Snowflakes fell from the heavens, gentle white flakes that kissed the earth at my feet before melting away in the heat. The ones that touched the keeper pool hissed, boiling away in an instant. Standing in the midst of the snowfall was Sir Harrsal the wight, the snow instead collecting on his shoulders, solidifying into ice.

“Ah, as I said my lord, you will find the keeper at the heart of his nest,” Sir Harrsal said, striding forward with his blade hovering at his side.

His shield was dented and cracked beyond repair, with bits of sugar spike still lodged inside. The wight tossed away the now useless item and gripped his sword tightly into a two handed grip.

The sound of traps continued to echo from the tunnels, ticking the count of undead down one by one. The pool continued to boil and dropped even more, taking it down a quarter of its volume. At this rate I might not have a pool anymore.

“Frozen in fear keeper?” Sir Harrsal asked, rolling my title off his mummified tongue. He opened his arms and took a stage bow with a deep guttural laugh. “I suppose as traditions dictate I shall allow you to give your final words. Wouldn’t want old Raddagar to roll over in his grave.”

I wiped my brow on the edge of my cloak and gripped my sword in a white knuckled grip. I wasn’t looking forward to a fight, the wight’s sword had weight, reach and enchantments over mine. But between my crystal and my escape was the wight, Lord Gastov and a whole bunch of angry looking skeletons.

With seemingly no way out of this mess I might as well play along and grant myself a speck of more time so I leaned against the wall and shrugged. “I’m kind of new here, can you give me a run down of how this is supposed to go?”

The wight lost the winds in his sail and deflated. He lightened up his stance and rested his sword on his shoulder. His eyes flashed an icy blue and he waved his hand to end his cold aura. “You claim you will somehow win, we challenge you, fight to the death and the winner gets the spoils and lands of the loser. For us we also get to smash your crystal to get the rare fragments out of it to enchant our gear.”

I raised my brow and looked at the hole in the ceiling. “Well you certainly made a mess of the place if you wanted to capture it. Do you guys have a deed or something to the town you came from?”

“Listen here cheater, I don’t care what other back handed tactics you think you have, you're going to lose,” the wight hissed. When I didn’t budge he grit his teeth and pointed to Lord Gastov. “His signet ring gives ownership of the lands, not that you have a hope of victory.”

Quest added!

Gain ownership of the local lands and become Lord Joshua Hale.

Reward

+100XP to the keeper

+1 Skill point

Lordship title granted

Good luck keeper Josh!

The final sentence made me curious, feeling like I had seen it before. Yet that was for later, because the current quest I was on was to survive. I peered around through the mist that was forming around my feet and saw the other combatants were holding back, seemingly content in letting me duel the wight.

“You come to my home, smash the places to pieces, hurt my friends and ruin a perfectly good day. Most of all you dare call me a cheater? I worked hard from day one to get here and I’m not about to let some cheap haunted house decoration insult me like that!” I levelled my sword towards the wight, the tip trembling from my exhausted hand. I felt the moist air touch my lips and I whispered over my shoulder. “Crystal, whatever secrets you're holding, now's the time to use them please.”

The crystal didn’t reply, and I could see the light show inside was dimming. The sound of traps going off in the dungeon ceased and the final count of the undead was now here in the room with me. One versus fourteen was bad odds, but I wasn’t sure I was going to even live through one on one.

“Excellent!” Sir Harrsal cackled. “We have our woes too keeper, you woke us up from our slumber, shattered the tower and stole from our burial grounds. Now we have our cause for war, and I shall gladly fight you.”

The two of us shuffled forward, meeting on the even ground beside the keeper pool. The mist, ice and tendrils running over the floor made for poor footing, but I wasn’t going to move far from the corridor to the crystal room. The skeletal priests in the mist eyed the corridor, and I found myself torn between guarding the room and dealing with the threat ahead of me.

“Frost wind blade!” Sir Harrsal leapt towards me, his longsword’s edge collecting the mist around it to form a longer blade of ice that raced towards me. “To your end keeper!”

I stepped towards the airborne wight and pushed off with my wizard shoes, going airborne. I thrusted the edge of my sword towards him and used my momentum to meet him in the air before he brought his own towards me in a downward slash. Our blades clashed hard midair, and the wight looked confused at my sudden assault. A wave of frosted air blasted out onto my shoulder and sent me back down to earth crashing on the ground. I looked down at my sword to see the top half of the blade was bent at an angle with a chunk missing out of it.

