Chapter 67 - Ghouls

The beach looked inviting, and if they didn’t know any better, they could have thrown the towels down for a tropical vacation. As they rowed in closer with another five ships filled with allies behind them, the lush tropical treeline past the beach grew taller until it towered overhead when their ship landed. Quickly looking around and sending Napoleon to scout out the area, the group began unloading the supplies they’d brought with them. Packs, small crates and bundled goods were placed on the sands as more ships docked beside them on the sands. It didn’t take long for all the supplies to unload, and in a few minutes after that - Brae’s men who’d accompanied them to shore took the rowboats back to the galley. This was primarily so the boats couldn’t be used by any diseased undead to travel across the southern strait or into the Lawless Lands - and although sometimes undead managed to build their own ships, it was rare that they’d try.

Trey gave the boats a final wave, picked up his own pack of supplies and turned around to see everyone looking his way. Eeme, Julia and Astala were all laden with larger backpacks and satchels, but the rest of them had less supplies and could be combat ready at a moment’s notice after dropping the packs they did have.

Gorthomal gave him a nod and began to summon the rest of his minions while everyone waited for him to finish. Aside from the 7 Daema and 8 imps he’d originally had, another 6 creatures came about in due time for a total of 21 minions. With the willpower needed being doubled every 10 minions: Trey realized that Gorthomal’s minion slots now cost him at the very least 20 willpower apiece, and that was just if these minions only took up 1 slot each. If it went into the 30 range for control slots, it’d be 40 willpower apiece. 2 taurun, each heavily scarred, huge, muscular ape-minotaur hybrids came into existence first with one of their arms being twice or three times the size of Trey. 3 harpies came next, two females and a male - all covered in brown and black feathers over the majority of their bodies but with clawed feet and wings for arms. Next came what was called a ‘Duska Wyrm’, which was the largest of Gorthomal’s minions by far. The duska wyrm spanned well over 50 feet long, was 10 feet in diameter, was covered in thick black plates, and had a gaping maw filled with razor sharp teeth encircling the acid-filled insides. When the mouth was shut, its face came into a fine sharp point that enabled it to dig through the earth under their feet.

Trey raised an eyebrow at the group and slow-clapped. “Impressive.”

Gorthomal removed his mask, grinning through the split in his jaw and narrowing all four eyes as they looked the armored wyrm up and down. “That one in particular was a hard catch, but it was worth it.”

The old summoner pulled out a map as his little red imps began loading one of the two taurun with more packs and supplies, strapping a saddle to it as well. Gorthomal showed Trey the map, pointing to the second mountain in their path where an X had been drawn. “This is Labasta. I have a more detailed map and explanation of how to reach the dungeon there whenever we arrive. For now, let’s try to make it there in one piece.”

Gorthomal turned heel and strode up to the taurun that had been saddled, was lifted up by one of the taurun’s enormous hands and strapped himself into a leather saddle. With a creepy three-way grin, the summoner motioned for the rest to follow. “You won’t be disappointed my boy, and I’m glad to have you along. Let us begin at once, we don’t want to get caught out in the jungle in the middle of the night. For the ones coming into the Deadlands of Ornthas for the first time, avoid the cesspools or stagnant water. Only drink from moving streams, otherwise you’ll likely catch the plague early. We have limited potions to cure the disease and we don’t want to be wasting it in the first days of our trip.”

***

The jungle was a lot thicker than had been expected when first pushing forward. The undergrowth was filled with dense thickets, tropical plants and small animals or insects that played a game of cat and mouse in the food chain. Occasionally they’d also feel a rumble under their feet, which Gorthomal assured them was his wyrm. Gorthomal had taken point, with his daema on either side and his imps trailing behind. Next was Trey’s group, with the three women used as pack mules in the middle, then Jason and Izumi next, and the others trailing.

Ashe swatted at a mosquito, dragging the tiny insect’s remains along with a swath of her own blood along her neck in disgust. Her fox ears were perked up and her tail barely swayed as she remained poised and alert for signs of movement. “This heat is terrible.”

Trey gave her a once over. “Yeah you’re sweating pretty bad.”

