Sell you a Bridge chapter 107

Hell October 29th 2010 8:00 PM EDT

Level  fifteen was mostly done. With the extra power and my massive boost in  skill from the constant Outer Body Training nothing down here so far had  really been able to give us trouble. Between my training hours of daily  training with the Warlord, fifty dexterity, my King's Sword of Haste,  my reflexes, my ability to teleport, and my three dimensional movement  from my flight I was basically a fucking walking nightmare in combat.  I'd drastically cut down on how many points I'd been spending lately and  with the Outer Body Training I was still gaining proficiency in my  active skills.

The process of carving our way through the  level had spiked my level from forty two to forty five, a jump of three  levels that proved our new efficiency and power more than anything else.  It had taken a twenty day grind to get the seven levels we'd gotten in  October, but we managed three in five days down here. Between the more  powerful and experience heavy monsters and our increased killing speed  and efficiency we'd made some massive gains without even a boss to kill.  Of course, that lack of a boss had to come to an end eventually.

Eventually  in this case being the final real battle before the end of the dungeon  where we would fight Annabel. I'd expected the staff that would lead us  to the Archbishop would be in some kind of expansive hall or room full  of enemies, but in the end it was pretty underwhelming. More of a  whimper than a bang as it were, when we found the staff tucked into a  small rack in the back of some tiny back room. Despite the obscure  location though the description after we identified it was perfectly  plain about what it was. The Staff of Lazarus.

Rather than  just trigger the boss fight though we stopped to talk over how this was  going to go. Zee was the first person to state the obvious. "This is  going to fall pretty heavily on you Morgan. Reggie's explosives and  Kit's guns have been getting a boost from Artemis and the anvil, and my  golems have gotten pretty damn good, but all three of these bosses are  magic immune. I can counter Lazarus's magic even if my own spells wont  work on him, but the Succubi are physical fighters. With the other three  keeping the normal Succubi busy, you're going to have to face them both  with pretty much no backup while I pin down Lazarus."

I  nodded. I'd figured that. Lazarus was the big threat, and we couldn't  let him go unchecked. His bodyguards were monstrously powerful (no pun  intended) and were bosses of their own. Considering the pack of Succubi  surrounding him though Reggie, Artemis, and Kit would have their hands  full so I would be left facing Red Vex and Black Jade. I doubted they  were as skilled as the Warlord, but I also assumed they were much higher  level, and they could use magic to boot. This would be a hell of fight,  no pun intended.

But waiting  wouldn't help us any. I wanted to wait honestly, wanted it badly. I was  getting nervous as we got closer to the end of the labyrinth. I had this  terrible pit in my stomach, though whether it was a prediction of  trouble to come or just guilt and horror at the thought of killing  Annabel with my own hands I didn't know. Because that was the only way  this ended. I'd looked for alternatives for months but in the end  killing her was the only thing we could do. She'd already gathered too  much power to be let loose, but even with everything she'd done the idea  made me sick.

I  felt arms wrap around me as I looked up to find Zee staring into my  eyes. "It's ok to feel sad you know?" I cocked an eyebrow and she just  chuckled and kissed me sweetly. "About Annabel. Sure she turned out to  be crazy, but you really cared about her. I can't imagine what you must  be going through right now. The only person I've ever been in love with  is you, and if I had to kill you myself, no matter what you did to  deserve it." She shuddered, closing her eyes in grief and pain. "I can't  imagine it. I can do it, if you want? Finish it for you? If you think  it would help."

I  smiled and leaned down to catch her lips in a kiss of my own. "No. I  appreciate it but I need to do this myself. Plus I have to use my gun to  finish it. She's partly a god now and I need to make sure it takes."  Left unsaid was the worry that if I let Zee kill Annabel for me I might  come to resent her for doing it. I'd lost one girlfriend already, I  wasn't ready to lose another to my own cowardice. She just looked at me  sadly and nodded, then stepped back. I handed her the staff. "Alright,  no reason to put this off, we're as fresh as we're getting." I closed my  eyes, took a deep breath and nodded to my girlfriend. "Do it."

I  felt the whoosh of displaced air as the portal was cast, and when I  opened my eyes I was looking into the blood red event horizon of a gate  to the Archbishop. The staff opened it here instead of next to the  pentagram like I'd expected, but to be fair we didn't need Cain to do  this either so it seemed like the dungeon was just streamlining things  for us since we had no access to Tristram. I turned to regard my team,  all of them looking serious as a heart attack, and nodded, receiving the  same gesture in response as I turned and led the way into the blazing  red of the portal that would take us to fight a legendary monster of a  man.

