Chapter 9 Paladin
Day 40
I logged back into the world and immediately my skin burned, I looked around and the cave was empty. Ren was in trouble. I recognized this pain as being the same as when Ren suffered damage from the holy power in the [Sanctuary] spell in Erand.
He must have come across a holy warrior or a priest.
I broke the wall of Ren's cave with [Rock Break] & rushed out to help Ren.
It didn't take me long to find him as I just raced towards the sounds of exploding rocks.
I found a paladin bathed in golden light who pointed his sword at Ren who was on the ground, bleeding & broken. The entire area was littered with broken rocks & the ground was ruptured in jagged lines in multiple areas. The battle had raged on for a while by the looks of it.
I threw a [Stone Prison] in the paladin's direction to stall him as I rushed to Ren's side.
"Ren are you okay?"
Ren looked at me blankly, his expression vacant. His legs were unnaturally twisted & bone punctured through the armor he wore. Or what remained of it anyway.
I summoned Angus to act as guard dog while I used [Heal] on Ren. It was woefully ineffective to restore Ren's lost health. I pulled a Stone Jar out of my inventory filled with Troll blood. At the very least it would restore some of his health.
Ren said "thanks" with a robotic emptiness to his voice.
Before Ren could even drink it, there was a crash and I looked over to find the Paladin slicing through the stone walls of the [Stone Prison] as if they were made of paper. His sword glowed with aura. I recognized it as [Aura blade]. He was imbuing his sword with his own mana in order to strengthen his weapon to deal extra damage.
I used [Check Status] on the paladin & got
Henry level 120 Holy Paladin
Due to him being a much higher level all I got was the most basic information about him.
As a level 80 dhampir who received extra damage from holy spells, a paladin was the worst kind of enemy to deal with. Paladins were skilled at holy spells and melee combat, which made them dangerous from a distance or up close and they typically had high defense & resistances so they were hard to take down.
"In the name of Helios I cleanse you of the evil within." A golden light rose around Ren, banishing the shadows and causing my lover to scream in agony.
The light spread throughout the cave and it became obvious that it was the divine spell of [Sanctuary]. It burned me but the pain was negligible, Ren on the other hand was not so lucky. His health was dropping fast and he was struggling to keep his head up.
"Leave him alone." I rushed at the paladin and he blocked me with a Blessed Templar Shield that burned my hands.
I launched a [Fireball] at him and he blocked the [Fireball] with his shield while continuing to chant entreaties to his God Helios, increasing the intensity of holy damage by casting [Holy Light] on Ren. Ren's skin started to flake and break while his screaming grew more ragged and higher pitched.
He ignored me to focus the majority of his attacks on Ren.
I used [Quicksand] followed by [Fissure] against Henry while Angus pounced at Henry. With a single slash of his aura enhanced sword he cut Angus in half, Angus disappeared back into my summon inventory.
Henry cast [Holy Barrier] to block my [Fissure] then cast [Dispel] to free himself from the [Quicksand]. The [Holy Light] ceased long enough for Ren to finish drinking the Troll blood & his health rose steadily as a result of the [Vampirism] passive. I cast [Heal] on Ren again with ten times the recommended amount of mana, which gave Ren's health a bump, I was hit with the mana backlash a moment later and lost another thousand health. Small price to pay.
"Get away as far and as fast as you can Ren."
Ren rose to his knees, wounded, trying to push himself off as I stood near him ready to block the Paladin from attacking again. "So you're the Dhampir player Derek?"
"Yes. Why are you here?" I asked, trying to buy Ren as much time as I could.
"I'm completing a quest from the church of Helios to kill that Dhampir, the priests have received a divine message that this Dhampir will be responsible for the end of the world and they've sent me to eliminate him."
It reminded me of the story Ren told me about a legendary Dhampir that would lead a golden age where Vampires would rule the world rather than humans.
I looked over at Ren who was at level 80 and we shared a look that said "Are you fucking serious?" Ren was having trouble standing and looked less threatening than a level 1 demon bunny at the moment.
"You've got the wrong guy, he's only level 80, there's no way he could end the world, there are rankers that are over twice his level."
"Doesn't matter dude, either way I'm going to complete this quest and gain 5 more levels and a divine sword, so you better get out of my way unless you want a death penalty."
I didn't care if I died as long as Ren was safe. "I won't let you kill him."
