There were five people awake in Valonthi’s camp—Valonthi and his two companions, and two more people having conversation as they faced toward the bridge. We approached, invisible, and I tried to use my mage’s sense to pick out any traps they might’ve set, but found none. It was almost too stupid to be believed. Surely they had mages? Surely their mages had taken Rune Trap Spell? These had a group of known enemies camped across the river from them—and yet they were playing so badly. I kept wracking my brain to figure out how this could be a trap, but I couldn’t figure out how tricking us by goading us into attacking them was a better strategy for these people than just running away.
So I we crept as close as we needed to be to Valothi and his two companions. As we did so, I loaded up on spells—A Fragmented Intuitive Twin Doublecharged Implosive Missile and four castings of Hex of Chains that I invested in myself.
I’ll take those two at the end first, I said. Then Valonthi’s two companions. You get Valonthi.
Sounds good!
I walked quietly into the midst of the camp, then began to cast a second Intuitive Twin Doublecharged Implosive Missile—now aimed at the two facing the bridge. The cast time was agonizingly slow at more than 400% of base, but it didn’t matter—nobody knew we were here.
I loosed my first spell, and two missiles zipped through the air between me and my two targets, struck them both simultaneously—and critically hit them for 1900 damage each, crushing the two level tens like pop cans.
The missiles made a loud boom as they imploded, two bursts of sound that were each undercut by the quieter noise of a breaking body, and people in the tents around me began to stir even as I whirled to loose my fragmented spell at Valonthi’s two conversation partners—who also simply collapsed in on themselves, too distracted by Varothi’s sudden, Cuby-related convulsions to use defensive abilities and too low-health to survive even a single hit.
I threw a Hex of Chains at Valonthi. Cuby had begun vigorously stabbing him, the invisibility granting her so much added precision that all her attacks were critical hits even on another chosen. The Hex of Chains struck an already-blind Valonthi, and he used an ability that looked like Rousing Command to free himself a moment later.
I jumped, using Mighty Leap to move away from the place where I’d obviously thrown the missiles, landing in the grass near the first two people I’d killed. I used Intuitive Spell to cancel the oral components of a Fragmented Twin Supercharged Implosive Missile, casting this as I watched with a full view of their camp.
Valonthi used his own Mighty Leap to get away, casting a Charm of Gliding at his utmost height—but Cuby used her warrior’s Impaling Grasp to pull him back toward her, then knocked him to the ground and finished him off with a few attacks. A heal went off—whether it was his or an ally’s I couldn’t say—but it was mitigated by her Vilefire Strike, and ultimately did nothing to change his fate.
For killing a mass murderer, you receive 36 Virtue Points.
Congratulations, you are now a level 16 Hierarch/Psychic!
You have a new Spell Slot. Open your Abilities pane to choose a new Spell.
You have a new Spell Slot. Open your Abilities pane to choose a new Spell.
Your Hit Points have increased by 85 and your Energy has increased by 120.
Human Adaptability increases each of your Strength, Agility, Focus, and Spirit by 2. You gain 2 stat points to distribute.
Then I watched the rest of the camp wake up. To their credit, they did it in about the same speed that Hallah’s had, despite being so undisciplined. But doubtless some of them could see through their ui that their members were dying or dead, and panic was adding to their sense of urgency.
Cuby was efficient, moving to the closest tent and laying into the helpless player there with gusto, her swords flashing as they moved gracelessly, hacking away at her target’s health. For my own part, I threw a Hex of Chains at the first person to rise and start running away, then killed them—along with the next person to rise—a moment later with my twin missile.
Confusion ruled them as everyone scrambled out of their bedrolls. They would rise, search around for their attacker, then freeze when they saw none. Uncertain of which way to run, one of them ran almost right toward me before I killed him—and another of their allies—with my second twin missile.
Out of the initial twenty enemies, we’d killed twelve by the time they were all out of their beds—and at this point they began to run in seemingly every direction. I ran out of stored chains, and Cuby ran out of helpless targets a moment later—but this wasn’t any trouble for us. I cast a Haste on Cuby, and she glided after the fastest fleeing enemies, the ones who had Mighty Leap and Charm of Gliding. Then I let Brandon fly around above them, investing him with the deadly missiles as he scoped out stragglers. Even defensive abilities seemed to have no effect in stopping our superior, high-level precision—Moments of Mastery and Spectacular Acrobatics seemed to only result in characters leaping into the air or twisting in place right before they died, their granted defense rating enough to stop a crit, but not enough to cancel the hit. Hallah joined us too, coming down from her hiding place on the mountain to kill a single player that was trying to escape in her direction.