“And you’re not?!” Ashe shot him a glance. He wasn’t wearing any shirt and had discarded the cloak, placing it in the pack he carried.

She frowned. “Trey what’s with you and taking off your shirt every chance you get?”

Trey chuckled and gave her the finger. “Don’t judge me! I do what I want, you dirty hoe.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Out of all of us you’re the dirtiest hoe here!”

“Amen!”

The call came from Jason and the rest of them laughed at Trey’s resultant scowling.

From out ahead, Gorthomal abruptly signaled for them to stop.

Everyone froze in place, scouring the jungle thickets around them and trying to figure out what was going on.

“Do you see anything?” Ashe asked, pulling out one of her crossbows and tensing up.

Trey shook his head, narrowing his eyes with both hands on Talsh’Noc’Un’s handle. There were only shadows, the sounds of insects, and the rustling of wind amidst the canopy. “I don’t see anything at all. I wonder what caused Gorthomal to stop…”

The old summoner made a few hand gestures from atop his enormous demon mount twenty yards out, and the response was immediate. His imps dispersed out into the trees and the warrior daema lined up just in time for the first wave of hungry screams to erupt directly ahead of them. The screams were immediately followed by follow ups of similar cries from directly behind, and it was in that instant that Trey’s friends realized they were surrounded.

Ashe swore, recognizing the crazed screams and wails for what they were. “THOSE FUCKING GHOULS HAVE LAID AN AMBUSH!”

Immediately the group sprung into action. Eeme, Julia, Izumi and Astala drew the shortswords they’d been supplied and positioned themselves back to back just as the first of the undead broke out from the trees.

Half of its face was missing, leaving only exposed bones and an eyeball on the left side. Muscles and tendons rippled, exposed to the light without any skin along the majority of its left side to match the way its face looked. Drool dripped from its mouth as it bellowed out a challenge and pointed a broken sword in their direction.

“WAAAAHHHHHGGGGG!!!”

The scream was crazed, lacking any form of intelligence that the man had once had in life. Trey knew little about undead, but he did know that if they were well fed - these ghouls could even speak intelligently on normal terms… however, this one was starved and far too gone to think of anything but its unsatiated hunger. The dozens of its comrades following it into the new battleground were the same, uprooting themselves from where they’d buried their bodies in ambush amidst the dirt and shrubs or jumping out of the trees with crude weaponry or just their hands and teeth.

Trey’d be damned if he was going to be the next meal for any of them. As gorthomal’s group erupted with the clash of metal on metal, roars, and blasts of magic in the front, Trey’s group met the charging pack on the backside.

“Burn.”

Atharost erupted into flames and cast a wide-arcing blast of fire out in front of them with follow up blasts of Trey’s chaos rocketing towards the more densely packed opponents nearby. Ashe, Jason and the two dark elf siblings immediately began to fire off arrows or bolts - aiming for the heads.

The forest was alight with firebolts as imps high above them in the trees cast spells from their relative safely onto the oncoming horde. The taurun had charged in with Gorthomal, and the old summoner was using a staff to unleash green curse magics that withered away or completely split open his opponents by the second. Despite this, the numbers of undead were great... and they kept on coming.

With a mental command from Trey, Rivia called out to the weaker members of their team just like they’d practiced earlier. Izumi, Eeme, Julia and Astala all clumped up around Rivia as the demoness prepared her soulcatch lantern’s innate miracle ‘Dark Grace.’ It was the weapon he’d bought her back in Teretog, and he was glad to see it finally put to use.

Wailing Soulcatch Lantern

Item Tier: (10) Epic

Bonuses: +20 Intelligence, +30 Faith

Requirements: 8 Faith, Dark Attribute

Durability: 540/540

Specials:

1 - Dark Grace: Spend 1 DP point and channel it through this lantern to cast this innate miracle. A barrier of dark power will encompass you and everything around you within 10 yards for 60 seconds. Moderate cooldown.

2 - Soulcatch: You may store 1 soul of mediocre power or less within this lantern indefinitely by commanding the lantern to take hold of the soul. Target soul must not have a living body.

