You have resisted Soul Binding. This spell only works on undead or creatures of pure spirit.

  There were no marks on my skin despite the fact that I felt like a blackened marshmallow left over the campfire for too long. Inside me, my mana felt sluggish, but it was still there. I tried to stumble to my feet, but even the reminder of the pain had me wanting to curl into a tight ball . Only by gritting my teeth was I able to push through. Dad’s voice flashed through my head, an old memory, and I took a deep breath in. At the time I thought it was a pithy remark, some type of inspirational speech and I’d rolled my eyes when he said it. “Son, you don’t know the kind of grit a man has until he’s put under pressure, more so when he’s fighting for something or someone.” For some twisted reason, right at this moment, that damn speech resonated with me. I pulled from a deep tank or reserve that I didn’t know I had. Whether that was the increase in my Will stat or just a part of me that I hadn’t tapped before, I didn’t know or care.

  I was up and putting one foot in front of the next. I heard the drones behind me and flung up a shield to buy myself another couple of seconds. They made sounds more like a rushing steam engine than any type of creature. Pain might not cause any sounds from them, but enraging them sure did.

  Then Dora was at my side. She slid up under one of my arms and helped me move faster. She didn’t even ask me any stupid questions about what had happened. I knew she couldn’t see any injury to my body, but like a good teammate she just picked up my slack.

  “Your shields won’t keep them at bay for long and the smolder isn’t far behind them. We need to get into place for part two of the plan.”

  I groaned in assent and hoped she understood my meaning as I stumbled along partially supported by her. One foot in front of the next. Conjuring shields repeatedly to try to slow down the drones wall that I could manage. There was no chance that I’d be able to muster enough focus to move the shields. I was just lucky that with Dora’s support my body could manage to move on auto-pilot.

  Then we entered the target space.

  “Can you focus enough to levitate?”

  Dora’s words came out quickly, but took an extra half-second for me to process. I steadied myself and said, “I have to.”

  I felt my feet leave the ground. I tried to mentally disassociate myself from the pain, to compartmentalize it and hopefully break it down into more bearable chunks. My willpower was a shelter for my mind against the pain… but it throbbed. The worst part about the pain was that it wasn’t connected to any part of my body. If it was, I could’ve isolated it. It was just everywhere. It was like breathing. It didn’t require my thought and while I could brace myself and hold it at bay for a moment, the instant that I stopped focusing on resisting it, the pain returned.

  Still, I managed. I was a few feet off the ground and saw that the drones were almost on us. I was in place. Dora disappeared from sight, undoubtedly activating her stealth. I could have activated my mini map to see where she was, but conjuring shields and levitating at the same time was taking everything out of me.

  The drones were almost on me. They had left their weapons behind in their haste and instead simply leaped at me. One last shield protected me. Enough force was sent through it to bounce me higher into the air, but that didn’t change the drones fate.

  They came straight at me and never paid any attention to the massive pit we’d dug the night before. Well, I should say that Urg had dug with some help from Crag. I was strong, but they were stronger. And mostly, I contributed by using shields as platforms for them to put the dirt on.

  The pit was thirty feet deep and twenty feet wide. The two drones fell down into it, which undoubtedly hurt them, but not more than a possible broken bone. They were immediately trying to claw their way up the walls, but not making any headway. I didn’t doubt that given enough time, they’d be able to climb out, but we didn’t plan to give them that much time.

  Crag, Urg, and Nevin showed up then. There weren’t any living trees in the dungeon, but there was plenty of dead wood. Urg and Crag started shoving the mounds of wood we’d hidden behind nearby tombs down into the pit. As they did, Nevin ignited it all. The undead had burnt before from my flame blast, but trapped inside the pit the fire became insanely hot. Their struggles became weaker by the moment as more and more of their frames were consumed.

  The pain inside of me was starting to pass. Now it only felt like the worst hang-over of my life, combined with a deep sense of hopelessness. I tried shaking it off, but couldn’t make myself feel better. The best that I could do was force myself to continue. In that moment, that felt like a victory.

  Then that sensation disappeared as we all heard Dora scream. Her role had been to delay and isolate the smolder while we took care of the drones. I looked at Urg, “Stay here and make sure they don’t get out.”

  I didn’t wait to make sure the eidolon understood my command, but was off running as quickly as I could through the air. Crag and Nevin had taken off too, but my agility combined with the fact that I didn’t have to worry about holes or debris on the ground, meant I was able to move much faster.

  When I got there, I saw Dora limping as she just barely managed to dodge a sweeping strike of the staff by the smolder. I immediately cast Healing Grace on her on. She also got the bonuses from Boon-Bane, Inspiring Presence, and Shield for All as I came into range. It was enough to allow her to evade the next strike even as I noticed one of her arms was hanging limply at her side.

  The smolder must have noticed me because it said, “Ah, so you survived. I suppose that’s because you aren’t really a ghost even if your ability was similar. I can still taste the wounds in your soul, though. It's screaming if you didn’t realize. Just being in your presence is refreshing me.”

