AN: time to finish the ark. Gonna write the rest of the 6 to 8 chapters and then drop them all at once.
Artjem POV
We had a small break before finally going in. Not that we had a need for that or we had the newfound hobby of waiting in front of it, no it was so that we could enjoy the few advantages of Daisy's profession, her cooking.
She quickly made us a few small dishes that would boost a few stats. It was not a giant advantage that would decide everything but then again, it was a nice bonus that would be otherwise dumb to ignore.
This whole time while she was cooking I was debating in my head if it would be worth it to joke about a woman being in the kitchen.
“Bitch, why is dinner so late?” or something like that.
I desperately wanted to make a few tasteless jokes but also was afraid to be branded as sexist, I mean being branded as a cunt and even often as a Nazi was bad enough, but a sexist... This is just on a whole other level, you would not want to have that.
Bitches don't like sexists...
Finally I had decided on how I would approach that. In a flirty and teasing way of course. "You know." I told Daisy. "I still can not with my best will understand how you, a woman that is the definition of cuteness and with such good cooking skills was never approached by at least a few hundred guys. I saw you like 5 seconds before I was interested. Is there maybe a fan club waiting anywhere?"
She got a little rosy in her face and snorted. "You talk too much.. Also you are repeating yourself."
I nodded my head. "See, you even got that tsundere thing going on without it being annoying like most of the times, isn't it like the most popular stereotype? And in your case it is even so natural and adorable..."
She got a little annoyed over that. "Shut up now and eat."
I sat there ate after that. Unfortunately it was not cocaine quality food that made life worth living, no it was just a very tasty stew that buffed our different aspects, in my case might and critical hit chance for example.
I remembered a small detail from the past and how there was still something I was not sure about. “Hey Ben.” I called out to him. “Remember the boss we fought together in the beginning?”
He nodded. “The gold tier wolf? Yeah, what about him?”
“I forgot to ask, but what did you exactly get from him besides a little loot?”
The others perked their ears as they never heard of that. “Well, some loot and a little bit of gold, I already told you, why?”
I had a giant grin that showed all of my teeth. “HA! I do not want to brag... well, I actually do: I got 24 luck to my stats and a title of mine evolved, giving me a few nice bonuses! Oh, and it was also the reason I got my unique class but whatever...”
Everyone was stunned and Daisy voiced her complaints. “What?? It takes weeks to just raise a single luck stat! How can this be?”
Elena nodded. “Me and Calv have researched this and have been raising it every opportunity we got and only have like 3 luck...”
Daisy looked down in shame. “I only have 43...”
Now I was surprised. “What? There are ways to raise that? What does it do actually? I never bothered to look it up...”
Everyone shook their heads in disapproval. “Better loot and more money...” Ben answered. “To raise that you have to destroy and salvage dropped gear. The higher quality the gear is, the more chances that it will raise luck... God dammit..”
I laughed at Ben. “Ha! faggot, shouldn't have died then. Your own fault!”
He rolled his eyes and smiled slightly not necessarily objecting to that.
Calvin looked thoughtful. “From my understanding you can get luck from impossible achievements right? But why did we not get any when we broke the records in the last dungeon?”
Daisy answered. “Well, it was not exactly groundbreaking, just a better time, really... Let's say you manage to kill a world boss with a group of only 25 people or something, like that kind of amazing, then you will get a raise in luck. Both of you defeated a gold tier boss without any real gear and only your core skill? Wow... Also you did get something from becoming the number one, but it is not anything noteworthy, I will tell you later on.”
We nodded in understanding and ate our dishes.
Five minutes later we were inside of the dungeon. It was a small forest where we currently were after we exited the portal that took us inside in this by time forgotten place.
We only had to walk a few minutes further inside until we saw it, the fortress.
It was huuge! I am not one to pay attention to such details, but I will make an exception here.
The first thing that you will notice when seeing it are the huge walls. Tall gray walls of about 8 meters height with a tower with soldiers on it every 10 meter. The towers themselves were a little higher than the wall itself and stood of about 11 meters tall, manned with 1 silver ranked soldier each.
