“Kill this fucking thing!” Dovik yells as he charges the mace-wielding armor. A ring on Dovik’s free hand flashes with silver light and an identical copy of Pokey appears in it. The man starts wailing into the Armor, the strikes far faster, each one denting the metal of the Armor and drumming out an incredible beat as he pushes himself to move fast and faster.
Ring of Twin Stars(Artifact):
A ring whose history is longer than the written word on this world, its origins beyond this world itself. When called upon, the Ring of Twin Stars duplicates whatever weapon the bearer holds in their opposite hand, provided they have the power to wield it.
Power: Twin Stars, Momentum of the Beat
As Dovik pounds on the monster, flashes of blue light echo from his twin weapons with each strike. Small dents are left behind minor, but the mana being poured into the Armor considerable. A corona of blue power builds around Dovik with each strike. Dovik is faster than I thought, faster than the monster certainly, and his skill with his weapons is unparalleled. Still, he is not match for the Armor’s strength.
It steps forward as he lunges, causing one of the stabs of his weapon to miss, and traps the other with its arm. With its free hand, the Armor swings its mace down at Dovik’s head, aiming to cave it in the same way it had to Rohinda. The man erupts into blue light, appearing again behind the Armor. Dovik steps forward, thrusting both of his weapons into the Armor’s back. An explosion of force blows the snow from the ground. The Armor topples forward, skidding twenty feet down the slope on its face, spraying snow all over the place.
Even as I run, I watch the display of magical talent with naked envy. Dovik pants, near the apex of the rise, and gestures with his twin weapons. “Hold nothing back or you will die!” he commands. He points a weapon toward each of the Armors on the sides of us that slowly walk our way. “Macille, Jess, pick up those. Adrius, get Samielle up. Charlene, start laying into them with whatever you have. We can’t be conservative with our mana in this fight. Archer, hit what you can.”
We have made it to the unconscious Samielle and the corpse of Rohinda by then. Adrius drops to his knees next to the horned man while Eric and I continue to run up the slope. I begin channeling a Dragonfire Bolt. To my sides, I hear Jess and Macille take off through the snow.
Passing by Dovik, the man shares a glance with me that is both mortal and serious. I aim for the top of the rise along with Eric. Dovik nods my way, disappearing once again in a flash of blue light, and I hear the thunder of his weapons assaulting the Armor again further down the slope.
I stumble onto the level ground at the top of the slope. Twenty feet in front of me the forest of three-hundred-foot-tall trees starts anew, darkness prevailing beyond the nearest trunks. I turn. Eric is next to me, the string on his bow already pulled and an arrow knocked. Power begins to gather once again on the tip of his arrow as he decides his target, and it occurs to me that he is over channeling some ability the same way that I do.
“I’m on the one with the scythe,” he says.
I nod, though I don’t think he sees me.
Jess makes it over to the Armor that drags the massive scythe along behind it, the tip of the weapon leaving a long trail through the snow. Macille still struggles to reach the other Armor, the one with the sword and shield like his own, but the Armor makes no hurry of its slow approach. The bravery of those two takes me aback for a moment. They are so ready to run at a monster much stronger than themselves at a moment’s notice.
“Got it,” I say to Eric, making certain that he knows I heard him this time.
Back the way we came, Adrius continues to kneel in the snow, glowing hands placed on Samielle’s temples, power flowing into the unconscious man. Near the bottom of the slope, Dovik battles alone against the mace-wielding Armor. Each strike of his weapons on the monster is like the beating of a drum, each swing of its maces turned aside with a perfectly timed parry or dodged with subtle movement. A single strike on the man will be lethal, but I don’t imagine it happening.
My eyes turn back on the Armor with the sword and shield in time to see Macille’s glowing blade bang harmlessly off of its tower shield. It seems unhindered by the shin-high snow that it fights in, while I can see Macille being slowed. I have watched Macille and Kendon spar every day for weeks now, and I can tell from how the monster swings its weapon that it is no true swordsman. That probably won’t matter. Every time that Macille blocks one of its blows, his feet skid in the snow.
