timewalk

  Aliandra

  Ali stood on the final bridge, rubbing her arms to ward off the chill of the stale air as she gazed out over the outer ring of the ruined city. Reag the bridge had been easier than she had expected – the dungeon had only respawned a few of the undead and bone elementals in the inner aral rings, and those had been easy for them to kill, isoted as they were.

  From her vantage point on the basalt-lined bridge arg down to join with the lower-set outer ring, it was clear, even in the darkness, that the final city ring had suffered the most in that a battle. It was not a pyo the engineers and miners had frequented when it was funal, but fully half of what had once been the power bae of the city was now gone, snapped off in the flict, leaving jagged edges of the heavy stone foundations jutting out into the darkness. Only three of the giant mana densers – massive gray stone pyramids the size of several city blocks, with featureless sloped edges and a snub top – remained among the ruins of what had once been an unbroken ring of busy industry: the pinnaagical engineering. Remarkably, two of the densers still glowed intensely in her mana sight, even after all this time, but the mana fluctuated and pulsed erratically, clearly no longer operating properly.

  “I see a few bone elementals and a lot of undead,” said, carefully sing the expanse of the ring below. “Lots of heaps and piles to hide behind, and something strange over by that pyramid thing.”

  “The pyramids are the mana densers,” Ali expined. It was still too far for her to see what had observed hem, and the light from her mana sight was intehey used to stack up ore here to be smelted. Being right o the peors provided some advantage, I think.”

  “I don’t think those piles are ore,” answered slowly. “Looks more like skeletons or bodies. I wonder if this is where the dungeon monsters have been dragging the corpses of the bats and wyverns they kill?”

  “Why would they do that?” Ali asked.

  “Do you think there’s a neancer in here?” Malika asked. “There’s an awful lot of undead.”

  “I’m not sure how we find out without expl further,” said. “So far, my skill is tellihat all the undead have been dungeon spawns, but we don’t know what might be waiting up ahead.”

  “Is everyone ready?” Mato asked, impatient for a as always.

  “Give me a few mio ge my minions,” Ali answered. If it was mostly undead and elementals, she wao repce most of her archers with Fire Mages and shamans. And I have a new Acolyte to test, she recalled. The fact that it had death mana affinity sat uneasily with her, but the smart choice was knowing and uanding all the resources she had at her disposal. There was nothing for it, she o see the Kobold ‘Death’s Acolyte’ in a. The open space of the third ring, and their ability to have split out small groups of monsters, would make it the perfect grounds to test a new minion.

  “How many wyverns do you see?” Ali asked. She had been making cure poison circles for the eime they had been fighting in the tral ring, but retly they were mostly being used to clear a few poisons from Mato whehey got the ce to pause.

  “Not many, actually,” said.

  “Ok, let me know if you see a group somewhere,” Ali answered, deg to dispeh the circles and use the mana reservation she freed up for the new Kobold instead.

  As soon as she was done, lured the first Piercer Scorpion to Mato’s position with a highly accurate shot, and the battle enced. It was a single monster, so Ali’s tration and focus were not eveely challenged. She anized her minions following her well-practiced pn and then turned her attention to her Kobold. It stood beside her leaking an ominous bck mana, awaiting her orders.

  “What you do?” Ali asked in Draic.

  “Death Rupture, A Mistress,” the Kobold answered.

  “Show me,” she instructed, suddenly w what Kavé had meant that her Draic sounded like the Kobolds. It was different to how the Dragonkin girl spoke, but Ali had initially assumed that was simply the fun of different biology, but the Dragonkin wasn’t all that different from her, other than her scales, rger size, and a few extra es. Yet, Kavé’s speech cked the chirping quality of the Kobolds, and she used clumsy and archais of self-referen her speech patterns.

  Ali’s rambling thoughts were suddenly interrupted as the Death’s Acolyte summos magic, drawing darkly glowing bck mana from within itself to form a dense bck ball of swirling magic that hovered above its cwed hand. The energy sucked at the surroundings, drawing in light, and spinning as it grew. Ali’s skin prickled from the chilling proximity to the intense spell as her nostrils filled with the faint st of dry dustiness and crypt-like death.

  It’s just like his. Ali shivered, filled with a remembered terror as her mind instantly provided an image that had been burned into her heart – the image of the Blind Lich summoning a spell just like this to shoot at her mother.

  Settle down, that’s not the Lich, Ali told herself firmly. While the magic her Kobold summoned was simir, it was substantially smaller and less powerful than what she remembered from the Lich, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that the spell was sug at her life force as it pulsed ominously in her Kobold’s hand, in the same way that the Lich’s magic had withered the surrounding grass and trees.

  The bolt shot out across the battlefield and smmed into the side of the huge bone elemental, bck mana tearing at the bone, deg it to dust in an instant. A pulse of death magic rippled out from the impact, c through the monster and everything nearby – almost imperceptible but for her mana sight. Instantly, she withe rea of magic; Malika’s healing shone as an intense blue-white bea within her body, followed almost instantly by the yellow-gold of her Kobold’s holy magic settling into Mato’s huge frame.

  “Your Death Rupture spell has the Area trait?” Ali asked. The question was somewhat redundant given the evidence she had just witnessed, but she was a little surprised by the resulting pulse of death following the magic.

  “Yes, A Mistress,” the Kobold answered, bowing to her.

  So, something like a Fireball. Deathball? It didn’t look quite as strong as her Fireballs. Maybe I won’t get much use out of this, she thought.

  Yroup has defeated Piercer Scorpion – Elemental – level 28 (Bone)

  was already firing at the pack of undead skeletons as they shifted a little further onto their small beachhead oer ring.

  “Why do you not attack?” Ali asked, notig that her Death’s Acolyte was simply standing beside her again.

  “I ot, A Mistress,” the Kobold replied.

  “Why? Are you out of mana?”

  “No, they are undead.”

  “You ot attadead?”

  “My magily damages the living. It heals the undead,” the Kobold expined, looking like it was about to cower in shame.

  “I see,” Ali answered. So that was it, she thought. In the chaotic charge, tearing through the buildings on the sed ring, they had entered several of these Death’s Acolytes, and the skeletons and zombies had refused to die until the Acolytes were taken care of. In the rush, she hadn’t spent a lot of time sidering it, but it made sehis Death Rupture spell was an area-damage death magic attack, that simultaneously damaged the living and healed the undead. Perfect for a dungeon like this which summoned undead.

  In the hands of a neahis would likely be a ridiculous spell. While neancy had been frowned upon in the schorly circles of Dal’mohra, it seemed that it wasn’t quite as ahen as it was in this era. It was going to prove to be quite difficult to put her minion to use, especially down here.

  Oher hand, Ali had more than enough personal reasons to fear and despise death magic, even though she could now wield it through one of her minions. And she most certainly would not be waltzing through town with one of these in tow – at least, if she valued her life.

  Not wanting to take the time to summon a rept, she instructed the Acolyte to stand by whehey had a pack of uo fight, and evehey were fighting elementals, she was still not certain the damage was worth hitting her friends. Uhere’s a lot of them and the Area trait bees an advantage. But then I have Fireballs and Lightning Nova Totems for that.

  kept their pace slow and steady, fav caution when pulling monsters as they made their way toward the first major ndmark – one of the mana densers. They even killed several Spitter Drones without the be of a building to hide inside – disc that Ali’s barrier was now strong enough to block the bst of the dying bone elemental’s Corpse Explosion. Here, at least, the Death’s Acolyte proved useful, b holes in the bone armor with its death magid tributing to the final explosive destru.

  “We’re clear to the pyramid,” announced. “The mana denser?”

  The hulking struct of stone loomed above them, a massive squat snub-topped pyramid that would tower over all the multi-story buildings on the sed ring. It pulsed chaotically, leaking an intensely glowing viscous yellow liquid that pooled up against the base of the denser and slowly flowed out over the edge of the ring, falling into the darkness below.

  “What is that stuff?” Malika asked.

  “I think it’s liquid mana,” Ali answered. It had taken a few moments to figure it out, but it had ected in her mind when she recalled what it was the densers were for. This one seemed to be light affinity mana and probably had beeo literally keep the lights on iy, and the crops growing.

  “Ining!” ’s urgent shout snapped her attention from the deself to the pools of light mana at the base. The iy of the light made it difficult to see what exactly was moving, but her Identify had no such trouble.

  Luminous Slime – Ooze – level 20 (Light)Luminous Slime – Ooze – level 18 (Light)…Luminous Slime – Ooze – level 33 (Light)

  Ali backed up away from the brightly glowing yelloes that rippled and wobbled their way across the stone, clearly attracted to something about them. She summoned her barrier, having no idea what they were capable of and absolutely no desire to make herself a test subject.

  Mato, of course, had no such qualms, immediately charging the entire pack of slimes – each about a oer diameter amorphous blob that seemed to grow arude itself in multiple simultaneous dires just to move.

  “I t twenty,” called out. “No, twenty-two.”

  Mato roared, and the entire pack of slimes shivered, pausing briefly in unison before extruding their way directly toward him. He Swiped as soon as they closed, but they instantly retaliated by bsting a ical spray of the most intensely indest particles Ali had ever seen. Particles that floated in the air and caught on Mato’s fur. She bli the afterimages that left her almost blinded even from a distance.

  Relying almost entirely on her mana sight, and the intensely glowing outlines of the slimes, Ali saw them attag Malika and Mato with blobby pseudopods that extended and disappeared from their bodies, seemingly at random. Some of them were even trying to i parts of their bodies while simultaneously shing out chaotically. They reacted with frenzied fervor every time Malika healed, or Mato roared.

  They’re blind, Ali realized, seeing Mato and Malika filing about, barely eg with their foes. Another indest spray took out her vision again – before it even had a ce to fully clear.

  “Fireball strategy,” Ali yelled, knowing they would all uand. With so many monsters in py, she o leverage her area damage magid for that, Mato and Malika hardly o see.

  “Owo, three, … four,” Ali ted off her Fire Mages, and at the st moment, she added her Death’s Acolyte in as the fourth slot iation. Then she quickly assigned her healer Acolytes their order before she began.

  “Begin,” she called out in Draic. “Drop your totems, fire at will,” she added in Goblin for her shamans.

  She had no idea how the Kobolds were able to still see, but the glowing mana of the first Fireball shot true, detonating in an intense cussion of red fme, followed by the deafening thump, and vibration through the stone. A wave of heat bsted out, felt even at her substantial distance. While her barrier did nothing to defend against the light attacks of the slimes, at least it could protect her from the bst.

  In the midst of the ball of fire magic, Malika’s blue-white glow of healing magic fshed twice. Immediately, totems nded in the ter and began pulsing intense white lightning magic, vying with the ical spray of the slimes for the title of most annoyingly bright magic. Ali just gave up and closed her eyes, relyiirely on her mana sight to track the battle. Two more Fireballs detonated, punctuated with Lightning Bolts, and then the ominous pulse of death magic sealed the deal, triggering a noisy cascade of chimes in Ali’s mind.

  As her vision slowly cleared, Ali could make out Malika and Mato stumbling around in the midst of a quiet battlefield covered with yellow, glowing slime and gobs of still-burning fme.

  “You guys ok?”

  “Still ’t see.”

  “Fug glow-slimes.”

  “No adds, we’re clear,” called out.

  “Why are you not blind?” Mato groused.

  “It didn’t seem to affect me much,” he answered. “But my affinity is light also, so maybe that helped.”

  “I hate you. And you too, Ali, I barely had to lift a paw. Yawn!”

  Ali chuckled at Mato’s frustration while she carefully picked her way across the battlefield destrug everything she could find.

  Imprint: Toxic Slime updated to Imprint: Ooze.Variant: Luminous Slime added to Imprint: Ooze.

  “You just learhem, didn’t you?” Mato asked as her Grimoire sprung open to inscribe the variant update.

  “Yup.”

  “I hate you with extra sau top. I hate these slimes; I still ’t see anything. It’s like having the world’s worst case of sunspots.”

  “Here, let me heal you again, I think it might help.”

  ***

  Ali stared at the ominous piles of bones and corpses that towered above them. They reminded her a little of the piles of bone up in the forest cavern, surrounding her shrine, but these were vastly rger. Around every pile, new zombies crawled, or skeletal mages and warriors crept.

  Ali had unsummoned her Death’s Acolyte Kobold minion to repce it with two of the new Luminous Slimes but now she was beginning tret it. While they could fight the undead – uhe Acolyte – she found that she had to monitor them tinuously because they couldn’t follow plex instrus like her Kobolds. She had turly remind them not to use their blinding spray, making Matrumpily every time she fot.

  “Something big up ahead,” cautioned, and as she rouhe er, Ali saw what he had found.

  led in a natural cleariween the enormous piles of bone was a se of unholy reverence. In the ter, a rge prism of midnight-bck stone hovered, slowly rotating i bathed a surrounding group of kneeling undead in waves of dark and powerful mana. Beside the artifact, and within a surrounding circle of kneeling skeletons, two gaunt figures made obeisan one knee, heads bowed, radiating an aura of ominous purpose and power.

  Is that a shrine? Although she was not close enough to study it, simirities pared to her shrine were remarkable. It was structed with the same stone and was iing with the domain. But it hovered more than two meters above the ground as if l its presence over the reverent undead, and the mana and runic magiscribed upon its surface was death and bone.

  “This must be the dungeon core,” said, his tone quietly warning of immi danger. “Those Wights are raid bosses, and a high level at that.”

  Ali snapped her attention to the twer kneeling figures, feeling the chill of apprehension as she studied their emaciated forms.

  Warrior – Undead Wight – level ?? (Bone)Mage – Undead Wight – level ?? (Death)

  “By ‘dungeon core’ do you mean the Wights? Or the artifact?” Ali asked. “Do we even know how to destroy a dungeon?”

  “I’m not sure,” admitted. “But there’s no more dungeon beyond here, and if we want to kill it food, we have to defeat the st bardless.”

  “What’s the pn?” Mato asked. “We just run in and hit them?”

  “These are greater undead,” Malika said. “We o be extremely careful.”

  Greater undead. Wights, uhe zombies and skeletons, were a form of uhat retaiheir ego. Despite her mounting ay and trepidation, Ali studied the two undead monsters carefully. The Bone Wight’s ste gray flesh was covered by bone armor that writhed and rippled slowly with the infusion of its bone affinity mana, f ridges and spihat slowly faded and reformed with an uling u had two bone swords slung across his back, and two more fasteo its armor at the waist.

  The Death Wight’s long wispy white hair flowed and shifted in the currents of mana, along with the tattered remains of its bck robes. The energy of uh glowed from its spectral eyes while death mana rolled out from its body in tinuous waves.

  “What… should we do?” Ali whispered.

  “What you see with your mana sight?” asked. The two Wights would almost certainly e together, and so would all the skeletons. Other than telling him the Wights were raid-level threats, and undead, his Explorer skill wasn’t giving him much more to go on. If the Wights were substantially higher level than they were, there was a good ce they would o run.

  Warrior – Undead Wight – level ??

  [Explorer]Category: Dungeon BossThreat Level: RaidMoype: Greater Undead, WightDamage: Physical, Bone

  Mage – Undead Wight – level ??

  [Explorer]Category: Dungeon BossThreat Level: RaidMoype: Greater Undead, WightDamage: Death

  “The Bone Wight’s mana is animating its armor and ons,” Ali answered. Her observation clearly expihe discertingly ‘alive’ armor the monster was wearing.

