rules of the contest. True, it probably violated the spirit of the law, but since the Manticore was a magical construct summoned through a scroll, Roark thought it would be firmly within the letter of the law. He muttered a silent prayer and broke the wax seal with his thumb. A flash of blazing white light—blinding in the fourth floor’s natural gloom—rolled out as the parchment ignited.

  A gust of wind blew through the throne room, and a winged golden lion shining with Divine light appeared between Roark and the Shaman, its tail that of an enormous scorpion. The creature took a menacing step toward Splatch, stinger dripping with venom.

  “No,” Roark said, infusing his voice with command. “Attack the Hellbender!”

  The Divine creature turned to look at Roark. Its face was an eerie blend of feline and human, far too intelligent for comfort. The Manticore blinked, then spun to face Mac and the Hellbender, took a pair of loping steps, then flapped its wings and leapt into the air.

  Roark pulled his fourth severed head, ready to fire off a grisly explosion with one hand and a pre-inscribed spell with the other, but when he turned around, the Reaver Shaman had disappeared again.

  THIRTY-ONE:

  All Hail the Overseer

  Behind Roark, Mac chirped and the Manticore roared. The breaking glass sound of the Hellbender’s energy stream tinkled through the throne room, but Roark ignored their battle. He had to trust that the Manticore would even the odds for Mac, who was badly outmatched by the Hellbender. Spinning in a slow circle, Roark strained his ears for the gasp of air that would indicate Splatch’s reappearance. His heart pounded, sweat rolling down his forehead as he scanned the room. Mac wasn’t the only one outmatched, and his rebound spell had finally lapsed, so he’d need to be extra careful.

  There—to his right.

  Roark lashed out with a level 3 Acid Bath.

  The dirt floor beneath Splatch’s feet turned into a bubbling green pit, dumping her into the center with the splash and sizzle of acid. The Shaman’s red bar was dropping steadily—nearly down to half—but she cackled with glee and thrust out her hand.

  Nothing happened.

  Roark hurled the severed head.

  But he didn’t get to see the impact.

  Splatch clutched her fingers into a fist and twisted. Pain like a dagger spiked through Roark’s temple and sapphire-blue light clouded his vision. An Infernal Reaver spell. If it was anything like his Jotnar spells, then it required concentration and line of sight to work. But how could she be concentrating in a pool of deadly acid?

  The agony in Roark’s head intensified, driving him to his knees and blurring out his vision completely. The Shaman’s cackling was inside his skull, filling every inch of his mind like icy blades. He couldn’t see to shoot an offensive spell at her or throw another cursed head.

  Desperate to stop the pain, he slapped the ground with his empty hand, casting a level 2 Noxious Fog.

  Bright yellow gas erupted from the floor, hissing as it filled the throne room air. Noxious Fog did an immediate damage of 1.5 x Roark’s Intelligence—for a grand total of 141—followed by three damage per second for thirty seconds.

  Even better, however, was the dense cloud it created. As soon as the Fog surrounded him, the stabbing pain and mad cackling in his skull receded, then disappeared, cut off by the Shaman Overseer’s loss of sight. Somewhere in the fog, he heard her choking on the poisonous gas. The coughs sounded wet and clogged, as if she were hacking up thick wads of phlegm.

  From behind Roark came another hacking sound, like a crane with a fishbone caught in its throat. The Hellbender had been caught in the Noxious Fog as well.

  Not wanting to waste a perfectly good advantage, Roark pulled out a quill and went to work on one of the empty spell slots in his Initiate’s Spell Book. While still hidden in the embrace of the yellow haze, he hastily inscribed one level 2 spell and one level 3 spell.

  He cast the first—Piercing Sight—on himself. Immediately, his vision sharpened, and the fog thinned and became transparent to his eye. He spotted Splatch slashing her staff through the cloudy yellow gas, eyes squinted as she coughed up bloody chunks and searched for him.

  Perfect. Next came Blinding Speed, his last level 3 spell, also cast on himself. With that mighty boost and the movement bonus Enchanted into his leathers, the world around Roark seemed to fall into a lethargic, dreamlike slowness. He stowed his quill, pulled the last two cursed heads free from his inventory, and hurled them at the Shaman in stunning succession, knocking her Health down to a third. He stashed his floating grimoire, exchanging it for his Slender Rapier and Kaiken Dagger.