"Give it up dude, you can't stop me, you're 40 levels lower than me and have an affinity penalty. You might as well accept the quest loss and be done with it."
I ignored his attempt to intimidate me into submission and charged at him with my Blood Sword in order to buy Ren some time to recover and retreat.
What followed was a brutal fight where I attempted to use my sword to kill him but he was wearing plate mail with unknown properties which blocked most hits from doing any significant damage. He also used his large Templar shield to block damage as well.
Any damage I did manage to inflict, he self healed & he frequently switched between using [Sanctuary] as an AOE attack to continually cause holy damage to us & every time Ren was making progress towards freedom, he'd use a divine powered [Holy Light] to slow him down or cause his health to drop again.
Despite my stats being higher than his, his class, level & skills overpowered me. He used a [Shield bash] to knock me on my ass, causing a temporary stun effect. I was a bloodied mess, his sword had been blessed and caused my wounds to continue bleeding despite my high health regeneration. He could easily finish me off if he wanted.
Instead of finishing me off while I was still 'stunned', Henry strode over to Ren. Ren had been limping & hobbling away during our fight but he hadn't managed to get that far away. Henry quickly caught up to Ren and simply said "Divine Judgment" and with a smooth slash of his sword chopped off my lover's head.
Ren was dead.
I screamed "YOU FUCKER", losing myself in my rage, that I barely heard the notification
[Bloody Rampage has been unlocked.]
Stun had worn off a moment too late to be of use to Ren. I launched myself at Henry's heavily armored self, grabbing both of his wrists.
I used the blood dripping from my bloody body to bombard him with [Blood Missiles]. The first 9 didn't really do much other than rattle his armor a bit.
[Blood Missile has risen]
[Blood Missile Level 2: Blood missile: infuses spilled blood with mana to create a dangerous projectile weapon. Costs 1% of top 2 stats/blood to function, effects vary based on the strongest stat. 20% of total stat is converted into damage, 2 second duration]
After [Blood Missile] leveled up, it started inflicting more powerful physical and poison damage. His pretty armor started corroding through and his [Heal] wasn't fast enough to keep up with the damage.
He tried to struggle out of my grip to avoid the point blank attacks but I wouldn't let him go, my grip tightening despite my strength disappearing with every [Blood Missile]. His attempts to use [Holy Light] merely made me angrier & my [Blood missiles] were launched faster.
The [Blood missiles] were relentless and hammered at his armor, which he used aura control to enhance. His resistance was meaningless.
The rage consumed me but something else was rising inside me, an unprecedented thirst for blood and death. I wanted to rip him into pieces and drink his blood.
While he was distracted and injured I sank my fangs into his now unprotected neck. I used [Bleed] & [Concentrate] instinctively while drinking, throwing in a couple of [Blood Bursts] to throw the bastard off balance.
I was stuck on him like a leech, when he started to falter from the blood loss I snapped his stupid neck killing him. He disappeared into a stream of golden light, dropping a single ring. Several notifications appeared afterwards.
[You have leveled up] showed up several times in quick succession.
I looked at my logs & found several other notifications
[Bloody Rampage has been learned]
[Bloody Rampage: When driven to fury, you unleash a rain of a hundred blood missiles at a target. It inflicts incredible damage at the cost of all stolen stats.]
[Blood refill has been unlocked]
[Blood Refill: When you lose over 80% of your blood/stats, you temporarily receive the benefit of blood digestion 10 & will gain 20% of the targets skills, spells & stats. ]
[Blood mastery has risen to level 3]
[You have gained the title of Paladin Killer:You have become the enemy of the Helios church for murdering one of their paladins, resistance to holy damage increases by 10%.]
[You have gained Divine Power]
[Divine power has been corrected to become Dark Power due to alignment value]
[Dark power increases effect of various dark magics & the effect, increasing damage and range dependent on God chosen.]
[Dark power can not be assigned stat points, you can only gain dark power through meeting certain conditions set by the chosen God]
[You have gained Purification] [Purification has become Corruption] [Corruption: You can sacrifice dark power in order to corrupt people & objects]
[You have gained Cure] [Cure has become Poison] [Poison: Afflict target with a magical poison that continues to inflict damage until dispelled, cured or overcome]
[You have gained Bless] [Bless has become Curse] [Curse: Imbue a weapon with Unholy power temporarily to inflict additional damage through cursed power]
[You have gained Shield Bash] [Shield Bash: 110% of normal damage inflicted plus 1 second stun (requires shield, effects may vary based on targets resistances.]
