I finished resting and gathered myself to step into the next stage of the dungeon. As soon as I did the dirt on the graves began bulging and the Revenant Assassins began their ascent. Not wanting to get swarmed by these I decided to strike first, switching to Wind Ripper I ran down the row of tombstones cutting off as many heads as possible with the curved blade. I was happy to notice that the decapitated assassins did not get back up, but it didn’t take long before the ones I didn’t get to were fully out of their graves.
I swiped the scythe in the direction of one of the assassins, but it easily stepped back out of the way. Turning to strike out again, I noticed that these Revenants were fast. If I hadn’t caught the Revenant mini-boss by surprise, I probably wouldn’t have taken it out so easily. I activated the speed-enhancing enchantment on my armor, then jumped lightly off the ground and pulsed toward the assassin closest to me.
With a screaming whistle from my bone scythe, I decapitated the Revenant. Before my feet touched the ground again, I felt three assassins surround me and begin pushing their daggers toward my back. I let a large pulse out from the front of my body forcing them back and throwing me in the air. Flipping backwards I righted myself and began floating down. Before I landed though I had something I wanted to try. I asked Ballads Bow to fire Concussive shots down at them while I put my idea into motion.
My glaive replaced my scythe, and I pulled back my arm to throw it like a javelin. Taking careful aim at my target I threw it with all of my strength and at the end of it I followed up with a small but very fast pulse of sound. The glaive moved so fast it disappeared from my vision for half a second but showed up again when it impaled my target through the top of its head and made the entire body explode creating a concussive wave that knocked some close-by enemies on their backs. The polearm buried itself halfway up its shaft in the ground, but it was simple enough to retrieve it using an armory portal.
I scowled looking at the bent and chipped blade of the weapon I’d grown fond of using. Right then and there I decided to get some javelins and a spear when I went to replace the glaive. Placing it back into the portal I immediately exchanged it with Wind Ripper. It was time I got serious. Staying close to the ground I pulsed around the ground spinning my scythe around my body as I cut the assassins’ bodies to ribbons. The enchantment in my armor added to my already prodigious speed and made taking care of the Revenants easy in the end. “I’ve gotta be more flexible in combat, that’s what the Bard of War class is for.”
I chastised myself while waiting for the mini-boss to appear. When it did, I gulped down nervously. “Level 75 Draugr Colossus (Mini Boss).” The Draugr Colossus, stood at least 10 feet tall and looked just as wide as Josh. It wore a full set of heavy leather and metal armor and wielded two battle axes, one in each hand. The long and thick axes were meant to be used as two-handed weapons on anyone else. It bellowed its challenge at me and started its charge. Not wanting to face it one on one on the ground I took to the air calling Ballads Bow to my hand.
I shot a barrage of arrows at the giant undead but with every arrow I shot he smacked it out of the air with one of his axes. My glaive was broken, and my arrows weren’t getting through. I pulled my scythe from the armory and flew toward him. He was much faster than I thought though and as soon as I got close to him, I found myself having to back away. His axe had torn through the air, and I could feel the wind off of it. If I’d been half a second later then I’d have been eviscerated.
The Draugr looked like it was smiling at me, and it raised its axe again. When he slammed it down again, I didn’t expect the ground to shoot out spikes of ice, and one got me through the calf as I tried to dodge them. It hurt like crazy as I ripped my leg off of the spike to avoid another blow from his axe, but it wasn’t bleeding seriously. “I’ll be more scar than skin here soon.” I thought to myself as I put my scythe away.
This time I pulled out my sword. It was the weapon I had the most practice with and I needed to be fast if I hoped to win this fight. The Draugr pointed at my leg with one of his axes and laughed heartily. I burst forward with as much speed as I could muster and attempted to spear him, but he blocked my attempt by crossing his axes in front of himself. He grinned at me, and I grinned back. His face changed to one of confusion before ballads bow put an arrow in each of his legs from behind.
The Draugr Colossus swung around to try and kill the ambusher, and when he did, I drove my sword deep inside his spine. I twisted it and with all the force in my body, I sliced through the left side of his body. Thick black blood oozed out of him as he lay on the ground. Sheathing my sword, I saw him attempt to go for his axe again, barely able to keep his fingers moving but instead, I rushed over and grabbed it. It was heavier than it looked in the big warriors’ hands, but I threw my hip into it swinging it overhead, and split his skull in half.
Wiping the sweat from my brow I sat down. While I may not have gotten horribly injured in this fight keeping up this pace was exhausting. Each fight was getting harder, and I worried that I wouldn’t be able to make it to the end. It was different from the last level 100 dungeon I’d cleared. In the last one, I didn’t have time to think about anything it was just constant killing. This time I had time between each phase, and each time I paused I thought about turning back. I’d been gone for less than a day, but I worried that I’d already lost the trail.
