Chapter 043: Welcome home, such as it is.

Syna fired an Arcane Bullet, instantly blowing one of Devourer’s Knights heads into pieces. Almost fifty percent of HP out.

High elf Blade and the catgirl Daggerer attacked the Warriors, hoping to reduce their numbers. Orc Warforged and Hobgoblin Blood Knight attacked the three Knights to hold them at bay and buy some time. Kovacs remained back and kept debuffing the hostile knights. Metalist began conjuring iron bolts and firing at the Warriors. Necromancer began summoning something.

Just as Syna exploded the same head again, I launched a Destroyer Lance at an Eldritch Knight. Mostly to test just how tough it really was.

He didn’t even care enough to cover himself in a Bend Reality. He must have used some variant of Inhuman Resilience. The projectile connected… and yet there was next to no effect.

Syna calmly moved over to another Devoured Knight. The first one lost around 95% of his strength. Warforged finished him with a massive cleave to the body, that almost sliced him in half.

Warriors were dropping like a flies. Devoured Knights were about to fall as well. Only the Eldritch Knight was going to be a trouble.

Leria was anxious to charge. Probably to take revenge for her brethren we discovered earlier. And to test her new sword. Ugh.

Eldritch Knight seemed surprisingly passive. For a while. Then he charged the hobgoblin and slashed him with his sword.

The lawyer seemed fine for a second. His aura armour held. But then he screamed like a madman.

I stood behind him so I obviously couldn’t see it, but I could guess what happened. An Eldritch Slash. It was a localized Watcher death ray, that could partially go through the Aura Armour. His body reacted to the eldritch energies with sudden mutation. Like a straight line of additional eyes and things like that going through his chest.

Not exactly pleasant. But also not very lethal. Body, and even Reality itself, reacted badly to such a travesty of natural order. It was going to revert back to normalcy soon.

Of course, it would revert back to a normalcy if the Knight hadn’t take advantage of hobgoblin’s shock and beheaded him with a horizontal slash.

Necromancer finished her summoning hex. Something appeared. A lot of something.

Undead Legionnaire

Category: Undeath/Bones

Type: Daemon/Dead

Threat Grade: Iron IV

A regular soldier from the armies of the Black Tomb. Useful only in great numbers, but good to keep enemies at bay and stop them from reaching the casters.

Almost completely devoid of ability to think of themselves. Require an undead officer around to be able to operate.

Undead Lieutenant

Category: Undeath/Bones

Type: Daemon/Dead

Threat Grade: Iron V

A lowest grade of undead officers from the armies of the Black Tomb. Always surrounded by masses of undead legionnaires and zombies.

Almost completely devoid of ability to think of themselves (but still much more intelligent than their underlings). Serve as a link between the summoner and his undead armies.

Nine skeletons in dented steel armour and with equally withered swords and shields. They raised up from the ground. One looked slightly tougher - the lieutenant.

The Imperium’s approach to necromancy was rather… weird. On one side, it was certainly useful and wasn’t even nearly on the level of troublesomeness that normally warranted imperial proscription. It wasn’t a Weather or Time Magic, after all. On the other hand, the idea of some sorcerer using the body of your beloved grandma to further his own goals was a bit disturbing.

In the end the ‘allowed’ necromancy was limited to either summoning the appropriate daemons from the domain of the Bonehead (essentially an undead in all but names) and using the Spirits of Undeath (also his daemons, but the lowest possible grade) to temporary animate recently fallen bodies.

No touching their souls (even Gods got angry when people tried to do weird things with souls, this definitely wasn’t a domain of the mortals). Using random people only when facing the threat of death, but leave them where you found them after the battle ends. Those that wrote a consent before death (literally selling their bodies before their death to some necromancer) were ok. Just as criminals.

Another sensible compromise in my opinion.

For a while I thought that the necromancer went crazy (after all the Eldritch Knight was going to brutalize the skeletons in few seconds), but then I saw that the army of darkness attacked the Devoured Warriors (four of them) that were still alive. Neither side was really intelligent enough to fight properly, so it was a literal murderfest with both sides slashing each other until one of them was going to run out of hands to use their swords. Blade and a Daggerer immediately turned to face the Eldritch Knight.

