Marlin was barely able to register the news that both Bron and Milly had reached level three, when he heard the faintest of rustling, and he felt his heart drum harder and faster.
”Danger”. He spoke with as much intense authority as he could muster. Everyone was at the ready in an instant and not a moment too soon.
3 arrows flew towards Kotak who avoids and flourished a pirouette, to dodge all 3 with practiced ease.
an intimating roar that went on forever brought their euphoric high down to earth. The boost from his rage on Marlin and his minions was all but gone.
”You will all die”! Tyrannical ROAR. a looming figure in the distance spoke in tyrant speech he repeated it 3 times to break everyone’s spirit.
”You will NOT! FIGHT!” Inspiring Rallying Roar, Milly countered the fear with a supernatural injection of courage, steeling everyone’s hearts.
Milly steeled herself and began weaving her magic instantly, as they practiced for the last 2 weeks. She chanted and rallied their spirit and minds with the right inflections to the drum of her feat resonating, stomping the earth with her comprehension of the ancient deep.
It Provided Marlin with just the right amount of Clarity he needed. He looked toward the sloping hill, covered in bushes foliage and trees, seeing dark figures rustling through, the deep fearful aura emanated from the largest figure out of sight, too many trees in the way.
“Bron! Kotak with me! The rest protect Milly!” Marlin roared, him and Kotak rushed towards the intimidating aura that seeped into the air, you could almost taste the foul metallic flavor in your mouth. The perpetrator of that aura was still not visible but the large looming figure had a familiar feel to it for Marlin.
Bron already losing his Mind because of his newly acquired Mindless Frenzy beelined for the Archer.
a gangly orc looking creature.
Gary in a rare moment of clarity smelled the archer due to downwind air and launched three arrows into the archer’s direction through leaves and shrubbery. almost simultaneously when the 3 arrows were dodged by Kotak. 2 could be heard hitting wood, but a third caused a satisfying gargled Cry, that sounded muddled by blood. Marlin saw an arrow sticking into its throat but it wasn’t down, it had a manic look in his eyes.
Barry, Jerry and Billy rushed towards Milly and surrounded her, shielding her from Potential Harm.
A Fireball roared through the sky towards Milly. The two gnolls couldn’t get out of the way quickly enough and got hit squarely and started rolling in the dirt to put out the flames that caught their fur,
Billy had Jumped in front of the flame to protect Milly and dived into a roll to put out the flames as he squirmed of the heat, Marlin noted that both gnolls were down to 2 or 3 HP. And Billy who took the Brunt of the flames was down to 5. A second hunched and cloaked figure was behind the first looming towering figure.
Milly almost stopped and rushed to help but steeled herself again to keep going, her current magic protected them from physical attacks not magical. Which proved to be Marlins saving grace, as 2 orcs charged him.
The first Orc swung twice with his heavy hammer at Marlin, which Marlin, with Milly’s Magic, managed to deflect and guard against, however this created an opening in his guard for the second orc, who rushed him.
Kotak with blinding speed, pulled Marlin back so Marlin’s head wouldn’t get crushed but it still slams into his shoulder, it hurts but Milly’s Magic took the brunt of the attack.
tyranic taunt “Cmon! hit harder you little shit! You are putting me to sleep with this BORING display! How can you SUCK this BAD”!
Marlin said a few more choice things about mothers and touchy fathers, needless to say Both orcs lost their minds, low resolve meant they were easily triggered.
Marlin cackling all the way and Kotak pulling him out of the way again, to make sure his His head didn’t get caved in, again still Grazing his helmet, ringing his bell viciously. He felt blood seep into his eyes and his skull felt like it cracked a bit, a painful headache pierced through the adrenaline and rage.
Already wounded from before, Marlin was on his last legs. One more hit like that and he was down.
But he smiled with Reckless glee as he caught his breath and taunted and flaunted their ‘meaningless’ attacks,
I can take it! Kicked in“oooo look at this guys! These orcs are here to give me headpats, do you think im a good boy!? Do you”!?
He yelled at both orcs who flinched from The crazed display and stepped away.
Kotak rushed the first orc, kicking him in the Balls, jumping up and slamming his knee into the orc’s chin and shaped both his steel hardened hands into spears, jabbing both deep into the soft parts of the Orcs throat, gripping as much soft tissue as possible, ripping as hard as he could with parts of the orcs esophagus ripped out, backflipping of the orc’s chest to land, gracefully, covered in Blood and gore a few feet away.
