The stairs went up about ten feet, then doubled back with a short section deeper into the mountain, then continued upwards another ten before reaching a landing that opened into a hallway almost identical to the one below it. The stairs continued upward, but the three of us reached agreement to search this level with a silent round of head nodding. Maria stepped out into the hall quietly, followed by Dalmar, then me.

This hall had six doorways on the left, the side toward the canyon, and two on the right, and I could see another stairwell at the other end of the hallway. The two doors on the right were in the middle of the hallway, spaced ten feet apart, and wider and higher than the ones on the left.

"I say we check them all" Dalmar said quietly when Maria stopped at the first door on the left "I'll open the door and if nothing attacks, Maria can do a quick look for anything valuable. Jake moves down the hall a little and covers us"

Maria and I exchanged looks, then shrugs before I stepped around the two of them and posted myself in the middle of the hallway.

I had Bruce in my left hand and was kind of prepped for something to leap out at us, but in no time at all Maria tapped me on the shoulder and said "Next one"

The first three were stores, and Maria gave some version of "Junk" or empty for all three. When we reached the middle, I posted myself in between the two doors on the right side and said "Why don't you two finish up that side, and I'll guard these two"

Dalmar and Maria kept going, their quiet "Ready?" or Maria's "More Junk" drifted back as they worked. The silence and deserted feeling of the place was kind of creeping me out, so when Sam slithered into a whip in my hand I let out a surprised "Gah!"

I took a quick step back from the two doors, then glanced to my left and right. Dalmar was standing at the last door at the end of the hall giving me a questioning look, but when I looked right I found two big ass rats creeping out of the stairwell and into the hall. They were both about the size of large dogs, and their beady red eyes were focused on me. Their tags said

Ruin Rats

Level 10

Health 70

When I said "Shit! Rats!" and turned to face them, they both charged.

Sam slashed out at the one on my right, hitting it in the face with a snap and drawing a high pitched squeak of pain, though it only stumbled and hit the wall before continuing on. The other one didn't even pause, just scuttling in as fast as it's legs could move, just in time to catch an upward swing from Bruce under its chin.

The swing put me off balance, so the other rat managed to barrel into me and latch its overgrown teeth into my left arm, teeth digging in and jerking like it was trying to get me to drop Bruce. It hurt, but it also blocked the rat on my left from reaching me, and that gave me the opportunity to use Sam, now in his gauntlet form, to punch the one biting me right in the ear. A shower of sparks erupted, and caused the rat to spasm and let me go. My follow up punch met the face of the other rat in another flare of sparks as it lunged at me, feet scrabbling on the back of the other one, and led to a quick downward swing of Bruce to put the finishing touch on the rat at my feet.

The last rat hesitated, but when the dead rat disappeared, it lunged forward to grab on to my right knee, and tried to pull me off my feet. I got lucky here, because I did fall backwards, but the wall was behind me and kept me on my feet long enough to bring Bruce down twice to finish the thing off.

Jesus! Those damn rats had managed to bite the living shit out of me. It wasn't a lot of damage, but still.

"Not bad" Dalmar said, stepping up beside me to kick through the skins and pick up a couple silver pieces. Standing up he looked me up and down and added "You're quick. Rats are fast bastards. They'll give you a good work out if they're high enough level"

I did a quick heal spell, and just for the hell of it, renewed my armor spell before doing a restore. Maria had joined us by then, and she was holding a single long stem red rose of all things.

She grinned at my look and said "It's not real" she shook her head and added "I mean it's not a real rose. It's made out of metal" she held it out and looked between us and said "Anyone want it?"

I reached out immediately, then hesitated to look at Dalmar in question. He shrugged and said "Nope, you can have it if you want"

Which I did. I took it from Maria and looked it over. The thing really did look like a real live red rose, prickers and everything. The petals looked soft and lifelike, and I found myself holding it to my nose before I realized what I was doing. Maria giggled and Dalmar chuckled at the sight, but I just put it in my inventory and said "For Mary"

That got a couple of nods before we all turned to face the two doors left to deal with. They were slightly sturdier than the ones behind us, having thicker wood and iron bands on them, and close to twice as wide. Maria moved to the rightmost one and began doing her lockpicking thing, something she hadn't had to do on the others.

"That's a good sign" Dalmar said, nodding at where Maria was working

"Yeah, been a bit disappointing so far" I said, checking up and down the hallway to make sure more rats weren't sneaking up on us. Maria stepped back at that point and Dalmar moved forward and pulled the door open. Sam hadn't made an appearance, so I wasn't to worried something would leap out at us, but Maria had an arrow set, though not pulled back.

The door opened into a long room that was stacked with crates, large ceramic jars, and piles of what looked like bags of stuff. It was obviously some kind of warehouse, and it most definitely hadn't been picked clean. Dalmar stepped in, and I nodded for Maria to follow as I brought up the rear, then shut the door behind me. I wasn't sure the rats could work the door latches, but this would at least slow them down.

"Wow" Maria muttered. The room was about sixty feet long and twenty feet wide, with an open walkway down the middle. The sides of the room were full, with a couple areas having crates stacked three high, ending just below the ten foot ceiling.

To our right and left were piles of bags, some with grain or seeds leaking out, so we moved further in, and on my third step, Sam slithered into a whip and a buzzing, scraping noise came from the far end of the room. Maria disappeared, fading away as I looked at her, and it was everything I could do not to reach out and try to touch where she had been. Invisibility was cool, and I agreed with Shadow, I needed to get my own invisibility ring.

The buzzing sound came again, but this time a huge bug scuttled out from between some crates at the other end of the room. It looked like a beetle to me. A four foot long, two foot high, bright red beetle with huge pincers in the front that looked like they would hurt like hell if they bit you.

"Rats and cockroaches" Dalmar chuckled as he pulled his hammer off his shoulder and held it across the front of his body. The bugs shell sort of split and raised up like wings, then vibrated extremely quickly, making the buzzing noise we had heard.

"I think that's bug speak for 'You want a piece of me?'" I said, drawing a chuckle from Dalmar as we moved toward it. The things tag became clear after a couple of steps, causing us both to stop.

Fire Beetle

Level 15

Health 140

"Umm...that doesn't sound good" I said intelligently

"Hit it before it can use any ranged attacks" Dalmar yelled as he charged the thing. I took a couple of quick steps forward, calling on Fist, and a step to the right to give me a clear shot past Dalmar, then swung Sam and got the first hit as Sam snapped in with a flash of white fire and frost on the things outer shell. It staggered slightly, then moved toward Dalmar as an arrow hit the side of its shell and sort of ricocheted away.