“A strange tactic, but you only delay your death,” Sir Harrsal said, back peddling to get his footing. He stamped down and dug in the spikes at the boot of his feet and charged me. “Aura of frost, surround me!”

I got back up in a hurry and met his sword strikes one after the other. I lacked any reach to retaliate and could only hopeless back pedal or meet his sword with mine to keep myself in one piece. Our fight moved me away from the crystal, and further into a corner where the space between the wall and pool narrowed. I felt my limb grow heavy like they were made of lead, and as I was pushed towards the wall I could see ice collecting on my cloak.

Knowledge Arcane : Partial Success!

Elemental auras strike at foes around the caster damaging them with magical effects. Each element has a different effect, with frost damage striking at the creature's health and stamina, slowly draining them.

The wight gripped his sword tightly and stomped forward to disperse the mist. He had the tip of his sword at the ground and swung forward from the hip gathering momentum. Foolishly I tried to block and felt my sword’s blade sear off, sending it into the air, leaving me with only a grip.

“Maybe watch where you're going,” I said, eyeing the ground and saw the lip of the pool near the wight’s feet. “Produce fire!”

Sweat trickled down my brow and I knew I was dangerously overextending, but the fire warmed me, beating back the frost aura for a moment. I sent the orb of fire wide, towards the wall, and as I predicted the wight dodged away from it instead of taking the direct hit. His feet slid off the edge and the wight cried out, throwing out his hands and dug his gauntlets into one of the crystal’s tendrils to keep himself from falling. The boiling pool hissed as rocks and debris fell in, with the wight’s boots distiengrating from the fumes.

The wight bared his teeth and hissed, “You bloody cheat-”

The tendril in his clutches dried out and started to fray, cutting off the wight’s sentence. Cords of the strange material snapped, sending thin whips out around the room, slamming into the walls and ceiling. I stepped forward to seize the moment and finish my foe, but felt a sudden panic touch the back of my mind, I turned in place to see the skeletal priests head straight for the crystal. They didn’t care about this duel at all!

I ran for the crystal and tripped, skinning my knee on the ground. I reached down and my hand came in contact with the cool metal of the wight’s longsword, the extra ice on the blade melted away as I touched it, and I picked it up.

“Need to borrow this, sorry,” I said, tossing my now useless sword hilt away, and ran towards my crystal’s room.

“Oi, listen you cat fucker that’s mine-”

The tendril in his grip let go, and the wight screamed. I winced, and shivered looking at where the wight had just been, the mist moving in to cover the boiling waters. I gripped the sword with two hands and rushed as quickly as I could over the debris to stop the priests.

Lair Action : Move Stone!

The corridor to the crystal shook violently as a tendril slammed a block of stone out of the wall to crush one of the black robed priests. The other priest evaded the collapsing corridor and ran into me. I shoved him out of the way and hacked at him with the longsword.

A distorted voice rose out of the skeletons maw. “Flaming sph-”

I cut him off as the longsword met his neck, severing the head clean off. The end of his flaming staff sputtered out as a burning ball of fire appeared. The blazing sphere roasted me and I stepped away as it fell to the ground, burning away tendrils. One tendril snapped and struck me in the stomach, lifting me off my feet and crashing me into the wall. I groaned and held one hand on my belly as I reached around to find the fallen sword.

As I gripped the hilt of the sword I felt a weight keeping me from grabbing it and looked up to see Lord Gastov stare down at me. He hefted his greatsword and leered down at me with barely contained fury.

Lair Action : Move Stone!

The wall beside me cracked open, rocks, minion concrete and tendrils shot out making a mess. In the chaos my new weapon was launched somewhere into the mist, leaving me without protection. Lord Gastov steadied himself and two of his warriors with poleaxes rushed me. I felt a tap on my shoulder and a tendril waved my cursed sword at me.

I didn’t care it was cursed at the moment and rushed back onto my feet just in time to twist out of the way of the deadly poleaxe’s head. I turned the twist into a downward cut, catching the undead warrior off guard and severing his leg clean off. The only leg armour they had was rotting quilted leggings and my sword tore through it like tissue paper.

The crystal continued to use its lair action to make obstacles for me and my foes, allowing me to fight them one at a time. My sword danced in my grip, pulling me along to jab at the weak points between the armour of my enemies, allowing me to break their brittle bones. With the close quarters nature of the fight, my sword’s shorter blade proved effective and forced my opponents to use daggers or fists. The dragon scale armour absorbed the worst of the impacts, reducing lethal hits into bruises, and nullifying any glancing blow into nothing.

I rasped and wheezed, feeling like my throat was full as sand as I thrust the length of my blade into the slat of a warrior’s helm, piercing through the back of it. I tore the blade out, tearing apart the rusted iron helmet and surveyed the fight around me.

Lair Action : Detect creatures in region

Undead 1

Human 1

“Lord Gastov, looks like it’s just you and me,” I huffed at the mist.

The visibility had dropped from all the dust, snow and vapour in the air. My eyes were full of tears and I couldn’t even see at an arm's length ahead of me. I was amazed I was still alive, and mentally thanked the crystal for all the distractions it had made. I also placed a hand on my heart and prayed for Lin thanking her for the gift, the armour being the only reason I was still alive.

“Orothalos guide my blade!”

I did not know if it was a spell, the mist or my own exhaustion, yet the voice seemingly came from everywhere around me, echoing and reverbing off the walls.

I saw movement at the edge of my vision and the cursed sword nearly tore itself from my grip as I was moved to block the incoming blow. I was too slow, too tired and too battered, and could only blame myself for not paying attention. Lord Gastov appeared in my face, and I felt a sudden tightness in my chest. A heavy, throbbing pain pulsed and I looked down to see his greatsword piercing through the white dragon scales. I opened my mouth to speak, and sputtered out blood onto Lord Gastov’s helmet.

“You have done well Lord Hale for a level three mage. If my ally had waited any longer to launch this siege it might have failed, and you could have become a truly formidable foe. Still, I shall remember you well for slaying a man twice your better,” Lord Gastov said solemnly.

I felt hot slimy liquid run down my chest and saw blood pool beneath my feet staining the stones. Lord Gastov turned the sword in his clutches, forcing me to stumble back, walking me somewhere.

“I told him I needed time to collect more power and flush my troops with more necrotic energy. After all the bonds holding them together was so fragile even you fledgling mage hands could break them. True undead foes are far more formidable, such as Sir Harrsal and I,” Lord Gastov explained, holding the greatsword in a single hand and waving his other as he spoke. “Oh, you don’t need that.”

He plucked the cursed sword from my hand and tossed it over his shoulder, bouncing it off the wall. I reached weakly towards the sound, using my other hand to grip the blade in me in the hopes to lessen the injury. My exhaustion was so great my body barely registered the chuck of steel piercing my innards.

“I-I actually have decent…strength,” I sputtered in vain. “Better look out…before I…b-beat you.”

Lord Gastov’s blazing eyes peered down at me with malevolence behind them, like a child looking at ants with a magnifying glass, ready to begin the inferno. “Oh my, a whole twelve, you are a strong mage aren't you? I bet you and your little darlings wrestle for fun and sometimes they let you win to think you're a big strong man that can protect them.”

I shivered as cold filled my body despite the roaring heat inside the mist. I fought back at the fury building in me from his prodding comments and leered back at him. Tendrils surged around Lord Gastov and tried to attack him, but he battered them away with a flaming glove. He continued to stare at me as if peeling away the layers that made me see what I looked like on the inside.

“Show me everything,” he sneered.

I tried to resist but Lord Gastov snapped his fingers, and murmured a spell that fell on my ears like drum beats.

Willpower check : Partial Success!

“A rather nice blend of stats, it's a shame you didn’t meet me in life, you would have made a fine addition to my officers. Perhaps I could have used you, a love potion and a bit of time. Once the witch bore your children I would have had leverage with her, and loyal mages to upbring, oh well that was another life,” Lord Gastov mused, bringing me to a halt. “Even at the brink of death you managed to claw back, only letting me peer at your stats. A shame, I would have loved to see some of the hidden tricks keepers get. So long, Lord Hale.”

