Our tactic was working, at least for now. Whoever drew Duke’s focus would immediately shift to an entirely defensive strategy, allowing everyone else to hammer him with arrows, claws, barbed quills, or cutting blades. Duke had made a mistake when he turned away from me and attempted to take out Ripley and Lowki. My aegis had been awfully close to dropping from the repeated savage blows from Duke’s animated sword. Compounding his arrogance and confidence, Duke seemed to enjoy showing off more powerful versions of the limited direct damage spells I had at my disposal. Had my nemesis continued his assault on my empowered aegis with unrelenting spells, it would have ruptured for sure and likely would have spelled the end of the fight, not to mention my life.
As it were, when the elves rejoined the fray, slinging powerful magics of their own against his broad shoulders and back, Duke’s mana barrier began dropping at a prodigious rate if his reaction was any indication. Stella and I thought we heard Duke’s accelerator say something as the tide of our battle shifted, but as we were attempting to keep as much distance from the man the raven’s words were lost on us. Still, as soon as the raven relayed whatever information he deemed important enough, Duke immediately shifted his relentless march toward me instead of Ripley. The wicked blade I was helplessly defending against whirled through the air as if grabbed by an invisible cord, slamming back into the man’s hand as he endeavored to overcome Ripley’s formidable defenses.
Our tight pack of friends instantly adjusted our tactics on the fly, and it became a game of keep-away whoever held Duke’s ire. When the man was unable to break through Ripley’s impressive shield and armor, though he did manage to land several non-life-threatening blows, Duke whirled on the agile Lowki. To our good fortune, Duke had no answer to Lowki’s natural defense mechanism which created an illusionary duplicate of him. Looking like it was the real cat, any strike that appeared to crash into the cat instead caused the image to waiver for a moment as the blade passed harmlessly through. With each missed opportunity, Duke’s anger grew to new heights, though his mounting frustration did little to help him land even a single blow on Lowki’s black fur.
It was a good thing Duke never made contact as his blade would steal health from any living creature as long as his weapon touched some of their blood. Lowki was perfectly able to evade his attacks and bypassed any opportunity which presented itself to counterattack. Duke did recognize his blunder quickly enough, but the time he spent wasting efforts against Lowki and Ripley had been entirely to our benefit. His glowering expression locked back onto me, the mortal threat against my life clear as a crystal, even as dozens of arcane spells of all types bombarded his back courtesy of the elves. No longer the Hunter’s focus, Lowki resumed his punishing attacks while Ripley swapped to her greatsword for greater damage potential.
For me, I danced away as rapidly as I could. It was not a flat-out run from the dangerous man, but more of a back pedal before shifting to long side steps, ever moving away from his wicked blade. The promise of approaching victory began creeping into my chest, but I tamped it down. Duke was not an enemy to underestimate and could still have diabolical tricks up his sleeves.
I didn’t see my nemesis’s latest spell before he slammed into me. A thrashing beam of darkness crashed heavily into my back. Shock registered in my mind an instant later as I recognized the man had somehow been able to land a spell through my upgraded aegis like it wasn't there. Such an event should not have been possible unless the spell was of the highest tier. As soon as it reached my back, it felt as if a thousand desiccated hands reached inside my rib cage. Dlawed fingers grasped at my inner core.
Fearing the worst, as any spell capable of touching a person’s core could be incredibly dangerous, I prepared to turn around and make one final stand before whatever spell he inflicted finished me off.
I was about to charge forward into an all-out final offensive before his dastardly magic finished its devilish purpose when Duke spat words laced with sharp hatred and utter contempt.
“I’ll find you anywhere on the planet now, you fool!” Duke spat out as I came to a halt and stared back at the man. “We’ll be seeing each other real soon.”
His words forced my mind to turn inward and peer once more at my core. Duke hinted his spell was some kind of tracking magic and perhaps was not as deadly as I had feared. At my mental probing, it was as if a grease-like film had encompassed my core, lashing a thousand ghastly fingers across its surface. There was no pain, but understanding dawned as I recognized the man’s words were true. I could not tell the specifics of what his spell had done, but there was a ghostly tether reaching away from my core to directly where Duke was standing. Duke’s hold was locked onto the center of my power and would not be releasing its horrific hold any time soon.
