Blocking the strike with a middle block, the weapon clanged against the mace, forcing the warrior off its balance. Rook used the opportunity to kick the Udak’ith in the stomach, opening it up to a savage swing into the top of its skull. It fell, unmoving. One down.

  Rook cursed to himself as Jody strolled away to the corner of the room, seemingly unbothered by the chaos. How can he be so damned nonchalant

  Two more came at him, while Maki, Troy, and Reina rushed past his vision to meet the wave. The first Udak’ith short sword user turned its head to try and stab Reina in the back. I’m your opponent. Rook ran forward, hitting the short sword in the back of the head, sending it to the ground. He picked up the short sword with his left hand, dual-wielding. Don’t die.

  Breath hissing from his mouth, he tried to manage it. In nose, belly breath, out mouth. The sword he grabbed was awkward in his hand. Everything about it was off, from the grip to the weight. Where the mace felt good, almost like an extension to his arm, the sword felt like a funky prosthetic. “This isn’t working.”

  The next Udak’ith was quick to avenge its fallen comrade, sprinting forward with a sword, intent on running him through. Rook held the weapons in a cross block as the Udak’ith blade came to meet him. Its shortsword struck the middle of the cross, effectively trapping it in place for a moment. Rook realized he was also kind of set in place. The thing snarled in his face, lashing out a tongue as black as its eyes. Raising the cross guard up, he kicked its knee and reveled in the meaty pop. It screamed in pain, rubbing at the broken joint, and staring at Rook with pure malice. Off balance and limping, the Uldak’ith took a halting step before pitching forward on its face. Rook stabbed it in the back, leaving the awkward Uldak’ith blade in the middle of its spine.

  Udak’ith Cultist

  Level 10 (Bronze)

  The bronze-ranked Cultist was caught in a clash against Reina. She parried the overhead swipe of its black dagger, using its momentum to put it off balance. It was too preoccupied with stumbling; it didn’t see her thrust. Reina’s family heirloom found its home in the soft flesh of the side of her neck. In a quick flourish, she shuffled back, letting the creature fall limp.

  “Holy shit, Reina,” Rook said, catching his breath.

  She smiled, leaving for her next opponent. He came into this fight thinking that he might have to protect her. However, her confidence was steadily growing, and she was becoming a menace. Something impacted the back of his head, and an explosion of pain sent him to the ground. White stars clouded his vision, and before he could recover, the rancid breath of an Udak’ith was in his face.

  His health was down to sixty percent. Cursing, he struggled against the Udak’ith combatant. It placed its hands around his throat and squeezed with a surprising amount of strength, suffocating him. Rook let out a strained groan, and his eyes moistened with tears, and in a desperate act, he spat into its face. The fish warrior’s jaws opened, and sank deep into his shoulder. Reaching for his weapon, his fingers instead grabbed a piece of rocky coral. Gripping it hard, he bashed it into the side of the Uldak’ith’s head. Yelping, it let go. His blood dripped from its gaping jaws.

  Rook kicked the beast in the chest, and it rolled into the temple wall. Fuck, if his shoulder wasn’t on fire. He found his mace on the ground just ahead, between him and the fallen Udak’ith. He struck the cudgel into its face, breaking the bloody teeth. Then again, it hit the top of its skull, ending the fight.

  Reina sapped a nearby Udak’ith swordsman, stabbing the creature as it collapsed in its scaly chest. Maki decapitated another with the precise arc of her black obsidian blade. Troy somehow made his way to the platform, and his armor lay on top of the altar. He was getting scratched and cut by two separate warriors. His sword was broken, and things were looking bleak. A weapon missing two-thirds of the blade offered little defense against the blades of the Uldak’ith. Maki fought hard, glancing up at Troy and then her opponents. Rook watched the precision give way to wild, desperate swings.

  Rook grabbed the cudgel and sent it spinning end over end like a propeller into the nearest warrior, shattering the back of its skull. Maki cleaved the other’s chest nearly in half with a downward swing. She nodded to him and made her way to the altar.

  Reina cried out, and Rook jerked his head towards her. Fuck. He grabbed a nearby fish man’s weapon, a heavy obsidian longsword. Again, awkward in his grip. Then, the Uldak’ith charged, ramming the length of the blade into its back where the kidneys would be. He continued forward, running the blade into the wall with a crash.

  Standing in the corner, Jody held his axe out towards a group of cultists. His eyes were focused on Reina, no doubt judging her performance. One of the things rushed Jody with a spear thrust. The dwarf bounced through the group as if he were a pinball, from one to the next. His axe was a blur as it swung through flesh and bone, splitting each of the udak’ith warriors into pieces. He made eye contact with Rook and shrugged his shoulders with a smile.

  Troy got the better hand on a warrior holding a mace, taking it down with a series of head butts. Grabbing the mace, he crushed the skulls of two other warriors and turned to catch claws raking him in the back. Each time Rook went to help Reina was attacked again, like the Uldak’ith were playing a game of tug of war with him. Hurry up, Maki. Rook helped Reina dispatch the last of her issues: one was a mace user, and the other was a shortsword user.

  They paused, desperately trying to catch their breath; his lungs felt like they were going to pop in his chest, and his shoulder was pure fire. “You okay?” Rook asked, pulling a health potion from his inventory.

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  “Like a fox in a hen house,” Reina responded.

  Still holding the bottle in his off hand, Rook batted aside the thrust of a spearman and caught it in its face across the eyes. He downed half of the contents, and his shoulder dulled to an ache as the wound stitched back together. He watched his health bar go back to eighty percent. He gave the rest to Reina, who was busy finishing off the warrior with a stab.

  She grabbed a mana potion from her pack and downed half, letting him have the rest. “I saw the Attramancy, you need it.”