I picked up the ring he dropped, it must not have been soul bound. I reflexively identified the ring & it increased holy damage by 20%. I put it into my inventory to deal with it later.
I stared blankly at the roof for some period of time, completely lost before reason returned.
I took a mental stock take of the situation.
Angus would be resurrected in an hour for a minor sacrifice of experience when summon cool down ended, thanks to the soul contract. Barta could only be resurrected if Ren was resurrected.
Ren might be resurrected at the Blood Temple, though those blood priests were awfully vague about the requirements for a resurrection from Sharn. I didn't have a good feeling that Ren would be resurrected easily but I wasn't clear about how long it'd take for him to be resurrected so I couldn't take the lack of response from paramour's bond to mean anything.
Players would normally resurrect after a 'day' had passed, usually with an experience penalty so maybe dhampirs were the same.
I sighed and walked over to Ren's remains & looked at his head that was five feet from the body. I touched his head & whispered "store" & his head disappeared into my spatial inventory.
I walked several paces towards his body and said "Store" and his body disappeared into my inventory.
Looking at my inventory, all his items were transferred to my equipment inventory. Looking through my inventory, I started laughing uncontrollably until it hurt & then I burst into tears.
Ren's head had been listed in one inventory slot as Dhampir's head while his body took up another inventory slot. Usually an inventory slot could hold a thousand of a similar item.
It had struck me as absurd that unless I went on a murder spree decapitating a thousand dhampirs then 2 inventory slots were clogged up by Ren.
I shook off my irrational emotions in order to focus on what I could do, I could have a breakdown later, I needed to focus in order to survive inevitable retaliation. I had gotten lucky in killing Henry with [Bloody Rampage] but it wouldn't work a second time.
My stats had dropped drastically from using [Bloody Rampage] dropping to the stats I had before I met Ren. Thinking of all that I had lost just made me more depressed.
I slapped my cheeks, trying to get back on track.
I had gained 104 strength, 44 dexterity, 44 agility, 20 intelligence, 24 stamina, 12 charisma, 52 vitality from draining Henry.
He must be a juicer, because his stats were sufficiently high enough that the 20% I took, helped boost my stats somewhat.
I had 354 strength, 254 dexterity, 254 agility, 70 intelligence,234 stamina, 22 charisma, 262 vitality & 20 Dark Power.
I had 170 unassigned stat points, which I assigned to intelligence increasing my intelligence to 240.
I created a mental checklist of my top priorities.
Priority 1 check to see if Ren would be resurrected, if not; find a way to have him resurrected.
Priority 2 tell Lord Ratede that a Paladin killed Ren & would probably come back for his ring & probably revenge for dying.
Priority 3 If Ren is permanently dead, utterly destroy the Church of Helios
Before I could add any other priorities to the list. Another notification showed up, confusing me thoroughly.
[The God of Darkness approves of your theft of Divine Power from Helios, he offers you the option of choosing any of the Dark Gods to serve.]
[Priest class unlocked]
[Special condition met] A god's acknowledgment Divine/Dark Power 200 intelligence Be capable of at least one miracle/ divine spell]
I had 5 options to choose from, the God of War, Blood, Chaos, Death & Darkness. I skimmed through the details about each of the Gods primarily focusing their domains & what they required in order to get more dark power.
I chose the God of Death & the God of Darkness as they seemed like the best fit for me.
[Abyss (The God of Darkness) appreciates your greed for power & looks forward to your efforts at plunging the world towards eternal darkness. ]
[Priest of Darkness grants Shadow Mastery level 1 & 20 Dark Power]
[Terminus (The God of Death) welcomes your efforts to undermine the domain of Life through ending life or creating undead.]
[Priest of Death grants 3 times the effect to Necromancy & poison magic & 20 Dark Power]
Now that all the notifications had subsided, it was time to visit Ratede & find out what I could about Ren's chances of resurrection. One thing was for certain, I'd spill a lot of blood to bring back Ren or to avenge him.
**************************************************** Author's Note I'm going to try and update this story once every week. Nifty is a useful site, donate if you can, to keep it running, if you feel so inclined. As always feedback is useful; suggestions, criticisms, comments, let me know.