The second Orc stumbled into the direct path of charging Bron, who was completely psychotic now, bringing down his claymore in a powerful, full fury swing, that decapitated the orc on the spot. Bron spun along with the swing screaming like a mad man, to sweep his clawmore at the archer who received a deep Gash across his shoulder.
Gary meanwhile shot 3 more arrows missing two but as the orc archer stumbled back from Bron’s Mad swing the last arrow sunk into its eye.
At this point the looming figure broke through the foliage. An imposing figure clad in black full plate with a horned helmet. A red glow from its eye slits, with a vicious looking Morning star. On a black ethereal horse.
He charged Bron, the closest. Swinging viciously at Bron, who in psychotic clarity decided the Morning star offended him and tried to slam his claymore into the vicious weapon, The black clad figure still managed to slip his weapon past Bron’s crazed defense and slams 3 vicious blows into Bron who dropped to half health in the exchange. Milly’s protective magic saved his chest and ribs from being caved in.
The figure Roars again with that terrifying screech. Bron in his insanity unaffected, Milly, managed to brush it off barely, but all the Minions were now shaking. Marlin hadn’t been able to whip himself back into a euphoric rage to protect them from the mental onslaught.
”DO NOT FALTER”! rallying, resonant cry
Milly’s Voice cut through the oppressive fear, enough for Marlin and Kotak to shake it.
“On me! you 2 Now! Billy stay with Milly!”
Marlin Roared, and hesitantly the gnolls started jogging towards Marlin, struggling with staying conscious.
Marlin popped one of his two healing potions to numb his headache and narrowly avoided a fireball that flew past him setting fire to some bushes.
Gary had set his sights on the mage and shot 3 arrows that the mage sidestepped.
Milly who in the meantime had taken a moment to switch out one of her protective buffs for a mind clarity buff jumped onto Billy, and made him charge the mage in full gallop. As Billy rushed the mage, Milly casts titanic fist infused with crackling lightning, the massive earthen rocky hand formed on Milly’s own fist.
Kotak had rushed the mage seeing Milly Charge. He unleashed a flurry of blows that the mage has to dodge and step back from, bruised and battered, already an inch from death, he stepped Straight into the path of Milly’s charge. Milly roared like a tigress as she pummeled the fist into the orc mage face.
The sheer impact of kinetic force combined with the crackling lightning exploded the orc mage’s head in a gory mess. Billy already on his last legs stumbled and Milly had to jump of into a roll.
Marlin barrages the dark lord with taunts, the dark lord didn’t seem too worried and rushed Marlin with wide sweeping attacks.
Hitting Bron, his shield but also Jerry who got flung into a tree dead on the spot. Barry behind Marlin stabbed with his spear towards the dark Lord, his spear actually slipped passed the Dark figure’s guard and in that small opening Bron jumps and Body slams the Dark figure from the side, toppling him and his horse.
His claymore in in a white knuckled grip of both hands, Bron roars and furiously brings down the tip in wild stabs at the helmet. It slipped into one of the slit for the eyes, the metal screeches as it gets malformed by the edge of Bron’s Claymore.
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Marlin flinches from the perceived pain. Even with a sword jabbed into its eye, the dark figure is still alive and punching Bron with a gloved fist into Bron’s ribs cracking a few that got hit by his morning star earlier, but the second and third stab and however many stabs come after, finish off the dark lord. Bron, after a minute or so slumps over from exhaustion.
Milly rushes over after having administered a potion to billy and pours it down Bron’s throat. Marlin flinches, he can tell that Bron’s body has to tap into it’s long term endurance.
Something every veteran and older person warns against. The effects of that loss takes long to recover, and he himself has to reject a potion from Kotak and gives it to Barry instead.
“Billy! Kotak! Scout the perimeter in a 200 yard radius starting from there”, he points in the direction the Dark lord and his retinue came from. “Quickly”!
Both nod, Billy’s hardiness shining through, taking Kotak on his back and rushes off.
“Gary start skinning that bear, Bary loot the corpses for anything useful”.
