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  “That’s way more violent than I thought it’d be,” Katalyn said softly. She was going to relive that image in her nightmares.

  “Robert!” one of the remaining cultists said. “No!”

  He jumped toward his friend, tears in his eyes, and fought against the zombie, trying to save the dying man—to no avail. As he did so, the third cultist fixated his eyes on Katalyn.

  “You’ll pay for this,” he said.

  “Really?” Katalyn asked. “You tried to sacrifice me to that monster from your ritual, and I’m the bad guy? Honey, you did this to yourself.”

  “Die, you bitch!” The man raised his knife and tensed his body—preparing to charge her.

  Katalyn could’ve run away right then and there, but now she was annoyed. Maybe she’d stab the man a bit before leaving.

  On the other hand, I don’t want whatever is in the lower levels to catch up with me.

  The point was rendered moot when her alert talent warned her of a presence behind her. The door opened and a man with a short sword entered the room.

  The cultist with the knife stopped in his tracks just as Katalyn instinctively leapt away from the newcomer and positioned herself with her back against the wall, as far away as possible from everyone else.

  The newcomer’s thousand-yard-stare made Katalyn think that he was, somehow, having a worse day than hers. He regarded the cultists with a distant expression. The man was in his mid-twenties, tall and gaunt, with unruly black hair caked to his forehead by sweat. He was dressed in the bare-bones leather armor of a town Watchman, but something about his demeanor told her he wasn’t a guard. She glanced at his feet, then she understood.

  “You’re the guy Kharon was going to send,” she said.

  “And you’re the maiden-in-distress, I presume?” he asked.

  “I’m neither of those things,” Katalyn said happily.

  The man sighed. “Of course.”

  Katalyn had seen that very same expression in petty thieves who were about to hang. “How about you give me a hand with these dung-for-brains?”

  At their mention, the two remaining cultists recovered from their surprise. The second one forgot about the zombie and his friend Robert—who wasn’t moving anymore—and brandished his dagger against the newcomer.

  “A guard! Quick, Martyn, kill him before he shouts for help!”

  They took a couple steps in. The newcomer raised his sword, then said:

  “Wait! Do you happen to be rebels fighting for Starevos’ independence?”

  The cultists stopped dead in their tracks. Katalyn eyed the newcomer with suspicion. Maybe he wasn’t her ally after all.

  “Yes,” Martyn said, pride overflowing in his demeanor. “If you know this, you must be a friend to our cause, are you not?”

  Instead of answering that, the newcomer asked, “Do you know Ioan? Ranger guy, pretty powerful, lived in Burrova.”

  Now sure that they had found a new ally, the cultists smiled wickedly. “Of course! Ioan was a mighty crusader of the cause. Are you with him? Help us bring the bitch back to her cell, and Master Nicolai will reward you handsomely.”

  Katalyn readied herself. From her position, she’d be able to reach the man in a blink and open up his neck.

  “Thanks for the intel,” the newcomer said. “So,” he told Katalyn, “don’t freak out, but my eyes are going to turn green and little monsters will rain down everywhere and make a mess of things. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t attack me.”

  “What the fuck—” Martyn began.

  Then eldritch flames roared out of his eyes—the flames of a Dungeon Lord—and imps rained down from the ceiling and made a mess of things.

  6

  Chapter Six

  The Rebel

  Martyn, human fighter. Exp: 153. Brawn: 10, Agility: 9, Spirit: 8, Endurance: 11, Mind: 8, Charm: 8. Skills: Melee: Basic II, Knowledge (Undercity, Starevos): Improved IV, Survival: Basic IV. Talents: Enhanced Endurance, Resist Environment…

  The two men were better trained in basic weapon fighting than Ed was, so he avoided striking them directly. Instead, he instructed his drones to attack their legs and get in their faces.

  By this point, Martyn and the other cultist were so confused that the appearance of the drones—and Ed’s Evil Eye—almost made them run out of the room screaming. Instead, they furiously battled the drone rain without paying any attention to their surroundings.

