Vey stomps on the head of the latest man to charge him, and examines the remains of the battle around him. Sheo squad has taken a few hits, so Vey is having them execute the wounded and chip in with ranged attacks rather than fighting on the front, like Vey has been. By now, though, three well timed [Acid Blast] spells and a whole lot of normal fighting in [Fog] and [Web] later, there aren’t many enemies left that aren’t horribly mutilated or rapidly dying.
Vey reaches the first corpses left by what he is assuming is Sera’s trail, three dead men at the bottom of the watchtower, and he doesn’t speculate on how she is doing right now. The pact remains, so she is alive, at least. That’s good enough for him. He orders Sheo squad to start torching all of the wooden structures, tower included, and takes off in a jog towards the sight of a few dozen soldiers moving towards the direction of the village, presumably either running away or going to try and stop Sera. Either is fine.
[Shadow Cloak] is a spell Vey decided to try out alongside his other Shadow spell of the battle, [Shadow Way]. Essentially, the cloak is like a miniature, buff variant of [Shadow Way], offering him near perfect concealment so long as it is dark enough, and decent enough concealment in dim light, such as the torchlights around the camp. Two of the soldiers at the back of the pack of running men fall to his [Cutting Hand] attacks without alerting the rest, but Vey decides not to press his luck just yet. He isn’t exactly injured, his Undead Endurance and large hp pool have seen to that, but even though his current 25 hit points are the equivalent of fifty or so for a human, Vey still feels like he’s at half health, because he is.
A moderate amount of caution in fighting in melee is still a good idea, he doesn’t have enough mp to throw out big spells all the time, after all. Only 30 mp left, in fact, is only enough for three [Acid Blast]s, only one if he also has to reapply his buffs. [Icicle Lance] or [Shadow Steel] are probably his best options for ranged combat as of now. Still, only a couple more seconds of slinking back behind the running soldiers later, he sees Sera ahead of him. Well, technically, he sees a swordswoman so coated in blood that her face and the original color of her clothes are barely visible, but close enough. The amount of blood in her hair almost makes Vey wince at the amount of work it will take to help her wash out. The trail of severed arms, hands, legs, and carved-up corpses around her are also reasonably telling that she’s been doing just fine.
Vey watches the group of men he’d been following stop at the sight of Sera, before the first woman in line charges forward with a battle cry, raising her sword to- Be immediately hacked to four pieces(hand, lower body, arm, upper body). Two more men charge in, with similar results. Vey watches in fascination at the sheer difference in speed between Sera’s ordinary strikes and the strikes that come after she cuts off a limb. It immediately clicks to Vey that the effects of a skill like Appendage Crusher probably express themselves that way, whereas Vey’s Death Blow instead expresses itself by his targets just dying regardless of their actual wounds. Two different methods of expressing the effect, Sera’s does so by giving her the speed required to make another strike, Vey’s probably just has the system mark the target as ‘dead’.
He doesn’t stay still watching her for long, and skewers a more hesitant looking male through the heart from behind. As he continues assassinating the soldiers not covered by their friends or too oblivious to notice him, his arcane sight spots something odd. Actually, the first thing he spots is that there is someone on the path leading to the village, the next thing he spots is the sight of magic, divine magic, being used by that individual. The priest, Vey decides he should be called, has a higher level aura than Sera. If Vey had to compare, his own aura is about equal to this priest’s. That is Vey’s initial impression, which quickly changes to elevate the priest to ‘stronger than me’ status in his mind, the moment he spots what his magic is doing. The priest crouches over a corpse he clearly dragged out of one of the tents, a corpse Sera only left one stab wound in, and puts his hand over the wound.
Vey can’t read lips, and can’t hear the words over the sounds of the minor battle, but he definitely can see what the magic is doing from here. A stab wound rapidly becomes a minor puncture wound, which rapidly disappears, and the definitive ‘alive’ aura returns to the lifeless corpse shortly afterwards. The returning aura is of comparable strength to Vey’s, so he assumes the formerly dead man is a companion to this priest. Still, that priest just reversed death. At the very least, with that amount of aura, and the complexity of a spell like that… Vey doesn’t have the ability to shiver, but he’s certain he would be if he did.
He turns to Sera, who is still clearly winning her various repeated duels with what Vey is beginning to think of as ‘cannon fodder’ for the more capable priest and his cohort to get ready for a battle. Vey looks back at the two enemies stronger than himself, and dashes into the midst of the melee.
