Chapter 16 Field Trips
Field Trip 1 The Swamp
I summoned Angus & had Greg ride him, sans armor in the direction of the Swamp. I brought a handful of Lizard Men along for the ride and used [Mass Haste] on everyone on the way there.
Once we were just a few paces from where the boggy Swamp truly began I summoned one of my Skeleton Trolls & told Greg to kill it with [Holy Light].
He looked confused so I explained my reasoning to him.
One of the tips I had gained from pumping Bone Zone for information was that some of their members had mutually beneficial arrangements with Helios members.
As an example a Holy Warrior would help kill something, say an Orc then the necromancer would raise it as a Skeleton Orc. The Skeleton Orc would be used to kill more Orcs, allowing the Necromancer to level up & gain class & combat experience. This would quickly lead to the Necromancer being able to raise stronger skeletons as [Raise Skeleton] leveled up.
The Holy Warrior would use [Bless] to add holy damage to their weapon (usually a sword or mace) after every level up of [Raise Skeleton] to kill off the weaker skeletons. Or the Holy Warrior would simply kill most of the summons once reaching a new monster zone with better prey.
This way the Necromancer would gain even more experience than he would on his own with their low vitality & mediocre combat skills at lower levels. The Holy Warrior would gain more Divine Power through killing the undead & could level up [Bless] against 'tame' undead. Everyone won out, well except all the dead Orcs & unwanted undead.
After he killed my Skeleton Ogre, Greg got a level up, I slashed his throat open & drained his blood into a [Stone Jar].
Afterwards I used [Clot] & [Heal] to close up the wounds.
Greg was furious, blathering on about me trying to kill him or some such nonsense.
Eventually after he had settled down somewhat, he asked. "Why did you do that?" His loyalty had dropped to 30.
"This is what I get out of leveling you up. Every time you level up, I will drain some of your blood, in exchange, I will help you level up, provide equipment, provide you more stats through Blood Pact & strength elixirs. I will also provide you with food and lodging all for the low price of a bit of blood and discomfort."
His loyalty didn't change after my explanation. I shrugged. Can't please everybody. I summoned more of my undead minions and the process was repeated half a dozen times. He went from level 60 to level 70. I drained him 8 times.
It wasn't my preferred method of power leveling as he gained no practical skill experience from killing what was essentially defenseless targets. Still he gained levels, divine power & stats and that was what was important before heading into a level 90 monster zone. Also I got rid of some low tier undead minions that I didn't really need any more.
The real question was whether it was better to keep him as a Holy Knight or use him as a guinea pig to test out [Corruption] and maybe get myself a Dark Knight.
He was still hideously ill equipped to handle a level 90 monster zone but he had received my [Blood Pact] boosting his vitality & strength stats by over 400, so he should be okay. Probably.
As we waded through the brackish water we encountered a Hippopus & a Devil Snake engaged in a violent death battle. The Devil Snake wrapped around the Hippopus, fangs embedded into the Hippopus's body while it's tentacles sought to drive it off by flailing at it.
Seeing easier prey they disengaged from their fight to attack us instead.
I pinned them down using [Bind] & [Dark Tentacles] and watched as Greg made use of the Vampire Sword (that returned 10% of damage as health) to stab and slash the Hippopus & Devil Snake to death. The extra strength Greg gained from [Blood Pact] helped speed up the killing a lot.
After killing each of the level 90 beasts, he gained 8 levels in total and I drank directly from his veins, gaining some more dark power, along with some other stats which were less exciting. I planned on making Greg my little dark power battery :P muahaha
We didn't encounter any other threats other than Lizard men villagers who were on hunts. Unfortunately I couldn't let Greg kill them for the experience points as killing them would jeopardize more important long term plans.
Once we reached Lizard Town, I delivered Devil's Weed to the Lizard men, which was one of the key ingredients necessary for making strength potions. Devil's weed was a necessary binding agent in the alchemy potions.
Devil's Weed is a strange plant that grows faster when blood is spilled upon it. It's a common plant throughout the kingdom, though the best place to find it was in Beast Forest which were regularly 'watered' with the frequent deaths of low leveled beasts.
I also brought some dead Demon rabbits for them to enjoy. There wasn't much to eat in this area, considering the relatively high population of Lizardmen. The best meals available were the Hippopus & Devil Snakes, as they were both large beasts, able to feed many Lizard Men. Unfortunately they were also very dangerous predators and would often kill a few Lizardmen with every hunt. As such they were often forced to try their hands at spear fishing or digging for worms.
I checked on the Trolls. I asked if we could exchange more warriors after gifting the Lizard King with the Hippopus & Devil Snake carcasses.
"I'll need to talk to my warriorsss firsst.".
The Lizard Men had a private chat with Lizard King which I watched snippets of with [God's Eye]. They talked about the defenses we had, the amount of land available and the ready food sources of Troll Town. Usual espionage nonsense.
Afterwards the Lizard King decided he would bring a force of 500 Lizardmen with him and see what we had to offer for himself.
On the way back to Troll Town, the Lizard King visited a few more villages and gained another 200 Lizardmen followers.
It was almost like he didn't trust me. How amusing.
We returned to Troll Town, in my absence, the necromancers had been busy, they had used their undead minions to essentially move in some of their stuff and make themselves at home. They had set up demonstrations of their skills one way or another.
