It had been a long and bloody trek through the woods. Shortly after escaping Dune Red, Amok and Goodman met up with Goodmans other fighter friends. Who had taken the chaos as a sign to leave and as they put it, acquired, horses. In the chaos and the small group ventured out of the main gates across the plains and into the trees. The first few hours had been tricky they had to lead the horses till they were far enough away from the city that they could safely learn to ride them. Horses are the easiest animal to learn to ride and the ones the Jaks and his gang had gotten were already trained. This meant that the groups riding skill increased but not their animal training skill. To Begin with the group had considered of Red Goodman and Amok, along with Jaks gang which was made up of roughly 40 ex-guardsmen. Not all had been with Jak all the way many had merely tagged along with the promise of adventure, they had managed to get 50 horses out of the city guards main stable.
The journey had started out directionless and bloody, with a lot of people and horses dying to monsters and environmental hazards. They often camped as the sun went down lighting a big fire and several smaller ones. The ex-guardsmen had, had to do several quests in camps just outside the city gates where they had to set up defensible camps. These often were either a total disaster because they were attacked by overpowered monsters, or more commonly, dead boring. Now the trio and Jaks sat around one of the smaller campfires. The rest of the travelers that weren’t on sentry duty were sitting around the large campfire talking loudly and eating one of the horses that had died in a brief encounter with a troll earlier in the day 6 of the travelers had died too and the mood in the camp was dour.
“So, what exactly is the plan?” Asked Jaks he looked at Goodman first scanned the rest of the them, Amok was looking at a map in the fire light and Red was flicking knives in the air and catching them, “I’m not trying to say I don’t think you guys have a plan.” he went on, “I just think maybe you could share it you know? It’s tough out here I mean none of us have the levels for it, let alone the equipment.”
Good man who was looking into the firelight scratching his chin, Turned and grinned at him. It was probably meant to be a nice smile. An everythings going to be okay smile but in the weak flickering light it came of sinister, his patchwork plate didn’t help either, the days of fighting monsters and traveling had left it battered, dented and scratched. Causing the light to reflect of it at strange and mad angles. “Dwarfs mate.” He said.
“Dwarfs?”
“Dwarfs”
“I don't get it.” Jaks shifted in his seat.
“There are always dwarfs around mountains.” said Goodman, “or you know, whatever the equivalent is in this world.”
“I think their just mountain people.” said Amok, he didn’t look up from his map he was drawing lines on it but Jaks didn’t think he really knew what he was doing.
“Mountain, people dwarfs. Same thing isn’t it? They gotta be small to fit through the caves.” Goodman said.
Amok shrugged, “I wouldn’t know, I hadn’t left the library till you guys turned up.”
“You still gotta show me how to make those grenades.” said Red she caught her falling knife between two fingers.
“Grenades are easy, their just unstable potions.”
“What does that mean?”
“Mix a bunch of shit together and stick a fuse in it.” Amok grinned
A chuckle rippled around the group. Then Jaks got back to business.
“So the mountains.” said Jaks, “how do we know there? Is anything even there?”
Goodman put his hands behind his head, “cause where else would you put another town aside from a change in biome.”
“Shouldn’t there be one in the forest then? Why don’t we just go there. We are already in the forest.” Jaks said
Red spoke up as she tossed the knife high,“Cause that's where they will expect us to go, and we know Dune can get there. We saw him outside a dungeon a few days ago.”
“Where is the mountain village then?” Asked Amok. Only silence greeted the question, and he sighed. “I’m going to bed.” he said
“We’ll find it sooner or later,” said Goodman as Jaks walked away towards the tents.
Red Caught the falling knife by the blade, “better find it sooner then,” she she tossed it agian, “there aren’t going to be any of us left to find it later.” The fire flickered in the forest breeze. A howl could be heard in the night.
In the morning they set of again, most of them were walking now, the horses were carrying the food and tents they had stolen before leaving the city. They passed through the thick forest and the trees gradually gave way to shrubs and rocks and a steadily increasing incline. Their progress slowed dramatically around midday the path had narrowed making them walk single file through a rocky canyon. There were shouts of irritation up and down the column as people kicked a rock that wasn’t illuminated by the single beam of light that came from some ways above them. Then someone at the back started screaming. Then others did too.
Red was the first to react and the most capable she activated leap and launched herself 12 feet up where she braced herself against both the sides of the canyon and hung there, looking back down the column.
“What is it?” Goodman called up, he was pretty calm about it being at this end of the column
“Monsters.” Red yelled back.
“Oh really? I thought it might have been the wind.”