“Sera! Two strong enemies, entrance. Stronger than me. We’re running!” He abbreviates his intentions as much as possible as a terrified looking elf tries to strike at him with an axe and is promptly eviscerated for the trouble.
Vey watches Sera’s head turn to the direction of the priest and what is now more obviously a thief, and one Sera’s expression clearly shows she recognizes she already killed once, and she nods to Vey while taking a step back. Vey stands next to her as he scans the remaining fodder soldiers, only three left uninjured, all too hesitant to approach, and the last one actually fighting Sera kills quickly enough that Vey doesn’t even get a chance to. He looks up to the priest, and weighs the situation. Mentally, he commands Sheo squad to start running towards the forest, setting fires as they go, and then takes a step back. Judging from the amount of carnage behind him in this direction, the path Sera took to get here is probably completely clear of enemies, meaning an easy path to run. He tries to weigh the likelihood of the priest and thief chasing them, and the likelihood of successfully running away, and comes to the conclusion that he probably could run, but Sera probably can’t if they decide to chase. The priest jogs forward, and Vey turns to tell Sera to start running, but his thoughts are interrupted by the priest’s voice.
“So I revive your father for you using the God of Life’s gifts, and this is the thanks he and I get, Sera? You butchering innocent soldiers while serving the will of a member of the undead?” The priest’s vitriolic voice is somewhat chilling to Vey. Moreso the fact that he is a priest of life, and thus Vey’s, or any undead’s for that matter, natural enemy. A veritable onslaught of realizations occur almost simultaneously afterward. Sera is an undead now, in the priest’s eyes, and the moment he realizes it, he’ll probably stop talking and start trying to kill them both.
“So you weren’t lying about being a high level cleric. Anyways, Saxt, me and my bondmate will be leaving now.” Sera manages a calm retort, which shocks Vey a little, but the feeling of Sera’s free hand grabbing one of his own calms him enough to respond.
“Sera, he might let you run, but he won’t let me.” Vey calmly tries to bluff both Sera and the priest apparently named Saxt, but it seems neither of them are susceptible.
“Vey, I’m not leaving you to fight someone you say is stronger than you.” Sera’s response is first, and she lets go of his hand and grips her sword in both hands.
“You’re an intelligent undead… but you think I’m stronger than you are… Ah! I get it! You’re the reason that scumbag undeath priest bought a scroll of [Awaken] from the church a week before he kidnapped Sera. And pactbond, you said…” Saxt looks thoughtfully at Vey, and puts a hand on his chin, before grinning. The grin comes at the same moment Vey realizes he’d completely forgotten the thief, and he turns to his right-
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
Just barely in time to dodge a dagger thrusting towards his skull, but the brief imbalance in his footing required to dodge leaves him vulnerable to the thief’s second weapon, a shortsword, which comes down on Vey’s ribs with a crack. Vey lashes out with a kick towards the thief, which succeeds in giving him enough space to get his footing back. The thief is also quickly forced to make a dodge for his life, as judging from the look on his face, he didn’t expect Sera, or her sword, for that matter, to move so swiftly.
“So you stab people in their sleep, and you’re a monster with a sword now, really Sera?” The thief taunts as he barely manages to avoid losing his left arm. Vey turns to where Saxt had been standing, and then has to swivel his head around some more to spot his charge towards Vey.
Vey turns while waving his arm in an arc, launching an [Icicle Lance] spell at the charging cleric. Rapidly, a twenty pound cylindrical rod of ice with a prominent spike forms, and then launches at the man. The cleric, to his credit, doesn’t even slow down, just takes a step to the side to avoid being skewered. A step to the side which breaks his momentum, and gives Vey enough time to reset his footing.
“She also hacks them to shreds if they’re awake! And the skeleton here is a caster, apparently.” Saxt announces as he regains his footing as well. Vey tries to cast another spell before the man has time to do so himself, but is just a moment too slow. “[Disrupt Undead]!”
“Overcast [Shadow Steel]!” Vey manages to cast his counter as he spots the bolt of positive energy only visible via arcane sight starts flying towards him. He doesn’t have time to dodge, and instead braces for what he knows is probably going to be a fairly large amount of damage. Vey hopes it won’t kill him, since he is in the area of magic resistance Sera’s Foreverqueen’s Shroud has, but is also fully prepared for the possibility that this is just the end for him.
Instead, the invisible bolt hits him in the ribs, and does… nothing. If Vey could blink, he would be doing so, because he expected something to happen. Even if it was taking twenty plus damage, something should’ve just happened, but didn’t. He looks up at Saxt, who just barely manages to only lose a fair amount of flesh from his chest, as opposed to his life, from the claw of solidified shadow Vey had launched at him.
