11:57
Tick
Tock
A timer counted down our doom.
To have something hanging above you, threatening the consequences of your inaction, like a guillotine for criminals, the timer forced our hands to hurry.
Easing my heart, slowing it's pace, I remembered that if we rush we tend to trip.
I couldn't afford to fall.
Not now; not from these heights.
Yet, my mind still wandered, causing my body to follow.
In between swings my eyes would glance above.
A glancing blow slices my foreman.
A pain rushes in, only to be met by a fresh sensation
As if spring sprouted within my veins.
A euphoric feeling. One that made you smile, happy to be alive, to feel this.
Back to the battlefield I thought, as my eyesight went back to the monster ahead.
An elite with four affixes.
Bloated Burning Brute of Smashing Damnation.
He glowed a ferocious red that stung the eyes, reminding me of the smell of his rotting flesh and the evil intentions that were his inception.
Funneling their strength, I could feel the buffs working their way into my system.
This was the protocol.
If an elite appears, I would be granted priority buffs and healings.
Then, I was to slay the beast.
Gathering my breath, resting my soul, easing my mind.
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I produced Black Hawk.
A sleek two-handed blade with obnoxiously high wielding requirements, which I only had due to the buffs being funneled into me at the moment.
[120/110] Strength required to wield.
[120/150] Requirement not met to wield as a one-handed blade.
I feared the beast of a man who could wield such a blade in one hand.
Hopefully, he would never become a foe, I thought as I sprinted forward and produced a slash that split the ground and the foes infront of it.
Where there once was an elite, now there was remains and loot.
With a clang that echoed the gold spilled onto the floor, bathing the ground in a yellow glow.
A helmet of patches had dropped.
One that hummed an ancient power.
A low level legendary.
How lucky, I thought, but would think no more on the matter.
After the raid the cleanup crew would collect everything, it was much to dangerous to identify anything during a raid.
Breathing heavy, I rested myself on the blade as I began to feel the effects of the buffs leaving my system.
Some men grow addicted to buffs, needing to feel the power channeling through them at all times. The closest thing to becoming God men would whisper between food and shared fire. Of men lost to the buffs of the world, of healing overdoses, of elixir and potion addictions.
It was not an easy life.
But it was one we choose.
Before me a path appeared directly to Mary Shelly and her promethean attempts.
Human beings are ungrateful bipeds, or so said some foreigner from another world.
As I watched her tinker with her creation, I thought only of myself.
Did I care for anything as much as she cared for that thing that she worked so very hard on?
Without a moment to waste, I knew the answer.
My men, my guild, and her raced through my mind.
Then, my feet became wind, and I dashed through the path presented and grabbed the mad scientist's wrist stopping her project prematurely.
Her eyes held a fury cold as winter as she whispered.
I was to become death.
To master it.
For all of us…
What have you done?
Above me I noticed that the timer had stopped.
Event cleared.
8:57
With confidence I responded,
I am doing it all for my men.
Regardless of the cost.