I hurl a fully charged Dragonfire Bolt down at the Armor. It sees the attack coming somehow, and its shield turns to catch the explosion of fire fully. Macille uses the momentary distraction to stab at the Armor with his sword, but the weapon seems ineffective without his empowering, green, magic.
The ground ripples next to me, an explosion splitting the air as Eric releases his attack at his own chosen enemy. I throw another Dragonfire Bolt at the Armor I focus on, forcing it to keep its attention on me, defending against my magical fire. The magic isn’t as effective without me charging it, but I keep its focus. I throw another three bolts in rapid succession. It obliges me by continuing to catch them on its shield. I check my mana, 480/600.
A blade of shining green stabs through the chest of the Armor from behind. It jolts, staggering as the blade slides back out of it once more. Without looking behind it, the Armor swings its sword around at Macille who is behind it now. The man opts not to catch the blow on his own shield, ducking the strike instead. Macille’s foot slips in the snow; he is off balance for the barest of moments. The ice beneath his boots gives out and he tumbles onto his back.
The Armor must sense the weakness of its enemy. It spins faster than it has moved before, aiming the edge of its shield down at Macille’s neck. I scream, throwing another Dragonfire Bolt at the exposed back of the Armor, though my attack won’t make it in time.
Another scream answers my own. A streak of rage and muscle descends from the heavens, a flaming mace leaving a streak of fire in the air behind the man making himself a meteor. Samielle’s mace slaps into the top of the Armor’s helmeted head before it can decapitate Macille with its shield. The entirety of the monster crashes into the snow, cratering the slope and sprawling the Armor out on its chest. I ready another Dragonfire Bolt as it is sprawled onto its back, ready to pour all of my mana into it before it can recover.
A weight hits me in the side, knocking me into the snow. Briefly, I register that it is Eric on top of me, tackling me. A second later, a wicked scythe spins over us. It would have split me in half.
The scythe is stopped in midair less than ten feet away from us as the Armor that threw it is suddenly there, holding the haft again, and spinning it to bring it down on our prone forms.
“I’m coming,” I hear Jess yell from further down the slope, but she is too far away now. Vaguely, I hear one of the Armors down the slope yell in rage the same way the mace-wielding one had done earlier.
The scythe reaps the air, its arc aimed so that it will take Eric’s neck and my own in a single swing. I hurl my Dragonfire Bolt up at the monster and manage to launch my fire straight into the mask of its helmet, into those blue glowing embers of eyes. Eric kicks at the scythe from the ground, planting his foot against the haft of the scythe even as the monster stumbles back, its free hand scratching at the mask of its helmet. The blade of the scythe bites into Eric’s side, though it stops short of cutting the man in half.
I pull myself out from underneath Eric and continue to throw Dragonfire Bolts at the monster in a rush to keep it off balance, not caring about conserving my own mana. It holds up its hand, stumbling backwards, blocking my fire from crashing into its face, but at this close range I can slip most of them past its defense. By the time that Eric has made it to his feet, both its gauntlet and helmet glow a bright orange and I can see the metal warping. I check my mana, 260/600.
I realize that I am roaring at the monster as I throw fire into it. Near me, Eric fishes a gold coin out of his pocket. The second that he flips it into the air, I see a flash of orange mana glow on the coin, but I pay no mind to the message window that accompanies the magic coin. Eric catches it again, checks what side it landed on, and swears.
Jess bursts onto the top of the slope, her chakram spinning as she runs at the Armor. I don’t know whether the Armor can see with its helmet glowing, but it fails to stop her as she spins her weapon around to strike at it. She aims her blade for its head, but the Armor catches the weapon on its glowing hand. The blade of Jess’s chakram reaves through the glowing gauntlet like butter. The top half of the Armor’s hand falls into the snow where it sizzles and pops.
A moment of stillness washes over the three of us and the Armor standing on at the top of the slope. The mask of its helmet still glowing, warped from the sheer heat it has absorbed, stares down at the missing section of gauntlet that had been there just a moment before. The glowing blue of the Armor’s eyes shift to that dangerous shade of purple, deep like wine but burning with an inner white fire. Black mana flashes over its scythe.
