Chapter 13.2
Name: Culn Overseer
Race: Culn, Lesser Demon
Class: Generalized Elementalist
Level: 7
HP: 132/132
MP: ???
SP: ???
He snarled and prepared to rush the mage but was surprised as he was intercepted by the mage’s compatriot. The culn warrior wore a set of armor unlike the others, it was a dark teal color and he wore a helmet to boot that was decorated with intricate carvings and had wings coming off the side. He was also a good bit taller than the others standing at 9 feet, and although he had been surprised by the vanishing act Trey had just performed - he adapted quickly.
Without hesitating the warrior turned to strike out at Trey with a large emerald sword coming in an arc.
Trey’s enhanced reflexes and speed were put to work as he dodged, dodged again, and rolled to flip backwards - trying to get some distance between himself and his large opponent.
As he cleared a decent amount of distance he was struck with another shard of ice. Luckily he had brought up his gauntlet-like claws to protect him from some of the damage and the black jaws mask he had gained negated one of the shards too by deflecting it off and to the side. If it hadn’t been for the mask, that piece of ice would have pierced his skull.
‘If we try to engage the warrior from afar with magic, the mage will counterattack. We may wait for the shadowstep cooldown to end to engage the backline but until then we should keep the warrior inbetween us and the caster.’ The words flew from Sithis into Trey’s mind so fast that it kind of startled him, but it was all understandable.
Trey acknowledged the advice and closed with the warrior. As he stepped forward, the warrior hastily drew a shield from his back to block the incoming attacks from Trey’s longsword. Meanwhile Trey was careful to keep the mage on the opposite side of the frontline opponent so that the culn caster didn’t have a good shot.
The result was a quick back and forth movement as Trey tried to keep the mage on the opposite side of the warrior, while the mage was running around in the back trying to get a good line of sight to fire from.
Block, dodge, block, counterstrike. A flurry of movements found Trey was losing ground. His movements were faster because he lacked the heavy armor this culn warrior wore, but he lacked the skill to use this weapon and in comparison the culn warrior made him look ridiculous. The obvious difference in skill caused Trey to almost trip more than once as Trey exerted himself to keep up. Sparks of metal flew as the blades clashed against each other, putting Trey’s stamina to the test. This warrior was definitely the hardest opponent he had come across since acquiring the essence, except for maybe the large minotaur he had first encountered.
He couldn’t use a chaos ball up close, otherwise he would be caught in the explosion and risk exposing himself while he tried to cast. So instead, he tried casting arcane chain bindings on both of his enemies. The warrior grunted as a solidified chain of chaos magic shot out from a random point in space and glanced off his shield. He roared in defiance as he swat another of the chains out of the air, breaking it cleanly with his sword, and charged Trey in a mad rush.
The warrior rammed into him with his shield and sent Trey sprawling backwards, scrambling to get a solid footing agian. Unfortunately, Trey was also now in the line of sight for an attack from the mage. The caster took advantage of it immediately, sending out a small blast of fire in his direction. Without a moment to spare and with some quick thinking, Trey used the three already-summoned arcane chains to quickly wrap into a sphere-like shield in front of him, blocking the attack entirely.
‘Impressive!’ stated Sithis. ‘But we are running low on mana, be careful.’
The chains then unwrapped and shot out to wrap themselves around the warrior. The armored culn soldier struggled valiantly, trying to resist the bindings that attached to his legs and sword arm, but this time he was less successful in warding them off. He began bashing the chains with his shield and free arm, roaring out frantically.
In the meantime Trey was rushing the mage. The mage sent out yet another blast of fire and hit Trey full in the chest. The impact sent Trey backwards in a violent crash and cried out as a small chunk of flesh was severely burned along the left pectoral muscle.
These motherfuckers! He quickly got up, and now he was pissed.
The mage staggered somewhat, tripping over his own feet when moving backwards and giving Trey room to move freely without worrying about further attacks. As the mage picked himself back up he summoned a third purple ball of energy in front of him, but his panic caused him to misfire. The magic missile soared harmlessly over Trey’s head, far above his intended target.
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Realizing he was about to be within melee range of his pursuer, the mage panicked and frantically tried to run. Trey grinned, continuing to sprint forward and when he was within ten yards he shadowstepped.
Trey used his momentum to plow into the culn man, plunging a claw deep into the cervical spine and throat of his opponent. The force toppled the mage and Trey in turn landed on top of his back, ripped out a piece of the spine of the terrified culn with brute force and screamed in laughter.
His laughter was cut short as a sword was narrowly avoided, grazing his left cheek in the process. Trey lunged forward into a roll and stood up to look at his assailant. The warrior had broken free of his chains, but had somehow missed his intended target.
