Evil Sorcerer System 15 (Ellen PoV 1) (Patreon)

Ellen had been an ordinary college girl before the summoning. Her dreary days of staring at books had come to a sudden end when a portal opened and drew her into a distant land of swords and evil sorcerers.

She looked in the full-length mirror at her golden hair and piercing eyes of the same shade. Both had been a muted brown before coming to this world, and she'd hardly been able to see her hand in front of her face without her glasses. Now her vision was crystal clear, and the gorgeous woman standing in the polished brass before her was someone Ellen didn't even recognize. And yet this was her new life.

"Does your hero's blessing suggest today is the day for our crusade?" asked a man in white robes. His name was Yavin. He was one of the paladins here at the Eastern Citadel of the Order of the Golden Sword, and he had served as one of Ellen's teachers as she made her way in this strange world.

Despite his pleasant smile and average build, Yavin was the most dangerous man in the citadel. His sword struck with supernatural speed and strength none of the knights could hope to match, and sometimes he wielded golden light to cut things that should have been impossible. Ellen had once seen him pierce the heart of a man straight through his armor in the blink of an eye.

According to legend, heroes could surpass even paladins in power, but Ellen was a long way from being a full-fledged hero. And until she was, she planned to tread carefully around the smiling, eerily handsome man before her.

He waited patiently for her reply, and Ellen realized she'd been staring a moment too long while she thought. She hastily checked the quests given to her by the source of her powers and the thing that made her a hero.

Hero System

Today's Quests:

Quest 1: Preach the word of the goddess to the people. (100 Righteous Points)

Quest 2: Smite sorcerers. (1,000 Righteous Points)

Quest 3: Liberate Lamford from the clutches of an evil Dark Lord of Sorcery and his minions. (10,000 Righteous Points)

Ellen had reported her quests this morning, as she was supposed to. The Order of the Golden Sword knew best how to make use of them. The price for that was that most of her purchases through the Hero System ended up going to the Order itself and the higher-ups among the goddess's faithful. Ellen didn't mind sharing, though she rarely saw any of her System purchases in action.

"The time has come to liberate Lamford. I can only hope we aren't too late," Ellen said. They had delayed far too long for her liking.

"Perfect. Several nobles have already commissioned the Life Extension Elixirs we will purchase from the points this quest provides. Come, we must complete it by nightfall for the full reward. The Order of the Golden Sword will ride hard and fast for Lamford."

***

They rode on horseback toward Lamford.

"The walls have been rebuilt," Ellen commented as they observed the bustling city from a distance.

"This new sorcerer is smarter than the others. I sense a lot of undead on those walls. Some of them are powerful. I will have to shatter the defenses the hard way," Yavin declared.

He lifted his sword overhead and golden light began to gather around it.

"Won't that kill some of the civilians?" Ellen asked as she nervously watched the accumulating mass of divine energy.

"You're assuming they haven't all been turned into undead already. This is a purge, Ellen, not a rescue mission. Knight Commander Rufus had his chance at that and failed."

Paladin Yavin groaned as his chest heaved and he channeled the full might of their goddess for just a moment. Then the town gates exploded in a shower of shattered stone and golden light.

"Charge! Charge in the name of the goddess and expunge everything in your path!" Yavin shouted as he dug his heels into his horse's side and sent it into a gallop. The knights formed up behind him into a tight wedge.

"This way, Ellen!" Yavin waved for her to join him on his right flank.

Ahead of them, undead were filling the breach in the walls with surprising speed. They were already switching out swords for spears, planting them firmly in the ground to seal the gap.

"Stop the charge! We'll lose the horses!" Ellen warned.

Yavin laughed. "You underestimate me, young hero. Worse, you underestimate our goddess!"

Yavin raised his sword again, and a golden aura enveloped the blade. One that burned away the shadows clinging to the reanimated corpses guarding the breach. The closer Yavin approached, the weaker they became. By the time the formation of knights reached the gates, most of the undead were piles of bones. The spears were useless without someone to prop them up, and the knights of the Order of the Golden Sword rode through mostly unopposed.

Yavin's rays of light didn't seem to get all of the undead. A few still remained standing. Most of these wore very familiar armor, bloody and tattered versions of the same plate as the knights riding beside her.

As the formation slowed to a trot to avoid running into the nearest buildings, they spread out to confront the remaining undead.

"Goddess damn them! That's Todrik! These sorcerers truly have no honor. Even in death, our brothers are humiliated. Kill them, kill them all!" one of the knights cursed.

More such mutterings spread through the group, and their hunger for retribution shot up tenfold. The nearby knights struck so fast and hard the undead ranks shattered like glass. Ellen didn't even get to draw her sword before the enemy was overwhelmed.

