"My name is Tim, Tim Harland." The guard said wincing as he watched my horse bite me. "Feisty one you have there."
"No," I grumbled, "those monsters and I just don't get on."
I limped over to him, I cast Lesser Regeneration on myself and the pain began to fade. I'd only picked up the spell a few months ago but it had been a go to spell for taking the sting out of cuts. I was looking forward to levelling it and hopefully evolving it.
"Well follow me, can't keep the captain waiting." Tim said, he turned and walked into the camp.
We followed him and I looked around the camp. There was a sea of white tents and wooden boards that were being used as walkways through the mud. They had been here for less than a day but either side of the walkways was deep churned earth from the stampeding goblin horde. The mood of the soldiers we passed was grim, the loss of their comrades in the war was still fresh, however there were still pockets of joy as I spotted a few guards drinking around a fire.
We weaved through the sea of tents crossing from one walkway to another, I realise that this was purposefully done. If I was infiltrating the camp there would be more chances to be spotted or get lost before I came across something important. Eventually we came across a yellow tent that had 4 guards standing outside of it, Tim walked right past them into the tent without waiting and we rushed to follow him.
As I entered the tent I felt a tingle run over my body, I looked up to see that the small 4x4 tent was more like a large hall. Tables were arranged all around the interior with maps and boards showing sections of Mountain Guard, some of the maps had red sections and others were covered in green. There were fewer people in the interior than it was set up for. 5 people stood around a table looking over a map, in a space that could hold 50 people at least, I felt a pang in my chest seeing the Marines in such a bad way. We caught up with Tim and lined up in the order we usually did when negotiating a quest reward from a tricky client, aka Raven leading with Harold a few steps behind her.
“Captain, the adventures have arrived.” Tim said, saluting to the group.
The group looked up and I saw a middle aged elven man sigh. He looked tired and he had a bandage that was wrapped around his chest.
“Great.” He said unenthusiastically. “Well met, how can we help you?”
“Thank you for seeing us Captain, my name is Raven and I speak on behalf of The Wanderers.” Raven said nodding to him, she passed the scroll the King had given Harold. “We were asked to give you these on our way through the city.”
Tim took the scroll from Raven and placed it on the table, the Captain took a step back and the table glowed for a few seconds before a golden light flashed, he stepped forwards and opened the scroll. We all stood in silence for a few minutes while he read the scroll, I saw his frown deepen as he read further and further down. Eventually he finished reading them and looked up at us.
“We are not escorting you through the city at night under any circumstance. I don’t care if the necromancer is camping at the gate on the other side of the city, you will not get help from us.” The captain said flatly.
“Agreed.” Raven said quickly, “We have no intention of going into the city tonight, we have spent all day riding and it was understood the undead still roam the city in places.” I saw the captain grit his teeth and Raven was too sharp not to notice either. “This is not a judgement on your skills or capabilities captain, to the contrary, the fact that the king has entrusted you to escort us at a time like this shows his belief in you and your command.”
I did my best to hide my grimace, she was laying it on a little too thick and I thought that he was about to shout at her but instead he sighed heavily, sat down and tossed the scroll onto the table.
“Please try not to get my men killed, we lost too many in the war, this is some of the last of the Royal Marines.”
“Please rest easy, we do not intend to rush. We want to spend the night talking with you before trying to make our way through during the day. We would like to know everything about what is in the city and the threats we will face in passing through.” Raven replied.
And thus started a 4 hour planning session. It was super boring, I saw 2 of the captain's men leave the tent to go to bed. I felt my jealousy rise about their ability to leave.
The highlight of the meeting were the monsters that were roaming the city, which included various oozes including blood, faecal and poison, all around level 15. Packs of wandering ghouls, skeleton warriors that were around level 25 roamed in packs of 5 and they occasionally had an archer with them. A few goblins had been spotted in one of the buildings, but they had run away when the soldiers chased them. More worryingly a shade had attacked them last night during a patrol.
“A shade?” Taylor asked. “But it takes lots of…” They trailed off as they realised the implications.
Shades require a lot of death, like the slaughter of an entire city’s worth of people. I wouldn’t be surprised if there wasn’t more than one, my Soul Reaper class gave me a little more insight into monsters like shades.
“Shades are nasty creatures, they are born of death and suffering. They replicate from killing the living and feeding on their soul. They are a type of monster called a soul stealer and should not be taken lightly.” I said darkly, Taylor nodded pale faced.