There was a real mix of talents in the group.
Caleb's subclass as a builder, a subset of the crafting classes, which reduced construction times & costs, was an unusual class selection. He had brown hair and a lean wiry build and a completely forgettable face. He had blue prints & design ideas for the fortifications of Troll Town which he awaited my approval for. He'd also been trying to sell his services unsuccessfully to the monster citizens, offering to redesign their homes for a fee. Unfortunately none of them had money so that was a failed enterprise.
Hugo's subclass was magic scholar, he had silver rimmed glasses, messy black hair & basically zero muscles. He had exclusively invested in the intelligence stats, leaving him dangerously fragile. He brought books, scrolls & writing equipment to Troll Town.
He had set up a little stall outside one of the Stone Houses, with scrolls & spell books for sale which seemed like an interesting choice considering the citizens of this particular town but I admired his optimism. Or possibly I was simply amused by his obliviousness, he gave off a perpetually distracted vibe as if he always had something else on his mind.
Max was blond, blue eyed, broad shouldered and had inexplicably gone shirtless with his leather apron folded as to make a kilt like protection for his junk. I had a feeling he'd been told to by Steve or possibly Bone Zone, I couldn't tell if it was a ploy to get into my pants and into my good graces or just good old narcissism. King for only a couple of days and I'm already paranoid about other's motives.
That said, Max has very very nice muscles for a necromancer, just a smattering of golden chest hair and a subtle golden treasure trail from his hard packed abs down into his leather pants which bulged in all the right places. He had blacksmith as a subclass and he seemed to be having fun with hammer & tongs making a new sword, working up a nice healthy sweat outside.
Spammalot had a subclass of enchanter, he had dark brown hair and deep brown eyes, that bordered on the edge of blackness. He had a very intense look and when I arrived he was wandering around the walls muttering to himself.
Ethan had a subclass of an alchemist and he was the least obvious of the bunch, having stayed in his room crafting potions. He left a very faint impression, pale, bookish, darkish hair, glasses.
I guessed it wasn't too surprising that they all had useful sub classes considering that they had been brought to essentially build up the defenses of Troll Town. Admittedly they had planned to do so under a different master but still very useful for my future plans.
One of the more interesting things that Bone Zone had told me about Necropolis was that at a certain level of necromancy skill, undead minions were used for more than cannon fodder & combat.
They could be used as a tireless workforce in order to boost a small kingdom's economy, presuming you have no moral objections to slave labor. The undead were used to help stir potions, reinforce buildings, fetch & carry, repair equipment & so on in Necropolis. All the new necromancers had undead servants/slaves following after them, or providing equipment to them when ordered to.
At journey man stage (eg level 50) of a class, a necromancer had the ability to grant an undead under their command with the associated apprentice class & have them do all the dull prep work.
As each of the necromancers had high intelligence, they could all summon at least a couple high quality undead & dozens of undead servants of moderate strength.
Champions had several advantages over Natives, one of the most significant was that skill experience was gained far faster. For Warriors we gained equivalent experience ten times faster, Mages twenty times faster & Crafters thirty times.
From our point of view it was necessary, as no one would want to play a game if it took you 30 years of playing to become a Grand Master Blacksmith. For a Champion who spent 10 hours crafting, they'd gain about the equivalent of 300 work hours of a Native Crafter.
Factoring in the time dilation factor, a champion only had to spend 3.3 real hours to acquire the equivalent of 300 man hours of a Native.
I introduced the Lizard King to the necromancers and started work on expanding my territory out even further. I made a town square in the center of Troll Town, so that I could have a marketplace and a temple & eventually even a Gate. It was much harder than it sounds to rearrange stuff & people out of my way.
1 am
Steve returned to Troll town and advised that he'd be bringing a small army of Necromancers to the Vampire Cave as a test of their commitment.
"I'm only telling you this as a courtesy so you don't get the wrong impression when you see our army in the general area."
This was even better than I expected. Lord Ratede was a crafty bastard. Now he wouldn't have to worry about so much about attacks as the necromancers would be dealing with the brunt of it. Of course they weren't doing this out of the goodness of their hearts, they'd gain high quality Death knights out of the arrangement & the chance to become OP vampires.
They might even be able to make their Death Knights into Dullahans, who could fight without a head & rode spectral horses.
This would set the Church against Necropolis, which should further divide their focus from my activities and since Necropolis was so entrenched it would be a hard nut to crack.
Unlike a lot of medieval cities that divided each social strata of people within rings of walls Necropolis divided it's society over 3 layers.
The first layer was above ground, housing the necromancers and their more important undead, those with high levels or servants necessary for maintaining their homes or businesses. This way they were easily at hand for a variety of tasks but hidden from the sun.
The second layer was underground, just below the surface, made up of the second tier undead, the undead warriors that survived the Necropolis arena.
The lowest level, deeper underground were the rabble, the peasants, the undead made by weak necromancers with low stats & skills of little value other than the slow passive experience gained by the necromancers for having them active.
This was an interesting move by Steve, presumably he wanted to gain more power so he could rule this Kingdom, without having to rely on the Dead Emperor, who apparently was level 200 & a Lich King. At level 200 Necromancers supposedly gained the ability to turn themselves into a Lich, which rendered their main vulnerability, low vitality less of a concern with the use of a soul phylactery so they could bypass the resurrection penalties.
