Exhilaration gripped his heart as he raced across the windswept plains after condensing a full night’s sleep into little over an hour at the safest and most secure spot he could hope to find pretty much anywhere. Within his own Tier 2 Ascension Facility, impermeable to anyone who didn’t take the oath now binding his facility, the only price for admittance Eric would ever charge.

Of course, if actual Bronze Tier hitmen somehow got the green light to invade Earth and come for his head, they could easily break through. But at that point it wouldn’t matter what he did, he was a dead man walking, so he refused to even worry about it.

Instead he reveled in galloping across the plains with the crisp autumn air blowing in his face, redolent with the sharp tang of wild grass, the tantalizing fragrance of a thousand blossoming wildflowers, and the heady taste of adventure in the air. At that moment there was no place he’d rather be than at the vanguard of a company of cavalry he thought would do even Attila proud.

Because historically nothing beat cavalry for an invading force trying to claim as much territory as they could, as fast as possible, tearing through enemy flanks when and where least expected. The best part was that his glorious undead cavalry didn’t need food, drink, rest, or working vital organs.

He howled in sheer exhilaration at the evening sky as the final crimson rays of the setting sun lit up the clouds to fiery gold wonder, before being replaced with the cool blue of night’s grace.

Eric took a deep, exhilarated breath as his cavalry stopped right at the border between Blue Corp Territory and the rusty red of orc clan holdings, feeling the border like a subtle pressure against his soul. He felt it almost as distinctly as the twenty by twenty mile chunk of orc-owned territory was dileanated in his tactical interface map. A map that his tuskers could now sense and access just as well as he could. Which would allow them to head straight for the blinking reds he just knew would a light up a Christmas tree the moment he crossed that barrier.

But before he took that fateful step, best he make sure all his tools were at the ready.

He leaped of his mount and very carefully took out each of the cannon cartridges he had made, mirroring the gunner’s he had taken out, almost perfectly. Exactly 2 seconds later, he took out his brace of what were now four cannons, one without any after he had made a very thorough keep inventory before heading out. The most recently claimed one was without any mount or carriage, but that hardly mattered with all of them now fitted in a framework of undead flesh, bone, and extremely tough beast hide, the entirety faced in crimson spirit beast scales and iron slabs he had found a surprising number of, back in the keep that would soon be Ashland’s first inn. Nick had made it clear they were components to what would have been additional fortifications, had the orders to move north not come down the line so quickly. And that was alright, Eric thought with a smirk. Because he was damn well going to be bringing those iron slabs north for a little reunion he hoped those bastards would never forget.

As far as a final test of his ordinance, knowing better than to trust ESS intuition alone, transferring them directly into the cannons was perfect solution to not having them blow up in his face. If any abruptly discharged, it would be right out the barrel of a cannon, just as originally intended.

Eric flashed a fierce smile when not one of his ready-made cartridges earned any warning from his mad bomber perk, not even when he changed them out in sets of 4, smacking each of his 4 cannons, able to fully switch them out in almost exactly 2 seconds, perhaps 15 times faster than even the best cannoneers could manage at the time of the revolution.

Eric frowned as the northern wind whipped the locks of hair always slipping free of his mithril helm. He had felt the slightest tingle of uncertainty the very last charge in the rightmost long gun, and didn’t hesitate to reabsorb it and disassemble it in his minds eye. He didn’t know what the problem was exactly, but he wasn’t about to take chances, able to fit together a smaller charge with less shot to be used for that cannon, on the off chance it was a structural issue.

Fortunately, no other charge or cannon gave him any concerns, though he did have an idea for the carriage-less cannon that was basically just a massively heavy cast-iron tube, and definitely was of lower quality than the others long guns, for all that it had no gross flaws or defects that he could sense.

“Dicio,” he whispered, stumbling to one knee as a full 450 Mana and Qi flooded out of his soul, the blood-rune he marked in the cannon glowing a silver hue for a long moment as he lost another fat chunk of experience, now way too close to scraping the bottom of the potency barrel and harvesting his life force once more.

He winced as he got back to his feet, glaring at his cannon.

