Edvardus was running when the system announced the true beginning of The Game. He didn’t have time to read the details as multiple arrows flew through the air and two almost hit him. He also hadn’t had time to look at the descriptions of his new possible skills. He glanced at the titles and picked one.
Freeze. It sounded helpful and it would be helpful if he had time to cast it. They were close to the entrance of the dungeon now. They just needed to make it back to the portal and then they’d be safe.
Edvardus checked his surroundings. Norman was ahead of him. The Thief was built for speed, but poor Blok was lagging behind. His heavier armor was not helpful and the goblins were on his tail. They’d catch up to him soon.
“Do you see the portal?” Edvardus hollered.
“No, but it doesn’t help that I can hardly see in this storm,” Norman replied.
Edvardus knew what he needed to do. He began channeling his energy to his hands as he ran. Once he’d gathered enough power he whispered, Fireball. The flame sparked in his hands and grew into a beautiful sphere. The rain sizzled as it hit his spell, but it didn’t put out the magical fire. He paused and aimed at the group of enemies directly behind his friend and flung his balls of fire at them. He didn’t have time to watch them land.
He started running right away and the light from his flame made the path clearer. He recognized a large gnarled oak tree. It had been one of the first things he’d noticed when they entered the dungeon. That meant the portal should be next to it. But there was no glowing magical portal anywhere in sight.
“I think we’re trapped. I’m sure this is where the portal is supposed to be and it is not here,” Edvardus said.
“I noticed that too. I guess we fight or we die,” Norman stated. His friend turned around to face the horde with him.
“I’m going to use my new skill, Freeze. It takes a while to cast and I won’t be able to reuse it for several minutes, but it should slow down the enemy and make them easier to kill.”
“Then stop talking and start chanting.” Norman pulled out his weapon and ran towards Blok.
Edvardus said, “Freeze.” Once he released the spell a series of words entered his brain and he began to chant. The spell dulled his senses and he was unable to focus on the fight going on around him until all of the words in his head left his mouth. His whole body pulsed with mana, he’d never felt this powerful before. Edvardus took in his surroundings with new senses. He could feel the life force of all the creatures around him even those he would not be able to see with his eyes.
In this mode of heightened awareness, he knew the exact number and concentration of the enemy forces. He could also tell how large of an area his spell would affect. He found the best location to release his spell in order to slow down and freeze the most monsters possible. He concentrated on that location and released the spell.
The ground turned white and frosty. Ice crystals sparkled in the rain as some goblins started slipping and sliding while the slower ones were attached to the ground as ice crawled up their legs.
Norman and Blok cut through the enemies with some new skills he’d never seen before. He’d have to ask them what they were when things calmed down. Blok was able to slice through ten or even twenty goblins at a time with a fancy move that took down everything directly in front of him.
Not wanting to be useless while both of his spells reset Edvardus ran to a failed archer and stole its bow and arrows. He’d always been better with a bow than a sword. He nocked an arrow, aimed at his target, then pulled back the string. Once he was ready he released. It flew awkwardly, tilting a little to the left, and hit a nearby goblin in the knee.
Not a great start but now he knew to aim a little to the right of where he wanted to hit. Edvardus hit his next five targets then ran out of arrows. There were now hundreds of dead goblins, many of which had unused arrows in their quivers, but to reach them he’d have to place himself in harm’s way. “Time remaining on my cooldowns?”
10 seconds remained for Fireball and 5 minutes for Freeze. He counted to ten in his head and then began gathering mana. “Fireball.” Both his hands filled with flames and he threw the magic at a group of twenty foes. They melted along with the nearby ice.
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The ground was no longer frozen, but by some miracle, they’d killed over 500 enemies. They were safe. He couldn’t see or hear any more goblins. “Is everyone alright?” He asked.
“I think we’re all good. Just minor scrapes and bruises,” Blok said, “Is there anything you’d like me to heal?”
“I’ve got a gash on my side,” Norman said. Blok rushed to his friend’s side and cast rejuvenation. Norman’s side began to glow and Edvardus sat down in the mud. His legs were shaking and he needed a break.
Just as the glow began to fade Edvardus saw movement on the hill to the left. An arrow flew through the air and hit Blok’s arm. Blok hollered in pain. Norman ran to the enemy and cut off its head before it could deal any more damage.
Edvardus hopped up out of the mud and charged over to Blok’s side. “How bad is it?” He asked.