Of course becoming a Lich made you an enemy of the Church of Helios as they considered it an abomination. Admittedly they considered lots of things an abomination but this one in particular resulted in Crusades.
The Church & Necromancers had a complicated relationship. The Church enjoyed making use of their undead to gain levels, divine power & followers. The obvious downside was that Necromancers made use of their dead to make more powerful Liches & Death Knights. This posed a serious risk to the members of the Church, at least the poorer & less important members, those that couldn't afford assurance of a resurrection.
Suffice to say it's complicated and leave it at that surface level overview of their murky relationship.
Field Trip 2 The Border
Tom & Tim had returned to Troll Town. I smiled, it's about time they returned, I'm running out of time before my mandatory log out. I'll be out of action for a minimum of 12 hours in this world. Anything could happen in the time, I needed to shore up my defenses as much as possible beforehand and what better way than through power leveling my minions.
I used [Blood Filtration] to reduce four out of seven of my stats, so that when I used [Blood Pact] on Bone Zone, his vitality & intelligence gets upped by 400 each. I aimed to make Bone Zone dependent on me so he has loyalty to me, rather than Steve. I fully expected Steve to betray me once he gained enough power as a Vampire, so that he could claim Troll Town for himself.
I have Tom lead Lizard King, one of his earth mage females, Bone Zone, Greg, Gulch & Beta to the Manticore zone.
It's a dangerous mission as that area is patrolled by both the soldiers of Olympia & Kratos as there's a border straddling the spawn zone.
On the other hand it's a great opportunity for some level ups.
Tom & I alternate using [Mass Haste] on everyone.
Once we get to the area, we only spot a small patrol of guards, they don't tend to attack the Manticores during the night as it would give the monsters the advantage, they mostly keep a cursory look out for enemy soldiers and what not.
Anyway once we arrived I used [Bind] & [Poison] on the guards and gag them with some spare cloth. I further restrict their hands & feet with stone shackles.
Then we're on our way to kill some Manticores.
I have Gulch & Beta take the vanguard position, with Greg just behind them to provide heals & support while Tom, Lizard Mage, Lizard King & I hung out in the back out of the way. I summoned Angus and have him use [Alpha's Roar] & [Gigantism] to harangue a single Manticore into following him back towards us.
Manticores are annoyingly fast, they have the legs and claws of a powerful lion & they can use their demon wings to give them short bursts of speeds. They can't fly but they sometimes glide and swerve while pouncing on prey which makes them unpredictable and dangerous. Especially considering the poison in their scorpion tails.
I bound it with [Shadow Tentacles] threw in a [Poison] while the Trolls used their stone clubs to hammer at it's head and body while Greg slashed at it's relatively fragile demon wings.
The Lizard Mage used [Stone Spike] to attack the Manticore from a distance.
I didn't really do much of anything, just using the spare time to practice using Aura Mastery to bolster my internal defenses. Aura Mastery was a very useful thing for a Warrior, it allowed you to channel mana into an aura to bolster defenses, increase attack power & even use it directly as a weapon.
Greg hacked the Manticore into pieces, chopping off it's wings, then it's tail while alternating between using [Holy Light] on the Manticore for extra damage and [Bless] to add Holy Damage to his sword. Sometimes he'd use [Heal] to recover damage on himself or on the other party members.
The battle ended with Greg gaining 4 levels, the Named Trolls gaining 2 levels, the Lizard Mage gaining 1 level & myself gaining a third of a level's worth of experience.
They gained more experience than me because of the bonus experience from fighting monsters so far above their level.
I drained Greg & the Named Trolls which lead to an interesting discussion with the Lizard Mage as to the reason why I was doing so. I explained the arrangement, that I'd give my followers a boost of power by sacrificing some of my own power which they'd use to level up. Then I would take their blood in order to regain my stats.
The Lizard Mage wanted to try out [Blood Pact], and I raised her intelligence & vitality by (roughly) 340 each.
Then Bone Zone did his job by resurrecting the dead Manticore as a Zombie and this time I had Greg taking this one on with only the help of the Lizard Mage.
The Lizard Mage having learned the value of a pinned down enemy used [Quicksand] on the damaged, zombified Manticore while Greg used his [Blessed] sword to hack it into more pieces by chopping off it's legs & while also using [Holy Light] to deal extra damage to it.
Holy damage did much more damage to it as an undead, than it did upon it's semi demonic state.
Lizard Mage did some damage by using [Stone Spike].
Greg gained 6 levels bringing him up to level 88 while the lizard Mage gained 2 levels bringing her up to level 93.
Greg & Lizard Mage got drained & we moved on.
With the next Manticore that Angus brought in the Lizard Mage took on my role as ranged support, while the Trolls did their duty as meat shields & distractions while Greg used his superior speed & skill to hack off troublesome body parts off the Manticore, typically demon wings & scorpion tail.
After they were done, Bone Zone brought the Manticore back to some semblance of life as a Zombie, Lizard Mage & Greg pinned it down & killed it off again.
The next round Angus brought back a couple of Manticores so we all got involved, I used [Shadow Tentacles] to restrain the Manticores, while Lizard King threw his poisoned javelins into a Manticore's eyes. I think he did that solely to show off. Still impressive.
Gulch, Beta, Lizard Mage & Greg finished off one while Lizard King & I killed the other.
