After preparing themselves by drinking Potions of Experience, with Samantha having received one too, they descended partway down the stairs to get a better viewpoint. They were still far above the floor when the quest changed again.
Rescue the prisoners and let Light burn away the corruption in the Church of The Dying Light.
Eli began, as he often did, with a Sigil of Light from high up above. The casting range of his spells that far up was incredible. If he wanted to, he could have reached the other side of the massive chamber. Instead, he placed it straight below them, right at the bottom of the stairs. No torches lit the chamber that close to the stairs, but just as he'd figured, plenty of robed figures congregated in the spot. The entire room was filled with them, as far as he could tell
Dropping bottles of Liquid Fire at the same part of the floor, they stacked two different sources of damage and created a large area of effect. The robed figures below reacted instantly, surging toward the stairs without making a single sound. When they entered the area of destruction, it became clear they were indeed skeletons—most of them, though some were zombies, and relatively fresh-looking ones, like they'd just been killed and risen again. They shuffled while the skeletons creaked and clattered.
These must've been a higher level, because they didn't die instantly, even with two sources of damage. Most didn't make it through, especially when skeletons started dying, their bones creating a natural barrier. Eli and Samantha threw more bottles of Liquid Fire deep into the crowd, to spread the fire around, as well as and Explosions. They'd have to thank Zack later, because his potions were really helping a lot in thinning the horde of undead creatures coming their way.
Arrows flew through the air, but none reached their position high up on the stairs. Spells from Skeletal Mages did reach but rarely hit. Bolts of ice and fire struck the stairs below them, whizzed past, and sometimes struck Eli, who shielded Samantha with his body, unsure what her new defensive skill actually did. Aegis tanked the damage easily.
Through it all, they both cast heal to remove the mages' and archers' corruption, then Turn Undead for the instant kill while the flames from Liquid Fire spread across the floor. Samantha cast her Spreading Light, but the twinkling stars found no hidden rogue targets.
Funneling into the Sigil of Light below, skeletons died in droves. Many of them were corrupted, but with Harming Healer activated, the Sigil of Light damaged them, nonetheless.
Ding! You have reached level 31.
Ding! You have reached level 32.
"The experience gain here is massive," Samantha said excitedly.
Eli inspected her: Samantha. Human. Level 20 Scholar of The Dying Light.
"Other than me, you’re the highest leveled person with Infinite Innovation Solutions," he noted.
Some skeletons slowly made it through their area of death below, reaching the stairs and disappearing from Eli's field of vision. The incredibly large group of monsters was slowly thinning out. However, the ones near the pits of darkness had not moved. They would not be shaken from their ritual.
While Eli was unable to inspect the ritualists, he did have the range to attack them, even at that great distance. Unfortunately, the spells would not allow the ritualists to be targeted.
"I don't like this," he said. "If we can't target them from here, that probably means they're a boss of some kind."
Samantha glanced his way as she dropped another Explosion Potion over the edge of the stairs. "We'll just have to kill them once we've dealt with everything else."
Ding! You have reached level 33.
Finally, after almost 15 minutes of skeleton and zombie murder, some of them began reaching Eli and Samantha on the stairs. The first one barely had any health left at all, so Eli did something he'd never done before: he raised his new staff and thumped it over the head, killing a skeletal warrior. The mob was surprisingly solid, and pain shot up his hands, almost making him drop the staff.
Rather than striking the next one, he simply pushed it with the butt of his staff. The skeleton warrior fell without a sound, crashing to the stone floor far below. Dropping a few more explosion potions and a new Sigil of Light at the base of the stairs, the two of them began to make their way down through an endless line of damaged skeletons and zombies on the stairs. While they were many, the narrow stairs meant only one could attack them at a time. Eli's trusty old Heal spell easily dealt with them.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
When the skeletons stopped coming, Eli peered down over the edge of the stairs. The choke point was empty. No more enemies pressed forward, they were all dead. A tense silence hung over the massacres piles of bones. Eli and Samantha sat down for a moment, and Eli felt sweat trickling down the small of his back, thankful for a moment to rest.
Eli found his Stamina bar almost empty. Casting spells didn't drain stamina, but the stairs did. Not having slept in quite a while probably played a part in the drain on his dangerously low stamina level. Even if he didn't feel the exhaustion as acutely as he would've staying up a whole night back home, he was still clearly affected. Not having fought with weapons at all, he didn't keep a close eye on his stamina like he did with health and mana. Another rookie move he'd need to improve on. His low physical attributes didn't help either, leaving his maximum stamina pitifully low. Perhaps he ought to change that.
