Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

<Soul of Donnchadh (Epic,Ex,Ego)

The soul of a Nem Marvo, an undying being, forcefully detached from its undead body. Soul contains 85% of the Nem Marvo's original knowledge and skills and 12% of its personality.>

Ex and epic, the soul had similar specs to Al'Zalsar, though it was obviously weaker than the frightening Lich and spicy Sorceress was. Well, it was also more than 60 levels below her. Seth really questioned whether there was another size beyond Ex...

Unlike with Neloth, the numbers for the skills were slightly lower. Especially the personality had suffered, probably because of Mind Decay. Expanding the tab for knowledge and skills, Seth found that Donnchadh was a master of <Dark Magic>, explaining the massive draining skill it had used on the undead.

It had various other skills, such as high-level close combat skills and tank skills it had used to resist and trounce his golems for hours. Overall, the creature was terrifyingly balanced, almost like the jacked-up version of a vampire. No, that wasn't completely right, it was also like a lich.

After looking at the soul, Seth also searched the massive body. The Nem Marvo was loaded. It had several epic rings and an amulet that were a mix of dungeon drops and items that had a maker according to the item description. Even the robe that had long been ripped apart and irreparable was an epic item before.

While Seth was looking at his loot the golem below started moving again, collecting the corpses strewn in the street and putting them on the abandoned trucks and carts. Only when he heard their busy shuffling, did he realize that the bird song had also fallen silent with the death of Donnchadh. Had the birds run away after their master died?

Many of the monster corpses the golems had originally brought along had become useless after becoming resurrected and fighting again. Seth could only go down and start looting them to get at least some usable parts out of them. This made a lot of space for the people corpses the necromantic song had pulled in from the whole neighborhood.

Compared to the hacked-apart monsters, their equipment would still be of use in the future. Seth was looting beasts, when one of the golem knights approached him.

“Master, there is something you may want to see...” its words trailed off after it spoke in a deep, hollow voice. As expected, these golem made from higher, unrefined souls, were much quicker to develop their own thoughts when coupled with a good ego circuit.

Intrigued, Seth followed it to the center of the battlefield where several buildings had collapsed. Close to the place where the undead and golems fought, the golem knight guided him to a building. The inside of the lobby had obviously been remodeled.

Modern furniture was nowhere to be seen, instead, there were dark tapestries hanging on the walls and shelves and chests fashioned from bones. In the center of the lobby which now looked like a crypt, was a stone sarcophagus in an upright position.

Was this the den of Donnchadh?

“There were magical traps at the entrance and inside, but we disarmed them.” the golem that brought him explained, pointing to a pile of scaled golems, that lay on the ground, not moving, slowly mending themselves. They actually disarmed the traps by triggering them with their subordinates. Was this the cruelty of an orc leader coming through?

“Good, good, but why did you ask me to come here?”

As intriguing as the den looked, Seth wasn't really interested in an undead's interior design. The answer quickly became clear when the orc knight opened one of the small bone chests on the bone shelves.

The inside was covered in brocade and held several rings in tidy spacing. All of them were rare or uncommon with similar effects. The blacksmith looked back at the room again.

“Are all of them like this?” he asked surprised. The golem nodded.

“There is more upstairs,” the golem added.

The whole floor was reorganized, with the staircases stripped out and the elevator obviously not working. The way up was a circular hole in the ceiling. If one couldn't fly or jump the distance, they would be unable to go up. The next floor was also emptied out and filled with...mannequins?

Simple, everyday mannequins one would find at any store had been assembled here as armor racks. He had underestimated the undead, Donnchadh actually had some taste as a collector. All items displayed were epic or powerful rare items.

Looking around the floor, he stopped in front of one peculiar display. It was the torso of a mannequin wearing a damaged leather shirt and a necklace.

<Augur's Necklace

Augur's Set 1/3

Epic

Durability: 120/450

1.+50% Magic Damage

2.+300 Mana

3.+25 Intelligence

4.+5% Mana Regeneration

Set-effect: 3/3

+150% Magic Damage

A necklace created by Augur, a rising journeyman enchanter. Through unfortunate circumstances, he was whisked away and stranded in the Pathworks. After a severe struggle against a bizarre creature, he finally breathed his last breath in the ruins of a foreign world.>

It was the necklace that belonged to the ring he found earlier. Surprisingly, the shirt was the third part of Augur's Set. This find confirmed his suspicions about the “bizarre creature”. Donnchadh was the bizarre creature that had killed many of the survivors and invaders.

But if it killed and looted them for his hoard, why were some of the items in the hand of scavengers, like Augur's Ring? He pondered about it, as he ascended further.

While the undead went to the trouble of properly displaying powerful items, they found damaged or weaker items piled up in the room on the third floor. Seth guessed that the ones on the first floor were for personal use, the second was display, third and up were storage.

On the fifth were even heaps of materials. Small amounts of ore of <Arcane Gold>, <Mithril>, <Fey metal>, and other rare and some epic materials. However, there were mostly gems, Seth even came across some pieces of <Dragon Glass>. It had been quite some time since he came across the volcanic glass drenched in the power of a Dragon Vein.

Donnchadh was a real hoarder, but it had helped Seth with this obsession. The undead's home was a big haul. Seeing the prepared hoard, the blacksmith brought out several crates for the golem to pack up the items. Using the crates, Seth would be able to put all the stuff collected here into his inventory. He feared that some would be loft if it was simply thrown on the carts or trucks outside.

When Seth returned downstairs, he found that the golems had opened one of the elevator shafts to search the floor below the lobby. However, there was no loot here, only bodies. The whole basement was filled with desiccated mummies. Thousands of them.

All of them were bound on their hand and legs. They had signs of battle on their bodies, but all of them died from their throats being ripped out. Suddenly, Seth had a haunting idea, of how those scavengers got items from the undead.

They fed it! They caught and fed people to this thing. They bought gear with the lives of others. He was disgusted to think he had felt some admiration for this thing's collection before. As little as there was, now any empathy for the scavengers that died to the golems was also gone.

No wonder, Mark Baker's scout couldn't find any people here. They were all hunted by the scavengers, who themselves kept their distance from the bloodthirsty monster. It all made sense, in a bizarre and horrible way.

They didn't collect these bodies. There was nothing to take here. Not even soul remnants appeared in his eyes. Had they faded away after they were awakened as undead and killed again? It didn't matter. All he could do for these people now, was to show some respect and burn their bodies. Maybe the flame of the underworld would help them find rest in the afterlife.

The basement was quickly swallowed by the pale blue soul fire as Seth watched their bodies turn to ashes. He contained the flames to the basement, while the golem were packing up above. Soon all the bodies were gone, except one.

Three of the bodies seemed unharmed by the ocean of blue fire. Curious, Seth approached one of them. This corpse was lying on the ground, close to the center of the basement. It had been hidden by the pile of other bodies. It was a rotten corpse, almost skeletonized, but it still had a head of bright blonde long hair. Unlike the corpses that burned away, this one was not tied up either.

<Ding! A new quest has been generated!>

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