The Armor swings its scythe one-handed at Jess faster than my eye can track, but the lizardkin woman is already in motion. She lets her body drop, her feet still planted in the snow, as the blade of the scythe misses her torso by a hair’s breadth. The mana wreathing the scythe spikes off like electricity, slapping Jess fully into the snow and leaving black char smeared across her chest. Without any pretense of skill, the Armor reverses its swing and tries to bisect the woman prone on the ground in front of it.
Jess swings her chakram from her back at the scythe. The two blades meet just before the Armor can cut her in two, a perfect parry. Space seems to warp around Jess in a fraction of a second following the clash of the blades. She manages to slide through the Armor’s legs and roll to her feet in a fraction of a second, faster than I have ever seen anyone move outside of Halford’s near instant charge ability. Jess swings her chakram at the Armor’s back, but it ducks her attack without looking, lashing out behind itself with a kick that catches Jess in the chest. She tumbles back all the way past the tree line.
The Armor turns to follow her, but Eric and I–somehow having the same idea–release our attacks into its back. The Armor manages to dodge the dragonfire I throw at it, but the arrow fired by Eric catches the Armor square in the back, driving it to its knees, the arrow drilling into the metal of its back.
It turns on us again, the smooth make of its mask a dripping ruin of molten steel. The scythe of the Armor ignites in a wave of black mana as it crouches, ready to lunge our way, looking to kill at least me or Eric. I hurl more dragonfire into its face the second I see its legs begin to uncoil. The Armor stumbles in its lunge, and, in that second, the metal ring of Jess’ chakram slips over its neck. The lizardkin plants her feet in the Armor’s back, her weight not enough to knock it over, but suitable enough to get it off balance.
Jess groans as she pushes her muscular body for all its worth, standing on the Armor’s back as she pulls with her arms. The superheated metal of the Armor’s neck bends, the wrenching of the metal like a death throes of the monster. Then, with a snap, the helmeted head of the Armor cracks off, leaving a gash of violent, jagged steel behind on the torso of the monster, and sending Jess to sprawl out in the snow. The orange steel sizzles in the snow where it lands, the purple glow of its eyes fading to a dull shade of blue before eventually going out altogether.
Eric falls to his knees in the snow, panting with his exertions and holding his side where blood is beginning to pool on his tunic, while Jess begins to laugh at the sky from where she lay. I start channeling another Dragonfire Bolt, running to the edge of the slope to look down on the battle still unfolding.
The mace-wielding Armor lays dismembered in the snow. Four men fight the Armor with the sword and shield. Macille and a huge man I have never seen before each hold one of the Armor’s arms in a lock while Samielle and Dovik lay into the monster, beating it with their weapons, denting its already faltering armor. The monster roars, the light of its purple eyes intense, but Macille holds its shield arm for all he is worth. It’s shaking and screeching doesn’t manage to even budge the huge man on its sword arm.
A few seconds later, it is done. The constant assault of Samielle’s mace and Dovik’s twin fire pokers too much for the monster to take. I see the light fade from the Armor’s eyes, its head lolling forward. The men continue to beat on the dead monster until they eventually smash its chest open. The two men holding its lifeless arms release the monster, and it slumps forward onto the slope, rolling a few inches, sliding just a bit further.
Dovik is next to me in the next second. The man’s chest heaves from his exertions, and a faint aura of blue continues to shroud him as he looks over the battlefield. He sees the scythe wielding Armor dead, missing its head, a few paces behind me.
“How are you?” he asks. “Is everyone okay?”
“Just some minor wounds,” I say, pointing at Jess and then Eric. “It hit her with some magic and cut him in the side. Might want to have Adrius take a look at it.”
“I will.” Dovik whistles, catching the attention of Adrius further down the slope and motions for him to climb up. For a moment, the fighting has come to an end. “See about Jess and the Archer,” he tells Adrius once he has made it to the top.
