Today’s the day we will be going to kill the next mini-boss. I’m hoping that it’s the healer but knowing my luck it will be the mage. I’m confident we have the levels and strength needed to take on this fight but I’m still a bit apprehensive. I asked Vaeda to go ahead and hunt me something to eat. Lately, I’ve been eating around one meal a day. The reason being that unlike before I got trapped in here, there’s nothing tasty for miles or really all the edible. Eating burned birds every day will turn anyone on to a diet. It is doing wonders for my waistline though. No longer am I pudgy, now I’ve slimmed down quite a bit. After I finished my meal we all left our temporary base to go to the next mausoleum. Vaeda had scouted it out a couple of days ago and we were going to attack today. Right as we were leaving Xeaos approached me and asked a favor of me.
“Greg, I was wondering if you would allow me the honor of leading today's battle. I wish to test myself and this body, in a life or death battle. I am not so arrogant as to believe I will be able to fight the mini-boss alone. But I would like to lead the charge and be the first in. I beg of you, my king.”
“Haha, sure Xeaos I don’t see why not. You were created to be a tank-like frontliner anyway. Just go talk to Milo about the battleplan. He spoke to Vaeda and me about it this morning.”
I was putting on my armor and practicing some skills with my right arm just to be ready for today when Vaeda flew over to me.
“Hey, Greg before we race over to fight, I’d like to bring up something to you that may happen after all is said and done today; a class upgrade.”
“What’s a class upgrade? I have a vague inkling of what it could be but explain it anyway.”
“A class upgrade occurs when you hit level 50. It normally gives you a new skill as well as some neat perks. Things like added bonuses to your skills, huge stat increases, and sometimes even a race change depending on the class. It will override your previous class and normally comes with different benefits in terms of the stats that it increases when you level up. Take your class, for instance, it gives +5 to control, +3 intelligence, and +2 to wisdom. The new class could double or triple all those stats or even give you totally new stats. Anyway, that is all I wanted to tell you about. If you do manage to level up today and unlock the class upgrade we will discuss it more then.”
“Alrighty then, Milo is there anything you’d like to go over with me seeing as everyone wants to have last-minute conversations with me,” I asked.
“I have nothing to add, My Lord. We have already been over the plan and there’s nothing else to do but execute it.”
“Let’s transform and rollout boys,” I shouted to my group.
“What?” they all said collectively.
“Sorry, it’s from a movie from here. And before you ask what a movie is, it is a type of entertainment from my world.” I responded.
After I said my transformers joke we finally left. With Vaeda leading the way from the sky we started walking. This time Milo was next to me commanding the troops and the two mages were on either side of us. The grunts were in front of us and Xeaos was in front of them. He quickly dispatched almost all of the undead we ran into, with Vaeda scoring the occasional snipe kill with a Black Ice Shard from the sky. After walking a couple of miles we arrived at the mausoleum. Outside the entrance were two mages standing guard. It’s really showing that none of these mini-bosses find me a threat when they have barely passable defenses.
Do they not take me seriously? Like you’d think if two of the mini-bosses haven't responded in a while you’d assume the worst and that I should at least be considered a threat. But no, they don’t take me seriously at all. Whatever, underestimating me only leads to death, ask Xeaos and Milo.
Milo ordered the mages to begin attacking while Vaeda and I shot out some Frost Shards as well. The volley of skills quickly dispatched the two guards and we walked over to the door. Milo had a grunt open the door while Xeaos stood ready to attack anything that may come out. The first room was completely empty save for some crates like the ones Milo had in his mausoleum. I decided to put aside the urge to open them until after we had neutralized all the enemies inside this place. We found three corridors in front of us. Milo suggested taking the left one just in case it was a maze. More often than not the correct way in a maze is the left direction.
We took the left corridor and walked into a bigger room than the previous and inside were six of the Skeletal Mages in a crescent moon formation facing us. We formed up and the grunts pulled up their shields. I was about to fire a Frost Shard when Xeaos spoke up.
“Don’t worry I can handle this alone.”