“W-wait,” I rasped, blood pooling in my mouth. I weakly raised a hand and Lord Gastov peered at me with amusement. I felt all my fury build up and in a swift motion slammed my fist into his helmet and flipped him off. “You fuc-”

“Silence!” Lord Gastov reached out and tore my arm clean off, sending signals of alarm all through my body. He then swung his free fist into my chest, sending me off the end of his sword and into the air, towards the town above. “Begone foul keeper and say hello to Sir Harrsal for me!”

I felt my ribs implode and my lungs collapse. It was like I had been hit by a truck and my vision danced as I spun in the air and broke out of the hole in the ceiling. Time seemingly came to a halt at that moment. The world above was different now, without a single brick or stone of my town remaining, leaving only a peaceful, tranquil world of white. The world would continue even without me and my dungeon, like it had never existed in the first place. Snow slowly drifted past me, my momentum ceased and on the highest point of my flight it truly seemed time itself had stopped. Then, the moment of peace passed and I plummeted back to the ground going past Lord Gastov. I realized he had shoved me into the pool and closed my eyes as I hoped the boiling waters would be quick.

In the back of my mind I heard a whisper almost drowned out by my terrified heart beat. “More.”

Seconds from my demise and the crystal finally talked to me just to demand loot. This self entitled bastard couldn’t even let my last moments go in peace. I hit the surface of the boiling liquid seeing the pool was now only half full, but instead of agonizing death I sunk down below the surface.

Defend the dungeon!

Yeah I tried okay, and honestly we were doing pretty good there. We got it all the way down to just one guy, so give yourself a pat on the back crystal.

Keeper DEFENDS dungeon!

Yes, I am aware of that crystal. I felt the world slow down around me as tendrils slithered down under the water like a school of eels racing towards me. The crystal couldn’t even let me die in peace it seemed.

Defend the dungeon! Together!

My vision darkened, my consciousness slipped and I saw a prompt appear. It was made of blackened glass and all I could make out was a single option to hit yes. I reached out but felt confused, only now realizing my right arm was gone. I hoped my mental acceptance was all that was needed.

…

Through the mist I could see Lord Gastov strike his sword at the wall, the flaming blade carving a path towards the crystal. His gear glowed with resplendent light, a clear sign it was magically enchanted. I didn’t see him in the normal sense, more from a bird's eye view, and behind him I saw something climbing out of the pool.

Lord Gastov slowed, sensing something off. He turned to see my silhouette in the mist and he chuckled. “I hear you keepers were a pain to kill. In fact the word I heard was like an insect infestation.”

I didn’t reply, I didn’t know if I even could. The sound of steel sliding across stone could be heard and I crouched picking up two swords, the wight captain’s and my cursed sword.

“Hang on a second,” Lord Gastov said skeptically. “Is this your magic fox whore?”

“No,” I rasped on vocal cords that weren’t mine. “Allies safe.”

“So you are alone,” Lord Gastov flared up the fire on his sword and parted the mist.

“No,” I rasped. “We are together.”

The light of the blazing greatsword revealed my form and under my own control I stepped forward. My vision twisted and I saw Lord Gastov ahead of me, my vision now focused over my shoulder as I raised both blades and my lower arm’s fists.

“What foul magic is this?” Lord Gastov asked, taking a step back.

My arms were coated in a layer of fuzzy black fur and my hands ended in sharp claws. My tail swung behind me to balance my body and tendrils plunged into my back pumping in the fluid from the pool. I walked towards Lord Gastov, dragging my feet.

I could sense the tendrils digging through the tunnels grabbing rocks above from the battlefield and material from Burn’s shop. In my head I knew what it was doing, it was searching for drops of Yara’s blood, it was going to make a potion. The crystal found what it looked for and the hot drops of dried demon blood flowed down the tendrils collecting into one place. I just needed to buy time.

“My dungeon, my rules,” I wheezed, baring fangs that hadn’t been there before.

Lord Gastov had enough and instead charged. “Then you die here, Keeper Hale!”

I sprinted forward finding renewed vigour flowing through my veins as I brought both swords up in a crossguard to stop Lord Gastov. I made weak tendrils dart behind Lord Gastov and the undead knight broke our clash to swing at them. I ducked down, knowing the location of everything on the ground and picked up two more daggers before rushing at Lord Gastov again.