“Be that as it may, there is no way for us to kill them without suffering massive casualties.” The captain said. “They are the main reason why we stay out of the city at night, goblin ambushes are bad enough and the skeletons are strong but the shades are the worst.”
They went back to talking about routes cleared and effective combat tactics in the streets. I took a few steps back and saw Harold glance at me, I froze in place and smiled helplessly. Harold nodded slightly and I let out a breath I didn’t realise I was holding.
I slowly walked backwards till I felt the fabric of the tent. I crouched down low and felt my stealth skill activate, then I activated Man on the Job but stopped the shrouding aura from billowing out. Next I stood up and activated Right Clothes for the Job, I was slowly covered in pitch black robes as they seemed to fade into existence, I felt the hood slide over my head and cover my face in shadow. I always thought it looked cool as fuck but everyone I showed it to said it looked like I was turning into a dungeon boss.
Slowly I walked over to the entrance to the tent, the flap was slightly open after the last sergeant left. I listened intently for a few seconds to make sure that no one was about to enter, then I got down on my stomach and wiggled like a worm, to pass through the gap in the tent flap. I must admit it's not the stupidest thing I've done to move unnoticed but it was sure up there.
I stood back up and checked to see if I had been noticed. So far so good. I froze when I saw 4 guards standing 5 feet from me, luckily they weren’t looking at me but I now had to sneak past them. I took a second and took a deep breath before slowly walking away from them. I felt their gazes look towards me but whatever detect invisibility spell or skill they were using couldn’t beat Man on the Job. They never spotted me and I disappeared into the maze of tents that was the camp.
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It may have taken longer than I wanted to get out of the tent maze but I did eventually, sadly I had been turned around and was on the wrong side of the camp, so I decided to walk back to the road rather than going through the camp again.
I walked towards the city, I could feel my trepidation rise as I got closer to the broken gate. I passed through the walls and came out into a large plaza, there were 2 large bonfires that had piles of dead bodies next to them. The thankless task of clearing the city had already been started by the Marines. I turned my head away and got back to my task.
I cast detect life and I felt my awareness expand, it felt like my whole world lit up with light as the spell reported back every living thing. I slowly filtered out the irrelevant detections for things like bushes, grass, worms and flies. Slowly my world dimmed down as the detection registered far fewer life signs. Then I cast detect evil. My focus flickered and I felt as if 2 realities were trying to exist at one time but then the spell activated and a few red lights appeared in my expanded senses.
It had taken me a long time to get 2 different extra sensory spells working together without fusing them permanently, it had been a game changer when I first managed to work it out. Now I could sense evil creatures like the shades and not get mixed up and run into a pack of ghouls by accident. I began walking through the city in hunt of my prey.
I say hunt but it was more like wandering to a cross section, checking my senses and searching for any signs of evil without life signs. It was a pretty relaxed task after my first jump scare with some skeleton archers that appeared from around a corner. I let the shroud from Man On the Job flare out 10 feet around me and they shied away, tonight was not a skeleton hunt. Nothing really wanted to fight something that felt like death incarnate.
The first evil signature I followed was a false positive. I found a group of 3 skeleton soldiers, they were wandering the street. The skeletons were of humanoid origin, two of them looked like humans but the third was a little bit taller and had a slimmer bone structure than the others, it had to be elven. I was about to use Etheric Step to teleport to the middle of them but I decided against it, without Touch of the Reaper it was an unnecessary risk.
The first shade I found wasn't too far from the broken gate. The evil signature brought me to a large building, the front of it was broken and the street was covered in bits of wood, stone and glass. Entering the building was a little difficult as the front entrance was blocked off by the rubble. I decided to climbed up some of the rubble and entered through what looked like the gents' loos on the first floor.
The building turned out to be a theatre and I found myself walking around a bar area. I peeked behind the bar but all the alcohol was gone. I made my way around the wreckage of the room, there were broken bits of furniture everywhere, broken weapons lay discarded among the bodies. It looked like the bar room was the scene of a last stand. The doors still had a few tables and chairs pressed up against it, however the large hole in the barricade defeated the purpose. There weren't just humanoid bodies either, there were lots of goblin bodies and even a few hobgoblin bodies along with some piles of bones.
