Atticus sat down on an old stone bench, His body covered in a sheen of sweat and blood from his enemies as his beast form rescinded. He had gotten used to the pain that came with the change, now he could stay focused through the pain and keep an eye on the situation around him.
He decided to take a few minutes to rest up and go over the tactics of his current enemies. First were the Skeletons, Weak by themselves but in numbers, they would swarm and overwhelm their target if they got careless.
As they were only bones and tendons they didn't have nearly as much Str or End as a Draugr and before the brutal force of Atticus’ rage fueled assault hey were like twigs, As a result they were only ever armed with a rusty iron sword or ax.
Skeletons also had little to no intelligence, like simple vacuum robots they patrol halls and rooms with no thought other than to kill whatever live humans they found. So they were just like a skeleton in any standard RPG, Weak cannon fodder mobs.
The Draugr on the other hand were an entirely different beast, While they were undead they maintained their muscle and intelligence, for the most part, As a result, they were often seen wielding a wider array of weapons and armor while using cunning group tactics that got more and more complex the deeper he delved into the Barrow.
He had faced some wielding simple rugged leather armor and a light war axe and a leather wrapped wooden shield, To a massive bastard his own size wearing massive armor plate nearly an inch thick while wielding a large sword and a shield that looked like a damned door!
As well as seeing sneaky Draugr hiding behind the warrior types while wielding bows, And more frightening was that he found some wearing ragged robes and able to cast magic. It was always Darkness Magic and Fire Magic.
But at the same time he found out something quite interesting, When your affinity for an element is high it seems that spells of that type can be used to heal you to some extent, As he noticed the mages putting curses on their own warriors.
While it did nothing to them in terms of weakening them it acted as a healing over time spell, This was quite the pain in his ass in a literal way as the mages always had a minimum of two Heavy Warrior type and one to three Archer type.
He had been inside the Barrow for nearly twelve hours now and had gotten a good amount of loot, Mainly old weapons that he took the time to study the designs as they looked very nice. But he would melt them down in order to conserve bag space.
The leather and cloth items were nearly worthless as they always had little to no durability left, But he found that they still worked well when he turned them into bandages or tourniquets so he broke them down as well.
In addition to these he had found a small amount of gold coins hidden in small pouches on their person, a few gold and silver accessories that he could melt down later and cast into bars when he made proper molds that bore his insignia.
He had decided to adopt the sigil of the Úlfhéðnar as his new makers mark, As such he had no way to mark his crafted items which meant if one were to steal the items he made they could brand it with their own mark and steal his credit. Though luckily Ivan was already crafting a set of branding and molding tools for him.
In the time he was in the Barrow he had also found a few small scrolls and tomes with very unique contents, The scrolls were usually weapon or armor patterns whereas the tomes were spell books.
Not as amazing as it sounds to tell the truth, These tomes didn't teach you how to cast the spells instantly but taught you the theories and principles of the spell and you had to work out the spell yourself.
Atticus skimmed through them and found that they went into depth on the Summoning process for making familiars, Guardians, Even summoning demons to create pacts. The basics of Affinities, This let him know that everyone be they User, NPC, Or even Mob had an element that they were innately better at than others.
This is mostly based on personality and has methods of testing one's affinities. The time that went into detail about Affinities had a large crystal imbedded on the cover and when one's blood was dripped onto it it would change colors to match the element that the user had an affinity for.
It came to no surprise that Atticus had an affinity for the Darkness Attribute and as such the crystal turned pitch black in the shape of a skull, While it mentioned that one being could have multiple elemental affinities that usually it would require devoting yourself to the element.
For example to gain Wind Affinity he would have to drift aimlessly, embodying the free will of the wind, though he was sure there were other ways these were merely the ones pointed out. He also found out that to gain every affinity was near impossible as they will begin to conflict with one another and cancel one another out.
This capped ones affinity for an element at 50% in both of the conflicting elements, From another book he found out that when one's affinity for two attributes reached the maximum they could merge the two into a new effect.
The ones displayed in the book was Frost and Wind to create Fog, being able to blind and even freeze an opponent. And Fire and Earth to make Lava which was just plain and simply a bad thing for all involved.