  “The Death Wight is emitting an aura of death mana te of teers… uh, thirty feet.” Ali tinued. frowned. Likely, the aura would cause tinuous damage and that might bee a problem for Mato and Malika.

  “I think we assume the bone one is melee and the death one is a caster,” cluded. “Mato tank the Bone Wight, and I think we should target the death one first.”

  “We’re going to do both at the same time?” Mato asked.

  “I don’t think I separate them.”

  “Ok, everyone ready?”

  “Make sure you have a Recall Potion handy,” Malika whispered.

  “Ok, Mato, go, I’ll shoot the Death Wight after you engage,” said. He might not be able to separate them to fight o a time, but he could pull the Death Wight away from the skeletons and the Bone Wight so they could kill it faster. As Mato transformed, he summoned his bow and nocked an arrow, sighting down the shaft at the kneelih Wight.

  As Mato’s huge bulk smmed through the skeletons, knog several of them sprawling, chaos erupted around the floating stone obelisk as the undead reacted to the r bear. The Bone Wight leapt to its feet, shouting something in a chillingly ethereal voice, and dreords to strike. The Death Wight turned sharply, but before it could take any a, ’s brilliantly shining arrow struck it in the emaciated ribs visible through the tears in its robe.

  A sepulchral hiss echoed all around as the Wight Mage turo fix its dark glowing eyes on him. With withered undead lips pulled ba a grimace that revealed bed, needle-like teeth, it levitated into the air, waving gaunt skeletal hands iterns of a ritual.

  fired again, striking the h Wight in the leg. Several bck bolts of energy burst out from the Wight as it fis ritual, lofting up into the air and rapidly desding into the piles of bones.

  “It summoned more skeletons!” Ali yelled from behind.

  “I’ll get them,” Malika answered. Their pn was already being ed beynition. Clearly, Malika couldn’t help them with a flying monster, unless he used Grappling Shot, but rounding up skeletons was an effective role given that they now k could summon them.

  fired another shot. This time, the Death Wight fixed him with a malevolent stare and made a swirliure with its hand, seeming to pull something bd ethereal from the aether – something that let out an unending, bone-chilling scream. He identified it at once.

  Votile Wraith – Undead Spirit – level ??

  [Explorer]Category: Minio Level: NormalMoype: Undead SpiritDamage: DeathKnown Abilities: Incorporeal (Immuo Physical damage), Unstable

  Without warning, the spirit tore across the battlefield toward him as fired another arrow, but his arrow passed through the spirit without any apparent effect, leaving him to face the very angry undead spirit bearing down on him without an effective attack. Crap, what do I –

  Barely had the thought begun to form when a golden glowing barrier snapped into pd the spirit smmed into it, boung off. With araordinary burst of speed, the translut death spirit dodged around the barrier, shing at him viciously. Some part of it hit his arm, but instead of a tactile tact, it passed right through his flesh with a sharp biting pain, leaving the area partially numb. It wheeled about for another pass, boung off a new barrier as Ali strove to block the spirit. As it zipped around the barrier, dodged. Then, he found himself dodging again twice more in quick succession as the nimble spirit darted bad forth keeping up with his evasive maneuvers.

  It bit him again, this time passing through his calf and making him stumble from the sudden brief numbness. He dodged bad tried to shoot again, trying to shake off the uny chill, but once again his arrow passed harmlessly through the wraith. With his arrow, the wraith froze, shivering in pce while its howling scream intensified. Did I hit it? The shivering intensified to a pulse and then it exploded, darkness bsting outward in a surge of pain as the energy passed right through him.

  You have been afflicted with Life Drain.Maximum health is reduced by 1%Affli. t: 1

  Argh, that wasn’t pretty. shuddered in horror at the sensation of having his life force ripped from him in an explosion of uh. There’s a reason for that Raid-level threat, right? Deliberately, he ched his fists as he stared upwards, deep in thought.

  Flying high above him in the darkness, the Death Wight’s sinister ughter echoed through the whole battlefield as its hands began once again to move itern of its summoning ritual.

  timewalk