Overpowered Wizard

“Well, would you look at that? A whole battlefield with loot ripe for the taking.”

Dawson stood on the edge of a castle-cliff with a ragged hole in the dilapidated wall. Behind him, over a thousand men shuffled to a stop, breathing hard or light depending on their physical abilities and stats. They all had large packs half-filled with travel provisions and half-empty for storing away new loot.

In front of Dawson, he saw a drop that was three hundred feet deep before merging with an oblong basin littered with corpses. He saw signs of destructive fighting that must’ve happened three or four weeks ago. It had to be the type of fighting best done by Level 100s and Master Rankers.

To Dawson’s left, a gaping sinkhole remained where the infamous Castle Grimrock should’ve stood. To Dawson’s right, there stood a massive and perfectly aligned wall that was as smooth and new as a baby’s bottom. The wall looked like heaven’s testament of what fortification craftsmanship should look like.

That wall was certainly not supposed to be there. It made all the other ancient walls of the Grimrock Castle Mountains look like shit.

Dawson squinted and saw at the middle of the grand wall a narrow slit, tighter than a virgin’s bum. It was the only proper opening where one could cross through to reach the other side. It didn’t seem like many of the abhorrent monsters of Shadowfell made it.

Instead, their corpses filled the deep ditches in front of the grand wall and lay about as a carpet of grotesque rot on one side of the battlefield. That was the side that had the gaping sinkhole where Castle Grimrock should’ve stood.

That was fine and dandy with Dawson, because on the other side of the wall were other corpses. Mostly of the human persuasion.

A bunch of dead paladins remained with their forgotten armor and weapons shining under the afternoon sun of Mid Summer. Based on the shine alone, most of that gear was above rare quality.

Maybe even legendary!

Dawson imagined the gold coins of the future, all clicking and clunking, as they rained into his coin pouch. It would have to be a large coin pouch. Maybe he should get one with gold stitching, since he was going to earn quite the amount.

“No Shadowfell Tears,” grunted Gisella, his right-hand woman.

The exiled paladin was a bearish sort, and she had the temper of one, if anyone could rouse that out of her usual stoic nature. While Dawson stood short, spry, and twitchy, Gisella stood like a towered tree, refusing to move unless she wanted to.

She was the strongest person, let alone woman, in the Vulture Adventurer Guild. And while Dawson had himself a useful evil +1 to his alignment, which kept him sharp and cunning, Gisella had her dangerous good +2, which kept her extraordinarily powerful.

Most of the men and women of the guild were neutral types. There were a few other evil-doers and do-gooders who had some worthy classes on them. None were as high in the alignments as Dawson and Gisella, but that was okay as long as they all got along in the guild.

Everyone’s greed was mutually aligned, which kept the vultures functional as an adventurer guild who sometimes dibble-dabbled in banditry. But only sometimes. And with proper restraint.

Thankfully, Dawson didn’t have to twist his words in creative ways to make a convincing argument for the do-gooders. This latest not-so-moral activity wasn’t a hard one to commit.

Nobody was coming back for the loot over yonder.

Yet Gisella sounded concerned about the Shadowfell Tears not being there.

Sounds swell to me!

Dawson smiled smarmily up at his right-hand woman. “Well, isn’t that just nice! No risk of corruption. And all that loot waiting there for us. Let’s get a go on, shall we?”

“That’s strange,” Grisella grunted. “There should be Shadowfell Tears.”

Dawson skipped and hopped close to the edge. The scouts hadn’t found another way down. They would have to climb, fly, or make a long drop if they were tough enough.

But Gisella stood her ground.

Dawson sighed.

It was still a wonder how he got Gisella to fall in line with him on most occasions. At the very least, he figured the smartest thing to do was to make sure if anyone was going to get an equally large cut from the loot that matched his cut it would be Gisella.

It wasn’t wise to mistreat the woman who could smite you, regardless of how cunning and smart you could be. Dawson just made sure he had contingency plans in place for the off chance that Gisella lost herself to her alignment and went crusader crazy.

She’s not acting crazy just yet. Instead, she’s being wary. Dawson also thought it was smart to pay attention when Gisella acted wary. So what’s the problem with there being no Shadowfell Tears?

Dawson thought about it further.