He found that after reading them he got no windows announcing new abilities so these were more like the ones you should find in a library, It was at that moment that he made a resolution to make a School back in Duskhaven
He had also found a Rune carved into one of the accessories he found laying on top of a non reanimated body and was a bit surprised as he got a message.
You have discovered an Ancient Rune! Ancient Runes are those no longer used as the smiths with knowledge of them died out during the Dusk War.
You have discovered a Set Rune! Set Runes are runes that work in tandem with others when they are etched in a specific pattern.
You have discovered the Ancient Rune: Slavery! When etched onto an Accessory with the Slave rune being etched into the item and then covered in a drop of the Master’s blood the wearer will be bound to the matching items wearer. The Master rune will be etched into the Matching item and the rune will then be covered with the Slaves blood, sealing the Master's Authority over them.
Seeing this Atticus had many ideas run through his mind, Such as binding the Criminals to a guard in order to keep them in line, Tricking unknowing people into wearing the item and becoming his slaves.
And quite a few other dark ideas but he let them go as he decided to save this rune for a special time when he needed to be sure of one's loyalty, As of now that was not really a problem as he did not go around other players enough to be tricked or betrayed by them.
He had also gotten a few messages the last time he had taken a break, About thirty of them to be exact, All of them simply saying “Your Item Has Been Sold!, Your money has been added to your account!.”
After reviewing what he had learned so far Atticus stood up and stretched his body, He was currently on the Fourth floor of the Barrow, Oddly not running into a single Elite or Boss monster yet. This had him a bit worried as he wanted to make sure to get the best loot he could as well a get great fight scenes.
It was as he was thinking this that he came to the stairway down to the next floor, Thinking nothing of it as he continued to go down until he entered a long hallway, At the end of the hall was a room that was dark even to his eyes.
Confused he walked closer, with every step he could smell the every growing scent of death and blood When he was almost to the Hallway he was forced into his beast form which had never happened before he entered combat.
He was confused but kept going forward, drawing his ax in case of a trap. When he stepped foot inside of the pitch black room it suddenly lit up, Slowly at first starting with two torches behind him on either side of the doorway he walked through.
At that instant an iron gate slammed shut and locked him in as more torches lit up around the room, Soon it was fully lit up and showed a hideous abomination standing in the middle of the room, Standing nearly as high as Hati and Skoll put together at 40 meters the monstrosity was cobbled together from countless bodies and covered in runes of Undeath.
Be they human or not whoever made this thing was clearly insane as it no longer looked remotely human, With its head being cobbled together from the torsos of humans with its eyes being the heads of some poor bastards.
Just looking upon the monstrosity filled him with disgust but what made it worse was that when he looked around he saw pools of blood and body parts strewn about. This told him that there was more than one way into the Barrow as the blood was still very fresh.
As the Abomination realized he was there it gave a goofy and disturbing version of a smile, And then in a voice that sounded like that of a little girl, no older than three that sounded so similar to his niece’ it shouted.”YaY furry new friend!” As he heard this Atticus felt severely disturbed as it truly chilled him to the bone.
It then turned a bit and revealed that its left arm had been turned into a massive spiked club, As he stood there disturbed to his core the abomination charged him, Swinging the club down
with a frightening speed and accuracy.
Shaking his head Atticus charged forward to avoid the blow and swung his axes with as much force as he could, The resulting attack did a small amount of damage to the abomination and it let out a pained scream, this broke Atticus’ heart as it still sounded like a little girl.
“Why you hurts me?!?” Stunned as none of his foes ever cried out in pain like this he was open to a savage blow from the abominations right arm, sending him flying across the room as he hacked up a large glob of blood.
He drank a potion as he looked above the Abominations head and saw its status.
ReinaRank:BossLevel:25Health:<19600/20000>Attack:350-400A disturbing experiment by the Lich ruling over the Barrow using a mass of bodies dug from a mass grave of a town recently slaughtered by Orcs, The amalgamation of corpses oddly took on the dominant voice of a three year old girl who was killed in her sleep.AbilitiesCrushing Blow:A monstrously strong attack that can cripple a limb with ease..Wail: Lets out an ear piercing wail which can stun an enemy for 5 seconds. Effect is broken when damage is taken.Nightmare Shroud: The stuff of nightmares can be seen before you...
As he read the background information he felt his rage grow towards the unknown Lich, The mere thought of doing such things to those unfortunate souls was purely disgusting, WOuld it have been a band of bandits that had been turned into this thing he would not care nearly as much.