Unfortunately the sounds of battle had attracted more attention than was helpful.
A pride? A bed? (whatever the collective noun is for a group of manticores) Of fifty Manticores headed our way and if that wasn't bad enough they were followed at a discrete distance by a handful of Olympian soldiers. The Olympian soldiers ranged from level 110 to level 150.
Well this was bound to cause an international incident. Whoops.
The Manticores were the bigger problem in the short term as there were a lot of them attacking us while the Olympians held back to watch us. It was a struggle to keep them from ganging up on us with superior numbers and overwhelming us.
Lizard Mage & I used used crowd control methods to slow them down, using [Quicksand] & [Shadow Tentacles] respectively. Once they were held down the Trolls & Greg could hammer them down or slice them apart.
Once a couple of them died, Bone Zone shifted the tide of battle by using them as zombie summons to help kill more Manticores and relieved the pressure on us a little. Typically only squads of soldiers attacked the manticores as a group, or really high leveled Champions or Natives.
The Olympians seeing that the Manticores were defeated tried to kill us (mostly the Trolls and Lizards) but they died even quicker than the Manticores. Mostly because Bone Zone had a Death Knight & 5 Zombie Manticores attacking them at once.
The Lizard King had killed the level 150 Commander with a sneak attack from behind, piercing his throat with two Devil Snake fangs and using his strength to effectively decaptitate the Commander. He gained an annoying amount of levels from the act, reaching level 115 with a single kill.
After the battle was done, I had the chance to appreciate all the changes wrought by the battle.
Greg leveled up to level 101 and became a Corrupted Paladin. Lizard Mage became Demonic Lizard Mage at level 100 My Trolls evolved into level 100 Greater Onis Angus evolved into a level 100 Doom Wolf King and gained [Call of the Wild] which allowed him to command ten lower leveled Doom Wolves. Bone Zone leveled up level 106
I only gained two levels, bringing me to level 102. I had limited myself in the battle to crowd control skills as I wanted my minions to soak up the experience instead. My highest priority was getting them strong enough to defend the town and Ren when I was logged out.
Tom had fallen back to a safe distance and simply cast [Haste] on our team as necessary and gained a single level from using [Wind Blade] to kill steal some of the Manticores.
Well that went far better & far worse than I had originally planned.
On the way back we killed the Kratos guards. Their statuses were silver & ranged from level 110 to level 120 so I expected they'd probably be resurrected after a day. By then we'd be better prepared to deal with the aftermath.
We returned to Troll Town and I took stock of the situation.
Greg had become a Corrupted Paladin after murdering 'innocent' soldiers. However because he still had a covenant with Helios, he still gained Divine power from healing allies & killing undead.
Apparently he now had several messages from the System/God of Order advising him of a cross road of choices.
First choice was to become a Inquisitor which meant that he could use his holy power to essentially keep someone just on the cusp of death indefinitely after torture and mutilation. It was the darker side of the Church, tasked with gaining information from enemies & the elimination of heretics. It's hard to stay in power without someone getting their hands dirty along the way.
The second option was to become a Dark Crusader where he could convert all future divine power into dark power and learn darkness abilities courtesy of Abyss in addition to his light based powers.
The third option was to become a Penitent, which required him to return to the Church & surrender all divine power & seek atonement for his sins.
The fourth and final option was to become an Unholy Knight, sacrificing all divine power in exchange for the equivalent amount of dark power of his choice.
He asked me what he should do.
I told him that it was up to him but I'd probably go with option number 2, that way he could still use Divine Heal, Holy Light & Bless but he'd also gain the ability to learn their dark equivalents later.
I gave him some time to figure it out while I met up with my new Greater Onis.
Alpha & Beta now had bright red skin, the color of fresh blood & small devil horns on their foreheads. They had dropped a couple of inches in height which all went to increasing the density of their bodies. Their eyes shone with new found intelligence & intensity, their base stats had doubled.
They had gained a couple of new abilities with their latest evolution. [Stone Skin] had been replaced with the upgraded version of [Iron Skin], increasing their physical damage resistance with elemental resistances.
[Rapid Regeneration] was replaced with [Demonic Regeneration], a combination of [Rapid Regeneration] & [Total Regeneration]. [Demonic Regeneration] would allow them to recover faster from all sorts of injuries, including maiming and dismembering, as long as their heads remained intact.
[Demonic Regeneration: Regenerate 10% of damage every minute.]
The Demonic Lizard Mage had also gained new abilities, her [Total regeneration] was also replaced by [Demonic Regeneration] & she gained [Scale Armor] which increased her physical damage resistance.
The Lizard King having seen his junior evolving into a demonic variant under my leadership submitted to my authority completely. He got downgraded by the system into a Lizard Lord.
I gained a new notification
[You have gained true power over a second kingdom & gain Nobility level 3.] [Nobility level 3 grants Bestowal & additional vacancies for Knighting, Vassals & Namings] [Bestowal: You can Bestow classes to your vassals as a reward for their loyalty, this will grant them the same benefits as granted to humans with classes. Limited to those classes you have at suitable levels. Can grant Warrior, Mage & Priest as classes. To unlock more options, you'll need to gain more classes or advance further with current sub classes]
I chuckled evilly, steepled my fingers ala Mr burn and said "Excellent. Soon World Domination will be mine."
"Dude are you okay there? You're acting a little nuts." Tom asked, ruining my amusement a little.
"Everything is copasetic, my man."
Tom gave me a look that said he didn't believe me at all. I probably needed a little sleep but that could wait for just a little bit longer. I had a kingdom to build or overthrow. One or the other, I'm sure.
I called forth Gulch & Beta to test out my new ability. Demon King level 2 had seemed kind of underwhelming in the benefits but I guess it was because I hadn't actually dominated the Lizard Men. This would be the real reward.
I had so many new ideas now. Dark twisted ideas to bring chaos, death and destruction upon this world in revenge for trying to fuck with me and mine.
I used [Bestowal] on Gulch & granted him the Warrior class. He gained Warrior's class & I used Noble's insight to check out his new status & it was utterly & beautifully ridiculous.
Despite the system/God of Order granting the equivalent of warrior's health for all monsters it wasn't considered a class bonus.
What this meant was that Gulch gained Warrior's Health, multiplying his substantial health by ten AGAIN.
His stats were insane. Strength: 1440 (+400 from BP) Dexterity: 120 Agility: 200 (+400 from BP) Intelligence: 160 Stamina: 480 Charisma: 80 Vitality: 2880
His true health was 288000.
Not only that Warrior's Recovery granted him the bonus of ten times passive recovery, which meant that he would regain 100% health in a minute. If he was maimed he'd regrow a limb in ten minutes.
He also gained the Warrior Class level 100 upgrade Aura Mastery, which would allow him to use mana to boost the strength of his body or weapons as wanted. If he used it to reinforce his body from damage, along with his passive defense from [Iron Skin], it'd be hard to damage him at all. If someone got lucky and did manage to injure him, his high health & regeneration would render it irrelevant shortly afterwards.
I laughed maniacally and everybody looked at me like I was insane except Gulch who was too busy being shocked by his new strength to notice anything.
Gulch had gone from a basic zone boss to what could be considered a raid boss. It'd require dozens if not hundreds of people to kill him. His only real weakness was his relatively low damage output and that would have to be fixed with some good old force multipliers (eg better weapons).
I used [Bestowal] again on Gulch, ignoring the others who were talking about something. I was too preoccupied to care. I granted him Mage class. The effects were less dramatic this time, he was granted only a level 1 Mage bonus, for someone with a Mage Subclass, granting him Mage's Bounty and 5 times the mana. This should allow his aura to last longer while attacking or defending though.
I tuned back in briefly to the conversation and they were still asking me questions, to which I hadn't been replying to at all, which just made them more worried. I used [Status Share] with the others, a perk of being the leader of the party, which of course I am, I'm the fucking Demon King & possibly a little bit of a control freak which may be why I party up with noobs most of the time.
Anyway. I'm not insane. The voices in my head are insane. MUAHAHA.
I mean... um I should sleep, I may be losing it...
There was a clamor from the peanut gallery which broke me out of my amateur attempts at self psychoanalyzing... analyzing is a funny word. Wait I should be focusing on what the little people are saying.
"Derek! How the fuck did you do this ? What the hell are you thinking?" Tom asked in an increasingly high pitched voice.
The lizards were kneeling & asking me to grant them the power.
Poor Beta was doing an adorable little dance of impatience, grunting and hopping from foot to foot with one hand raised.
Which reminded me in all the excitement of kidnapping Gregor, I had forgotten to insist that Greg make use of the [Telepathy] spell book so he could be a translator for these kind of situations. Damn my busy schedule, so many things to keep track of now.
Bone Zone simply stared at me in bafflement.
"Don't worry everyone shall get a power up. Well except for the lowly humans. Sorry, not sorry."
I laughed but the humans seemed less than amused, fuck it, I don't care. I'm going to have an army of monstrous super soldiers. No one will be able to stop me... MUAHAHA
"Beta's up next."
I used [Bestowal] to grant him Warrior as his main class & Mage as his subclass. It had a similar effect to when I used it on Gulch.
Then I moved onto the prostrating Lizard King, prostrating is also a funny word, it's almost like prostating, which isn't a word but should be because getting prostated is fun. Prostated of course meaning getting fucked by someone who pounds your prostate so well you forget how to think.
Speaking of thinking, I should stop thinking so much and get back to the doing, the people are looking at me like I'm a freak, which is totally accurate but still kind of rude.
Anyways I Named the Lizard King, Sisyphus, or sissy for short, [Knighted] him & made him a Vassal and used [Bestowal] to grant him Warrior Class. It's not as dramatic as when done to the Greater Onis but he gains a substantial boost in health, health recovery & Aura Mastery. I decide not to give him Mage class as I'm not sure it's the best choice right now, also up until recently he was a reluctant ally.
He also gained skill experience for previous activities learning [Backstab] [Stealth] & [Assassinate], which from what I know are all Assassin Class skills which is interesting.
I Named the Lizard Mage Morganna, because it sounds a little like goanna and she's a magical lizard. I used [Bestowal] and grant her Mage as her main class and warrior as her sub class. She gains ten times the mana, ten times the mana recovery & [Mana Shield]. She gains 5 times the health.
Then I called Angus to me and used [Bestowal] on him, giving him Warrior class, he also gains Warrior's Health, Recovery & Aura Mastery. My adorable little fluff ball is going to be a real killing machine, his latest evolution had made him about 5 feet high and about the size of a smallish horse and his base stats had doubled. With ten times the health & health regeneration, he should be more use in a drawn out fight, instead of having to be carefully managed to prevent dying after landing a first blow.
I drained everyone of their blood again and stored it in Stone Jars that I stashed within my inventory to make use of it later. It was a shame that they gained so many levels so quickly without me being able to properly make use of it. Next time, I'd have to bring them out one at a time and stick on to them like a good looking leech.
I told Tom & Bone Zone to escort the others back to Troll Town.
I had something I wanted to try.
I hopped onto Angus's back and rode him towards the Doom Plains, where the Doom Wolves roamed. He traveled much faster now his agility had doubled and his stride had lengthened from the growth.
I rode my little fluffball right into enemy territory ignoring the looks of players walking like boring people & went on the hunt for the Alpha. On the way, I had Angus use [Call of the Wild] to dominate the nearby Doom Wolves and take command of them, he was limited to 10. I granted them all the warrior class and they gained Warrior's Health & Recovery. With the 10 Doom Wolf followers we tore a path through the Doom Wolves until we found their leader.
During the battles there I used [Shadow Tentacles] or [Quicksand] to reduce the speed of the enemy Doom Wolves, then Angus would use [Alpha's Roar] to boost our Doom Wolves even further. His [Alpha's Roar] had increased to level 3, which allowed him to boost 10 allies at a time. The Doom Wolves tore out the opposing Doom Wolves' throats & I used [Heal] on any who got injured in the battles.
Once we located the Alpha, I had Angus discard the current batch of Doom Wolves & claim ownership of the Alpha & 9 of his elites who I Bestowed the Warrior Class to, then the rest were slaughtered.
Unfortunately, I didn't manage to gain Doom Wolves as a monster race for Demon King progression by having Angus claim the Alpha. It was still worth a try.
I should probably find a way to gain the Tamer class or Druid class so I can grant it to Angus. Then he could grant even better bonuses to his followers & have more of them too. Have to add that to the list of things to do.
We head back to Troll town slowly followed by our new Doom Wolves, we killed several players who happened to be in my way, ranging from level 50 to 60.
I'm a bad man but a wanton trail of destruction will further muddy the waters and anyone not of use is an enemy or something.
We made a detour through the Ogre Forest to kill some Ogres to power level the new additions to the team. Once the weakest Doom Wolves were all level 60 and Alpha Doom Wolves we made a bee line back to Troll Town.
I find Sissy and the majority of Lizardmen gone when I return, Morganna explained that he went to gather the remaining Lizardmen so they could also gain my Divine Blessings.
Oh, isn't that adorable or something...
I send Tim with Morganna and a hundred of her kin towards the Doom Plains. I feel somewhat sorry for any 'Champions' who get in their way. I give them a mission to return with captured Doom Wolves.
Before they leave, I bestowed the Warrior class to 18 of the Lizards and Name them.
I used [Bestowal] on all my Named Trolls to grant Warrior as their main class & Mage as their sub class.
Next I created a new [Stone Wall] about half a mile out from my original one & go crazy on some upgrades to my fortress. I added murder holes, machicolations, curtain walls, flanking towers, more battlements, parapets, much higher outer walls and some good old arrow loops.
Murder holes being holes in the ceilings of certain passage ways to pour boiling hot liquids onto attackers. Machicolations were outcroppings on the outer castle walls that could be used to drop rocks or boiling oil on attackers at the gate. Curtain walls were curved walls I placed around certain castle buildings for extra defense, like a giant shield used to deter battering rams.
Flanking towers were placed at the edges of my Town to provide additional areas for defenders, mostly archers to flank enemy attackers while within a fortified position. Arrow loops were located strategically throughout the outer wall so that archers could fire safely at attackers from multiple locations.
I also built hundreds more [Stone Houses] in the second ring for the Lizard Men.
I told Spammalot to work on reinforcing the walls with runic defenses. Essentially it was a method to inscribe the walls with runes infused with mana to prevent enemy Mages from destroying the walls with magic.
Then I went back to my stone mansion, fucked Ren's brains out, which wasn't hard because he's essentially a brain dead zombie.
I locked myself away while using [Blood Refill] to try and gain some more skills & stats from the blood taken earlier from my Manticore hunting buddies.
I only gained one thing of note from Bone Zone, [Death Knight] which does what it says on the label & allowed me to upgrade one of my undead into a death knight, or turn a dead knight into a Death Knight.
When I drank from Gregor's bottles I gained only one ability of use [Cursed Darkness] the dark equivalent of Holy Light. It was kind of annoying that I didn't have the option to learn any holy spells but you can't get everything I suppose.
[Cursed Darkness: Creates darkness out of nothing, within this accursed darkness, enemies will experience sickness, madness & blindness.]
Greg had four active skills as a Holy Knight, Heal, Divine Heal, Bless & Holy Light, his passive skills were Shield Mastery and Armor Mastery. Shield Mastery helped to increase block rate while Armor Mastery reduced the strain of heavy armor on his stamina.
From the Onis I gained [Demonic Regeneration], which doesn't replace my other regeneration abilities. However when I gain [Iron Skin] it does replace [Stone Skin], I guess I can't have two different skin abilities. The stronger one overwrites the weaker one. How very interesting.
Shame I don't have Magic Scholar so I could research this & gain some more intelligence but I probably don't need a minor intelligence boost anyway.
From Morganna's blood I gained [Stone Spike] & [Burrow].
[Stone Spike: Raise the earth to pierce your enemy.]
[Burrow: move the earth to build yourself a burrow]
Apparently Burrow was an inherent skill of the female Lizards who use it to build burrows to lay their eggs.
12pm
I log out, I'm mentally exhausted.
Reality
I set my alarm, no rest for the wicked, I sleep for 4 hours, have a quick meal, check the forums for information about the Druid & Tamer class. After reading through the Druid information, I'm amazed anyone sane picks it. I guess it explains some of Andrew's weirdness.
To gain sacred power which is the neutral equivalent to divine power as a Druid, you have to be at one with nature, which does not mean being a pot loving, peaceful hippy. People seem to forget that Mother Nature is a stone cold bitch and nature is red in tooth and claw. Viridios, the god of Nature requires his druids to kill things bare handed, eat raw meat & either wear nothing or furs only. Having wild free for all orgies are optional, though kind of expected.
I logged back into Trials.
Day 43
1 am
Troll Town is busy
Instead of the hundred Doom Wolves I expected, there's a thousand of them, enough for each of the thousand Lizardmen to have a Doom Wolf mount. Admittedly watching Greg riding Angus while followed by a thousand Lizardmen on Doom Wolf was impressive but wait why was Angus out. I guess I forgot to recall him. Should probably keep better track of these things.
I feel better after sleeping in the real world, I was acting a little crazy, 48 hours without sleep & one battle after another would wear on anyone's sanity. Not to mention, my lover dying & coming back empty & being extorted by Gods didn't help either.
I'm well aware that it's 'just a game' but I had spent over a month with Ren and he felt just as real to me as a person in real life, complete with the occasional urge to strangle him sometimes. Ren may be some super advanced code but I had spent more nights cuddled up to him than anyone else since boarding school.
In some ways losing Ren was more cruel than losing someone in real life because in real life there's no option to bring someone back to life. You're forced to grieve and move on by lack of options.
I should have been able to resurrect Ren easily & yet I was being denied for some inexplicable reason. I would not be denied or obstructed without someone paying a steep price for fucking with me. I'd burn the world to the ground happily if it got me one step closer to Ren.
There seemed to be even more Trolls about, at least two thousand of them. I guess that gives me an effective army of four thousand, not including the Champions.
I should probably try and find a way to make sure they stay on side and what better way than to turn them into sub dhampirs.
But I probably should check to see if anything disastrous happened during my absence.
I checked in with Bone Zone, neither of the twins are around which is disappointing but not unexpected. Turns out Troll Town was fine unattended by me but there have been some major developments some of which I had already observed for myself.
According to Bone Zone the first hundred Lizard men Raiders were so happy with their Doom Wolf mounts, they helped their kin to get more. Now all the Lizard Men had mounts and had been nicknamed Lizard Raiders by Max.
Steve and an army of necromancers had set up shop in the Vampire Cave and had defended it against a thousand strong army of Church personnel who tried to advance into Ratede. The necromancers had overwhelmed the invaders with thousands upon thousands of undead.
Apparently the death of the border guards on both sides is a matter that is still being investigated by both kingdoms. It won't be too long before they'll be resurrected and they'll get all the juicy details.
It should be interesting to see how this pans out.
I send a message to a hammer smith I helped out briefly before he joined up with the Giant Guild, formerly known as the Beastly Guild to have Jason meet me outside the city in the morning around 6 am.
Field Trip 3 Beast Forest
6am
I took Ren with me to the outskirts of Erand where we used to meet Jason for power leveling and fun.
While we waited, I spend the free time practicing some of the random skills I've picked up. Mostly I used [Cursed Darkness] & [Dark Tentacles] to practice creating Darkness weapons in the daylight. I gained [Wretched Tentacles] a new dark miracle/distortion for my efforts.
[Wretched Tentacles: Dark Tentacles rise from out of the abyss to attack the mind and body of your enemies.]
[You have gained a new Title: Endbringer] [End bringer: You wield dark power with malicious intent and little regards for the consequences. You will bring about the end of this current era, it is uncertain as to whether it'll be for good or for ill.] [Effect: Infamy shall accumulate with every act of evil & every atrocity committed. Those of the good alignment will treat you with greater caution, may result in more hostility & fear from Natives. Limited impact on neutral aligned Natives & may gain greater prestige from those of the evil alignment]
Well that's ominous.
On that note Jason arrives and when I asked him if he could help me out with picking up supplies from town he's all anxious and twitchy.
He says he can't but doesn't explain why not.
So I drained his blood, snapped his neck & raised him as my undead minion to serve me always an unholy abomination, neither living or dead...
Just kidding. I wouldn't do that to Jason, he'd make a mediocre skeleton.
I wished him well on his way and go off with Ren through the forest collecting Demon bunnies so they can be my emotional support animals. Well not really, I collect them for experimentation purposes.
I tied them up with Devil's Weed and bring them back to my evil lair.
I used the Demon Bunnies to practice [Conversion] on.
After killing 9 bunnies through failed experiments, I finally managed to convert a Demon Bunny into a Demonic Dhampir Bunny, ddb for short.