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“Who’s that?” I ask Dovik, motioning to the huge man climbing the slope alongside Macille.
“No idea. He just showed up while we were fighting.” Dovik looks around. “Sam!” he calls, getting the man’s attention. “Fly as high as you need to. I want to know how far away that red wall is and how much time we have before it gets here. Hopefully, people will have seen that we made a break in the monsters on the slope here and join us. This will be a good spot to hit the bears from as they try to climb up the slope.”
The fire raging around the head of Samielle’s mace vanishes as he slides it back into the loop on his belt. He raises his hand to Dovik in a salute, crouching, before he jumps into the air with a heavy flap of the stygian wings on his back. In the air, the man soars as gracefully as a bird.
“What do you want me to do?” I ask Dovik. With a thought, I dismiss the fire surrounding my hand and look down at the battlefield.
“Continue to collect armor and weapons,” he tells me. “Disenchant those monsters if you can. Their weapons are impressive, so don’t touch those if you can avoid it. I’m sure that we will want to give them to those that can use them.”
I look down the slope. There are dozens of soldiers still lying in the snow, their armor and weapons waiting to be grabbed. I see the headless corpse of Rohinda as well, her blood on the snow the only spot of red among the white and black. There is still a faint glow of some magical item that she had beneath her coat.
“Rohinda’s magical item,” I say. “Do you want me to collect that as well?”
I see Dovik’s jaw tighten, but he doesn’t look at me with the anger so clear on his face. “Yes. Hang on to it for me if you would.”
“Dovik, about her–”
“Don’t,” he says, cutting me off. He grunts and rubs his eyes. “Thank you, but don’t. I need to be focused right now. There is another battle ahead.”
“I understand.”
The sound of flapping wings proceeds Samielle’s landing in the snow at the top of the rise. “Three miles away I’d say,” he tells Dovik. “We have half an hour maybe. Not sure how far ahead the bears are of it.”
“Tell me everything you saw,” Dovik says.
I leave them to it, stamping slightly down the slope to reach the body of the first soldier still lying in the snow. I open the window that displays my inventory as I take the armor and weapon from him, surprised and pleased to see that no new boxes in the inventory window are taken up by the new armor. Instead, the boxes indicate that they are each holding a helmet, chest armor, greaves, and gauntlets. For some reason, the inventory window distinguishes the armor pieces by size, male or female, and condition, but if two pieces are identical in these descriptors then they simply go into the same box.
“Is now a good time?” Galea asks, swimming into my view from above.
“As good as any,” I reply to her in my head. It is only a few steps to the next soldier lying in the snow.
“I have good news!” she exclaims, showing me a message box.
You have defeated Armor of Forgotten Deadx3
THRESHOLD FOR SOUL REINFORCEMENT REACHED!
THRESHOLD FOR SOUL REINFORCEMENT REACHED!
THRESHOLD FOR SOUL REINFORCEMENT REACHED!
I read the message a few more times to make certain that I am seeing it right. I had been wondering how big rank two monsters would be for my advancement. Each one being worth a level by itself seems like a bit much, but I’m not going to complain.
“Thanks Galea, but I don’t feel too much like celebrating right now.”
I reach Rohinda’s body, it’s still warm. I barely spoke two words to the woman, but I feel a tightness in my chest as I pull back the fur cloak she is wearing to get at the wristbands she is wearing that emanate magical power. I don’t inspect them with the Eye of Volaash before pocketing them in my inventory. Some part of me feels that it would be a violation.
I rejoin Dovik at the top of the rise less than ten minutes later, finding the man speaking with three strangers that I haven’t been introduced to before. Rather than bother him during his conversation, I walk past to find Macille sitting in the snow, staring up at the sky.
“Hey,” I say.
“Hey,” he replies. He takes a long breath and puts on a smile for me. “Find anything interesting?”
“You need armor right,” I say, failing to play along with his joviality. “I found some pieces that looked like your old armor.” I wave my hand, pulling some greaves out of the inventory window that only I can see. Macille looks at me strangely as I toss the pair of greaves to him but doesn’t say anything.