A spherical barrier of black and green mana whirled around them spanning 10 yards in diameter and stopping many of the ghouls in their tracks before they could get further. Numerous of the undead smashed into the thick wall of mana with violent cracks or snaps as they unexpectedly came to a halt, while others of their comrades went around it or had already started engaging on the main fighters of Trey’s group.

“RRAAAHHHHH!!!”

Charles, the culn warrior, towered over his opponents and stood neck to neck with the much smaller dwarf as he hurled one of the ghouls back over his head with his halberd to land next to Trey in a flayed display of flesh and bones. Trey glanced their way briefly between continuing to discharge chaos balls in rapid succession to explode in violent gory showers of viscera.

“You have gained XP.”

“You have gained XP.”

“You have gained XP.”

The notifications were blaring through his mind but he couldn’t stop to acknowledge any of it as he felt teeth sink into his shoulder and he was taken to the ground. Enraged and twisting around on the ground, he latched his claws onto the ghoul’s face and ripped off the jaws embedded in his muscles.

The ghoul screeched and went wide eyed as Trey jammed its jaw bones into the side of its skull and slammed his fist into its left eye socket, breaking open its skull in a sickening crunch.

In a blinding motion that left Trey a little motion sick, Sithis took over to quickly kill two more ghouls with his tail and claws. Looking down at the undead he’d just impaled with his slender black tail, he flung the ghoul’s head off of it with a quick flick and summoned Talsh’Noc’Un.

All around them was a madhouse of screams, roars, and the sounds of battle.

The ghouls were relatively much weaker than they were, all of them being starved and low level. They were obviously at the bottom of the food chain here in the ghoul societies, but their numbers were great - and they swarmed forward with numbers that made Trey’s stomach grow knots.

To his left, Atharost was a beacon of destruction as his most prized minion lay waste to the undead in droves. To his right however, Napoleon and the archers were having a rougher time of it. Just then as he turned to help them, he screamed out for Ashe to watch out as a small but quick runt of the undead pack circled around and launched itself at her back with a long dagger in its right hand.

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She didn’t hear him, and to his growing horror it made contact and sunk the dagger deep into her right thigh. She screamed and dropped her crossbow to take out her own daggers and in a blur she quickly dispatched her attacker with multiple jabs to the face and neck, but she was crippled now and couldn’t get out of the way as four more of the undead bore down on her position.

Trey had been intercepted by three more of the creatures, and although he mowed them each down with a quick strike of his hissing blade - he was having a hard time getting to her. In a frustrated grunt and wiping the blood that had splattered onto his face: he shadowstepped, roared out a challenge and slammed his sword into the first of the oncoming opponents that dared attack his friend. The first lumbering, fleshy creature split into two and the aftershock of the chaos-infused weapon sent the others rolling. He was just about to turn to help Ashe up when an axe connected with a ghoul’s face directly to his left and cleaved its skull open to startle him.

Trey watched his enemy fall, then turned his eyes to Karus the dwarf who wore a haughty grin under his blood covered iron armor. He gave Trey a thumbs up, then roared out a battle cry and launched himself forward to help Jason who was clobbering another undead with his mace.

The sounds of battle that had been roaring to life were dying down just as fast as they had come. Atharost was laughing like a madman as he bathed fleeing remnants of the shrieking ghouls with flames further off. Rivia was watching one of the undead rot at an extreme rate at her feet with great interest, her miracle Pestilence causing it to shrivel and die a more permanent death than the one it had been experiencing with undeath. Further ahead: Gorthomal’s minions were having a hayday feasting on the corpses or chasing down stragglers dozens of yards away.

He heard Izumi’s voice as the girl ran over to Ashe with a worried look. “Are you ok!? Oh my god that looks awful!”

Ashe groaned, laying on her back and closing her eyes while clutching at the gushing wound in her thigh. “I’ve had worse.”

Trey grinned and snapped his fingers at Rivia who came out of her trance, quickly stored the undead’s soul in her lantern with a command to the item she carried. A flash of light ensued, lighting up the lantern a little bit brighter, and Rivia rushed over to begin healing Ashe.

Trey began to count the dead. The ghouls lay scattered by the dozens, and it looked like someone had just raided a morgue. “Good shit everyone. We did really well considering that it was an ambush.”

