Dark Lord: Rise to Power

"Rise on your feet" Arin gestured, and Zulkarnash obeyed, and so did all those undead Cuitlaquilin, who were perfectly following the Lich. "We will talk at greater length, but right now we have more pressing matters!" Arin spoke. "Precisely", Zurkarnash nodded.

Arin took his majestic staff and cherished it to its glory and splendor. "You know if I take this outside in the world, it will be kind of declaration on my part, that I am a practitioner of Dark Art and Necromancy!" he spoke.

"My lord", Zulkarnash replied, "Do you also believe the notion of Dark and Light Art, Good and Bad; and Necromancy is foul!"

Arin did not like that question, specially from a Lich for whom he was slowly having respect in mind. Enraged, he raised the staff high and brought it down with a resounding thud, striking the floor near his feet. The powerful impact echoed through the room, establishing absolute silence instantly.

"You dare to suggest I harbor such frivolous pitiful feelings?" Arin roared, "Power is Power. There is no right, wrong; good, bad. Power is unbiased. Whatever be the world, having power is virtue, and not having power is vice. If someone believes otherwise, is either tricking you to not pursue power, or is just delusional! And you dare to suggest I can be tricked or deluded so easily? What do you even know about me to suggest such!"

"Mercy! Mercy! Oh, Great Lord!" Zulkarnash fell on his knees, "I merely felt distraught hearing dark art of necromancy; for in my life, I have been condemned by others as Evil for practicing art of Necromancy. Therefore, your words just reminded me of those! And I ended up committing blasphemy!"

This time Arin no more commanded him to rise. He spoke, "I am still awaiting answer of the question I had asked!"

"Beg your pardon!", Zulkarnash repeatedly bowed and banged his head on the floor, "I am a foolish servant of yours!"

"SPEAK" Arin ordered in a stern voice.

Zulkarnash stopped his antics and replied, "The staff took shape of Staff of Eternal Night as you had poured a fraction of your magnificent power in it. You take the power back and it will return to its earlier shape of a mundane staff. It is basically a special artifact that takes it's shape and attribute depending on the wielder it gets imprinted on, and its power is entirely proportional to power of the wielder. When you temporarily severe the link, you will be having a normal staff. No one would notice, for the art is lost and it is now a thing of myth!"

"Alright, now listen what I am going to speak, for it is very important", Arin spoke, "I had descended this Sewer as mere adventurer to make it safe for sewer-cleaners to perform their annual cleaning. So, after I go outside, the cleaners will descend. If they find this place out, they will create uproar, and may even bring the whole Order down here and desecrate our sacred chamber."

Zulkarnash nodded.

"If you kill them, I will be put under trial on charge of negligence in my contract, and they will send more adventures here, again compromising sanctity of the chamber." Arin informed.

"My lord," Zulkarnash spoke, "If I may?".

Arin nodded.

Getting his cue, Zulkarnash continued, "The sweepers, are they normal common men or some strong people!".

"As far as I have been told," Arin replied, "they will be normal common cleaner, or else they would not send a lowest rank Adventurer like me to make way for them!"

"Understood" Zulkarnash replied, "then I will hide this part of sewer so that they don't get idea of our existence."

"Precisely", Arin replied, "So, for the time being you have three tasks! First, keep this chamber hidden from the unworthy. Second, find and establish a safe but secret, well-hidden route to above ground and meet me in my castle. Third, I am giving you command of all of these undead minions, use them as you see fit."

"Your will be done" Zulkarnash replied, "May I ask another question?"

Arin nodded, and the Lich asked, "The castle you just mentioned, is it at the center of the forest beside this town?"

"Yes!" Arin replied.

"My Lord, your humble servant has one request if you may", the Lich pleaded, "I beg you to not explore the underground sanctum of the Castle before this lowly servant of yours be at your presence there. I would tell you all in details after we meet!"

"Alright!" Arin gave him his word, and moved out.

As soon as he was out of the secret part of the Sewer, he got barraged with notification windows-

[You have killed 34 enemies. You have been awarded +340 exp]1

[You have killed 19 enemies of level higher than you. You have been awarded bonus +95exp]1

[You have killed thirty-five Ratmen. Kill fifteen more to unlock title ??????????]

[Wither Spell Progression 12/100]

[Dread Howl Spell Progression 6/150]

[ Necromantic Healing Spell Progression 44/50]

[Life Drain Spell Progression 21/150]

[You have Raised 34 Ghouls ]

[Raise Dead Spell Progression 65/150]1

=============================

| Ghoul |

| Race: Undead |

|Tier- III |

| Level: 1 |

| Owner: Arin Drez |

=============================

| Strength: 45 | 

|Agility: 55 |

|Magicka: 0 |

|Wisdom: 30 |

|HP: 130 |

=============================

| Resistance: |

| Blade 15% | Blunt 25% | Piercing 20% |

| Fire 5% | Water 5% | Earth 10% |

| Light -90% | Dark 80% | Mental 70% |

=============================

| Status: |

| Undead (Permanent) |

| Plague Bearer (Permanent) |

=============================

| Ability: |

| Plague Bite – Enemies weaken with each festering bite |

=============================

[You have obtained enough experience for a level up. Open up your status window to allocate free stat points]

Arin was surprised to see he had amassed 453 exp points, much surpassing the 150 he needed for level up.

