âHe violated the bro code,â I protested, Aaron standing between me and the traitor Maxwell and my sister.
âI donât know if you technically qualify for the bro code,â Marcus pointed out.
âI donât care that youâre a death priest now, Iâll beat your ass so hard youâll feel it back on Earth,â I snapped.
âWhy is this a bad thing?â Jess demanded. âMaxwell is your friend, is there something about him I donât know, like some kind of stalker creep pedophile?â
I met Maxwellâs eyes and glared at him, trying to make him think I would say that about him. He just smiled smugly. âNo, Max is a great guy.â
âSee, I told you he would come around,â Raven said.
âHow could you tell Raven and not me?â I demanded, getting angry again. âAnd why did you keep it from me?â My glare went to Raven next.
âGee, itâs almost like I had to block an eldritch blast from you when you found out,â Aaron said.
âIt wouldnât have done any permanent damage, just removed a leg or something,â I grumbled. âHe wouldâve been fine.â
âAnd thatâs why I didnât tell you,â Raven said. âWe were having too much fun conquering stuff and I didnât want you to get distracted and become all annoyed.â
âYou know, Max,â Freya said, âwe could sanctify my new temple by turning you into a living dead and having an unholy wedding.â
âFreya,â I said warningly.
âThere are some benefits of being married in-game,â Jessica, the archer on Aaronâs team, said.
âLike what?â Jess asked.
âSimple stuff, like always knowing where the other one is in game, and lower cost teleportation between places of creation to get to each other,â Jessica explained. âI know itâs weird, but technically Nick and I got married so we could connect quickly if we got separated.â
âThat would be nice,â Maxwell said. âWhat do you think, Zeke? It would make it so we couldââ
Several minutes later, Aaron sported multiple burns from eldritch fire, Marcus was missing an eye, Decker was still looking for his hammer, and Nick was trying to restring his bow.
âYou quite done?â Aaron demanded, sitting on my back.
âYou all are lucky Iâm tired,â I growled. âIâm done.â
âSo, no wedding?â Freya had watched the whole exchange with an amused smile. âIâm going back to my temple now.â
âDid she come out here just to mess with me?â I asked, watching her go.
âProbably,â Marcus said, working on regrowing his eye. âHaving a wedding, unholy or not, to consecrate a temple wouldnât make any kind of difference, unless thereâs a big part of this whole thing I donât know.â
***
âWe came here once our temple was secure,â Aaron said. âWe were worried you would need our help since your general ended up fighting their general.â
âI appreciate it.â And I really did, taking no offense in them being worried about me. Tellkin had beat the paladin general, but he hadnât come through unscathed. Though we had very powerful death magic with us, it wasnât easy to heal every wound. The searing holy light used to carve off one of Tellkinâs legs did not make healing easy. The leg had been reattached, but it didnât work right.
The giants continued to rampage through the city, wiping out the blood zombies wherever they came across them. Same was true for the grave guard and flesh horrors, nothing was left of the civilian population. That meant between the zombies and the blood zombies there was likely near 20,000 zombies.
It seemed like the numbers were dwindling. More and more often, entire sections would be cleared by grave guard with no blood zombies to be seen. They would gather up the mindless zombies and bring them to our new foothold at the former Olattee temple. When it had converted, the massive wave of divine energy that swept over the city had cleared a large chunk of it, bringing them all the mindless zombies to the temple.
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âTheyâre gathering them inside of the altar of purity,â Raven said. She had been up on the very top of Freyaâs new temple, trying to locate large groups of the blood zombies.
âThey must be getting ready for some kind of siege,â I said. âWeâve taken out many of their strongest, but it hasnât been without its costs.â
âI donât know,â Aaron said. His team had been one of the few that had fully survived the encounter with the archbishop at their temple. They hadnât brought any of the players under level 100 into that fight, but of the 300 players that entered the square, only 150 walked out. The archbishop had been some kind of war cleric specializing in devastating pinpoint attacks.
âAny news about how the friarâs doing?â I asked.
