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Chapter Seven: Underlord
🕑 Added 2024-06-09 12:57:14 +0000 UTCChapter Seven: Underlord
Pater’s plan was obvious; first he showed me the carrot - the skill of this group’s leader, their ability to defeat a well defended enemy, and their willingness to provide me with luxuries. Now he was showing me the stick, trying to prove that he was in charge and there wasn’t anything I could do about it.
It may have worked had not just shown me all the people he’d killed and resurrected. I held the title of Archmagus and that required me to fight the undead, ignoring myself and Dante for the moment.
In our talks yesterday we both agreed we couldn’t just leave an entrenched undead force that had already taken a human fort.
Dante needed time to check everything was in place, so I would start this match only using my physical abilities. Part of me enjoyed fighting, although I would always deny it.
I hadn’t been in a physical fight since my apprenticeship, my Master insisted I learned to fight without magic. At the time I thought it was foolish, few magi actually learned to fight and in the future the few wars I took part in I was in the back line dropping meteors or flooding out the enemy. Even those events were rare, most times both sides had magi, in which case their job was to ensure the other side didn’t do anything.
Nonetheless my master was a veteran of the most gruesome war in unliving memory and told stories of when out of mana and without ingredients he was forced to fight. So I learned.
Although I hadn’t truly used it in over eight hundred years my old bones could still remember the style. It is the fighting style of a mage, quick jabbing strikes at your opponents vitals combined with plenty of dodging perfect for creating distance to cast a spell. I was never supposed to contest strength against strength and grappling was off the table even though I was taught several forms.
It was the perfect form for a skeleton come to think of it.
In excitement and expectation I clenched my carpels before stepping into the ring.
Claws raised, I took my stance. Pater did the same, raising his sword, point aimed at my eyes. I circled so I could properly judge the distance to the sword's tip. Pater did likewise, maintaining a head on stance. Pater’s face was serious as he stared me down, having lost his earlier joviality.
Pater moved first, a high lunge aimed at my head. I slipped my head to the side but the larger man abruptly stalled his momentum before slashing from high left to low right.
I was barely able to react in time, raising my claws to block sparks flew and I was sent flying back. I landed, my sharpened toes digging into hard packed earth and slowing me.
The crowd around us cheered with haunting whales, no doubt at Pater’s direction.
Giving me no time to recover he lunged in again, I dodge again this time bobbing to the side to avoid the follow up slash. After I heard the strike woosh harmlessly over head I sprunk up, aiming a knife hand at his solar plexus.
Pater used the momentum of the slash to spin aside, receiving only a light cut to his back.
While I was over extended Pater continued his spin, planting a heel kick in my ribs sending me flying again, this time less one rib.
It was a weird feeling, my mind could sense exactly where the rib was and what condition it was in.
We returned to circling while both considered each other's attacks. Pater was strong, far stronger than me and more agile. The only thing I had going for me was my weight, being only bones made me light combined with not using a heavy weapon, I was slightly faster.
Out of the corner of my orbital bone I saw Dante raise five fingers to say half the markers were down.
While I was distracted Pater took the initiative, this time coming straight in with a vertical slash. My inattention gave me no time to dodge so I raised my claws to defend my head. I held for a second before crumpling into a pile of bones.
Thankfully my skeleton was mostly in one piece so it only took a couple of seconds to rearticulate. There was a flash of a tower before I came back to Pater across from me laughing, the group of undead following suit in identical fashion.
Pater’s grip was lax so I took the opportunity, despite his outburst he never let his eyes stray from me so when I lunged at his heart he was ready.
Lunging aside, he moved just enough to dodge my bone claws, what he hadn't seen was me grabbing my rib as it rolled back towards me. The few extra inches it gave me let me score a line across his chest, drawing black blood.
The laughter evaporated immediately and a flinty look replaced it. Dante was right, this man's pride couldn’t suffer any perceived loss.
In the next few minutes I learned Pater had been right as well. I had assumed his stories to be exaggerated bragardtry but he had the skills to back them up.
He sent combo after combo at me, backed by the endless stamina of the undead. I ducked a weave when I could and created distance when I couldn’t, even so bones went flying with every engagement. I discovered that my bones could be slotted manually into place which led to a desperate scramble around the arena dodging strikes and reattaching flung bones.
