Muttering and cursing under his breath, Jim pried at the large flagstone set into the ground as he worked to remove it for his own devices. Sliding his Trick Knife between the intact flagstone he wanted and the cracked ones around it, he managed to lever it out of the crumbling mortar enough to grab it and lift it out of its slot.
“I hope this works,” he muttered under his breath as he sheathed his knife and took the heavy flagstone in both hands to awkwardly waddle out of the exposed street and into one of the less intact buildings. Breathing heavily after setting the flagstone down, Jim looked out into the street for several long moments, searching for any of the undead ghouls that were hunting him. Seeing none, he breathed a sigh of relief before turning back to his newly liberated flagstone and the others that he’d managed to find before grabbing it.
Pulling out his runic chisel, Jim approached the flagstones with a slight gleam of madness flashing in his eyes.
“Don’t blow up on me before I’m done with you,” he said as he touched the chisel to the first flagstone and began to carve runes into the face, connecting them in geometric spirals of connectors and forming multiple glyphs that began to glow slightly as his MP began to fall faster and faster. As he carved the last connector, creating a single, circular whole that connected the multiple glyphs together, the entire Sigil began to pulse rhythmically as though it were a beating heart.
Sweat dripping from his face, breathing from exertion and nerves, Jim examined his first completed Sigil, filled with trepidation.
Sigil of Explosion: A Sigil of multiple glyphs carved together to form a cohesive whole. This Sigil has been carved to make use of five Glyphs of Explosion to form a larger Glyph of Explosion as the core of the Sigil. Once activated, the Sigil will build power for five minutes before releasing it in a fiery explosion that will destroy the area around it for several meters. Handle carefully. If the Sigil is damaged, the entire thing will violently detonate.
“I did it,” Jim said with a mad grin as he tried not to cackle in glee. “I did it!”
Forgetting where he was for a moment, Jim let out a triumphant shout as he pumped his arms for a moment before caution gripped him again and he let out a slight hiss of anger toward himself as he gripped his knife defensively and looked outside the building for any sign that he’d been discovered.
“Time to move this stuff anyway,” he muttered to himself as he wrapped his completed Sigil in a protective cloth before carefully placing it and the other, unmarked flagstones into his bag.
Hefting his rucksack onto his back, Jim nocked an arrow to his bow and searched the street outside one final time before leaving his hiding spot and moving to another part of the city, hoping that he wouldn’t run into any of the searching undead as he recovered his MP and prepared more Sigils of Explosion for his plan.
“Last one!” Jim said happily as he made the last connector line, completing the final Sigil of Explosion.
Sighing happily as he was finally able to set the chisel down and massage his aching hand, Jim looked over the row of eight carved flagstones he’d gathered before he looked out into the moonlit city.
Cracking his neck and rotating one of his shoulders to remove kinks in them, he turned back to his pile of dangerous Sigils and prepared to move onto the next part of his plan.
“This should be the difficult part,” he muttered to himself. “Now to go out and make some booms.”
As he checked his bow and arrows, Jim couldn’t help clicking his tongue as he noticed several scratches and nicks in the wood of his bow.
“I’m gonna need a new one of these,” he whispered to himself as he tested the string and checked the bow's ability to bend unimpeded. “I hope you last a little longer for me.”
Satisfied with his bow’s state and usability, Jim searched through his Deep Quiver and checked his stocks of enchanted arrows. Finding no problems with them, he grabbed a few unenchanted arrows and began to carve new glyphs into them, following what his book told him would come together to make a Glyph of Activation, so that he could attempt to activate his Sigils from afar. As he finished with his last one, Jim made certain to bundle them all together on the outside of his quiver so that he could prevent himself from wasting any of them.
Prepared, Jim took a deep breath before adjusting his cloak on his shoulders and stepping out into the empty street of the darkened, ruined city. Moving quickly through the deserted, dilapidated streets, Jim attempted to keep his footsteps light so that he didn’t attract any of his undead pursuers.
Turning a corner, Jim looked down the street with bated breath as he examined the reason why he’d chosen the previous house for his final hideout of the day.
