Streaking Towards Slaughter

I urge my tiger-mount onward even as I seamlessly replace my blade with my wand. The second the magical tool is in my hand I point it at the squad of ethereal undead racing towards my pet and I.

I begin to fire projectiles in the direction of the monsters heading my way. This time the monsters scatter and do their best to dodge my blows, but as I fire at them a few of my blows strike true and when I land a hit I immediately use it to disperse the magic holding the ghost-like monsters together. They screech and dissipate, and I smirk at my foes as my tiger sprints towards the village.

As the spectral undead draw closer it becomes easier and easier for me to target them, but there's enough of them that they quickly manage to come annoyingly close. My tiger huffs at them and bats a few of them away. As he does this his paws glow a crisp shade of white, empowered by the trinket he wields which is designed for this sort of encounter specifically.

The tiger is wearing a white ribbon. The accessory is a "Trinket" I created using the "Trinkets and Baubles" perk, which is a perk that allows me to create small accessories for my animal companions which confer unique effects to the animals holding them. The tiger's specific trinket is a thing that allows its strikes to deal holy damage, making them devastating against undead and corrupted creatures.

The pair of ethereal monsters the tiger bats away howl in pain as the holy claws of my companion slice into them. The screeching emitted by the monsters engraves itself into my mind as the monsters fade away, effectively one-shot due to the harm caused by the holy claws of my feline friend. I grin as we continue to race towards the village, and I turn to aim my wand at more of the monsters.

My wand basically transforms into a magical minigun as I rapidly and repeatedly cast the low-cost spell I have been using to defeat the undead I've encountered. More projectiles explode out of my wand as I utter the spell over and over. This time the main perk I'm relying on is named "Quickened Casting" and it is a heck of a perk. With it my ability to cast spells is tremendously quickened, allowing me to be a powerful and quick mage even with normally low-damage spells like this.

Right now I am quietly grateful to one of my quirkier culinary warrior perks. The thing, named "Savor The Taste" gives me five slots which I can use and fill with five beneficial effects from things like potions, meals, or spells. Normally such effects are temporary, ranging from boosting the speed of my arcane energy regeneration or granting me a boon like improved hand-eye-coordination. The perk is one I am currently using, and I have stacked it with effects that improve my longevity in battle, such as boosting my normally unremarkable rate of arcane energy regeneration, and it makes such effects permanent so long as the effects remain in the slots I have opted to chuck them into.

I have to work to not smile as notifications fill up my mind's eye alerting me to money I've earned by slaying the undead. Eerie-sounding skill books also begin to take up slots in my inventory, but thankfully the thing is not burdened with an upper-limit.

Each of the undead I hit I destroy when I activate "Arcane Dispersal". This is interesting since it suggests that the horse I encountered earlier was something beyond a simple skeletal horse. Its ability to endure multiple "Arcane Dispersals" was fascinating, but since it was pained and weakened by them I can tell that it was actually some sort of magical creature. Plus it had weird, blood-red skin…

Ahead of me I distantly see the carriage darting towards the village. I hear and see arrows and other projectiles coming out of the carriage towards the closest and fastest corporeal undead moving towards it. I grin at my companions, and I cheer when I watch the undead monsters, skeletons, zombies, and other things that I'm sure people who like necromancy could identify at a glance, fall as feathers (empowered by their own holy-attribute bestowing trinkets), knives, and arrows dipped in holy water thud into them.

More undead in the skies above the village begin to charge at me specifically. I raise my wand again and I take careful aim at my foes, and again my wand turns into a strange medieval machine gun.

For the next few minutes I am engaged in a protracted chase sequence. My spectral foes continue to be wasted attempting to clash with me, since I really am the worst target for them to try and pick on. The ethereal legion might be an annoying set of foes for the characters in the wagon, since they can only aim their attacks so well, but against me with my full freedom of movement and my powerful ranged weapon I can easily rack up dozens of kills against this kind of enemy.

The corporeal undead would fare no better against me then their incorporeal siblings, but that's not really a design flaw in their builds it's more a commentary on how I'm well-suited to fighting undead. My ability to design holy weapons owing to my nature as a cleric and enchanter coupled with devastating abilities in my possession like "Arcane Dispersal" makes me uniquely suited to fighting undead. Each time I hit a simple undead, and thus far the majority of my foes have been simple undead, I can one-shot it.