Necromancer started another summoning. Metalist as well started constructing a stronger spell.

“They aren’t going to win.” Leria commented. “But they are well organized, I must give them that.” It was a truth. My exact thoughts to be honest.

Warforged leaped at the Knight, his axe swing carrying enough strength and velocity to force the Knight to cover himself with his shield. Warforged had massive buffs to strength, orcs had decent buffs to strength (after all, they were crafted by Rage, Black Pantheon god of wars and slaughter), and could push themselves over the edge by going into a rage. Which changed the decent buffs into massive buffs.

His strength was truly absurd. At least for our current levels. But he had little in terms of skills. No aura techniques that could allow him to add some… subtlety to his fighting. Instead he simply pummelled the enemy in front of him with his axe. Despite it being one-handed it still carried enough strength to force the Silver IV melee-oriented mob to focus on defense. Wow.

Eldritch Knight lost his patience when he saw the Blade and Daggerer coming closer. His helmet suddenly split open, revealing a sudden explosion of tentacles that pushed the orc back.

Blade grabbed his sword by the blade. And then delivered a truly exquisite mordhau to the Eldritch Knight’s head.

It was a rather weird type of attack that was created in Europe when the improvements in plate armours began rendering swords obsolete. Even early guns of the period often ended up bouncing off the exquisite breastplates and so on.

It could be summed up by grabbing your two-handed sword by the blade (using the metal gloves so you didn’t hurt yourself) and then hitting your opponent’s helmet with the edge of the guard. It essentially changed your sword into a weird blunt weapon. But one that was absolutely deadly. It could literally cave in your helmet, and even if you survived you were guaranteed to be stunned by the hit. Which gave your opponent a while or two to try and push something sharp through a weak point in your armour.

Eldritch Knight made a step back, his head shaking. He was obviously stunned. The catgirl get into a close contact and pushed her dagger into one of the gaps in the Knight’s helmet. Critical hit. But it wasn’t deep enough to be a truly critical.

It certainly was painful, though.

“What was that?!” Leria got curious. Obviously. She just saw an interesting way of causing damage to evil, after all! Something new to add to her repertoire of assets.

I began describing it to her, but I remained focused on the battle for most part.

Ok, so the high elf Blade (Synvek Something) might have been a nerd, but he was either a history geek or just knew the game/universe well. Immediately after delivering a mordhau he moved over to a halfswording stance. Which originated from the same source as mordhau. One hand on the grip, one on the blade, and then you push the blade point into a gap in armour. Looked quite funny and required you to get quite close to an enemy, but was a great idea when you fought heavily armored combatant.

There was a halfswording Stance later in a game, but it was too early for him to get into that level. He mimicked it. Without the dedicated game mechanics it wasn’t as good, but the basic principle worked.

I guess I’ll need to describe i to Leria as well, right? Ugh.

Metalist unleashed his spell. He conjured a lot of iron and formed a massive spear-like projectile that hovered in front of him. One of these complicated offensive spells that Metal Magic excelled in. He fired it with enough speed and power for it to pierce through the Knight’s armour. It actually went through him, chipping off twenty percent of his life in a single hit.

I could hear Vaera whizzing with admiration. Damn, there was a lot of firepower there.

It was enough to shake the Knight’s stun off. He pulled the projectile out before it dissolved, and immediately regenerated the wound. And he laughed.

What?

He pushed the nearby warriors with a hex that worked like an omnidirectional tentacle rush emerging from beneath his feet. Then he threw his sword up and grabbed it by the blade when it fall down. I could feel him imbuing the sword with some eldritch magic.

What is he… oh boy, I think I know.

He threw it.

The sword flew through the hall, tumbling slowly midflight. He planned it perfectly. The sword hit the Metalist… and went through his Magic Shield. He died instantly when the sword (quite broad) went right through his chest.