But the desecration of innocents sent him into the deepest state of rage he had ever felt, Enough so that his beastial instincts began to kick in. Not just from his rage but at the paternal instinct to not hurt the monstrosity that sounded so much like his little niece.
Soon his world went grey and all sound was drowned out by the beast, Protecting his human halves currently damaged mind from what would happen next. As Reina swung her large club hand Atticus charged once again as the club just barely drifted over his head.
He swung his ax once again as it began to glow with an eerie pitch black fire, cutting into her massive ankle as like a beast he began trying to take out her movement, Even with the beast blocking the sound the sight of the creatures face distorting in pain it replayed the scream over and over.
It was maddeningly similar to his nieces when she had broken her arm after she fell off of her bike last month, As his body moved quickly and ruthlessly tears could be seen running down his cheeks as the human part of his mind soon began to replace the abominations face with that of his niece.
This deepend both his rage and the pain he felt with every savage blow he delivered to her. From cutting large chunks out of her thighs and calves, to the gaping wound across her mouth which broke out some of the rib bone teeth.
With every blow he could see the wounds on his adorable, innocent nieces body and this all but broke Atticus’ human will. He didn't realize it but with every blow the beast delivered his human mind kept crying out.”I'm sorry...uncle is soo soo sorry little one… It will stop hurting soon i promise...”
He soon noticed that Reina was crying tears of blood which poured from the mouths of the faces she had for eyes, though again still looking like his beloved niece to him this only served to make it harder for him.
Soon enough even the Beast began to slow its furious assault as they got knocked across the room after Reina wailed in pain. Another potion was downed and the beast dropped the axes and charged.
Reina swung her club once more as the Beast leapt up and over it, leaping into her face as he began clawing violently, Hoping for nothing more than to render the abomination mute to end his Humans despair before he got them killed by resisting the urge to kill their foe.
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The Infected Wounds effect was applied as he kept clawing and tearing into the abomination, Ripping out the eyes and tongue which looked to be made of dozens of pieces of back flesh.
As the tongue was removed the screaming stopped and only grunts could be heard as Reina struggled to remove the beast from her face, Everytime she would swing her right hand or club to get him he would move away and let her beat herself senseless.
After a few minutes of this the beast managed to claw through the majority of her head and soon exposed a large amalgamation of human brains that glowed with a dark purple color, He rammed his arm deep inside and tore out the object making the light.
As he did Reina quite literally fell apart and exposed the twisted body of a little girl, The arms and legs twisted and sharpened like blades as her teeth had been filed to sharp little points. The crystal he pulled out a moment ago had been there to hold the full form together.
But now the twisted little girl charged him with a blinding speed, Lunging at him with her sharpened arms and stabbing at him, She covered him in wounds across his body but soon the beast grabbed the little undead in a tight bearhug,
She began struggling and biting into his shoulder armor and thrashing to try and get at his flesh, He soon spoke in the same broken voice that Atticus had earlier.”Its ok little one, The pain is over now...”
With that he bit savagely into her throat and broke her neck, at the same time his arms crushing her ribcage. She struggled for a moment before falling still, Then a pale blue light illuminated the room and he could see shapes of spirits leaving the scattered remains.
Soon one left the body he had crushed in his arms, An adorable little girl who indeed looked just like his niece.”Thank you for freeing us mister!” As she spoke she touched her ghostly hands to his cheeks which were still covered in tears “I don't hurt anymore, so you shouldn't hurt anymore either...”
Atticus let the broken body fall from his arms as he shook his head, a hand resting on top of hers as she vanished, When she vanished he stayed there kneeling, his mind still quite broken as he constantly replayed the scene of him killing his niece, Not even registering that he had gained two full levels.
As he sat there the room grew ice cold, enough so that his breath turned to frost. He soon felt a soft but ice cold hand on his cheek, His eyes slowly focused on what was in front of him, A beautiful young woman, Much like Samantha she was not a petite woman but at the same time she was by no means over weight.
Her skin was a pale blue and light black runes he didn't know went across her skin like tattoos, Her hair was as white as snow and her eyes a deep crimson like that of the blood surrounding him. She had large horns that curled like those of a ram, A pair of large leathery bat like wings, and a long almost serpentine tail that looked much like an arrowhead, “Such a poor thing… Were my Illusions to real for you?”
