“He violated the bro code,” I protested, Aaron standing between me and the traitor Maxwell and my sister.

“I don’t know if you technically qualify for the bro code,” Marcus pointed out.

“I don’t care that you’re a death priest now, I’ll beat your ass so hard you’ll feel it back on Earth,” I snapped.

“Why is this a bad thing?” Jess demanded. “Maxwell is your friend, is there something about him I don’t know, like some kind of stalker creep pedophile?”

I met Maxwell’s eyes and glared at him, trying to make him think I would say that about him. He just smiled smugly. “No, Max is a great guy.”

“See, I told you he would come around,” Raven said.

“How could you tell Raven and not me?” I demanded, getting angry again. “And why did you keep it from me?” My glare went to Raven next.

“Gee, it’s almost like I had to block an eldritch blast from you when you found out,” Aaron said.

“It wouldn’t have done any permanent damage, just removed a leg or something,” I grumbled. “He would’ve been fine.”

“And that’s why I didn’t tell you,” Raven said. “We were having too much fun conquering stuff and I didn’t want you to get distracted and become all annoyed.”

“You know, Max,” Freya said, “we could sanctify my new temple by turning you into a living dead and having an unholy wedding.”

“Freya,” I said warningly.

“There are some benefits of being married in-game,” Jessica, the archer on Aaron’s team, said.

“Like what?” Jess asked.

“Simple stuff, like always knowing where the other one is in game, and lower cost teleportation between places of creation to get to each other,” Jessica explained. “I know it’s weird, but technically Nick and I got married so we could connect quickly if we got separated.”

“That would be nice,” Maxwell said. “What do you think, Zeke? It would make it so we could—”

Several minutes later, Aaron sported multiple burns from eldritch fire, Marcus was missing an eye, Decker was still looking for his hammer, and Nick was trying to restring his bow.

“You quite done?” Aaron demanded, sitting on my back.

“You all are lucky I’m tired,” I growled. “I’m done.”

“So, no wedding?” Freya had watched the whole exchange with an amused smile. “I’m going back to my temple now.”

“Did she come out here just to mess with me?” I asked, watching her go.

“Probably,” Marcus said, working on regrowing his eye. “Having a wedding, unholy or not, to consecrate a temple wouldn’t make any kind of difference, unless there’s a big part of this whole thing I don’t know.”

***

“We came here once our temple was secure,” Aaron said. “We were worried you would need our help since your general ended up fighting their general.”

“I appreciate it.” And I really did, taking no offense in them being worried about me. Tellkin had beat the paladin general, but he hadn’t come through unscathed. Though we had very powerful death magic with us, it wasn’t easy to heal every wound. The searing holy light used to carve off one of Tellkin’s legs did not make healing easy. The leg had been reattached, but it didn’t work right.

The giants continued to rampage through the city, wiping out the blood zombies wherever they came across them. Same was true for the grave guard and flesh horrors, nothing was left of the civilian population. That meant between the zombies and the blood zombies there was likely near 20,000 zombies.

It seemed like the numbers were dwindling. More and more often, entire sections would be cleared by grave guard with no blood zombies to be seen. They would gather up the mindless zombies and bring them to our new foothold at the former Olattee temple. When it had converted, the massive wave of divine energy that swept over the city had cleared a large chunk of it, bringing them all the mindless zombies to the temple.

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“They’re gathering them inside of the altar of purity,” Raven said. She had been up on the very top of Freya’s new temple, trying to locate large groups of the blood zombies.

“They must be getting ready for some kind of siege,” I said. “We’ve taken out many of their strongest, but it hasn’t been without its costs.”

“I don’t know,” Aaron said. His team had been one of the few that had fully survived the encounter with the archbishop at their temple. They hadn’t brought any of the players under level 100 into that fight, but of the 300 players that entered the square, only 150 walked out. The archbishop had been some kind of war cleric specializing in devastating pinpoint attacks.

“Any news about how the friar’s doing?” I asked.

