Overpowered Wizard

Chapter 225: B3: C15: Idiot Humans 1

“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.

They could be epic.

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.

“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.