Gathering myself up I strode into the next dungeon phase, and I took the two axes with me. One went into my spatial storage sack and the other one I planned on using. I had tried to put it in my polearm armory, but for some reason, the two-handed weapon wouldn’t go in. The area of effect enchantment was too good to give up though. As the level 80 Draugrs started pulling themselves out of the ground I slammed the axe blade into the ground and activated the enchantment. My mana bottomed out immediately, but the entire row of Draugrs was impaled on ice spikes. Most of them were still alive only being trapped on a spike. I went through and kill-checked every one of them with my sword until I’d made my way all the way down the row. It was the easiest fight so far, and my mana had almost refilled. The new boss rose out of the ground, but there was ice over its grave that it had to punch through. Noticing the sound of it trying to escape I sat back until it broke through and immediately drove my sword into the top of its head, scrambling its brains. I never even saw its monster tag. I’d hoped that I would be able to use this technique for the last phase, but unfortunately, it didn’t work.
The monsters moved far too quickly and jumped out of the way before they were skewered. There were fewer of them, but they were faster, stronger, and they had magic. I read their tag as I was dodging another red glowing claw. “Vampiric Thrall,” they were overwhelming me with their sheer might but then Ballads Bow began playing Tonal Torture. The skill hadn’t worked on any of the other undead, but it seemed to work on the thralls. “No rot maybe?” Ten Thralls fell to the ground, and I cleaned up quickly.
The mini-boss for this portion of the dungeon was an actual vampire. A level 95 vampire and I hated to admit it but a very pretty one. She used hypnotic powers to attempt to get me to offer myself to her, but with my wisdom at 89, I only felt a slight tug in my mind that I shrugged off. She continued to use mental attacks that were meant to control or hurt me, but the skills she used only had a light effect on me. Unfortunately, she was damn fast, and I spent more time chasing her trying to get a killing blow than I wanted to. I eventually had the idea to pull out my floating light, throwing it into the air she paused to hide herself from the solar light glowing from the light and I took that moment to cut her head off.
Leaning against a tombstone I took a break before the main boss. For all I knew a swarm of level 100 monsters would come flying out of there, but I was hoping that it was just a big monster. I double-checked all of my gear making sure that all of my equipment was in good shape and then stepped into the area with the mausoleum. Once I’d waited for a few seconds I began to wonder where the boss was, but as soon as I began questioning it the doors to the crypt started creaking open.
From the doorway stepped a man with pale skin and hair wearing full armor and wielding two wickedly curved scimitars. Just looking at it a cold feeling spread throughout my body. I checked the bosses tag to see what I was dealing with. “Level 100 Undead General (Dungeon Boss).” The General smiled at me and then spoke in a voice like glass on a chalkboard.
“You’ve done well to make it this far. My king would accept you into his army. You’d make a fine soldier for the great Lich King Duratenesh. What do you say?” It finished talking and I didn’t answer at first. None of the other dungeon bosses had talked so far except for the Storm King. I thought for a moment that maybe I’d made a mistake and found another world boss, but no I’d double-checked before I came here. Plus, I didn’t get that overwhelming fear that I received from the world boss.
“Are you from the outer world too?” I asked the Undead General. The smile hadn’t fallen from its face, and it spoke again.
“You’ve done well to make it this far. My king would accept you into his army. You’d make a fine soldier for the great Lich King Duratenesh. What do you say?” My face drooped to a flat look of disbelief.
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“Bruh,” I said and smiled thinking about an old meme. The general heard me and started to say his spiel again, but I held my hand up to stop him and told him no.
“Then you will die, and I will make you nothing more than a foot soldier in the great army.” He drew his blades, and I drew mine. Ballads Bow began buffing me and I activated my armor enchantments. We stood still and watched each other for a moment. Then we both moved the clang of our swords clashing against the other rang out. The Undead general disengaged from our locked swords first and with inhuman speed swiped his sword towards my neck. I dodged but the blow still caught me on the cheek.
Rolling away I landed on my feet, but the Undead General was already on top of me swinging his sword again. I managed to parry the first blow, but the second blow caught me across the chest. Blood poured from the wound, and I hissed in pain, but I had no time to recover. Slash after slash the dungeon boss charged at me keeping up with my speed at every turn. I couldn’t run fast enough so I pulsed from the bottom of my feet to take a rest in the sky.
