The Clock Tower October 1st 2010 11:00 PM EDT
I was exhausted. Again. We'd been dealing with fallout from the plant monsters for a day or two now and it was just non stop. Granted we weren't rebuilding shit or anything (well Zee was with her Uncle Kent and her dad) but in general it was just reacting to the shit storm that had blanketed the world. The wrecked streets, the loss of life, it took us a day to make sure no one we knew died because of how spread out the attacks were. Luckily Bette was at the school and the shelter didn't suck so Reggie didn't have to worry like Artemis did.
Speaking of my best friend, she was currently being pampered and sucked up to something fierce. Wally, not knowing she was aware of his secret, had no legitimate explanation for not answering her many, many calls in the midst of the chaos and was currently groveling constantly to make it up to her. Artemis played angry but in my aura sight it was east to notice the waves of smug amusement and satisfaction when her boyfriend had bouquets and chocolates delivered to her house. As expected of kid flash the man did not mess around, he went into groveling mode immediately.
Mom was surprisingly unruffled once things ended and everyone was safe, but then she was a Gothamite born and raised and this was basically a Tuesday for us, plus I think having Gojo around making an ass of himself to cheer her up helped a bit. Now though, I was just...tired. Sitting alone at the table in the clock tower's main room, and just letting myself take a breath. I'd been ON pretty much non stop since I got my power, and while burnout wasn't something I was worried about yet I really needed to learn to take a second to myself to just breathe. Time with Zee helped, but there was no replacement for some good old fashioned alone time.
The second I'd had that thought had of course been the exact second a chair next to me had scraped and someone had plopped down in it. Specifically my cousin Kitrina, looking nearly as god tired as I felt. When she saw me look up and notice her she gave a nod of greeting. "Hey cousin, mind if I join you?" I kind of did, but I felt bad that I never spent the time with Kit I should have, so I shook my head and bid her welcome. She smiled gratefully at that. "Thanks cousin, glad we get the chance to talk. Things have been...a little wild."
I winced. Yeah she'd been kind of thrown in the deep end. Aside from me not having time for her mostly she'd been tossed to Jim to babysit and then thrown into the dungeon and all manner of other nonsense. I gave her an apologetic smile. "Yeah, things have been rough for you huh? Sorry I haven't been much help there. I'll try my best to be around to talk to more. How are you doing with everything? Adjusting to powers and the team and just...all of this shit?" Kit wasn't exactly expressive at the best of times, and I'd mostly been ignoring her to my shame, so even with my aura sight I had no clue how she'd been feeling.
She just shrugged. "It's been weird I won't lie, but then back home wasn't really normal either by most standards. But all in all it's been fun. A bit scary and weird but not a bad time. I like everyone here. Reggie is a goofy money obsessed airhead, Zee is a magic nerd whose so hot even in her glamour it's kind of intimidating, Artemis is the cast iron bad bitch who I want to be when I grow up and Jim is the irresponsible cool uncle I never got to have." She froze a bit. "Not that Uncle Mar isn't great, but he's kind of a serious guy. Jim is just...fun. It's nice here. Not so stuffy and restricted. I get the feeling I'm kind of a fifth wheel though."
She saw my frown and held her hands up. "I'm not saying you guys haven't tried to make me feel welcome. Like I said you're all great, I just feel like I'm not exactly a part of the team. Like I'm an afterthought." She gave me a sad smile. "Which I get, trust me. I've never really fit in anywhere. You guys have your whole best friend battle buddies thing and it's baked in pretty deep. I still appreciate you taking me in like this. Even if I'm not really one of the gang at least it's because you guys have an established dynamic and not because you secretly hate me for being a murderers daughter."
That one was a bit too specific not to be from experience. I bumped her with my shoulder. "Hey. None of that. You're a member of the gang for sure. We're a little set in our ways but I'll try to make more of an effort. You belong here. Plus you know about Artemis's dad, and you live with mine. Your old man is hardly the only parent of a less than sterling reputation we've got. Nobody blames you for the things he's done. Hell if they did they could blame me just as easily, I'm a Falcone too."
Weirdly I got a flash of anger from her when I said that, but muted and vague. Still I looked to see her face looking stiff. "He's never agreed to see me you know? I've tried. He was a monster to other people but he was always my daddy. He never brought the crazy home with him, not that I saw. Then he just agrees to talk to you out of the blue like that? " She shook her head, her face conflicted and shoulder tense. "I shouldn't care. Everyone says so. That I shouldn't give a shit what he thinks because somehow being crazy makes him...I don't know, not my dad or something? But he was always good to me."
I winced. That was something I'd never seen from her really, that jealously, but then again I'd just been berating myself for not paying attention. I hesitated a second, wondering if this was too heavy a subject for me to be qualified to deal with, but in the end she was my cousin and she was hurting and I couldn't not say something at least. "I didn't ask for that meeting because I was trying to get close to him or anything Kit, we needed to see him to get that book for Circe. How long has this been bothering you? I mean it's not like we went out for ice cream or went bowling or anything, we just talked business."
She laughed at that, a high, grating sound. "Oh, of course not. No bonding at all. He just told you the location of his secret hideout and bequeathed you his most treasured possession." She looked away angrily. "It's not like I want any part of all that horrible shit, but do you know what it's like? Coming in second to you like that with my own father? Uncle Mar might not come across touchy feely but he loves you, and he's always made it clear without even meaning to that I'm second best. He doesn't say it, but I know, and I get it, you're his son. But then my own dad picks you over me too? Like are you really just that much better than me? But coming here like this and seeing all your friends I guess you are."