Marlin pats Milly on the back as she is putting droplets of the potion directly on the worst of Bron’s wounds. “Is he stable”? Milly nods, “yes for now, but he won’t be able to hunt for a week”. Milly looks at him still in professional mode. She starts bandaging the wounds with some ointments that boost natural stamina regain.
Marlin sighs, letting tension seep out of his body, leaving her to it and walks over to Jerry’s Lifeless body. He touches Jerry and is faced with a message
Dead Minion!
Do you wish to revive him? This will cost you 2 of your 6 Long endurance due to your low proficiency in this regard, keep in mind that 1 long endurance takes 3 days to recover and for each long endurance in recovery, you reduce all your attributes except Domination and constitution by 2
yes or no?
“that’s easy, holy shit! No wonder that moron didn’t help his minions at first”. Marlin thought as selects yes.
He feels an intense drain, as if he just did another day of fun activities of running around getting his head slammed by orcs and their hammer.
From Marlin, icy blue streaks of energy emanate out if of him and it swirls into the mangled body of Jerry.
In front of Marlin, an entire reconstruction happens and snapped bones poking through Jerry’s skin and fur make unnatural movements that remind Marlin of stop motion techniques from old movies. Jerry’s eyes snap wide open and he screams. Jumping up and down writhing on the floor and back to jumping again.
”FUCK! That hurts like FUCK!!!”
Other then his antics he is back to pristine smelly gnoll health.
”I know you are supposed to be able to do that but it’s still very weird to see you do that. And holy hell Marlin you look like shit”
Milly done with Bron had come over and Had watched Marlin.
”not that you don’t look sexy anymore just not as sexy”, she smirked.
”yea losinn dwo lonn enduwance feels like shidd”, Marlin’s words slurred a bit from the extreme exhaustion he was feeling.
He commanded Jerry to stop jumping and help Gary with the skinning of the bear.
Milly sat down next to Marlin and they waited for Kotak to come back in quiet.
When Kotak did, he looked at Jerry very confused for a moment but ignored it. and walked over to Marlin and Milly.
“I checked thoroughly but there was nothing else, as a matter of fact this part of the forest seems to be lacking a lot of the usual wildlife”.
They spoke for a while and afterwards Kotak, who had quite a bit of steam left began to help Bary loot the corpses.
Marlin looked at the xp gain. 637. “Fucking hell”, it took effort to talk normally. “Had that fucker gone in from the get go, we would have been minced meat”.
“That was a dark lord, wasn’t it Marlin”? Milly asked, her face now that it was over, had gone pale. Marlin Nodded. “Including me that’s 3 tyrants in this area. That’s not supposed to happen or at least hasn’t happened before”. Marlin briefly explained that the gnolls had been under the command of another dark lord tyrant.
”you are right, on average there is about 1 dark lord every 50 years per kingdom, for there to be 3 in such close proximity all seemingly born around the same time give or take a year, should not be possible”. Milly was pondering deep.
”unless Sadanis and his crony companions have found a new way for them to come into existence”, Marlin thought to himself but he didn’t voice his thoughts.
Marlin got up, “Im taking that dope ass armor and we might as well bring those weapons back with us to recover the cost of those potions we blasted through”.
This was another reason most freebooters took it slow, a single potion cost you roughly 2 weeks of hunting for each freebooter. They had gone through 4 potions in the blink of of an eye.
“We can resell my brigandine and it will be lighter for Billy”.
Milly was about to say something but she stayed silent and nodded, “you’re right might as well do it now”, she sighed, her eyes were glazed over, losing as much focus as Milly had done all at once was very disorienting.
Milly gave him a look that said, ‘go ahead tell me to sit down like an overprotective male, i dare you’.
Marlin chuckled, “you gow giwl”, speech still slurred. She rolled her eyes. As Marlin approached and tried to remove the helmet of the Dead Lord he was met with a message
Slain Dark Lord
Before you lies a(n assumed) superior Tyrant. You managed to best him with your loyal subjects and minions. You may claim this Lords Legacy, gain a small amount of the XP this lord amassed.