Congratulations! You’ve managed to bind your cannon with a blood rune! Poor Quality cannon has been elevated to Above Average Quality! Infused with the power of Dominion means compressive forces won’t be allowed to destroy what you have claimed!

Your cannon is less likely to rupture from overcharged cartridges favored by Gunner Classers! Your cannon is less likely to be affected by enemy spells!

Runic Lore is now Rank 4!

Eric chuckled softly, cursing under his breath. He had dared to follow his impulse, not worrying about consequences compared to revelation’s boon. But strengthening a single cannon had both eaten into his free experience pool and nearly knocked him out, even with the additional level up points he had sensed slowly sliding into his Arcane Reserves after the afternoon hours he had spent learning the basics of stringing together runic chants.

He smiled as he mentally replied to Billy’s question, why he bothered practicing with the sling when he had blaster rifles at his disposal.

“Because charges run out, and kill titles and their stat bonuses last forever.” Eric said aloud, putting away his cannons in the blink of an eye, and carefully making a second tight burlap ball filled with 17 pounds of steel balls covered in blood and blazing at a good 4000 degrees. “Because I’m not just firing a single musket ball sized shot, but dozens of them, each of them dense enough to crack mortal bones and hot enough to melt right through steel, and distract any enemies who survive the initial hit.”

Which was why he was making a second grapeshot bag, so he could unleash two sprays of deadly superheated shot with his sling before having to resummon either one, giving it extra time to sear through his foes.

And as much as he knew he was toeing the line, at risk of expending the entirety of what had been a sweet fat experience point buffer before he started tapping into his own life force, he was pleased to find he had measured thing perfectly, finally getting credit for his hyper intensive use of what had been Professional class skills long before he had finally gotten the class.

You have successfully soul-bound one additional 16 pound hemp bag filled with superheated grapeshot!

Blood Mastery is now Rank 26!

Heat Surge is now Rank 11!

You are now a Level 5 Master Necromancer!

Best of all, his stat points were now fully invested, split between Finesse, Arcane Potential, and Soul Reserves. Because the real reason why he had been working so hard at improving his coordination, accuracy, and spells, was that then his stat boosts felt like earned rewards, as if a few hours effort had been enough to boost his mind and body both.

He smirked, knowing just how absurd it was. But at least stat increases that had occurred while he had spent the day lost in the zen of training or earlier, in the heat of desperate combat, didn’t feel like cold cybernetic claws slithering through his brain.

He shuddered at the very thought, oddly grateful that the System, as if sensing his unease, was no longer offering to instantly boost his stats immediately upon level-up, but effectively was making him earn it, his banked points only infusing the stats he deliberately focused on.

Far from feeling punished, Eric was grateful for the change.

He took a quick final look at the stat page of his condensed character sheet before giving a satisfied nod, only now daring to enter a fresh territory to conquer, well aware that the present owner just got a blaring message stating that he had been invaded, and exactly where Eric had entered.

Because he didn’t plan on sticking around right there for long, immediately straddling his mount before galloping across the plains at speeds only a spirit beast, or the undead remnant of one, could hope to match.

_____________________________________

Eric Silver Level 17 Primal Adventurer

Rank 20 Cultivator

Level 5 Master Necromancer

Physical Characteristics

Strength – 140

Vitality – 169

Finesse – 88

Quickness – 127

Appearance – 19

Mental Characteristics

Scholarship – 17

Perception – 80

Willpower – 48

Charisma – 13

Potency Pools

Arcane Potential – 47

(Mana Pool = 564)

Spiritual Energy – 147

(Qi Pool = 1764)

Soul Reserves – 79 (71)

Stamina – 1710 Points

Health – 2200 Points.

Resistances & Recovery

Physical Resistance – 26

Physical Regeneration – 14.9 health per second

Elemental Resistance – 3

Qi Resistance – 25

Mental Resistance – 12

Primal Adventurer Powers

1. Runic Lore. - Rank 4

Greater runes known: Wood (herbam), Wind (ventus), Fire (ignis), Wrath (iram), Dominion. (dicio)

Lesser runes known: One (unus), Many (plures), Now (hodie), Sun Duration (dies), Weaken (debilito), Strengthen (roboro)

2. Unified Restoration – Rank 2

Cultivation Affinities

Wind / Wood / Fire

Qi Skills

Fire Fist – Rank 2

Windfire Strike – Rank 3

Necromancer Perks:

Basic Class Perks

All necromantic (and blood magic) skill use is modified by Master Necromancer Level.