The Undead General looked up at me from the ground, but in the next second two shadowy black wings spread from its back, and he was on me again. Ballads Bow attempted Tonal Torture on the enemy, but aside from a slight wince, I didn’t see any indication that it was working. The monster reached me in the sky and slashed both swords at me in one direction. I attempted to block it but when our swords clashed once more, I lost my grip causing my weapon to fall to the ground below.
The enemies’ blades crossed my chest again but this time I activated my armors hardening enchantment in time keeping me from taking another grievous wound. Still, the force from the attack slammed me to the side and I lost sight of the General for a moment. My aura caught his vibrations as he appeared right behind me, and I dodged a blow that was aimed directly at my neck. I continued to the ground simultaneously sinking through my armory and retrieving Wind Ripper.
Ballads Bow fired an arrow at the boss monster catching it in the shoulder, and I let out a small cheer of excitement. “I can do this.” I thought to myself as I raised the scythe in a defensive position and had a thought. Attempting to activate Steady for the first time in a while it failed at first, but I focused in and thought about how defending and attacking with the scythe was just aiming for a weapon or a body, and the skill snapped into place.
I’d been thinking about stuff like that since my intelligence had been raised a lot recently. If my aura gains abilities through insight and perspective, then why couldn’t I do that with my skills too. My body moved into position on its own closing any gaps that I had in my stance. The sword-wielding undead flew straight at me and slashed out viciously. I parried the first sword with my blade then spun around and underneath the other one.
Spinning my scythe around my neck so that I had a hand free I grabbed the general by the ankle. When my scythe landed in my free hand, I slashed out cutting a deep gash in my enemy’s lower back. The undead had tricks of its own though. Fast as a whip it spun its own body around, breaking the ankle I still had in my grip, and kicked his other foot at my face. My body moved on its own again with Steady still active and blocked the incoming kick. The strength behind it was too much though and I got sent flying.
Tombstones broke under me as I rolled and skidded about 50 feet away from him. Planting my hand under me I gave a quick pulse and righted myself in the air though. He was on me again, and steady would be wearing off soon so I had to do something I just didn’t know what. The Undead General wasn’t letting up and it was taking everything I had to keep up with blocking his attacks. This guy was much faster than me and if it weren’t for Ballads Bow splitting his attention every few seconds to cut an arrow out of the sky, I’d have been dead a long time ago.
Silently thanking the weapon, I continued to think about what I could do to turn this fight in my favor. That’s when I remembered my other purchases. As soon as the general turned around again to block an arrow I reached into my spatial bag to retrieve the floating light. He turned again to face me in less than a second and I threw the light into his face, he blocked it of course, but it was only meant to make him flinch. The second his eyes closed I retrieved Firespark and pulled the string back. As soon as he looked back at me, I released the bowstring, and some magical sparks came off of it.
They landed on the undead's arm and lit it ablaze almost immediately. The general dropped one of his swords and attempted to pat out the flame, but I wouldn’t let this chance pass me by. Releasing Firespark I retrieved Wind Ripper and slashed it out again. This time I aimed for his other arm with his only weapon remaining. The blade felt no resistance, as it worked with Steady to help me hit my mark.
I spun my scythe over my head once and sliced off the other arm that was on fire. Turning my body to arrive behind the enemy, I slipped my hand down to the end of the weapon's handle and pulsed forward as fast as I could. Wind Ripper's blade caught the Undead Generals' neck just as Steady wore off. I felt a slight tug and worried for a moment that I wouldn’t be able to cut the monster’s head off. Instead of focusing on my worries, I set my jaw and pulsed one more time. The Undead Generals' body stayed in the air for a second longer than its head, as the wings hadn’t realized the body had died yet, but then it fell crashing into the ground. My notifications started coming through and I took a long breath trying to calm myself down after the fight before I checked them.
Once I’d landed Ballads Bow flew toward me stopping to hover right in front of me. I set a hand on its upper limb and thanked it. The bow buzzed around me excitedly, and I wondered not for the first time how alive it had become since it first gained its Puck configuration. Sitting down I skipped over the kill notification and went straight to the good stuff.
“Congratulations! You have unlocked a hidden reward! Reward Hidden Title: Solo Killer (2). You have cleared two level 100 dungeons by yourself! +4% to all stats.”
“Congratulations! You have unlocked a hidden quest chain. Solo Killer Part Three: Clear three-level 200 dungeons solo! Reward Hidden Title: Solo Killer (2) +6% (Stacking).” “That’s not happening any time soon.” I thought to myself as I remembered the battles I’d just gone through. “Maybe at level 150, I’ll try it.” Opening my stat screen, I was excited to see what my stats would look like with an 18% bonus, as well as place my new skill point.