"Our fallen brothers are tougher than the others. Their skill and spirit must linger, even after being corrupted by foul magic," said one of the knights who'd spoken before.

"Indeed. This is the Skeletal Knight spell. It is a clear tier up from the normal Skeletal Soldier spell. We need to be careful. This is no novice we are confronting, but a full-fledged Master Sorcerer. Likely with apprentices or more. Do not trust the living here either!" Paladin Yavin declared.

The knights saluted, including Ellen.

When they surged further into town and were confronted by a group of both humans and undead, Yavin's words were confirmed.

"Halt in the name of Sorcerer King Theragrim!" shouted a nervous-looking man who looked like he should be building wagons, not holding a sword.

"An apprentice and his minions. Show no mercy, men!" Yavin raised his sword and the knights rushed forward into battle once more. The man wielding a sword didn't even get to scream.

They stood panting over the dead man and the small group of skeletons he'd been commanding.

"Was that the sorcerer?" asked one of the knights.

"No... certainly not." Yavin's experienced eyes scanned the empty buildings around them, then went wide. "Wait, we've fallen into a trap! Look out!"

From one of the windows nearby, someone got off a lucky shot with a bow. An arrow sailed through the air and struck one of the knights who'd lost his helmet.

The arrow through the eye dropped him instantly, their first casualty. It was followed by a dozen more, along with a few balls of magical fire. The other arrows failed to pierce their defenses, but the fireballs were not so easily blocked.

A sword from the Order of the Golden Sword could dispel magic, but only when deflected. A fireball thrown by surprise could still strike, and that was just what several did.

"Aaaah! I'm burning! Put me out! Put me out!" screamed two of the knights as they were cooked alive in their armor. Several of the others tried to do just that, but the magical flames burned too hot. They were left to watch in horror as their dearest friends died in agony.

"Shields up! Form up! Set fire to the buildings and burn these sorcerers out!" Yavin shouted as he tore the burning cloak from a dead knight and hurled it at a thatched roof. The building caught quickly, and as other knights did the same, half the town was soon aflame.

"Yavin, we're going to burn down the town like this!" Ellen warned.

"Better burned to ashes than turned to darkness. Don't let mercy cloud your judgment, hero," the paladin replied.

As the flames spread, the screaming began, just as it had from the burning knights earlier.

"Harden your hearts, men! This town is riddled with sorcerers," Yavin shouted to the knights. Ellen found it hard to believe, especially when some of the burned bodies their horses trampled were child-sized. But every time their group came across an undead knight, their fury at the desecration of their dead friends redoubled their desire to exterminate everyone in their path, be they undead or living human.

The next few minutes were a blur of trampled civilians and burning buildings. Ellen's mind went numb as she watched it. She avoided the slaughter and focused on dealing with some skeletons.

The ranks of undead and townsfolk alike thinned, and Ellen realized the enemy was falling back.

"The undead and surviving sorcerers are gathering in the city center for a final stand!" Ellen shouted. A few of the knights nearby snapped out of their furious rampage. Yavin nodded solemnly as he dispatched several undead and a woman holding a frying pan.

In the center of the town, humans and undead were lined up. The undead guarded the front in a ring around the townsfolk, most of whom looked more terrified of the Order's knights than of the skeletons shielding them.

Among the survivors were those who actually had the look of sorcerers about them. The long black robes were a dead giveaway, and the mana scanner in a pocket at her side hummed with activity.

Before her was a young woman roughly her own age. She seemed terrified. But a fireball was already taking shape in her hands. That was a deadly spell capable of dropping even a seasoned knight from the Order of the Golden Sword. Perhaps she was the sorcerer?

"Knight! Please, we're not with them! We're innocent. The evil sorcerer took over the town!" cried a woman from the crowd of townsfolk surrounded by the undead.

"If you were not sorcerers, you would have died resisting them. I see no innocents here. Men, shields up and crossbows out! We advance!" Yavin shouted.

The knights raised swords and shields. With so many of them facing the sorcerers, it was easier to knock incoming fireballs aside with the flat of their blades. And they could answer sorcery with crossbow bolts.

"Fire!" Yavin ordered, and a rain of crossbow bolts slammed into the line of undead toward the fire-wielding sorcerer. She ducked just in time, but several of the townsfolk near her were not so fortunate, peppered with bolts.

Then the battle began in earnest. The Skeletal Soldiers died by the dozen wherever Paladin Yavin walked, but the Skeletal Knights still held the line.

Worse, some of the terrified townsfolk stopped begging and picked up the weapons dropped by fallen skeletons. Soon there was a line of townsfolk and undead holding back the knights while more than one sorcerer attacked with fireballs from afar.

The battle fervor of the knights had given way to grim determination. They were all prepared to face undead and sorcerers, but killing ordinary people was ugly work. Still, the fire in their hearts from what they'd witnessed was enough to drive them all forward. Even Ellen wet her blade on a militiaman who came at her with a spear. Yavin was right. These people had truly thrown in their lot with the sorcerers.

The best thing she could do was end the fight as soon as possible. If she could kill the sorcerers leading this rebellion quickly, perhaps the townsfolk would put down their arms and she could plead with Yavin to grant them mercy.

Just then, a terrible dark beam tore through the air. The knight on Ellen's left let out a cry of agony. Ellen's arm got clipped by the beam, and she felt a pain unlike anything she'd known before.

She clutched her wounded arm and rapidly channeled a healing blessing to stem the bleeding. That had been one of the first things she'd been allowed to purchase from her Hero System.

She tore off her glove to find corrosive rot crawling up her arm, but her blessing slowly counteracted the spell. Unfortunately, she was fully focused on herself and had to watch several of her fellow knights die in agony as their flesh rotted away.

The old white-bearded man who'd cast the spell laughed maniacally. At a glance, Ellen could tell this was the sorcerer they'd come here hunting. This was the sort of vile man with the sinister power to declare himself king of a small town and send his undead army to slaughter anyone in his way.

"Hahaha!" the white-bearded man cackled. "I, Master Theragrim, lord of this land, cast you out, foolish worshipers of Meliana. Do you think your goddess was any different from me before she raised herself to divinity? Someday, your descendants will worship me, Theragrim!"

"Foul blaspheming sorcerer! You must be the one we've been searching for. Laugh while you can, because your death approaches!" Yavin proclaimed.

Golden light enveloped Yavin's sword. Meanwhile, the sorcerer conjured another sinister spell. A beam of dark light shot through the air, but Yavin cleaved through it with his glowing blade as he leaped from his horse, clear over the undead lines, to land just behind the sorcerer.

A second swing should have been the end of things. The sorcerer cringed back in fright as his spell fizzled out. Without his magic, he was just an unarmed old man.

But before Yavin could strike the killing blow, an undead surged forth to intercept him. Golden light met something equally powerful, but twisted and corrupt. Yavin's blade clashed with something ancient and suspiciously familiar.

Yavin's eyes widened.

"Your blasphemy knows no bounds! Even our honored dead are defiled by you," Yavin growled as his sword clashed with that of the undead, which Ellen only now realized was a fallen paladin raised to match Yavin blow for blow.

"Hahaha! It seems I have friends in high places. Now, foolish paladin, prepare to die!" the evil sorcerer Theragrim cackled. Shielded by the powerful undead, he was suddenly free to cast that terrible spell again. He soon turned it on the knights still fighting, and one quick cast was enough to break the ranks of Ellen's allies.

As one knight died to her left and another to her right, she knew only she could stop this mad sorcerer's rampage.

She dug her heels into her horse's flanks, commanding it to charge despite the spears jabbing into its side. The horse screamed and threw her after trampling a few ranks of undead and human collaborators. Her faithful steed died with a whinny, but it had carried Ellen close enough to leap from the saddle and land before the sorcerer.

"A girl knight? Adorable. You should have... stayed... damn you!" The bearded sorcerer's words soon shifted from mockery to frustration as Ellen deflected his beams of dark energy as gracefully as Yavin had. Soon she was at the sorcerer's throat. And a moment later, she was stabbing through it.

The bearded sorcerer gaped at her with wide eyes as blood trickled down his chin and he sputtered his last breaths.

Ellen turned to Yavin to find his fight concluded.

"The sorcerer is dead. Let's go... Yavin?" Ellen blinked and realized it wasn't the undead paladin lying on the ground in a pool of blood. It was Yavin. He'd lost.

Just then, a new voice echoed through the square, smoother and more confident than the mad sorcerer she'd just struck down. It sounded sane, rational, and every instinct screamed danger.

The sorcerer she'd slain had been nothing but a pawn, and now the true mastermind had revealed himself. If even Yavin hadn't been able to kill him, she was in way over her head.

She took a step back, sword shaking, and took him in: the black cloak, the lean build, the half mask obscuring his face. His eyes were bright and piercing, like he'd seen through the secrets of the gods and come out the other side with his mind intact.

Then he spoke to her.

"Do you people really think you're good, when you burn down a town and slaughter the innocents living in it? This world is rotten to the core..."

Ellen felt her hair stand on end as the man before her conjured a spell unlike anything she'd ever faced.

<Note>

Alden's points remain unchanged. Ellen has an unknown humber of Righteous Points.

I'm not 100% settled on introducing other System users into this story, but I feel like Ellen could be fun with her hero system. I need to think of how Alden and her won't just leave everyone else in the dust though.