So, the biggest threat eliminated instantly. Smart move. Almost all Pentagram daemons acted like insane omnicidal maniacs… but most of them were in fact a rather cunning insane omnicidal maniacs. Many people died because they forgot that.

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Right after the Metalist body hit the floor, the Knight pointed his hand towards it. The sword trembled and suddenly pulled out on itself, flying back to the knight’s hand.

Necromancer immediately jumped behind a rock. Kovacs did the same after finishing another debuff he casted on the Knight. No wonder, really.

I silently cast a Touch of Entropy on the Knight. Let’s make it slightly easier.

Last Devoured Warrior fell. Necromancer called off the hex. They were of no use in the battle against a Silver IV.

Warforged orc charged the Knight, his Rage obviously activated. Knight answered with the same. Two juggernauts meet each other with a sound that must have been heard even in Ambryxis. At least few bones were broken there, obviously.

Orc grabbed the Knight in a way that reminded me of a wrestler move. Knight managed to raise his hand with a sword, but before he chopped the orc in half the Blade cleaved the raised arm in half somewhere around elbow. The hit was surprisingly clean for the toughness of the Knight’s armour, so I guess the Touch of Entropy made a difference.

“I seriously can’t believe we were on that level not that far ago.” Leria commented. “They are gonna get wiped by a Silver IV. Almost as one-sidedly as we were murdered by a Gold I.”

Comparing your strength to others by comparing your most glorious partywipes is just so much DFI games-like… ugh.

Well, the fight looked quite equal. At first glance. It was mostly the Warforged physical strength coupled with a rain of debuffs from the Hexer. It managed to tank the Knight enough for him to not be able to focus on others… and yet despite it, he instakilled two other adventurers. He only lost like… ⅓ of his HP, and the orc was obviously going all out. Sooner or later the Rage fades out, and then the Knight was going to break his neck like a match.

If Syna didn’t take the two Devoured Knights out of the picture, the Eldritch Knight could focus on Warforged and the fight would be over by now.

Blade scored few powerful hits by applying halfswording to several gaps in armour while the Knight was busy wrestling with the raging orc. Daggerer did the same with her dagger. Maybe fifteen percent of hitpoints out… and then the orc Rage fade out.

Almost immediately the Knight broke his grip and freed his hands, including the one that he regrew after the Blade’s successful slash. Then he squeezed him. I could almost feel the Warforged’ ribs breaking.

He freed him, only to immediately send him back with a massive kick. Warforged was definitely out of commision. Only his class’ natural physical power allowed him to stand up. But raising his weapon or even walking was out of the question.

Daggerer tried to pull back, put the Knight grabbed her with a tentacle suddenly emerging from his hand. He pulled her closer before she good escape… and broke her neck.

Welp. Protocol party-wipe commenced. It was going to be a massacre now. Unless necromancer pulls something tough from the Dark, her summoning seems surprisingly long.

Knight grabbed his sword and attacked the Blade. He managed to parry the first slash, but then got a Shield Bash to his face. No fake half-swording could help him now.

He was still fighting, but it couldn’t help him much.

I could clearly fell the moment when the dark elf summoning ended.

A massive pile of bones, at least three meters high.

Destroyer Skeleton

Category: Undeath/Bones

Type: Daemon/Servile

Threat Grade: Silver I

A heavy shocktrooper used by armies of the Black Tomb to tear apart formations of enemy infantry (and pave way for the masses of undead that follow them).

Dangerous melee combatant, capable of immense damage.

It was roughly humanoid. Seemed constructed from many, many skeletons. It’s small head looked almost comical on its massive body.

Its weapon was a falx. With a long shaft. The blade itself was at least a meter long. Not the best weapon for the caves, but there was a bit of space here, so it could work just barely.

“Destroyer Skeleton. Nice.” I commented. ”Seems like someone bought a hex above her level. That’s why it took her so long to summon it.”

Knight made a mistake (not fatal, but still a mistake) of not targeting the necromancer earlier. He was too busy with the Warforged. He did react to Metalist only because of the damage he caused made him look dangerous. Necromancer, with her bunch of skeletons he would simply walk through, not so much.