Nathan Schute: Bard of War
LEVEL 65
STRENGTH: 81
CONSTITUTION:76
AGILITY:102
DEXTERITY:317
INTELLIGENCE:96
WISDOM:109
CHARISMA:293
PERCEPTION:77
4 Free Stat Points
I placed one point each into strength, agility, intelligence, and perception. Those were the stats that helped me the most in the last boss battle, so I didn’t see anything wrong with investing in them. Then I placed my new skill point in the orchestra skill tree gaining the skill “Phantom Orchestra.”
BARD OF WAR SKILL TREE
0 SKILL POINT
ORCHESTRA ARMY ARMORY
AMPLIFY STEADY SPATIAL ARMORY (SOUL)
RITARDANDO SCOPE SPATIAL ARMORY (POLEARM)
UP THE OCTAVE CONCUSSIVE SHOT SPATIAL ARMORY (ARMOR)
TONAL TORTURE HUMMING STRING
12 MAJOR SCALES
GIFT OF GAB
PHANTOM ORCHESTRA
Phantom Orchestra: A Bard of War often needs their hands free for battle. Instruments stored within the Armory will play themselves to the skill level the Bard of War has in that instrument.
I thought that it was an interesting skill, and I hoped that it would be useful someday. Today though it was damn near useless. I only had a Ballads Bow, which already played itself, and a flute that I thought would be interesting to learn when I thought I had time to get back to the camp outside the city. “Maybe I should have just used the skill point on Armory again. I could have gotten Bows, or Swords this time.” These were my thoughts, but it was too late to change my mind now.
Picking myself up and dusting myself off, I activated my armor self-repair, and self-cleaning enchantments then went to go pick up my sword, and Firespark. It was time to leave the dungeon and get back on the trail. Before I left though, I stopped at the boss’s body.
It wasn’t going to need its weapons or armor anymore, so I decided to grab them quickly. I checked out the stats on the armor and was impressed. It had pretty high defensive capabilities, as well as a speed-boosting enchantment and a mental resistance enchantment. The armor was called “Undead General’s Mantle,” which I thought was a little on the nose. The swords were pretty good too, I just didn’t know how to use sabers. “Oh well into the bag,” I thought as I strode out the black metal gate once more.
I kind of wanted to set this dungeon on fire, but I also doubted that it would do any lasting damage. Instead, I flew away from it as fast as I could. The trail should still be ok, but I still worried about losing it and not being able to find my friends anymore. Luckily when I got back to the last spot I’d heard it, the sound trail hadn’t depreciated at all. But I had a thought before I left that place. Instead of searching for Samael’s voice, I searched for each of my friends. I wished I hadn’t.
“Please stop! You’re going to kill her!” Susan’s voice rang out in my head.
“It’s ok Tina, your little brother can take it,” Tony said in a raspy voice.
“I’m going to fucking murder you for this! I’ll tear your balls off one by one and replace your eyes with them!” Tina screamed in rage.
“He’s going to find us you know! Hahaha and when he does, you’re so dead! Hahahaha.” Josh was laughing, but he sounded strained and slightly unhinged.
“Please, don’t make me do this anymore! I’m begging you!” Autumn's voice cried.
“One day you’re going to get what’s coming to you!” Santiago yelled. I even looked for Damien’s voice, but the only thing I heard was ragged breathing. “What is he doing to them?” I wondered as my mind began to be taken over by panic. I vomited remembering the sounds of pain I’d just heard from my friends. I took off in the direction they were headed next. There could be no more distractions until I found them.
The trail went on for another three days before I saw my first real evidence that I was catching up. A young woman stood outside a run-down house looking up at the sky as if searching for something. I pulled my aura in as fast as I possibly could because swirling around the woman’s head was the floating aura of Samael. Being as stealthy as I could and silencing myself, I snuck up on the woman. Before she had a chance to notice me, I crushed the aura with my own.
As soon as I did this the woman sunk to the ground, unconscious. Even the Song of Healing, which I was surprised I was allowed to keep after I was sold didn’t work. I sat with her for a few hours before she stirred, and all the while I kept my eye open for any traces of the aura still inside her. When her eyes did pop open, she started to scream, and I couldn’t do anything to stop her. Not wanting her to warn any other lookouts of my presence I quickly knocked her out, doing my best not to hurt her. The next time she woke up she wasn’t screaming anymore, and instead looked at me puzzled.
“Is my mind mine?” I nodded and she started tearing up. It wasn’t within me to deal with another emotional outburst right now, so I cupped my hand over her mouth and looked into her eyes.
“I have questions and you’re going to answer them.” My voice was as hard as stone, but she finally got a look at my face and stopped crying. She began mumbling something under my hand and I let her go so she could speak.
“Would you please marry me?” I slapped myself on the forehead. “I forgot to wear the mask.”