32

The door opened outward at full speed and smacked the side of the cabin far louder than he’d intended and startled Stubborn in her pen. He shushed her quiet, petting her head, and looked at what he’d tripped over.

At his feet, a bundle of his combat equipment containing everything he’d left in the town. A leatherbound bundle of knives held together with rope on each end he made haste to equip. Bow and quiver, stocked full of airs, on the back. With his sheathe returned to its position at his waist, he finally put his sword away and took his spear in hand.

Properly outfitted for a casual stroll into Blighted mountains to fight necromancers, orcs, and bandits in order to rescue the captured village, he felt like a strange storybook character. Not really a knight in shining armor, and he would never call himself a hero, the sensation he experienced when he thought of going to save the villagers was odd. Back on Wanda, he’d always been the one to come back alone after setting out with a party and an objective.

Now he’d be setting off alone, just like he’d always wanted, in hopes to do something good and save the captured villagers. The people might be strange implementations in an elaborate illusion that the system used for his class assessment, or they might be real. He didn’t know for certain, and it didn’t matter. Simply another question to add to the ever-growing list.

From what he’d seen of them, they were living. Quiet and sequestered away, they lived as he did and he’d lived as they had. Their lives seemed no less real than his. If anything, the likelihood his life seemed like a mysterious path of carnage and endless bloodshed from their view was higher than not.

He entered the ox’s stall, and Vander saw Stubborn had been waiting for him. “It’s okay, bud. Things are going to change, but you’re going to be just fine. You probably won’t remember me.” He prompted Stubborn forward, strapping the harness on. “Let’s go meet your new family.”

Stepping back out of the pen, he walked back to where the villagers gathered and noticed a quiet hush fall over the crowd. Tobias reached out for Stubborn’s reins, and Vander passed off the ox.

They didn’t trade any words, though Vander did try to pass a warning look to take good care of him. Vander glanced over the crowd before turning away as if to say, “That goes for all of you”. They followed him as he walked towards the direction the raiding party arrived from and retreated in. As he passed by, Vander saw a few villagers had already thrown together a makeshift wall, pulled together from the debris.

Beyond the village entrance, familiar forest and mountains waited for him. He stopped to observe the village entrance, noting two felled trees, rotted through and through. The giant snake’s intelligent gaze, strange behavior, and Miasma led him to believe there was something much bigger going on than Tobias mentioned.

Without further delay, Vander stepped off. Not long passed before he found the first signs of the orcs. The monsters had left a path when they retreated, easy to track with a discerning gaze. The path led deeper into the mountains and away from Crossroads.

Vander began the long process of hunting down his new prey.

He didn’t walk before finding signs of the orcs’ passing. He found trails in rough patches of torn away dirt and dislodged rock. Vander’s heart dropped. It looked as if somebody had been dragged.

A downed tree blocked the way forward, hindering his way. The path continued beyond, but he stopped to inspect. Something seemed off. With the greatest care, he brushed his fingers against the tree. Gentle so he could examine it closer. But the bark crumbled under his touch, and the entire tree withered away, nothing but decayed dust.

The large oak had been Blighted, a power he was hesitant to grow more familiar with. There was a familiar yet alien sensation to the aura. Whatever was behind the assault on the village was causing the great withering. Vander looked around and saw evidence of the Blight everywhere. Where once beautiful flowers and green had been vibrant, only aged or aging gray, and black remained. A quick glance revealed things only got worse the farther away from the village.

His brows furrowed as he stared at the remains of the tree. In seconds it had been reduced to little more than ash and rot that covered his boots. The villagers were peaceful people. They stayed to themselves, harmed no one, and did as they could to live as one with the land.

Grim determination and excitement to get out of the second part of the class assessment pushed him forward.

***

A month passed.

Vander strode towards the mouth of a cave. Two daggers lurched forward from his hands and implanted in the chest of the two bandits on either side making an attempt at stealth. A sharp buzz traveled down the wire attached to the ends of the daggers and fried the bandits until they stilled.

With even steps and a calm heart, he knelt to inspect the downed guards. They still breathed. He couldn’t have them stalking up behind him while he faced the finale, so he went to the first, removed the dagger, and then ended another life—another tally added to the countless he’d taken in his hunt for this place. Then he repeated the merciful killing of the second.

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Neither knew what hit them by the time he finished. With the daggers retrieved and the wire reclaimed and coiled on his fashioned belt loops, he took a long look at the cave and looked over his shoulder.

From the peak of the mountain, he could see the small village over the trees. He knew what was waiting ahead and muttered, “Farewell.”

Ready to end things, he stepped inside the cave and let quiet steps dampen his approach. Lanterns hung offset every fifty paces or so, keeping the tunnel lit enough to navigate. He didn’t need the light like the cult did and made sure to snuff out each one as he passed. His magic sight told him everything he needed to know, whether light or dark.