It took much longer to chase down the second half than it did to kill the first, but we were still finished the whole ordeal within a minute. Cuby had a ways to walk back, and I sat on a stone in the center of their camp and waited for her to return, Brandon landing on the peak of a nearby tent. I glanced at my system messages—some of them described a virtue reward for killing a murderer, but many messages told me that I had gained 6 vice points for killing in cold blood.
“So it goes,” I muttered.
I kept glancing at a nearby body—a woman that Cuby had taken care of while she’d still be lying on her bedroll by slashing open her throat. It was hardly a less disturbing sight than the people I’d killed by Valonthi: divine damage didn’t turn people into dissipating embers like it did demons. Instead it just burnt out their eyes, in addition to the pulverization that the normal spell had done.
You’re not even killing them, I told myself. You’re just sending them away. Away, to a nice farm someplace on Solarius.
I heard footsteps, but looked up only to see Hallah, not Cuby. She looked at the body I’d been staring at, then back at me. Her gaze lingered until she was practically staring at me.
“Thanks,” she said at last.
“Yeah,” I said, looking around at the bodies and thinking that if we hadn’t done this, a lot of people might have actually died. “You’re welcome.”
I brought up my adventuring clock and saw that it was counting up. So we could steal other people’s rest sites—a useful thing to know.
Then I brought up my ability selection for the level:
Ability Selection
Choose a new spell to learn. You may later replace this passive with any other passive you are eligible to learn by consuming its Passive Card or using a Passive Book.
Spell – Moment of Retribution
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[Beneficial],[Destruction]
Requires 6 Spellcraft
Oral: Verse
Movement: 2 Hands
Mental: Focus
Cost: 8 Mana + 8 Mana / Hour
Cast Time: 2.4 Seconds
Effect: 350 Damage or an attack at 207% normalized damage.
You may only have this spell cast on one target at a time.
When the target of this spell is attacked, they can choose to expend the effect and deal its damage to their attacker. Alternatively, they choose to make a single melee attack against their attacker if their attacker is within range. This attack deals bonus damage.
Spell – Hex of Silence
[Detrimental],[Mental]
Requires 8 Spellcraft
Oral: Verse
Movement: 1 Hand
Mental: Focus
Cost: 5 Mana
Cast Time: 1.8 Seconds
Effect: 9.0 Seconds of Silence
This spell silences its target, preventing them from fulfilling the oral components of abilities such as spells, shouts, and commands.
“Huh,” I said. I wasn’t in love with either of them… but Moment of Retribution could be Doublecharged for 1000 damage, so I took it. Yet more reasons to make sure I had time to setup before a fight.
I knew I needed the skill that would let me write uncommon spell cards, so I bought it for 6 points, leaving me with 7 General Skill Points left to spend, which I ignored for now.
Then I stood as Cuby walked back into camp, looking pleased with herself. “That was nice,” she said. “We should loot.”
“Grab the card for Alona, at least,” I said. “And I need all the mana and stamina potions we can spare. Also—if anyone here has a weapon with magic affinity, I need that too.”
“Why?” Cuby said. “You’re not even using your lightning affinity.”
“I know,” I said. “But my Obliterating Beam spell requires my active affinity to be part-magic. I have 3 divine affinity that I can bring down to 2, and I have 1 magic affinity from my mage class. I need a way to get one more if I even want to be able to cast the spell without unequipping my off-hand—so it’s either a weapon, a class, or spending 12 skill points for it.”
“Is it beam time already?” Cuby asked. “This feels fast.”
“It’s limited beam time,” I said. “Potentially. Right now I can supercharge it and intuit it to bring the verse requirement down to a command requirement—which means that I can open an ambush with a double-strength beam.”
“For curiosity’s sake,” said Hallah, looking between us. “How strong is a double-strength beam?”
“Right now?” I asked, bringing up the spell card so that I could read it. “Sixteen ticks of 320 damage each. Over 5000.”
Hallah seemed to spend a moment processing this. “That’s… a lot of damage.”
“It’s a little more than what I can currently open with,” I said. “But I can focus the beam onto new targets, and the ticking nature of the attack means it can’t be negated with dodge abilities, and its range is higher than that of my missiles. All in all I’d say the two spells are complementary—having both means not having to suffer the weakness of either, if I choose right. Plus, the spellcraft of 45 on the beam means that it’ll get added mileage as I level. At spellcraft 141, I can store a Supercharged Obliterating Beam as a Fragmented Spell.”