“These are good,” he says, looking inside to see that they are lined with what I think is rabbit fur. “Should be warm.”
“I want you to wear something that will protect you,” I say.
“Too much steel here and I’ll end up freezing to death,” he says.
“I hear that’s not so bad. Probably better than getting cut in half or eaten by a bear.”
He grimaces. “Are those my only choices?”
My head begins to turn to look down the slope, but I stop myself, shaking it. “I’m not incredibly optimistic,” I say. I pull out a full set of plate armor that I think will fit him and toss it into the snow at his side.
“We’ll make it through this,” he says, seriousness in his voice. Macille pats my leg before he starts picking up the pieces I tossed into the snow and inspecting them.
“Don’t get me wrong,” I say. “I will make it through this for sure. I’m worried about you.”
He snorts at that but can’t keep his smile from turning genuine. “Cocky.”
“Confident,” I say. “I also want you to take this.” Reaching my hand into another box in my inventory, I grab ahold of something painfully cold, even through my decent gloves.
Longsword of the Forgotten Dead(Rare):
The sword, crafted from ancient iron and tempered in the manaflows of winter, requires a superior strength to wield properly. This sword is resistant to magical and mundane attacks of its rank and is sharp enough to cut through metal.
Requirements: 70 Strength
As soon as the sword is fully out of the inventory, its weight settles into my wrist, and the blade stabs into the ground. I let go of the grip before the sudden spin can snap my wrist. It wavers from where it sticks out of the ground, vibrating the air with a metallic whine.
“This is the sword that monster was using?” Macille asks. He stands, inspecting the weapon as the handle continues to rock back and forth in the air.
“Longsword of the Forgotten Dead,” I tell him. “It requires a certain amount of strength to use.”
“Don’t all swords?” Macille asks, gripping the handle. With a grunt, the man pulls the sword from the snow and hoists it into the air. I take a quick step away, afraid that he might lose control of the blade. My fear proves unfounded. Macille holds the sword up in front of himself, inspecting the edge. “Okay, I get it. This thing is heavy.”
“Too heavy?”
“No” He lets go of the sword with his left hand and swings it through the air a few times with his right. The blade rings in the air as he swings it. He flips the sword a full revolution through the air, catching the hilt behind himself with his hand again before planting it in the snow. “It’s a good blade.”
“Magic too,” I say.
“A magic sword of my own.” Macille pulls off one of his gloves and runs his naked fingers along the metal of the hilt.
“It’s heavy and cuts really well,” I say with a shrug. “Magically well, I guess.”
“I’ll admit, I was always a bit jealous of Kendon’s hammer. I really wanted that.”
“Why didn’t you get it then?” I ask.
“I lost the race.” Macille kneels and runs his finger along the edge of the blade, nicking the flesh of his index finger and flinching away.
“You raced for it?”
“A footrace,” Macille says. “My father didn’t simply give us the weapons of our house. He put them both at the top of a mountain and told us to climb it. Kendon got there first and took the hammer. He always was the faster one. I won the contest for the artifacts though.” He looks up at me for a long moment, some wheels turning in his head that I cannot see. “My artifact allows me to fully heal myself, once a day. It takes a few seconds to use, but it is very powerful.”
“Are you certain that you should be telling me that? Arabella told me to keep my artifact a secret. Not that I’m sure how well I can keep this eye a secret,” I say, pointing at the Eye of Volaash, the very subtle Eye of Volaash that is completely black except for a red iris.
“I know what yours is,” Macille says, shrugging. “I think it is about time that you knew what mine was.” He looks down the slope, and I pointedly avoid following his gaze. “We’ve shared real fighting today, real killing. We risked our lives together. I think that is worth a little trust.”
“So what about Kendon’s, not as good as yours I’m guessing since you apparently picked first.”
“That’s not for me to say,” Macille answers. “Maybe you should ask him.”
“He doesn’t seem like the type that would tell me,” I sigh.
“Probably not,” Macille agrees. “I wouldn’t worry about it. He rarely uses his anyway.”