Red looked down at Goodmans withering look. Another scream sounded at the end of the column and they now Jaks could be heard yelling to raise shields and bring any spears forward.
“What sort of monster is it?” Amok shouted he was standing next to Goodman still dressed in ragged robes that were far worse of now then when they started. He had also vastly improved his control of magic during the frequent combat the group had experienced.
Red squinted down the canyon, from her position she could see the commotion at the other end of the column. Two standing shoulder to shoulder and up against both walls of the canyon. They were struggling a monster which Red couldn’t quite make out, but it looked like a swirling shadow disappearing backwards out of sight and leaping forward to attack with insane speed. The two shield bearers were struggling against the monster. Behind them people were shoving to get away and others were trying to get closer carrying weapons. Jaks could be seen trying to push his way forward but was getting carried back by the flow of the crowd. The shadow attacked again smashing against the shields causing one of them to stumble and fall onto his back screaming.
“What's going on?” Goodman shouted up he was frowning now. And Amok was almost dancing on the spot clenching and unclenching his fists.
Red didn't reply she watched as the shadow ignored the fallen shield bearer and launched itself forward and into the back of a fleeing would be knight. The knight collapsed and the shadow fell on him in a flurry of claws killing him before he had a chance to see what had hit him. Then the shadow jumped forward again towards the next person, who had turned and drawn their sword. They swung wildly with their eyes closed. The blade collided with the shadow sending it spinning back a short way where it thumped into the ground and changed from a whirling undefined shape into a large black panther with bright yellow eyes and teeth as big as a forearm. The person that hit it started at it and it stares back.
Red could only watch as it leaped at him turning back into a mass or dark shadow and devouring the player who screamed for a long time.
“How bad is it?” Goodman shouted. “What's happening.”
“It’s definitely not good.” Red shouted back, she watched as the monster detached itself from the player and turned back to the two shield bearers from before both had their shields up and swords drawn but it didn't do them any good. The panther didn't even try anything fancy it just charged knocking on of them down before either could get a swing in. then it turned on the other second player and gracefully ducked under a stab before burying its claws in his armour. He fell screaming and the shadow panther continued its rampage.
Goodman had heard enough and he turned to Amok, “can you collapse the canyon?”
“What?” Amok said, “we still have people coming through. If I collapse it we would lose like half of our group”
“Yeah but, I don’t want to fight that thing. Do you?”
Amok stared at him, then up at Red who was still watching the chaos unfold, then down the canyon. He could see the rush of bodies and panic, all pushing forward. Against one another, Jaks was still shouting in somewhere in there. Still screaming for people to calm down and arm themselves. Get their shields and bring spears. Amok sighed.
“Well” said Goodman. He crossed his arms over his heavily armoured chest and waited. Amok finally shrugged. “Better them than us I guess.” he muttered. He began charging a spell, called tectonic disruption 1. It was one of the basics he had learned from the scroll, and was basically a localised earthquake that normally you’d cast on someone who was standing where you’d rather no one was standing. This time. He aimed it at one of the walls a ways down the canyon. This spell didn’t have any projectile effects, instead bright green fire surged around Amok while he channeled the magic. The effect was immediate, a loud rumbling followed by large cracks running up the canyon walls, huge boulders followed and began tumbling down onto the players, crushing them and blocking their path. Yells and screams sounded and the players that were closest to Amok and Goodman watched the rocks fall and either crush or trap their friends, or stared at the floor. Jaks yelled from somewhere, “what the fuck! No!” before he was drowned out by the noise.
Red dropped from her perch after the shaking nearly knocked her down. Amok finished channeling the spell and the green fire died around him. Goodman looked at Red, “will that be enough?” he said.
“Yeah,” she said.
“Good. And Good work Amok, now let's all keep moving. We must be near the town by now.”
“What about the others?” Red asked.
Goodman stopped his turn back to the road ahead and looked over his shoulder, “I expect their dead.”
Amok said nothing but followed Godman as he strutted of. Red spared a look back down the canyon path. The dust had began to settle and some people were trying to move some of the rocks away from the blockage, and shouting to see if anyone was still alive. Then she walked on, and gradually the would be rescuers abandoned their friends and continued their march.