She laughed again, this time a little brokenly. "Hell, I think I prefer you to myself too. You're strong and fast and you have powers that seem to get randomly stronger for like...no reason. You're a literal genius who never forgets anything and can finish books in minutes that take me hours or days to read. Oh, and you can fucking FLY now for some reason?" She was standing now, panting a bit in anger as she stalked back and forth. I wanted to interrupt her but I somehow knew that I wasn't a person she wanted to hear from right now."
As she walked and talked though she seemed to burn off the energy, becoming more lethargic and unhappy as she went, until she slumped back into the chair, and aura of despair radiating off her as she looked at me with her eyes wet with unshed tears. "Is it too much to ask that I be someone's first choice? That I be important to ANYBODY? I'm not greedy. Just one person would be enough." I was horrified, and I had no clue what to say that wouldn't sound like a platitude. What the hell did I say to that?
She shook herself then, like a dog shaking off water, and the emotion seemed to melt away. But that was only what she wanted me to think, I could see her aura still, and she was just as broken hearted as before. She sniffled a bit, wiping her eyes carefully with the end of a sleeve. "God, sorry. Ignore that. Just me being a spaz. I'm sure I'm just getting used to a new place. I have to find my dynamic with all of you like we said. Seriously, just forget I said anything." She stood up and gave me a small smile that didn't reach her eyes. "Thanks for the talk Morgan."
Before I could even react she turned and walked quickly out of the room, almost fleeing from me as I stared in confused disbelief. Jesus. How had I missed that? I could see people's fucking emotions, how could I not have noticed the huge chip she had on her shoulder about our dads? She must have been broadcasting it every time I'd been around her and mentioned either of them but I hadn't even bothered to look at her, just ignoring her like she said. Like she was my bratty little cousin who was going out with me and my friends because dad said she had to.
I made a mental note to talk to the others about this. She didn't want to hear any of the reassurances I had to give, they would make things worse if anything. I'd seen enough to know that for a fact, but maybe if Zee or Reggie or Artemis reached out to try to be a friend she would take it better. Probably not Reggie actually. He would probably just announce that she was part of the group and tell her to stop being stupid before giving her a big hug. This would end up being a clusterfuck if she felt like we were pitying her.
Artemis and Zee had charisma to spare, and that didn't just mean extra levels in sexy. They had both gotten much better at interacting with other people. I think half the reason the thing with Giovanni went so well for us in the tower was because Zee was unconsciously choosing exactly the right words and expressions to tug on his heart strings. One of them could probably reach out to her and make it feel like it was just a whim. I couldn't just leave her in pain like that, even if just fixing it was something I wasn't remotely qualified to do.
Most of all I was worried though. Worried about what happened with Annabel happening again. Missing something this obvious made me feel stupid and oblivious. To not see this kind of pain in my own cousin, wasn't this the same mistake I made with my ex all over again? I couldn't help but be afraid that I had a new enemy at my back now that I never knew about. But if I treated her like that it would just ensure I drove her away faster. All I could do was let my friends try to help her and keep an eye out, and hope one of my only family members didn't turn out to be an enemy in disguise.
Hell October 2nd 2010 8:00 PM EDT
Hell was pretty unpleasant, to the surprise of literally no one. Aside from the walls made of bone, the unidentified stone of the floor, and the weird troughs of blood mysteriously sitting around, the fucking monsters were nightmarishly strong and WOULD NOT stop coming. We were currently fighting what appeared to be some kind of evil demonic centipede humanoids, and even fifty strength couldn't get through them. From what we'd found online these were Cave Vipers, and were actually the weakest of the vipers, but they had one specific trait that made them hard to deal with.
I heard my usually cheerful and upbeat girlfriend shriek in unbridled rage and then a loud bang sounded from behind me as she conjured a literal fucking car on top of one of the vipers upside down, the massive yellow hummer smashing the thing like a bug. I darted around mine so she was in view so I could check on her and saw her eyes blazing with purple blue lightning as she started dropping heavy shit from the air rapid fire. "I HATE magic immunity! It's so stupid! Nothing in the real world is just immune to magic, but every other goddamned monster down here is totally spell proof!"
I dipped under a sword strike from this stupid viper with agreement and activated my shadow dancing ability, creating a brand new construct I'd been working on around my sword. A chain with hooked black teeth of condensed shadows and used my power to start it whirring to life. My King's Sword of Haste turned into a fucking chainsword. Given the magic immunity that meant nothing in terms of hurting the viper, but Reggie and I had plans for this kind of thing. I used another burst of shadow to create a condensed shroud of shadows and dropped it, jumping a few inches up into the air.
In a series of moves that had taken us ages to time out, Reggie triggered his translocation on a Black Knight standing next to the Balrog at the back of the room. The second before that I released my hold on the shadow shroud causing the condensed power to explode out teleporting the Knight into position inside a forming cloud of obscuring smoke a few inches off the ground. It slammed down onto the stone, staggered from being dropped with no warning and the noise attracted the now blinded viper, which attacked the obscured Knight.
As the two of them clashed in the artificial dark meanwhile, I'd ended up within range of the Balrog, which did NOT have magic immunity, and my King's chainsword of Haste, lashed out at the monster with all of my fifty dexterity and strength behind it, propelled into instant motion by my absurd reflexes. The remaining Knight guarding the demon tried to jump in front of it, but he was too far away and far too slow to make it as the whirring black shadows tore open the throat of the enraged Balrog.