In a desperate bid to win space I even sent a weak necrotising bolt at him, to my surprise he batted it aside with his sword. The weapon did seem a little tarnished where they connected but no more.
This seemed to sober him slightly from his battle frenzy.
“I was waiting for you to use magic, a lich is a mage class is it not?” Pater asked, seemingly genuinely happy.
“Aren't you a necromancer?” I asked in turn.
“I don’t need magic to win.” He proudly proclaimed before running back in.
I returned to dodging more measured attacks and throwing out bolts for the next thirty seconds before the engagement was once again broken up. This time by a silver knife flying over the heads of the undead and burying itself in the dirt.
Pater stepped back and shouted, “Who dares interrupt my fight.” However his look of derision turned on me as I darted for the knife.
“Face it Osseus, you can’t beat me.” Pater scoffed.
“I have a proposal for you.” I spat, holding tight to the silverware. Getting pummelling had not done wonders for my pride.
“I’m listening.” Pater responded, loosening his guard, a cocky look on his face.
“I will hit you with my strongest spell. If you can withstand it you win, if you can’t I do.” I offered.
“Why would I agree to that?” Pater probed.
“Because if you win I swear to serve you, you could use a mage in your number.” I responded.
Pater grinned before agreeing, “ I’ve seen your spells mage, nothing you throw at me will get past my deflection skill.”
The system tried to notify me of something but I ignored it.
I sighed internally, it had been a gamble to play on his pride but I would need time to voice the incantation.
The spell I had set up with Dante’s help was one of my own devising, it used a simple silver foci and stone markers.
We had alternatives in mind but thankfully we were able to find the silver required, originally the spell called for intricately diagramed stone tablets put at ten distinct locations. It was my spell though so I could make do with a radius of pebbles.
The spell used simple ingredients so was limited to simple effects, in theory, but lightning was considered a simple effect and I could use it for any number of things. A lesser known fact is that silver is the best conductor of lightning.
The first part of the minute loong chant channelled my mana into the surrounding area gathering the ambient lightning that existed in all things. The second part concentrated and amplified the effect with mana. The third part used the lightning force in all things to disassemble the silver knife into a ball of silver gas.
Then I used my hand to simultaneously cast an air spell, using the air as a component. I dispersed the silver dust throughout the marked area. Casting it this way took twenty five percent of my mana but I maintained my focus on the verbal spell.
By this point Pater was looking nervous but his pride held his tongue.
The final part of the spell took the charge I had been building and in an instant sent it sparking through all of the silver particles with the power of a lightning strike.
One moment the courtyard was dark with silver smoke the next it was as if a purple sun had risen. I was able to pour half of my mana into the working before it came to the brink of collapsing.
The sudden explosion of lightning was so strong that a shockwave was sent out with me at its epicentre. Thankfully the only thing that bothered my magically reinforced bones was the sound of the ear splitting boom and crackling lightning.
When the smoke cleared all that was left was piles of a ash and Dante, outside of the spell’s radius but looking battered, shook, and afeared.
I could only smile as I whipped the soot from my bones as I let the system's notifications appear.
Congratulations:
Bone Articulation has reached Lv.3
Bone Articulation has reached Lv.4
Bone Articulation has reached Lv.5
Duel accepted, terms eternal servitude or Title: lord of Far-Reach Fort
You have learned the Wind Breath basic spell 100Xp rewarded
You have learned the Shocking Aura advanced spell 300Xp rewarded
You have killed a Lv.5 Zombie Brute 100Xp rewarded
You have killed a Lv.5 Zombie Brute 100Xp rewarded
You have killed a Lv.5 Zombie Stalker 100Xp rewarded
You have killed a Lv.6 Zombie Stalker 110Xp rewarded
You have killed a Lv.6 Zombie Reaver 110Xp rewarded
You have killed a Lv.6 Zombie Brute 110Xp rewarded
You have killed a Lv.7 Zombie Brute 120Xp rewarded
You have killed a Lv.8 Zombie Stalker 130Xp rewarded
You have killed a Lv.9 Zombie Reaver 140Xp rewarded
You have killed a Lv.9 Zombie Brute 140Xp rewarded
You have killed a Lv.23 Zombie Commander 430Xp rewarded
You have won your duel and are awarded the Title: lord of Far-Reach Fort, Title is mandatory but takes up no Title slots.
You have reached Lich Lv. 21
New Class spells, skills, and abilities available.