It wasn’t long after that they saw the village. Nestled against the cliffside. A few houses were built on the side held up by wooden and stone platforms. The houses were all stone huts weedy trails of smoke slithered upwards from several chimneys. There was a lot of activity around the village, npcs doing npc things, like standing in the same place and never moving, or walking to and from a shop over and over. Only the guards seemed to have any form of real AI, and that was mostly for combat and giving directions. The group of players stood on a rise overlooking the village. When they had set out they were well equipped with stolen guardsman armour and weapons as well as a lot of horses. They had lost roughly 23 people on the road. There were 15 of them now. Most were wearing heavily damaged chainmail and torn studded leather. Their weapons weren’t much better most either didn’t have them or carried broken swords or sword blades tied to the ends of sticks or broken spears. Red's cloak had long tears and had gone a dark wet brown. Goodmans patchwork plate had slowly fallen apart, now he only wore the greaves with a chainmail shirt. His arms and hands were bare and he had lost his original shield sometime ago and had taken to using a large piece of wood a leather strap nailed to it.
Dune had rallied his forces after the fire. The NPC guards men stayed on the streets but he dropped the requirements for joining the guild to next to nothing and promised basic training and decent equipment to anyone that signed on (the cost of the training and equipment was docked from their guild pay of course) The Army of the Silver Crown swelled horrifyingly fast. Soon their were more than 700 members, which was most of this spawn cluster. As the ranks grew the money dwindled. The repairs to the city were all but halted since it was supposed to be the guilds that contributed to the repairs. Instead Dune had promoted loyal lieutenants and was pushing his new members though a vigorous training regime in the crypt area of the city which he had managed to shut off to anyone not in the Silver Crowns guild. They had sent scouts into the citadel dungeon shortly after the fire. The huge pointed structure that sat at the center of the city, it was the only building aside from the infinity gate that could be seen over the wall. It was made up of one central spire with a flattened top and several smaller towers attached to the side of it. Dune had sent in 5 squads made up of 6 people as pathfinders and mappers. Only 2 people had returned from the expeditions. They were describing unbeatable monsters called silver men at arms along the first floor, and something they both agreed could only be described as a death corridor, a long corridor with a staircase leading up to the rest of the castle at one end and the an open archway at the other. Both remaining pathfinders had similar stories. Their teams had cross the threshold into the corridor, and had been met with a storm of arrows. Huge great arrows fired by what looked like two enchanted statues crashed into their tanks disabling them, the rest of the party had been unable to move forward because thousands of other arrows there coming down the corridor as well. But not only down the corridor but from the walls too.
“I just don’t think it’s possible,” one of them was saying, “maybe it’s something they are saving for release but didn’t want to just stick up invisible walls.”
Dune sat quietly examining the map they had pieced together from the two surviving members.
“I have to agree,” the other one said, “those great arrows had an aoe stun effect, once it landed our tank couldn’t move and we could hardy survive without him so we all just sat behind him and when he went down, the others followed. I was at the back and managed to leap back away. Then snuck out.”
“My story is basically the same.” The first one said, nodding his agreement.
Before Dune could reply an alert flashed on up in his vision, from the way everyone flinched he could tell they had seen it too. “System announcement,” it read, “maintenance will begin in 2 minutes. You will be pulled out of game and asked to give feedback about your experience playing. Thank you.”
Dune stood before the others in the room could start talking about the announcement. He wanted to keep them on track for at least another minute, “I think there is a way past.” He said, staring down at the map. The citadel was a labyrinth that was for sure. Almost immediately after walking through the corridor you were met with a three way junction with no indication of where to go the two teams had explored the left and right paths. The corridors were winding, they narrowed in some places to the point where you would have to be walking single file, and in others they were wide enough to get 4 carriages down side by side with space in between. Both teams had circled back towards the center were they were confronted with the corridor. They hadn’t gotten very far up it so only a small amount showed on the map. After a short discussion the two survives had decided it showed about a quarter the corridor must have been about 500 meters long. “There must be a way past up the central corridor at the entrance.” Dune said. “Some kind of bypass, a secret passage. This is a dungeon and a big one the whole place is probably riddled with secret passages.”
“I don’t know,” said one of the survivors. “Maybe one of the other teams went up there and found something.”
“Probably a bigger monster.” Said the other.
Before Dune could reply there was a flash and suddenly he wasn’t in his office speaking with the scouts. But in a white void. There was a table in front of him with a pen and two sheets of paper. One sheet was a questionnaire and the other the patch notes. He scanned the questionnaire, it had all the questions he had expected to find on it. How are you enjoying Shattered Worlds? Tell us about your experience with the crypt dungeon? Is there anything you think could be improved. He filled it out quickly and picked up the other sheet of paper.