  His mana bar was at ten percent. She was right. “Thanks,” he downed the contents, bringing the bar to sixty percent.

  Once more, they joined the fray.

  Troy was grunting and straining, fighting the dwindling wave. A cultist crept behind the altar, carrying a wicked-looking dagger.

  “Troy, behind you!” Maki cried out. She then called to Nelios, desperately trying to wake him up.

  It was too late. Rook watched as the Lieutenant was stabbed in the side by the cultist’s dagger. Burying deep into him to the hilt. He glanced at Rook and nodded towards the armor. He began shoving the cultist off the platform and into the crowd of warriors. There were still almost two dozen, at least, crawling up the platform like a mass of scaly flesh. Troy grit his teeth and collapsed to a knee.

  Why the fuck is she trying to wake the child?! Rook found himself face to face with the chomping jaws of a jumping udak’ith. He ducked, and as the warrior was over him, he raised his body, flipping the thing onto the ground with a crash. He turned around and pulped the thing’s head.

  His guide into the temple was about to die. He cursed himself for not being stronger, for allowing the udak’ith to get the upper hand on them. Most strange of all, he cursed the sleeping child. On an instinctual level, he could tell that this thing was the most powerful of all. An aura pulsed from the stage. If I could just speak out to the kid!

  “Nelios, wake up and help, you little bastard! Do you want to die with the rest of us?!” Rook bellowed.

  There was a loud screech that caused all in the temple to cover their ears. Several of the Udak’ith cried out in terror at the noise. The sound grew in octave, louder in pitch until it drowned out Rook’s other senses, making him nearly pass out. Then a low and guttural chanting replaced it, over and over, repeatedly from the child. The temple rumbled, and a shockwave pulsed in the chamber.

  “What’s happening!?” Rook called out over the crowd.

  “He’s commanding them to end their lives!” Maki shouted, finishing off the combatant she faced, with a slash to the throat.

  The Udak’ith stopped their fighting, and they stood and chanted in their guttural language. “Het Gaw. Het Gaw.” Over and over they chanted. The Udak’ith took blades, maces, and spears.

  Oh God. Then to Rook’s surprise, they began slitting their own throats, stabbing themselves, and bashing their heads in. It was over in minutes; the stone temple full of cultists was reduced to mangled bodies and a bloody mess.

  Rook and Reina ran up to the altar, joining Maki and Troy. The child had the similar beauty of the Ukdannish, with eyes as gold as the sun, unlike the black eyes of the Udak’ith. His lip trembled, and he babbled. Reina soothed the child, rocking him and talking sweet words.

  Attramancy increased to level 36

  Blunt increased to 128

  Block increased to 25

  +48 experience gained

  336 of 400 experience until level 8

  Udak’ith Warriors slain x35

  Udak’ith Cultists slain x5

  Experience gained 2000

  You have reached level 10

  0 experience of 650 until level 11.

  +2 Core attributes

  Would you like to loot the room?

  Y/N

  Shocked by the amount of experience, he paused before coming back to reality.

  Yes.

  38 gold obtained

  Spiked Mace of the doublestrike (Gold) obtained

  Locket of Lady Joan Cunning (Diamond) (Unusable)

  10 health potions obtained

  8 mana potions obtained

  Good lord. Rook felt like a kid, watching the numbers go up in his vision. He closed the window after everything was added to his inventory. All around him, the dead bodies of the Udakith lay strewn about in a huge self-inflicted mess.

  “Shit, forgot where I was.”

  The Uldannish woman was bleeding from several cuts, and her blue hair was sticking out of the ruined hood. She kneeled beside Troy and let out a sharp gasp. Maki probed the wound, unsure where to begin. Determination gripped him, and she reached for the dagger.

  “No, don’t!” Rook cried out.

  Rook had to agree, Troy looked bad. “Move, let me see,” Rook kneeled beside him and placed two fingers on the pale man’s neck. His dark, slicked hair was a mess on his pale, almost colorless face. Rook looked down at the dagger, buried to the hilt inside his side. He wasn’t a medical professional, and his combat lifesaving skills couldn’t handle this.

  “Maki, prop his head up,” Rook said, giving the distracted Uldannish a flat gaze. He grabbed a potion and poured the draught slowly into the Lieutenant’s mouth until it was completely gone. The color returned to his face, but slowly it drained away as his organs attempted to heal over the foreign object.

  “You put your armor over the boy. Why? He’s Uldannish?” Her face grew hard.

  “It’s my mission. Uldannish or not, he’s a child.” He stared blankly at the ceiling of the temple. “It’s nice to do something good in my life after so much bad in the Legion.” He coughed, a ragged wet noise that brought Rook back to Pineville for a split second. “Maki, I don’t think I can properly thank you.”

  “Fix him,” Maki said, with a fierce look on her tired face. “Fix Troy.” She propped his head up.

  “In the lap of an angel, now I can die,” Troy said with a chuckle.

  In his inventory, Rook still had a recovery potion. But logic told him he couldn’t tear the dagger free, or Troy would bleed out. Fuck, what to do. What to do. “Troy, this is going to hurt a lot, and I’m going to need to remove the dagger.” The Lieutenant gave no response. “Reina, you need to pour the contents into his mouth as I pull it free. We aren’t going to have room for error.” He waited for the steely-eyed enhancer to nod in affirmation. “Here goes nothing. Maki, hold him.”

  Troy was weak, but the recovery potion miraculously brought him from the brink of death. Maki helped him to his feet. The way back is going to be shitty. The child chanted something in his babbling language. That caused Maki to glance at him.

  “Nelios. Do you know the Songs of the Deep?’

  The child kept babbling, growing in octave. The temple shook, and the moisture from the walls, floors, and their sweat coalesced into a bubble the size of a doorway in front of them. Rook couldn’t see beyond it.