So far, they’d come across a few contaminated streams with Shadowfell Tears. Gisella had cleansed most of that stuff, but not all.

There was a new version of the evil tears out there, an enhanced version. They had to use roundabout paths to avoid that stuff, and even then, they’d still lost men to the corruption.

They’d defeated a few aberrations by pitting at least fifty of their best fighters against one. But those fights had come at the cost of losing some more men.

Gisella had put those sorry bastards down personally.

Nothing came easy while making their way across the castle mountains of Grimrock. Nothing came without risks on the off-chance of looting what remained of the Prime Archbishop’s failed crusade.

So why should things come easy and less risky at the heart of evil?

“Fuck me.” Dawson spat to the side. “It’s right there, Gisella! Look at all of that loot beyond the wall! We just need to get down and get through that gap there.”

Dawson’s heart picked up speed. A few vultures came over to look. They made the squawking sounds in their excitement, which Dawson expected from them.

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Yet Gisella still had a stern, no-nonsense look on her face, her feet planted like a towered tree.

“Let me pray to Serveserf,” Gisella said.

Dawson and the other nearby vultures groaned.

Whenever Gisella prayed to Serveserf, they had to give up something. Yeah, Serveserf had kept them mainly intact, but the vultures missed out on becoming richer plenty of times because of the Good God being a worry sort.

Dawson was a Hisscreep follower himself, but that Evil God helped with getting past actual trouble of the creepier type. In comparison, Serveserf always came across as more of a wussy god to Dawson.

But he wasn’t going to say that to Gisella’s face. Or anywhere within earshot of her.

“Boss Lord! Boss Lady! We got the rats on our tail feathers!” shouted a scout, dashing past the guild men and women. He slid to a stop in front of Dawson and Gisella to give his report. “The bastards must’ve been following us for weeks! But they slipped up, and we caught them breaking camp this morning.”

“How many?” Dawson asked.

“It looks like three thousand men, Boss Lord!”

“Fuck!” Dawson turned toward his partner. “Ain’t no time for Serveserf. We need to get our loot and get out of here!”

The Rat Adventurer Guild was the second strongest guild of the Windy Strider Kingdom. Dawson’s vultures were a pipsqueak guild in comparison.

They could still risk battle, but battle wasn’t the greatest danger.

One thousand vultures versus three thousand rats was still possible with favorable conditions and a strong first attack. However, there were more rats out there than the three thousand trailing them.

If any of the rats got away and told their senior leadership, the vultures would get destroyed on their way back home someway, somehow.

They’ll kill us when we cross the Stone Sea River, Dawson thought, his evil +1 hissing in warning his mind as he yelled at his vultures. Take as much of the loot and abandon the rest.

Dawson only listened to the helpful part of his evil +1, the paranoid part. That had served him well as a Level 70 Storm Blaster. Other than that, he focused on getting his thousand men to hustle through the gap in the wall and get down the three hundred foot drop.

The strongest and toughest went first, dropping all the way down, in free fall or by catching the cliff’s face with their hands. One way or another, they hit the sloped base of the basin hard enough to hurt most men and women or outright kill them. But the vultures’ strongest and toughest came out alive, if only a little scuffed up.

Then the ones with abilities for movement went next. Air Dash. Fire Dash. Rock Dash. Whatever. They relied on their abilities more than their raw stats to survive the fall.

Dawson used his Storm Cloud +2 skill to ride on a tiny dark cloud covered in mini lightning bolts. He stayed up top with Gisella to usher their guild members through the gap.

The last ones to go down lacked raw stats or nifty abilities. They’d used rope and climbing gear to scale to the basin bottom.

Dawson and Gisella saw them all the way through. Then the two guild leaders disconnected the hooks so the ropes would fall and get gathered – no adventurer worth their salt should leave beyond decent rope.

Dawson reached out with one hand. Gisella grabbed it and hopped onto the Storm Cloud +2. She took up a lot of space behind him with her bulk and heavy armor, but the Level 75 Blessed Cleric was a worthy boon to have on his cloud.

They rode swiftly down the castle-cliff. The wind swept over their dirty faces and greasy hair. They pulled up with a thunderous clap from the Storm Cloud +2 as the vultures scrambled quickly over the rotten corpses.