Napoleon's small figure raced across the ground and pulled himself up onto Treys shoulder, pointing out towards one of the piles of bodies. “One one died died.”

Trey raised an eyebrow, a frown crossing his face as he placed his hands on his hips. “What?”

Napoleon just continued to point. “He died died.”

Trey scowled further. He couldn’t see any of their number amidst the tangled corpses but quickly did a head count just to make sure. In a couple seconds he realized that he was missing Charles, the culn warrior he’d bought not long ago. With a sinking feeling in his stomach he called out Charles’ name, but there was no answer. Stepping over the bodies in his way and coming to a stop at the large pile of corpses Napoleon was pointing to, Trey was quick to see the demon’s hand poking out from underneath the tangled hill of flesh. To Trey’s left, Charles’ halberd lay broken with the blade embedded in one of the many ghouls who’d managed to bring him down.

Trey’s gut churned, and despite not having known Charles very well - if at all - he began to feel sick. Trey didn’t know why this upset him so much, he’d seen numerous deaths up until now and this wasn’t the worst of it by any means. The more he thought about it though, the more he realized it was because Charles had been acting on Trey’s instructions.

Trey had failed him, and now Charles was dead. Clarifying it by noting Charles’ HP bar was down to zero, and noting Charles’ name was grayed out with a timer counting down to signify dismissal from Trey’s roster… it didn’t help things.

He knelt down and pushed off two decrepit bodies before coming face to face with the young culn man. Charles’ features were twisted into what Trey could only assume to be fear and anger, and his eyes were still wide open with the pupils being dilated to their fullest. Trying to push his emotions aside, Trey continued to pull off corpses until he was able to free Charles’ partially eaten body from the wreckage and pulled it away. Large chunks of the culn’s flesh were taken out from his exposed neck, and the demon’s arm had nearly been torn off by a ghoul after the pauldron he’d been wearing was destroyed by a blunt object.

The rest of his minions watched as Trey stopped moving the body, finally bowing his head over the young demon in defeat with a deep-set grimace, and it was Karus who eventually came over to speak to him.

“Ya know lad, I’m awfully surprised to see you care.” The dwarf bent down and sat along a pair of stacked ghouls, his armor rattling slightly as he did. He put down his axe and shield and let out a cough before spitting blood onto the ground nearby. “Color me surprised.”

Trey didn’t look up, he only shook his head in shame. The other culn he’d conquered and forced into minionhood had wronged him, this one hadn’t. If anything, Charles had been rather polite... and the etchings of fear left in Charles’ corpse placed a great deal of shame squarely on Trey’s shoulders.

From behind the two men, the voice of Tarline arrogantly prodded them into action.

“My brother needs treatment now. Can you pretend to mourn over that demon you barely knew later?”

Trey glanced back from his kneeling position to look at the sneering face of the young drow woman. Tarline was tapping her foot impatiently. The daggers at her sides were stained with blood and a fourth of her arrows were missing from her quivers, no doubt embedded in the masses around them.

“Well?”

Tarline’s tone wasn’t to Trey’s liking, though when she pointed over to her brother Rofa Trey saw what she was talking about. He had a bite mark across his hand and was nervously nursing it with his good hand. He caught Trey’s glance with one of his own and he scowled to look away.

“Rivia’s healing won’t do.” Tarline’s voice trailed off as her confidence disappeared amidst Trey’s obviously rising irritation. “Rofa needs plague remedy…”

Trey didn’t realize it, but the veins along his face were beginning to glow crimson and burned brighter with his anger. Karus backed away as Trey stood up to confront Tarline face to face.

“Speak to me with that tone again and I’ll start breaking your fingers one by one.” Trey pressed his face further in an intimidating fashion with less than a centimeter between his and the drow woman’s noses. His horns were making direct contact with the upper part of her forehead and his tail was flipping about angrily. “Do you understand me?”

Tarline’s confidence immediately vanished, in its stead was open nervousness. She quickly nodded. “Yes… I’m sorry.”