"Shit!" Maria muttered as she appeared to my right. Her bow disappeared and a sword appeared in her hand as Dalmar and the beetle came together with a crash. Dalmar's hammer came down in an overhand blow that hit the thing on the back as its pincers closed around his chest. I followed Maria as I called on Fist again, no longer having a clear shot with Sam, and moved to the left side of the beetle as Dalmar did a sharp downward jab with his hammer to try and knock the beetle loose. His health was dropping slowly, making me think the thing had some kind of poison attack, at least until I saw its own health going up at the same time.

Maria brought her sword down in a hard slash that staggered the beetle, allowing Dalmar to pull free a second before I brought Bruce down on its other side. The combination knocked the beetle flat, and when Dalmar followed up with another hard, overhand blow, it finished it off. The explosion that followed was not something any of us expected.

The dead beetle disappeared in a huge ball of fire a lot like a mage's fireball spell, but much stronger. I was blown backwards, flipping over a crate and slamming into the wall before sliding down to the ground, flames licking over my leathers. I had lost over 150 health, and realizing that, yelled "Oh shit!" as I scrambled up and over the crates, looking for Maria.

Dalmar was on his back, close to the door, fire fading away as he staggered to his feet, but it was Maria I looked frantically for, and found sprawled against the wall across from me. The flames on her were also fading, but the bracers on her arms were glowing brightly, and she had a bare sliver of health left. I cast a fast healing spell her way, fearing she would suffer more damage from fire, and watched as her health bar shot back up. Seeing she wasn't about to disappear on me, I turned and cast a couple quick healings Dalmar's way, then followed it by doing two of them on myself.

"Holy freaking hell!" Maria yelled as she staggered to her feet and slipped past the jumble of boxes to join me and Dalmar. Her bracers were fading, and at my questioning look, she said "Stops a killing blow once a day, so no more bug bombs until tomorrow"

"Well, that explains the fire part" Dalmar said as he checked to see Maria and I were alright "and it looks like ranged magic attacks from now on for any fire bugs"

"Was it draining your health?" I asked Dalmar, relaxing a little now that the excitement was over. The bracers thing was pretty nice, and if all of her group had that, they would be pretty damn formidable.

The question got a disgusted look from Dalmar as he said "Yeah. It was sucking my damn blood through those pincers. Felt...ugh" another grimace followed the ugh, drawing a chuckle from Maria. She pushed her cloak back and put her hands on her hips as she studied the room, then said "I'll check the rest of the room, but no traps from here back to the door if you two want to get started"

We did. The whole place was essentially a warehouse for household type stuff. Food, clothing, tools, etc., but nothing of any value to us. It didn't take long for use to all reach the same conclusion and head back to the door. Dalmar chuckled as we walked out, saying "Definitely wasn't worth getting blown up over"

Maria rolled her eyes as she began working on the next door, muttering "Stupid bug wasted my keep alive charm"

We all exchanged looks when Maria stepped back, sort of hesitating until Dalmar shrugged and stepped forward to tug the door open saying "Can't start running scared now. If we see one, we stay back and let Jake bomb it with his fire spell"

This room was even larger than the last, going a hundred feet deeper into the mountain, and fifty feet to our left. The place wasn't as full as the other room, but it did have crates stacked neatly around the room, and metal ingots sitting neatly in stacks along the wall to our left. It kind of reminded me of the fanciful pictures of the gold in Fort Knox, though these weren't gold.

"Ore from the mines?" Dalmar said questioningly as he started forward. We moved to the left to walk down the center of the room, the other two casting glances Sam's way periodically. While we could all see in the dark to some extent, we had to be fairly close to make out details, so it wasn't until we drew even with the first stack of ingots that Dalmar said "Iron"

"How do you know that?" I asked, studying the greyish-black blocks of metal. The darkness meant that a lot of color wasn't showing, and most of the piles ended up being varying shades of grey.

"It's got a tag" Dalmar said, stopping to look at Maria and I, then back at the large stack of ingots. "You don't see it?"

I exchanged looks, then shrugs with Maria before she said "Nope. Just a stack of metal to me"

"Huh" Dalmar muttered, his eyes roving along the wall and the stacks of metal "Must be a smithing thing"

"Could just be because you're a dwarf" Maria said back, turning to continue down the middle of the room. Dalmar read off tags, all of them something we had back in reality. Iron, copper, tin, lead, nickel, etc., and none of them what I considered valuable. At the end of the room we found two items of interest, a door, and what we all agreed must be some kind of elevator.

The elevator was a fifteen by fifteen foot square that was level with the floor, but with a blade width slot around it, and one of the levers like the cart had in the right front corner of the square. There was no hole in the ceiling, so the elevator must only go down, was my thought. We spent a few minutes looking things over, then Dalmar said "Door first I think, then we need to at least ride that thing down to see where it goes"

Maria spent a minute studying the door, then kind of rolled her neck and said "Alright, this looks like it might take a couple of minutes" She spent a few minutes on it, a lot longer than anything else I could remember. When she finally stood back up, she said "No traps, but that was a hell of a lock. This better not be the damn kitchen and appliances room"

Dalmar stepped forward to grasp the door handle, then looked back at us. We both nodded and I said "If it's a bug, I'll use Holy Fire and you can shut the door" He nodded, then pulled the door open, stepping to the left a little as he did so. I had a clear view of a twenty by twenty room that had another stack of metal, a back wall that had shelves along it, and a dwarven corpse sitting on the floor, propped up against the shelves.

"Clear" I said, moving over to let Maria lead the way. She stopped at the threshold to give the room a good look, then we all walked in to stand over the corpse. It was a set of dwarven bones in armor, a one-handed battle axe, and it was clutching a large leather bound book.

"Think it will jump up and attack us if we take the book?" Maria asked with a grin. Dalmar squatted down next to it and reached a hand out slowly until he grasped the book, then tugged on it until it came free and the skeleton's arm flopped to its side. Standing back up, Dalmar held the book where we could all see it.

The Journal of GrandMaster Donrel BlackSteel

Dalmar opened it up and flipped through some pages, and I could see enough that it had some drawings and some kind of written language I couldn't understand. Dalmar turned to the last page, pulled it back and began reading.

