The Land: Forging (Chaos Seeds Book 2) (40 page)

Two swords
erupted from the draugh’s chest. One was completely in line with its heart, but blood had long since stopped pumping through its body, and so the hit didn’t register as critical. The draugh turned quickly to reach Yoshi, but he jumped with his swords still inside of its chest. His body moved with the twist of his enemy’s waist. As he moved, Yoshi kicked the other draugh that was in the process of swinging its
axe
at Richter again. It overbalanced and fell on top of the draugh that Richter had initially crippled.

That stumble gave Richter the opening he needed. He fell on top of the draugh’s back and slammed his Life dagger into the side of its head. It struggled to get up even with a blade in its head, but in its awkward
position,
he was strong enough to stab it twice more in the head and once at the base of the skull. The dagger went into its brain stem. The draugh fell limp. Richter was about to given the draugh on the bottom of the pile the same treatment. With a loud
crash
though, the stone coffin opened.

Richter looked up and took in the scene. Sion had fired an imbued arrow at whatever had emerged from the crypt. Daniella was firing at one of the first three draugh they had attacked. One of the others was sprawled at an awkward angle, impact burns all over its body. The third was alive, but missing a leg as it clawed its way toward the sprites. The draugh Sion had hit with
Stun Shot
lay unmoving. The grease fire had gone out, but not before it had burnt the guard to a crisp. Yoshi was standing over the kneeling body of his opponent. His blade was covered with congealed
blood and was immediately
to the right of a stump that had been the draugh’s neck. As Richter watched, the head was toppling to the floor.

The most important thing to see
of course, was the monster emerging from the sarcophagus. A stream of black necrotic energy shot from her hand impacting Sion’s arrow in midair. It decayed the arrow to
ash immediately, and even most of the infused energy seemed to be consumed as it let off a impotent
bang, rather than the normal loud boom of an imbued arrow’s impact.

The creature was thin to the point of being emaciated. Its elongated face had an overly large mouth with four large fangs framing a set of sharp teeth. Its arms hung past its knees,
and the marfanoid fingers were tipped with sharp red nails. The body was the gross caricature of a woman. The horror of her other features was offset by full high breasts and shining long black hair. No clothing covered her smooth
grey
skin. Completely naked, she leered as and squeezed one breast while taking in the scene of violence in front of it. Richter Analyzed it.

Crypt Mistress. Lvl 29. Health 1100. Mana 800. Stamina 360. Crypt mistresses are the bastard cousins of succubi. As opposed to seducing the
living
though, they seduce the dead. Crypt mistresses will invade the halls of the dead and undead and then bend them to their will. Even other demons are disgusted by their perverted pleasures.

“It’s a magic user,” he shouted.

The crypt mistress extended one hand, and with a deepening
of her horrid leer, eight streams of inky black fluid shot out from her hand. They curved and contorted through the air. Two rushed directly at Richter. He tried to dodge, but the ribbons reached him before he could move. He wasn’t the target, though. None of the
party was struck by the crypt mistress’s
spell because it wasn’t an attack.

The ribbons struck the chest of every draugh warrior, even the fallen. As one they roared. Not in pain, but in strength. The bellow came from five
throats
though, not eight. The two that Yoshi had decapitated didn’t revive. Neither did the draugh that Richter had stabbed in the brain. When the mistress saw that some of her guards were irrevocably destroyed, she hissed in displeasure. Both hands began weaving in a second spell casting. Alarmed, Richter started to get up to attack her, but there was movement underneath him. The draugh on the bottom was lifting both him and the dead draugh in all of their armor! WTF?! How had it
gotten so much stronger? Analyze gave the answer. It was level 20 now! Either those oily ribbons had buffed the draugh, or it was an area effect of the crypt mistress. Whatever the reason, these bastards had bulked up.

