Esther appreciated the brief sensation of flying. The wind whipped about her skirt and threatened to remove her hat, which typically stayed magically attached to her head. The storm clouds rolling in from the west stole her attention briefly while her body flipped through the air until she saw that she wasn’t flying but falling, and the landing didn’t look pleasant. The chaotic collection of ropes, beams, and pillars below rushed at and past her as she and Jaheed fell, each haphazard piece of construction narrowly missing them as the wind carried them farther from their jumping point. However, the pyramid-shaped construction scheme grew much broader as they descended, and they would hit something eventually.
Esther eyed the most likely collision: a narrow metal beam jutting out from a rickety shack, itself still a hundred feet above the ground. She had half-pulled, half-thrown the priest off the edge of the upper level when they had “jumped,” so he had more initial velocity than she did, and his clothing did less to slow his descent. Esther watched Jaheed hit the end of the jagged beam hard, leaving behind an ugly bloodstain and sending his body spinning out into the air even further than before. At least the collision ended his screaming.
Next, it was Esther’s turn, but she had a trick up her sleeve, or, more precisely, in her gem bag. With the sun safely behind the angry storm clouds above, she touched her fingers against the undead stone Jace had let her keep. She hated using it but hated smashing her brains against the metal beam below her even more. Esther had occasionally practiced the transformation and could assume a true demon form almost instantly.
Black wings sprouted from her back, and veins rose on her exposed skin, transforming her beautiful face into a hideous visage. The wings had time to flap twice before she hit the beam, slowing her considerably. Still, without the newly transformed claws scraping and digging into the metal, she would have slid off it and continued falling. She cut deep grooves in the iron and flexed her sinewy limbs as her lower body swung below the cantilever but didn’t fall further. Once her downward momentum stopped, she effortlessly heaved herself up onto the beam and looked down. She was just in time to see Jaheed’s rotating figure impale itself on a ground-level fencepost. Her gore settings were not turned down, and even she winced at the sight.
She shook her head at what could have happened to her and instead looked back up toward the ledge she had jumped from almost 100 feet up. In her new form, the return trip would be much more enjoyable. Her wings spread out, and her knees flexed in anticipation of a jump when a gust of wind nearly ripped her from the perch.
Esther crouched suddenly, holding onto the beam with both hands for stability. She had no experience flying in any wind, much less a storm. As lighting flashed in the distance, she decided against the express route and eyed a more conventional climbing approach where she would be in contact with the city structure the entire time.
When the gust passed, she stood again and raced along the narrow pier and into the tiny shack at its base, jumping through a broken window. Inside, two children screamed their heads off at the demon that had invaded their home. “Oh, I’m terribly sorry,” Esther said, releasing the stone back into her gem bag and resuming her human form. “I didn’t mean to scare you. I’m just passing through.”
The young girl fainted to the floor while the boy was old enough that he couldn’t take his eyes off the beautiful woman, her demonic form completely forgotten. Esther didn’t linger, running out of the shack’s front door and ascending the first rope ladder she found.
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{It doesn’t look good, Jace,} Gracie advised as the player furiously fought off the two undead former players. After getting the characters on one side, he had fallen into a rhythm. Enough time had passed that he could cast a new Damage Sink totem, but he only needed it when Chago rolled a 20. The fighter excelled at offense and little else. Becoming undead had made him slightly stronger and slower. Since Dodging had been his primary form of defense, his lack of agility allowed Jace to Parry Bash him backward multiple times. The orc tried to time up a strike against his arms or legs to dismember the undead fighter, but after two critical misses, which allowed Ahbid’s corpse to hack at him, he gave up. The 20 slots to attack were all aimed at his body and head. Strikes against the arms and legs were aligned with rolls under five, which were not high enough to overcome Chago’s reduced Dodging ability.
In contrast, the dead paladin excelled at defense, and Jace found the knight’s offensive strikes rarely needed his full attention unless he just missed an attack against the fighter. However, because Ahbid’s defense was so much better, only high-valued attacks against his torse earned him hits, and that part of his body seemed to be able to take infinite damage. He couldn’t get 20 strikes against him because those all lined up with the head, which wasn’t there.
{Psycho is paralyzed, Draya is dying, Gromphy is being mind controlled, and Esther is missing,} Gracie informed him.
“Oh, is that all,” Jace responded, bashing Chago in the face and dropping him into the empty marble tub. “I thought we had real problems.”