Destroyer charged the Knight. When it was close enough it made a massive overhead swing.

The Knight raised his shield. The hit - obviously strengthened by magic - carried enough strength that it forced the Knight to go all out in his defense. The earth around the Knight’s legs fractured under the stress.

What is this, an anime?

It still shaved off 5% of the Knight’s hitpoints. Simply by the sheer strength of the attack he was forced to defend himself from.

When the Destroyer raised his weapon again, Knight responded with several fast slashes to its belly. Bone fragments scattered around.

What followed was the dumbest and most single-minded fight I ever saw. Destroyer was totally an idiot. He simply repeated the same routine of massive overhead swings that would cleave average person in half. Despite being perfectly vertical.

The Eldritch Knight tried to break his assaults with a shield bash (it cost him 10% of hitpoints). Once. Then he simply responded with a flurry of blows each time the Destroyer was busy raising his weapon.

When the battle between the two ended the Knight had merely sixteen percent of HP left. And looked like he just had a meeting with a battering ram.

“Well, I guess it’s no wonder they made it out to the Red Mist.” I commented. “They are good. Weaker individually than us, but they gain a lot when fighting as a party.”

Necromancer could easily summon Crowds of her own to keep the weaklings busy. In the same time Warforged (and a Blood Knight, on a smaller scale) was essentially a dream tank of every adventurer party. Blade and Daggerer seemed like a good damage dealer. Metalist, if given enough time, could cause a lot of damage to bosses and strongest enemies the group faced. Hexer was very useful as a debuffer… and if enemy looked too strong, they could have the Necromancer summon the Destroyer.

“Well, if the orc wants to wrestle the bosses, we should totally buy him some colorful mask.” Simea commented with a smirk. “What sort of mexican wrestler doesn’t wear a colorful mask?” I chuckled. That was a good one. Or maybe my sense of humour was weird. I could suffer it, though, if her humour was weird in a similar way.

Despite his weakness the Knight finished the Blade. Necromancer was obviously out of mana. Hexer couldn’t do much damage on his own. And Warforged barely stood. Welp.

“Alright, I guess we’ll switch now. SWITCH!” I screamed. Kovacs didn’t even turn, instead he rose his hand in an ok gesture.

***

Killing the Eldritch Knight at this point was child’s play. He still looked tough, but he barely stood. Three Destroyer Lances weakened him, and then Leria simply chopped his head off with a Holy Smite.

“Is that what you people do normally?!” Kovacs almost ran out of mana as well. I could feel that when we got close. “Nobody ever told you to stick to enemies on your level?”

I chuckled. “Well, who doesn’t take risks doesn’t take rewards.”

“Fair point. Besides, you obviously profit from it. Highest levels around, and all that.” I nodded. “So, what’s the plan?”

“Normally we would have waited for the dead to come back to us and then pushed forward. To the very end of our manapool.” I answered. “But you decided to stick to the typical way of respawn, so we might as well retreat back and have a break.”

The typical respawn available to all Players and the NPC members of their parties was… much less awesome than the one we employed. It’s only advantage was that it wasn’t limited to a single location in the world.

You could mark a choose a single ‘checkpoint’ in every place considered civilized. It could be a city, village, mine… pretty much everything with even the most meager guardian deity qualified. According to lore they served as a conduit for gods’ power that was truly responsible for the respawns. Doing so in a temple dedicated to a god you had good relations with could weaken the penalties.

You automatically ‘showed up’ in a place you chose like that. People preferred places that were… private, due to said penalties. So, for example your flat, a room in the inn you rented for a few days right before leaving the city and departing into the anomaly and so on.

The penalties were where the troubles really began. First - all of your techniques, spells and hexes were locked due to ‘rebound’ that accompanied the resurrection. The length of this rebound depended on how often you died. Normally it was three hours, but dying again within three days made the period thrice as long. It could stack up to 24h.