Richter was going to shout out the new danger, but a quick look around showed that his party had already figured it out. Sion shot another arrow at the crypt mistress disturbing its casting when it was forced to defend itself. He had to drop his bow and draw his
sword
though, as he fought a defensive battle against two draugh. Yoshi fought the other two, and scored hits, but his blade didn’t cut as deeply as it had only a moment ago. Alma was helping by flying around administering psi blasts, but they seemed to have less effect than before.

While Sion and Yoshi engaged in hand to hand combat, Daniella was firing as quickly as she could at the boss.
Initially, each arrow was met by a viscous stream of black liquid
. Even though her shots weren’t connecting, her
arrows at least
served to keep the crypt mistress occupied. That changed when the leering demon cast a spell, and a black circle flared into existence around it. Daniella’s next shot splashed harmlessly the circle of protection. Only a distortion in the air, that soon vanished, showed that her arrow had any effect at all. The crypt mistress started her spell again.

None of this was Richter’s immediate concern, however
because the draugh underneath him had gotten one arm free. It reached up and grabbed his left forearm in a punishing grip. He cried out in pain as he felt his bones grind together. If it wasn’t for his
bracer they would probably had
been snapped in half. That was when his light shield when out. He raised his light dagger to stab the draugh, but then something occurred to him. His
Minor Life Aura
had a 15
minute time duration. That meant that his
Charm
spell which had a 10-minute
cooldown could be cast again! The problem was the lower level draugh had resisted his spell, so why would it work now?
Its
broad resistance had probably increased. The only way it would work was if it was distracted, or weakened, or…

*
Alma! Brain Drain!*

As fractious as the psi dragonling could be, Richter would never question her loyalty. As quick as an arrow, her hastened body shot towards the draugh that held him. She latched onto the undead’s desiccated head. The draugh released its grip on
Richter
and immediately reached towards the dragonling’s small body to crush it to jelly. Richter saw it move and he became laser focused on one fact. This
thing
would not hurt Alma!

Focusing his will on that personal truth he shouted the incantation for
Charm
invoking the spell.
The draugh’s
hand froze only an inch from Alma, as the spell struggled to override its will. It worked! The draugh relaxed its hand.

*
Alma stop*,
he thought desperately. If she continued attacking the draugh, it might break the enchantment, and their new found ally would go back to its old pastime of tearing them apart barehanded.

*Go help Sion*

She unwound from the draugh’s head
and flew back to strafing the guards fighting his Companion. Richter looked down into the face of his charmed enemy, “And you, you little shit. Go kill your old friends.”

He rolled off, and the elite guard easily pushed the dead weight of the draugh off of it. It stood, and ran towards the back of one of the guards fighting Yoshi, weapon raised. The sword adept had cut the head off of one of his opponents by the time Richter’s charmed monster joined the fray. Yoshi hadn’t escaped
unscathed,
though. One arm hung limply at his side. Blood still flowed from the wound in his other shoulder, and
also from a cut on his scalp decreasing his left sided peripheral vision.

Despite his injuries, Richter trusted the Warrior to survive. Yoshi was tough as nails. Richter turned to face the crypt mistress. He knew that he had to stop her before her spell was completed!

Richter’s thought happened
about half a second before she finished casting.

The demoness ended her incantation with both hands clasped at her
breast as if cupping something. Then she
flicked both wrists towards the ceiling of the room Richter was standing in. A speckled white globe, whose surface looked like a mushroom top, moved almost lazily away from the horrid creature. After it
passed the black portal, it swelled to three times its original size
and then exploded, filling the air with millions of tiny white spores. Richter tried to hold his breath, but the spores found their way into his nose anyway. Immediately his throat started swelling and his body was racked with violent coughs. His lungs convulsed trying to expel the foul things, but each
cough
caused a small involuntary inhale, bringing more of the filth into his lungs. On his third
cough,
a gobbet of bright red blood made its way into his mouth. He tasted pennies. What was happening? He accessed his combat log.