The incorporeal undead would do great against the carriage since those on the carriage would be limited in their ability to aim against flying foes. The incorporeal undead might even be able to phase through the carriage, but given the carriage's magical nature I doubt the unsubstantial monsters can slink through the arcane spells used to craft the enchanted item. That said, letting the carriage dart past the army of bodies heading towards it and reach the town would also be tactically unsound.

I continue to purify the undead in the area around me, glancing at my foes as I do. The town is drawing closer and closer, and I have a sense that this is proceeding a little too easily. I don't sense a trap or anything like that, I just have a feeling that my progress is occurring too smoothly…

I am about halfway to the town, relative to where I started, when a strange, vibrating spectral mass appears in front of me. The mass is gigantic and when I hit it with spells and then use "Arcane Dispersal" it does absolutely nothing to the shapeless blob of spectral matter. It keeps pace with the tiger and I, and I grimace at it in annoyance.

The blob is dark but effectively see through so I remain able to see the town in the distance. Everything I see that I can only see by looking through the incorporeal mass is tinted in darkness though, which is annoying.

The blob keeps pace with my companion and I for several moments before the center of it begins to emit a faint green light. I grit my teeth and I feel a powerful premonition that something is about to occur so I motion for my companion to jump to the side right as the green light bubbling in the center of the astral mass suddenly shoots out of the mass. The green light is astoundingly fast and pummels the area where my tiger and I just were within attoseconds of being expelled from the mass. As it whizzes past us I feel the eldritch energies the thing is made of, and I sweat slightly due to the sweltering, supernatural heat of the beam.

I focus on the thing and glare as I activate one of my powers that allow me to learn about what I'm looking at supernaturally. This causes a text box to appear in my mind's eye and when I spot it I realize that fighting someone as fairly incompetent and as unlucky as Sophia was a stroke of luck that I don't get a repeat of here.

[Name: Oscar Sinthrax

Class(es): Necromancer/Artifact Warrior/Son

Level: 79/45/10

Species: Demigod (Human/Son of the Father)

Age: 98

Status: Incorporeal (Astral Projecting)

Skills: Death Knight, Deadened Nerves, Necrobiologist, One Of The Dead]

The list doesn't end at the handful of skills I focused on for a few moments, though. Oscar has a list of skills that goes annoyingly, dangerously past that. As I stare at the list of skills I realize that I must be fighting someone like myself or Sophia, a powerful and deadly multipather.

I study the skills and the classes as I carefully guide my tiger and dodge various strange blasts emitting from the noxious cloud. I've heard of necromancers, but artifact warriors and sons are terms I've never heard of in this kind of context…

The more blasts I dodge the more complex arrangements the bastard hurls at me. At first it is easy for me to bob and weave around the deadly projectiles, but as seconds turn into minutes it becomes harder and harder for my companion and I to make our way through them unscathed. It is readily apparent to me that this man is playing games with me, and the more that becomes clear the more it really annoys me.

I begin to command the tiger I am riding by speaking to him mentally, even as I deftly raise my wand and point it at the phantasmal mist. The thing does not seem to notice me suddenly pointing my weapon at it, or if it does it doesn't change its approach, and when the next set of beams begin to be prepared within the mist I take careful aim. I glance at one of the beams and point my wand at it. The simple wooden thing almost glows with anticipation as I quietly but not silently utter a chant and will arcane energy to move from my heart and brain to my arm and then into the instrument.

A blue blast of wicked flames explode out of my wand and sail through the air towards the mist. The beam I aimed at is spat out at us, but it dissipates to nothing when it collides with my attack, and it doesn't even have the energy needed to cancel out the flames my magic has created. The arcane fire lingers in the air between the living mist and my mount and I, and I relax a touch as more of the monster's beams hit the wall of fire and burn away to nothing.

"Let's take advantage of this moment." I tell my companion who nods in understanding and darts forward, seemingly renewed by my ability to prevent the potentially deadly beams of eldritch light from cutting us down. We lunge forward and as the monster ahead of us attempts to fire more beams in our direction I simply cast the same spell I just used to keep its latest salvo from touching my pet and I.

Every second this ancient dickhead is focused on us is a second it's not messing up the carriage. And, for better or worse, this monster is determined to keep us locked down.

We begin to close in on the carriage as the carriage itself reaches the buildings the farthest from the middle of the tiny town. I watch as the carriage speeds past destroyed remains of skeletons and zombies the dolls, mannequins, and animals defeated. The mist suddenly makes a sound vaguely reminiscent of an exhausted groan and the next beams it begins to generate are angled differently than the ones aimed at my tiger and I. I let out an audible shout when I realize what is about to occur, and I aim my wand at the space between the mist and the carriage.