If you look beside the wall, then you will see the giant castle inside, standing tall and mighty, it was a fortress that looked like it was made for war and did just that for centuries in the past. I was not very familiar with castles, but from the looks alone I knew that it had tons of traps inside.
Of course I already knew that since we came prepared. We have researched the interior of the castle and have found a way for me to get inside.
So we stood there and I prepared myself for what I had to do.
“Artjem, your powers might fit the jobs perfectly but they are not a 100% guaranty, so be careful.” Calvin told me.
I flipped him off and used my Shadow clone skill as from my body black smoke started to evaporate and a faceless and dark copy of myself got out of me, it was like a cell that split in two parts.
Before we came here we made the plan.
What did we came here for? Well, there was of course the nice exp and the fun, but foremost it was to finish the quest we got from the king.
To find his mother that will die in this siege and talk to her, give her a letter from the king before she dies from child birth. Of course it had priority since I needed really to hurry up for that. We can do the dungeon afterwards.
We looked up the man of the castle and I managed to memorize where I needed to go, even if it was a pain in the ass.
Like that we stood, hidden in the bushes a little further away from the fortress and I needed now to concentrate as to control my clone.
My senses changed to the ones of the shadow being a little further away from me and I started to move with its body.
One of the biggest advantages of my skill is that I can merge with the shadows and be virtually invisible, I can even “dissolve” myself in them and loose my physical form.
Moving from one shadow to another I slowly came near the gates. I was not unfamiliar with such missions, stealth was something that I very much enjoyed be it in real life or just games. After all my favorite class in the elder scrolls always has been assassin, just a little bit above the “go in and fuck shit up” class.
The soldiers that were on lookout did not really look out for enemies as if their life depended on it and that made me think about what Daisy has told me earlier.
Basically the enemies here are human and of course since this is a very advanced vrmmorpg, they are not brain dead. They all have a mind of their own, however so that they won't stop doing their duty inside of a dungeon, they have something like a 80 / 20 mindset. For silver tier enemies, they are to 80% what they are supposed to be, doing their job and behaving like they need to, and 20% self awareness. Gold tier enemies are the opposite, they are much more self aware and from what I have been told also much more fun.
So either the people on lookout are very lazy, or in moments of quietness they can relax.
Now I was asking myself whether they knew when we arrived here, I mean do they just live here and then whenever a player enters they also enter dungeon mode? Is time stopped for them and they just kind of wait for someone to enter to then play war with us? Or are they aware of this process at all? I mean it would be pretty shitty if they knew when we entered...
I stood in the shadow of the closed gate and saw a tiny slit under it. So tiny that would not even let a fly through the gate. Dissolving my physical body, or the body of the clone, I “crawled” to the other side and looked around, still in my ghost like body.
The place where they hold their horses... a barn, yes, this is what it was called I think. A storage and a few barracks, but I of course only need to be concerned about the structure in front of me, the castle itself.
It is 4 floors high and has 69 rooms, hehe, and of which I need the bedchamber in the top floor in the southern part.
GG easy.
I watched the soldiers going about their everyday duty, mostly playing cards with each other and drinking.... To my luck they did not pay attention at all, probably did not occur to them that anyone could easily break in and they waited for an alarm to go off or something.
There are ways to come inside, ways that the others will use later, but those are a little different.
From shadow to shadow I moved and paid attention to every of my movements.
I noted that right now, there are 30 silver tiers and 2 gold in here while the others are somewhere else.
I saw a mage that was mostly reading and not paying attention around him that was one of the bosses. This was weird.. mostly bosses are the heavy armored tank type guys that also deal tons of damage and can take groups of attackers on themselves. If we go by logic then that means the mage should be much more powerful than any normal mage but also very squishy, or at least squishier than a normal gold tier. I looked at his HP and confirmed that. Thinking about such types of enemies, he was bound to have some type of hard crowd control or a shield. He is certainly trouble.. I am gonna kill him later.