The patch notes. The developers had noticed the difficulty in the Crownlands, and the fact that the Wannabe Wizards had killed all the quest givers that would have led to any mage class. They were drastically affecting the game balance around monsters, and introducing an event that would grant magic to anyone that wanted it. He continued reading but the rest was just more of the same, details on monster ai and damage numbers, minor improvements to npc ai, not a focus apparently. They also said they had no plans to roll back any damage done on any of the shards and all npcs that had been killed would stay dead. This wasn’t an issue for Dune, the npcs were annoying at best and an obstacle at worst. He Shrugged putting the patch notes down and sat on the able staring out at the void. He wondered what he should do about Goodman. He was annoying, and had made Dune look stupid. Twice. At the same time it was unlikely that he would return to the city and all the chaos that was caused had let Dune seize power in Crown City. Live and let live, or charge into the wilderness on a manhunt. Whatever he decided it could wait till after the Citadel. Then there was a flash.
He was again sitting in his office at the city barracks which had become the guild headquarters. The two survivors must have already spawned and left the office since they didn’t appear. He looked down at the map and grinned. He got up from his desk opened the office door and yelled “Runner” down the corridor. Then he went to his window and waited. The city was still in a bad way. Large amounts of still showed signs of the fire and the new fire damage models they had put in apparently applied to updates too, which made the city look even worse. Entire streets were blackened with soot and lined with destroyed burnt buildings. Many of them were just blackened poles sticking out of the ground. On the opposite side of the street to the barracks an entire block of packed in buildings had been burnt turning what was once a wide street into a plaza filled with black burnt debris. Black smoke still drifted into the sky from it.
The door behind him burst open and a slightly overweight man stood there panting with his hands on his knees his face a bright red. “You called sir?” he said. The messenger was an NPC and Dune spoke to him like it, “gather every guild member at the rank of captain and above. And tell them to meet in the great hall as soon as they can.”
“Yes sir.” The messenger ran off again still breathing hard. Dune had never seen him not breathing hard and guessed that was just how he was designed to look. Dune glanced out the window again. He could only see the bottom few floors of the citadel unless he leaned right out of his window.
There was roughly 60 people in the guild hall when he arrived. These 60 people managed the other 640 in the Silver Crowns. The people here were made up of Captains, and officers. Below them were lieutenants then Sergent's then unranked. Sergent's tented to be the party leaders, and for most guild activities that was all that was needed. However when facing something larger a lieutenant was used to coordinate several parties in order to achieve a particular goal. After that captains and officers helped come up with larger strategies and handle bigger picture ideas. Captains were promoted to officers depending on their success and all it really meant was their opinion held more weight.
The room was noisy when Dune got there the people were all debating what to do most of them seemed to be shouting ideas to get the people to stay in the guild, since now that monsters were actually killable. A lot of people would likely want to go and do their own thing. Most people had only joined up because the felt there wasn’t a lot else they could do to get strong enough to fight. As Dune walked through the crowds of handsome and beautiful armoured people he heard a few of them suggesting what he was going to command. The Citadel. Once that was done the city and guilds future would be secure. Then he would decide if he should go after Goodman.
He walked to roughly the center of the room and hopped up on a table. He clapped his hands and shouted, “alright everybody.” The crowds gradually subsided into silence, as his voice bounced around the large stone room. “I can see we all have some great ideas, but first lets lay out the problems. As far as I can see the biggest problem is getting people to stay in the guild.”
“We should kill them if they leave.” Someone shouted and a few other cheered.
Dune pointed in the direction the voice had come from, “maybe, but probably not.” A few chuckles from the crowd, “the next problem is the city, we need to rebuild it, I and lastly we need to find a way to make sure people don’t run off into the woods on their own and die.”
Most people were nodding along with him. Dune already knew what he was going to do, but he would rather someone else suggest it so he didn’t look like a dictator. “Any ideas for problem one?” he said
“Kill them!” the same voice,
“Aside from that?”
There was some muttering from the crowd, “pay them more?” someone said
“What If we organised big raiding parties and went out into the world?” another said
“We need to do a big thing so people have faith in us!” someone shouted,
“The Citadel” someone yelled. Dune grinned “yes,” he said, “the citadel, I like that idea. It would inspire the masses, like saying, ‘look at what we can do, look at what you could do if you stay with us’”
Another person climbed onto different table. “That’s mad, you all saw the reports, there is no way we can get past that death corridor.”
Dune turned to this new challenger, He was a warrior called Biggon he had a single huge great sword slung across his back. Dune nodded at him, but gritted his teeth, “the monsters are weaker now. We could send in another scouting party.” He said,
“Their isn’t time.” Biggon said, “people will already have started to leave, we need to make an example out of them. We kill them and then no one else would dare to leave.” A few of his supporters cheered.