Countless avians flapped and cawed in warning. Other scavengers stalked about. Insects buzzed in thick clouds, some of which were even Level 10, or higher, and had classes!

Dawson’s weakest men and women were in the Level 20s. Most of his vultures were in the late Level 30s or early Level 40s, thankfully. The Level 10 insects bounced off them without causing too much trouble.

Dawson and Gisella flew over the middle of their thousand-man guild while keeping an ear out to complaints in case they caught something interesting.

“How could Prime Archbishop Orin and his paladins put down these horrid creatures to only come away with defeat?!” asked a roguish man.

“They said nothing about what truly defeated them. They were silent about that part, from what the birds told me,” said a sorcerous woman

“By the gods, good and evil, what happened to the infamous Castle Grimrock? It’s gone! Did Orin do that before he fled away?” asked a warrior man.

“Screw the castle. These dead aberrations are some nasty stuff. It’s like we’re running across a floor at the lowest layer of Hidden Hell! Ugh!” shouted a swashbuckling man.

“No Shadowfell Tears still?” Dawson asked behind him.

Gisella’s bear-sized paws for hands gripped his shoulders tensely. “None whatsoever. I don’t like it.”

They scrambled or flew across the carpet of corpses. The journey became a little more difficult for the weakest of the guild when they neared the opening.

The aberration corpses became hills of death, with two massive mounds on the left and right of the narrow entrance. Dawson and many other guild members gawked up at the immense and perfect wall that stood undefeated before the dead aberration wave.

There wasn’t a mark on its pristine surface.

“How is that possible? Who created such a thing?!” shouted a crafty vulture. “Paladins can’t do something like this!”

Dawson glanced nervously behind him. If Gisella found any offense from that, she didn’t show it. Instead, she remained on the lookout for trouble.

“Hurry it up, you weak willed scum!” Dawson shouted down from his Storm Cloud +2. He hovered before the narrow entrance. “On the other side are our riches! Loot! Loot! Loot! Get everything before the rats scurry in!”

“LOOT!” shouted the men and women of the Vulture Adventurer Guild.

They rushed through the entrance and came out on the other side with no deaths or injuries. No traps had set off.

Dawson felt flabbergasted that they could easily go through. It wasn’t all rainbows or sunshine or anything, though.

The ground floor had no proper fields of green or wildflowers, just uneven stone blocks. But it was a lot better than wading over a thick carpet of dead aberrations that were rotting in the heat of Mid Summer.

The smell of it all would haunt him for years.

Dawson watched everyone get through the entrance. He looked up at the mighty walls, which weren’t just one solid wall, but two. There was one to the right and left split by the narrow entrance, perfectly aligned and magically complex.

Something godly must’ve created such walls. They had to be boons!

Yet, the crusade of Orin’s paladins was a failed one.

Dawson shook his head. He flew higher into the air, which cost him more aura to maintain altitude and control with the Storm Cloud +2.

It was worth the cost, because he needed to keep watch of his guild. He also had to pay close attention to any sign of trailing rats.

He was more concerned by the latter than the former. He could deal with any thieving vulture personally, but a swarm of rats was a fight too pricey.

So far, things were going alright.

Nobody got corrupted from the dead aberrations. There really were no Shadowfell Tears.

Nothing stood in their way other than some scavenger beasts and packs of aggressive monsters.

The scavenger beasts ran off.

Dawson and some other mage-types threw their most trustworthy attacks at the monsters, blasting them to kingdom come.

A few warrior-types slashed and hammered down the surviving monsters and secured their loot site. Everything was working out.

Dawson could hardly believe it.

“If we can get away with all the loot, escape the basin, and circle around the rats, we’ll come out of this rich, you hear me? Rich!” Dawson could barely hear himself over his pounding heart.

He could feel the magic humming off the discarded stuff of a failed crusade. Most of it was epic! Some of it really might be legendary.

We’re going to be rich!

“Dawson, to our left!” Gisella warned.

Fuck!

Dawson turned the Storm Cloud +2 around. He squinted and saw a tiny form that stood out of place compared to his vultures.

After some examination, he recognized the creature as a little green-skinned goblin, who was just casually walking toward them while all alone.

Dawson felt a shiver up and down his spine.

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