And open combat with a Doublecharged Obliterating Beam, I thought. But I didn’t want to mention my second Supercharged Spell—I only had it through a chosen boon, and I didn’t want Hallah to figure out that I had one more boon than was possible. Already she’d seen enough to put it together—my invisibility spell and my extremely powerful buffs.
I chastised myself for this last one as I thought of it—why hadn’t I just given her weaker buffs? She didn’t exactly need the 30 extra resistance that could potentially give me away.
“Come on,” Cuby said, breaking me out of my thoughts. “Let’s loot!”
“Here,” Hallah said, materializing a chest from her inventory. “I don’t know if tandem Mighty Leaping is possible or not, but if we can figure out a way to get this across the river we can load it up and go.”
I looked at the chest—one of the large oak ones that Karrol Stir had shown us—and smiled, making a note to self to carry some empty chests around myself. They were too useful.
“We can get it across the water!” Cuby said cheerfully. “We’ve got hardlight!”
“Good.”
We packed the chest full of armor, potions, weapons, and the varied crafting reagents and monster parts that the enemy players had in their inventories. Hallah only had one oak chest, but one of the people we’d killed had a second, medium oak chest that brought us up to an extra 100 slots of inventory space.
We needed both of them. Equipment didn’t stack, and so even with the chests, Cuby and I were still carrying a few rows of boots and headpieces in our inventories by the time we’d finished looting all the stragglers who’d tried to escape.
But I got 17 Stamina Potions and 9 Mana Potions, even if we didn’t find any weapons with a magic affinity. Cuby and I both decided to give Hallah half the gold for her own group, taking 1011 each for ourselves.
Soon we’d lugged the chests across the broken bridge using Hardlight Tether and dragged it back to Alona’s camp, where the NPCs gathered round to watch us. We stopped pushing the boxes at the edge of their tents, then unceremoniously dumped all the equipment that couldn’t fit on the ground before them.
“They’re dead,” Hallah announced to her companions as we did this. “All of them. Valonthi included.”
A tired cheer went up from the camp, but Alona, their leader, was talking before it faded. “We’re still behind,” she said. “We need to finish that dungeon, fast as possible. We need the cards and we need the warp ability.”
“Are you going in now?” I asked.
Alona barked out a humorless laugh. “That’s what I said, isn’t it?”
“All right,” I said. “Do you want to wait a little while—give me time to get 30, 40 minutes on my adventuring clock, and I’ll accompany you to the first boss.”
“And take our experience?”
I shrugged. “Yeah, I’ll soak up some—my effective level is 22, now. But it’s worth it just to be absolutely sure nobody dies. The bosses each give a quest when they’re killed, and you can turn it in right away for experience—that part at least won’t get mitigated by having me around. And like I said before, I can add a 1000 absorb Mana Shield to everyone. The place is called the Dark Harbour, yeah? I’ve got a Charm of Water Breathing and a Charm of Darksight in my inventory. I can heal. I can heal around corners. I have a ton of abilities that are extremely powerful against demons and undead.” I shrugged. “Refuse if you like, but I think you should let me make sure you’re not in over your heads, then go.”
Alona laughed. “All right, fine. But Cuby stays outside—one oversized sponge is enough.”
“Fine by me,” I said.
“Hey!” Cuby protested.
I shrugged. “I’ll find a way to make the experience up to you,” I said. “But I’m not doing this for experience. Haroshi and Nerien did this with a larger party—I’m worried Alona’s people will struggle.”
Cuby sighed. “All right, fine. And you don’t need to make the experience up to me, I just care that we play well. And I don’t like not being included—am I just going to wait outside?”
“Probably in camp,” I said. “Gain a clock lead.”
“How much time do you need?” Alona asked me.
I checked my clock—15 minutes. “Twenty-five minutes.”
“Twenty five!” Alona cried to her camp. “Then we’re moving out. Take what upgrades you can from the spoils.” Turning to me, she added: “Thank you, by the way.”
“You’re welcome.”
“I wish I had a better reward for them,” she said, looking around at her companions. “The attackers who tried to raze Karokon are dead—but they can’t go home. Instead I’m sending them into the dark because I’m afraid of even more attackers.”
“There will be more attackers,” I said, gently insistent.
“Aye.”
“But we’ll kill them too.”
Alona looked up at me and smiled. “Aye,” she said. “We’ll kill them too. After we’re done with these undead.”