He opted for level up and as he had anticipated he levelled up twice. Now he was level 4. Also, he had 20 free stat points to allocate. Again, he decided to equally distribute his stat points and ended up allocating 5 points to each. He looked at his Status Window-

=============================

| Name: Arin Drez |

| Profession: Champion of Nerthazir |

| Race: Undead |

| Level: 4 |

| Experience: 103/250 |

=============================

| Strength: 57 | 

|Agility: 32 |

|Magicka: 83 |

|Wisdom: 58 |

|HP: 230 |

|MP: 199 |

=============================

| Resistance: |

| Blade 7% | Blunt 2% | Piercing 6% |

| Fire 50% | Water 1% | Earth 2% |

| Light -75% | Dark 90% | Mental 85% |

=============================

| Status: |

| Undead(Permanent) |

| Champion(Permanent) |

=============================

| Skill: |

| Simple Weapon Proficiency – Adept(14/150) |

| Unique Weapon Proficiency – Novice |

| Light Magic Proficiency – NA |

| Dark Magic Proficiency – Apprentice (3/100)|

| Destructive Magic Proficiency – NA |

| Creation Magic Proficiency – NA |

| Necromancy – Adept |(34/150)

| Scrying – Novice(9/50) |

=============================

| Spells Learnt: |

| Raise Dead – Adept (65/150) |

| Dread Howl – Adept (6/150) |

| Life Drain – Apprentice (21/100) | 

|Necromantic Healing -Novice (44/50) |

| Feeble – Apprentice (1/100) |

| Cripple – Apprentice (0/100) |

| Wither – Apprentice | (12/100)|

| Erode – Apprentice (1/100) |

| Haze – Apprentice (1/100) |

=============================

Satisfied, Arin went up ahead.

As he came under the grate, lights of morning sun were peeping to the dark damp sewer through it. The door was locked as expected. Arin climbed the stairs. A strange smell of something burning or burnt hit his nose. "Probably smell of campfire prepared by the sentry in charge of guarding the sewer!" he assumed. "I am done, open the gate" Arin shouted to attract attention of the Sentry who was supposed to be there to open the gate for him. But there were no sound. Arin was surprised and shouted a few more times. There was no reply. But Arin was sure he was overhearing people's shouts and cries. This was really surprising. Suddenly a possibility struck his mind, what if the city had been besieged by enemies. Arin started banging the grate more frantically. After a while he decided of going down back and find some other way out. As he was climbing down the stair, he suddenly heard, "Captain, he is alive!" He heard few heavy boots approaching towards him.

A face appeared behind the grate. It was Captain Duran. "By Lathasa, one hell of a Lucky Chap you are!" Duran said as he opened the grate and literally pulled Arin up from the sewer.

The Deputy patted his shoulder, "You were really lucky that you had decided to go to the sewer at night, instead of staying up. There is no chance you had witnessed any horror greater than what we had faced yesterday night!"

Arin was dumbfounded, he could not understand anything but as he looked at the city, he was taken aback. The whole city was in shambles. Many building are broken. Some have caught fire. There are corpses littered on the streets. Some were fresh. Some were not. Arin leaned on one such corpse to discover it still had grave dirt lingering on it.

"Are these?" Arin mumbled.

"Yes, right you are!" Deputy answered, "they are undeads"

"But how come…." Arin asked.

"We don't know that lad" Duran replied, "but yesterday at late night all the dead rose form their grave and started rampaging. Many were killed. Although they were not great in numbers. But the intensity and sudden occurrence put all of us at loss!"

"So, lad" Duran asked, "the job done?"

Arin nodded in approval.

"Well, as you can see the current state; we cannot send any cleaner to clean the below before we can clean up the mess above! So, you can wait here for things to settle down. As we will be able to manage sending team below, you will get paid. You can stay here, or can go out. But remember one thing, if things go wrong, and you don't appear for trial, you will be banned from all cities in the kingdom as well as the adventure guilds!" Duran patted his shoulder, "Am I clear?"

"Loud and Clear", Arin smiled back and decided to explore the city.

"He has returned" a mad man was rambling, "prepare for the wrath, for he has come!"

Arin glared at him, and to everyone's surprise, the mad man ran away like he had seen a spooky monster. Everyone started laughing, barring one man. A fat man, in fancy cloth kept looking at Arin, as if he was trying to scan Arin with his naked eye. Arin felt amused. He smiled at him. The man, to Arin's surprise, seemed to slightly nod at him and was lost in crowd.