I nod at him and spend a few moments looking through my inventory again before something occurs to me. “If that is what your artifact does, why did you never use it against the Desert Spearman?”
“I didn’t trust you as much then,” Macille says staring at the distant trees.
“So, you’d rather die over and over again than share a secret with me?” I shake my head at the man and toss a steel helmet into the snow next to the rest of the armor that I gave him. “I don’t think I would have done the same.”
“It wasn’t really dying,” he says.
“Close enough.”
I turn to walk back over to Dovik after seeing that he has dismissed the strangers, only speaking to Samielle now. Macille catches me up short, pointing to the sword that still stands in the snow.
“Dovik isn’t going to be angry that you gave that to me, is he?” he asks.
“I don’t know the man,” I say. “Even if he is, I see it as mine to give to whomever I want.”
“You didn’t kill that monster though,” Macille says slowly.
“My eye would disagree with you,” I say, walking backward away from him. It’s a short walk over to Dovik.
“Do you have a scabbard for it at least!” he calls to me.
“Afraid not!” I call back. I stop just a short distance away from Dovik and Samielle.
“No,” Dovik says to Samielle. “I don’t think we should risk killing more of them. Go ahead and try to find as many survivors as you can. Bring them here. Don’t risk getting too close to those bears, I’m sure that some of the nastier ones can still hit you even if you are in the air.”
“You got it, boss.” Samielle jumps back, taking to the air and winging away. He dives into the trees at the bottom of the slope, disappearing into the gloom.
Dovik turns to me, his face flat and serious. “How many sets of armor were you able to retrieve?” he asks.
“Excluding the one for myself and Macille, thirty-nine.”
“That’s great,” he says, though his expression stays constant. “Go ahead and set out what you will. I heard you speaking to Macille. If you have any more of the weapons that those monsters were using, and if they are magical as well, I think that it would be a good idea to hand them out before the bears reach us.”
“Probably,” I say. I look around at the flat land at the top of the rise. There are nearly twenty people here now; they started trickling in as soon as our battle against the Armors was over. Only a few of them even bothered to help in the fight. I eye that giant of a man as a good candidate for the scythe that I looted from one of the Armors, if he can meet the requirement that is. Though, given the impressive, and admittedly sexy, bulge of his arms and chest, I doubt that will be a problem for him.
Most of the men and women sitting on their fur cloaks in the snow at the top of the slope wear looks of stunned terror. More than one shakes from something other than the cold, and tearstains can be seen, cut through the cosmetics of men and women. These people certainly are rich, my eye confirms it with the myriad of titles I see among them. Unfortunately, it looks as if most of them were unprepared for so much death, so much personal destruction. I wouldn’t say that I thank Arabella for making me be horribly disemboweled by the Desert Spearman over and over, but I can appreciate the numbness that it has left me with.
“It won’t be long now,” Dovik says, looking down the slope.
“This is for you,” I tell him, dropping a special pair of armor at his feet. The armor that my ability created or looted–I’m not sure which–from the monsters isn’t magical, though it is impressively heavy and solid. Dovik picks up the chest piece, inspecting the black metal in the light of the noon sun. None of the rust and degradation that marred it remains.
“This looks expensive,” he says.
“Our leader should look the best of us,” I say.
“I guess that is me,” he says, though he looks conflicted about it.
“Someone needs to be the leader,” I say, looking back at the people sitting in the snow, sharing hushed conversations with one another.
“I doubt that many of them will follow someone without noble blood,” Dovik says. “Let alone a human.”
“I think you underestimate them,” I say. “I think that they will follow anyone who seems confident enough right now. If you let them all know your last name, then they will even suspect that you have some insider knowledge about the Passage of Rising Tide.”
“I don’t though,” Dovik says.
“You just need them to think that you do,” I say. I pull a final piece from my inventory, a black war helm with twin horns protruding from the top. “This piece is magical, almost unbreakable and it doesn’t obscure vision at all.” I hand the helmet to him, and let my fingers linger on his own for a moment.
In the distance, I can almost imagine that I hear the roar of oncoming monsters.