The trip  through the portal was, as always, instantaneous and almost  unnoticeable. As soon as we arrived a wave of shining bolts of power  came flashing at us, but with my reflxes creating a Hole and swallowing  them all up took minimal effort. The power my shadow dancing gave me  allowed me to move the Hole through the air to intercept them instead of  simply spawning a bunch of them in place to intercept. It cost about a  hundred points to manage it but still, I was able to keep the Hole  active after I used it so I only had to spend that once.

From  there we had to wipe out the Succubi. It was long, tedious, and  honestly pretty distracting. The sex demonesses were all scantily glad  and very well endowed and seeing them bounce around was enough to make  me hesitate for a second until Zee zapped me with her lightning. I gave  her a sheepish smile and blocked out all the bare flesh as we fought our  way through hordes of the damn demons, and I was lucky we were all  wearing armor because one Hole was not enough to counter a so many of  the bolts. There were so many of them I actually got a level, bringing  me up to forty six, before we finally got to the final room. We stopped  to refuel and get ready before we went through the portal, and finally  made our way into the mad bishop's lair.

The  first thing I did when we entered was point the Hole at the Archbishop  and unleash the collective energy of all those bursts. Because they were  all the same type of energy and the Hole was fairly small, they had  been condensing down into a massively powerful version of the attack and  when I let it loose I saw Lazarus's eyes go wide. Sadly he teleported  out of the way of the blast, but his distress and the explosion from the  massive burst leveling one of the walls of this very famliar dungeon  area threw him off balance enough for us to get into position and start  the fight.

We  all leapt into action, focusing on our targets, and I went after Black  Jade and Red Vex with a quick teleport into a surprise attack. After my  time training with the Warlord in my Outer Body trance, I'd made a ton  of progress perfecting my use of a blade, and my instantaneous attack  was on a whole different level in terms of speed and form. I rook one of  Black Jade's wings off when I appeared between them, but that bit of  initiative was all I managed before they were one me.

While  neither had the Warlords unnatural skill or technique, they were both  faster than I could have imagined and they fought with a sort of primal  animalistic style that gave me very few openings. Their claws were sharp  as razors and seemed to seek out any opening in my form, not to mention  they functioned as a perfect combo, moving instinctively in tandem. I  had a gross thought and prayed mentally that Lazarus had been training  his busty Succubi to move in perfect lockstep for combat situations like  this and not for sex. Because come on, he was so OLD.

I  focused my efforts on Black Jade first, she was already injured and I  tried to use the pain she was in to force an opening. It took a few  minutes but I got a chance and shoved my blade into her guts, jerking it  out sideways and ripping her open as I spun away from an attack from  her partner. Red Vex was pretty cold, she barely even noticed her sister  Succubus get eviscerated, but barely is still something. That second of  hesitation gave me another opening and I took Red Vex apart within  seconds before turning to finish Black Jade off.

With  literally not a second of hesitation I spun and shadow ported across  the room, bringing my sword down on Lazarus from right behind him,  distracting him from casting a nasty immolation spell on my girlfriend  as he instinctively raised a shield to protect himself. I was fucking  exhausted, my skin caked with sweat and my whole body burning, but I  kept pushing. I noted another level up, possibly two, hanging in the  corner of my vision but I ignored it, focusing completely on my form as I  drove an attack at the back of the corrupt Archbishop.

Lazarus  had already been in trouble from Zee, but his magic immunity had  protected him from the worst of it. Now though he was facing a melee  fighter with a sword faster than he could track, and I managed to start  opening small cuts as he tried to bounce his attention back and forth  between the two of us. Finally, with one last roar of effort I impaled  Lazarus through the heart, feeling yet another level up hit me and  putting me at level forty nine, just shy of reaching my cap.

Mentally  I opened my character sheet and dumped the stats into my points  category, hitting three hundred and ninety five points of income per  day, and then slumped to the ground, gasping. I panted in exertion as I  lay there, Zee keeping a shield up to stop me from getting hurt after I  overdid it. I realized looking back that I had put way too much into  this fight. I'd rushed and ignored my safety because I was upset about  Annabel and I'd almost gotten killed for it, but checking their auras as  they came up to check on me I noticed none of my friends were angry.  Well Kit was kind of pissed but she rarely wasn't.

I  sat up slowly with a groan. Looking chagrined at my friends who had  just come off killing a dozen Succubi while we handled the bosses. I  smiled weakly. "Guess we finished them off." I looked around, noting the  stone walls and familiar flooring and looked over at the Succubi. "Hey,  did you guys notice Lazarus had a literal sex dungeon?" I took heart in  the fact that even Kit burst out laughing at that. I also made a  promise to myself to be more careful, but I wasn't too worried. This was  the second to last fight. It was almost over now. The dungeon would be  gone soon.