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What followed next was awesome, to say the least. While the rest of us pulled back out of the room and harm’s way, Xeaos charged forward. The mages immediately spot him on his charge and begin pelting him with Fireballs. He put his shield up and was expertly blocking all of them. There was a lull in the Fireball which is when Xeaos chose to attack. He ran at the one to his left and Shield Bashed it, crushing its skull. Then turning to the next two he dashes at them cleaving them both in half instantly. That left three to go and they begin once again pelting him. He held his shield up and slowly pressed on. I was very surprised the shield was holding. Just as I thought that it broke and dissolved into a dark smog-like substance. Thinking now would be time to step in I went to fire a Frost Shard at them when Milo held a hand up.
“He has this under control, My Lord. Xeaos is singlehandedly one of the strongest warriors I have ever seen and he will only get stronger from here. I know you do not come from a warrior’s background, My Lord, so you may not understand the desire to prove yourselves in combat. For us that are raised under such circumstances, we crave fame on the battlefield. Especially Xeaos and myself who were given second chances by you. Maybe it has to do with the Soul Binding you did to us. Who knows really. All I know is I have a burning desire to make your wishes a reality and to bring honor to your name. I’m positive Xeaos feels the same.”
Well fuck, I didn’t know they felt like that. I guess I should be more mindful of my followers' wants and feelings. I guess my interference right now would be seen by Xeaos as me telling him he’s not enough to handle some simple mobs.
“I didn’t know all that about you two, Milo. In that case, let us continue to watch.”
By the time we were done with our chat, Xeaos had killed another two of the mages and was slowly walking towards the final one. If undead could feel fear I imagine that mage would piss itself. Xeaos in battle is truly a force to be reckoned with and an unstoppable mass of violence. The mage fires one last Fireball and Xeaos does something I didn’t even know he could do; he cuts it in half. It explodes on contact with his sword but he emerges from the flames with no obvious signs of damage. He follows it up by beheading the undead. He pats out the flames on his armor and walks over to us.
“I hope my performance was satisfactory to you.”
“SATISFACTORY? That shit was awesome, Xeaos. You were such a badass. YOU CUT A FIREBALL IN HALF. HAHAHA, I didn’t even know that was possible. God that was exhilarating to watch. If this is what you can do at level 25 I actually think clearing this dungeon may become too easy.”
“Thank you, that means a lot. I shall due my best to continue to bring honor to you and your cause. Now if at all possible I’d like to wait around for a bit while my health regenerates and I can resummon my armor and shield. Believe it or not that Fireball did a pretty good amount of damage to me. I lost like 50 health.”
“No problem. We can wait a bit before we continue on. Let us know when you’re ready.”
Host’s minion has defeated an enemy in combat (x6)
Experience awarded.
Minor soul absorbed (x6)
After an hour Xeaos said he was ready to go and he resummoned his armor and shield. We trudged on deeper into the mausoleum clearing three more rooms with Xeaos mowing through the enemies like farmer reaping wheat. He ended up killing about 20 enemies and gaining another 5 levels. Milo didn’t gain any as he and The Horde didn’t fight at all or contribute in any way. I guess the system doesn’t give you credit for just standing around. I gained experience due to Xeaos being considered one of my minions but I didn’t level up. I figured the mini-boss would provide enough to finally take me over the level 50 threshold. We reached the end of the hallway we were in and found ourselves face to face with a giant stone door with what looked to be glowing arcane symbols.
“Greg this looks like a door with a magical seal on it. I’m positive we’re in the right place. Doors like this are meant to keep lower leveled people out. They normally require a significant amount of mana to open” Vaeda told me.
“My Lord, let me handle the opening of the door. You should save your mana for the fight”.
Milo walked over to the door and put his bony hands to it and the door began sucking mana out of him. He told us that it had absorbed around 200 mana from him. Luckily for us, Milo has amazing mana regeneration. The door’s symbols slowly faded and then the door itself swung open revealing a giant room with a single person inside. Standing in the middle of the room was a mesmerizing woman. If I didn’t know better I would have sworn she was alive and human even if not for the fact everyone I’ve met so far is undead and she was a little on the tall side, like around 6’4. She was wearing a red robe that was covered in symbols and she had the iconic wizard hat on her head.
Alright, let’s do this.