My avatar awoke looking up at the galaxy of stone and light that made up the Spiral. I listened for the sound of anyone nearby and when I heard nothing I prompted Lydia to read out my notifications:
“Quest Evolving
The Resistance: Enemy of my Enemy
XP Gained: 900
XP Reward: 1000
Reward: Item Spike
You just can’t avoid being betrayed. Poor kid. Find a way to descend the Spiral now that your meal ticket has been yanked out from under you.
Bonus 300 XP: Rescue Valerie de Lafontaine
Bonus 300 XP: Rescue Theodora von Achen
Bonus 300 XP: Kill Alphonse Cardienne
More than sixty percent of your body has been burned! Your regeneration is halted!
You are critically low on health!
You have consumed the Essence of an elder! Enough of your burns have healed to resume regeneration!
Your limb has reconstituted itself! You lose the limbless debuff!
Achievements
The Sound of One Hand Clapping
You faced a creature of a higher tier while missing a limb and survived!
+10 to Vitality”
Surveying my statistical gains I noted a few advancements. My Analyze skill was available for advancement to the Expert tier. It might be a strict utility but knowing more about creatures had been a great boon to me in the past. I advanced it and got a new adjustment to the skill for my trouble.
“You calculate how easy to strike a creature is with but a glance. Learn the creature’s armor value.”
My Novice Fire Resistance skill finally reached the Trained tier. As a result Lydia added a note with very little clarification:
“You are now a Bulwark against fire attacks! The Fire Resistance skill can now only be raised under extreme conditions.”
In addition I gained two levels. At level twenty eight I once again gained two point increases. I once again applied one increase to Charm and the second to Vitality, remembering the vicious hits from the Priest of Pain.
With that I looked away from my wrist and the expanded menu winked out. Trying to move my avatar I found that it had become mired in mud and debris at the bottom of a ditch. With some effort I dislodged my arms and legs from the viscous material and then crawled up to the top edge of the furrow to look around. The grounds of the old church were largely unrecognizable and still covered in mist. There was no sign of my allies or the ambushing troops.
Summoning my daggers I made my way toward the site of the battle, staying low as I threaded my way through the debris. In the graveyard where I’d faced the Priest of Pain I saw signs of significant damage.
Mausoleums had crumbled.
Swaths of gravestones had been reduced to rubble.
A wrought iron fence had been reduced to a ball of twisted slag.
The church seemed to have taken the brunt of the battle. The roof of the old building was long gone and only the heavily damaged walls still remained. Smoke drifted up from the interior and the facade was blackened with fire damage.
Perhaps halfway across the graveyard I stopped in my tracks when I heard a sound coming from the smoking church itself. A voice was calling out for help. Recognizing it immediately, I sighed with deep resignation and made my way toward it.
As I breached the blasted open wall of the old church I heard the voice again, “Bro, come the fuck on! Somebody has to be out there. I don’t want to force a respawn!”
Making my way through the rubble-strewn room past the ravaged corpses of soldiers I paused in mid stride even as he growled at me, “What was that? Is someone there? I heard you, yo!”
I quietly looted every single one of the bodies before making way toward the whining voice of KKG.
I found him… or more precisely, what was left of him, wedged into a crack in the floor. The only remaining part of the giant idiot was his head, and it was facing downward.
Grimacing, I grabbed the back of the damaged cranium and yanked it out of the hole.
“Fucking finally! I logged in ten minutes ago and I’ve been shouting the whole time!”
Turning the head over I found that it had suffered significant fire damage. He had lost one eye and was covered in burns. Even more of his gigantic gold and black dentition was exposed.
When he saw me he somehow managed to grin, “Oh hey there killer!”
Sighing, I glared down at him, “Do you think right now is really the wisest time to be an asshole?”
He grinned, “I gotta be me baby.”
Sighing, I carried his head back into the chamber full of corpses, “Did anyone survive this besides you and me?”
Holding up his head I panned it around so he could see all the corpses and he said, “I saw some folk make a run for it but it was fucking slaughter bro. Hey, take me over to that fat bastard near the wall!”
The corpse was a man in heavy armor with a shaved head and a surprising lack of wounds. He was just staring up at the sky with a look of surprise on his mustachioed violaceous face. Bringing the head over to the heavy set Haithan warrior, KKG said, “Can you hack off his head for me?”
“Dude what?”