Blok ripped off his shirt and revealed a black and green wound. The darkness was spreading down to his elbow and up towards his shoulder. “It’s poisoned and rejuvenation won’t work. Norman, I need you to clean your weapon and cut off my arm. I promise the Missus I’d be there for the birth of our child. I promised. So I’m going to make it out of here alive.”
“I don’t think I can do that,” Norman said, “there has to be another way.”
Edvardus agreed with Blok. The poison was spreading quickly and they did not have long before it was too late to do anything. “Hand me your sword,” Edvardus commanded.
Once he had the weapon in his hand he used his shirt and all the alcohol left in his flask to remove any germs or dirt left on the blade. Once it was sanitized he threw the spell far away and held the sword up to his friend’s arm. “I am going to cut it off, do I have your permission?”
Blok shoved something in his mouth, bit down, and nodded. “Hold it out straight and be ready in three, two, one.” Edvardus swung the blade with all his might he couldn’t bring himself to do this more than once so he had to have enough force to fully remove the poisoned limb. There was resistance but he made it all the way through in one go and the arm fell to the ground.
Blok screamed in pain. But they needed to stop the bleeding. “Can you use Rejuvenation now?”
“I’m all out of mana. Is there any more liquor?” Blok said.
“No, but I have another idea. I don’t like it, but I could cauterize the wound with Fireball. Unless anyone else has a better idea.”
No one said anything so Edvardus used his spell and while the flames sparked in his hands he lifted up the fire to Blok’s bleeding stub and winced as his friend screamed and writhed in pain. He counted to five and then he removed the flame and threw the fire far away.
Warning: the boss is approaching your area.
Boss? This wasn’t over? He felt a tremor below his feet. Something large was coming. “We don’t have much time. Take your sword. I’ll distract whatever it is so that hopefully you can stab it in the back, Norman. We need to take care of this thing on our own.”
Blok was passed out in the grass. “We can take down one more monster,” Norman said.
They heard the crash of its footsteps first. Once it breached the tree line they could see it. It was a one eye’d ogre. Level 28. Great. He was almost out of mana and one hit from that beast would kill them. “Over here maggot spawn. Can you hear me you bile-breathing son of a warthog?” Edvardus yelled and waved.
He locked eyes with the ogre and started running. He needed to keep its attention. His legs shook with every slippery step through the mud. At least the rain was just a sprinkle now and as large as the ogre was it didn’t seem to be very fast.
He only had 30 seconds left until he could cast freeze. He just needed to keep running. He ran, slipped, fell, got up again, and ran some more. Norman climbed up a tree and waved at him. He was in a position where he could jump onto the ogre’s back. Edvardus led him toward Norman.
A few seconds after he passed his friend he heard the ogre grunt. Edvardus turned to see his friend stabbing the ogre repeatedly in the back. The ogre squealed, lifted its enormous hammer, and hit itself on the back. Was Norman okay?
Edvardus started chanting and cast a concentrated Freeze beneath the ogre’s feet. The ice crawled up its legs and arms and covered the thing in a layer of frozen water.
Once it no longer moved, Edvardus ran to his friend, but Norman was not okay. His friend was crumpled up on the ground. The hammer had hit him directly and he was bleeding out in multiple places and his limbs were awkwardly broken. “Are you alive?” Edvardus asked.
There was no answer.
That was not a good sign. Edvardus needed a kill shot. The ogre was beginning to move and crack the ice. He only had one spell left. It had to do as much damage as possible. He needed to either cut off its head or damage its brain.
His MP was so low that this would deplete it. He aimed for the nostril. Edvardus had heard somewhere that the nasal passageways connected to the brain. He wasn’t 100% sure that was true, but he couldn’t see any other way to shove his magic inside the ogre. He cast Fireball one last time focusing on creating a small but power-packed spell. The Ogre moved his right arm, freeing it from the ice. It reached for the hammer in its other hand but was too slow, Edvardus grabbed a sharp stone the size of his fist and threw it in front of his magical flame. The spell hit the rock and boosted it. The rock sped into the ogre’s nose. It hit and continued to travel inside the monster followed by the fireball itself.
The ogre squealed and screamed, and clutched its head. It writhed in pain and then it stopped moving. He knew it was dead when the system popped up with a list of rewards and multiple portals appeared around them. What he didn’t understand was why there were so many portals or what their different colors indicated.