I flared every single aura I had, every combat ability. The lich was unfazed. Not only {Royal Aura} had no effect, neither had {Eldritch Presence} nor {Shining Horn} did anything to him. The guy was Royalty and had over a hundred points in both Ego and Magic. The {Manastorm}, however, made him reminisce.
He clacked his teeth and spoke as if reminiscing old times. "{Manastorm} with a purifying element. How nostalgic. I didn't take you for a [Sorcerer]." I had a smirk, waiting for him to start burning. It didn't happen. He cackled and explained, to my surprise. "A {Manastorm} is just astral weather, a mild drizzle at that. I can endure such weak effect indefinitely."
The other undead in the range of the {Manastorm} were falling apart as we fought.
The first time he cast a spell to take over my mind, he was so fast I didn't see the magic circle. Now that I expected it, I kept {Arcane Imprints} active. He was a [Wizard] but had the same casting speed of a very imaginative [Sorcerer]. Worse, he noticed the imprints as he cast. I countered the spells with {Ethereal Counterspell}.
"Interesting. You have some control over the astral plane," he mumbled as he swatted the imprints like flies, breaking them. "You are quite the resourceful child."
I tried to stab him but he dodged fluidly between my spear attacks. Then he would retaliate with instantaneous spells Marlowe would've taken seconds to cast. The only thing delaying him was that he broke the imprints right after casting the spell, not giving me a chance to study them, focused on countering his magic and attacking as I was.
She mentally pouted but it was for the best. Nenandil was strong but this was a clash between two ancient and eldritch creatures. My greatest fear was that something could separate us like the Empress and the fairy slave collars. As far as I cared, she was grounded.
We kept the back-and-forth of stabbing, dodging, casting, and counterspelling for the better part of an hour. My [Spear] proficiency skyrocketed. Weapon proficiencies developed four times as fast for me, and I still had the rapid-growth portion of my training to do. This didn't go unnoticed by the lich.
"Interesting. You are getting better with your chosen weapon. I must take offense at being used as a training dummy."
"I might keep you alive then. I have lots of weapons to train with."
His MP barely dipped. I couldn't see the actual value but could sense the percentage. So far he'd used less than twelve percent of his reserves, while I was already half empty. He'd managed to pierce my mental defenses twice, each time eating five minutes of my rage. Since I wasn't dealing or taking critical hits (in fact I still had to land a single blow), that settled my decision as to what to do with the two free abilities for [Spellcaster].
* Counterspell: Reduce the cost of counterspelling by (Proficiency/10)%
* Counterspell Mastery: Add (Proficiency/10) to your Mind checks to counterspell.
He landed another spell while I fiddled with the menus. But the effects were screaming for themselves. The cost went down by 53% and I now had that many more points to my checks. Countering his magic became much easier all of a sudden.
"You are an interesting specimen," he remarked, as unphased as an XVIII century British explorer, "I might reanimate your body as one of my lieutenants."
"I'm flattered. I might keep your soul around to learn magic from you after you're dead."
I kept stabbing at him, not hitting once but keeping the pressure and increasing my speed. Then I paused to buy some [Spear] abilities. It'd reached 150.
* Quick Strikes: increase attack speed by (Proficiency/5)%
* Distracting Sweeps: Spellcasters under attack cast (Proficiency/10)% slower.
* Mage Killer: Spellcasters under attack must spend (Proficiency/5)% more resources.
* Cornering Attacks: You stagger opponents who dodge for (Proficiency/2000) seconds.
That took the grin out of those bleached teeth. Not really, he didn't have cheeks or lips but I could tell the lich was pissed. That's when I realized he was toying with me. Was.
His magic circles became too complex and enlarged. He raised shields and started to rain down every single element under the sky to probe at my weaknesses. He settled for Light magic even though part of it healed me. He tried Darkness but the light from my horn and spear naturally hindered that element.
"What are you made of, woman?" He roared, enraged. It wasn't that his shadow spears, spikes protruding from the walls and floor weren't doing damage, but I regenerated a quarter-million HP every second.
"Flesh, blood, bones, and unicorn horn. What did you expect?" I pointed down. Where his offensive magic hit me, my blood sizzled against the blight-covered catacomb floor. Small plumes of smoke rose from the hissing blood.
"Gah!" He stopped with the banter as he focused on raining doom on me. To cast faster, he gave up on breaking the imprints but they were so numerous that they overlapped, creating a jumbled mess in the Ethereal.
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I gave up on counterspelling. He wasn't using mental attacks and I had my rage as a shield for that. Instead, I placed some Force barriers around to deflect a few of the Light spells. The small bolts of Arcane magic that shot automatically from {Eldritch Retribution} were all deflected by last-minute Force barriers, like the enchantment on Adyra's robes. His MP now was about half-full. I didn't give up pressuring him and my spear danced around as he dodged effortlessly.
My [Evasion] proficiency also rose. I picked two abilities.
* Evade Magic: add (Proficiency/5)% to evasion rate against spells.
* Barely Dodged: If you fail to evade, reduce damage taken by (Proficiency/20)%
His spells hit less often and did less damage. He was well aware of that. "You are the most annoying creature I've ever seen!"
"The Gods all agree with you," I teased back and used the pause our banter created to pick another [Spear] ability.
* Shaft Twist: Dodging your attacks is (Proficiency/5)% harder.
