NOVEL SIMPLE Chapter 63: Heart Of The Graveyard
Hiral used his Rune of Rejection to leap from one mausoleum rooftop to the next, completely bypassing the narrow paths between, while still being able to track the dragging corpses.
“I’ve got to be ten rows back and counting,” Hiral said into the party chat. “No sign of the source yet.”
“Same here,” Seeyela replied. “Lots of corpses though. Sis, your pets made a mess out… Wait, something’s different. A building more like a church of some kind. Hiral, you see one?”
Hiral leapt across another narrow path and, yes, there, two more rows back, something stretched further into the sky. A massive stone steeple stood at least two hundred feet at its tallest point, while the thick roof lay at about half the height. A pair of quick jumps landed him on the ground in front of huge double doors standing conveniently open. Dozens of corpses were getting unceremoniously dragged up the front steps. The bodies rolled and bucked across familiar glowing roots grown along the stairs, their blue light almost strobing as the masses of flesh passed.
“Found the church,” Hiral said, hands resting on the hilts of his RHCs. “Definitely something going on inside here.” But maybe the front door isn’t the best choice. Fingers tapping his weapons, Hiral peered at the front of the large church. Up there, just where the roof met the steeple, was a window large enough for him to fit through. “I’m going in. Seeyela, window under the steeple might be our best entrance.
“I see it,” she said. “Good eye.”
“High attunement,” Hiral said. Leaving his RHCs on his thighs, he Rejected himself up to the high window. “How’s everybody doing with the Mid-Boss?”
“Whittling him down,” Seena said. “He seems to be getting faster, though. Don’t dally.”
“Not planning to,” Hiral said, snagging the windowsill in his hands and pulling himself the rest of the way up. As soon as he got his feet on the narrow ledge, he unconsciously pushed Attraction into his soles to help keep his balance, then drew his weapons.
Just one way to go if he wanted to find the source of the second dynamic quest, and Hiral hopped from the windowsill down to one of the wide beams fifteen feet below. Landing silently thanks to a last-second use of Rejection, he quick-stepped along the beam until he reached about the middle of the huge church hall. There only looked to be one room, twice as wide as it was tall, and three times as long.
Oh, and he could see what was hanging from the dangling roots now: corpses. Of course they were corpses. But they weren’t Lizardmen like the ghouls or other undead had been. No, these were… Troblins?
Mummified Troblins.
Wonderful decorations for a church.Where do I sign up to worship?
Jokes—and creepy décor—aside, Hiral still hadn’t spotted the source of the quest. Then again, with the corpses below all getting dragged in a single direction, there was only one place it could be, so he quietly padded along the rafter until he got to the other end of the church. Glancing down, he finally spotted what he was looking for… and it wasn’t good.
“Uh, guys,” he whispered into the party chat, “I’ve got a second Mid-Boss here.”
There, on a raised dais at the front of the hall, stood a hunched-over creature—no bigger than a child, really—with a bulbous Lizardman head and a stunted tail. Oddly, it stood in the center of a circle of glowing roots that seemed to branch in all directions, across the floor and up the walls. The thing didn’t look like much, but the tag above its head showed it wasn’t something to be dismissed easily.
(Mid-Boss – Undead) – Heart of the Graveyard – Unknown Rank
At least its name explains what it is.
“And I’ve got a third,” Seeyela said.
“Mid-Bosses?” Seena asked back, surprise in her voice. “This stupid knight is still at forty percent, so we aren’t going to be able to disengage anytime soon. You should come back, then we’ll move out as a party.”
Hiral didn’t immediately retreat at Seena’s suggestion. Below him, the Mid-Bossremained focused on whatever it was doing to draw the corpses to it, and it certainly wasn’t an A-Rank beast yet. If it was, it would definitely say that in the tag above its large head. Like the other undead Hiral had seen, blue flames glowed in its eye sockets, and lines of blue tears ran down its cheeks. Which meant, also like those other undead, a good shot to the unprotected head should be enough to put it down.
This is my chance to end the Mid-Boss before it becomes a threat.
With that in mind, Hiral soundlessly drew his RHCs and aimed both barrels at the unsuspecting Lizardman, then pulled the triggers. Searing bolts of Impact cut a line through the darkness… then exploded against a blue root lifting into the air.
Chunks of glowing blue plant matter erupted through the church, somehow entirely missing the strange Mid-Boss, which turned an almost casual look in Hiral direction. Flaming eyes met Hiral’s, and another plant lifted into the air between them and waved back and forth, much like a large finger waggling and scolding a child.
Then, in the blink of an eye, dozens more roots swept up and entombed the small Lizardman in a long tunnel of glowing blue.
What in the Fallen’s names?
“Hiral!” Seeyela said over the voice chat. “It controls the roots. Watch out for the…” She cut off.
“Seeyela? Sis? You okay?” Seena asked, but there was no reply.
But Hiral didn’t have time to worry about his party member. His eyes traced the blue roots along the floor, up the walls, and then out to the very rafters he stood on. Could the Lizardman control the roots all the way up there?
A shuffling sound behind him, and Hiral spun with his weapons drawn, expecting to find dozens of roots rearing up to lash out at him. What he found, instead, was one of the mummified Troblins pulling itself up on to the wide beam, the glowing blue root wound around its throat and then into its mouth.