âNo, but a group was sent to him, we should meet up someplace with all three leaders so we can make a plan,â Aaron said. âFrom what we saw, they were purging all zombies regardless of what kind. They also talked about seeing and hearing the side effects of the battle between the friar and the archbishop. Weâre assuming he won since his forces havenât panicked.â
âYou guys get that set up, I will be there,â I said. Aaron and his group left after that, and I took some time to restore my tier 1 death energy reserves while channeling the power into my armor to repair it.
There was still fighting all across the city, but it was rapidly dying down. Players had their necromancers to control the mindless undead zombies in their zone of the city as I had done. And with the retreat of the blood zombies, most of the city was going to be under our control. I didnât check the casualties. I knew they were high. Half the giants had fallen, but the only reason I knew that was because they were obvious. I pulled up my character sheet, having gained a whole bunch of levels.
Evidently, whatever determined when I got experience for battles was counting this lull as the end of the first battle. Between that and subduing Theonis, which counted for more than just killing him, Iâd gone from level 138 to level 151. It gave me sixty-five stat points. I put thirty into spirit and, after thinking about it, thirty-five into agility. Being able to hit faster than others, so far had kept me ahead of enemies far stronger than me. I also absorbed another fifty death cores. No point in saving all of them now. I wouldnât be able to use them all anyways.
Character Soul Level: 151
Name: Ezekiel Verniac
Race: Human Lich
Foreboding Gravitas: 35
Unspent Stat Points: 0
Spent Stat Point: 755
5 Stat Points per level
Health: 1839
Health Regeneration: 73/sec
Death Energy Tier 1: 4808
Death Energy Regeneration Tier 1: 95/sec
Death Energy Tier 2 Storage Capacity: 48/62
Mana: 3160
Mana Regeneration: 81/sec
Carrying lbs.: 3962
Stats:
Intelligence: 289 [multiplier: 1.311] [40 from gear]
Spirit: 232 [multiplier: 1.23]
Vitality: 119[multiplier: 1.15]
Resilience: 121 [multiplier: 1.15]
Death Core Tier 1: 373
Death Core Tier 2: 62 [multiplier: 1.21]
Agility: 181 [multiplier: 1.1]
Dexterity: 125 [multiplier: 1.21]
Experience: 11 of 185,551
I hoped barely making it to level 151 was a good omen. I also hoped it would be enough to keep me alive. The fact that Frier Brown had an even fight against the archbishop worried me. Iâd gotten the impression in the past that someone at the strength of Theonis wasnât a challenge for the frier. Then again, that might have been a bit of hero vision.
I was just getting ready to go and meet the friar when I felt it. My attention turned towards the altar of purity. Something had changed. There was a wrongness coming from that place now. The huge buildup of power that we had been sensing there was now being channeled someplace, into some kind of spell.
We didnât have time to meet up and make a plan, whatever the church was trying to do, it was happening now. I knew the friar and hopefully some of the players wouldâve sensed the change as well.
âTellkin!â I yelled. âWe have no time, we need to go now.â
Either he had sensed it, or the sudden change in tone of my words and body language warned him something had happened. âInfantry! Letâs move! Form up as you march.â His words echoed across the gathered army.
âIâm going to take my forces back to my temple. I will send the clerics and acolytes I can spare,â Freyaâs was full of worry as she looked up towards the altar of purity. âWe can be more helpful from there, hopefully Shadâehki and Ekwin are paying attention.â
âEkwin?â I asked in surprise, momentarily distracted. âThe Order of Equinox is here?â
âYes, who do you think took the third temple?â Freya asked.
Already the horde of undead was swarming forward. The juggernauts started moving a moment later leading the giants. We would need them to break into the fort. It was late afternoon, and the sky was cloudy. Except the clouds were swirling. Whatever the spell was at the center of the city, the power concentration was high enough to affect the clouds.
Maxwell, on the back of Snappy, started playing âAinât no Rest for the Wickedâ by Cage the Elephant as we rushed forward, our momentum building.
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