“No, but a group was sent to him, we should meet up someplace with all three leaders so we can make a plan,” Aaron said. “From what we saw, they were purging all zombies regardless of what kind. They also talked about seeing and hearing the side effects of the battle between the friar and the archbishop. We’re assuming he won since his forces haven’t panicked.”

“You guys get that set up, I will be there,” I said. Aaron and his group left after that, and I took some time to restore my tier 1 death energy reserves while channeling the power into my armor to repair it.

There was still fighting all across the city, but it was rapidly dying down. Players had their necromancers to control the mindless undead zombies in their zone of the city as I had done. And with the retreat of the blood zombies, most of the city was going to be under our control. I didn’t check the casualties. I knew they were high. Half the giants had fallen, but the only reason I knew that was because they were obvious. I pulled up my character sheet, having gained a whole bunch of levels.

Evidently, whatever determined when I got experience for battles was counting this lull as the end of the first battle. Between that and subduing Theonis, which counted for more than just killing him, I’d gone from level 138 to level 151. It gave me sixty-five stat points. I put thirty into spirit and, after thinking about it, thirty-five into agility. Being able to hit faster than others, so far had kept me ahead of enemies far stronger than me. I also absorbed another fifty death cores. No point in saving all of them now. I wouldn’t be able to use them all anyways.

Character Soul Level: 151

Name: Ezekiel Verniac

Race: Human Lich

Foreboding Gravitas: 35

Unspent Stat Points: 0

Spent Stat Point: 755

5 Stat Points per level

Health: 1839

Health Regeneration: 73/sec

Death Energy Tier 1: 4808

Death Energy Regeneration Tier 1: 95/sec

Death Energy Tier 2 Storage Capacity: 48/62

Mana: 3160

Mana Regeneration: 81/sec

Carrying lbs.: 3962

Stats:

Intelligence: 289 [multiplier: 1.311] [40 from gear]

Spirit: 232 [multiplier: 1.23]

Vitality: 119[multiplier: 1.15]

Resilience: 121 [multiplier: 1.15]

Death Core Tier 1: 373

Death Core Tier 2: 62 [multiplier: 1.21]

Agility: 181 [multiplier: 1.1]

Dexterity: 125 [multiplier: 1.21]

Experience: 11 of 185,551

I hoped barely making it to level 151 was a good omen. I also hoped it would be enough to keep me alive. The fact that Frier Brown had an even fight against the archbishop worried me. I’d gotten the impression in the past that someone at the strength of Theonis wasn’t a challenge for the frier. Then again, that might have been a bit of hero vision.

I was just getting ready to go and meet the friar when I felt it. My attention turned towards the altar of purity. Something had changed. There was a wrongness coming from that place now. The huge buildup of power that we had been sensing there was now being channeled someplace, into some kind of spell.

We didn’t have time to meet up and make a plan, whatever the church was trying to do, it was happening now. I knew the friar and hopefully some of the players would’ve sensed the change as well.

“Tellkin!” I yelled. “We have no time, we need to go now.”

Either he had sensed it, or the sudden change in tone of my words and body language warned him something had happened. “Infantry! Let’s move! Form up as you march.” His words echoed across the gathered army.

“I’m going to take my forces back to my temple. I will send the clerics and acolytes I can spare,” Freya’s was full of worry as she looked up towards the altar of purity. “We can be more helpful from there, hopefully Shad’ehki and Ekwin are paying attention.”

“Ekwin?” I asked in surprise, momentarily distracted. “The Order of Equinox is here?”

“Yes, who do you think took the third temple?” Freya asked.

Already the horde of undead was swarming forward. The juggernauts started moving a moment later leading the giants. We would need them to break into the fort. It was late afternoon, and the sky was cloudy. Except the clouds were swirling. Whatever the spell was at the center of the city, the power concentration was high enough to affect the clouds.

Maxwell, on the back of Snappy, started playing “Ain’t no Rest for the Wicked” by Cage the Elephant as we rushed forward, our momentum building.