Of course, despite being easier to cut into with my chainspell than the Cave Viper had been without, the red bastard was stronger and had more health than the other monster. Having his throat slit pissed him off and jammed up his firebreath, but I still had to deal with his sword and the now arriving Knight. I shifted into my shadow form as the demon and the Knight tried to split me in half and popped back up behind the big red monster whose scimitar had nearly bisected the Knight with one swing, cleaving my chainsword through the back of one knee as he roared in fury before porting back over as it tried to spin and catch me so I could finish off the wounded Knight before it had a chance to recover.
With the Knight out of the way this was a single combat situation with a crippled opponent and I had no reason to waste anymore points. Integrating all my abilities into a cohesive combat style was easier said than done unfortunately. Wanting to make the most of my strength and take Del's advice about growth I decided to hold off on personal powerups for a while, but that had left me leaning heavily into my shadows exclusively for battle and that wasn't exactly what I had in mind when I decided to try to synergize. Plus there was no reason to think someone like Nightshade couldn't counter me at least partly, and I could run out of points, so I needed to use everything I had as economically as possible.
This fight was mostly leaning into my ninja skills and my reflexes now that I'd cut the other guy down to size, but I was also trying to work in my ability to fly so I could capitalize more on my existing three dimensional combat style. My wallwalking gave me some serious versatility before my Devil transformation, but now I could take advantage of that range of motion without using points or needing walls. Despite my self imposed handicap I made short work of the Balrog, though the chainspell breaking down in the final minute or two of the fight was annoying, even if it didn't really effect the outcome by that point.
I'd been hoping to get some training with my Hole bloodline, but throwing around spells when more than half the enemies here being magic immune seemed like a massive waste considering the absurd amount of points using that ability cost. Not much point in storms of reflected lightning or fire if you have a bunch of invulnerable meatshields throughout the room for enemies to hide behind. Once I finished off the Balrog, I turned to make sure my team was all good and then dropped the five points from my thirtieth level into my point value bringing me up to an even three hundred.
The power up and training focus had skyrocketed our leveling and clearing speed as I'd been hoping, and I got more levels in the last day than I had in almost a whole week before it. Not to mention we had cleared easily half this level already, with the extra points income making traversing longer distances between fights a snap for me with my shadow travel. After depositing the points I turned to look over the rest of my team as they finished clearing their enemies out. The other monsters in the room had mostly been handled by this point, a few Cave Vipers and a Black Knight or two, and they were just polishing off the stragglers.
Kit and Reggie were working through a crowd of Cave Vipers. Artemis had started working on enchanting their guns and making magic bomb casings both of which were useful against opponents like the Cave Vipers because they weren't directly casting spells. They had taken to supporting each other when Artemis started to outpace Reggie a bit because of her bloodline, though my friend had become shockingly versatile and creative with his power to make up for the gap as best he could. I watched them finish the last of the Cave Vipers in good time with a frag grenade of enchanted shrapnel and was glad to see they were holding up well.
Artemis was putting lightning arrows from her Blitz bow into the remaining Knights. She'd upgraded it with the anvil and her smithing skills because it fit her too perfectly to abandon it even for an objectively stronger weapon, and the lightning arrows had gotten denser and more powerful as well as easier to cast and permanently imbued with her purple lightning magic. Each arrow tore a hole in part of Knight and she made short work of them while Zee continued smashing the Cave Vipers in their ranks to paste with heavy conjured items, most of them seemingly propelled with force during creation.
Finally we finished clearing the room and we all slumped to the floor, exhausted. I looked around dubiously. "I refuse to believe there's nothing here we can use. That was way too much work for no payoff. There's no chest here so there must be something else. Maybe a shrine or something? Some kind of hidden room? Zee any chance for an infravision spell?" My aura sight was less than reliable for things like that considering every one of these walls was humming with magical power, secret passage or not.
Zee smiled and cast infravision. She actually couldn't learn that one officially because diablo didn't have a book for it, but she was able to create a knock off version with her insanely overpowered magic stat by studying one of the scrolls she found. It was expensive and difficult and she told me scrolls seemed to be getting too complex for her to understand well anymore, but she finally managed the spell. She cast it on me, since it synergized well with my aura sight, and I turned to scan the room. I lit up as I noticed something in the corner. "Over there!" I pointed to a seemingly normal section of bone. "There's a room on the other side."
Artemis was the closest, and she made her way over to the wall, pointing at the spot I was gesturing to. "This one?" I nodded in response and she just reached out and felt around before stopping and just staring for a minute. She looked back over at me. "What do you think? You saw inside are we talking some kind of lever or is just bricked up and we need to smash it open?" I wasn't sure, we'd seen both often enough so I just shrugged. She rolled her eyes. "Always helpful huh Morgan. Fine." She turned to Reggie. "Blow it up."
My bomb happy gold hoarding teammate grinned and shooed her away, busily setting up some plastic explosives he had in his handy dandy backpack. He saw us looking worried and chuckled. "Don't be such babies. These are shaped charges. Besides I don't know what this bone is from but it seems pretty sturdy. Whatever is inside should be fine once I get this opened up." He was lining the putty up in the shape of a doorway against the wall, with only a thin line of the stuff on the bone. Once he finished he pulled a length of fuse from his pack and set up a detonator, making sure to give us space to retreat.
He had us all back away from the wall and take cover behind one of the larger corpses before he hit he button on his detonator and there was a muffled thump. The air shifted as the concentrated explosion displaced some of it, but it was far from the indiscriminate blast movies would have you believe. Reggie was damn good at his work. There was a loud boom after the explosion though as the section of wall came crashing to the ground and we all stood up and headed into the room to look around.