Second, you lost some of your skill proficiencies. Or even levels. Once again, dying repetitively in short succession worsened the penalty. It could stack up to losing two whole levels per death. Which was… painful.

Third, four consecutive deaths with shorter than three day long intervals meant that NPC was dead forever. If he died three times in two days, and then once after four days… well, surviving full three days only took out a single ‘charge’. So if an NPC died again within next three days… it was a permadeath to him.

There was also a limit to five NPCs per Player. To avoid a person amassing his personal army of NPCs.

All of this allowed people to enjoy their resurrections… while not toppling the world’s balance completely. After all, you might have immortality, but this doesn’t mean you are automatically untouchable by those pesky NPCs.

It got even tougher later on. Many artifacts had Hindrances that made them disappear after you died. They were either Wandering (and simply disappeared to be found by someone else), Challenging (and they returned to a location of origin where you had to undergo a gruelling test to get them), or Taken by Victors, and the person that defeated you was free to steal them from your dead body.

You might have been an immortal being (by the courtesy of Gods, naturally), but this didn’t mean you were supposed to ruin their chessboard. Players were still pawns in the divine schemes. Pissing off the Gods - or the Imperium - was still a horrible idea.

Most former players knew the Seventh December Treaty that was made to destroy the Glorastian Empire. But it had a much less known cousin. Grizeldian Accord. An alliance of most top players made when they ran out of potential targets that could still make their blood boil. They decided to face the strongest power around. Namely - the Imperium.

It was less known because an assassin of the imperial Raven Brotherhood (sort of part secret police part Grand Emperor’s personal assassin guild and part secret society dedicated to leading the Imperium to greatness) sneaked into its inauguration meeting.

Few drops of the world’s most deadly poison (blackscaled lamia’s venom) murdered most Players and NPCs that attended the meeting. 95% of them already set their respawn points close to the meeting place. When they resurrected, with their skills locked, they did so right in front of the members of imperial punitive force that greeted them with sharp objects.

Within a single day the Imperium eliminated 95% of the top Players that wanted to join Grizeldian Accord. Out of the top 100 Players 67 died so many times that they were reduced into level ones. All of their NPC sidekicks (sometimes as strong as themselves) suffered permadeaths. All of their equipment (that they spent months or even years perfecting) was confiscated and hidden in imperial vaults. All of that in a single day, with Imperium mobilizing like, a single infantry brigade. Out of almost one hundred divisions it could muster without demanding help from its vassal states.

According to DFI this actually wasn’t done by them. They simply gave local AI too much freedom of actions and when the Imperium it governed saw a potentially deadly threat… it reacted in the best way that came to its mind. Which almost killed the game itself. And proved in the most terrifying way that there were ways of exploiting (or completely negating) the respawn system.

Our respawn system had most of these weaknesses fixed. Sure, setting new respawn point was a major pain (it required at least TEN human sacrifices whose sacrifice seemed to include tentacles), but there were no penalties. No lockdown of skills. No stat loss. No chance of permadeath for your friendly NPCs.

On the other hand it was also much less… flexible in terms of respawn places. And I recently made a rather horrible discovery. One that showed me this resurrection in a completely different light.

The Gore Altar had shrunk a bit since the game started. The change wasn’t large… but it limited the number of people we could connect to it (since more deaths meant faster shrinkage). Also, we were bound to sooner or later start feeding it with NPCs (I was almost sure I could devise a variant of Create Gore Altar ritual to work like that) or create new one. Both options ended with sacrificing people.

Kovacs refusal to switch over to that method of resurrection had another reason. We weren’t sure if it was possible to stop being linked to it. So choosing the Gore Altar as your respawn method was equal to anchoring your whole existence in the game to a single respawn point, that could be destroyed. Causing your permadeath.

No idea how it worked with the whole ‘Imprisoned in a Videogame’ scenario. No wonder they weren’t up to trying.

“On the bright side, I expected this to happen so I talked with Kytar about making some tasty cookies.” I winked to Kovacs. “He made them yesterday. Hope they’re good…”

And then, back to the breech.