Seeing that a bolt had lodged itself in the side of the culn warrior’s knee, Trey quickly realized one of the previous prisoners had found a crossbow and had shot the warrior mid-stride. This had caused him to stumble in his attack.
The armored soldier got up, tripped under the pain of having taken an arrow to the knee, and made a last ditch effort to attack Trey before Sithis lifted Trey’s hand and sent him into an obliterated pile of metal and mush with another more concentrated chaos ball. Sithis had pooled the last bit of remaining mana to charge the attack for a more powerful version of the spell, and it had worked splendidly.
“You have gained XP. You have gained 1 overall level.” the mechanical voice said as his status page began to flash, and Trey briefly gave it a look and saw that he had leveled up again. He was slightly surprised, but then again he was doing quite a bit of killing lately… however he absolutely knew that he’d not have been able to accomplish all of this without the newfound powers he’d gotten.
“I didn’t realize we could improve our spells by channeling extra mana into them, but it makes sense,” laughed Trey as he bent down to see if anything was salvageable from the warrior’s corpse. He pulled at the emerald sword he had seen earlier, but unfortunately it was in pieces. In fact, all of the armor was in pieces along with the shield. ‘Chaos Ball’ was definitely overpowered, but Trey wasn’t going to complain.
‘Only to a small extent , going too far beyond what the original spell allows will result in an unstable spell that can fail or preemptively explode. How I’m aware of this… I’m not sure, and I’m sorry about the mess.’ Sithis commented in an amused chuckle.
“Indeed.” replied Trey with a raised eyebrow before turning back to the mage.
He then stopped in his tracks.
Behind the prison gate, a crowd of starved and dirty onlookers - mostly humans - stood gawking. Soon they began to cheer in excitement. The group that Trey had originally helped also came out of the tunnel cheering and a couple gave the man who had shot the culn soldier claps on the back. They were incredibly excited about Trey winning and some even began to cry. More shouts of excitement rang out when the two groups saw each other, and some of the 36 originals Trey’d been helping ran over to the gate to embrace their comrades through the bars. Emotional greetings, hugging, talking and laughter were all exchanged in a growing frequency.
“Are these some of the other people from your town that you were talking about?” asked Trey to Farthom.
Farthom looked beaten. “Yes… I had no idea they were being kept here though. And to think… I wanted to sneak past and run away…”
Trey smiled softly and put a hand on the old man’s shoulder. He then looked down at the burned and bleeding wound in his chest and grimaced. Soon he walked over to the mage who he assumed had the key, based on his title of ‘Overseer’, and dug around in the pockets of the demon’s robe. Trey ended up pulling out three items: a red potion in a glass vial, a long irregular key as Trey had expected, and a flat circular stone the size of a small dinner-plate with a strange white rune on it.
Major Healing Potion
Item Tier: (7) Rare
Bonuses: none
Requirements: none
Durability: 20/20
Special: Recover 800 HP over 60 seconds
Negaizer Prison Key
Item Tier: (5) Common
Bonuses: none
Requirements: none
Durability: 149/150
Special: Opens Negaizer prison gates
Enchanting Stone
Item Tier: (7) Rare
Bonuses: none
Requirements: Enchanting level 25
Durability: 80/80
Special: ???
Trey turned the enchanting stone and major healing potion into shadowform. He’d ask about the enchanting stone later. He waved the key around in the air and made his way through the crowd until he came to the front of the gate. Seeing the keyhole, he inserted the long strange looking key into it and turned - which produced an audible click.
The enormous iron gates briefly flickered with red light and then opened quietly. Soon members from the two groups were embracing each other without the barrier of the gate in the way, laughing and crying as they did. Trey wormed his way inside and got many stares along with some smiles and pats on the back, even a few hugs. He smiled awkwardly at an attractive brunette girl slightly younger than him who’d come over to hug him, but he continued his way in until he was within the room’s back area. After having made certain there was nothing of value in here, he turned back and made his way over to Farthom.
“This makes 129 of us now Trey,” said Farthom in a low tone, holding his granddaughter’s hand as Trey approached to look around. “I think we barely have enough food to get back to the portal after scavenging.”
“Good,” said Trey impatiently. “Let’s go?”
A few of the new people tried to come up and talk to Trey, but Trey quickly held up his hands and shrugged again with a frown. Farthom quickly interjected and explained to them the situation, much to Trey’s relief. Soon he held up his own hands and began yelling at the top of his voice until all 129 of them had become quiet.
“Tell them the situation and what the plan is, I’ll wait.” Trey crossed his arms and yawned, and many of the crowd stared curiously as Farthom slowly explained. It took a good ten minutes of Q&A after the original explanation for everyone to be satisfied, but eventually they all look expectantly to Trey.
As soon as Farthom did the same, Trey waved his hand and enthusiastically said: “Alright, time for a road trip!"