There were chests and a bookshelf or two and we combed through the room pretty quickly. We stopped and gaped when Zee found a fucking resurrection scroll, which she very carefully put away with a promise to study it, though she didn't have much hope. Still even having that in our back pocket would make the dungeon much less terrifying and let us push that bit harder. The big thing we came across though was a book. Not a spellbook, but a book on a stand made of steel. I recognized it from the game.
We flipped it open and something insane happened. I felt a sort of pulse in my mind leading me to where the Warlord of Blood could be found. Now this may not have seemed important but the Warlord was right next to the stairs down. We'd just found a dynamic map through the thirteenth level, all we had to do was beat the Warlord and we were home free. But judging by how deep we were I was betting it wouldn't be easy. I turned to the others, who were already grinning in anticipation. "So. You guys up to take on another boss?"
Hell October 3rd 2010 8:00 PM EDT
Finding the Warlord turned out to be as easy as expected, having the quest to guide us was...interesting, but convenient. We hadn't really gotten any quests like this, most of the ones in diablo were given by NPCs and aside from that shitty Satyr we hadn't really met any that didn't try to kill us immediately. But despite how weird it felt I couldn't deny how nice it was to have an easy path to follow, even if it was annoying and time consuming to cut our way through all the monsters to actually get there.
The actual fight though, I was less sanguine about (pun intended). People who hadn't gotten into diablo very deeply might not remember the Warlord of Blood, he was kind of a throwaway mini boss, but I'd been doing research for the dungeon for more than a month, I knew every possible monster and bit of lore we could run into. Despite his ridiculous name the Warlord was not a person to fuck around with. In fact, he was probably going to be one of the scariest things we'd fought up to this point.
The Warlord of Blood was one of those stereotypical apex warrior types like Achilles, a total beast of a man who took combat to an art form. However the Warlord took that art form to eleven. The guy was known for fighting alongside hell in the Sin War, where he literally mass murdered actual angels back when he was still a human just with pure skill, and that was before he lost his humanity through the act of slaughter and ascended to some kind of proto murder god. The Warlord was one of the most combat capable beings we would find down here.
If it was just me I wouldn't actually be worried about getting killed down here. The Warlord was to the sword was Mozart was to music, a sword which was cursed as a motherfucker and thirsted for human blood. He was also immune to magic, fire, and lightning, which nixed both Artemis and Zee for direct combat. Artemis had brought out a physical bow she kept as backup and a series of very brutal enchanted arrows, while my girlfriend was itching to try out her new golem spell on the armor plated bastard.
Reggie was a bit less use in this fight, though he'd come up with some nasty acid orbs he was itching to try out on the Warlord, he'd special ordered the stuff from Acid Master, who was an old friend of Jim's, and was excited about the utility since the rubber balls he used would let him bank shots with them and he was getting pretty good at that. Kit was rocking AP rounds, tungsten tipped. She'd been trying to source some depleted prometheum bullets from a few arms dealers she knew but apparently they were insanely hard to find pretty much anywhere unless you had a stable source.
I was sitting at about six hundred fifty points going into this fight, after a few days of income mixed with some decent expenditure, but it should be enough for this fight, especially considering the Warlord was magic proof, so I'd mostly be using my points for mobility. Well, partially anyway, I did have another idea, one that would probably cost hundreds of points but would be a huge game changer if it worked. As we approached the quest marker we slowed down, to do a bit of a huddle. I looked around at the others. "Ok so we all know the plan?"
Artemis nodded. "You hold the boss off while we take care of the Steel Lords guarding him as fast as we can, then we gang up on him and kick the shit out of him." That was an incredibly simplistic description of our plan, but to be fair we were a well oiled machine after all this time together down here. Plus I would be dealing with the main threat so they had less to remember. I'd had enough experience fighting Blood that combined with my insane speed and reflexes, not to mention my teleportation, I should be able to hold the bastard off while the others took care of him.
Zee stepped up, looking nervous. "You seem genuinely worried about this fight, you don't usually spook so easily." She was right, I was a bit on edge considering the backstory, but there was no reason to worry her, I could take it or not, either way being afraid wouldn't change a thing. She sighed at my stoic expression. "But fine, if you want to play the big strong he man I won't poke holes. I will however, do this." She stepped forward and pushed up my mask to pull me into a blueberry cheesecake flavored kiss. I felt a hot flash of energy run over me and she stepped back smugly. "Reflection spell, picked it up from a scroll I found. Should bounce back some of the damage and keep you safe."
I laughed and leaned back in, pulling her into a longer, slower kiss. "Thanks baby, that should help. Of course this beast of an armor set we found definitely isn't going to hurt either." I looked down at my gear with a grin. Though the Godly Plate of the Whale and other plate armors were powerful, they were also fucking heavy. My current armor was loads better. The Armor of Gloom. The stuff was some kind of insane leather that was damn near impenetrable. It had shit for magic resist but my ring of the mystics took care of that with only the low c0st of making me slightly more flammable and shock prone.
Point was my armor was light as shit and soaked up a ton of damage, physical especially, which paired well with both my build and this cool new spell from my lady. I grinned her as I pulled back, excited to test myself against a powerful enemy, and with a shared nod between us and the others we all headed into the room where the boss waited, my team spread out to deal with the Steel Lords and I stepped forward to engage the Warlord. As I approached I expected him to attack immediately, but he just stood there, waiting hands folded on the pommel of his sword. The point was driven an inch or two into the stone by its weight, showing the black blade's sharpness.