"The creation of BlackSteel is known only to myself, so I have listed all I know of its creation within this book. Like the metal called Ani'Delas or Moon Iron, BlackSteel is many times stronger than tempered steel and takes enchantments as easily as gold or platinum, but BlackSteel is poisonous to those of elven and orcish descent. It is clear that the cursed Dani'Alakar will soon be warring with their brethren the Lani'Alakar, and their war will affect all who live in Tarinath. The council has requested that the BlackSteel clan begin producing weapons and armor to use should we be drawn into their war. We have begun doing as they asked, but I fear that the sighting of dragons on the coast will mean our battles will begin sooner than any believed"

Dalmar looked up to see me and Maria giving him surprised looks, and Maria said "Great. Weapons that are the equivalent of toxic waste" she shook her head, then nodded at the book and added "The writing looks like gibberish to me" At my nod of agreement about the writing, Dalmar looked back at the book and flipped through a few pages before shrugging and saying "Looks like regular English to me, so it's probably something like the tags on the metal, either because I'm a dwarf, or because I'm a smith"

He put the journal into his inventory, then knelt down again to look over the equipment on the skeleton. The skeleton had on a black chainmail cuirass, but otherwise had only leather boots that could possibly be counted as armor. The axe was dark black, with a curved blade on one side, and a short spike on the other. The chainmail and his axe said:

BlackSteel Chainmail

Armor 45

+4 armor against Elves & Orcs

Usable By: Dwarven Warriors

BlackSteel Axe of Sundering

25-38 Damage

+50% damage to Elves & Orcs

+6 Strength

+2 Dodge

+15% Health

Usable By: Dwarven Warriors

"Armor is decent, but doesn't give enough buffs to be worth it" Dalmar said "but the axe is good" as he picked up the axe and gave it a couple of practice swings. He nodded to himself before looking over to say "Good damage for a one-handed weapon, and the strength bonus is damn nice"

"Find a shield to go with it and you'd be all tanked out. But you wear the armor and you won't be getting anymore hugs" Maria said with a grin. Dalmar chuckled, then gave her an interested look before saying "You know, it would be kind of interesting to work on my one-handed weapons skills again, and with a good shield I would be hard to take down. Always just passed shields to someone else, but I might look around for one while we're here"

The shelves held boxes and vials of various powders and liquids that we all thought were probably used by the dead dwarf in making his BlackSteel, so Dalmar put the whole lot in his inventory. The stack of metal was more of the BlackSteel, but Dalmar only grabbed four of the ingots, saying "Don't want to get weighed down. We still have a lot more city to explore"

We explored the crates in the main room, finding they contained chainmail armor, one crate being the same as the one the skeleton was wearing, the rest all non-magic steel plate armor. Maria shook her head in disgust after we looked in the last one and said "Man, it's a good thing we came here for the anvil, because it's been a major disappointment so far"

A chuckle floated over from where Dalmar was examining the lift, and he looked up to say "We haven't looked at anything other than stores and storage rooms so far. We need to find the main keep and a library. I'm betting they'll have something worth grabbing" he looked down at the lift, then put a foot on it to test its stability before stepping fully on and moving over to the lever. He looked back up at us and said "Going down"

It was a very disturbing feeling to be in an elevator that wasn't enclosed. You could see the walls go by and the opening above us getting smaller and smaller, which made me wonder what we would do if the elevator got stuck. There was no way we'd be able to climb out, so starving to death or killing ourselves before then most likely. Like I said, disturbing. Based on the way Maria was casting glances upwards, I figured she was feeling the same way.

Dalmar didn't seem bothered, but Maria and I let out audible sighs of relief some time later when the walls opened up around us and we settled down into a semi-modified cavern. The ceiling and upper walls were still unworked stone, but the floor and first ten feet of walls were smoothed. The ceiling was fifty feet up, so we got a few seconds to look around as the elevator descended. The elevator was pretty close to the center of the room, with a large opening on our right that led into another large open area. The rest of this room had piles of smashed and broken crates and other scattered items that made it look like a fairly large battle had taken place here.

We all headed toward the opening without discussion, with Maria leading the way. The next cavern was similar to the lava cavern we had previously been in, though this one had a huge crevice in the floor, not a lava river. The crevice had a bridge over it that matched the other one, and this one also had a giant dwarven golem fighting a bunch of undead who were trying to get from our side of the bridge to the other side. We stepped into their cavern about two hundred feet to the undead hordes left and all stopped to evaluate things.

My quick estimate said there were eighty or ninety undead massed at the end of the bridge, though the golem seemed to be still holding strong. An undead magic user sent a bolt of ice at the golem that just shattered against its metal skin, telling me that it had some resistance to magic.

"Do we wade into it?" Maria said, bow in hand.

"We'd be surrounded pretty quick" Dalmar said thoughtfully

"Let me try something first" I said as I looked at my stats page.

Telina's Beneficent Word

Shouting this holy word will cause all who hear it to do the following

Friends:

Heal 50% +1%/level of accumulated damage.

Restore 50% +1%/level of used mana

Dispel all enemy spells presently active.

Enemies:

Do 8 points/level of damage (Double damage to undead)

Stun for 1 second/level

(Cannot be silenced)

Mana: 200 (One day cool down)

I was level 13 at this point, so that meant 104 points of damage, then multiply that by 2 to get 208. I doubted their were too many of the undead in this crowd that had more than that. I had a few holy fire gems, so worst case I pulled one and threw three holy fires spells to finish off whoever was left. If I swap out the Serizan ring for the wisdom one, I would have enough mana. Nodding to myself I went ahead and swapped out the rings, then checked to make sure I had the 200 mana I needed.

Maria and Dalmar had been watching me, so I said "Gonna try a new spell. Should damage any undead that can hear me, so the closer we are the better it should work" I shrugged and added "or that's what I'm guessing"

"I'll lead" Dalmar said "you two stay twenty or thirty feet behind me. When I draw agro, you'll know you're as close as you can get" Maria and I exchanged looks, then both turned back to nod at Dalmar, with me saying "Never used this, so try not to get killed if it takes a minute"

Dalmar let out a soft laugh as he turned, and started walking toward the battle taking place on the bridge, saying over his shoulder "Was kind of my plan already"

We didn't hurry or do anything to draw attention to ourselves, so I had a minute to pull up the spell and begin seeing what it would take to make it work. Luckily it was like most of my spells, I just had to do the reach out to Telina thing and I could feel the spell building inside me. A word sort of floated into my vision, making me guess that was what I would be yelling.

The weird way this world worked came into play when none of the undead paid any attention to us until Dalmar was within twenty feet of the closest dead dwarf. The bridge was full of undead for the first quarter, and the rest were gathered in a round mob at our end, pushing to get in and attack the golem.

