Ugh… first the clingy one and now the dismissive one. Prissy or Kyessy, he wasn’t sure which one annoyed him more: the one who all but refused to let go of his card, or the one who couldn’t care less about having it.

He flapped down out of the tree and headed for the mausoleum entrance.

Nope. He nearly smashed into the stone door. Somehow it had been closed while he was getting up the gumption to assist his partner. Who, just for clarification purposes, wasn’t a very good partner at all.

Instead he kicked Versatility into gear and pecked his way through the upper row of stained glass. The tinkle of shattering glass sounded absurdly loud in the still of the night, but he stepped through with his chest puffed out like a boss.

“Come at me!” he cawed.

No one.

“Huh,” he said. “Kyessy?”

The interior of the mausoleum was mostly thick walls. He was standing on a slanted portion of those thick walls, which he discovered weren’t walls at all, but places where the dead could be interred. They each had their own cubby hole about a foot and a half square, with some designs etched in between their names and their dates of being. Most were floral designs, and those were echoed at the corners of each cubby. He really wanted to inspect them to see if the style of floral design changed over the generations, but he had more important things to suss out. Like where the hooded figure (almost certainly Kyessy) had gone in here.

In the middle of the room, against the back wall, was a coffin shaped box over seven feet in length, around four feet tall. Inspect informed him that the freshly dead members of the family would be put on display here for a period of mourning before being cremated for their place in the mausoleum. The last person to be displayed here…

“No,” he said. Kyessy might be in trouble.

He flapped down, and found a narrow spiral staircase descending straight down, just behind the display case coffin. A soft grenish light emanated from down there. He flapped down and entered a completely new situation.

Congratulations, you’ve entered a low-level dungeon.

Oooh, spooky!

Down below the mausoleum, the dungeon was barrel shaped, made of brick, and featured sculptures of the dead. Recessed areas featured tall men and women in regalia. The amount of crevats was bewildering. The size of the crevats, these piles of lace spilling out for practically acres, was even more bizarre.

And at the end of the hall, Kyessy was getting her ass handed to her.

She was standing stock still, her head wreathed in greenish energy, while a foursome of shadowy figures crept up on her. Literally shadowy, like made of shadows.

“She’s not to be harmed,” a deep, raspy voice said. “The soul’s fresher if they’re healthy. ”

As he watched, Kyessy unslung her bow off her back, and not the strung bow, but the cylindrical case, and just handed it off to one of the shadow people.

“Kyessy?”

She then produced the quiver of arrows and handed it off to the other one.

“Quit doing that. He’s obviously evil.”

He inspected.

Shadow Servant

Level 5

140/140 HP

These projections are made of pure magic to do combat and complete tasks on behalf of their master.

Which meant a high level wizard or some psychic monster somewhere nearby. Corbin hopped forward, while Kyessy continued to give her weapons away to the shadow Servants. Something had her in its grasp…

There. A seated figure at the end of this barrel-shaped hallway. The dude was a felinian, but not like Prissy with her cat-like appearance, or Rinna with his tiger stripes. This guy looked like a cross between a mountain lion and a tabby cat you’d find in an alley: tan and brown fur, matted and crusted down in places beneath his cloak, hood pulled back to reveal one ear that had been lopped off, and a magical artifact glowing green where his eye should’ve been, and a pair of scars down one side of his face. This guy definitely had a story Corbin was not ready to learn. A quick inspect, and…

Shardmage

Level 11

385/385 HP

This particularly nasty specimen traps souls into receptacles like shards of echocrystal and uses them to power rituals well beyond his paygrade.

Yeah, this was bad news. Worse news was the pile of adventurer packs, clothes, items and weapons over in the one corner, and the naked, shriveled husks of bodies in the other corner. This nasty guy had been at this for quite some time.

Not okay. Corbin leapt up, flapped in behind Kyessy, and threw on his Versatility. He flipped his Intelligence into his Strength this time, hoping for a little bit of bonus Luck to help him through. Then, when he was about to smash into her, he angled up, and threw on the Unerring Aim for the center of this mage’s chest.

The seated, lounging figure hardly even registered that Corbin was there before he blasted into the man’s chest and shattered through a large crystal amulet.

You have dealt 25 damage to the Puppeteering Amulet, 5 damage to the Shardmage, and broken the Shardmage’s concentration!

You have dealt 8 damage to yourself. Boo.

Corbin whirled around for another pass, while the Shardmage leapt to his feet, bewildered about what was going on.

“Kyessy? Kyessy!”

She was clearly still pretty out of it. “What the–”

“Grab up your weapons! Or go for the cards in the pile!”

He went for the shardmage’s face now, and scored a pair of hits for 10 damage each. It wasn’t enough to drop the man, given he was much higher level than Corbin, but that wasn’t the point. What he really wanted was for Kyessy to start–

Kyessy shouted, with all four of the Shadow Clones pawing at her. She was clawing her way up to the pile of cards and items and packs.

Corbin came in again with Unerring Aim.

You have dealt 18 damage to the Shardmage!

You’ve also dealt 8 damage to yourself… your master has accepted the damage on your behalf.

“Come on,” he urged.

A new icon suddenly appeared in his periphery, and he pecked at it. Suddenly a blast of fire leapt out of his beak and bathed the Shardmage’s head.

You have dealt 64 damage to the Shardmage! Critical Strike! You’ve succeeded at a Serendipity check, leading the Shardmage to pick up Blindness from your attack.

He pecked at this fire spell again, and this time aimed it at one of the Shadow Clones. If he was right…

You’ve dealt 120 damage to the Shadow Clone! Critical Strike! You’ve succeeded at a Serendipity check, leading the light from your spell to affect all the Shadow Clones. They each take 80 radiant damage! Serendipity is with you once again, and your Luck prevents your master from taking any burning damage.

You’ve defeated Shadow Clone.

Unfortunately he was out of mana from the two gigantic fire blasts, so he went back to pecking at the Shardmage, and more importantly, his amulet. If he was lucky, again, he might find the source of the shadow clones… but so far nothing. He did score 12, 15, and 14 damage, then another critical for 23. Meanwhile the burning effect of the fire damage dealt 18, 17, and 15, until his luck ran out and the Shardmage caught him.

He was quickly squeezed, and felt his hollow bird bones pop. Pain went shrieking all through him.

“Enough!”

The Shardmage snarled down at Corbin, but after a moment turned to face the tiefling ranger.

She held a pair of fae style short blades, with their glimmering silvery steel and the leafy gold and indigo patterns around the hilts. Another of the shadow clones dissolved into inky mist in front of her.

“You want to leave?” Shardmage asked. “Leave then.”

“Don't–” Corbin started, but then took more damage when the guy squeezed him again.

“You take whatever items you like, and you leave this place.”

Corbin had a close eye on his mana. He’d had 35 to start, lost a few for each Unerring Aim, but that fire blast was 10 each. All he needed was another bit of time to regenerate before he could unleash hell on this guy again.

“I don’t think so,” Kyessy said. “That hideous bird belongs to me.”

“Why does it need the hideous rider, huh?” he asked, and was rewarded with another painful squeeze for 4 damage. The little glass jar of red HP juice was down to a quarter or so.

“You’ve made the wrong choice,” Shardmage said. In short order, another three shadow clones erupted from his body, and then another three directly after.

Kyessy activated the same ability she’d gotten from the pile of loot on the floor, and those short swords erupted into flame. The shadow clones all took immediate Radiant damage, and Corbin watched as their health began to rapidly drain away.

More importantly, his mana was back up. He surged out with his enhanced strength, prayed for some Luck, got it, and somehow forced open this wizard’s hands. He then flopped to the ground, got turned around the right way, and completely drained his mana pool with a last fiery blast.

You have dealt 45 damage to Shardmage.

Critical strike! You’ve succeeded at a Luck (Serendipity) check, and dealt 45 radiant damage to all Shadow Clones. The Blindness effect on Shardmage is refreshed.

There were no shadow clones. Kyessy had gone through them like they were made of rice paper. She followed this by slicing into the wizard’s chest once, twice, and then a third and fourth strike in quick succession.

He slumped back against the wall, tried to dodge aside, and failed when Corbin threw himself at the man’s foot.

You’ve dealt 8 damage to Shardmage. Critical strike! You've succeeded at a Luck (Serendipity) check, and knocked Shardmage prone.

A few stabs later and the prompt announced the end of the Shardmage. Corbin flapped and hopped around, crowing and cawing in his victory dance, while leveling up to 6.

Quest Complete - Scour the Cemetery

You’ve eradicated the filth beneath the mausoleum.

Reward: 1000 xp.

Bonus objective: failed

Bonus reward: lost

Together they raided the Shardmage’s still-burning body, which consisted of a half dozen echocrystals, a thoroughly broken Amulet of Puppetry that could only be worn by a Caster class with at least two prestige class levels on top of that.

A confused, enraged groan got their attention.

They turned and beheld the Shardmage again, wide-eyed and staring at them from across the hall. It immediately (to Corbin at least) seemed foolish to reveal that the back wall had been false and was actually concealing a secret room of sorts. On second thought, he would have seen it immediately with his True Sight.

The Shardmage went and said something in another language, but Corbin knew a nasty spell when he heard one, and launched himself across the dungeon. He activated Unerring Aim. He’d managed to gather up another three mana in the intervening time, and sped right at the cat-man’s face.

He struck home, dealing another 20 damage and taking 10 damage, but more importantly rocking the wizard’s head back and causing him to lose his concentration. The pop-up window informed Corbin of just that, although he didn’t deal any extra damage from a Luck success. Still, a second later, two Shadow Clones appeared to try to stop Kyessy from slashing him to pieces… and they failed spectacularly when her fae blades ignited with fire and utterly annihilated them.

Corbin kept up his attacks as well. A hand swiped for him and missed, partly because the poor sap had just died, partly because his Agility was pretty high, and mostly because Kyessy was there a moment later, hacking and stabbing. He fell back into his secret bedroom, and reached for something Kyessy didn’t let him grab onto.

Instead she kept up a relentless assault, until they were informed he had died again.

You’ve defeated Shardmage… again?

You couldn’t leave the poor man to grieve his death in peace?

You gain no xp for a recently re-slain opponent, and you should be ashamed of yourself.

A few more loot items dropped: some coins, a common item card for his cloak, and some empty echocrystals.

“We have to kill him again,” Corbin said.

The felinian appeared in his bed again a few seconds later, threw up onto the floor, and flopped onto it. He looked pathetic now, with only his clothes on. He inspected the guy, and discovered he was still level 11. Kyessy didn’t inspect him, nor did she listen to his terrified pleas, but instead carved the felinian apart in record time. The AI message was even more admonishing for repeatedly killing an opponent, and penalized her 50 xp for doing so.

Still, when the wizard appeared in his bed a few seconds later, he was level 10 instead.

“Again,” Corbin said.

They ended up killing him six more times, leaving him at level 4. The last few times when he woke up in his bed, he looked thinner, gaunt, and even more unhealthy than he had before. The xp loss was doubled each time: 100, 200, 400… Kyessy had lost over 3000 xp for killing him so many times, but that didn’t cost her a level.

“Wait,” he called. To her credit, she immediately backed away from the cot on the floor surrounded by candles and books. When he used Inspect this time, he was informed that Shardmage had changed into a Caster, and that two of his core cards had been broken by the repeated death, once he’d gone below level 5.

“That’s enough,” he said.

“Good. I don’t want to lose anymore.” She bent down next to the gasping, felinian. “You don’t get to do this any longer, understand?”

The wizard just scrunched his face up in misery.

“The next report I hear about disturbances in the cemetery here, I’ll track you down and turn you into level 0 meat. You won’t be a wizard anymore, you won’t be anything. You’ll come back as a worm. Now get out of here.”

The felinian just moaned pitifully. Corbin almost felt bad for him, until he remembered that the wizard had done much worse to more people. They stared at him a minute, took all the random junk out of his hidey hole room, and left him to feel sorry for his poor self.