Crypt Mistress has cast unknown spell.

Richter hit by unknown spell now identified as Cankerous Hell Spores for
230
damage. Damage Type(s): Death (70%)/Earth Magic (30%). Death Magic damage
161.
Earth Magic damage
69
reduced by Earth Resistance (20%) to
55.2
. Total damage:
216.2

Constitution decreased by 1 every minute for the next 10 minutes. Endurance decreased by 1 every minute for the next 10 minutes. Loss of Health cumulative with initial attack.

He blinked the prompt away. 216 health lost in one AoE spell! To make it worse, he was about to lose another one hundred health over the next ten minutes. They had to end this fight now! He quickly drank the enhanced health potion, and his breathing eased. When he looked back at the hag, she had already started casting another spell. She gave him a
wink
as she made eye contact.

A cry of panic drew his attention as Sion was clubbed over the head with a mace. His helmet dented from the draugh’s mighty blow, and he fell to the ground unconscious. Richter realized the cry hadn’t come from Sion, it had come from Daniella. As the draugh raised its
mace
to deliver a coup de grace to his Companion, she drew and released an imbued arrow into its face. She succeeded in driving the
draugh
away from Sion, but she paid for her heroic act with her own body. The distraction was all the opportunity the draugh she had been dodging needed. With a powerful thrust, it stabbed its sword into her belly. The tip ripped through her and came out of her back. She coughed out blood as tears fell from her eyes, and a wretched groan came from her throat.

A twist of the draugh’s sword caused a second
gout of blood to explode from her mouth. The rent in her stomach causing the sanguine fluid to shoot up her esophagus and out
on the floor. The wound in her abdomen, coupled with the damage of the spores, rendered her unconscious. The
draugh
let her slide off of his sword. She hit the floor and a quickly expanding pool of blood formed on the floor
under
her.

Yoshi leapt
towards draugh standing over her. He had finished with his other opponent, half of its face and skull sheared away.
Ricther’s
charmed draugh joined the battle. Meanwhile, Richter ran at the guard that was once again raising its mace to bash Sion’s skull in. He knew the crypt mistress was still the real threat, but he couldn’t just let his Companion be killed!

*
Brain Drain!*

Alma flew in and wrapped her small body around the draugh’s head, while Richter was still two steps away. It stumbled in a daze towards where Yoshi and the charmed draugh had just disarmed their target. Once again, Richter had to watch a freakishly strong creature reach its damn hand towards his familiar. He wouldn’t have made it in time, but then Yoshi’s blue blade struck the draugh’s free hand, scoring deeply and leaving frost in the wound. It gave Richter the time he needed. One step, and he recast
Minor Life Aura
. With his second step, he was in position behind the draugh. Richter wrapped one hand around its face, and with the other drove his Life dagger up through the base of the skull into the brainstem. With a faint crunch, the blade entered the cerebellum as well. A twist of Richter’s wrist was all that it took for it to collapse to the ground.

Yoshi and the charmed draugh had finished the last of the guards. An icy sword cut had started the process of severing its head, and the charmed guard’s massive strength ripped the
head the rest of the way off the body. Once the draugh was decapitated, Richter could hear the sound of congealed blood and flesh falling to the ground. Yoshi drank his enhanced health potion, and his left arm quickly regained some mobility. Before the six seconds required for the full effect of the potion passed though, he pointed at the demon and shouted, “We have to overwhelm her protection! We need to wear down the shield’s HPs befo-”

A black and purple beam of light exploded against Yoshi’s chest. His body immediately arched back to full extension. The adept’s head was thrown back in silent scream and his arms were down and out to his sides, fingers curled against the pain. Muscles bulged, and veins stood stark against his skin. Then it got worse. Purple boils rose and popped over his skin, over and over in quick succession. The adept’s skin looked like bubbles breaking in a glass of milk someone blew air into. A scream finally rose from his body, and he collapsed bonelessly to the ground.