“I need a new body my dude! Come on, help a bro out!”
After setting his head on a nearby rock overlooking the grisly corpse, I summoned a purloined ax from my inventory and considered the body. With some effort I shifted it around and prepared to start the cutting as I said, “Did you see that lady Theodora during the battle?”
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He grunted, “She has to be the highest level person in the test. She held her own against that big Priest thing for a while but eventually a bunch of casters joined in and they took her down. They didn’t kill her though. I think they took her prisoner, which is super fucking weird. They also took that noble chick and her traitor boyfriend.”
I tried to ignore the spike of relief at that information.
There was a meaty thwack as I brought the axe down the first time and I grimaced as black blood splattered all over me. With a throaty growl of discontent I continued my inexpert chops into the neck of the soldier for a few minutes. KKG checked out after about thirty seconds, saying he had to check his messages.
Eventually I managed to decapitate the corpse. Its neck looked like a disaster of ragged meat and I wondered how KKG was going to sync up his head with the much larger body but just shrugged. It seemed that the man had been dead much longer than the limit for my vampire abilities to consume his essence. My arms and face were now coated in unabsorbed ichor. Making a disgusted sound, I tried to scrape some of it off as KKG made his return.
“Yo bro, you went to town on that dude! Put my head next to his neck!”
Sighing, I picked up the head again and tried to sync up their necks. Grimacing, I recoiled as strips of flesh broke free of the decapitated head and grabbed onto the neck of the corpse. As soon as I could I let go of the head and stepped away there was a fleshy splorch from the union of flesh.
Shaking my head I muttered, “Catacomb is going for a kind of niche market for this game.”
KKG let out a hoot of glee as he took control of his new body stumbling to his feet. He tore the undershirt I hadn’t looted off his new chest and tossed it aside. He gave me a nod and a grin. Gesturing at my own eyes I asked, “What about…”
He chuckled and nodded, “Oh yeah,” he walked over to the decapitated head of the former guard and dug into it with his fingertips. Before long he had extracted one of the eyes and was shoving it into his own empty socket.
Exhaling sharply I sighed and said sarcastically, “This is what I signed up for.”
KKG turned to look at me with mismatched brown and gray eyes and grinned, “I’ve been trying to get my boys to log in for hours but I think they might be being bitches about getting ambushed. Your fault by the way.”
I gave him a flat look and he held up his hands, “You gotta admit that shit is true.”
Sighing I rubbed the back of my head as I said, “Now I gotta figure out what to do next.”
He flexed and I noticed that his body was morphing and bulging to more closely resemble his previous one. Muscles burst outward and veins pulsed visibly as he underwent his transformation. He hissed as if in pain, “Well,the whole point is to get down the stairs to the next level right?”
Nodding, I waved a dismissive hand around us to encapsulate the situation, “Yeah, but best we can hope is that they have one of those damn monsters sitting right at the entrance. They are E tier. We might stand a chance with every player in the game but after this I am not sure we can convince everyone to work together.”
“Even with stealth I’d wager it's impossible,” I said as I continued to talk I opened my interface and typed up a quick message to Sakurai to check her situation
KKG shrugged and gave me a smug look, “What if I told you we could get ourselves an E tier race.”
“This early? How?”
He shot me finger guns and a wary look as he said, “Gotta promise we knock it out together. No ditchin me to go it alone. I can’t get Lestra and Dendro on the line…”
“Even though you fucked me over on that Necropolis quest?,” I said, cutting him off.
He gave me a cheesy grin and said, “Come on!”
Sighing, I shook my head, “As long as YOU promise not to ditch me, fine.”
He shrugged and rolled his shoulders, “There is some old laboratory to the north in the few mountains this place has got left. The quest says they were doing testing on Remnants or some shit. Says that the reward is an E Tier race. There is a problem though.”
“It’s a full group quest?”
“We can’t do it with two for sure,” he said with a nod.
Checking my notifications, I muttered, “Might have the answer for that,” as I brought up Sakurai’s message.
“Florin,
I barely made it out of the big fight alive. I am offline for the moment but would be glad to team up again.
Thank you for the opportunity.”
I closed it and gave him a strained smile, “Got us a tank.”
“We could really use a healer then,” he said with a grimace.
He had a point. My fingers flew over the virtual keyboard as I quickly typed out another message to Sakurai:
“How did things go with Nomura? We are planning to head into a dungeon and could use his healing magic if he is up to it.”