Returning my attention to Duke a split second later, the man continued grinning at me. His face was manic as if a wild beast was staring down prey and was fantasizing about ripping me into pieces. It was terrifying to witness. This was an expert killer who killed for the pleasure of it. It was a sport, an ultimate challenge, and little else. He promised unimaginable pain to come.
Duke’s protective barrier of magic finally shattered as we stared at one other.
Lowki’s quills slammed hard with sickening thuds against his less armored hip, and into the side of Duke’s neck. He seemed not to notice as the barbed quills began pumping poison into his weakening body. Ripley’s attacks were less effective even without the mana barrier as Duke’s obsidian armor was more than capable of deflecting the several attacks landing against his back. Arrows ricocheted harmlessly away moments later, though a bolt of lightning and a piercing spear of ice managed to get through his defenses causing Duke’s right shoulder to slam forward from the impacts. Duke was entirely unconcerned and unbothered at what should have been devastating attacks. It was as if the man was an immortal being and nothing short of completely disintegrating him outright could even bother or threaten him.
Unhurried, Duke reached a gauntleted fist to his shoulder and grabbed hold of something. At first, I believed he was trying to dislodge Lowki’s barbed tentacle, but it wasn’t poisonous quills he pulled out. Squinting to make out what Duke held in front of his face, I recognized the black raven I knew to be the man’s Accelerator named Felix. I stared uncomprehendingly at the man who only smiled wider at my apparent confusion.
Beside me, Stella screamed at the same time Duke crushed the fragile bird. Her shriek was unlike anything I had ever heard from her before. “No!” she bellowed, and it sounded as if Stella believed Duke was in the process of killing a child.
The single word carried such grief and torment it threatened to pull my attention away from the dying Hunter. My optimism at achieving the final victory suddenly felt hollow and fake. Duke was not bothered or in distress. His face almost looked as if his actions would claim him victory. Whatever was about to happen wouldn’t be good for our side.
Noise like the shattering of a delicate crystal ornament reached my ears as the raven Accelerator was crushed under Duke’s unyielding grip. A warped, high-pitched scream of mortal agony escaped Felix’s beak as his life, however artificial it may have been, was pulverized. My mind couldn’t comprehend why Duke would destroy his AI. As my mind whirled through the possibilities, my initial assumption was the man wanted to deny me the typical rewards when defeating another Hunter, but his eyes and his expression said otherwise. Duke was not accepting his impending death, instead his smug and confident showed something far more menacing.
Faster than my mind could process, a sphere of impenetrable darkness whooshed into existence around my most hated enemy as if he was being swallowed by a miniature black hole complete with a fiery accretion disk. Everyone’s sight of the malicious man was stolen as soon as the sphere of vibrating energy appeared in a burst of energy. It was as if a new center of the universe had just been created, only feet away, and absolutely everything was being pulled inexorably towards its epicenter. Everything for miles felt the intense and immediate pull towards the nightmare sphere. Low-hanging branches were ripped away from redwood trees, leaves whipped through the air as if being carried by a gale-force hurricane. Everything not bolted down threatened to fly towards the incarnate of death.
As quickly as it appeared, the sphere of annihilation disappeared.
Lowki howled in excruciating pain right as the sphere appeared and crashed to the floor immediately after it disappeared. The tremendous tug from the hole in space had threatened to send me and Stella flying toward the murderous orb, and I stumbled to keep upright. With the sphere’s disappearance, forest debris crashed to the ground as if gravity had been restored to the planet.
Where Duke had been a moment earlier, was now completely empty space without a trace of the despicable man. A desperate hope lanced through my chest, perhaps Duke had been destroyed by the spell, though the desire evaporated as I recalled the haughty expression he wore before he disappeared. Duke had not been defeated. He had somehow escaped certain doom, and his expression screamed he would enjoy hunting me down.