I drew my own sword, but he didn't react to the motion, simply staring at me, waiting. Finally, after a minute or two of stillness, he spoke. "An impressive blade boy, but your grip speaks of inexperience. I suggest you return from whence you've come. You can hold your head up high for making it this far, but if you attempt another step to pass me I'll have to strike it from your shoulders." I'd expected arrogance, sneering or derision, but I got none of those. All the ringing bass that echoed from his horned helm contained was cold certainty.
There was no pity, no mercy, no weakness or feeling of any kind. He was stating cold mechanical fact. This wasn't a threat, it was math, me plus him equaled death, sure as the sky was blue and the grass was green. It was no more personal than multiplication tables. That honestly scared me more than rage or hate. He had done this so many times, had seen so many warriors that combat had become a formula he could just fill in. Plug in the variables and spill blood. I swallowed hard, but I knew this was necessary, I had to beat him, had to get to the bottom, so I charged.
I activated my shadow port, appearing behind him instantly with my blade flashing. Every ounce of strength, speed, and all of my absurd reflexes channeled into a blow that used every ounce of leverage and fluidity my doom fist afforded me and every bit of flexibility and bodily control possessed by a master ninja. I didn't throw this attack I PERFORMED it, like a ballet or an opera. It was the sum total of all the martial skill I'd learned from all my perks and my training with blood and my combat down here in the dungeon. It was a perfect attack.
Which I'm pretty sure is the only reason the almost invisbly fast parry that leapt from the bastards blind spot somehow failed to open my throat completely instead of just drawing a thin line of searing pain across my neck. I ported back again , expecting him to follow, but he just stood, relaxed, resting his sword back on his armored shoulder. He gave me a nod of respect. "An admirable attempt. Few are they who walk away from such a blow. I expected to take your head as promised." He straightened from his relaxed posture. "I suppose you've earned a swift death."
Before I could even process that he was on me. I felt like I was being attacked by a steel hurricane. His blade moved like lightning, nearly too fast to see and striking with enough force to split the sky itself. His sword was so nimble is almost seemed like it was bending and curling around my defenses, his absurd speed and skill managing to create and optical illusion of a shining black wind whipping through the gaps in my defenses trying to take me apart. I'd like to say I held my own, that I defended myself with flashing steel and my amazing reflexes and my magic speed enhancing sword.
That however, would be a lie. I didn't fight the Warlord, I SURVIVED him. Barely that if I'm being honest. Without my enhanced vitality, my demonic flesh, my armor, or the reflection magic I would have died there on that stone floor. As it was my body was being shredded. I used my shadow form, my teleporting, my flight, and just about every trick or skill I had. I hurled shuriken, I walked up walls, all just to buy myself the extra minute or so that was feeling like eternity. Finally the Warlord shifted slightly, he blade sweeping back and intercepting an acid orb, and I knew the battle was joined.
My team had come through, and bullets banged off his armor while he intercepted every orb of acid and sidestepped neatly around arrows and dropped anvils, somehow weaving through an entire symphony of death like he was taking a lazy walk through the park. Despite that though, the pressure on me lessened immensely. I made sure to memorize all of it, to keep those skills and movements in my brain locked up behind my perfect recall so I could maybe learn to do this myself, but finally I saw what I needed, a single split second chance.
It couldn't even be called an opening. He didn't reveal a weakness so much as all my friends forced him to counter nearly simultaneously and he only had two hands. I was sure he could avoid any blow I could make. I only had one sword. Which is when I used my new technique, a fusion of two of my others I'd been working on for a few days. I focused and opened a Hole in front of me. Not a big one maybe the size of a half dollar. It cost a big chunk of points, a cost which increased as I opened about ten others around him in every blind spot I could find.
I merged the power of hole with my shadow porting and twisted my abilities to their limit to create a new skill, a new ability unique to me, it drained my points down to a hundred, but I knew it was worth it. Once I had it set up I drove my sword forward, a perfect assassins lunge with every ounce of my talent and skill behind it, a blow that surpassed even my earlier attack because there was no fancy maneuver or technique, just perfectly leveraging my skills to do my fastest most brutal stab. I was about ten feet away from him and he clearly didn't think he could be bothered with my attack. I drove the blade forward with every bit of force and leverage I could manage, sliding a picture perfect stabbing lunge right through that half dollar sized circle as I did.
He seemed to sense something, to have noticed the attack once it entered his field of perception, and I realized he had noticed me after all, but he dismissed it as just another attack to block. Sadly for him, though he did block the blow at his throat, he failed to account for the ten identical blades warping through space to strike every one of his blindspots. He avoided some, but more than five perfect blows pierced through him like he was a pincushion. I stumbled back with a grin as he fell to a knee but adjusted and strode forward to meet him again. He was wounded, now all that was left was to mop up what was left.
The Clock Tower October 3rd 2010 9:00 PM EDT
Killing the Warlord was NOT easy, even after I pincushioned him with my wall of swords trick. With him slowed down I was able to keep up with him. Barely. But even between me and the others it took most of a half hour to whittle him down. I committed every second to memory, and went out of my way to test the limits of what he could do with his sword, pushing him to show me new responses and moves and even to execute moves I already knew so I could compare the way we moved and find weaknesses.