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Now beside the obvious humans, there was also a race of dog like creatures there. They were also an enemy type in this dungeon. They looked like the world famous breed of German shepherds but with a little detail that made it a little bit troubling... They were constantly burning and had no skin, their muscle were bulging and they were eating meat from their ground while looking menacingly around. A few common types humans were feeding them and taking care of their.. fur?
Also there, among them stood a proud dog of the same race, I at least think so, however this one was triple the size and gold tier. Easily the tankiest mofo I have met so far. Another small detail was that this one had two heads. One could see that the second had was awkwardly sewn to his body and
did not really fit the creature, however I was sure that it would not be a hindrance for the beast to gut me.
By the way, this dungeon consists of 1 gold tier champion, 4 gold tiers and 95 silver tier with another few commoners that do not count, like cooks or something.
Slowly I made my way into the castle. On my way there I watched the gold tier mage closely. He glanced from time to time over the wall as of he was awaiting somebody, but did nothing otherwise.
As I moved from shadow to shadow, I came near the barn. The horses instantly started to go mad as they spotted me sneaking my way inside the castle. Instantly I hid within a shadow nearby and got the fuck away from them.
Now moving to the other side of the camp, I had to come near the dogs. Moving slowly and with utmost care as to not make the slightest sound, I still could see a few of them peck their ears and sniff in my direction.
Gulping and thinking about my next step, I slowly moved inside the storage that was not in my way.
As I saw some of the dogs watching me and a few even going my way, I was sure that I needed to get the fuck away from them. Despite it only being my clone, I would still not like to be caught by them. Of course only so that I would succeed...
Lurking the few dogs that were following me inside the storage by making a few sounds, I then climbed outside a window and could proceed to go inside the castle itself.
I made my way inside, slowly I advanced forward and paid attention to all noises that came from within, one false movement and I will be discovered.
With quick but quiet steps I made it to the staircase. There stood a soldier and guarded them.
I smirked, with a quick movement of my hand I let a vase drop from a table nearby and hid within the shadows. The guard came forwards with his weapon sheathed and weary eyes, he looked at the broken vase and around. He saw that there was nobody and made his way slowly forward.
Seeing my chance, as he crossed the shadow where I hid within, I came out and could not help myself but poke him in the side and whispering “boop” in his ear before hiding within the shadows again.
The man turned around in horror and watched wearily. Realizing that there was no one he was confused but the turned around again, as if I could have been behind him and again, saw no one. Like that he turned around a few times, turning in circles and then shouted “Who is there? Show yourself!”
Another soldier came to him with a drawn weapon and they started to look around together.
Unfortunately for them, I was already gone and on the second floor.
From there on there was no real obstacle for me, as all I had to look for was the perfect timing to slip behind a few other guards.
It came very close one time when I saw another gold tier boss and he seemed to notice something was wrong when I came to near to him, but I got out of that quickly and he sat down again as if nothing was wrong to begin with.
Kind of like in the elder scrolls when you shoot someone in the head with a bow and he runs up to where he thinks you are to then find nobody and then goes with an arrow still sticking out of his head back like “Meh, must have been my imagination.” This is how this situation felt like for me.
I mean, he felt something but then just let it be, because reasons... Not that I am complaining though.
Well, anyhow, the problem was that the gold tier dude was blocking my way into the last floor.
But again, no reason to sweat. I climbed outside the window and managed to get to the last floor my way.
When I climbed inside a broken by me window...
On a bed lay a pregnant woman that read a book and stared at me.
I at first stopped and looked at her, it hit me quickly as I said. “Oh... perfect!” and climbed inside.
The woman also closed her book and looked at me with an amused smile.
I looked at her. “Hello there beautiful, no reason to panic, not that you do... I will quickly do something and then we will have a nice talk together.”
Back to my real body, I opened my eyes and looked at everyone else as they sat on the ground and looked bored.
Kicking Ben as he was the nearest to me, I got his attention. “Found her.”
