V3Ch91-Pre-Battle Warmup

In planning for this possible encounter, it had occurred to Tybalt that the enemy general had probably reached a higher level than him. Perhaps significantly higher.

General Caracalla was an older man, the General had been active in many conflicts, and he was, famously, undefeated.

So the necromancer had prepared exorbitantly for this moment.

As the energy of his Anti-Magic Field flooded the space, and Caracalla assumed a fighting stance, the necromancer cleared his throat meaningfully.

His allies flooded into the room. The living Aoife and Samara; the former Beastkings Edgard, William, Robert, and Henry; the zombified guards who had been protecting Caracalla, Gaufridus and Strabo; Tybalt’s vampire wife, Liora; and the guardian spirits who had formerly been Commander Volusia, Sergeant Remus, and Sergeant Indus. The members of Tybalt’s inner circle who he most wanted to participate and get experience - and who he didn’t think would die or lose a child while fighting.

All held weapons in hand. Edgard carried Mariella’s chthonic sword. In the end, the fire mage had respected the necromancer’s wish that she not participate in this part of the fighting. He had to be here, for his Anti-Magic Field to work at all. She had no rationale for participating, especially when her magic would be unavailable for the same reason.

As Samara entered, she threw Tybalt his long bone spear. The room was large enough for him to use it effectively, though Tybalt had no intention of being at the center of this fight. He wasn’t primarily a physical combatant. Not after he’d had a magical duel with an ancient dragon and defeated a younger one, and an ogre, exclusively using magic.

He was just here to keep the Anti-Magic Field in place.

Caracalla stood there as they entered, looked over all of them, and let out a long breath.

“So, this is what you need to face me,” he said, glaring at Tybalt, his voice scornful.

The necromancer took a step back, placing himself further out of the General’s range, and shrugged.

“Whatever wins the fight is a good and honorable strategy,” Tybalt replied. “You just don’t like it because you’re about to die.” He thought about adding some more shit talk. The General was focusing far too much of his attention on someone who had no intention of trading blows with him.

“I hope you weren’t expecting your son to save you,” the necromancer continued. “He’s next on my agenda.”

Caracalla gritted his teeth and glared but remained in place, his body language wary, clearly reluctant to strike the first blow when he was so outnumbered.

The necromancer didn’t give any orders. These were his strongest allies and his highest level intelligent undead. They didn’t need any instructions on how to fight. They slowly but surely fanned out, preparing to attack the General from three sides at once.

“You, I know you,” Caracalla said as his eyes landed on Volusia.

“Not here of my own free will, sir,” Volusia replied through gritted teeth, his translucent spectral form making the truth of his words obvious.

“Hey, you’re a popular guy,” Tybalt said, smiling at Volusia’s back. “I run into a General, and of course he knows you. Well, I’m glad you get to see old friends again. Even if it’s for the last time.”

“Life is full of little tragedies like that,” said Aoife from the side, her tone mocking.

“And you,” Caracalla said, looking angrily at Samara. “I was going to fix your fucked up situation, you stupid woman. I can reverse time. I would have kept you from ruining your life! You should be fighting for me.”

She swallowed, looked nervous, and shook her head, not saying a word. She didn’t waver.

Good girl. Tybalt’s hooks were already deep in her.

“You little traitor,” the General grumbled. “Well, I’ll make sure you don’t make it back to Enh for this.”

Then, finally, he lunged. He ignored the undead that had arrayed themselves in front of him and tried to move around their ranks, his sword tip aimed at Tybalt.

The necromancer pointed his spear and grounded his feet, preparing to let Caracalla impale himself on the end of Tybalt’s weapon. He had the superior reach.

But the instant the spear started to look like it was close enough to the old man’s chest that Tybalt was tempted to step forward, the sword in Caracalla’s hand tapped it. The hit looked like it should have been too weak to properly parry, but it knocked Tybalt’s spear tip far off target, into the ground.

I’m really not going to be useful in this fight at all, the necromancer realized as the sword flashed up, angling at his chest. I’m pure… support.

The thought stung, though the situation at least didn’t fill him with fear.

The others had moved as soon as Tybalt appeared to be threatened. As the undead fanned out, the guardian spirits had remained standing relatively close to Tybalt, positioned protectively.

