Garath released a Blight that took hold on both of the gnoll Necro-Shaman. A bonus effect of the dark purple magic that moved out of his tiny form in a circle was that it also landed a damage-over-time debuff on the totems empowering the gnolls engaged with the rest of the Party. The Necro-Shaman duo continued their chant with Garath’s demons out of the way for the next several seconds, and new totems popped up out of the ground to replace the ones Garath had just destroyed. He briefly considered activating Plague, but if there were other enemies within 100 meters of this battle they would immediately come running to join it. Considering the Party was already drastically outnumbered, that wouldn’t end well. But then, there had been quite a walk from one camp to the next thus far in the dungeon, so Garath decided to chance it.
He paid the 235 Mana to activate the AoE DoT. Ten Mana continued to trickle away from his pool each second, but every gnoll in the vicinity was taking constant damage. A bonus effect was that each time one of the Necro-Shaman tried to summon another totem, it crumbed to nothing within a second. Garath sent Felfire Bolts at both of the Necro-Shaman, alternating between them to keep the damage-over-time effect active on both.
The enemy casters stopped their barking chant, and both turned to face the little white cat, anger twisting their already frightening features.
The Healthbars above the heads of the two Necro-Shaman were dropping quickly, but so was Garath’s Mana. They were both below a third of their maximum Health by the time they started hurling magic from their matching staffs at the fluffy Necrologist. The little orbs of destruction moved too quickly for Garath to dodge, even in his agile House Cat form.
After failing to avoid the first handful, he stopped trying to avoid them entirely, opting instead to kill these creatures before they could kill him. With the dungeon’s buff in place to reduce incoming damage by 20%, he took the blows as they came, all the while dishing out his own punishment in the form of fiery green orbs.
The duel between Garath and the Necro-Shaman finally came to an end as one of the gnolls dropped lifeless to the ground, followed by the other in short order. The Necrologist wasn’t in great shape with his Health under half and his Mana down to its final third, but he’d won. Garath’s demons were released from their prisons when the gnolls that placed them there died. Bill barreled toward his summoner, a sight that Garath may have found endearing in his natural form but found terrifying standing less than a foot tall. With a slightly panicked mental command, Garath sent the Cambionic Fel Hound wheeling about to assist the others battling the few still-breathing gnolls.
Garath swelled with pride as he watched a gnoll turn away from Auto and sprint toward Daisy and Sharon. It was immediately stopped in its tracks by thorny roots that launched out of the ground. Just after that, a Daisy Blast! detonated against the rooted gnoll’s face, landing the killing blow. Her Mana was near empty, but in a flash, nearly a third of her blue Manabar was refilled. The potions they’d all received at the onset of The Culling were great, but the Mana Batteries that Daisy was able to create restored a great deal more, and they did so instantly.
As he hurried over to help mop up the remaining enemies, Garath noticed two undead gnolls hacking at the living gnolls that had been their allies moments before, a welcome addition to the team courtesy of the passive Necrologist Skill, Death’s Medium. The gnolls now fighting for Garath only had a fraction of the Attributes that they’d had in life, but they would follow his orders and fight his enemies for the next three minutes. With the help of Garath’s growing army of undead and demonic creatures, the remaining dungeon mobs went down quickly. Sharon, Daisy, and Garath were all incredibly low on Mana after the rough fight and Auto was nearly completely covered in blood, both his own and that of his enemies. For long minutes, the Party silently rested.
After catching their breath and tapping the Mana Crystals hovering above the corpses of their slain enemies, the Party got to looting. In all, the second gnoll camp netted each of them 11.25 Mana Crystals, a handful of various gear to drop off at the armory later, and an impressive 46,350 Experience. The last of which brought Garath a very welcome notification that was minimized during combat.
Congratulations, Garath! For reaching Level 30, you are awarded 5 Attribute Points (3 per Level and + 2 per Level due to your status as a Leader of Man) and 2 Skill Points (1 per Level and +1 per Level due to your status as a Leader of Man) 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: 5
Unused Skill Points: 20
New Skills are now available.
Garath did an internal first pump. He finally hit the mark. A quick look at his Party let him know that Sharon had also reached Level 30 from the skirmish, and Daisy had made it to Level 29. Garath knew that they were in a bit of a hurry, and that Atlas was still waiting alone on the other side of the mysterious door by himself, but the Necrologist insisted that both himself and Sharon take a second to check out and purchase the Skills that became available at Level 30. From what Alice had told him, the Level 30 Skills were incredibly powerful across the board for every Class, a large part of her reasoning for the Level 30 requirement. He plugged all five