All Summoned & Forged undead have their potency enhanced by Master Necromancer Level.

All spells conjuring forth any number of creatures have summoned total modified by Master Necromancer Level.

One additional enhanced class perk is earned every 2 Master Necromancer levels.

Enhanced Class Perks:

1. Soul Orb: Tier 1

2. Undead Legion: Tier 1

3. Undead Tactical Interface map access.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Eric’s heart raced with exhilaration when an enormous fort comprised of incredibly massive logs came into view, 80 Perception and Infravision giving a luminescence and crystalline clarity to an overcast night that would be pitch black to any mortal, even the stars covered by brooding clouds once more. A part of him thought that maybe, just maybe, his sister was behind it. Not because she had any way of sensing his mad suicidal charge calculated to ease the pressure on her and buy her time, but simply to make it that much harder for orc or human gunners to bombard them effectively at night, buying them a precious 12 hours of near pitch blackness.

Only problem with that theory was that she was still a good 50+ miles away. Which meant either massive weather control spanning several territories was involved, or it was the blind luck of nature… or Elonia really was aware of his gambit.

Either way, Eric would happily take full advantage, having to suppress an excited shout when he spotted his first clusters of reds, orc conscripts scouting with the fields bsurrounding the keep in all directions with torches and muskets. Even if that meant that most of them were snoring in heaps on the ground with one glaring orc in each cluster keeping watch.

Eric slipped right past them, pretty sure their only real function was to alert the chieftain or shaman where exactly trouble was coming from with their untimely deaths.

So Eric’s company of tuskers slowed their pace, slipping between the handfuls of scattered nightwatchmen like the joke they were, and Eric soon found himself gazing at the fort in the distance, not surprised to see what looked like dozens of conscripts on battlements forged of wood that he could only surmise had been a System sanctioned upgrade, because their size dwarfed even a sequoia's impressive girth.

But he paid little mind to the musket-wielding soldiers peering with confused eyes into the inky darkness. His only real concern at that distance were the multiple cannon he spotted on the battlements. Eric peered hard at the pair manned by what looked like a small team of orcs. None of them were gazing into the darkness with a killer’s eye, and more importantly, none of them were human classers.

But the real tell, as he slowly approached, realizing he didn’t even have to feint with his tuskers, not yet, anyway, was that none of them appeared mounted on the sliding swivel platforms that seemed to be a major tell for classers, human or otherwise. Or at least for the pair of gunners that had come damn close to killing Eric the night before.

From what he could tell at his present range and angle, none of these cannons were secured by anything but the crudest of mounts. Which meant that the odds of them actually pivoting and turning in time with his mounts when they began circling the keep should be pretty close to zero.

But for now, best they have no clue he was there at all, he thought as he continued to weave past groups of halfheartedly patrolling orcs kind enough to announce their presence with torches and lanterns, Eric’s Dominion Interface showcasing all the various clusters all he needed to slip past the shockingly wide gaps in their lackadaisical security.

His heart began racing with excitement as he approached 400 yards and truly began to appreciate just how insane was what he was about to do. Lazy fucks or not, he was one man daring to take on an entire keep of a force that had pushed the Sylvan Alliance back countless territories.

A thought that just make the madness he dared to embrace that much sweeter, that much more visceral as he began his final 400 yard sprint to the keep, racing at a furious pace he couldn’t have even dream about the year before. He could only pray that he wasn’t playing the fool, that no goblin elites had managed to booby trap the field outside the keep, that no clever Classer had Eric in his sights, ready to pull the trigger even as he leaped for the keep wall, inhuman strength allowing him to clamp down and scale the roughly hewn wooden logs with surprising ease. Then he was gazing up at the lip of the battlement as the raucous sound of board restless orcs and the stink of their porcine flesh reeked far worse than his beloved tuskers ever had.