I wasn't some kind of combat superstar so I wasn't growing appreciably, but I had an idea of what to do here and how to use this to my advantage. I would be a moron to let this kind of opponent go without learning from him, and I had seen an email that would help with it. Once we got through the fight we called it for tonight because none of us were in shape to test out floor fourteen. We took the town portal back to the tower and Kit and Reggie dipped out, with Kit heading back to her room and Reggie heading home since it was getting late and he had a phone date with Bette.
Artemis and Zee had, like me, leveled again, and I was up to thirty five after getting a few in a row off the Warlord plus one or two from mobs as we made our way through level thirteen. I dumped the twenty five stat points into my point generation bringing me up to three hundred twenty five per day. With that done I pulled out my phone and started flipping through emails. As Del suggested I didn't want to boost my powers for a while, though mt plans to save for the base were sort of falling through since I kept using my points for combat and training. Hopefully this purchase would help me fix that.
It took me no time at all to find what I wanted, I had perfect recall and a search function, so I pulled it up and looked it over eagerly. It was an advertisement for a type of meditation called the Outer Body Training Method. Basically it was a touted as a way to train your skills to perfection inside your own mind without ever taking damage, which was nonsense of course but made it perfect for my power. The skill let you create an illusionary double inside your mind that could practice moves and skills without draining your resources, including fighting opponents you've battled before to polish your skills against them.
The ability was only ninety points, which one the one hand was cheap for something so useful, but on the other hand was absurdly expensive considering the metrics my power used most of the time. This would have almost no impact on the wider world except through me. The only reason I could think of for the price was that it would let me practice my other skills without burning through my points, which if nothing else was pretty damn broken. Regardless this would solve all my problems with combat and let me train against the Warlord until I became as good as he was, though I imagined it would take literally years.
I hit the order button without a second thought, seeing fifty dollars deducted by the purchase as the talisman that would imprint the skill on me was delivered to my door with the usual knock. I stood up and headed over to open the door and picked up a very plain dark wood box with a squared off design. The dark wood was laquered and held shut by a single hammered bronze latch. I brought it into my room and set it down on the table across from my bed, flipping open the latch and opening the lid to reveal a weathered looking talisman on yellowing paper sitting on bed of red silk. I slipped the thing out and walked over to sit down on the bed slapped the paper over my heart.
The email had covered the directions for use, so I crossed my legs into a lotus position and closed my eyes, trying to feel the energy from the talisman. The paper was supposed to act as a sort of guide to show me how to achieve the state, a pre saved demonstration you could use to learn the skill yourself. It would only work once, but it had a one hundred percent chance to teach it to you because until you actually completed the skill once on your own the demonstration wasn't considered complete. I reached out with my senses to feel near my heart, trying to identify where the power was, and when my perception touched it I was sucked into the talisman itself.
It felt like someone sucked my mind into a black void of nothingness, and I admit it was a bit unsettling. I looked around trying to find anything here that would be useful and suddenly another person appeared. Specifically a Talon. I frowned and walked towards the masked assassin in the distance and when I got within range he attacked. Sadly the idiot was so slow compared to me now I just crushed him in a few blows, and then poof, I was back on the bed. I blinked. That seemed...easy. I closed my eyes and did it again. Once again I was in the voice, this time another enemy popped up, a Black Knight from the dungeon.
I beat him and again got kicked back to the real world. Each time I went in I improved a bit at using the void. I was able to change things. One time I added more opponents, one time I made myself weaker, suppressing my stats back to human levels so I could get the experience of training against a stronger opponent. As I learned the ins and outs of the skill finding the energy got easier and easier, I kept diving back into myself through that same point until without noticing the point moved slightly. Then again, until finally the point of entry was in my actual heart.
At that point I looked down and saw the talisman was gone. It had just vanished, absorbed or dissolved or who knew what, but now it was gone and I was able to enter the Outer Body Training Space freely and manipulate it to my will. I grinned to myself as I went over my gains. This was the perfect answer to my problems. From what I could tell it didn't allow me to fold time or anything like that, I'd still have to meditate for hours a day to do the training, but still, I had a way to get stronger that didn't require me to blow all my points.
The only downside was the technique worked on data. I'd have to actually test certain abilities to give the training method a base to work on, but that would still cut my point usage in training WAY down and hopefully allow me to learn to sharpen my efficiency so I would use less points in battle. I could afford to try riskier and more expensive training methods and then use them to refine my technique. The only real limit I could find in the state inside the void was that I could make myself weaker but never stronger, so I was only able to use a maximum of my current point total, which right now was like ten.
Giddy with anticipation I closed my eyes and entered my meditative state again, appearing back in the void. Now that I'd gotten the meditation down I wanted to try out fighting the Warlord again. I summoned him in all his glory, standing across from me again, and I set myself in a combat stance, getting ready for battle. I'd done a few of these fights when I was learning the trance technique for Outer Body, but contrary to my expectations I didn't need to get used to my inner body movements or stretch or ready myself with any warm ups. Inner me was in peak combat condition at all times, and I had to admit it was nice.
It made sense considering this was me training my peak ability level, but it was nice anyway. I was also especially excited about one of the more subtle features mention in the email, namely that muscle memory and reflex actions could be trained in here at an increased rate. Combined with my massively enhanced reflexes I would be getting much more out of this than any normal person, assuming this was a real skill real people could learn, which since I was currently using it, I knew it definitely wasn't. So without further ado I began to advance towards the Warlord, readying myself for another amazing fight.