When the first one turned and acted like it would attack Dalmar, he charged forward, his war hammer held upright by his right shoulder. The first one looked like a mirror of Dalmar, or at least a dead version of a mirror of Dalmar. Same height, beard, armor and weapon, but when he and Dalmar swung, the dead guy got slammed to the side and down, his hammer not even completing its swing. Dalmar didn't pause, just held his hammer across his body and slammed into the crowd of undead. He was quickly surrounded, but damned if he wasn't laughing as he laid about himself, swinging his hammer in large arcs, back and forth, throwing bodies left and right as they attacked him.

"Um-hm" Maria said, nudging me "Any time there stud"

I chuckled, but refocused on the spell, drew in a deep breath as the word floated into view, then shouted for all I was worth.

"Telina-Ras"!!!!

It boomed out, much louder than I could have realistically produced, and it also caused a shockwave to move outward from me in a circle. Wherever the shockwave touched someone, a flare of white fire engulfed them, including Maria, Dalmar and the golem. It didn't seem to do any damage to them, but when it hit the undead it was much different. The fire swept over the undead crowd, causing flares of white fire, screams of pain, and was followed by the horde disintegrating in a wave as the word swept over them.

The golem was staring at me, but Dalmar didn't hesitate, just charged the next closest of the ten or so undead still standing and knocked its head off, causing it to collapse into a pile. The undead still standing were all frozen in place, so the golem followed Dalmar's example and began chopping as quickly as possible.

"Cool" I said, nodding to myself, as I considered the spells usefulness. Maria giggled loudly and said "Cool? Really? That's your reaction?"

That got a laugh from me as we both watched Dalmar and the golem finish off the last of the frozen undead. It was cool, though like my holy fire, it was really only powerful against the undead. Unfortunately it used up all my mana, and if I was fighting eternals, would have only done a hundred points of damage and left me without any mana for healing until I could do a restore, something I rarely had time for in a fight. Still, it was cool against the undead.

The golem walked to our end of the bridge in a steady clank-clank of metal on stone, then waited as Maria and I joined Dalmar to look up at him. He did the same assessment thing the other one had done, but his first words were "I am the north bridge guardian. You are part of the group that was allowed to cross the west bridge. Do you intend to cross over?"

The three of us exchanged looks, but it was Dalmar who said "Not presently. We will be returning to the city, and our friends should be attacking the undead as we speak" he gave a head nod toward the other side of the bridge and asked "Where does the Underrroads go to the north"

"Zar Manol" the golem said "The Keep was built when the orcs began sending war parties into the mountains. It was not destroyed by the dragons, but was abandoned when the People went to the west"

"Umm..." I mumbled, glancing over at a surprised looking Maria. She blinked a couple of times, then said "This Keep, is it carved into the side of a mountain?"

The golem looked at her for a few seconds, then back at Dalmar to say "Zar Manol was built in such a manner. The Orcs seemed to find its existence to be an insult of some kind and spent most of their time attacking it, rather than the surrounding mines or farms"

"What are the odds?" I muttered, getting a chuckle from Dalmar before he said "That a building built into the mountains that the dwarves lived in was built by the dwarves? Probably pretty good" he looked up at the golem to add "Do you know where the entrance to the Underroads lies within the Keep?"

That got a headshake from the golem, who added "The Keep was a defensive structure and the entrance to the Underroads would have been hidden to all but a few"

"It's alright" Maria said with a grin "If it's there, my girls will find it"

Like the other one, this golem seemed to reach the end of its willingness to talk, and just turned and stomped to its spot in the middle of the bridge, then froze, staring off to the north. We all exchanged shrugs as we began scrounging the drops from nearly a hundred piles of armor and coins.

"I think you should try putting a portal in the city since it seems to be a crossroads for the Forbidden Lands" Dalmar said as we worked. I squatted down to grab a few gold coins from two piles, but looked up at Dalmar to say "Was already considering it. Means sitting in the city for four days though, and we'd have to be back home within three weeks after that"

Maria made a pleased noise and picked up a pair of boots, meaning there was probably at least a couple of useful items in this mass of junk. When we finished scrounging, we'd gathered fifty or so gold coins and twice that in silver, as well as a few magic items with one or two point stat boosts, but two of them were pretty nice.

Ring of Reasoning

+3 Intelligence

Usable by: Mage

Eridan's Boots of Dancing

+3 Dexterity

Usable by: All

"I'll take the boots" I said, hoping neither of them would argue about it. Maria just handed them to me with a grin as she put the ring into her inventory, saying "I'll pass the ring to one of my mages if you don't mind" I shook my head no as I sat down and swapped out the boots. The boots were black, so they matched my armor, and I thought they looked pretty darn good. I stood back up and did a little soft shoe routine to hear Maria laugh, but was grinning myself when my dexterity went up to 22. The whole thing reminded me to swap my rings back again to get my dexterity to 23, and I did a restore before casting a blessing and my armor spell, then doing another restore. This was a good haul, and I wondered if Bob and his team would do as well from the undead they were taking out.

"Ready?" I said, though they were both waiting on me. Dalmar just nodded back toward the cavern we came in, and we made our way back to the lift.

The rest of the day went by fairly quickly, with all of us agreeing to get some sleep in the BlackSteel room. From there we worked our way up the stairs we originally started on, clearing the next two levels, but finding nothing especially useful. A connecting hallway on the third level led to the east, but we just marked it for later and continued up the section we were in. We were attacked by rats twice, but they weren't much of a fight for the three of us, and it was Maria's arrows that mostly did the work. Thankfully we didn't find another Fire Beetle, so we were all alive when we got to the top of this side of the canyon and found it ended in a two story spire that had the top floor broken and burned. The level below it, the one we came up the stairs into, had the stairs leading up blocked by rubble, and the doors and windows going outside blocked by iron bars and a heavy iron door.

The tower had barred windows on all four sides, so we had a view of the whole city, as well as the surrounding mountains. There was a matching tower across the canyon to the south that we had seen earlier and pretty much matched the damage to this one. We could see two more towers to the east and south-east, one of which was almost totally destroyed, and one that looked fairly intact. The city was built in a canyon that stretched east to west, with the four towers marking the four sections and the main square acting as the center of the four areas. The city appeared to be within the mountain range itself as we could see mountains in all four directions.

Wyverns were roosting on roof tops or in buildings with open fronts, and a quick count showed at least thirty in sight. It was Maria that pointed out that the third level of the section directly east of us had ornate blue-tinted windows, and was probably where we wanted to go since the wyverns and dragons hadn't managed to destroy them.

