“I’ll take the bitch!” Lil’ Star shrieked, pointing at the dryad.
I ran toward the human. Distracted with his target, he checked himself only when I stabbed him in the stomach. Screaming in pain, he managed to fire off two arrows, hitting me in the eye and shoulder. I answered with two strikes, finishing the bastard off. The loot restored my health and the arrows slid out of me and fell to the ground.
+2 to level. Current level: 16.
Medium Gift of Ishtar: Sharp Sword.
Sharp Sword
Damage: 15.
My Spears skill was at level 9, but even without the bonus damage, the sword was the better choice. All the same, I kept the spear in my left hand and took up the sword in my right. The blade wouldn’t have been worth a silver piece in Dis, but here it was a top weapon!
Newly emboldened — thanks, Ishtar! — I looked around; the fairy was taking good care of the dryad, but the ogre needed help. Mano had lost both eyes and was screaming about it:
“Don’t make me laugh! You’re all dead!”
The high-pitched head was all talk — the ogre’s health was down at six percent. Measuring up the health bars of the titan and naga, I chose the snakewoman, taking a run at her and driving my sword and spear into her scaly, spongy body.
Learned One-handed Swords!
+10% damage with one-handed swords per skill level.
“Mano, grab it!” I shouted.
The titan and the ogre reached for the black cube at the same time. I cut off the titan’s hand and the black smoke streamed into Mano’Hano. The ogre was healed.
After that, we had no trouble finishing off the titan and dryad. We shared the loot with the fairy.
+1 to level. Current level: 17.
Lesser Gift of Marduk: +1 strength.
Total surviving convicts: 18 of 981.
Looking around, we saw the arena empty. A bright green cube glowed invitingly in the center. Lil’ Star flapped over there, turned her head and waved for us to follow.
Great Gift
“All yours, Scyth,” she said.
“Hmm… I already took one like this, from Nergal. It lowered all my stats!”
“Well, this one is green, y’see? It sure ain’t from the Radiant One. Marduk ain’t your biggest fan either, but his would be black. Take it, mo-fa!”
“Where’d the others go?” I asked, approaching the cube.
“Hiding,” Mano squeaked. “We’ll find the cowards!”
The green smoke whorled into my arm.
Great Gift of Toci: +10 Vitality.
A conqueror’s reward!
I could forget about Fatigue now; even running to the end of one of the tentacles of rock and back didn’t fill the bar to half.
From then, the Ordeal stretched out for several more hours. Many survivors, as it turned out, had hidden right away, so the hardest part was finding them.
We spent a long time wandering around, but had no trouble with the convicts once we found them. Pangs of conscience plagued me; some of our targets were more like victims than enemies, not even trying to resist. Lil’ Star saw it on my face and shot me a hard look:
“Wipe up them tears, mo-fa! If you didn’t kill ‘em, they’d kill you. With pleasure! You need to get out of here, and fast, remember?”
I hadn’t shared my plans with them out of fear that the New Gods would overhear, but the fairy and ogre already knew that the Green League needed me. For the goblin mafia, I was both their most valuable partner and an insurance policy. The League knew that without me, Kinema would fall as soon as people turned on it for helping the Awoken and colluding with the Sleepers.
“What were you imprisoned for?” I asked once we’d cleared half the tentacles of rock.
“For nothin’!” Lil’ Star croaked, making honest eyes.
“Shameless jackals!” Mano whined. “They tied us up where we stood, the bastards!”
“And you were sentenced to the Ordeal for that ‘nothing’?”
“Tha’s right!” Hano rumbled deeply. “Otherwise they just string us up and we done.”
The main battle took place once there were fewer than ten survivors left with us. On a narrow neck of rock, we met the plains orc Holger, the strongest of all the convicts. Holger was a player, and he had successfully farmed enough kills to hit level 36.
But there were three of us and he couldn’t fight us all at once. I don’t know what went through his mind when he focused first on Lil’ Star, who was hovering over the edge of the cliff and arrogantly pelting the orc with stones. Apart from sword and shield, the orc had a bow, and he hit the fairy. Fruitlessly flapping her broken wings and showering the orc in curses, Lil’ Star fell down into the abyss and evaporated in the predatory mist.
Mano and Hano roared in rage and leaped at Holger with bloodshot eyes. The orc threw away his bow, blocked the club with his shield, kicked the heavy ogre away and slashed with his sword, spraying the ground with blood.
Without hesitation, I attacked the plains orc from behind. By then my damage was already over fifty thanks to my divine damage bonuses and high One-handed Swords skill.
Regardless of Holger’s high level and defense, there was nothing he could do. I gave the loot from him to the ogre — he was dying from a multitude of deep wounds. Mano’s head had been completely cut off and was in the process of growing back, still tiny, whining at an even higher pitch than usual. It was a funny sight, but not enough to cheer me up. Navalik, Lil’ Star…
We finished off the remaining convicts in silence, trying to get it over and done with. Hano said nothing more until it was time to say good-bye.
Total surviving convicts:
