A Jaded Life

After our close encounter of the third kind, Sigmir and I turned back walking back to the stairs and starting down the other direction. The first room on this side worked just like the last one we had cleared on the other side and with the next, we got lucky.

The Draugr was closer to our side, letting me freeze him without the Skeleton-Warrior being able to block for him so we could destroy both before those in the room had shuffled out, so I was able to use two vines to stabilize myself against the wall behind me and use the other two vines to smash the Skeleton-Warrior coming out, back into the room. With that, Sigmir was able to take the door and we could destroy them with our previous tactics, only without expending one of the ice-cuboids.

The fights continued, I gained another level against the next group, bringing me to 44. Astral Meditation gained another point, bringing it to 32 and Blood Rune-Mastery gained one as well, bringing it to 39. However, neither Ice-Magic nor Ice Rune-Mastery gained points, despite the workout they were getting. They easily gained points if I did something new with them but repetitive use was apparently no longer sufficient without a whole lot of it.

With the cuboids and a lot of time, we cleared the rest of the floor and after a short rest, we turned to the third boss.

Again, the room looked similar to those before, a few pillars holding up the ceiling but in the middle was not a coffin or throne, no, there was just a statue, about as tall as Sigmir and fully made out of metal. It looked like a plate-armour, standing guard holding shield and a golden sword before it. Once more, Sigmir had equipped her Lok'nar and was cautiously advancing before me.

All of a sudden, the statue in the middle started moving, lifting it's shield and sword, taking a guard-stance, looking at Sigmir.

“So, you come again? Do you want your sword back? Or do you want to seduce me again? No, Troll, I will still not marry you. I will not lie with a heathen whore like you. And you will pay for the curse you placed on me. I will slay you and it will be broken!”

With that, he started to advance on us. I was flabbergasted, did he just call my cute, innocent Sigmir a whore? My mind went cold; nobody gets to talk about her like that, not without revenge.

I observed the statue and got:

Knight Mannelig, level 45

Looking through Lenore's Sight for weak points didn't show anything, only little flickers below the armour, this might just be a slugfest.

Sigmir charged at the Statue with Ylva hanging a bit back, looking for openings. I did the same, only I also had my vines. Stretching them toward the knight, I wanted to attack his legs while Sigmir attacked the top. Just before Sigmir struck, I attacked, but the knight proved better than all the skeletons before - instead of retreating before Sigmir's charge, he stepped into it, using his shield to strike her, creating an opening. But instead of trying to take the opening and getting entangled, he stomped onto one vine and used his sword to cut the rest.

Sigmir reset her stance and tried to attack again, but even without moving off my vine, he was able to fend her off, forcing her away with quite a bit of skill. I tried to find an opening while their battle raged back and forth, but there was none to be found. Looking on, I saw that Sigmir was losing, it was a gradual process but it was there. He got shallow strikes with his sword in and a few times he managed to bash her with his shield whereas he had not taken more than glancing blows that got turned aside by his armour. In addition, I'd bet that the armour was either sentient itself - making it some kind of golem - or an undead was in there. Neither would tire like Sigmir.

Again, I tried to create an opening with my vines but this time, he managed to use his shield to shove Sigmir aside and managed to wrap one of the vines around his sword, overpowering my Ice-Magic and pulling me off my feet. I had to sever the vine, discarding all Astral Power it was made of, or he'd have pulled me into his range.

Sigmir re-engaged him and I managed to reset my stance, again looking for openings. Another Shield-Bash unbalanced Sigmir and this time, there was no reason for the boss not to take advantage. His vicious sword strike would have caused a deep wound, maybe even death but I managed to place the floating shield in the way, though while the shield managed to stop the blow, it would be the only blow it would stop, breaking on impact.

I guess Sigmir managed to read the flow of battle just as well as I did and called for Ylva to join her, using her new ability to reverse the flow. I cut into my hand to draw blood before I went close to Sigmir, matching her movements with Bullet Time to place runes, written in my blood, on her. I managed to keep Bullet Time going until I created a full Heptagon of Blood, Strengthening and Regeneration-Runes. The Strengthening and Regeneration-Runes formed triangles of their own, crowned with a single Blood-Rune. Forcefully holding Bullet Time gave me the mother of all headaches as backlash, almost blinding me. Then, I forced myself to start channelling Astral Power into Sigmir, watching her Aura flare and her movements start to overpower our enemy.

Watching Sigmir batter him down, smashing deep rents and dents into the previously pristine plate-armour gave me hope that we'd manage to win the battle.

Just as I was filled with optimism, the knight jumped back, dodging a sweeping strike from Sigmir and shouted “I will not falter! Be cursed you heathen fiends!”

While he was shouting, Sigmir didn't even try to stop the strike but took a huge gamble, letting the strike continue, even accelerating it. The gamble was that she committed what some considered a cardinal sin in fighting, she followed the momentum of her weapon spinning full circle leaving her back open to her enemy for a moment. In addition to the full momentum of her body, she let the Lok'nar glide through her hand, holding it in one extended arm close to one of it's axe-heads. With that, she had enough range to strike her foe and the combination of magic, leverage and momentum made the strike truly earth shattering.

Next, two things happened at the same moment, Sigmir's strike connected, cleaving the helm our foe was wearing apart and destroying it's shield. The broken helmet revealed a skeletal skull underneath, glowing with dark magic and now sporting a deep furrow where Sigmir had managed to connect. On the other hand, his shout must have been some kind of skill, for a shock wave rippled through the room, tossing Sigmir through the air like a rag doll, breaking the magic on her, even tossing Ylva out of her Hallow to land next to her master. I was further away and was only pushed back multiple steps before I managed to regain my balance. Neither Ylva nor Sigmir were getting back up.

The Boss turned to me and I saw only one last chance. A quick glance through Lenore's sight showed me that yes, the magic looked similar to the skeletons we had fought before, just a lot more powerful.

As the Boss walked leisurely towards me, as if he didn't take me serious, I drew my Anti-Magic Rune-Heptagon and activated Overflow, forcing as much power into the spell as I could, trying to gauge the limits of the spell, breaking it now would certainly kill me. The beam lanced out, striking the skeleton's face, burning away the magic keeping it alive and I kept going, letting all my power flow into the spell. To increase the power I had, I groped into my pack, pulling the bottle I kept all the blood I had siphoned off and drained it of power, throwing everything into the spell.

After the power in the blood was gone, I felt my own power ebb and the skeleton was still standing strong, I could not allow me to falter. In a last ditch-effort, I used my own blood, still running down my hand, as a power-source, drawing out as much as I could, the pain driving me to my knees but I had to keep going. I felt something within me break, pain like I never felt before ripping through me, taking my consciousness away, only blackness remaining.