We worked our way back down to the hallway that headed east, then followed it to another section of the city that appeared to match the one we just left, with stores and houses on the canyon side, and warehouses on the north side. We cleared the third level, finding some coin but little else, then headed up the stairs on the east side. Rather than do the ten up, ten in, then ten up, it actually went inward about fifty feet before climbing upward again, and this time ended at a south facing doorway that had a small, one foot by one foot window in it. Sunlight was shining through the window, and when Maria peeked out she said "It's a big balcony outside that blue window place"

It really was a kind of balcony I realized when I got a turn to look. It was about twenty feet wide and had stone railings around it, and the balcony continued around the front of the building, seeming to get wider on that side. The building itself was eighty or ninety feet high, built out of stone blocks, and jutted out from the mountain itself, with the tower above and behind it somewhat. The whole thing reminded me of some kind of old roman place, though there weren't any pillars. Four large, oval, blue windows were evenly spaced about halfway up the wall, and the building had a small door in the middle of our side, making me think the main entrance was around the corner. I could see wyverns across the canyon, but didn't see any on the balcony, which seemed pretty odd. I pulled back and joined Maria to lean against the wall as we hashed out our next move.

"Something is keeping the wyverns off, but that doesn't mean they won't attack us" Dalmar said first

Maria nodded, but said "Only one way to find out. I think we do it like when we first got here. I'll go out, look around, and make sure that we can get in that other door. If we can, then you guys should be able to make it without much trouble"

I shrugged my agreement, but had them wait as I redid the blessing and armor spell, as well as a restore so we'd be ready. Dalmar and I had fire and lightning runes on our main weapons by now, and Maria had a fair stash of fire runed arrows, so we should stand a good chance against anything other than a dragon, and with my shock grenades and armor, might even be able to put a hurting on one of them if needed.

"I'll check the door first" Maria said as Dalmar pulled the door fully open. The wyverns didn't react, so Maria gave us a quick grin before fading away.

"Had the whole Cheshire cat thing going there didn't she" Dalmar said with a grin as we both moved up to stand just inside the doorway. Maria appeared kneeling down by the side door, black cloak covering her with the hood up, but she must have been out of sight of the wyverns. She fiddled for a moment, then gave us a frustrated look and a head shake. A weird, very loud, hissing noise from the south got her to whip her head around. I could clearly see her mouth form the words "Oh shit" before she looked over and frantically waved for us to get down, then disappeared.

Another hiss sounded, but this time it was a lot closer, and Dalmar and I laid flat on the ground just inside the doorway, hoping a dragon wasn't about to crash the party. When it came into view, it most definitely wasn't a dragon.

It was a snake. I shit you not, it was a giant flying snake. An eighty foot long, green and black striped, bat-winged snake, with, and I had to blink at this, four people sitting on saddles along its back. The wyverns were rising from the other side of the canyon, and from the sounds, directly above us, all of them hissing and screeching back at the snake.

For a moment I thought the wyverns were going to attack enmasse, but the snake let out the mother of all spitting sounds, and a glob of greenish-black snot shot out to engulf the closest wyvern. Whatever the snot was, it acted quick, because the wyvern seemed to dissolve into bones from one second to the next, and the whole skeleton dropped out of sight. That gave the rest of the wyverns pause (me too), and the wyverns all flapped frantically away, either heading back to their nests, or settling on the other side of the canyon a fair distance to the east and south.

"What the hell is that?" Dalmar muttered softly, echoing my exact feelings.

It was to far away to see the tag, and when it was clear the wyverns weren't going to attack, it settled on to the south end of the balcony, mostly out of sight except for the tail. Maria appeared at the side door, holding a finger to her lips before disappearing again.

"No shit" Dalmar whispered, rolling his eyes "Like we were just about to run out and attack the thing" The rare sarcasm got a chuckle from me as we waited to see what our somewhat crazy partner was going to do.

I figured Maria was probably peeking around the corner, watching whatever the snake riders were doing. It was only one or two minutes later that there was a bright flash of red light from that side of building, though there was no bang or sound to indicate an explosion. Both of us kind of tensed up to run forward, but relaxed again when Maria appeared by the side door. She studied it for a moment, then turned to grin at us before trotting back our way. She didn't bother turning invisible, but the wyverns were already making so much noise I couldn't tell if they were reacting to her or the snake.

She slipped past us, then knelt down and whispered "Dark elves. Four of them. They did something magical to the main doors that stripped the locking magic away. Our door is clean now too" she gestured toward the snake and said "Things tag says it's a Dread Serpent. Level 25 and 800 health. Couldn't see the elves tags, but one is a mage, and two are archers. The last one has a sword and shield"

"Three against four. Sounds fair" Dalmar said as he and I pushed up to one knee. I nodded and added "If they're like the one I met, we want to take them down quick" I paused to think, then said "Maria slips in first and finds a good spot. We count to twenty, then Dalmar goes in, and I back him up. I'll use the armor stun to let us get our first hard hits in"

We all exchanged looks and nods before following Maria out. The wyverns raised a louder ruckus, but none of them acted like they would attack. The snake let out another one of it's hisses, as we gathered by the door, Dalmar on the right, me on the left, and Maria facing it. She gave us quick looks, then opened it part way and slipped in, disappearing from view as she did so.

I peeked around the door frame into the open crack, and could see the interior was lit with blue light from the windows. The section I could see showed two large columns in view, and a shiny marble floor, with nothing else cluttering it up. Dalmar was counting to himself, and at twenty, slipped inside, with me right behind him. The place was one large room with four columns along each side, about twenty feet in from the outer walls, and forty feet left open down the center. There was a large statue in the center, and based on my view from the side, I was guessing it was Tarra, since I could see the large war hammer held in her right hand. There were two large chests behind her statue, and what I thought was a golem at first standing at the back of the room on my right. It was shaped like a horse, though the horse had wings folded along its back. There was a name for a winged horse, but I couldn't remember what it was. The thing wasn't moving, so it was either in golem statue mode, or was an actual statue.

The dark elves had split up, with the mage and sword bearer standing by the two chests, one of the archers by the main entry, which had one door partially open, and the other archer in front of the Tarra statue. The mage and sword guy both looked up as Dalmar walked forward to stand between the middle two columns. I had figured we would be doing the whole screaming attack thing, but it looked like Dalmar wanted to talk first. Sam slithered into my hand at that point, so I called Fist as Dalmar started speaking.

"You are trespassing in my People's temple" Dalmar said, his deep voice making the whole thing more threatening than the words sounded.

I could see the two archers face our way as the mage and swordsman glanced at me, then back down at Dalmar. The mage was holding a serious looking staff, was wearing good quality mage's robes, and had the same sneer on his face that the asshole Goblin King had used. The swordsman had a version of silvery plate mail, with a helmet like Susan had found, though this one had a dragon on it. The mage took a step toward Dalmar before speaking, probably to be sure everyone knew he was in charge.

"You show incredibly bad judgment to confront us with only a half-breed abomination to aid you" the mage said with a laugh

What? How the hell did I end up being the one getting insulted? I held Bruce up to give the guy the finger, getting a confused look from the two of them before the mage looked back at Dalmar.

"Well then" Dalmar said, and I could hear the grin he must have been showing "Let's get this done" he paused, then said loudly "In Tarra's holy name I smite you!"

A white glow flashed from him as he did that magical thing he did, and his charge was so fast it took all four of them by surprise. I had been waiting for this, so my armor did its nuclear flash a second after he started his dash forward. It wasn't fast enough to keep an arrow from hitting Dalmar, but it didn't slow him down, and he turned slightly sideways, bringing his hammer around like a batter to hit the armored guy with a bit of an upswing.

All the elves were blinded and had their hands or forearms over their eyes, so when Dalmar's hammer hit, there was a huge flash of lightning, followed by a thunderous crash as the dark elf was launched back, landing almost at the far wall. Dalmar didn't slow down, just continued his dash after the swordsman.

I figured that left the blinded mage for me, and I kind of sent a non-vocal 'Hey Sam, time to do the weapon snatch and Silence thing', getting a sense of approval from the whip as I swung it hard at the mage's staff. It felt to me like doing this was actually less complicated than trying to score a damaging hit, and Sam had no trouble wrapping around the staff, hitting the guy with the Silence spell, then pulling the staff with him as he recoiled. The staff dropped at my feet, and Sam's feelings were so much like a dog that had just fetched a stick that I was grinning when an arrow sank half its length into the left side of my stomach, causing me to stumble to the right.

I've said before that feeling pain wasn't like in reality, the knowledge that it wasn't permanent taking a lot of the...anguish I guess, out of it, but having arrows poke into your guts was still massively uncomfortable. I let out a harsh gasp as the arrow faded away, but staggered forward as another arrow hit my left shoulder and pushed me to the right again. The arrows did a fair amount of damage, but less than I would have thought, though the archer seemed to be able to shoot while freaking blinded. The mage was just now looking up at me from where he had fallen when Sam had pulled the staff from his hand.

The mage pushed himself up on one knee, making frantic hand movements before letting out a loud elf curse and pulling a dagger. I sort of did a duck and weave, and was surprised when an arrow actually missed me, though the mage did manage to hit me with a weak slash. The dagger had some kind of magic because it left a line of green acid like substance behind that burned but only did ten or fifteen points of damage. I ignored it as I swung Bruce hard, the blow taking the mage from his right and knocking him off his feet again.

I took the opportunity to do a quick glance around. I had moved past the statue again, and from what I could see, Dalmar looked to have things in hand, but the two archers were facing the wall we had come in from, and were both aiming that way. Sam had formed a gauntlet when I moved forward, so I opened my inventory and grabbed a shock gem. I kicked at the mage, hoping to stun him, but after missing, yelled "Cowabunga assholes!", and tossed the gem at the two archers.

I didn't watch, turning to face the mage as he stabbed me hard in my right leg and the snap of electrical energy exploded behind me. His tag said he was a Master Mage, level 21 and had 110 health, a lot of which was gone after taking a hit from Bruce, the Fist spell, and the couple points of reflected damage. I stepped in and hit him with Bruce again, knocking him on his ass, then just for the hell of it, I dropped down to kneel across his legs, and began punching the living shit out of him.

Yeah, got some anger issues to work out, but it was cathartic as hell to watch the fire flare up every time Sam slammed into his nose as I shouted "Who's the abomination now you asshole!!!" He tried to block me with his arms, but was less than successful. If he hadn't turned into a pile on the floor after two punches I might have kept hitting him, but he did, so I rolled to my feet to see how things were going.

The snake let out the mother of all hisses, and I thought it was going to come slithering inside, but I could see through the open half of the door that it actually took flight, so decided not to worry about the snake as I checked on my partners.

Dalmar's man was junk and Dalmar was dashing at one of the archers. The other archer was also a junk pile, so I trotted after Dalmar, flicking a heal spell Maria's way when I saw her on my left as I passed the Tarra statue. She was visible, standing beside a column as she shot an arrow into the dark elf, but was only down half her health. The last elf took a hit from Dalmar, followed by another arrow from Maria, and he followed his compatriots by turning into a pile of armor.

"I smite you?" I said, grinning as Maria and I joined Dalmar. I sent a round of healing spells as Maria giggled, and Dalmar let out one of his deep chuckles before saying "Hey, seemed appropriate at the time" he paused, then added "and it was my activation word remember?"

Oops, he was right. Good thing I didn't have to remember everyone else's activation words or we would be in trouble.

"What was your guy" I asked, nodding back toward the dead mage to say "mine was a Mage, level 21"

"Guard Captain" Dalmar said "Level 20, 510 health"

I blinked in shock. 510 health was pretty damn high for a fighter type, especially considering that King guy had only been 600 or so.

Dalmar must have seen my surprise since he said "I hit one hundred percent on my war hammer skill not long ago, and when I got that level up, it gave me a once a day ability to use a specialty attack. Does double damage plus three times my strength. Calling on Tarra gives me a strength boost, so when I hit the guy using the lightning rune, I came darn close to killing him right there. He was stunned after that, so it wasn't hard"

"So what does your hammer skill say now?" I asked as Maria gave Dalmar a questioning look. Dalmar shrugged and said "It just has a listing under it for specialty attacks like there might be more than one, but it only lists the one right now"

"Huh" Maria said, her eyes vague as she checked her own stat page, then added "It would be nice to know how this shit actually works. I'm at 97 on my archery"

"After 95 it took a looong time to get to 100" Dalmar said, dragging out the long with an eye roll.

"It might not even work the same for everyone" I said with a shrug. Maria made a disgusted face and said "You know, you seem pretty blasé about this stuff"

I actually considered her words for a moment, then shrugged again and said "I guess I am, sort of. I don't see where it makes a lot of difference, other than having some other eternal asshole getting to a point where he threatens me or mine, and I have enough friends that even that would be a short term thing" I shrugged again and added "But really, it doesn't matter whether I know how it works or not, I'm happy with the way things are now, so I'm not going to do anything different"

Maria sighed and gave me an exasperated look before patting my shoulder and saying in a mock whisper to Dalmar "Slow in the head" That got a grin from Dalmar as Maria grinned back and said "Shall we see what kind of loot we won?"