  The drones died if any decent hit caught them, and they did little to no damage, but they were very easy for Ed to summon—except that, at the rate he was creating them, it actually started to put a strain on his body.

  So he strode toward Martyn until the man was within the reach of his short sword. Then Ed activated his improved reflexes and struck the man’s weapon hand with a crude slash. Skin violently peeled away and bone splintered, and Martyn screeched in agony as he dropped the dagger.

  Ed kicked the weapon and stepped back. The second, unnamed rebel tried to attack him, but a drone appeared in the path of his knife and deflected it. The drone disappeared in a puff of smoke right as Ed swiped with all his strength at the rebel’s extended arm.

  This time, the slash caused much more damage than with Martyn’s hand. Fingers flew away, and the rebel’s hand exploded in two red halves as Ed’s blade split it all the way to the wrist.

  The man screamed and tried to jump back, but the short sword was stuck to his bone and Ed wasn’t willing to part with the weapon. He fought back against the man and managed to tear the sword out with a terrible pull that did as much damage coming out as it had going in.

  Blood splattered across Ed’s cheeks and his throat clamped in response. He had never hurt a human being like this before. He gritted his teeth and willed himself not to vomit.

  “Can’t you see? I’m a Dungeon Lord. Run away, assholes. Go and tell Nicolai that I’ll meet him soon enough.”

  Martyn cursed in a language Ed couldn’t understand, but which sounded vaguely like Russian, then caught his fallen friend and dragged the man out of the room. Both of them were bleeding like a pair of faucets—definitely more than what Ed had expected, or intended.

  Maybe he had gone too far. Perhaps they’d die.

  Serves them right. On the other hand, his stomach churned again and the taste of bile reached his throat.

  The fact that the zombie in the middle of the room was busy eating the entrails out of a dead cultist didn’t help the matter at all.

  A quick check revealed that Objectivity hadn’t cared much for the event. Three experience points for each of the two rebels because it had been a non-lethal encounter.

  This world makes it really hard not to be a murderous asshole.

  Ed called his drones away, then deactivated his Evil Eye.

  “Hot damn, a Dungeon Lord? Kharon actually delivered,” the woman said.

  Startled, Ed almost jumped at the sound of her voice. The fight had been over in the blink of an eye, but during it he had forgotten all about her. A dangerous omission, because if she had been an enemy he could’ve died.

  The two of them stared at the zombie as the creature enjoyed his meal. The woman made a gagging noise and gestured toward the door.

  “Good idea,” Ed said. They returned to the room where he had fought the first group of undead and made sure to close the door behind them. The smoke hadn’t fully dissipated. The scent of sulfur and overcooked meat permeated through everything.

  “So, your… Murderousness?” the woman tried. “Would you mind explaining what the hell is going on?”

  Ed’s first instinct was to run and search for the exit and leave the talk for later. But if they were going to work together, they needed to know each other's names, and how much they could trust the other.

  “Call me Ed, please. I was hoping you’d tell me what’s going on; Kharon didn’t say much.”

  “My name is Katalyn. Ed, I’ve no idea what the etiquette is with regarding Dark royalty, so please don’t attack me if I g
et something wrong. Deal?”

  “Trust me, I’m no royalty.”

  Katalyn was in her late twenties, about a foot or so taller than him. She was lean and strong, but not in the way Kes was. More like a ballerina than a Fighter, so she was most likely either a Rogue or a Ranger. Her dark skin had a golden hue from a lifetime of exposure to the sun, and her curly brown hair probably would’ve had a nice adjective tied to it, like honey, or cocoa, or light caramel. To Ed, who had a deficiency in hair-related adjectives, it was brown.

  “Well, here’s what I know,” Katalyn said. “There’s this dung-brained asshole in the Guild, called Brondan, who betrayed me and sold me to these cultists. Spiked my drink with a paralyzing agent. Probably got paid a dung-load for it, too, so he owes me at least twice that if he wants to live. Anyway, the cultists brought me to the catacombs and used my blood to start a ritual in the mass graves of the lower levels.”