“[Undeath to Death]!” Saxt shouts another spell, and holds out both hands, palms facing Vey, while sitting on his left knee. “Die! Wait…”
A veritable wave of positive energy launches towards Vey, and once again, he mentally prepares himself to just die in the face of divine magic. But once more, nothing happens. Vey looks down at his own body, expected to find his ribs or arms gone, or something. He checks his status, nothing. The once intense battle between casters, swordswoman, and thief now completely stopped as every single one of them, Vey included, stare at the skeleton.
“... I should be dead.” Vey somewhat grimly concludes, and everyone, even Sera, nods their heads in agreement. “What… Priest, why did that magic not kill me?”
Saxt just stares back at Vey for a moment, and looks as though he might actually answer, when the two casters’ moment is interrupted by a scream being cut short. Vey turns, and sees the source immediately. The thief and Sera, who were also distracted, decided to go back to fighting. Unfortunately for the thief, but very fortunately for Sera, elves tend to react faster than humans, generally speaking, and his scream comes from the arm he lost to that difference in racial predisposition. His scream is cut short by Sera’s second strike, which ends his scream in the simplest way possible; Removing the head. Even with Vey and Saxt’s minor shock at the abject confusion caused by Vey’s own continued survival, both manage to turn to try and continue their duel. Vey to try and capture the priest for answers, Saxt to try and kill the two of them in time to use that little revival trick again.
Neither is fast enough to cast another spell before something else stops them from going at it again. For Vey, it is the realization that he has 3 mp, and thus zero actual combat spells he can cast. For Saxt, it is the realization that when he attempts to use Turn Undead, the skeleton isn’t even a potential target, but Sera is. These two simultaneous brief pauses are just that, brief, as Saxt immediately takes a step back and tries a different tactic.
“[Light of-”
“TOO SLOW!” Vey’s old grating tone comes back in force as he lunges forward, putting every bit of effort he can into being as intimidating as possible. He balls his left claw into a fist, intending to use a Slam attack to knock out the cleric without killing him.
Saxt crosses his arms, abandoning his spell in favor of blocking, and lets out a pained cry as every bone in his upper arms and hands break at once from the impact. The second Slam hits him in the abdomen, knocking out his breath, and prompting him to go for a desperation tactic on instinct.
Vey sees magical energy well in Saxt’s core, and takes a step back, waving a hand for Sera to do the same, but nothing comes of it. At least, nothing noticeable comes of it. Saxt, though, stands up, pushing himself off of the ground with his bones still broken, and the well of magic still in his core.
“Spell’s called [Death Throes], f’I die, it’s pretty much like a [Fireball] spell that doesn’t care what you’re weak or resistant too. Got it? Give me Holden’s body, and we can both run aw-” Saxt immediately drops his attempt at intimidation and bartering at the same time Vey hears a splat and crunch from behind him. He turns, slowly, and spots Sera’s boot planted firmly in the spot the thief’s head was in a moment ago, surrounded by little bits of flesh, blood, brainmatter, and skull fragments. Vey turns back to face Saxt, and takes a step backwards towards Sera.
“Why doesn’t your magic work on me, one last time?” Vey tries to ask while the priest is still too stunned by what he just saw to respond. Vey sees the look in his eyes, and equates it with the looks some of the men he killed with [Acid Blast] had as they melted. Vey realizes that whoever ‘Saxt’ was before that moment is probably gone, and makes a single judgment, purely for the sake of his and Sera’s safety. He notes one point of mana regenerating, and waits a couple seconds for it to finally be usable before he speaks again. “Sera, we’re running now. [Acid Arrow].”
--
Level and Hit Die:
10, 10
Current HP/MHP
[System Error-Deceased; Slain By Individual Vey]
Armor Class
10
MP
19/94 +20 exclusively for Life Domain spells
Class:
Cleric(Life)
Name:
Saxt Coreblood
Race:
Human
Subrace:
None
Age:
45
Alignment:
Neutral Good
Height
6’0 ft
Attributes:
MHP
STR
CON
DEX
INT
WIS
CHA
SPD
LCK
NAC
Base:
83
10
12
10
11
14
13
30ft
4
10
Race:
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
Training:
0
2
0
2
0
0
0
0
0
0
Study:
0
NA
NA
NA
2
4
0
NA
NA
NA
Total:
83
12
12
12
13
18
13
30ft
4
10