Neutral
Health:
90/100
Strength:
180/230
Stamina:
90/150
Agility:
80
Intellect:
95
Spirit:
75
Constitution:
100
Mana:
103
Inventory:
(Click to View/Hide)
Player Kills:
3
Killum pulled out a small vial, about the size of his thumb.
Restore Mana Potion. Will restore 25 mana points. Cooldown: 15 minutes. Can be used once an hour, up to 5 times in 24 hours.
He pulled the cork stopper and drank it. Warmth flooded his body, and he saw his mana start to tick up.
"We have company," Tiana whispered. "Ugh. Liches. I hate liches."
Two skeletal mobs had stepped out of the cave. Both were level 5 and carried cutlasses and round shields. One of them wore a horned helmet, too. They looked around, before taking up station to either wide of the entrance. And a moment later five more liches came out, one wearing an enchanter's robes.
"Well, no one said it would be easy," Rand said, eyes already bright with battlelust.
Chapter 3
Killum spread his team out in a semicircle. They all moved stealthily into position, with him in the middle and closest to the lich mage. He did a mental checklist of his available fighting spells. His Power Sword was still his best offensive weapon, though he needed to tie up the lich spellcaster long enough to reach him. So he concentrated on the lich mage.
Lich Mage (Lvl 15).
"Not bad for a mob," he muttered under his breath. He checked his stats, especially his health and mana. Not too bad. Then he noticed everyone was in position and waiting for him to start the show. He grinned. "I love this shit."
Pulling up the binding spell, Slow as Molasses, Killum held his green glowing right hand back. Asha nodded, and both of her hands began to glow blue up to her elbows. Tiana winked out of existence for a second, and reappeared with that blue glow of stealth. And Fergus' arrow began to glow red.
Rand grinned with wicked delight, lifted one leg, and let one rip. Killum shook his head. Sometimes his farts were funny, but sometimes…
The lich mage's head whipped around toward them. The lich's eyes flashed blood red, and then magic red fires engulfed his skeletal hands. He shouted, "Defend the Temple!"
Killum threw his spell. The lich mage dodged aside, but the spell hit one of the first two guards to come out. As one, the five players charged in screaming their battle cries. The battle-mage pulled his sword, and activated its power. And just in time.
"Burn!" shouted the lich mage, throwing a fireball at Killum.
He parried the fireball with the Power Sword's magic, but that still cost him a dozen mana points. Killum felt the loss physically, but it was no more debilitating than a single punch to the arm. And then he was upon the lich mage, swinging at the bony bastard's neck.
The lich mage parried his blow with the steel braces on his wrists, and then crossed his arms and shouted a word.
Ka-boom!
Killum was blasted back off the island to splash a good dozen feet away from the shoreline. He came up out of the water gasping and choking. Checking his health, he grimaced to see he'd lost thirty points. After drinking a healing potion, Killum charged back into the battle. He could see four liches were already reduced to piles of bones. It looked like the stealthy thief was doing the most damage, sneaking up behind liches engaged with her friends.
Ka-boom!
Asha had flown up into the air a fraction of a second before the lich mage tried to blast her. She started sending one fireball after another down at him at a rate that would deplete Killum's mana to nothing in less than a minute.
"I've gotta reach level 40 and get some of those spells," he muttered. Fireballs ate up ten mana points each at his level. "Sometimes a man's gotta eat it."
Killum cut right, and headed for the lich mage. Asha continued to rain fireballs upon the monster. The lich kept his arms cross before him, and Killum could see the faint outline of a barrier spell. So he called up fire, and launched a ball of it at the lich mage's back.
"Aagh!" the lich mage cried, spinning around a few times to put out his burning robes. "I will feast upon your soul!"
Killum reached him, activated his Power Sword, and swung with all his might. The lich mage tried to cross his arms, but the battle-mage's blade was faster.
"Yes!" he cried as the lich's skull shattered. The mob immediately collapsed into a pile of bones and smoldering robes. Killum looked around for another lich to fight, but they were all vanquished. "Well, that was fun."
"Speak for yourself," Rand muttered. Half of his glorious red beard had been sheared off in the fight. "Why do they always go for the beard?"
Killum grinned and clapped the dwarf on the back. "Jealousy, I suspect, my friend."
The battle-mage watched Asha and Tiana checking the liches they killed, looking to see if any treasure was dropped. Their weapons and gear were all old and rusty, and almost worthless. Little, if any of it, was worth taking. It would just be unnecessary weight to carry and steal from their stamina.
The battle-mage checked the lich mage's body. The steel braces looked promising. He picked those up.
Congratulations! You have won Braces of Abonan! Fight and defend, a mage's best friend!
"Magic braces. Win," Killum said, opening his weapons cache. He only had ten slots, all filled, so discarded a long knife and put the braces there. That made six of ten slots filled with enchanted weapons.
"Eat your healing herbs if you got them," Fergus said. "And any restorative potions. The monsters are only going to get tougher."
Killum checked the time. He would have to wait another forty minutes before he could take another mana restoring potion. But he drank another healing potion that restored twenty points to his health. And then he checked his stats.
Current status:
Race:
Human
Class:
Battle-mage
Leveclass="underline"
36 (4% to next level)
Alignment:
Neutral
Health:
60/100
Strength:
160/230
Stamina:
90/150
Agility:
80
Intellect:
95
Spirit:
70
Constitution:
93
Mana:
85
Inventory:
(Click to View/Hide)
Player Kills:
3
"Stupid liches ain't got no money," Rand said. "I need more shekels! Ale doesn't buy itself in this world."
That wasn't a good sign. When the sentient guards of a dungeon didn't drop coins that usually didn't bode well for there being much, if any, treasure in a dungeon. Killum wondered if the designers were just sadistic bastards or something. There might be some players in the Game who just wanted to just grind and level up, but it was a For Profit business, so they needed to win some coin to buy the good shit. Of course, that meant they'd have to spend RL money to buy better weapons, potions, and such.