Now the guardian spirits of Commander Volusia, Sergeant Indus, and Sergeant Remus used their own weapons, instantly corporeal, and worked together to knock Caracalla’s sword point into the ground, where it scraped harmlessly against the stone. The strength of the General was still remarkable. It seemed to take all of the power the three spirits could muster to divert him.

But it was enough.

As Tybalt let out a little sigh of relief, Liora charged in on Caracalla’s open left side, fangs bared, the sword in her own hand almost forgotten as she went for the throat. She hadn’t fed that day, with how busy they had all been preparing for battle, and the necromancer knew she would be at least a bit hungry.

Caracalla danced backward, eyes darting to the side and taking her in. Tybalt could see on his face that he’d instantly assessed the high elf vampire and her threat level.

She reached close range with the General, and his hand jutted out almost faster than the necromancer’s eyes could track. Tybalt didn’t even see the dagger in his hand. It was only obvious that Liora had been stabbed as Caracalla’s hand withdrew. Liora’s chest compressed at the contact, the torn fabric of her clothing gaped, her eyes widened, and she flew backward, skidding across the floor and into the wall.

What the fuck?

The blade had clearly entered close to her heart, and in the immediate aftermath, Liora didn’t move.

Tybalt swallowed and forced himself to keep his focus on Caracalla, not the woman he had so easily dispatched. The stab wound shouldn’t be a big deal, probably. A vampire could survive worse, given that the wound had been inflicted at night.

But with the clash of weapons against the guardian spirits and this blow that had thrown Liora across the room, completely outpacing her and reversing her momentum, Caracalla’s physical capabilities seemed to extend beyond what he had expected. Now the preparations that had felt like overkill were more than vindicated. He found himself questioning if they were enough. Most of his own skills were out of reach at the moment. The Anti-Magic Field was the only thing that made fighting this mage, who could reverse time if he decided he was losing, remotely possible.

Apparently aware of that weakness, though, the General had honed his physical capabilities to a higher level than Tybalt would have thought possible for a mage. That training, plus all the levels he had acquired over years of leading armies through some of the Kingdom’s most important battles, had left him far tougher than he looked.

Most old men Tybalt had met were just weak old men, like the beastfolk Councils of Elders.

But this man had spent his whole life fighting.

If I could just use Breath of Decay… Tybalt found himself taking another step back, only to feel his back press against the wall.

The others swept into the openings around Caracalla and began to engage him as the three guardian spirits took up defensive postures in a triangle around Tybalt.

Samara swung her sword at Caracalla’s unprotected head - his helmet was the main piece of armor he wasn’t wearing - but he ducked underneath.

“Not much of a fighter, paladin,” he muttered.

His sword flashed right to left in an instant, and she barely blocked a stroke aimed at her legs.

Aoife slashed at his side at the same moment, and Caracalla spun backward, almost quickly enough to avoid it.

Tybalt saw blood on the edge of the dragon’s sword as she circled to the side, proving that the General hadn’t quite succeeded. It was probably a shallow wound, but she had cut him - somewhere around the armpit? The necromancer had a hard time seeing, since there were a healthy number of people between himself and Caracalla.

All three huntsmaster mummies stepped in and began a series of coordinated blows with their conjured crimson weapons, forcing Caracalla to give ground and focus on pure defense, simply blocking, parrying, dodging. Anything to avoid a fatal hit.

Tybalt relaxed a little. Even a mage as high level and experienced as Caracalla could not face the huntsmasters lightly.

The General retreated without his expression ever turning to one of worry, slipping to the right side of the large bed present in the room. Even that move felt tactical, careful. He placed the mummies between himself and the others, his side to Tybalt, the necromancer closer to striking range than he’d have preferred, even if he did still have three guardian spirits protecting him. It seemed clear that Caracalla considered killing Tybalt as his win condition.

Samara was the first to get around the mummies and lunge in through the narrow gap between them and the bedside.

Without breaking the rhythm of his combat with the mummies, Caracalla managed to snatch up a lit candle from a bedside table and hurled it, flame first, into her face, startling the paladin and sending her stumbling backward.

Aoife charged into the gap she’d left.