Like you this Lord was Blessed with the gift of strife 10x
Obtainable XP 4210
Just thinking he might accept, caused the system to accept it as an agreement. And an influx of memories flooded him.
the Memories were vague and fragmented, but like with his own memories everything that Marlin had done that solidified something to his very being, the thing that the system translated as XP, was gained although muted, it was vast.
after it was done Marlin was struck with intense Melancholy, The man had not been that different from him in emotions and how he perceived the world But there was no one like Bradford or Betty in the man’s life, he had been abandoned and found by the orc mage that now laid headless 30 feet away.
The orc mage, although evil through and through, had served as the man’s father figure. Teaching the man, the orc’s twisted sense of justice.
The memories were filled with strife and misery caused by the man, from what Marlin could tell the man had gone deep into breaking the minds of those he saw as lesser beings effectively turning entire towns into subservient thralls. All the women this man took, had the same lifeless gaze.
Marlin really tried hard to unsee those filthy memories. The man had given up somewhere along the lines and had gone into some pretty sick depraved things.
Marlin had a strong stomach but it was tested today. The man had chuckled when he got the lust curse, laughed when he got the depravity curse. By the time the Misery curse had come, The emotions and desires of the man had barely been human.
“Marlin! Marlin!” Milly shook him repeatedly, grabbing Marlin’s face to see if he was still there.
Marlin managed to refocus, “sorry Milly i just got a doze of this man’s memories and it was a bit much”.
”i’ll say, you were out of it for almost 10 minutes, first that body of his started ‘melting’ and this sickening blackness from the melting goo seeped into you. You sure you are alright”?
Milly’s face was worried, Marlin looked around and saw that everyone was ready to go, all the loot was strapped on Kotak and the gnolls back and Bron was hoisted ontop of Billy.
He looked down and saw a pile of ash and goo, everything was gone.
”Ow you got to be shitting me! The armor is gone!” Marlin yelled in frustration.
“Marlin look down”, Milly said her eyes were still worried.
Marlin to his shock and awe saw that he was now wearing the full plate, he took his Helmet off it was the same horned helmet the man had worn. Somehow it had Merged with his brigandine. Sleek Meticulously crafted interlocking plates of black steel. It was somewhat heavy but felt easy to move in.
Tyrant Plate
Full plate mail that invokes fear in the hearts of all, gain advantage on all Intimidation skill based actions.
The plate although of exuisite make has no supernatural qualities that make it lighter or more durable
except that it serves as a conduit for your dark authority by absorbing some of the dark energies you emit as a tyrant and slowly repairs itself and all gear that you wield.
Tyrants Crown.
a sturdy helmet that gives you a slight advantage against critical hits, it amplifies your Dark energies.
+2 Dominion attribute
slightly more difficult to land critical blows to your head
Dark Lord Signet. (Inactive & bound)
The Previous owner of this ring had some success in building his own empire. The dark tower awaits the return of a true dark lord. As long as you have this ring. You have a claim to this land and property. As the one who slew The lord Thror, you are bound to his legacy. Whether you continue in his footsteps is up to you.
wearing this Ring grants you proficiency in the Laircraft skill set.
Marlin’s inner nerd was in heaven, current Marlin, had a conundrum. “Ow boy this just got a whole lot more complicated.” He whistled. “Alright i think that’s enough crazy for now lets get the hell out of here”.
Everyone nodded with a bit more awe then Marlin was comfortable with, “Fuck, I can’t believe im considering to become a Dark lord now, my own fucking tower”!? Marlin had great difficulty not bursting into diabolical laughter walking back. He was glad his helmet hid his manic grin.
Milly POV.
Milly was worried. She saw how Marlin struggled, his usual ease with which he calmed himself down after a fight wasn’t there. “Hey Marlin can you take the helmet off? It’s cool and all but i want to see your face”.
Marlin Nodded and when his helmet was removed his Fiery eyes that has a bright red glow to them, slowly turned back to the all familiar azure blue.
”gotta check that Helmet Marlin, it seems to be messing with your head”. Marlin nodded, his usual cheer was gone,
Milly felt cold when Marlin spoke. “It’s only supposed to increase my Domination attribute up by 2, it’s the thoughts and memories of that man that make me struggle he had lust, depravity and the misery curse. Im struggling with those the most. Especially the diabolical laughter want to keep coming out, currently im trying to delete them from my mind”.
They walked back in silence. Marlin working hard to separate the thoughts of the dead Lord and shove them into a box to place in an obscure place in his mind. Never to be found again.