The flames in his eye sockets flared. They were now licking outside the orbits and climbing up his forehead. I felt tired. For how many hours have we danced in these corridors? The heavy blight was already gone, my {Truesilver Blood} leaving dots on the floor. It was them that made me notice the lich was inching backward with each dodge. Was he baiting me somewhere?
> Champion's Challenge
>
> Contested Willpower test failed.
>
> Contested Ego test won.
He froze on his bony heels and stared. That allowed me to connect my first blow in hours of combat. I sang a high D with {Acapella} for a hundred extra Strength and added everything I could. Since he probably killed the pegasi to make his cloak, I added {Avenger Strike} to the mix.
> You struck lich for 892,380 HP and MP (arcane rend) of damage (Base 33 x5,52 Strength x4.2 Skill x3 Mana Strike x3 Champion x3 Arcane Smite x2 blood sacrifice x2 favored enemy x4 Unicorn x3 Avenger Strike x2 Truesilver x2 Blink Slash x3 Flash step x0.5 Resilience of the Dead (reduced) x0.75 Hardened bones x0.2 Force Sheath).
The undead [Wizard] screamed in pain. The damage allowed me to estimate his MP pool. Thirty million and he had less than ten left. His HP was around five million. Still shouting at me with all the hatred in the world, one of his rings shattered. A massive cone of Arcane magic blew me away from him, dealing around twenty million HP of damage after all my defenses and bashing me against the far wall of the tunnel, hundreds of meters away. It also stunned me for 7 seconds, the longest I've ever been in a long time.
"What a wuss," I shook my head after I came back to my senses. "A scratch and he reacts like that?" I mocked him while I did a little dance, "A {Manastorm} is just astral weather, a mild drizzle at that."
"Asshole," I spat down. Time to get serious. I should've finished him, but my spear didn't deal decent damage. 4d20+10 and I roll a 33 [1]? Fuck that! I pulled the menu for [Spears] and spent another two abilities.
* Sharpness: Add (Proficiency/5) to base damage.
* Master: Deal (Proficiency/50) extra d20 damage.
At 160 proficiency, that increased my spear base damage to 7d20+42. Buying {Master} (the equivalent of Skill level 50 before this latest patch) also opened up some interesting maneuvers.
* Triple stab: Summon (Proficiency/100) extra phantom spears for 100 MP per extra spear for 1 attack. Roll to hit separately for each.
Then I opened [Mental Mastery] and checked to see if there was something to defend against mages. I didn't find anything to fight against the lich but two abilities drew my attention for two reasons. Their value against mind-benders, and the names.
* Intellect Fortress I: Mind readers gleam (Proficiency/15)% less information from your mind.
* Tower of Iron Will I: Even if you are mind-controlled, you retain (Proficiency/15)% of your consciousness.
* Intellect Fortress II: Mind readers gleam (Proficiency/12)% less information from your mind.
* Tower of Iron Will II: Even if you are mind-controlled, you retain (Proficiency/12)% of your consciousness.
These two ranked abilities cost me two ability slots each, but they reeked of nostalgia [2].
I had healed completely. Using a bit of Fire magic, I burned the blood and fur I'd lost from the impact and raced back to re-engage the lich. While I galloped through the catacombs straight tunnel, I bought two other abilities for [Physical Mastery]
* Perfect Endurance: Gain (Proficiency/50) Endurance.
* Perfect Agility: Gain (Proficiency/50) Dexterity.
That gave me ten extra points on each Attribute. Among other things, it added fifty thousand more HP recovered per second.
The lich was slowly coming my way. I could sense his cloak and him with my detection Perks. I was tired. My rage uses per day had refreshed, meaning it was already the next day after we started fighting. Thinking of what more I could add, I shapeshifted my lower body into a horse's, getting another twelve points to each physical Attribute.
"You still live!" The lich shouted. As I approached, I saw a ginormous magic circle. Then he used the same spell I did when I killed the God of Flagpoles. "Sun Beam!"
As the spell started to burn me, I slipped into the Ethereal, using {Ethereal Skip} to make it instant. This Perk had a 1-minute cooldown but I could use other abilities to shift back and forth. The fucker burned me for fifty-something million HP of damage.
Then I had another headache. I killed that God underwater, but WHY was he there? He... Did I lure him? Damn, another memory blank. I had no idea what hurt more, the loss of more than five-eights of my HP with a sizeable chunk of my body and skin or the splitting pain of trying to skirt around the edges of the missing memory. Was it there that acquired the ability that eventually led to the destruction of Pekothas? There was something else in the depths of the ocean. A blank.
I tried to remember things before and after killing the God. I remember meeting Bit, the gigantic sea urchin guardian. I remember giving him the deity's Core and him ascending as the new God of monsters. Everything in between except me using Sun Beam to kill that stupid cockatrice summoner was blank and painful to think of.
I paused to rest and let half of my brain sleep. I used a low-powered {Healing Water} spell to speed up the recovery but saving on my Energy. I borrowed some MP from Nenandil since she was grounded. Pandora helped with her {Truesilver Blood} aspect.
That's when I saw a rift open between the Ethereal and Material worlds. it was different from mine, looked like those oval glowing portals with well-defined edges. The lich stepped through, fully recovered.
"You are full of surprises and secrets, my little unicorn," the lich gloated. "And all of them will be mine!"
Round two of our fight was just starting.
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[1] MDW: I use Anydice.com to roll the damage.
[2] They're named after D&D psionic defense powers.