The days seemed to blur together as we marched south. It took another three days of walking to clear the massive forest of the Kin. Beyond that were a wasteland of burned-out homes, buildings, and cars. Despite our travel time and distance, we had only just made it to Milwaukee. The city had experienced something apocalyptic, even more so than the System appearing. As very little was left standing, short of a few sections of the highway. We moved quickly around the outskirts of the urban area, keeping an eye out for any possible hostiles.
There were the occasional people, that fled at the first sight of our caravan. At first, riders were sent out to capture any survivors. When they never returned the group moved even quicker to clear the area. We were heading between two burned-out buildings along a rural road when we were ambushed
Screaming men and women poured from the structures, heedless of their own safety. At least I thought they were men and women at first. As they got closer I noticed their vacant black eyes and mouths full of razor-sharp teeth. As soon as they were close enough I used Identify.
Day Walker | Level 6
The rest appeared to be the same creature of levels between three and nine. There even appeared to be children in the mix. All were emaciated, wearing ripped and threadbare clothing.
"Filthy undead!" I heard Sharla roar as she struck out with a fireball. The spell streaked towards one of the groups of Day Walkers, exploding amongst them. It was super effective. The spell set a dozen aflame and scattered the rest from the shockwave.
"Paul, get out there and deal with the rest on that side, the rest of you fight the others."
I don't know what the woman expected. There were over twenty undead remaining in the group she ordered me to attack. I just pulled out my staff and got to work, not like I had a choice. Using imbue I tried to cast healing, light, or holy damage. Apparently, those didn't count as elements I could imbue. Oh well, they seemed to be weak versus fire, I activated that instead. The ends of my staff burned with fire as I cast the spell, Blink Stepping into the center of the group, I cast Eye of the Storm. I always wanted to see a fire tornado, just not from the inside.
The spell acted a bit differently than usual as the flames from my staff enhanced it. The air outside seemed to be sucked upward as the fire spread vertically sucking everything within the 10-meter area of the spell inside the flaming vortex of death. The heat was intense causing me to take a few points of damage every second I held the spell. I kept the pyre going for a full ten seconds burning through 250 mana, but it was worth it. With my bonus damage to undead and evil creatures with my titles, I did nearly 380 damage to all twenty before the spell cut out. This was enough to kill most of the undead. The rest died as they fell out of the sky, still on fire.
The area was deathly quiet for a few seconds before I heard laughing and clapping. Turning I saw that it was coming from Sharla.
"I knew you were something special," she said, "just magnificent, the chaos you produce is phenomenal, truly a spectacle to behold," she continued, her clapping ringing through the silence.
The rest of the caravan looked at me with either horror or quiet calculation, probably asking themselves if they could win against me.
***
Dominique eyed the newest acquisition of Sharla's. He was smart enough to fear her meteoric rise in power but that didn't mean he needed to like it. He had been assigned to her by the council, to keep her in line. Now that she had her new puppet he wasn't sure how well he could accomplish that task anymore.
He knew from watching the battle at the Bazaar that the man was a capable fighter, and the female he had cut down, had been decent as well; truly a pity that a slave could not be recollared after they escaped. She was such a lovely little thing and would have made a good concubine.
Now he had to find a way to deal with this Paul, nobody had any real clue what his class was capable of. Asking him was out of the question as he would likely tell Sharla about the query. Seeing just this small demonstration proved it was capable of a large amount of destruction. He would keep an eye on the man.
Dominique would report his findings to his bosses and let them decide what should be done about the man. As far as he was concerned the woman people started calling the Black Queen should be put in a collar as well.
Despite Sharla's status and her father's ability with the collars, they weren't among the top ranks of the Black Dragon sect, despite what anyone at the lower levels thought. Those spots were reserved for the bosses that bankrolled the sect's creation.
Sharla's father was a glorified scientist that resided at the upper level. To all those not in the loop, he was the de facto leader of the sect. Very few people within the organization knew the true hierarchy. Why lead from the top when you could lead from the shadows. Let the fools think what they wanted, for now. When the time was right the true leaders would take their place. Until then he had to keep the spoiled brat in check.
***
The caravan had finally left the Milwaukee Metro Wasteland as it had come to be called, by more than one soul within the group. Some had also called it the Soulless Lands because of all the undead that inhabited the husk of a once major city. No answer had become clear as to why the city was leveled. I heard speculation that some grand necromantic spell had been used. It didn't matter, the city was a wasteland, overrun by the undead.
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The fighting had not been all that difficult but it had become tedious towards the end, with undead of all sorts popping up to attack the warm living flesh within their group. Luckily no Crypt Lords or stronger undead showed up. Perhaps they were deeper inside the city.
Once the caravan leaders realized the undead were easy pickings we slowed to a crawl. People wanted to level, so they sent the slaves out to clear the surrounding area of the undead. I was held back for the most part because Sharla wanted to keep me near her now. She was parading me about like a shiny new toy.
'At least she wasn't beating me,' I thought.
The rest of the trip was rather uneventful. Scouting groups would be sent ahead of the column to either kill or capture whatever caught their interest. They added at least a hundred new slaves in the following three days of travel. Only once did Sharla send me out to deal with a particularly reticent person.
"Look man, I'm just doing what I'm told, I have no choice in the matter," I said, ducking a bolt of molten rock.
"You and your cronies can fuck off, I would rather die than be a slave!" the man replied savagely.
I sighed, it would be so much easier if I could just kill this man and move on, but they wanted the mage alive. Magmamancer was an advanced class and magic users, in general, were not as common as I thought they would be.
"Look dude, this is going to go down one of two ways. Either you come willingly or I beat you into submission."
I dodged another volley of molten arrows, guess I got my answer. I was chosen for this task because I could heal the man if I injured him too severely. I could wear the man down, eventually, he would run out of either stamina or mana. Looking at the strongly built, tall black man my guess was on his mana running out first.
"Fine let's just get this over with," I said, whipping out a Stunning Gust.
He reacted, throwing up a barrier made from hot stone in front of him. I used his barrier to my advantage. Casting Earth Fist on his barrier, causing it to spear out towards him. He dove to the side to avoid my attack. I finally had a reason to use my new spell, Banshee's Wail. I opened my mouth, letting out a piercing scream that made the very air shudder and warp.
The man was caught off guard by the spell and was blown backward as the wavefront slammed into him. There he lay with a glassy look in his eyes. I quickly walked over and kneeled next to the stunned man.
"Sorry dude, nothing personal," I said, clamping the slave collar around his neck. I took the opportunity to use Identify. Sharla had finally let me have access to all my status as a reward for good behavior. She still held off on my skill points but maybe if I behaved, I could earn that as well. The first thing I did was turn back on the name function. Even if I didn't know the names of the people I killed, the faces still haunted my dreams. So there was no point having it turned off.
Jamal Redford | Magmamancer | Level 10
He was surprisingly well leveled for a loner. I looked around at the area the man had been found in. Rocky ledges jutted from the ground, surrounding a two-story house. Only a small entry tunnel broke the continuous wall, a destroyed gate lying nearby. The first group to discover the odd landscape had blown open the entry, only to be set upon by Jamal here. I could still see the smoking corpses, lying under a layer of hardening rock. I wouldn't be shedding a tear for that group, they had all been Black Dragon initiates. I guess that's what they were called, I was still learning all of the minutiae of how the sect operated.
I healed the man's injuries and waited for him to awaken. It only seemed fair, instead of having him wake up to a sect member barking orders at him.
"Wha... What the hell!" Jamal said, bolting upright. Of course, he tried to cast his devastating magic on me but failed, the collar preventing him from acting without orders. A member came by a few minutes later to retrieve us. After we arrived back in camp that was the last I spoke to Jamal. The man glaring at me the entire way. I understood his anger but there wasn't anything I could do about it.
After capturing Jamal, we made quick time on the rest of the journey. I could see the familiar Chicago skyline in the distance, perhaps less than five miles away. It was nearing sunset so the scouts found a place for us to set up camp.
It was quite eerie seeing a large city devoid of light. I looked closer, realizing that wasn't entirely true. I could see a couple of areas of brightness, that I would associate with light pollution. I guessed that at least one of those was our destination.
Our camp was set up in an abandoned shopping center. Groups of guards were positioned at every entrance and even a few on the roof. I guess being this close to Chicago, they didn't want to take any chances of their enemies discovering us. I guess by default they were my enemies as well now.
Morning came fast, especially when I was allowed to sleep through the night. What little sleep I got with the constant nightmares now plaguing my rest. Sharla was busy meeting with other Black Dragon members, dealing with caravan business since we were so close to our destination.
I was left to my own devices. Not that I could do much, she had ordered me not to leave the store.
I didn't think we would be here much longer. Scouts had been sent out early in the morning to rendezvous with the main enclave. We were only waiting for the scouts to return, to know if the rest of the route was clear of enemy forces.
Since I was being left alone I might as well improve my rune crafting. It was a lot harder to find a quiet spot to work with this many people jammed into the shopping center. The woman's bathroom turned out to be the perfect hiding spot. Sure there were women in the caravan but without running water nobody used the actual bathrooms.
I slipped inside the room. The door needed to remain ajar a bit, to let some light from the main area in. It was enough to barely see by. I wanted to test something I had been thinking about since I met the Kin. The strange rune I thought wouldn't do me much good kept percolating through my thoughts. If it worked I might just have a way out of slavery.
I couldn't exactly test it on my collar though. For one it was not the same item as the older style collars. My orders also prevented me from damaging the collar. Since I didn't know if my runes would damage it, I couldn't exactly use it as a test piece. I also couldn't use the old method I employed by melting the collar down. The rune also wouldn't let me shrink out of the collar, their magic letting them fit snuggly to any size neck.
I pulled out one of the old-style collars. I had a few, given to me by Sharla in case I needed to capture more people for her. I also pulled out a scrap bit of metal to perfect the design on first.