{Well,} she continued. {We might soon. It looks like Odlaga is getting up.}
Jace looked over at where he had killed the rogue sniper and saw her pale corpse rising from the ground and reaching for some knives. If she attacked, it wouldn’t be her exhausted attempts from before. They would be full force and have every chance of killing him. Jace maneuvered the paladin into position between him and the deadly woman, but he could still see her over the empty shoulders, and the orc’s broad torso and big head provided an easy target.
Jace glanced over at Pok to see Gromphy standing obediently beside him, with Delly collapsed on the floor. Paltine was nowhere to be seen. If controlling three undead characters at the same time challenged Pok’s control, it wasn’t showing. The dark elf smiled back at Jace once he saw the orc looking at him, and the necromancer lifted his hands suddenly. The two male sword fighters broke off and stepped away. Odlaga had reared back for a throw, but she held her shot in check.
Jace lowered his sword and looked behind him. He saw Draya pinned to the wall with her health around 150, looking very weak. Psycho lay on the floor fifteen feet in front of her, his body occasionally twitching with Ferrick and Dreller standing guard over him. Jace’s eyes went back to Draya to see her health had dropped another 5 points. If they didn’t fall out of combat mode soon, she only had three minutes to live.
“I yield,” Jace said, stepping back and going so far as to sheath his weapon. “What would you have me do?”
“Why, the same thing as before, Jace Thorne.”
The voice didn’t come from Pok. Instead, Jace looked back toward the throne. From around the raised dias, Paltine escorted a stooped figure in ruined black armor. Lord Vulder had changed. His once strong face was sunken and hollow, his eyes red. His mouth looked dry, and his tongue stuck to his teeth as he talked. Gone were his impressive muscles and perfect posture. Instead, he looked old and weak, but his voice remained strong and carried with it deathly power, sending chills down Jace’s spine.
“We need you to kill Delilah Sorek. For real, this time. No more tricks, or we kill your companions.”
Jace still felt confident they would all wake up in his stronghold, except they would do so with the knowledge that Jace let them die because he was unwilling to kill a woman he had just met. A woman the enemy would obviously find a way to kill regardless, so he couldn’t even argue he was doing it to save a kingdom.
“And if I kill her and absorb the power into myself and then kill you . . .” Jace left the question hanging.
Vulder laughed, a raspy, croaking sound that racked his whole body. “I think you are bluffing. That was a ruse to let your vampire do what she did.”
Jace stepped off the marble platform next to the tub, and the three undead players tracked his movement, holding their attacks in check for now. “Maybe I don’t need the desert’s power to kill you. It appears your plague is failing. If I’m not mistaken, I think it is about to rain.”
Everyone looked out of the nearest opening to the outside. Lightning flashed in the distance while flags and banners flapped in the ever-increasing wind. No rain had fallen yet, but Jace didn’t need a meteorological degree to know it soon would.
Vulder scoffed. “When the barbarian used the land’s power against me, the desert itself rose in defiance as well. It thinks it can win, but trust me, no rain will fall as long as the power persists within me. It threatens with rage and fury, as she did,” he looked down at Delly’s limp form. “But it will come to nothing. When the woman is dead and her magic sealed away, the storm outside will retreat as well, and I will be the only true power in the kingdom.”
“You don’t look particularly powerful right now,” Jace dared to mock.
Vulder’s laughter faded to a chuckle. “It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.” He motioned to the gaping hole in his chest where Delly had hit him with the axe. “It was to be poison after the girl was killed and the power secured far from here.” He coughed several times. “Pok had already prepared everything.” He held up his fingers to show two pulsing obsidian rings, one on each hand, and he fished a black onyx medallion from inside his armor. “All items were charged with the appropriate spells, waiting for my death.” He winced as he tucked the necklace back inside his vest, disturbing his chest wound. “This will take some time to recover from.” Then, a thought hit him. “Though it doesn’t need to. Where is Kelrick?”
“Dead,” Pok reported.
“Fool,” Vulder said. “And his potions? He was to craft one for me in case . . . in case this happened.”
Pok nodded and went to the spot where Delly had killed the alchemist. There, he found several unbroken vials on the floor. The necromancer correctly identified the one in question and retrieved a bottle filled with black liquid. He returned quickly and handed the potion to his master.
Vulder popped the cork and drained the contents. The change was instantaneous. The undead fighter stood straighter, rolling his shoulders back and sticking out his rapidly healing chest. Color did not return to his cheeks, but they looked less shallow, and his jaw grew firm.
“That’s better,” he said, his voice no longer raspy. He pulled his red blade and swung it expertly about his body. His eyes leveled a stare at Jace after finishing the routine. “Now, where were we? Oh yes, you were deciding if you would rather kill that pathetic woman or fight me and sentence all your friends to a painful death.”
Jace hung his head. “Fine, I will do as you ask, but I require two things.”
Vulder cocked his head. “What are they?”
“First,” Jace said, “reduce the threat level in this room. My mage is dying, and time is passing too quickly.”
Vulder nodded and looked at Pok. The necromancer shrugged, and all three undead players lowered their weapons. The red border around Jace’s vision stopped flashing, and he heard the familiar level-up chime in his head. He had killed Chago and Odalga, two high-level players. Leveling up was a given. He didn’t have time to go through that process now and looked over at Draya instead. Her health had dropped to 45, and he watched for a solid ten seconds without it falling any further. Her Helpless condition had also ended as she moved her head about.
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{Now that she is no longer in combat,} Gracie said, {She will be able to concentrate on her next saving throw against the poison and get a 20. Oh, and I checked on Esther. She wouldn’t tell me where she was, but she said she would return as quickly as possible.}
Jace looked back at Vulder and nodded.
“And the second thing?”
“You will need to use mind control to have me kill Delly. My god will disown me otherwise. And it will cost you because it runs completely counter to my nature.”
Vulder smiled. “I think that was the plan all along, right?” He looked to his second in command, and Paltine seemed lost in thought. “That is the plan, correct?”
“It was,” Paltine said.
“Was?”
“Things got complicated while you were recovering,” the albino started. “I did not anticipate . . .”
“You ran out of mana,” Vulder interrupted. Paltine nodded. “You do not have enough to control the orc?”
He shook his head. “No, I can do that.”
Jace smiled as if just figuring it out. “But then you won’t have enough to control the power once it escapes. You won’t be able to trap it in your device.”
Pok still held the obsidian staff with the empty crystal on one end. Paltine nodded, impressed by the observant player. Jace’s eyes went to the few potions lying amidst Kelrick’s remains. None of those would be powerful enough to recharge the mage. His eyes then went to Gromphy, standing still at attention. Jace quickly looked away as if catching himself, but Paltine noticed.
“Goblin, Master Crafter,” he called out, a slow grin creasing his lips.
Gromphy took a few steps toward the mage and bowed low. “My lord, I am at thy service.”
“Do you have the ingredients for a mana restoration potion?”
Gromphy frowned. “I do not.”
Paltine looked confused.
“But I possess one already crafted.” He pulled a vibrant purple vial from his vest.
“Excellent,” the mage said. He reached down and plucked the potion from the goblin. Without hesitation, he downed the potent elixir and felt the magic rush through him. He prepared to cast the spell against Jace, but his breath stuck in his lungs, and he couldn’t connect to his mana core.
“However,” Gromphy said, “that potion wast not it. Thou drankest a death spell crafted for players level 30 and below. Nye impossible to brew, and I toiled vast hours. This,” he pulled another purple potion from his vest, “is a mana restoration potion. I shall save it for thee in thy next life.”
Jace smiled as his plan came together perfectly. Gromphy had pumped his Magic Defense so high that Paltine had barely succeeded in controlling the goblin with no critical successes. By not overtly lying, Gromphy had maintained the illusion that he was under complete control of the mage and could act freely. The NPC players didn’t have operators to tell them otherwise.
As Paltine choked and gagged on his death and fell to the floor, the rest of the characters reacted hostilely, sending the room back into combat mode. Pok dropped a defensive spell on himself while Vulder lifted his sword toward Jace. The orc tried to get his weapon out fast enough to strike at the necromancer, but the undead lord stepped in front of the vulnerable mage and parried the strike.
Jace backpedaled furiously before the powerful fighter, not wanting to know what the glowing red sword would do to him. His frantic retreat saved his life, for Pok activated Odlaga first, and the woman had her knives out, ready to hit Jace in the back of the neck when he crashed into her. The large orc sent the smaller woman to the ground, and he fell on top of her. Jace didn’t want to get up to free her, but as the undead fighter, headless paladin, and Lord Vulder grouped around him, all with their weapons raised, he knew he had to do something.
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Even though he was the one to kill Paltine, the NPCs ignored Gromphy at first. The goblin had played it off as a careless mistake, never falling out of character, and given a choice on who they should be concerned about, the 7-foot orc with a massive sword won. This allowed Gromphy to pull another vial from his vest, crouch next to Delly, and pour the restoration potion down her throat.