The mist might as well not exist for me, and I bounded around fallen blocks of stone on the ground to attack Lord Gasov flanks, each time pulling back and attacking again from another angle. The tendrils plugged into my back dried out one at a time and the crystal dragged more and more away from other tasks to take their place. I was burning away the keeper pool at an alarming rate, and had mere minutes remaining.

Lord Gastov swung at me with all his might, severing tendrils in my back.“Searing smite!”

I put up one of my many hands and shouted back. “Gust!”

I kicked off at the same time, rocketing back escaping before my spine was split. I moved back, fleeing to the edge of the pool and moving tendrils above me. I swapped my vision to directly above at will and when Lord Gastov came into view I flicked my wrist.

Lair Action : Move Stone!

Rocks fell from above and I flattened myself to sprint on my lower clawed hands and feet, skirting around the rocks. Lord Gastov evaded the worst of it and only a few brick sized chunks hit him.

“Stop running you foul abomination!” Lord Gastov cried. “The gods will reward me for ending you. Have you even seen what you have become? Just look at your character info.”

Joshua …xay’galsh… Hale, ??? Hybrid, ??? size, Level 6 (3+3) Keeper Hybrid

I bit my tongue and hid in the mist. My wild character information made me question what was going on. Whatever middle name it gave me stretched either way for seemingly miles in either direction and the only thing I could make sense of was that I was a hybrid. I could feel and do so much now at once being able to multitask on several things at once to the degree I felt like I was being overwhelmed.

I steadied myself and focused. In my mind's eye I saw the reagents combine and a successful attempt had been made to catalyze Yara’s blood with silver powder, liquor and scraps left from Burn’s obliterated workshop. The mixture was pumped down the tendrils and made its way directly into my heart. I needed this, we needed this to end the fight now.

Potion of Demonic Strength

+150 XP gained!

+8 Strength added!

“Come on you weak monster!” Lord Gastov taunted into the mist.

“I’ll show you weakness!” I screeched, running at Lord Gastov with both swords ready. I put my fuzzy lower arms behind me. “Gust!”

The mana crystal in the cloak sputtered, the last drop of mana squeezed out to give me a burst of speed as I flew towards the undead knight with both swords twisting towards his neck. I dug deep, draining more of the keeper pool and fried the ends of my magical veins as I forced every last drop out to cast one last spell I barely had a grip of.

“Fire blade!”

Lord Gastov was already bringing the greatsword up from his waist to swat me out of the sky, and I saw the rose gem on his breast flare with light as he channelled its power. “Searing Smite!”

We clashed, hitting each other with enough force to sear a house apart. There was some kind of overload of magic and a huge smoking blast of magic threw me into a wall, creating an impact crater. The tendrils plunging into my body failed against the abuse and severed, separating me from the crystal. The world rushed back to me and I was thrown back in my own head, to a body that was beyond spent and failing.

I slid down the wall, falling into a lump on the ground and watched my right arm burn away. My cloak fluttered in the breeze as a rush of air entered the holes in the ceiling and I couldn’t help but grin seeing the magic cloak had escaped all destruction. If Lin could get it back then she would have a matching set to her underwear.

“Funny…that's the last thing I think of,” I wheezed as I cackled like a hyena, forcing out the last bits of air in my damaged lungs.

I rested my head down and my eyes failed, turning the world hazing, grey and unknown. I forced every last bit of will I had to remain, just to see what would happen as pain started to set in, making my body scream in agony.

Quest complete!

Survived the first dungeon siege!

+1000 XP awarded to the keeper

+1000 XP awarded to the keeper crystal

+1000 XP awarded to all assisting parties

Defeated a great foe, Sir Harrsal

+155 XP awarded to the keeper

+155 XP awarded to the keeper crystal

Defeated a great foe, Lord Gastov

+575 XP awarded to the keeper

+575 XP awarded to the keeper crystal

Defeated foes

+378 awarded to all parties

…

The list went on and on calculating for all the undead, gnomes and flying pigs swatted out of the air. I forced a smile on my face confident in the fact that my friends gained a lot of experience for this too. At least I could die with a smile on my face. The world around me was now a sea of the unknown, and all I could feel was my pulse slowing, and slowing.

Then it was just one last beat, and it stopped. The floor around me rumbled,I chalked it up to some more rocks collapsing off the ceiling and relaxed. Something shook my body, and I wondered if the floor had collapsed too.

Joshua Hale has died.