After his month of hunting bandits and orcs, he’d gained a few skills he didn’t ever think he’d need in this life. But his previous life as judge, jury, and executioner when he stepped through a Door made him more than capable of doing what needed to be done. And he’d done it without hesitation.

Torture (Level 27)

The bandits had put up a fight, but in time, he’d got enough of them rounded up and played his game long enough to get them to spill the details of what had been happening. The short version, the bandits were tired of being hunted by the orcs and weren’t fit for the life down in the village, so they’d summoned a necromancer.

That necromancer enthralled all the orcs and their mounts, instigated the local wildlife into attacking the village, and then reaped the souls of those offered by the village to nurture Rindrianth. Trying to get the name of the necromancer out of any of the aspiring cultists caused a Blighted seed all of them ingested to kill them.

Their ends were far from merciful. Whether through the Blight seed or his own efforts, they’d regretted what they’d done until their final moments. The two who’d died by his hands at the cave entrance had been the lucky ones.

But the idea of the Blight seed had left Vander deeply unsettled, fighting a thought he didn’t want to think about ever since learning of its existence. So rather than dig deeper into the unknowns he’d never find the answer to, he honed in and focused on the finale.

Thorough as can be, he checked each dead end path leading to different coves with supplies for the living, searched the sleeping corridors for any useful effects, and systematically made his way through the cave system without making a single sound.

Those he encountered met the embrace of the dark mistress as the first two guarding the entrance had, but Vander couldn’t shake the feeling that things were a bit too easygoing. There were demonic books he couldn’t quite understand that he stowed away, but aside from that, nothing.

As he progressed farther, the lantern light’s hue shifted to a thing of ephemeral blue-green. A disgusting light that tingled against his skin when he stepped through its range. His efforts to snuff those out were too costly.

His usual tactic of suffocating the flame didn’t work. They ate away at his mana without any sign of stopping, so he was forced to leave them alone. The necromancer’s special flame? Seems like they share similar properties with the Blight. Wouldn’t be too surprised, all things considered.

Putting the sickly light out of his mind, his steps carried him forward with apprehension. He didn’t think the class assessment would throw a trial at him he couldn’t overcome, but he also didn’t know that it wouldn’t. The main completion objective was to save twenty-five villagers. For all he knew, none of the current villagers captured remained.

On top of that, he didn’t need to fight the necromancer.

Class Assessment: Part 2 of 3

Each part of the class assessment will reward points based on performance. The points will only be usable in the Class Shop. The shop will open at the end of the assessment after all results have been calculated.

Completion Goal: Save the villagers (43/25)z

Secondary Goal: Kill the bandits

Third Goal: Kill the necromancer

But after seeing a new objective appear after finding out about its existence from Tobias and the other bandits, he couldn’t pass up the challenge. He wouldn’t take the easy way out and just run to the third assessment without seeing things through to the end here. Even if the notification telling him he could kept flashing in the corner of his vision every quarter hour.

He wanted to fight, to test himself against the necromancer and its Blight, to save the villagers, to eradicate the enemy. Even if he didn’t need to, that didn’t matter at all. He wanted to completely crush those in his way.

Facing all the necromancer’s minions had left Vander disappointed. Nothing put up a fight light the giant snake had, though seeing as Rindriath was the necromancer’s personal pet, that tracked. He’d invested a plentiful bounty of resources, sacrifices, and time into raising the snake, and it’d put up a good fight.

Vander’s hands, restless with excitement, clenched against his sides. If the snake were strong enough to give him a bit of trouble, how would he fare against the master? A question he’d been dying to know the answer for since he’d started tracking the cultists and one he’d soon have the answer to.

The cave in front of him expanded outward into a large circular chamber. At the end, a mountain of bones fashioned into a throne in which a cloaked skeleton with the same blue-green eyes stared back at him, almost looking bored as it leaned on its arm. Around the edges of the chamber, the captured villagers.

There were only the villagers and the necromancer. From the intel Vander gathered, there should’ve been another fifty orcs, half as many hounds as orcs, and at least hundred, if not more, bandits.

No such force resided within the chamber, but Vander could put two and two together. Bones of all shapes and sizes littered everywhere inside the chamber. There were piles everywhere, and the cages were built out of bone too. If that were the case, then the likelihood this was a trap increased. In fact, those he’d dispatched on the way in—he checked his blades, and sure enough, there was no blood on his knives. They’d already been dead and turned into zombies by the necromancer to bait him in.

“This is fun,” Vander said, grinning. The villagers all looked a half-step from death from what he could tell. Malnourished, bruised, and covered in filth, they looked the part of prisoners. “I like what you’ve done with the place, Toby.”

The layout of the bones settled in the same array of the village’s. What remained of the flesh on the village chief’s skeleton made him identifiable, even without the information box displayed.

Tobias, the Defiler

Level 80 Necromancer (Boss)