The barbarian regained her strength and wasted no time calling again on the massive power available to her. The room shook, but it was becoming such a common occurrence during this encounter that no one really noticed. And with the storm brewing outside, it was easily written off as thunder. However, when Delly rose from the floor and focused her attention on Pok, the necromancer knew precisely what was happening. He cried out briefly before she ripped his head off and tore his limbs from his body.
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Jace had no defense against the undead army surrounding him and breathed a sigh of relief when Abhid and Chago fell to the ground. Beneath him, Odalga’s corpse stopped struggling, and Vulder paused in his attack to interpret the sudden change. He spun around to see Delly, covered in Pok’s blood, bearing down on him with a cry of fury.
The barbarian had no weapon, but Vulder wasn’t about to underestimate her. He stepped toward the woman and swung his glowing sword directly into her midsection. The blow would have dropped Jace, but Delly had over 1,000 HP, and she only grunted as the weapon cut deep into her side. Grabbing onto the attacking arm, the woman swung the large fighter around and threw him toward the back of the room.
Vulder cried out as he flew through the air and crashed into a tangle of walls and curtains behind the throne. Only after the undead ruler left the area did Delly acknowledge her wound, dropping to a knee and clutching at her side. It had drained over 400 HP and bled profusely. Jace rose to his feet and offered her a healing potion. “You need a weapon,” he said as she drank the vial and fully recovered.
“No, I don’t,” she grunted through gritted teeth. “I can tear him apart with my bare hands.” Without further argument, she turned and raced after him. The hum of his medieval lightsaber could be heard slicing through the wood and cloth entrapping him.
Gromphy replaced her at Jace’s side. “What can I . . .” he started to ask but shut up as an arrow thudded into Jace’s leg. They both looked over at Tenesta, who cursed her miss and readied another shot. Jace found a marble line on the floor and summoned a stone tower shield to protect the pair. The next shot bounced harmlessly against it as he crouched next to Gromphy. Off to his left, he saw Dreller and Ferrick readying for a fight. He knew he couldn’t stay turtled in the middle of the room for long. “Fix Snowy,” Jace said and then rose to deal with the remains of Delly’s old crew.
He walked directly toward the half-orc archer, knowing she was probably adjusting her angle to get a shot around his shield. He didn’t plan to hold it long, as the game wouldn’t let him swing his two-handed weapon with one arm. His peripheral caught Tenesta to his right, opposite the other two fighters, and she took a shot. Jace wasn’t under full cover from that angle but had enough to prevent a death shot from the woman. Still, another arrow in his side didn’t feel good.
The orc turned to cover himself entirely from that side, which opened him to attacks from the two male fighters in the room. That was fine because as they charged, Psycho rose from the ground behind them. Enough time had passed for him to get a successful save against the poison, and he had rolled toward his bow once the fight had resumed. His first shot took Dreller in the back of the head, and the fighter dropped dead, his poisonous flail hitting the floor beside him. Ferrick led the attack and didn’t notice his partner’s death as he closed on Jace.
The orc shaman dropped his shield at the last second, gripped Diamond Etcher in both hands and spun around the attacking human as he parried the strike, placing Tenesta on the far side. Jace now blocked Psycho’s ability to shoot at Ferrick, and Tenesta likewise had no clear line on the stone shaman. Both archers changed targets quickly, and Psycho proved faster as he buried a shot in the half-orc’s chest. She had protection against death shots, as most archers did, and Psycho had wisely not used one, focusing instead on damage. It took three shots to drop the female archer, and the elf took one in return.
Jace had his fight against Ferrick well in hand, and the orc waved off any assistance Psycho might offer and motioned toward Draya, who was still nailed to the wall. The archer complied and, after wrenching two arrows out of the wood and feeding the weak woman a healing potion, the pair returned to Jace just as he took the last Hitpoints away from Ferrick.
Jace made sure the two were okay and then turned to find Gropmhy and Snowy trotting up to them. The wolf was fully restored, and Gromphy held up the green medallion Kelrick had used earlier as an explanation as to how he did it. That left Delly and Vulder.
Their fight in the back of the room reminded Jace of superhero movies when two Kryptonians went at it. Each attack sent the defender flying through a wall or smashing into a pillar. Vulder wasn’t as strong as Delly, but he wasn’t far off either. Before, he had possessed the plague's power, but it had been at odds with his own life. Now, that wasn’t a problem, and he had full access to the strength it provided. Still, death was never as strong as life, and Delly had the upper hand whenever they locked together. However, Vulder’s weapon gave him an edge the barbarian couldn’t easily overcome. She used broken boards and bronze poles as makeshift shields that the glowing blade cut through like paper. She even found her discarded shield. That took two strikes from Vulder’s weapon before shattering into pieces.