But Caracalla’s sword sliced into the floor like it was made of butter, and barely looking down, he quickly tucked a boot under the floorboard he’d carved. His foot pried the wood free in a jagged fragment, and he hurled it at Aoife’s chest like a javelin.

She only paused for a moment to deflect it, but it was a moment in which the General continued to face only three opponents.

He shifted to the side again, giving ground to the mummies and trying to angle toward Tybalt, but former Beastking William swung at the General with a heavy crimson axe from that same side. It drove Caracalla backward, away from the necromancer and almost into the back wall.

Then Henry shifted into the space the General had just sought to occupy, cutting off his route completely.

As William pursued him, Caracalla stepped sideways, onto the bed, like it was just another surface to fight on. The move took him momentarily out of reach as the huntsmasters exchanged quick glances, then parted to each cover one side of the bed, trying to keep the General penned in one place. He had shown no capacity to injure them as yet, but his goal was obviously to assassinate Tybalt.

Aoife and Samara shifted their positions to the front of the bed, ready to move to either side to help whichever mummy Caracalla moved to attack.

As the General looked back and forth between his different opponents, seemingly trying to figure out what to do next, a crimson blur shot across Tybalt’s field of vision. Caracalla was forced to throw himself down onto the bedspread. In the next instant, a great crimson arrow seemed to grow from the wall, just behind where he’d been standing. Tybalt knew it was Kistana, firing through one of the holes Dero had left in the wall with her void daggers.

The necromancer cursed to himself silently. He had been hoping that would come in a moment of distraction and finish the General off. It was all fine, all part of the plan, but it was taking far too long to injure this man.

Tybalt’s assets were being similarly cautious not to injure themselves, but every moment Caracalla breathed made the necromancer a little bit nervous. He might find his way out of this somehow, strike a fatal blow against Tybalt himself, or wait until the necromancer could no longer sustain the Anti-Magic Field.

A crimson sword stroke slashed down at Caracalla, but the General deflected it with his own blade, then sprang to his feet again and moved backward, toward where Kistana’s massive arrow was.

As the huntsmasters closed in, each taking their first steps onto the large mattress, Caracalla stepped all the way back against the headboard, then jumped up, hooked a foot under the mattress, and kicked it forward, hurling it at William.

The other huntsmasters were sent sprawling backward, off balance, as William reeled with the full momentum of the kicked mattress.

The General dodged between flailing slashes from the other two huntsmasters in the midst of their falls and threw himself forward, tackling the mattress and pushing against William. Caracalla was again transparently trying to make it to the corner of the room where Tybalt stood.

From the other side, William quickly recovered his balance and hacked into the soft material of the mattress with his axe. He was on the back foot, though, and the swing lacked its usual force. The axe easily chopped through the mattress, but it clearly missed the General from the lack of blood.

Aoife darted forward, her sword raised in both hands, and she plunged it through the mattress in a single violent motion.

There was a cry of pain from behind it, and Tybalt knew that Caracalla had been injured again. That was twice now, both injuries at the dragon’s hands.

The mattress flopped to the ground, and there was the sound of heated clashing between multiple weapons behind it as the other two huntsmasters engaged the General again.

From the side Tybalt could see, William’s axe slashed underneath the mattress and caught Caracalla’s ankle. Tybalt heard the crunch of meat and bone giving way, then a loud crashing sound as the man struck hard against the floor in his armor. There was the noise of struggle from the other side of the mattress, and then Aoife tossed it to the side, back toward the bed frame, revealing Caracalla. The General lay pinned beneath Robert’s long spear and Henry’s sword, the former at his throat and the latter stuck deep through a gap in his armor at the armpit.

The General still clutched his own weapon in his right hand, and he had drawn a dagger in his left at some point. He panted, chest heaving, eyes darting side to side as if he was still looking for a means of escape. The blood trickling between his gritted teeth told Tybalt it was over, though.

Caracalla’s eyes landed on Tybalt with a look of seething hatred.

“Edgard!” Tybalt called.

The mummy stepped forward, raising the Heaven-Binding Chains Tybalt had given to him for the moment. That was the whole reason the chthonic mage had not participated in the fighting thus far. So he could have his hands free to bind their prisoner.

But as Caracalla saw them, his expression curled into a snarl.