Standing proudly, carvings seeming to wriggle and writhe like bound snakes as shadow wafted slowly from them, was one of the obelisks that the necromancer directing the Meat Puppets had been moving around. Looking at the item made Jim shudder in disgust as a feeling of deep wrongness filled him and it felt as though worms were attempting to burrow beneath his skin while insects crawled across his back in a disorderly, chaotic parade that begged him to claw the skin from his back for relief.
Swallowing his revulsion at the sensations filling him, Jim examined the obelisk one last time before beginning his approach.
Ritual Anchor: This item is acting as an anchor to stabilize and empower a ritual. One of several, destroying it will not stop the ritual, but will increase the instability the ritual will be subjected to. The carvings across the anchor are bound souls that will be forced to seek out the Master Anchor at the center of the ritual. The more souls that fill each anchor, the more likely the anchor will fail catastrophically while also stabilizing the ritual further.
“What does Auntie call that? A catch 22?” Jim asked himself as he approached the Ritual Anchor. “More souls, more stability, more chance of blowing up. I’m just helping the whole thing along.”
Kneeling beside the anchor, Jim carefully placed one of his Sigils of Explosion before backing away from the whole thing and approaching the end of the street.
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Nocking an arrow, Jim took careful aim at the glowing sigil at the base of the anchor before firing it across the distance. As the arrow impacted the Sigil, the glow began to flash between calm blue and angry red while Jim quickly ran away, still trying to be quiet.
“Hope that doesn’t make the big boom before I’m next to one of the other ones,” he said as he picked up the pace slightly and prayed he’d be fast enough to avoid the undead and the necromancers that would begin hunting him as soon as the Sigil exploded.
For what felt like hours and hours of tense, nerve-wracking running, Jim moved through the strangely quiet and empty streets towards his next destination before he breathed a sigh of relief at the sight of his next target through the gloomy night. Moving quicker than before, he set up the next Sigil of Explosion and began to move away before firing another arrow at the glowing flagstone and turning to leave as it began to alternate colors just like the last one.
As he turned to leave, an earth shattering boom sounded through the city as a giant ball of fire shot into the sky, shaking the ground and knocking several unstable buildings to the ground and sending Jim falling to the ground as his first Sigil finally reached its critical mass.
“Holy shit,” Jim muttered to himself as he forced himself to his feet and the city came alive around him with screams and shouts from the various undead that infested it. “I need to move!”
Breaking into a run, heedless of the noise he would make, Jim moved toward the next Ritual Anchor as fast as he could. Seeing the towering obelisk appear through the gloom in front of him, Jim used an extra burst of speed to move toward it. Sliding the last distance to the obelisk, Jim pulled the next Sigil from his bag and set it against the next obelisk, activating it as he did before springing to his feet and moving toward the last Ritual Anchor whose location he knew as his second Sigil detonated with equal violence as the first.
Stumbling to his knees from the force of the explosion, Jim forced himself to keep moving as the screams of the undead changed directions to come toward the new source of chaos. Panting and tired, Jim pushed on as he ran further through the city and came to the fourth Ritual Anchor. Forcing himself to keep moving as fast as he could, Jim fumbled slightly as he reached for the next Sigil and nearly dropped the heavy flagstone on the ground before he slowed down enough to more carefully set it against the obelisk.
Breathing heavily, Jim pushed himself to his feet and activated the Sigil. Done, he turned deeper toward the center of the city and pushed on toward where he hoped the Master Anchor the description had mentioned was standing.
“If I destroy it, it should make the rest of them fail,” he muttered to himself as he gasped for breath and broke into another run. “I hope that’s right.”
Running as fast as he reliably could, Jim pushed deeper through the gloomy city as the undead moved toward another of the obelisks further along the line the others had been on as they hoped to catch up to the saboteur that was moving through their masters’ city.
Jim turned a corner and nearly cheered when he noticed a much larger, more ornate obelisk standing proudly in the center of a large square that was roughly equidistant from the Anchor’s he’d already destroyed. Stepping into the large square warily, Jim drew his bow and looked around for the trap that he expected to spring.