Lowki’s cry of pain pulled my attention to my feline friend. The great cat was on his side writhing in pain as dark blood pumped from the tips of his tentacles. No, not where the flat of flesh held Lowki’s barbed quills, he was missing one to two feet of the appendage. It was gone, as if cleanly severed by a vorpal blade. As I crashed beside him, the words to my regen spells were already flowing to send healing magic into the distressed cat. In seconds, the gushing flow of blood reduced to a trickle before the wounds scabbed over. The appendages didn’t look right, something about them was off. Lowki’s twin tentacles wriggled impotently, the last foot of each simply gone.
Unfortunately, my minor regen was not up to the task of of replacing the severed tips. In the blink of an eye, Lowki’s had a significant portion of his combat prowess ripped away and there was nothing I could do about it. His feline eyes looked appreciatively up at me, thankful I had at least been able to end his torment.
“I’m sorry, bud,” I apologized as I ran a hand down his muscled back. “We’ll try to find someone to help regrow what was stolen. We’ll find a way, I promise.”
Ripley’s tall frame entered my vision as she stepped close, twigs snapping under her weight. My eyes flicked up to her. Though the skeleton had several deep gashes visible on her black bands of muscles, she thankfully appeared mostly unharmed. With how disastrous the final part of the battle had been, I realized we could have lost far more than a part of Lowki. Both friends had been close enough to the sphere, either could have been pulled into it and likely destroyed outright.
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My eyes looked to where Duke had been standing, and immediately noticed a deep void in the earth below where his feet had been. It was as if the power of the magic disintegrated everything around the sphere. Dirt, thick tree roots, rocks, loose pebbles, anything unlucky enough to have been within the sphere was utterly destroyed. Not even dust remained.
Looking closer at the hollowed-out bowl, I noticed it was not completely barren as I first suspected. Right in the middle of the foot-deep basin sat what remained of Duke’s artificial raven. It lay on its side, completely unmoving. Tossed away as if the bird had been less than worthless. Kneeling at the edge of the depression, I reached low to scoop up the petite creature. It was now a misshapen lump of artificial feathers, broken glass, wires, and circuitry. No life remained in the fledgling bird.
Cradling the small creature, I turned to Stella with an exasperated look. “What in the hell was that?” I asked incredulously, motioning to where the black hole had been. My next thought spilled out of my mouth before I made the obvious connection between what I held in my hand and Stella’s outburst. “Why did you scream?”
Stella was visibly shaken and trembled as she floated closer to my cradled hands. “Whoever he was,” Stella said in a voice full of heartache, motioning at the small bird. “He didn’t deserve what Duke did to him. Regardless of who his Hunter was, I’m sure Felix was a kindhearted individual. Most Accelerators have no choice in the matter when it comes to who they are bound to. We can't resist the will of our bonded Hunter, even here, when Duke desired his death.”
“Why would he kill Felix?” I asked. “Doesn’t he need him to access the System?”
“He does and, at least for the short term, Duke will be unable to access his interface,” Stella replied as she rested a paw on Felix’s broken form. “Felix didn’t deserve this.” Stella looked up at me, her eyes full of tears.
“While I can’t be positive why Duke did what he did,” Stella continued. “I believe I can make a reasonable guess as to why. Accelerators of rare-tier or higher, though not all, are granted a hidden power by the System. Neither the Hunter nor the Accelerator immediately knows what that power is, but someone as clever as Duke would have ways to discover it.”
Stella lowered her head and I felt a tear land in my palm. Hoping to show her some compassion for the loss of her fellow AI, I shifted Felix’s body to my left hand so I could place the other across her back. As I did, she let out a soundless cry before continuing. I understood the loss she was feeling.
“Felix must have had the ability to teleport Duke from harm,” she said before staring blankly out into the forest of giant sequoias. “I mentioned earlier that teleportation is normally only available between settlements, and only available once the Hunter earned a high enough reputation with the two. Apparently, Felix had a version of this, essentially an emergency transportation. It created that black hole, whisking away Duke from harm. More than likely, the magic transported him to a predetermined safe place, probably the settlement we were going to try to find with the help of the elves in this forest.”