That got nods of agreement from me and Dalmar as we all turned to look around. The gear from our opponents, the two chests, and the horse statue appeared to be all that was in the room. I figured the horse was some kind of golem, and was kind of interested to see if it was going to talk to us. If it did, I was so going to call it Mr. Ed. Maria headed to the chests as Dalmar and I walked around picking up anything decent from the elves. I put the mages staff, knife and robes in inventory, figuring I'd pass them on to my people if they were useful, or they could go to one of Maria's mages if not. I saw Dalmar gather up the Captain's armor, but neither of the archers had anything useful beyond identical bows that gave a +1 dexterity bonus. They would get passed along to our guards since I figured most of our people had something better already.

Maria's "Got it" drew Dalmar and I over to see what was in the chests. There was a set of chainmail that gave a couple stat bonuses as well as a pretty high armor bonus that Dalmar immediately swapped his own out for, two rings of various types that went into Maria's inventory, and glory of glories, a ring that boosted wisdom and could be used by everyone!

Onar's Ring of Prudent Preparation

A warrior of great renown, Onar felt true wisdom required one to be well trained in mind and body.

+3 Wisdom

+1 Intelligence

+1 Strength

+1 Dexterity

+1 Stamina

+8 Armor

Usable by: All

I would have gladly swapped the intelligence, dexterity and stamina bonuses for more in the strength one, but beggars shouldn't be choosy. The good ole Serizon ring got pulled off and stored away, and Onar's ring took its place, adding a little to my wisdom, stamina, intelligence, and armor.

There was of course a heaping load of gold coins, though it had gotten to the point that none of us were really paying much attention to them anymore. I mostly gave mine to Andulin to spend as needed, and imagined Maria did the same thing for her castle. I wasn't sure if Dalmar was saving his somewhere, but if he was, he had to have darn near a million of them by now.

The last, and most important thing by far, was a necklace with a winged horse on it. The horse was a tiny thing, but intricately crafted and shown with wings extended. Pegasus finally popped into my head a couple seconds before Dalmar said "It's a Pegasus" I nodded as if I had remembered that all along, and read the tag on the thing

Tera-ka-Vysta

(Earth and Sky)

Created to honor the goddess Tarra during the creation of the Guardians, the Pegasus is a perfect representation of creatures that once roamed the skies above Tarinath, but are now just a memory.

Made of magically altered Moon Iron, Pegasus is highly resistant to damage, both physical and magical, and provides its Rider with considerable magical protection.

While faster than all other known creatures who fly, the Rider should be warned that dragon breath travels faster.

Pegasus will carry up to four, but only the Rider need not fear falling.

Pegasus serves the one who wears this amulet and has been found worthy

Maria looked up at us, her face looking like a kid opening Christmas presents, so when Dalmar and I exchanged glances, then grins, her own smile flashed out brightly. Dalmar said "Hey it says it was made for the Guardians, so who better than the Queen" I almost told him it meant the bridge guardians, but caught myself before I sounded like an idiot.

Maria flipped her hood back, then holding the necklace, turned to face the horse statue, closed her eyes, said something to herself, maybe a prayer, and put the necklace on.

It took a few seconds, but a couple of things happened. The winged horse on the necklace glowed brightly for maybe two seconds, then it and the chain disappeared as Dalmar and I watched the horse statue come to life. Its eyes opened, revealing the ubiquitous blue eyes this world favored, and then it opened it's wings. They spread out with a rustle of feathers rather than the sound of metal on metal, and they spanned half the open area, much larger than they had appeared when folded on its back. I had been expecting the same metal on metal sounds the guardian golems made, but now that it was alive, the horse, while still silvery, appeared to be...a horse.

It was breathtakingly beautiful.

Maria's eyes opened at that point and she let out a sobbing noise and stumbled forward, and as the horse raised its head slightly and lowered its wings, threw her arms around the horse's neck. The horse's back was actually at her shoulder height, making me realize how big it actually was. They seemed to be communing, so I looked over at Dalmar to see what he wanted to do.

"Girls and horses" Dalmar said with a grin. I nodded back, kind of touched by the scene. Maria was still hugging it, but talking to the horse to quietly for me to understand. It kind of sounded like baby talk, but whatever worked. She sounded so happy I didn't want to disturb her, so Dalmar nodded for me to follow and headed toward the large entry door.

We had found the anvil and now a flying horse, so a pretty good couple of days if you asked me.

-----Word from the Author----

Hey all. I've gotten a lot of great feedback, some weird feedback, and really like that some of you expand on Tarinath and offer ideas. So thank you.

There's been a couple suggestions to finish this arc and package it in book form, but I think that is a little premature. It's nice that people think that well of something I've done, but I think if you can't make the top ten on a FREE site, it might be premature to ask people to pay for it.

Anyway, I've been having fun playing God in the world of Tarinath and have lots of plot seeds I dropped into the story along the way that should keep the story growing for quite awhile. I think I mentioned somewhere that I had written a scene early on that describes a little about how Tarinath ended up so unbalanced, but Jake has been so busy he hasn't had an opportunity to go where the scene takes place.

As I said a couple chapters back, I'm putting the stats at the bottom, if for no other reason than to give people the opportunity to point out my math failings. The list has grown exponentially over the course of the story, which isn't something I had thought about when I started. When you consider that as the writer I'm playing ALL the characters, you can see how it can get darn complicated keeping track of what everyone can do.

------- STATS-------

Healer Priest (Dragonsbane)

Level 13

STR 10 (13)

DEX 10 (22)

STA 20 (21)

INT 10 (12)

WIS 16 (22)

Health: 340

Mana: 220

Endurance: 200

Armor: 30 base + (22 items) : x 1.3 = 67 base + (23 spell) = 90

Defender of the Faith

Priest focuses on aiding those in need and protecting the oppressed. Spells will focus on group and individual protection and aid, while the priest's personal aura will become a healing channel for your goddess's will.