He carefully placed his fingertips on the top of one of the crenelations, knowing that if he had been at all off in his estimations, he would soon be eating a massive load of grapeshot in his face...

Finesse check made!

Iado skillcheck made! You tear through your opponents like the soft bags of juicy meat that they are!

Then he was flipping over the side, drawing and cleaving in the blink of an eye, tearing through first one, then a handful of orcs, a full dozen falling with screams and groans to his flashing mithril blade now filling the air with loops of entrails, crimson mist, and the sharp tang of death before his enemies could even register what was happening.

By the time his enemies locked their beedy little confused eyes on his person, mithril alloy had already flickered through another half dozen chests and skulls so fast that Eric was sprinting past them before decapitated skulls could even finish their descent, bodies slowly tumbling over in gushers of blood before finally the night rang with confused cries, porcine squeals, and desperate screams.

Screams silenced with the flash of a blaster, Eric going from frenzied berserker to ice cold hunter in the blink of an eye as over a hundred feet worth of battlements were cleared of anything but dying orcs gazing at the crimson showers coming pouring their wrists, trying to scream from throats that could spurt only blood.

Then Eric was racing forward, time seeming to slow and stretch as he locked eyes with the furious countenance of massive orc Gunner, an obvious Classer, who didn’t seem nearly as slow as everyone else as he twisted around and leaped away from his cannon, thinking nothing of knocking smaller orcs out of the way as he snarled and pulled out what look chillingly like an HK MP7.

Before stumbling back, eyes gazing up with confused disbelief at the massive hole in its forehead, before it stumbled over in death.

Soon to be followed by every other orc in close proximity to the cannon battery.

You have critically struck your targets with Mark I Blaster Carbine!

Level 27 Gunner has perished!

Level 15 Gunner has perished!

12 auxiliary orcs designated as: Assistant Gunners have perished!

Gunnery is now Rank 3!

Then Eric was slamming aside the still dying bodies of several orcs, desperate to claim the pair of treasures that had been secured by only the crudest of mounts, despite having not one but two Gunner Classers among their number.

Had they been expecting him? Had Classers been sent back North as an emergency measure, but they hadn’t had time to bring their 3 tonne guns, or properly modify the older ones still left in the keep, or was it more a matter of race and class limitations? Perhaps only sell-out humans who themselves enjoyed native privilages, limited as they sometimes seemed to be, were aloud to modify their 17th century technology to the point it got damn close to World War I artillery. Much like only natives could make use of necromancy and blood magic.

Eric wasted only a moment on pointless questions before ruthlessly stilling his mind once more, expunging everything save the need to tear through his foes before they did the same to him, as he gazed upon countless orcs looking his way.

It was an act that, at any other time, would have been nothing short of madness as upwards of a hundred musketeers and gunners peered his way with various expressions of shock, outrage, and confused disbelief the battlements adjoining his own. There was no hope that slinger or javelineer could hope to keep up with a hundred musketeers. No matter how low abysmally low their Quickness or Percepiton, or stunned they might be for just a handful of seconds.

And that would have been true, even for Eric, at any other time save now, when he held a normally wildly illegal arcane blaster in his hands. A blaster with limited charges that he dared use without restraint only here and now, making absolute full use of Perception and Finesse at 80 or higher, and a Quickness that had already hit the triple digits.

His fingers were a blur, though Demolitions, Mad Bomber, and a steadily blossoming Gunnery skill kept his fingers at the optimum speed and pressure for maximum damage without his weapon overheating and blowing up in his face as the night flashed with tight beams of plasma striking every orc inhuman Perception spotted by cannons that would never be fired by any Orisinian again, if Eric had anything to say about it.

And his roaring plasma blaster had quite a lot to say about it indeed.

Until a stray musket ball and a one in a million shot hit his arcane blaster exactly where it shouldn’t, and it was only be dint of Danger Sense and Mad Bomber screaming desperate warning that he was able to hurtle it away before it exploded into the rapidly charging band of orcs racing around battlements, buying a momentarily stunned Eric a few precious moments of time as he darted behind the crude inner parapet that was still enough to protect against musket balls if nothing else, quickly scanning his Interface for the key messages he needed to see, before preparing for his next mad dash.