The lines of power began to recede back to normal, leaving only the normal crimson centers of Trey’s eyes amidst the outlining black sclera. His gaze trailed off to Jason who was cleaning a mace and grumbling about something to Izumi. “Hey Jason, can you spare a swig or two of that plague remedy for one of my minions?”

Jason looked up, then began walking over to where Eeme was sitting on a crate conversing with Astala in hushed tones. “Yeah sure, which one needs it?”

Trey pointed to the drow male. “Rofa. Thanks, I appreciate it.”

“One remedy potion coming up for the rogue.” Jason gave him a thumbs up and shooed Eeme off the box to start rummaging around until he pulled out one of the darker potions for the elf. Trey wasted no time in dismissing himself from the conversation with Tarline, and returned to where Charles lay dead on the ground.

Without another word, he began digging with the blade of his greatsword - using it as a makeshift shovel. He didn’t ask for help, nor did he look up from his work until it was done. Even Gorthomal eventually returned to watch him in silence as Trey finished burying Charles along with all of his remaining armor, four feet deep into the earth. After Trey’d finally pushed the dirt atop his deceased minion an hour later - they eventually all set off again.

***

“Your minion Atharost has gained 2 levels in the skill Fireblast, 1 level in the skill Wall of Flames, 1 level in the skill Demon Tail, 1 level in the skill Hand to Hand Combat, and 2 levels in the skill Firebolt. Your minion Atharost has gained 3 overall levels.”

“Your minion Rivia Ahst has gained 1 level in the skill Pestilence, and 1 level in the skill Rejuvenation. Your minion Rivia Ahst has gained 1 overall level. Your minion’s ritual has been completed. You have gained 3 strength and 2 willpower stat points from this sacrifice. You and your minion Rivia have gained further favor with the goddess Alkir, Mistress of Darkness.”

“Your minion Napoleon has gained 3 levels in the skill Hand to Hand Combat, and 1 level in the skill Firebolt. Your minion Napoleon has gained 2 overall levels.”

“Your minion Charles has gained 1 level in the skill Heavy Armor. Your minion Charles has died.”

“Your minion Tarline has gained 1 level in the skill Bows.”

“Your minion Rofa has gained 1 level in the skill Bows, and 1 level in the skill Backstab.”

“Your minion Karus has gained 1 level in the skill Heavy armor, 1 level in the skill Axes, and 1 level in the skill Shield Bash. Your minion Karus has gained 1 overall level.”

“You have gained 2 levels in the skill Chaos Ball, and 1 level in the skill Blades. You have gained 1 overall level.”

The notifications had compiled and were awaiting Trey in a tab within his HUD that he’d never seen before. It was unsurprisingly just called the ‘Notifications Tab’, with each of these notifications having a timestamp for that day.

Very original.

Nevertheless he was happy to have it and it saved him a lot of guesswork for what had happened earlier when he’d been more focused on the battle rather than the progress he’d made. It also seemed to compile notifications to reduce redundancy, which was another perk. The All Spirit must have been making adjustments… and a quick look at the patch notes tab clarified this with a very brief description on what this new notifications tab was about. Nothing that he couldn’t have already guessed.

He dumped his remaining 2 skill points into chaos ball for a total of 4 levels gained in that spell, and then used the rest of his 10 stat points and placed them into willpower. Now that he was past the first 10 summons, control slots would each require 10 willpower instead of 5. It was a hassle, but Trey didn’t think he’d stop building up his willpower until he at least hit 20 slots… that’s when the cost per slot would double again from 10 to 20 willpower apiece and would become a little bit too expensive for Trey to invest in it over strength or intelligence. At least that’s what his current thought process was considering amidst the mental acrobatics he’d had of late.

His eyes focused on one notification in particular, the one where it talked about Charles dying. His lips contorted a bit.

Trey had serious doubts about this place only being a game despite the All Spirit’s claims – though he occasionally debated it with himself and went back and forth on the matter. He’d overall grown to think of this new world as real, and even if Charles was just an NPC like the All spirit claimed them to be: they were very lifelike. Hell, the All Spirit had even said they were just as alive as he was right? Even if the All Spirit was telling the truth: For all intents and purposes, he was just code too now. What made him different from Charles? Probably not a lot.