Blessing spells now apply to all allied creatures within ten feet of priest

Healing spells cost half mana

+10 points health/level

10% damage reflected back on attacker

Armor 30% stronger

Priest's aura does following for allies within 10 feet of player::

+5% stat boost to party members (+5% every 10th level)

+25% mana restore rate

Spells:

Telina's Gaze

Applies 65 points (+20%) of healing to the user or any creature selected

10 Mana/use

Telina's Fist

Applies 65(-15%) points of damage when activated and a successful hit is made

20 Mana/use (effective hit)

Telina's Restoring Touch

Restores mages mana when touched by transferring priests mana. Amount of mana restored chosen by priest

Each point restored removes one point of priest's mana. Cannot transfer more than presently held by the priest

Cure Disease

Cures disease (Level+10) of any creature touched

40 Mana/use

Telina's Holy Blessing

On creature: 65% increase in hit damage and hit chance

70% increase in healing rate

Duration: 6 hours

(+5%/level to level 10)

On flora: 75% increase in growth rate

80% crop amount

(+5%/level to level 10)

40 Mana/Use

(Does not stack)

Create Potions

(Cool down 12 hours)

Healing potion:

Vial of water with Telina's Blessing + Telina's Gaze

Healing= Telina's Gaze + Telina's Blessing + 2(Faith)

Cure Disease potion:

Vial of water with Telina's Blessing + Cure Disease

Cures any disease Level 75 and below

Mana Restoration potion:

Vial of water with Telina's Blessing + Telina's Restoring Touch

Mana restoration =Amount of mana chosen (not more than presently available)

Telina's Flame

Holy fire strikes to cause 120 points damage to creature chosen

Splash damage: 25% damage to enemy creatures within 10 ft

Double damage to undead

(+5/level to 120 damage)

75 Mana/use

Dispel Magic

Dispel Level+5 magic on creature or area chosen

-Does not dispel enchanted objects or potions

-Does not dispel own castings

(Cool down 4 hours)

75 Mana/use

Create Rune

Ability to learn and place runes of power

Player determines activation requirements

(Cool down 3 days)

Rune of Flame:

When activated by user will do 100 points +5/level of fire damage

100 Mana when placed

Rune of Retention

Placed on an item, it will allow the priest to store prepared spells for later use.

Requirements:

Item that has not already been enchanted through standard means

A Mage may imbue the item with the spell by casting it upon the item, but

Blessing by a priest after a spell is placed is required to retain it

Others may activate item if specifically identified by priest when placing the first blessing

Command word spoken when placed, then to release the prepared spell while holding the item

If more than one charge of the same spell is placed, the same command word is used, releasing a single instance of the spell each time

More than one type of spell may be placed, to a maximum of three spells

Spells can not mix Mage and Priest types

Item may receive a replacement spell after use of one, but must be the same spell

Usable once every seven days, though after placement of rune, item may receive spells at any time

Rune of Lightning

Lightning:

When activated will do 150 points of shock damage to a single creature, and stun for 5 seconds + 1 sec/level of caster

Chain Lightning:

When activated will do 50 points of shock damage and stun for 10 seconds all creatures within twenty feet that meet activation requirements

Mana required to cast: 180

Telina's Protective Aura

Player receives 10+level armor bonus for 2 hours

(Does not stack)

40 Mana/use

Resurrection

Cast on self or other player

Allows player to return with no loss of level after next death at the location the player died

Or

Allows player to choose new spawn point

(Cool down 7 days)

Group Heal

Heals completely all allies within 100 feet

Once a day

140 mana

Create Portal

Connect two points via an archway

Requirements:

One end of a portal must be within the aura of a shrine to Telina

The end situated close to the shrine must be defined by a carved, circular archway of 12 feet diameter.

The other end must be defined by an entryway. A cave entrance, room doorway, or something similiar.

To prepare the portal. After placing the circular stone archway, it must first receive Telina's blessing. Within 21 days, the other end must be chosen, and a blessing placed on the entryway. The blessing must be repeated once a day for four days. Within 21 days, the circular archway must receive another blessing to bind the portal.

When completed, the portal may be used by anyone who has received Telina's blessing.

Telina's Beneficent Word

Shouting this holy word will cause all who hear it to do the following

Friends:

Heal 50% +1%/level of accumulated damage.

Restore 50% +1%/level of used mana

Dispel all enemy spells presently active.

Enemies:

Do 8 points/level of damage (Double damage to undead)

Stun for 1 second/level

(Cannot be silenced)

Mana: 200 (One day cool down)

+20% Healing Spell

-15% Spell Damage

+ 1.3% hand to hand

+ 94% light armor

+ 85% Blunt Weapon

+ 90% Concentration

+ 60% Faith

+ 93% Cooking

+ 91% Repair

Legendary Weapon (Serpent Strike)

Bond (5%)

Weapon (3%)

Magic (0%)

The Safe Traveller (Necklace)

+3 Wisdom

+3 Dexterity

+8 Armor

Onar's Ring of Prudent Preparation

A warrior of great renown, Onar felt true wisdom required one to be well trained in mind and body.

+3 Wisdom

+1 Intelligence

+1 Strength

+1 Dexterity

+1 Stamina

+8 Armor

Usable by: All

Warrior's Heart (Ring)

+3 Strength

+2 Dexterity

+4 Armor

Leather Armor of Telina's Light

25 Armor

15% Magic resistance

+4 to dodge

Once a day player may send out a blast of holy light that blinds opponents within 50 feet for 10 seconds

Eridan's Boots of Dancing

+3 Dexterity

Usable by: All

Worn Leather Boots

2 armor rating

24/24 durability

Not usable: Mage

Leather Bracer

3 armor

+2 armor

22/22 durability

Mace of Holy Lightning (Bruce the Mighty)

18-32 damage

+10% hit chance

10 points electrical damage

60/60 durability

Serpent's Strike (Sam)

As one of the legendary weapons created by Xirat Krisnon, Serpent's Strike must be won in battle. This weapons capabilities are determined by the wielder's skill, experience level, attributes, actions, and intent. Wielder be warned, once earned in battle, it can not be removed, and a legendary weapon takes great patience to truly master. Becoming one with it's wielder, the Serpent will draw strength through the bond.

-1 Strength

+3 Dexterity

+1 to attribute of choice other than strength, for every 10 experience levels earned

Damage:

1 point/level of impact damage

1 point/level of elemental damage (type determined during strike)

Level 1-5: Wielder may channel a spell through the weapon with 20% less mana required

Level 6-10: Wielder is capable of hitting targets up to 50 feet away. Wielder may cast silence once per day upon successful strike.

Level 11-15: Wielder can disarm an opponent with a successful strike against the opponents weapon

Level 16-20: Weapon strike can absorb incoming spells, then Wielder can direct the damage on any following strike.

Level 21 and above: ??

NOT WORN

Ring of Wisdom

+1 to player's Wisdom attribute

Ring of Serizon

+1 Strength

+1 Dexterity

+2 Armor