  I could only track part of what he was saying. I mean I understood what the words meant, but I didn’t have time to deal with any of that. Instead, I ran straight at him. I’d dropped the wand at some point, so I put both hands on my staff. As I ran forward, I saw the fire on his crown starting to race again. I didn’t want to feel that again.

  The instant I was within range, I cast Frost Burst.

  I was already in a cold place, kept distant from my emotions, from my pain by the function of my enhanced Willpower. But as the icy power of the spell began to erupt out of me, I urged all of the power of the spell to shoot straight forward. It still burst out of me in a ring, but the spell wavered and sure enough more of the ice shot straight forward blasting the smolder back.

  His body was covered in ice so thick that his robes froze and became a prison holding him. If only it would have lasted. A couple of seconds later, he was straining to move, and I saw the ice cracking. I used my forward moment to charge up to him, and smashed my staff into the front of his skeletal face. I heard bone crack, but then was flung back as the ice coating him burst in response to his undead strength.

  Crag and Nevin were there by then though and the big man slid in front of me. His hammer blocked an incoming swipe of claws while Nevin fired off a frost bolt with one hand and a lightning bolt with the other.

  “Whatever you do, don’t let the black flames hit you,” I shouted, “Oh, and they can pass right through my shields.”

  The monster howled as he was fighting Crag. Dora had once again disappeared, but I knew she wasn’t far away. Nevin continued to use offensive attacks and without any monsters to charm, he was somewhat limited, but he kept looking for an opening with another lightning bolt. So far, that seemed to be the most effective of his attacks.

  “My mana is down after stoking that fire. I thought I’d have more time to regenerate it.”

  I nodded understanding that he needed me and Crag to buy him some more time. That or we needed to create an opening for Dora. We had to get the monster down to one-third health in order for her to use Executioner and it seemed to be holding up far better than I had hoped.

  “You believe you stand a chance against me flesh bags? Just give up. It is the nature of all things to die and then they serve me.”

  I shouted back at him, wanting to keep his banter going because it seemed to distract him a bit and if he wanted to monologue, I wanted to encourage it. “Missing a couple of drones?”

  “I can feel their animating force fading. But until then, any damage you do to me will be theirs and soon you can replace them.”

  The evil glee he spoke with was a bit unnerving, even if I felt confident we were going to take him down. Crag, was holding his own even if he had a few cuts on him. I layered a trio of Healing Graces on him and that boosted his reign even further. But then I saw that black fire starting to rotate again. I was also starting to run low on mana. I could fire off another Frost Burst, but I wouldn’t have many spells after that.

  I needed a way to stop that blackfire from gathering. The problem was Mage Missile was my only force related power and even a full power blast to the crown hadn’t been enough. Then it hit me. I did have another force based power. It just wasn’t an attack, but a sword could both strike and block, so why not this?

  I tried to gather as much mana as I could to push it through my staff as I activated the ability to conjure another shield. This time, I focused on shrinking it down from the full two foot square that it usually was. I managed to make it about one foot to a side, but it still kept the same square form. It was denser, more solid, almost like it was a physical object rather than a conjuration of magical energy.

  That wasn’t the end of my effort, though. I continued to concentrate. This time I focused on my Shape Conjured Construct ability. I envisioned the edge of the square compressing even further. I pushed and forged it in the heat of my will. Time seemed to slow down around me as I was completely consumed in this action. I could still see the black flame pulsing as it gathered power, but I was almost there.

  The edge might not be razor sharp, but it was refined enough that I thought it would work. Then, unlike the time when I’d shifted shields during the race, I focused on a much smaller but more intense type of movement. I created a central focus on the middle of the shield and began spinning it around that axis.

  Then, just as I felt like I was losing control of the shield, I sent it spinning out. To say that it was a buzz saw would have been overly generous, but it was spinning at a good clip and it shot out at least as fast as a non-system enhanced arrow

  A second was all the time it took to cross the distance between me and the smolder’s crowned head. I felt like I held my breath, but the actual time was so short that it might have simply been the lapse between two breaths. When the edge of the blade hit the crown, it was flying, there was a resounding crack somewhere between the sound a stick of celery makes when you bit down into it and a creaking door.

  Chapter 15- Crown

  Fire exploded around the crown, and the smolder actually shrieked in pain. I had thought that they were immune to pain. There was no mistaking this sound, though. This huge monster was crying like a little girl. I smirked, reminded of the teasing I gave my sister growing up.

  It rocked back and half the skull under the crown was melted away. Rather than letting it recover, I was on it. I brought my staff down, smashing a clawed hand to crush it before I got caught by its wild thrashing motions. I was proud that I didn’t jump right at the head trying to finish it off. The training had actually benefited me in realizing my limitations. I needed to protect myself and my team rather than going for the kill.

  Crag was of the same mind as his war hammer was swinging with a frenzy. Penetrating blow was showing its worth as he started shattering leg bones which were as thick as my thigh. He kept at it, working from one leg to the other as he finished all four.

  About then, Nevin called out. “Clear.”

  We all knew what that meant and leapt away from the smolder as first, a concentrated frost bolt struck its body from the side, and a split second later a bolt of lighting bright enough to sear the cornea slammed into it, blasting its body into a crooked mess.

  Even with half its head melted off, its limbs shattered, and its torso broken in half, the monstrosity still struggled to rise. “I will not be denied. Undeath is forever.”

  That was Dora’s cue as she appeared, her stealth effect dropping when she drove her dagger straight down into the monster’s one remaining eye socket. The eerie light which shone within, guttered and then faded away. “Forever this, jackass!”

  When she stood up, the XP hit us and we knew the encounter was over. It was a good way to know that a foe was truly defeated and just another thing that the system helped to standardize.

  You have gained 566 XP. XP to next level: 244.

  I shook my head. Clearly, leveling was getting harder. We’d killed three common drones in the first battle and gained 340 XP. This was a much harder fight and yet we’d only gained a little more than 200 more XP. It made sense in one way because our levels had grown a lot over the past month, but that didn’t mean I had to like it. I had a long way to go to catch up with the other Forerunners let alone being able to deal with a threat like Morvarg.

  The rest of them were standing there staring at me, but after a few seconds of staring at the remains of the smolder, Crag said, “Well are you gonna use your loot ability?

  I smiled. Adventurers were obviously the same, whether in a game or in real life. They might be crazy fools who threw themselves into dangerous situations, but in the end it was all about the loot.

  My ability activated, and the remains of the smolder began to glow.

  Loot drops doubled for killing your first mini-boss on a new world, in a new dungeon.

  Uncommon Healing Potion x2

  Uncommon Stamina Potion x1

  Uncommon Mana Potion x2

  Spell Scroll: Guardian Link- uncommon

  Spell Scroll: Killing Touch – rare

  Crown of Unhallowed Command- rare

  Class Shard- Death Drinker -uncommon

  Class Shard- Death Caller- rare

  Credits: 3,110

  Its staff disappeared with the creature and didn’t drop, so I could only wonder what it would have been. I was excited to see the crown as well as the spell scrolls. Guardian link seemed a bit unethical, but Killing Touch sounded promising. The class shards also left me a bit uneasy, but I figured we needed to look at all of them.

  It fell to me to identify them for the team before we divided things up. The credits went to Dora as usual and would be split at the end of the mission. Crag took the healing potions, Dora the stamina potion, and Nevin the mana potions.

  Guardian Link turned out to do exactly what I thought it did. It was a spell which could be cast on up to two other creatures at uncommon, but would increase if it got evolved. It would then direct a significant portion of the damage the caster took to those other creatures. The unethical part was that the creatures didn’t need to be willing. That was downright scary. It could be resisted, but I wondered if it could be used as an attack. The only part that might make that not work was that it specifically said it required six seconds to cast. That might not seem like much, but six seconds of standing still in the middle of a battle was an eternity.

  The second spell scroll warranted a closer look, though.

  Spell Scroll: Killing Touch (Rare) This spell empowers the hand of the caster and may be used with any type of force or spectral projection. It stores up the nature of death and then imparts that negative energy into whatever living being it touches first. The caster is immune to negative energy while imbued with this spell. The power of the spell grows by 1% for each second that it is held.

  Area of Effect: 1 creature. Range: Touch. Mana: 205 + 4 mana per second that the spell is held.

  The description was a bit vague and the mana cost was high, but I had to admit that I was curious. The fact that it was a rare spell didn’t hurt at all, either. We set the scrolls aside then and focused on the other items. The class shards were easy and surprisingly Dora took Death Drinker. When I looked at it, it seemed to have some mage feel to it but also rogue elements. So maybe it would work with her build as a damage focused rogue.

  Death Caller, on the other hand was clearly a necromancer. If I’d gone the summoner route, I would have once been tempted by it, but after I’d learned how undead worked here, I don’t think I could have ever done that to another being. Even now, I felt the lingering damage which that black fire had caused to some intangible part of me.

  That left the crown, which was the big prize. Sadly, it was cracked where my blade had affected it.

  Crown of Unhallowed Command (Epic- damaged)- This crown allows the wearer to exert dominance over the undead and purely spiritual beings. Such beings are immune to the normal influence of magic, but this item’s power strikes directly at the soul.

  1) Unhallowed Command- when activated this ability affects all undead within 30 feet. (normally 100 feet but reduced due to damage). They must resist this or obey your commands. Duration: 1 week. If partially resisted, the duration will drop to 1 hour. If fully resisted the effect will be negated. Resistance is based on their Will against your Will + 10 (normally 30 but reduced due to damage)

  Mana: 100 Cool Down: 6 hours (normally 1 hour but reduced due to damage)

  2) Soul Fire- when activated, this ability will conjure a swirl of black fire around the top of the crown. After 3 seconds, it can be launched at an enemy. The fireball will explode with a 5’ radius (normally 10’ but reduced due to damage). Soul Fire will attempt to charm any undead or incorporeal being. It will also do mild (reduced from moderate) damage to the being’s soul and may cause lingering damage until cured.

  Passive Stat Boosts- Mind: +20 (40), Endurance: 10 (20), Durability: 15 (30)

  The stats alone made that item impressive. The attack was powerful, if perhaps morally gray. I thought about it silently for a moment after reading off the stats to everyone. Their silence told me they were doing much the same thing.