Psycho aimed a few times but couldn’t see a clear opening. Plus, since Vulder was already dead, his Death shot wouldn’t work. Draya held her fire in check, knowing there was no way to prevent it from hitting Delly, and the woman’s health was getting low on its own.
“She needs a weapon,” Draya said.
“Esther has it,” Jace replied.
“And where did our rogue get to?” Psycho asked.
On cue, motion drew their attention to the far corner of the room, and they saw Esther hauling herself up over a ledge and back onto the top level, her air and clothes a wind-blown mess. Jace ran over to her. “I’m back,” she cried, clearly exhausted from her climb. “What did I miss?”
“I need Ahbid’s mace,” Jace said. “Quickly.”
Esther rose slowly to her feet, leaning heavily against a support pillar. Her focus lapsed as the tremendous fight in the back of the room continued, sounding like a demolition crew had been given war hammers to take down the building. She turned back to Jace eventually with a look of exhausted confusion. “Uh, what?”
“The mace you took from the dead paladin,” Jace repeated. “I need it. Delly needs it. She will die without it.”
That got Esther moving. She hadn’t accessorized the mace with her outfit, so she had to roll her eyes into her inventory to find it. She was back in six seconds with the weapon in question. “Here.”
Jace swiped the mace and ran toward the chaos behind them. Everything lay in shambles. With broken pieces of wood, metal, and plaster scattered across the floor, Jace struggled to get close to the pair, wondering how he would make it in time. As it turned out, he didn’t have to. After less than ten seconds of working through the mess, Delly crashed through a wall to his right and landed a few feet away. Before he could get to her, she was already scrambling to her feet, ready to dive back in.
“Delly, wait,” Jace said. The woman didn’t react, and the orc repeated it, screaming this time to pierce the barbarian rage in her head.
Now, the woman paused and turned toward the orc; her lips peeled back over her teeth as if she were some sort of monster. “Use this,” he said. “It can defeat him.”
“I don’t need . . .”
“Take it!” Jace said, his face transforming into a mask of rage, trying to speak her language.
As Vulder stalked toward them, slicing through rubble as if cutting a path through the jungle, Delly finally nodded and took the mace. As a barbarian, she had proficiency in all melee weapons and suffered no penalties for using a mace. Jace fell back a few feet as the two combatants came together. Vulder struck first, cutting into her left arm and sending her body slamming into a sturdy post. She returned the attack, driving the mace into his chest and sending him flying back fifteen feet through a wall, which then collapsed on top of him.
“My fists are stronger,” Delly said, turning toward Jace and preparing to toss the mace aside.
The orc shook his head. “Fill it with magic.”
She frowned at him as Vulder tried to extricate himself from the pile of rubble. “I am a barbarian, not a mage.”
“Not mana,” Jace clarified. “Use Sonan’s power. The desert’s power.”
Delly cocked her head in contemplation and looked at the weapon with new interest. She held it up before her and half closed her eyes. Jace watched as the purple gem in the center of the mace’s hexagonal blades grew brighter and brighter, soon casting everything in a violet haze. Vulder had finally freed himself and looked on with confusion at the woman before him. He wasn’t a mage either and didn’t sense the power she processed. Delly seemed not to react to his presence. Still, he approached cautiously at first and then with more fervor as she continued to stand still, focused on the weapon. He brought his sword in high, and without Delly offering any kind of defense, the attack had the potential to kill her.
The barbarian exploded in motion, swinging the mace back and then striking forward before Vulder’s blade came within a foot of her. The weapon designed for slaying undead foes crashed into its target’s chest, lifting Vulder off his feet and shooting him back as if launched from a canon. During Delly’s previous attacks, he had crashed through a couple of walls and then settled in piles of rubble. Now, he streaked backward with nothing capable of stopping him. He even ripped through a thick support beam without slowing.
Jace and his crew watched in awe as Vulder shot out of the throne room, clearing a path of destruction so they could see him at all times. Once he was a hundred feet from the outer walls, hanging above the open air. Lightning streaked from the storm clouds above and turned his body into a fantastic firework, sending black sparks in all directions for fifty feet. When the explosion dissipated, nothing remained. In the silence that followed, the wind calmed, the churning sky around them settled into placid clouds, and the thunder faded away.
In their place, a gentle rain began to fall.