As she spoke he felt a chill rush through him, It was a sickeningly sweet voice, like one you would expect to hear from an angel rather than a demon. This made him realize that he had been holding onto the crystal he had ripped out of the Abominations head.
Quickly dropping it the woman vanished and he felt his body begin to grow warmer except for where she had touched his cheek. He looked down at the large dark purple crystal and noticed the strange runes carved into it, just as they had been carved into the woman's flesh.
As he looked at it he noticed that there seemed to be something moving inside, Looking closer the purple color seemed to be smoke, and inside of it he could see the woman, bound in chains. As he looked it over he got a message.
You have found a Bound Spirit! Bound Spirit Attributes Darkness/Frost.
He sat there for a moment, Going back through the books he had read so far that related to Summoning magic and spirits. Spirits could be bound either through a mutual contract or through forced binding to crystals.
It was recorded that spirits which were bound with force were more often cruel spirits that had brought great harm to others and as such were bound to prevent them from hurting anymore people.
But a Bound Spirit could still bring harm to others when they come into contact with the binding crystal. It was at this moment that he realized why the abomination was able to hold together and move so quickly.
This spirit had been placed inside of the abomination to act as a pilot of sorts, holding the bodies together and enhancing it with mana, This angered him as he soon remembered what the Spirit had said, ”Her Illusion”.
He wanted nothing more than to break the crystal but he knew this would set the spirit free, So he took out some of the cloth and wrapped the crystal in it carefully before putting it in a pouch he didn't use often to prevent touching it.
Atticus collected himself as he now knew it was all just an illusion and that his Niece was not really there and he didn't truly hurt her. He then stood up and checked out the loot that was in the large stone coffin like chest before him.
As he opened it he was met with nothing but potions and gold, Granted it was 5 each of Lesser Health and Mana, and a hefty 500 gold. But he would have been sure that he would have gotten loot besides that. Until he remembered the crystal.
The spirit was the true prize here, He sighed and stood up and continued on through the Barrow down to the sixth floor.
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Back in Duskhaven.
The town came to a halt as something shocking occurred, A carriage pulled by two massive brown Royal Harts pulled through the town gates, Sitting on the bench and holding the reigns was Sasha, someone they had seen before and knew as one of their Thanes companions,
As such they let her enter without a problem but told her to go to Lucian after they had put their carriage and mounts in the stables, Being in the town was a bit awe inspiring to them as they had yet to see a single house made of stone in any other small town, only large cities had had them so far.
From the last time Sasha had been there so much had changed, the village had grown to nearly three times its size officially becoming a town, There were now player ran stalls, Houses for sale, And most importantly was the wolves, There were nine large wolves patrolling the town.
Each clad in steel armor marked with the mark of Blackrock just as the guards were, But in addition, they had a symbol she had not yet seen, That of a wolf standing on a mountain of skulls.
As they kept walking Samantha moved closer to Sasha.”I thought you said that this was just some backwater village?” she asked in a soft voice not wanting to offend anyone who could over hear.
Sasha shook her head still as impressed as her.“It was when I left here, What could have caused it to change so quickly....” No sooner than she had said this she heard a deep growl and she was tackled to the ground.
A monstrously large wolf nearly the size of their Royal Harts had tackled her as they passed a large stone house, The others took out their weapons but stopped as they heard Sasha laughing, The wolf had begun licking her cheeks and its tail was wagging happily.
Samantha was confused but soon the wolf hopped off of her and barked at Sasha.”Do you know this thing, Sasha?”
Sasha sat up quickly and moved behind Samantha.”N..No, but he clearly thinks he knows me...” Shey then heard a deep laugh from behind them.
Turning they saw a grizzled man in his thirties walking up, following him was a little girl with bright eyes and a large wolf at her side wearing a set of black leather armor once again marked with the two symbols.
“You left the village before you got to meet him but he must have seen a lot through the Mental Link he has with Atticus, This is Shadow, Chosen Pet of Thane Atticus Shadowsong....”
Ellen soon mounted shadow, hugging his neck as he looked down into Sasha's eyes, giving the young siege master a good look at her beast-like eyes. "Don't worry he only hurts bad people..."