It took a while to figure out how much blood I could take from the bunny and how much dhampir blood was necessary as a minimum to trigger [Conversion] properly.
I named the survivor Dez, which is Portuguese for Ten and Bestow on him the warrior class, multiplying his health by ten. I used [Soul Contract] to make him my secondary pet summon.
Dez's stats start off at Strength: 20 Dexterity: 20 Agility: 20 Intelligence: 20 Stamina: 20 Charisma: 20 Vitality: 40
Some people might think it's weird to convert a Demon Bunny into a dhampir but I have five perfectly valid reasons to do so.
First and most important the idea of a vampire bunny is just too funny not to turn into a reality.
Second it's small and it doesn't have much blood so it doesn't cost that much of my own blood to convert it.
Third it's a level 1 monster with a high reproduction rate & is utterly expendable
Fourth reason is that it's inherent ability [Scavenge] which steals experience from the dead it consumes stacks nicely with the vampiric ability to steal stats & skills from the blood of the living.
Fifth and final reason Demon Bunnies are the closest thing to guinea pigs to use for experimentation and I need to make sure I know how to convert Champions in order to ensure loyalty with humans.
I planned to convert Tom, Tim, Bone Zone and the other 5 necromancers in that order.
With 8 dhampirs under my command they can drain the stats & skills of my growing population of Lizardmen, Doom Wolves & Trolls more efficiently. They'll grow more capable to defend themselves and Troll Town in my absences.
I might even convert Gulch & some other Named later.
I took Dez out for a walk to Ogre Forest, as soon as I find a lone Ogre, I use [Bind] on it and slice it's throat with my sword. I hold Dez up to it's gushing throat and it practically bathes in its blood. It quickly gains levels and size as the Ogre falls to the ground and dies.
Dez gains a lot of bulk, becoming about 15 kilos, much bigger, bright red & with bone spikes sticking out from its back. It had evolved, base stats doubling.
Between the 20 levels from the kill & [Scavenge] it's grown a lot more powerful. Dez digs into the dead Ogre hungrily, calorie deficient from the evolution. It gained a couple more levels before it's full.
I used [Bind] on the dead Ogre which would look retarded if anyone was watching me but I have my reasons...
I used [Raise Skeleton] & it becomes a Skeleton Ogre minus any control over it. I crushed it's skull in and Dez gains 10 levels from the kill. Power leveling Dez is so easy so far, probably has something to do with my stat superiority over the Ogre & a boost from the passive [Beast Mastery].
Unfortunately it appears that Dez can't learn any humanoid skills from the Ogre which is unfortunate but he should be able to take some skills from other beasts. More importantly drinking the blood of the Ogre, awakens it's dhampir nature, allowing it to gain stats from blood digestion level 1.
Now that Dez is level 32, I take him to Doom Plains for leveling. I capture a lone Doom Wolf, pin it down with [Bind] and Dez happily uses it's bone spikes to impale the Doom Wolf and drink the blood from its wounds. Gaining a small boost to all its stats (except charisma) in the process.
Dez gains 4 levels, taking it to level 36 and Dez gained [Gigantism] which it promptly used to get 3 times bigger and dig into the flesh of the downed Doom Wolf. Once it's full of meat and laying on it's side. Dez gains one level from using [Scavenge]. I used [Bind] on the Doom Wolf & raise it as a Skeleton Doom Wolf, then crush it's skull in.
Dez gains a level from the kill.
We proceed through Doom Plains easily killing our way through Doom Wolves, drinking their blood, raising them from the dead and killing them again.
Once Dez gets to level 50, he evolves again which is interesting, he doubles in size, growing to about 30 kgs and his fur becomes spiky like the quills of a hedgehog.
I take him back through Beast Forest where he gains no levels but gains a few useful abilities from demonic deer & monstrous boars. Namely it gains [Pierce] from the deer which inflicts penetrative damage along with inflicting ongoing bleed damage. [Charge] & [Body Slam] is gained from the Boars.
Dez slaughtered his way through Beast Forest with little challenge posed.
However something interesting happens once he defeats the last Demon Bunny boss.
Dez starts humming a little ditty and over a dozen female bunnies make their way out of a nearby hole. Guess there was a warren nearby.
Then I watch with increasing amusement as Dez fucks his way through the demon does like a true champion buck. It made me wonder how many of the female does would actually get knocked up, historically dhampirs have fairly mediocre reproductive rates. Not as bad as the vampires but still, fairly low.
Eventually Dez runs out of demon does to plow and we head back home.
Dez gained no stats from drinking the blood from those of the Beast Forest but he's calmer now after all the blood shed & sex. Demon bunnies don't make for great pets, the higher the level, the more erratic & aggressive they tend to be. They need lots of sex and meat...
I'm a great owner & I'll let my little murder bunny have all the bunny bitches and blood it wants. Especially since every time it gains one point in vitality, it gains a hundred health.
I can already tell that Dez is going to make a wonderful animal companion. What could be better than a blood sucking, fast moving bunny tank after all.
Author's Note: I think I'm going to take more time in the next chapter to work on Derek's personal power, his kingdom and getting to know all the new characters. Might make more smaller chapters with more interpersonal interactions, from now on, rather than overviewing so much. As always let me know your thoughts and stuff, presuming people are still reading. lol
Obligatory note: If you feel like it you can donate to Nifty through http://donate.nifty.org/donate.html