She responded quickly:
“I took your advice and spoke with him about my feelings and my reason for doing what I did. He is still angry but I think he understood. He suggested it may take time for the wound between us to heal but he is willing to work on it. He has actually been eager to play again, and admitted he only stopped to give me space. I will bring him with me when I join you.”
Breathing a sigh of relief, I gave KKG a thumbs up, “Sakurai and her boyfriend are going to log in. Just as a heads up he is a little stressed with real life stuff. Maybe don’t give our healer shit.”
He held up his hands and gave a contrite look, “Hey bro, I’m here for the game. I only haze people when I’m bored.”
We had to hang out for about twenty minutes before Sakurai arrived with a rather surly looking robed female ghoul in tow. Nomura looked much the same as he had when I last saw him. There was very little change in his gear.
Sakurai paused as she entered the corpse-strewn ruin and awkwardly gestured to the robed zombie, “Everyone this is Nomura.”
“Hey man, good to see you again. Sorry we lost sight of your mist girlfriend,” he said with a small nod of greeting.
I grimaced at that and gave him a little shake of the head as KKG chimed in with obvious interest, “Killer’s got him a new girlfriend? You dippin your dick in the digital ink Mal?”
Ignoring KKG, I said, “It’s all good. I’m sure she is out there causing some kind of havoc. I wouldn’t be surprised if we run into her again on this level of the Spiral at some point.”
Smiling, I changed the topic, “You look like you could use some gear. I picked up a pile of stuff from this last fight. Some of the same stuff I remember you using in Braithe?”
Nomura nodded and accepted the transfer of items, “Thanks man. That quest to heal Mystal didn’t really pay off in gear.”
KKG moved in with his giant rotten grin and offered up a bro-fist, “I’m KKG bro, nice avatar.”
Nomura nodded and gave the guy a wary look as he returned the gesture, “I’ve heard of you.”
In short order Nomura was wearing several pieces of dark black and red robes and holding a silvery censor by a chain that was shaped like a star limned by a corona.
The three of us touched fists in turn to join each others group and then I shared all the quests I’d gained. Nomura and KKG’s eyes went a little wider at the text and at the rewards for the Enemy of my Enemy quest.
The big zombie chuckled, “Definitely getting that bonus exp. Save a couple of hot babes and kill a backstabbing little shit? No problem bro.”
Sakurai put her hands over her mouth with a look of genuine concern, “Oh no, Valerie. We have to save her!”
Nomura gave me a sidelong look and muttered, “That’s two bro.”
Giving him a warning look, I was elated to note that KKG was distracted.
The brawler then shared his quest with us and my ever helpful AI provided a description:
“Quest Evolving
Mad Science
XP Reward: 3600
Reward: E Tier Race Change
You and your allies have chased rumors of experiments conducted on Remnants from the Vault where you awakened to a group of bandits who held clues to an ancient laboratory. Discover truths hidden in the mountain lab and a chance for rapid advancement to a new stage of undead evolution!”
Nomura whistled, “E Tier race? Is that a big jump? It seems pretty hefty.”
“We are going to need it. We all nearly got wiped out here last night because these cultists have E Tier mobs helping them. Nomura, are you going to be alright keeping Sakurai healed if needed? I know you are mostly a damage guy.”
He nodded and shrugged as he looked at his character sheet, “My heal spell is a little low level so I need to level it anyway.”
Looking to a still grinning KKG who had his meaty fists on his hips I gestured in the direction of the distant mountains bathed in starlight, “Lead on.”
The others filtered past me toward a hole in the far wall to follow the hulking zombie warrior. Sakurai paused beside me and gave me a long and pointed look. Noting her concern, I said, “I recognize he isn’t the ideal team member.”
Her voice was calm and reserved as she said, “Nomura and I discussed it. We will not abide by his antics if they become harmful.”
Nodding I looked toward the rest of the group as they departed, “I’m hoping that we can wrap this up quickly and get down the stairs. By that time he will likely have his ‘bros’ back and everyone can go their own way.”
Finishing with a smile to the giant skeleton warrior I said, “If he can’t keep his bullshit to himself I will follow you two if you will have me, and we will find another way.”
Sensing her own smile in turn she bowed her head and departed. I looked around the scene of the ambush once more and followed after her and into the endless night.