"Not today!" I roar as I finish chanting the spell I have used to stymie the mist before, and as I sense arcane energy flood into my wand. I fill the wand with more energy than the spell itself requires as this is the key to activating a fun magic-modification perk I happen to have named "Overchannel", which empowers spells if I am willing to upcast them by pouring more power into them then they'd normally require.

A torrent of blue fire is almost vomited forth by my wand. The stream of fire rapidly darts towards its destination and the beams are shot out just in time to be intercepted by my wall of fire. The beams hit the wall and dissolve into something less substantial than ash, right as my companion darts underneath the mist and we emerge past the thin sheet of a man's formless spiritual mass, closer than ever to the town.

The edge of the village is just a few hundred feet from the carriage, and my tiger and I are just a few hundred feet from the carriage. I turn and glare at the spiritual presence pursuing my companion and I, as I point my wand at it.

"Be gone, you ass!" I say, snarling at the spiritual presence as I reach into my inventory and replace the wand in my hand with my lute. My snarl begins to change into something with emotional qualities like those of a smirk as I ready myself to use a fun arrow in my quiver.

The faceless mass begins to load up more beams of necromantic and eldritch power, but I don't plan to give it the chance to fire off the attacks. A calm grin spreads across my face as I position my fingers along the strings of my lute and ready myself for a moment that I know will annoy my foe. I point at the mass and close my eyes as I will "Songstress" to activate and empower the singing I am about to do.

"So anyway, here's wonderwall." I proclaim before I begin to play a rather classical sounding version of the famous hit, and as I do a red, thin arcane barrier appears behind me and in front of my foe. I sense a small amount of arcane energy leave my body but it is very quickly replaced even as I continue to sing just to keep the barrier up.

The barrier, not at all a strong thing, is enough to endure the hit caused by my foe when he blunders into it a few milliseconds after it is first magically erected. It completely blocks off his movement, giving my pet and I the chance to reach the carriage, but my pet continues to run, now alongside the carriage. A few seconds pass and we are ahead of the carriage, which is met with surprise by my bird-buddies.

"Thanks buddy." I remark, addressing my feline friend as I smile at the carriage and, in a show of surprising dexterity, I get up on the back of my pet and focus on the carriage. My pet, sensing my intent, slows a touch and I take the opportunity it gives me. I step forward, taking a single step along the massive back of my friend, before I leap towards the carriage.

I sail through the air right as the nebulously shaped mist breaks through the barrier behind me. As it does I watch it vibrate and to my surprise I sense something resembling anger color its strange folds. I smugly smirk at the phantom-like foe and listen to the surprised sounds of my flying friends as they detect me atop the carriage. They are not the only ones who are in for a surprise as over the next few moments I suddenly spot a change in my mini-map.

My radar-like-ability is now close enough to the town to allow me to detect undead foes, and to my abrupt shock living creatures, ones other than Titania, right at the edge of the town. I communicate this odd reality to my party, who react with appropriate and thoughtful remarks. Armed with new, and strange, knowledge we continue our rush towards the village all while my friends continue to methodically pick off the closest undead monsters they can find.

I point my lute in the direction of the creature following my friends and I do my best to menacingly pantomime tuning the instrument. At the same time I hear the distant growls of corporeal undead behind me and I painfully realize how rough things are looking right now. I don't doubt that my followers and I can handle a small army of normal undead, heck we've done it before when we had less equipment and fewer friends, but with this gaseous ghost stalking me, firing off some sort of D&D style Magic Missiles at us and me having to work to keep them from pummeling the carriage, or myself, it gets a lot harder.

I strum my lute and let out a single note which fills the air with a dissonant noise. This makes the stalker-mist following my carriage quiver in what I am reasonably sure must be a sense of profound annoyance. Still, there is something I can do here… I just need to get enough undead on me all at once. A part of me wonders if this'll count as a "Successful performance in a new settlement", once I'm done with the music I'm about to play. I lightly tap my foot on the carriage's roof and suddenly hear quiet noises underneath me come to a stop.

"Hey, let's get some attention and raise some hell. If we can get a lot of undead on me at once I can blast away multiple groups at once." I say, over the noise of the groaning monsters in the background. I begin to play some unenchanted music, just hoping to further annoy my stalker, and I sense murmurs of approval fill the back of my mind. The murmurs all come from my friends and followers, and hearing their words, however faintly, is mildly reassuring.