(Undead) Mummified Troblin Puppet – Mid-D-Rank
Hiral pulled the trigger and blew the small creature’s head clean off. Mid-D-Rank and not elite? Not much of a threat on its own. But, he realized as dozens upon dozens of roots snaked into the air to deposit their puppets on the latticework of rafters, they were very much not on their own.
Another shuffle, closer behind him, and Hiral half-turned before pulling the trigger again. Another Troblin puppet’s head burst, and the thing toppled over the side to hang like it had before. Well, except without a head this time. That’d bought Hiral a couple of seconds, but what was he going to do with them?
He could drop down to the floor seventy feet below, his Rune of Rejection softening his landing, but the undead would just follow him. And, if he’d learned one thing since they’d come to the undead city, a little thing like a seventy-foot fall might slow some of the monsters down, but it wouldn’t stop them. Not to mention the other ghoul corpses already down there.
Two triggers pulls, and Hiral killed the next two Troblins that got close to him. Honestly, he could keep this up all day. They weren’t moving fast enough to overwhelm him, and they died easily. Except… every second he wasted up there was another second the Heart of the Graveyard had to finish whatever it was up to. Ghoul bodies were already slipping inside the tunnel of roots it’d created. No, he couldn’t waste time playing with the Troblins. Or down below for that matter. He needed to do something decisive.
Possibly reckless.
With that thought in mind, Hiral’s eyes went from the domed tunnel on the floor below to the section of rafters directly above it. It wasn’t far, really, only about thirty feet away, and Hiral pulled each trigger once more. That cleared out two more Troblins between him and his destination, and he started that way.
As if the Mid-Boss knew he was up to something, dozens of the roots snapped through the air to deposit their Troblins on the rafters between him and the spot he’d just cleared a path to. No, it wasn’t anything nearly that cunning, he realized as more Troblins were swung to the rafters behind him.
One more pair of shots, just to build up Killing Spree+, and Hiral sheathed his weapons, then turned his attention to another of his runes. Like he often did with his sword, Hiral tethered his Gravity to the center of the beam he stood on. Not the surface or one of the sides, but the true center of the wood, so it almost felt like it was trying to pull his feet straight through the top of the beam.
Then, with a deep breath and a small hope he wasn’t going to regret it, Hiral stepped over the side.
Like he was standing on a fulcrum, down suddenly became forward, and the bottom of his foot landed smoothly on the side of the beam. Which… was now down for him.
His stomach and brain both flipped at the sudden change in reference, but then he took it one step further by moving around to the previous bottom of the beam. The whole world flipped again, the floor far below becoming his ceiling, and he found himself standing on the bottom of the beam. Every part of him pulled towards his feet, and he was sure that if he’d still had hair, it would’ve been falling towards his shoulders.
One of the Troblins fell past him with a raspy snarl, then snapped when the root reached the end of its length, effectively hanging the undead monster and breaking its neck. Not that it slowed the monster down, as its clawed hands were still reaching for him.
The roots would be able to reach him if he didn’t do anything, so he crouched down—up? Whatever—and put his hand on the beam. Focusing on the Mummified Troblin Puppets, Hiral activated his Rune of Attraction, effectively gluing their feet to the beam where they stood. With so many of them, though, the effect would only last a few seconds at most, so Hiral stood and dashed along the bottom of the rafter.
As he approached the spot directly above where the circle of roots had been—or as close as he could guess—he unsheathed the Emperor’s Greatsword from his back. A thread of solar energy ignited the end of the blade, and a second pulse tethered it to the dome below him.
One more deep breath, and then Hiral crouched and leapt off the beam with a simultaneous burst of Rejection at the same time he cut off his Rune of Gravity. Pouring energy into the sword, he increased its weight more than sixty times as it hauled him through the air.
With two thirds of the distance covered in a heartbeat, Hiral let go—the sword streaking ahead of him—while he blasted out a cone of Rejection to slow his fall. His weapon punched through the top of the glowing roots like they weren’t even there, and then Hiral hit them like a wrecking ball.
The wave he used to slow himself blew apart the weakened roots at the same time the massively heavy sword cratered the floor below, and his foot landed on the pommel of his own weapon within the tunnel. A quick look showed no corpse beneath the weapon, and he glanced ahead within the shaft of glowing blue roots to spot a mass of writhing flesh in a grotesque ball.
Hiral didn’t need any notifications to tell him what was happening, so he hopped off the pommel of the sword and took the hilt in his hand. Another thread of solar energy reduced the weight to something more manageable, and he ripped the weapon free from the wooden floor.
Then he simply darted ahead and swung, increasing the weight as he went. Razor-sharp energy cleaved through the roots as the sword passed, and Hiral tethered the sword to the ball. Weight again at more than sixty times its original, the blade slammed into it with the force of a runaway carriage before tearing straight through it.
Blood and gore followed the blade in its wide arc, and Hiral quickly undid the weight on it, cut his swing short, and took another step forward. His next swing, with just as much weight, carried his blade through the grisly ball a second time, and even though he was up to his wrists in the mess, he felt just a second of resistance to the swing. When the sword exited the ball this time, it carried some kind of black ichor in its wake, the stuff spitting and hissing where it hit the floor.
Hiral backstepped with the help of his Rune of Rejection to escape before any of the strange liquid landed on him. He cocked his sword back in preparation to hurl it with all his strength at the fleshy ball, but a notification window popped up in front of his eyes.
Dynamic Quest: Update
One less thing stirs in the darkness.
Heart of the Graveyard slain (1/2)