This caused Sasha's mouth to drop., Atticus had mentioned that he had gotten a wolf pet but this thing was simply massive, standing as tall as Fenrir did and nearly as long”This is the wolf that he caught! But he's so huge now!.”
Hearing this made Lucian laugh.”A lot has happened since you left, Most all of it thanks to Atticus’ efforts, Though he's not home right now.”As he spoke he motioned over to the large stone house that had the now familiar symbol of a wolf etched into the door as well as a sign that read “Trespassers will be mauled to death!”
At this Sasha's mouth dropped again as she realized that the symbol was Atticus’ Makers Mark. Samantha was clearly impressed.”Is that why he hasn't come to find us yet? He's been playing mason...”
Lucian laughed as he nodded.”That would be it, he complained many times how you girls were somehow becoming more powerful than him while he was being worked like a slave, Which reminds me, young lady...”
He then turned to Sasha and gave a stern look.”Where have you been for the last month? You were supposed to come talk to me once the Den was clear so I could reward you for assisting your fellow thane!”
Hearing this loud shout Sasha got a message announcing her new title and she could hear cheering and laughing from the small crowd that had grown since the conversation had begun. She was shocked but it only got better.
Lucian lead them across the street to another large stone house and unlocked the door, opening it and handing Sasha the key before pushing her inside, The others followed as he sat them all down in the already furnished living room as he began to fill them in on what had happened so far,
As per Atticus’ request if they should show up he didn't tell them about his class as he said they had a game going right now. But he did tell Sasha how Atticus had built and furnished her house with his own money as it had been agreed that she would be a Thane, He told them about how Atticus had tamed the wolves and gave them to the guard, as well as how he had made the armor for the wolves,
How it had been his idea to expand the village into a town and that he had even convinced Lucian to reopen the mine, How he had implemented a prisoner work camp that mined for them during their sentence rather than just wasting away.
He even made the remark of how a lot of the young women of the village were all trying to find a way to get the man into their beds and tie him down as their husband. This made the four women and one girl glare at him which made him drop the subject immediately.
Even Shadow had whimpered a bit at the hostility of the girls and wished for the hundredth time that day that he had been allowed to go with him but he stayed with Ellen and Isis and protected them as he had requested, even though the little girl was now a level ten as was the wolf.
Over the next few hours they went over what changes had been made and Lucian even gave her the gold reward she had been promised as her quest was officially completed. After Lucian left the girls all explored the house before leaving to go shopping for better furniture.
They even took along Ellen who wanted to talk with Sasha and the others about Atticus.
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Back in the Barrow, Ninth floor.
Atticus sighed as he sat down to take another break, The monsters had gotten stronger and smarter over the last few floors to the point where he nearly died every time he fought, only barely getting out alive.
A new monster had joined the mix, Vampires!, Powerful and fast moving beings that worked much like a cross between a dual blade rogue and a mage. They liked to cloak themselves using invisibility spells making them hard to kill them as they dart around behind the Draugr or Skeletons.
Nearly all of them looked like the traditional vampire, pasty white skin, sharp fangs, But he found that the women had a very seductive nature to them, More than a few had tried to offer their bodies if he didn't kill them, Oddly enough they seemed to enjoy the thought of becoming his.
He had just finished killing a group of them in the last room of the ninth floor, having found that they were able to summon the skeletons he had been fighting but not the Draugr, apparently they were still too low level for that.
The Vampires luckily all had leather armor and robes which were in wonderful condition, A few even having runes for elemental resistances, The daggers and staves were all in great condition and some even had runes that would cause them to hold an edge longer or that increased their Durability,
He had managed to grind out another two level and a half to be level 15 and nearly 16 as the monsters had grown an average of two levels per floor he went down, With the first floor having an average of level 23 mobs the floor he just finished was at an average of 40.
While he hated the fact that he had to work over two times harder than others he was thankful for just how overpowered his class was as his attacks when enraged did fire damage which did double damage to undead.
He had also found more books and scrolls, The latest one that piqued his interest was a book on Bound Spirits mentioning how a Rune smith could create a series of runes that would bind the spirit to an item to empower it while allowing them to summon said spirit at will.
But he would experiment more on this later, for now he had only read the first few pages before he had decided to move on, Now he stood up having eaten and drank some water and began down the stairs to the tenth floor.
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