I died. Instantly. I wasn't shocked by it. The Warlord hadn't been holding back exactly when I fought him, but he HAD been keeping track of everyone in the room at the same time during every second of our interaction. My enhanced reflexes made taking advantage of slight lags in his attention much easier. When you were as good as he was, every little extra bit of mental focus you brought to bare was a qualitative shift. I reset, and then tried again. I was expecting the difference this time so it took more than a second for me to die, but honestly not much more. Two minutes later I had to reset again.
Rinse and repeat. I got killed over and over again. I didn't use my shadow porting or my Hole bloodline at all, just raw physical power and skill. I wanted to learn to fight, and I would start integrating my powers into it once I got to the level I wanted. So I fought. And fought. And fought some more. I tried every conceivable variation of every move I knew, but without my powers and my friends holding him back I couldn't fucking scratch that monster in a fight. Despite the failure I kept going, fighting him again and again.
I didn't notice how long I was going until I felt the influx of points. The fact that I spent three hours doing non stop combat training was staggering to me. Most fights lasted a minute or two tops, and going for that long at full tilt may not have cost me any energy in my trance but it sure as hell wore on my brain. I opened my eyes and decided that was enough for now. I needed to rest. Actually rest not meditate.
I must have been deep in it because when I looked around I saw a tray with a bowl of mac and cheese on it sitting next to me. I read the note next to it and smiled at Zee's demand that I eat before bed and that I tell her how my new power worked when she came over tomorrow. She had put the box in my closet with my collection and told me she loved me and wished me good night, saying she had to go, but she would see me soon. I smiled at the feeling of being taken care of and wolfed down the pasta before stripping out of my clothes and dropping my armor and gear on the table.
I climbed into bed and curled up under the covers with a smile. We were getting closer, level fourteen was one of the last three. Two if you didn't count Diablo's boss room which was literally just a single room. I closed my eyes and thought about what the hell the end of this mess would look like, about what we would do every day after we cleared the dungeon, and it was pretty nice. As I drifted off my sleep I felt my whole body relax. Just a few more weeks most likely. Once our mess was cleaned up the world would be our oyster.
Gotham Harbor October 23rd 2010 11:00 PM EDT
Twenty days. Twenty days of constant training and grinding had led me to this point. Twenty days and seven levels. We'd carved through level fourteen of the dungeon in that time, finally reaching fifteen and officially setting foot on the last level. The final boss room could be considered as being technically on level fifteen, though you teleported there through a circle. Regardless we were almost done, which was why I had decided to do what I was doing today. At my current three hundred sixty points per day I was making a decent income and I'd managed to cut back on my spending with my new training method.
After twenty days of saving at least two hundred fifty of my points per day I'd ended up with around fifty five hundred points, and tonight I was getting my lair. Standing next to me, for the first time being shown my power, were not only Artemis and Zee, but Jim and Reggie too. Reggie had been with me from the beginning and benefitted from my power anyway and I trusted him, and Jim, despite being morally bankrupt by some standards, was pretty loyal to those he cared about and besides he was weirdly committed to thieving and was strong enough that there was nothing he couldn't really get himself if he wanted it.
So here I was, standing at the docks in front a speedboat I'd rented, having told two of the people I trusted most that I had something important to show them, and getting ready to take my whole crew (minus my weirdly jealous and potentially dangerous cousin) out onto the harbor. The lair base was a huge points sink, at least in terms of amounts I'd used before, but it also perfectly suited our needs. Kit might notice we were gone, but we all had places outside the tower to live and she didn't not to mention she would be going back to living with my dad once we finished the last level in a week or two. I felt a bit bad for keeping it from her, but she gave me a weirdly unstable vibe and I just couldn't bring myself to do it.
I turned to Zee as we all climbed aboard the boat. "So are you sure Kent is cool with you coming with us? I figured he would be too worried to let you out of his sight?" I'd been a bit worried about Zee being able to come along since Kent had been following her around like a shadow. Granted in the last week or two he'd eased up a lot as he got more used to being her guardian and got to know all of us, but this was still a pretty big step. The island would be basically impossible to find unless you knew where it was, the magical defenses built for obscurity not security, though it mentioned something about being able to upgrade it somehow.
The whole thing seemed weirdly gamelike, and I kind of assumed they cribbed it from some kind of video game, not that I was complaining about that. Creepy island video game base sounded like exactly what we needed. As we set off into the harbor, Zee snuggled up to me to avoid the cold, her answer muffled slightly in my chest. "He made Jim give him a binding magical oath he would protect me. He knows what the old ghost can do so once he was assured he would give his all to keeping me safe he was willing to allow it. I think they've known each other a long time actually, so it was easier to convince him that I expected."
I nodded and took off my hoodie, draping it around her as she curled up in my lap. My girlfriend preferred light clothes that let her move around, and while she was wearing civvies and was rocking her usual capris instead of fishnets, she wasn't exactly dressed for the cold winds out over the harbor. If I'd known about the temperature out here I'd have told her to wear layers. Once we got far enough out into the harbor I turned to Reggie and Jim. "So, thank you guys for being patient. I assume you've noticed over time my odd access to powerful objects, large amounts of money, weird skills, and irregular power boosts?" Laying it out like that I almost felt like it was a miracle my charade lasted this long.
Jim gave an unimpressed noise of affirmation and even Reggie just nodded like it was the most obvious thing in the world. I winced, I hadn't thought I'd done that bad a job. I could only hope that being around Kit way less would mean she was less likely to have noticed. Moving on from my embarrassment I cleared my throat. "Well, that makes this easier. I have a superpower that lets me make spam emails real. We're out here because I've decided we need a new and more useful base. No offense of course Jim, but since Zatara and his buddies found out about it I've been feeling less than safe."