  She showed him her wounded arm. She had bandaged it with a piece of torn red cloak, but the fabric was wet and darkened.

  “From what I gather, they planned to come again for unhealthy amounts of my blood later. I escaped before they had the chance, of course, but they were almost finished with the ritual when I tried to disrupt it. Whatever was rising out of that grave looked way out of my league, so I ran away. Most of the cultists ran, too. Some chased after me, and then… here I am.”

  Ed nodded, taking it all in. “Those cultists are actually rebels…” he was reluctant to use the word “terrorist,” since that seemed so out-of-place in Ivalis, though Ed couldn’t help but make the comparison in his head. He told her his part of the story as fast as he could, meaning he explained the mindbrood, Ioan, and how he had been summoned from his sleep to come here. There was too little time to waste in telling her his own story, so he saved that part.

  “Sephar’s Bane!” Katalyn shuddered and made a brief gesture with her hands that Ed identified as a ward against evil. “At least it’s dead now… The thing your rebels raised looked undead, so it must be another creature entirely. Thank the gods for small favors; I don’t want to imagine what the Inquisition would do to Undercity if word about people seeing mindbroods got around.”

  Ed didn’t want to imagine it either. “You know how to get out of here?”

  Katalyn glanced at him with an intense frown of concentration that Ed had seen before. It was the expression that Ivalians made when they observed someone’s character sheet. “Getting out of here is a good idea. No offense, but the two of us can’t take some of the people I saw down there. And the monster had about eight hundred experience points to throw around. I didn’t stay to read the rest of its stats.”

  “Quite reasonable,” Ed assured her.

  They left the room and came to the first passageway, the one where Ed had first arrived.

  “This way,” Katalyn told him, pointing at the corridor that he had almost taken instead of fighting the zombies.

  “One second,” Ed told her. “I need to buy some talents now.”

  Katalyn gave him such a look that Ed had to assure her he had already decided what to buy and that it wouldn’t take him more than a few seconds. He activated his Evil Eye, making sure to look away from her as not to startle her, and willed his advancement options to materialize in phantasmal letters in front of him.

  Empowered Spellcasting (30 experience) - The combat magic cast by the user bypasses magical and non-magical defenses as if the user’s Spellcasting skill was 2 ranks higher.

  Efficient Spellcasting (20 experience) - The owner can cast an extra spell of his Spellcasting category (basic, improved, advanced). This talent can be bought again when the user improves his Spellcasting category.

  Dread Lord Aura (30 experience) - The owner creates an aura around him that demoralizes enemies inside its area of effect. Demoralized creatures must pass a Combat Casting test against the Dungeon Lord’s Spirit before they can cast a spell, they cannot activate talents without passing a Spirit test, and they suffer the normal effects of fear.

  Restriction: Selecting this talent locks out the Ancient Lord Aura advancement option.

  Duration: 1 minute.

  Energy Cost: Activated. Moderate.

  Ancient Lord Aura (30 experience) - The owner creates an aura around him that enhances allied beings inside its area of effect. Affected beings can use the Dungeon Lord’s Spirit as their own while this aura is active. Their physical attributes are also bolstered by 1 while this aura is active. If the creature is a minion of the Dungeon Lord, they are immune to fear while affected by this aura.

  Restriction: Selecting this talent locks out the Dread Lord Aura advancement option.

  Duration: 1 minute.

  Energy Cost: Activated. Moderate.

  Ed spent sixty experience points in two different talents and held his breath as his body adjusted to the change. He was aware that his metabolism was now taxed slightly more than it had been a second ago.

  “Why didn’t you take the Dread Lord aura?” Katalyn said.

  “You can read my talents?”

  “Well, you weren’t hiding them,” she said.

  They started down the corridor while talking, the Thief leading the charge. She examined the floor, ceiling, and walls with the same frown that she made when looking at stats.

  “Long term… if there’s long term for me—” Ed glanced at the bite in his hand as he said this, “—powers like the Dread Lord aura will work very well against enemies that wouldn’t have been a problem anyway, or not work at all against really dangerous opponents. For example, a fledgling Wizard is someone I can probably defeat without the aura anyway, provided that I have my allies around. But a specialized Wizard will have buffs that boost his combat casting skill to counter that exact same kind of talent.”

  Ed was using Ivalian words to explain what, back on Earth’s gaming circles, was referred to as a “useless useful spell.” It meant an in-game ability that, at first glance, appeared incredibly useful: magic that killed enemies in one hit, or paralyzed them, or blinded them, or gave them crippling social anxiety, whatever worked. The problem was that the Bosses were always immune to such spells, because otherwise the Boss fights would be very underwhelming, and underwhelmed gamers made their dissatisfaction known in Steam reviews.

  “That’s why I bought the Ancient Lord aura,” he went on. “The buffs it offers will always be useful. None of my allies have a higher Spirit attribute than mine, and now they can use my own attribute to resist Control magic, which is always a bitch.”

  “Gods, yes it is,” Katalyn said. “One time I stumbled into a dancing feet trap and spent an hour fumbling around in that garden until the guards came. You wouldn’t believe the earful I got from the Guild after they paid the bribe to get me out. After that one, I tried to meditate or whatever, but it’s hard to raise such a fuzzy attribute.”

  Ed nodded, then continued his explanation. “Besides, the extra plus one to their Endurance, Brawn, and Agility will always come in handy. Hopefully it’ll keep them alive.”

  Besides, Alder was a Bard, and Ed was pretty sure that Bards could handle the debuffs better than Ed could, with those incantations of theirs. Ed decided he’d talk with Alder to see what the Bard needed to gain new bardic utterances.

  Katalyn stopped Ed with an urgent gesture. She showed him an almost invisible cord stretched at ankle-height in the middle of the corridor. Under the faint light of the torches, there was no way Ed would’ve seen it without her help.

  “Flame arrow runes,” she said as he followed her gaze to the walls that connected the cord. A pair of marble stones, about half a fist in size, had been glued to the stone of the corridor. The blue engravings reminded Ed of the fireball runes that Gallio carried around to deal with spiderlings. “I claim dibs, by the way.”

  “By all means,” Ed said. He was too busy thinking of what those runes would’ve done to him—had he been alone—to argue about loot distribution.

  “Yes!” Katalyn disarmed the trap
with a speed that made Ed nervous. The runes disappeared into one of the many pockets of her studded leather armor. “My fence is going to love this.”

  Ed made sure to walk a couple steps behind her from then on.

  “What about that single extra spell talent?” Katalyn asked him after a while. “No offense, but an extra spell doesn’t seem like it’s worth twenty experience points.”

  “In my opinion, it was a steal,” said Ed. “I would’ve dumped all my free points on it if I could’ve bought it several times in a row. You can do so much with an extra spell, and twenty experience points is nothing when the spell that ends up saving your life is your last one… also, do the words ‘power leveling’ mean anything to you?”

  “I think it’s a talent geomancers have. They use it to demolish old buildings,” Katalyn said.

  “Oh. Well… in my world, ‘power leveling’ means increasing your stats and skills as fast as possible. As a Dungeon Lord with one rank in spellcasting, I can do two spells per day. But spellcasting is a talent that can be raised as a skill, so a third spell per day lets me advance three times faster than a starting mage with a singular spell cast per day.”

  Another reason he had chosen efficient spellcasting over empowered spellcasting was that Lavy had already bought a Witch’s version of empowered spellcasting using the points she had earned as a result of their fight with the mindbrood. From talking to her and patching together clues from his time playing Ivalis Online, Ed suspected that Witches specialized in direct damage during combat, so it made sense for her to exploit an advantage she already had. By making sure that their talent choice was as different from each other’s as possible, Ed hoped that he and his friends would complement each other’s strengths and cover any weaknesses.

  Assuming I don’t turn into a zombie in a couple hours, Ed thought.