Before they could say anything, I changed my places with the shadow clone and appeared with my real body near the pregnant woman. Now canceling my skill, I had a few seconds to do what I wanted to before the clone would disappear.
Back to my shadow and the rest of my team mates, I told them through my shadow. “Gonna finish the mission alone and you... have fun here. “A second before the clone disappeared, I waved my hand in an innocent manner and told them. “Byy!”
The connection was severed and I could see their dumbfounded faces before I returned here.
Above the woman's head floated her status window, a few hundred hp and her name, Julija.
She still looked amused at me. “Well, this is new..” She laughed weakly. “Sorry that you must see me in such a sore state..”
I looked at the pregnant woman. “The best sex I ever had was with my pregnant ex-wife... I would do you right here and now if I wasn't here for something different..” I looked at her with my hungry eyes and almost forgot the fact that I was impotent right now. My body also thought the same way as I had no reaction down there whatsoever...
She laughed at that. “What a gentlemen we have here. Even if your offer is so tempting, I do not think my husband would be so found of that, even if we look past the other complications...”
I frowned. “What a shame... Anyway, I am here for a reason after all. Say, do you know in what kind of situation you are here?”
She tilted her head. “Held prison in this “dungeon” For eternity and forced to relieve the moment of my death every time one of you enters? Yeah, I am familiar with that. We have 20 minutes left by the way.”
I scratched my head awkwardly. “Good..? Have you ever wondered what might have happened to your son?”
“Sometimes some of you enter and scream to my men that there is a letter from him, but no one made it here yet and my men do not tend to believe so easily. No, I only heard little information of him.”
“Well, whether you believe it or not, your little boy became the king. He told us something about how all the enemies had to pay and he was the winner in the end... I did not really listen when he explained to be honest haha. I got a letter here for you...”
I gave her the letter that was in my inventory the whole time. She stretched her hands out to me amused but as the letter touched her skin, she seemed shocked and as if she would not believe it.
“Oh my... You are not an illusion of my broken mind? Or am I getting crazier...” She looked down and thought about something. “It has been so long since... Nowadays I am not even sure if Arthur really visits me anymore or if it is another one of my delusions...”
I awkwardly mentioned for her to finally read the letter and while she did so, she continued to talk. “How long has it been, 40 years? This is how long I have been in here... Giving birth to my son over and over again, dying before I can even hold my darling and waking up pregnant again...” She explained absentmindedly and distanced while keeping on reading the letter. “Yes haha, those sons of bitches paid for that, yes, good my boy, mama is proud of you... “
I was still standing there and awkwardly scratching my chin. “You know, I was told that you were kidnapped and then brought here to be raped..”
She frowned with disdain. “All bullshit and conspiracy as to use my absence while I was pregnant to get the kingdom to split... But they paid in the end...”
“You know.” I started to speak my honest mind out of nowhere. “Your son... He is a very formidable man actually... I am not talking about him becoming king or whatever, no. He was put in this situation, in this hellish life of his where he can do almost nothing to change it and what does he do? He defies his creators and uses their limitations to his advantage by giving this quest... I wish I could do the same... “ I sighed and scratched my chin. “Anyway, he would want to get a reply I am sure. How about we--”
I was interrupted by a man that opened the door and walked inside the room, still in holding the door handle.
Arthur, was written in gold letters above his head and his whole status was surrounded by a golden border, with two swords going through it, symbolizing that he was a champion, the over lord of this dungeon.
He looked lazily at me and then at his supposed wife.
I crossed my arms and showed him two peace signs. “Yo. What up mah homie? I come in peace.”
The man, Arthur, did not show any reaction as he closed the door behind him and entered the room, quietly glaring at me.
AN: A quick and serious hypothetical question for the future...
let's say for whatever reason Artjem goes into vr prison. Would it be okay for a nice and muscular dark skinned man with a large package... you know... would it be fine with you if I let this man have intercourse with Artjem, despite numerous protests from Artjems side?