He tipped his hat in a nod. "Oh none taken dear boy I assure you. I've been feeling less than secure in our accommodations as well, but given the presence of the little miss in your lap, I assumed it was better not to rock the boat, so to speak." I rolled my eyes at the nautical pun. He continued unashamedly. "That said if you have some sort of method to acquire new lodgings through your power I'd be more than willing to change our residence. I take it from my final apprentice's absence we won't be telling her about this new base of operations?" I'd expected him to sound judgemental or angry but he just seemed curious.
I sighed. "No. Kit has...issues with me, and I don't feel safe letting her in on this secret. It might seem harsh but I can't shake the feeling she's going to do something drastic if she keeps letting her resentment build up." And build up it was. My aura sight had been showing growing levels of dissent and jealousy in my cousin every time I was around, and she had started actively avoiding me outside of dungeon raids. I knew this would only drive her further away, but I wasn't willing to take risks with my safety or the safety of my friends. Separating ourselves from her was just a way to create some much needed insurance against her sudden but inevitable betrayal.
To my surprise everyone there just nodded. I'd expected at least Artemis or Zee to plead her case, but it seemed like even they had noticed her erratic behavior. In any case I returned to the matter at hand. "Well, with that out of the way, I will officially commence the process of getting our lair." I reached into my pocket, as per usual and pulled out my phone, scrolling to the lair email and hitting the order button. Since my power was warping reality I didn't actually need bars to use it, which was good because we were getting low as the shore shrunk into the distance. I wondered though, without a door to knock on how would this email be delivered.
I heard a screech and looked up, and my hands snapped up reflexively to catch the steel briefcase the fucking HAWK dropped as it flew over us, my enhance reflexes saving me a minorly annoying bump to the face. When I looked up everyone was just staring at me. "What? Normally its delivered to my door, I've never seen that before anyway." I turned to open the briefcase, muttering under my breath. "Not my fault my stupid power is a ridiculous showoff. Delivery by hawk drop? Where did it even come from? Also can hawks even carry that much weight?" I made a mental not to be indoors next time I used my power, who knew what weird shit my power would do next.
Rolling my eyes though, I opened the briefcase. The inside of it was...odd. It was a blue orb of crystal that glowed with an unearthly light. It was lying on a bed of silk, and next to it was a small card with simple instructions. Drip Blood on Focus. I shrugged, seemed straightforward enough, so I did. I slashed open my wrist with one of my sharp ass devil fingernails, imbued with a thread or shadow to create a proper blade, and dripped it on the orb as the wound started to knit closed. Fifty vitality wasn't enough to really regenerate, but a clean slash the depth of a paper cut could start the healing process pretty quick, and it should be completely gone by tomorrow.
As drops of my demonic blood hit the orb the color pulsed and shifted to a deep purple, the red of my lifeblood mixing with the blue of the magical stone. When that happened the orb vanished. Despite that I could still feel it, like it had become a part of me, and as I called it back the energy in the orb all focused together into a glowing purple arrow inside the crystal, clearly pointing the way. I looked at the others and shrugged. "Well, that's our heading I guess, someone else will need to drive since I'm going to be paying attention to what appears to be instructions for entering the island once we get there."
Artemis stepped in to steer, driving a boat apparently one of the many skills her psycho dad had drilled into her growing up, and I started relaying directions. At first it was just general instructions with a few helpful hints, but as we got closer, just like I'd expected, the orb started taking a more active role. It steered me around reefs and through unseen dangers I could feel but not name, around defensive wards and past illusions. The obscuring setup on the island had been included, one of the reasons I bought it, and the layers were complex as hell and incredibly intricate. I could see why it had cost five thousand points now.
As we got through the concealments we came out onto the beach of an island. The place was gloomy and covered in trees, but more of a wooded area than a jungle, like a big European forest, and at the peak of the sole mountain on the island was a huge fuck off castle. The thing was crumbling and derelict, made of black stone that glowed subtly in my aura sight but clearly having seen better days. I winced a bit. That also somewhat explained the price, I'd mostly been paying for the obscurement, I'd have to repair the damn thing myself.
I scowled and headed up onto the island proper, my friends and mentor behind me. We trekked through the forest, my aura sight letting us avoid any animals, of which there were more than a few. All in all though the place was pretty peaceful. The path was overgrown, clearly having been unused for quite some time despite this island literally not existing two hours ago. My power and it's normal retcon bullshit. I made a mental note to explore the island, if it was accurate to its history there might be some hidden goodies on it. Finally we reached the castle, I conjured the orb and it appeared in my palm.
The arrow of energy condensed into a key made of purple light and I willed it out of the orb, feeling a solid weight of warm material settle into my palm as the light key floated down onto my other hand. I stepped forward, placed the key into the lock on the door and turned it with a clock. Before I could even step inside a window popped up in my vision, sort of like my stat screen. Welcome Future Lord of Darkness! You have entered your villainous lair, would you like to see your list of available upgrades? I blinked. Then blinked again, trying to make sure I was seeing what I thought I was. Well that was just...neat.
Yay new mechanics! This leads into the next arc, during which we're going to see it get used pretty heavily. I was really into the idea of basebuilding after reading a litrpg I enjoyed lately and wanted to play with it, and it seemed like a fun way to mix things up. Meanwhile in the advance chapters the dungeon arc comes to an end and a new war kicks off with a bang pat-reon has the advance chapters at that site /malcolmtent. hope you enjoy and let me know what you think.