"That went well," Samantha said, as they sat.
Eli looked down over the edge of the stairs to the enormous pile of skeletal remains. "Didn’t expect it to be this easy, actually," he agreed. "Just keep your mist thing up in case any rogues are hiding down there."
"I will. So, are you picking any skills or attributes or anything before we descend?" Samantha asked.
"I don’t think we have time," he replied.
"Why not? We're just sitting here, waiting for mana to replenish," she prodded. "The ritualists are just standing here stupidly with their hands in the air."
The quest description, as if on cue, changed again.
Rescue the prisoners and let Light burn away the corruption in the Church of The Dying Light. Time remaining 00:30:00.
Rescue the prisoners and let Light burn away the corruption in the Church of The Dying Light. Time remaining 00:29:59.
Samantha laughed. "That was so your fault."
"Don't blame me!" Eli protested. "Blame the system!"
He didn't have time to look at Skills or Talents, but Attributes was another matter. Adding those was quick. After spreading out his points so each Attribute reached at least 20, not including Charisma, he divided the rest between Intelligence and Wisdom. The added Strength and Dexterity did make him feel a little lighter and even if he didn't gain much maximum health from Constitution, it did almost double his maximum stamina points.
"Do you have any potions left?" he asked.
"Some explosions and a single fire."
"I'm all out. Guess we'll have to do this the old-fashioned way," he said as they walked across the empty floor after having vacuumed up a mountain of items from the huge pile of skeletal remains at the bottom of the stairs. The loot was mostly normal weapons, with some magic items mixed in, but nothing fancy, along with some random bits and bobs, like a piece of old cheese that didn't look very appetizing at all. Apparently, his Inventory had no limit, because it just kept filling up with hundreds of swords, bows, daggers, and pieces of armor. Pages and pages of stuff.
"Sigil of Light, Sigil of Light, Sigil of Light?" Samantha smirked. "Well, I at least picked up a few new skills, so don’t pass out from amazement when I bring home the victory for us."
"All right, I’ll try to contain myself," Eli said with a grin. "What are the skills?"
"Check your buffs."
Invigorating Light was the first one. It made the entire party slowly regenerate health and mana both in and out of combat. The second buff was called Focused Light and increased damage from all Light based attacks by 15%
"Not bad," Eli said approvingly. "It's good that you’re branching out from pure damage-based spells."
"They're not spells I have to cast. They just kind of work all the time."
"That's really great, like an aura."
"No, not like an aura. Do you see an aura around me?" she asked. "They're just passive skills. I'm no Commander!"
"Commander?" he asked.
"Yeah. They get a bunch of auras, apparently."
"Oh. That's interesting."
"Super-duper interesting," Samantha replied, casting Turn Undead to kill a Skeletal Warrior that was left standing. "Can we focus a little on what's in front of us, please?"
Eli attempted to cast Warp again just to see if it would work. It did not. There would be no escaping whatever was waiting for them up ahead. Walking up to them, an ominous feeling spread in his chest. This was it. This was what they'd come here for. Could they do this alone, just the two of them? His throat suddenly felt dry and brought out two bottles of water, holding one out for Samantha to grab.
"We should probably drink something," he suggested.
"Now that you mention it, I’m parched," she said. They emptied the bottles immediately, and Eli felt the water slush around in his belly. It made him feel a little better.
No rogues emerged from the shadows to attack them as the group of two approached what had to be a boss battle. Eli's mana regenerated a little faster than before, thanks to the buff from Samantha. It wasn’t much, but with some level in that spell, it could become quite powerful. He decided to take a closer look to see if he had any passive skills available as well once they were through this. Stacking buffs in a party would be incredible in the long run, Eli figured.
"How long have we been down here?" Samantha asked. "Has to be morning by now."
"That it does," Eli muttered, stifling a yawn despite the tense situation they found themselves in. They’d lost 15 minutes, half their remaining time, just walking across the floor. "We should hurry, but I’m really going to need a nap after this."
"Ready?" Samantha asked, emulating Eli's voice. It was indeed annoying.
Eli ignored her, unequipped his staff to form a funnel with his hands in front of his mouth, shouting, "Hey!"
The ritualists didn’t turn, so Samantha simply blasted one of them in the back with a beam of light. Debuffs appeared on the ritualist and it stumbled forward, knocked off his feet by Samantha’s spell. She'd leveled it and added some new skill nodes, it seemed.
As one, the seven corrupted ritualists still standing, let down their hands and turned to face Eli and Samantha. The first one got to his feet as well, barely having lost any health at all. This was about to turn ugly.