  Darting in and out around the fog-blinded Splatch, Roark hacked and slashed, mandritto and riverso. He whirled, the yellow clouds eddying in his wake as he triggered his Off-Hand Combo.

  Splatch crouched, moving so slowly that it almost looked like she was underwater, and fired a spell blindly into the haze.

  Roark zagged around the icy tornado easily and lunged pie’ firmo, lodging his dagger in her back. She screamed and spun around, firing off another wild spell. He ducked under it and sliced a perfectly horizontal riverso tondo across her belly, spilling ropy blue guts from the wound. She screamed and swung her gnarled staff with unwieldly sluggishness at where he’d been. She was an accomplished spell caster, of that there could be no question, but she was less than worthless as a melee fighter.

  Roark casually clipped her outstretched arm with a flick of his wrist, shaving off another sliver of life. Picking her off from within the haze was an underhanded way to win, but Roark didn’t have any illusions of a noble victory. Nobility was a luxury that survivors couldn’t afford.

  Splatch flinched and recoiled from the attack. He capitalized on the opening and lunged in from the side, planting his rapier in her throat. She tried to whirl on him and scratch out his eyes, but with a gurgling howl, the last of her red bar drained away. She dropped to the dirt floor, dead.

  Roark breathed a sigh of relief, but no grimoire page appeared to let him know that he had won.

  The sound of tinkling glass followed by Mac’s pained shriek quickly told him why. Roark wheeled around. Through the fog, his Piercing Sight picked out the Hellbender vomiting that violet wave of destruction at Mac. The Elite Salamander’s tail had been severed from his body, the connection point eaten away, and was now flopping on the floor as if it were alive. Mac’s fangs were buried in the Hellbender’s side, but the Hellbender was whipping him viciously with its spiked mace tail, tearing bloody flags of flesh from Mac’s side. The Venomous Manticore lay in scattered pieces at their feet, but it seemed the creature had done a good deal of damage to the Hellbender before it died. The Shaman’s familiar was bat
tered and bloody, its Health bar flashing a poisoned green.

  Roark thrust his palm forward, firing Infernal Torment at the Hellbender. Plum-colored flames erupted from the creature’s face, stopping its magical attack mid-vomit, and shaving away the last of its weakened Health bar. The Hellbender’s whipping tail slowed, and with a frantic screech, it slumped to the floor, dead.

  The last of the Noxious Fog dissipated as Mac tore himself free of the much larger creature. The exhausted Elite Salamander limped over to Roark, weaving a bit unsteadily as if the lack of a tail made it hard to get his balance.

  ╠═╦╬╧╪

  Congratulations! You have completed the quest Dual at the Crossroads!

  You may ascend to the throne as Floor Overseer for The Cruel Citadel Level 4!

  To accept position as Floor Overseer, place your hands on the sacrificial altar.

  To reject position as Floor Overseer, leave the throne room without placing both hands on the sacrificial altar.

  Warning: If you leave the room without accepting the position as Floor Overseer, you will not be able to return and accept later.

  Warning: If you accept the position as Floor Overseer for the fourth floor, you will automatically be removed as Floor Overseer of the first floor.

  ╠═╦╬╧╪

  Roark dismissed the page and slipped a Sufficient Health Potion from his Inventory, draining it as he crossed the floor to the altar at the center of the throne room. Warmth and life poured through his veins, chasing away the burns and lingering effects of the Shaman’s spells. With a sigh, he placed both hands on the altar, careful not to touch the sacrificed Troll’s corpse and its glowing sigils, most of which seemed to be related to death and the swallowing of life.

  [Congratulations! You have ascended to Floor Overseer on The Cruel Citadel Level 4!

  From the Overseer’s Throne, you may command and deploy mobs throughout the fourth level, create and alter the layout of the floor, purchase resources or upgrades for the rooms, and sacrifice an Infernal chimera once per day to boost your Constitution for (8) hours.]