Congratulations, Garath! For reaching level 23, you are awarded 3 Attribute Points (3 per level) and 1 Skill Point (1 per level) to distribute at your discretion. As a Necrologist, you receive +3 Wisdom, + 3 Vitality, and +1 Regeneration per level. You have one week to distribute the points before they are assigned for you based on your chosen Class.
Unused Attribute Points: 3
Unused Skill Points: 1
New Skills are now available.
The Party retreated several feet back into the cave to wait for their Mana and cooldowns to recover before attempting the next pull. Garath found that a perfect time to pull up his Skills panel to check out the new Skill that had just become available.
A glowing new Skill circle waited eagerly for his attention on the Death tree. It branched off a prerequisite Skill, Blight. As soon as he read the name of his newest Skill option a sick feeling threatened to overwhelm his senses. He hesitantly willed more information to appear, the sick feeling turning to a brick in his stomach as he read.
Plague
Active
Cost: 178 Mana (.25x base Mana) to cast and an additional 10 Mana per second to maintain
100 Meter Range
3 Second Cast
Effect: Infects all hostile beings within 100 meters of you with a Plague stemming from your blackened soul, dealing 7 (death) damage (.1x Wisdom Attribute) per second until the cast is cancelled, the Plague is cured, inflicted being moves out of range, or death occurs.
"Mother fucker," said Garath, his mouth hanging open dumbly.
He explained the Skill to his friends, who all just listened silently, wondering why he insisted on reading them the description of his new Skill. Then, all at once, each of them put two-and-two together.
"Mother fucker," said Warrion.
"Right?"
"So you think… You don't think…” Athios started pulling on a lock of hair below her ear as she considered it. “You think another Necrologist is making everyone sick?"
"Well, yeah. I do."
"But why?" Sharon wanted to know.
"That's the question, isn't it? There's a chance it's unintentional. I mean, the Skill description says it infects all hostile beings, so if someone even viewed other humans as a threat that could qualify them, to the system, as hostile. So maybe a friendly, and perhaps paranoid, Necrologist is just nearby. And has his spell active. In a safe zone…”
“Fat chance," said Warrion.
"Yeah," Athios agreed.
Garath knew there was nothing innocent about the Plague at HQ. He knew exactly what the other Necrologist was doing, farming EXP. On his friends. On his Raid group. On fucking Gran! He didn't know why he knew exactly, his only clue being his own, rapidly increasing, curiosity about the amount of experience a human would grant if slain.
The Necrologist willed his MENU panels into semi-transparant existance in front of him and opened his Friend List. In just a few minutes, with a few messages back and forth to Gary, Garath explained how Plague works to the bearded man. He agreed to get some of the stronger fighters together and attempt to triangulate the bastard’s location.
"Let's get through this shit and get back,” said Garath, the vacant expression leaving his face as he willed his MENUs to close. “I've got a few words for this dick-bag."
Chapter 31
Rinse and Repeat, Right?
As the Party recovered HP, Mana, and cooldowns, Garath read through a handful of private messages that he had received from his previous Raid Group in response to his announcement about the Guild. He was both touched and surprised to learn that so many BOTH members felt the need to express their gratitude to him personally. While it was true that he had been the Raid Leader throughout the event, and many of them read his forum posts calling them to safety, and that he was the one that had ended the threat of the Ice Drake, Aldrasyl, at the culmination of the horrendous event - he felt almost guilty receiving so many messages of thanks. He hadn’t done any of it by himself, it was Athios that had posted the original message that led to the Raid Group and almost every member of the Hawks fought through the entire event alongside him. Even though he didn't feel like he deserved it, Garath was touched. These people had counted on him to keep them safe during The Culling and, at that very moment, were in peril again - this time from the attack of another human.
The Necrologist felt a pang of guilt at not being there to protect them. If he had been, he would have immediately recognized the attack for what it was by reading his combat log. A spell like Plague would show up in the log next to the name of whoever cast the spell. He knew it wasn't worth dwelling on and that his focus should be on the present, so Garath shook the guilt away and purchased his new Skill, Plague, before walking once again to the open cave mouth leading to the cerulean cove. He stood at the edge of the water to prepare for the next pull.
The cove was still heavily guarded by the Aquawood Naga. The platform to the left of the cave mouth, the larger platform topped with a gazebo in the center of the cove, and the two far platforms were still manned by five Naga each. There was still the patrol with the abnormally large Naga swimming through the flowing blue water behind the central platform. In total, twenty-three Naga remained and Garath salivated over the Experience Points just waiting to be harvested.
Refreshed, the Party repeated their method to clear the platform to the left of the cave mouth. Athios sucked the Sentry through her dimensional disk to land inside the cave, where Warrion silenced it before it was able to call for help