“Hello there,” a man’s voice greeted him. “Who might you be?”
Whirling to face the source of the noise, Jim drew his nocked arrow as he finally noticed a young man in rough, patched robes standing next to a large, hulking armored undead that looked at him with a piercing glare.
“I’m Karmich,” the man said amicably as he waved his hand at Jim. “Are you here to break that? Go ahead. We won’t stop you.”
“Why not?” Jim demanded warily as he looked around the square and confirmed once more that it was empty. “Aren’t you one of the cabal of necromancers?”
“I suppose you could think of me that way,” Karmich said with a nod. “Unlike those others though, I’m not a necromancer by circumstance and bad luck. I chose to raise my first undead. That’s Harold here, if you can believe that. He’s been with me since he was a shambling, stupid zombie. Can you believe that he’s become a grand Dread Knight? It’s fantastic!”
As the other man grinned proudly at him, Jim took the chance to examine the so-called Dread Knight before shuddering at the description.
Harold, Dread Knight: A Greater Undead raised to the pinnacle of what a zombie can achieve, this Dread Knight has followed his master faithfully all his reanimated life, swearing to defend him from all harm and to destroy all attackers. Killing this creature will require great workings of Life magic, direct intervention from Divine beings, or turning it to ash with unimaginable amounts of fire. It will fight back the entire time.
“Why are you cool with me breaking that?” Jim asked as he tried not to gulp in fear.
“Because those idiots following me think that I care about them and their piddly problems,” Karmich said with disgust. “They brought the Paladins of Grindel to my door when I was happy enough examining new ways to raise Undead and studying ritual magics. They begged me to do something about this whole mess they made, but I don’t really care if they live or not. The older fogeys that are keeping Grindel’s Sight at bay are even worse than the lesser members, they think that just because they’ve got control of more Greater Undead than me, they can order me around. As soon as the boats are ready, I’m out of here. Gonna find me a nice secluded island that I can practice all I want to with whatever magic I want to try. Might even make Harold here a new sibling. Someone to keep him company when I’m gone.”
“Of course,” Karmich added thoughtfully, “that’s if we can manage to avoid the Leviathans that rule the seas. That could be more difficult.”
“Well, good luck with your future endeavors,” Jim said politely as he backed further away from the glaring Dread Knight and the strange necromancer. “I’ll just take care of this and be on my way. You might want to leave the area soon. It’ll all go off in five minutes and this one’ll be bigger than the last few.”
“Thank you for the warning,” Karmich said with a smile. “I hope you can avoid the others long enough to leave alive. If not, I’ll try to claim your body and maybe I’ll work on that new sibling for Harold earlier than I thought. Ta.”
With a final wave of his hand, Karmich led Harold away and they left the square as Jim reached into his bag and set up all four of the remaining Sigils of Explosion. Activating them all at once was tricky but Jim managed it before firing multiple Screeching Arrows around the square in an effort to lure the undead toward the Master Ritual Anchor while he ran as fast as he could.
As the screams of the undead began to rise to a crescendo within the city, Jim thanked whatever angels were looking after him as he came in sight of the gate that led out of the city; guarded by a small squad of Skeletons that clattered angrily at him as he dashed through them and left the city behind just before the sun rose briefly at midnight and the center of the city was engulfed in a fiery explosion that was echoed less powerfully at five other spots throughout the city.
Knocked to the ground by the force of the explosion, Jim groaned wordlessly as he forced himself to his feet and lurched into a stumble away from the broken city as a mushroom cloud rose behind him and blood fell from his ears. Distractedly, he read through the notifications that flashed in front of him.
You’ve completed a Quest!
Slow the Ritual: You have managed to destroy the ritual that was being prepared by the cabal. Extra rewards will be given. All rewards will be given once you have returned to a place of safety.
You’ve completed a Quest!
Escape the Cabal: You have managed to elude the hunting efforts of the necromancers. You have managed to destroy nearly a third of their forces. No extra rewards will be given. All rewards will be given once you have returned to a place of safety.