I checked the soul lantern, which had now become a figurehead on the end of my scythe, it was not glowing to indicate wayward souls. I chewed my lip, that was worrying. If the shade had gorged itself on the souls of the dead it would be stronger than normal, a lot stronger.
I left the bar area and continued through the destruction the goblins had wrought. I found my way into the seating area above the main stage through a smashed barricade. The place was a mess but it was more intact than some of the other rooms I had seen on my way here. The stage was empty except for the corpse of a small child and the shade hovering over it.
The shade was everything that your mind pictured when you were told to think of an evil shadow that kills people. It had a semi corporeal form, the shadows that it was composed of were thicker and darker. It had extra long arms and the backs of its hands rested on the wooden floor, each finger looked like a dagger. It was hard to see much more of the creature as it was hunched over. I silently cast Identification on it.
Name: Shade
Level 15
Type: common
Description: A monster born of death and despair, this creature has gained strength through devouring the wayward souls near its birth place. This highly aggressive monster will attack any living creature it senses.
Health: 1500/1500
Mana: 200/200
Effects: immune to non-magical attacks
I took a deep breath and began to hype myself up for the fight. I could do this, I could use all my class abilities as well since it was considered a dangerous creature to souls. I had fought shades before, maybe not as strong as this one but I knew how to do it.
Confident in my abilities to keep myself hidden, I walked down to the edge of the balcony and across to the staff stairs. The small set of stairs went all the way up to the 3rd floor but more importantly, down to the ground floor. I put my stealth skill to the test and pushed its limit as I made my way down the stairs. I managed to find almost every loose stair and creaky board. However not once did I feel my skill break, I knew I was on the verge of evolving the skill.
I made my way down the main aisle towards the stage, I held my staff and the blade snapped into existence. The shade sensed the danger I suddenly presented and turned to look directly at me. It let out a rasping screech before lunging at my shadow. I let it fly towards me before using Etheric Step to move 5 feet to the left. I brought my scythe slashing across the shade as it flew past, it screeched in pain and I saw my lantern light up. The leaking shadows were drawn into the lantern, the shade saw this as well and screeched even louder.
The shade lunged again but it flew faster at me than before. I ducked under the corporeal form of the monster but it passed over my shadow and slipped into it. I rolled to my feet as it attacked, my whole body turned ethereal for a second as a claw slashed at me from my shadow. The second claw cut my arm causing me to fail casting my Light spell i had just begun. I winced as the pain hit me, I refocused and began casting Light again. The stage was suddenly bathed in dark blue light, it nullified shadow magic and the shade was forced out of my shadow. As it appeared my scythe was already cutting through it, it staggered backwards only to be caught by my follow up swing.
The shade rolled backwards at an impossible angle to avoid the third downward strike that should have killed it. It got back to its feet and locked onto my form, it was about to scream when my scythe smashed down through its head, it cleaved through the shadow until it hit the ground with a thunk. The shade started to fall apart but I saw some tendrils of shadow try to pull the two halves back together. I thrust the soul lantern end of my staff in between the halves, it began to glow softly and sucked all of the shade into itself.
I looked at the lantern worriedly for a minute, some notifications popped up but I ignored them concentrating on the lantern. I could sense a struggle going on within the lantern, it was trying to cleanse the corruption from the souls the shade consumed. For a while it felt like it was beyond what the lantern was capable of, however eventually I felt a change and the lantern began to slowly cleanse the corruption and I felt the lantern gain the consumed souls.
I sighed and took a minute to look through my extended senses again, it didn't seem like the fight had attracted any attention, or more likely, it had scared off everything around.
That meant I could take a minute to look through my notifications.
You have slain a Shade, as this creature is recognised by your class as a foe, you do not receive any penalties. You have earned 50xp.
New quest gained.
Quest: Things that go bump in the night.
Type: Unique, personalised, MANDATORY
Description: Shades have been reported in the ruins of Mountain Guard and you have found this to be true. Shades are evil creatures that feed off of wayward souls, as a Soul Reaper responsible for protecting wayward souls, you are tasked with showing the Shades not all things go bump equally in the night. Kill all the shades in the ruins.
Reward: *class restrictions met* class experience. Unknown.
There were some damage notifications that showed the shade had acidic cuts which was odd, other than that, it was just the annoying mandatory quest. Sure I was going to do it anyway and the class experience was surprisingly good, but it was a bit condescending.
Regardless, I let the blade of my scythe fade away as I made my way out of the theatre and back into the city again.