He let out a deep sigh and stared into the forest through the starlight. Then he rubbed his eyes and sat up. Pushing Rivia off of him and yawning, he rummaged around in his pack for some bread to chew on absentmindedly. The events of the day had kept his thoughts preoccupied and although Gorthomal had also lost a daema of his own, only Trey seemed to be bothered by any of it.

He looked around at their small encampment to the place where Gorthomal slept, noting the majority of Gorthomal’s imps were still awake and keeping watch in the trees surrounding them. In the shadow of the mountain they all seemed small and insignificant. He wondered how long it would take them to complete the trip, or rather if they would even survive it. Staying in Teretog to await the Chekz attack seemed like folly as well though and if anything this game world rewarded those who took risks… as long as you didn’t die.

He swallowed the remainder of the bread then looked out across the encampment. Tents hadn’t been pitched here yet and no fires had been lit, those would likely attract more attention than not. The tents and fires would be necessary though once they reached colder climates further up, but down here in the jungle it was asking for an attack.

Glancing to his left he did a double take as he saw Rofa on top of Tarline and repeatedly thrusting beneath a blanket. They were being very quiet and he hadn’t noticed before. Shaking his head in disgust and turning his back to the two drow, he stuck out his tongue momentarily to display his feelings on the matter. Incest wasn’t his piece of pie and he found it rather gross but he wasn’t going to stop them from doing it if that’s what they wanted to do.

He opened up his patch notes again and scrolled back a few days to the part where it talked about the new announcements concerning incoming Earthborn and the end of beta. He was particularly interested in the cortex, but the idea of having incentives to kill other people from Earth was a little disturbing.

========================================================================

THIS IS A SYSTEM WIDE ANNOUNCEMENT: Updates for “Patch 1.0 – Labyrinth” are currently in the process of being constructed. This patch has not yet been completed, but all beta testers will now receive information regarding what is to come in upcoming months so they know what to expect. Please be aware that this beta will end soon, with it will come the majority of Earthborn participants as well as opening of the Labyrinth. Please review the following information for generalized information regarding this important future event.

* Number of Earthborn Participants: Currently there are 164,552,108 Earthborn participants beta-testing in game, with 9,039,021 non-permanent deaths experienced - as well as 1,048,332 permanent deaths. Those who have been subjected to permanent death have been deleted from the system archives. New estimates guess that anywhere between 1.84 billion and 2 billion Earthborn participants will be registered to the game at the end of beta. When the beta ends, all advancements and progress on a person’s status page will be kept to transfer over to the main servers.

========================================================================

He stopped short of reading it all… No doubt the number of deaths had gone up since then.

He shook his head and thought about what his family might be up to. His brothers… his mom and dad. Were they even alive?

Sadness quickly overtook him as his mind wandered along the path of ‘what if’, envisioning worst case scenarios. The only thing he could do was to push it out of his mind, but he wasn’t very good at doing that by himself. He really needed a distraction.

So… reaching over Rivia’s sleeping figure - he grabbed the hidden bottle of rum he’d been downing earlier when all the others hadn’t been awake to see him do it. He wouldn’t get drunk… that’d be irresponsible given their situation here in Ornthas. It would put them all in danger... so no, he wouldn't do that. He’d just get… a little buzzed.

A little bit of drinking surely couldn't hurt, right?

Control Limit Slots: 9 of 11 used.

Trey’s Minions:

* Napoleon, Primal Imp, Level 13 (1 slot)(Admired)

* Talsh’Noc’Un, Sword of Ruin, Living Weapon (1 slot)(Content)(Thirsting Level 1)

* Rivia Ahst, Culn, Level 15 (1 slot)(Somewhat Liked)

* Atharost, Ifrit, Level 34 (1 slot)(Very Friendly)

* Astala, High Elf Thrall, Level 1 (1 slot)(Liked and Lusting)

* Tarline, Dark Elf Thrall, Level 29 (1 slot)(Disliked)

* Rofa, Dark Elf Thrall, Level 45 (2 slots)(Disliked)

* Karus, Dwarf Thrall, Level 33, (1 slot)(Wary)