“I will not be your prisoner!” He threw himself to his feet, despite the spear at his throat and the sword in his side. Both weapons tore his flesh, inflicting lethal wounds if he hadn’t been dying already, but he lunged for the necromancer anyway, blood gushing from his neck and side, eyes locked on Tybalt, legs moving unstoppably forward in a final, suicidal charge.

William swung his axe with all his might, matching Caracalla’s speed. The General, noticing in his peripheral vision, tried to raise his sword to block, but to his side, Liora and Samara appeared, grabbing hold of his sword arm and locking it down.

The axe bit into his neck, and blood spilled forth. The wound wasn’t enough to separate his head from his body - he was incredibly tough - but it was a start.

William pulled the axe back, raised it over his head, and brought it down again. And again.

Finally, the spine severed, the body tumbled to the side, head barely still attached by skin and muscle, face still twisted in an expression of rage.

“Fuck, I meant to turn him into a high tier undead, but maybe I can reattach the head later,” Tybalt said, brushing his fingers against his temples. He felt suddenly exhausted just from watching that.

At the doorway, he sensed motion, but he didn’t take his gaze away from Caracalla’s body as Dero, Kistana, Mariella, Victoria, and Vidalia entered the room.

That feels better…

The necromancer allowed his Anti-Magic Field to drop now that Caracalla was confirmed, by the system, as being dead. Even with the neck mostly severed, he had to be extremely cautious. If the General had even a hint of brain activity, Tybalt wouldn’t put it past him to use his time traveling power by sheer force of will.

Having finally reached level forty-five, the necromancer had a skill selection. Without needing to think about it, the necromancer took Undead Reconstruction. He remembered the lich he’d fought in the Tower of Death had owned that skill, and he remembered how powerful and effective it was.

He knew it would be incredibly valuable in the fighting to come.

“Gosh,” Liora said, cracking her neck. She was uninjured, despite the blow at the beginning that had hurled her into a wall. “I got a few levels from that. All I did was get stabbed.”

The necromancer was almost surprised that he had leveled himself. Almost, but not quite.

The share of experience each participant in a fight received corresponded to both their contribution to the fight and the power and threat level of the opponent. Tybalt himself also received bonus experience when his undead gained any if he was nearby. Apparently, General Caracalla had been exactly as powerful as he had seemed while Tybalt’s allies were fighting him.

“The man was a mage, but he wasn’t able to do any magic because of Tybalt’s Anti-Magic Field,” Dero said slowly. “He was just a human. He didn’t have vampire super strength. He still threw you like a ragdoll. That strength was all from levels. If you had seen him use any of his actual skills…” She let her voice trail off, her implication obvious.

We’d all be very dead, the necromancer thought. That was why plan A was killing him in his sleep, and plan B was nullifying his magic.

“I - I mostly meant that I didn’t contribute much,” the vampire said, reddening. “So I was surprised that I got that much experience. I didn’t think of the fact that he must be high level.”

“The plan was executed almost perfectly,” Tybalt said, cutting off the conversation. He stepped forward, moving through his guardian spirits, now incorporeal again. He tapped the corpse with his foot, avoiding stepping into the rapidly pooling blood flowing from the neck. “If we could have just captured him a little more intact… but it’s more important that none of you were badly hurt.” He looked at Dero. “You were able to keep Sound Void going the whole time, right?”

“Yeah, I made sure I wasn’t in range of your Anti-Magic Field’s effects. No one in the Fortress will have heard any of the fighting.”

“Good.” That was a load off of his mind. “The second assassination should be a lot easier. The General’s worthless spawn. I’ll do it with my own hands.” He turned to Samara. “Thank you for all your help.”

“Of course, master.” She bowed her head.

The necromancer looked around. “All of you did very well. The guardian spirits protected me phenomenally. Aoife, Samara, and Liora helped keep Caracalla on his toes while he was dealing with the Beastkings. Kistana took a shot at him and forced him to take bigger risks to avoid being in her line of fire. That was why he flipped the mattress and made those last moves leading up to his death. This could have gone far, far worse. It was a good pre-battle warmup. You’ll all need to do far more now. Since we have to defeat Caracalla’s entire army here.”

But first, of course, the necromancer would deal with the man’s son. The other person who had his same class.