“One of the requirements to activate the ability was probably the necessity to crash Felix to trigger the effect,” Stella said with an exasperated shake of her head. She closed her eyes and tilted her head back to the canopy above where a bit of sunlight was able to shine through. “To have such a life-saving ability, as you know, is incredibly rare on starter worlds. Sacrificing his Accelerator fits into how the System would balance such a talent to exist. It won’t trouble Duke for long. My guess would be Duke has another Accelerator waiting for him back at his home base, though it will take him at least several days to forge the link with it. He probably only bonded with Felix because of his ability to remove Duke from certain death, no matter how unlikely such an event would be, given his high level.”
“This special ability,” I said after contemplating the information she shared. “You have one too, don’t you?”
“Yes, I’m sure I do,” she replied in a soft voice. “Such a power can be just about anything. It could be something as simple as allowing the Hunter a higher chance of finding hidden loot, or a noticeable increase in a specific attribute. Or, perhaps it could grant access to an unusually powerful spell cast through the Accelerator. If we know anything about Duke, he probably has a collection of defeated Accelerators and keeps those he deems special enough. In my case, I don’t know what the System granted me. Only after a predetermined series of events take place will an Accelerator know what she can do. Duke probably has several ways to figure out these things.”
“Duke is hunting you, specifically,” I stated bluntly. There was likely only a handful of reasons a Hunter of his caliber completely dedicated himself to finding something, but I left my guess unspoken as I regarded my small friend.
Stella knew what I was thinking, so spoke about what we both believed. “Duke thinks he will be able to ascend through me,” she said as she opened her eyes. “What other reason would he have to kill so many people as he tracks me down? He’s probably been at max level for some time now, which means he’s looking for a way off this rock.”
“And now, he has something telling him where I am at all times,” I said as my inner eye turned inward once more. An oily residue clung to my core’s surface, shifting around as if it were a living thing. “And by extension, you.”
“Yes,” Stella agreed before the shuffling of feet grabbed our attention. The elven contingent of armored warriors, spell casters, and archers were approaching. None held weapons pointed our way, thankfully, though none had sheathed those weapons either. Several mages we could see held readied sparks of power dancing atop upraised palms, archers held arrows to their strings, and warriors pointed weapons toward the ground. The army was ready for a fight if we made any aggressive actions.
At least they understood we had come to their aid, or at least were not friends of Duke’s considering our attempt to defeat him. The contingent halted a dozen feet away, so far not saying a single word to us. Ripley moved to stand at my side with Lowki shifting to the other. Neither showed any aggression which I was appreciative of. Tallos cut the silence as he walked forward with upraised hands.
“Greetings, friends of the High Thicket,” he said with as much forced cheer as he could muster. “My name is Tallos, and I hail from the Moon Siren and Kelewithe before that. These are my friends and companions, Xazorus the Hunter Killer, Stella the Accelerator, Ripley our skeletal guardian, and Lowki our silent protector.”
Two shield-bearing elves moved aside, allowing another exemplary armored soldier to step forward. A head taller than his brethren, this new elf was either the army’s commander or perhaps its general with his impressive regalia. He sheathed his longsword in one fluid motion, reached up, and removed his golden helm before holding it casually under his armpit. Flowing golden hair fell to touch the top of his finely polished breastplate. His eyes were a vibrant green and held a calculating air to them. His full plate armor was engraved with silver gilding, along with countless lightly glowing runes covering every spare inch of the metal. With how powerfully enchanted his armor was, even I was doubtful Duke’s blade would have any chance at penetrating it. The elf practically radiated with magical might.
Tallos carried on without pause at the elf’s approach. “We mean the elves of Quarris no harm. We have been perusing the Hunter named Duke for many weeks now, but were unaware he was here, let alone attacking your city and the High Ticket. He is a villain.”
“Hail, Tallos, and your companions. I am Commander Wallace. You have my thanks and the thanks of our city. Your arrival was most fortuitous,” the commander said in a deep baritone voice. His angular face and demeanor held a confidence that spoke volumes about the elf's competence. “The Hunter Duke attacked without warning nor provocation. Our scouts spotted the man as he journeyed towards the northern side of the High Thicket, but his sudden assault caught us off guard. The power he possessed would rival more than our elders combined if not more. We were caught on the flat foot and it cost us many lives. We had mobilized a sufficiently strong enough force to cease his bombardment when you arrived and seized his attention.”
“I am sorry for the loss of your people,” Tallos offered as he motioned to the forest. “Is there any other aid we might provide? Xazorus here has some potent regenerative magic that could restore the injured.”
“Your offer is appreciated, though we have capable enough clerics in our ranks to sustain any life in danger,” Wallace replied, though left unsaid about those whose lives were no longer in danger. They were lost. Tallos looked at me, and I nodded at him as we were both thinking the same thing.
I stepped a foot forward, bringing Wallace’s attention to me. “If I may,” I spoke with a sense of urgency as time was of the utmost with what I was about to offer. “Please know that I have a remarkable incantation which can restore a recently deceased individual to life, regardless of their manner of death. It is not guaranteed to succeed as the spell‘s likelihood of being successful decreases with each passing minute. If you can bring someone to us, quickly, I am willing to try.”
Wallace’s eyes lighted as I made my proclamation, before looking to Tallos who nodded in corroboration. The commander turned to the elves behind him and rapidly ordered something in the elven tongue. “If you can make such an attempt, we would be in your debt,” Wallace said as a commotion behind caught everyone’s attention.
A group of four soldiers hurried with a litter carrying a robed individual. Coming close, we saw it was an older elf with long white hair and a face wrinkled with age. “Before you engaged, one of Duke’s final spells hit one of our elders. While I would value the return of any of my soldiers who fell in the defense of our city, an elder death alone is an incalculable tragedy.”
“Commander Wallace, I will try. The cost to use the spell is high and will sap every drop of magic within my body,” I disclosed. “The spell casting will cause me to fall into a coma for the next half day regardless of whether the spell is successful or not. Can you please look after my friends and our nearby horses while I recover?”
As I spoke, the guards brought the slain body, setting him down gently between me and Commander Wallace. A quick inspection showed how he had been mortally wounded with a necrotic spell of some kind which tore a hole through his enchanted robes and desiccated the flesh beneath.
“Of course,” Wallace replied before ordering several more men to approach me with another litter. This one was empty. “We will ensure no harm comes to you or your friends while you are with us. You have my word.”
Nodding at the commander’s words, I began my longest spell, revivification. Placing a hand over the ghastly cavity Duke’s spell had torn through the elf’s body, my arcane words filled the air around us. Before I was forced to close my eyes in concentration, I noticed dozens of people, elven mages and archers alike, step forward to be granted a better view of my spell casting. Per Stella, the potential to revive a fallen comrade was all but unheard of, at least in this starter world. It was understandable why so many would want to witness such wondrous magic at work. I could only hope my attempt wouldn’t fail.
Keeping my hands close to the elf’s chest, the fingers on my other hand shifted in precise and articulate motions. At least to those close enough to see the somatic portion of the spell, it must have looked like my fingers were being carried atop crashing ocean waves. The arcane syllables tumbling from my lips were light and hopeful as if I was whispering to the elf’s departing soul. My core responded to the spell’s call, welling energy deep within me before it rushed to the hand over the body. There was a good chance my spell would simply crash off the elf, the power not finding purchase against a body too far gone. It had been several minutes, at least five or six since the elder died and every minute after death decreased the chances of revivification calling the elf’s soul back to his body.
Even the barest chance to save a person’s life was worth it. Making such an attempt was at the core of who I was. The spell was draining everything as it built, absorbing every drop of mana my core contained. As I uttered the final word, power burst forth like my hand as if I was a breaking dam holding back a deluge of life-giving energy.
In the moment it took to complete, I began losing consciousness. Gentle elven hands caught me as I fell backward. I could not yet know if my spell had been successful. I hoped, with every fiber of my being, it had.