“Then we do the citadel now, we are the strongest in the guild, quite a few of us had been out of the city before the patch and came back. Now the monsters are weaker we won’t have any trouble at all.” Dune said, and he got a few cheers.
Biggon huffed, “that is a Dungeon. It is the Dungeon. The monsters their are going to be nigh unkillable patch or no.”
“They can’t be any tougher than Mog, and we beat him.” Dune was punctuating his words words by punching his fist into his palm and the crowd was cheering at the end of his sentences, “we are the silver crowns.” Cheer “we were the only guild to make it out the gate.” Cheer “and I’d bet were the largest Guild in the world.” Cheer “if you are afraid to go into the citadel thats fine. I will personally lead the assault.” Big cheer “I’ll be first down the death corridor.” Bigger cheer “and we will be the first guild to not only survive it, but conquer it.” The crowd exploded into cheers and whoops. Biggon stayed on the table and watched it all, then he let his eyes rest on Dune. “You’re the boss.” He said, then got off his table and walked out of the room. A few people followed him. While the crowd cheered and started to make loud bets and boasts about their future exploits in the citadel Dune watched Biggon go in silence.
Their weren’t any real limits to a raid in Shattered worlds so when it was time to gather in front of the citadel and since the Silver Crowns Guild had most of the people on the shard in it. And a lot of them were eager to try out their new skills and weapons on something that wasn’t a zombie or skeleton or ghoul from the town crypts. Nearly 600 people had gathered in front of the dungeon. Most of them were in small groups of friends or in their squads which were set by the guild, chatting excitedly. Dune was sitting on the top set of the stairs that led into the citadel drumming his fingers on his leg. There were to many people, he thought.
“There are to many people!” someone said, Dune looked, it was Flux one of his newly minted offices. Flux had earned the rank after leading a rescue party to a overly ambitious bunch of players who had decided they were ready for the forest before the patch. She had brought them back just before the game went down and was prompted shortly after the meeting, “Now I wasn’t at that meeting the rest of you had but I gotta say. I don’t like the look of this plan you’ve come up with.”
“Hm? Plan?” said Dune frowning.
“Well,” said Flux, “I can only assume the strategy is to suffocate the mobs with our bodies.” Flux grinned.
Dune laughed, “your right, there are to many people here, There’s that as well.” He looked up at the sky where thick black rolling clouds had been gathering. Flashes of lightening could be seen hopping around in side them.
“You think its the magic event?” Flux said staring up too.
“Gotta be, and if we are all in their,” he pointed back at the solid wooden doors of the citadel, “then most of us are going to miss out on the magic. Which could leave us at a disadvantage.”
Flux nodded and scratched her chin. She ran one of her hands through her long pink hair which cascaded unrealistically down her shoulders and framed her heart shaped face. Dune watched her and wondered how much time she had spent making herself look pretty in the character Creator.
“Whats the plan then?” she said turning back to him.
Dune was a little surprised most fresh officers found him, at least a little intimidating even if it was just because of his level and his rank in the guild. It was refreshing, “well, I think I’ve got something,” he said standing up, “Stagger the groups going into the dungeon. Groups of maybe 3 squads, each group will take a different fork at the start of the dungeon and either follow the left or right wall all the way around. Unless they get to the death corridor in which case they go past that, and keep going round. We should be able to map the whole floor fairly quickly.”
“Providing no one dies,”
“Well yeah.”
“And the magic storm thing?” Flux gestured at the black sky.
“Staggering the groups should take care of it. If there is a gap of say, 10 minutes between each group it would take ages for everyone to get in. I bet they would get bored of waiting and go and see if they can find where thats going to land.” Dune said point up at the sky again, the thick clouds were slowly spinning around a Central point now.
“If people get bored and wonder off they will be to spread out to take full advantage surely? You’ll need someone to stay here and keep everyone somewhat organised and ready to respond when it finally lands.” Flux put her hands on her hips and smiled at him.
Dune laughed again, “Flux would you like to keep an eye on the magic tornado thing in the sky and make sure we get plenty of wizards out of it when it finally happens.”
She grinned, “well I wouldn’t make a good officer if I didn’t do as ordered would I?” she mock saluted and then started to walk away, before stopping suddenly and turning back to him. “Hang on a minute,”
“Yeah?” Dune asked
“Why don’t we just wait till the magic event is over and then do the dungeon.”
“Because the magic thing won’t give us the money we need to pay everyone in the guild so they don’t leave, repair the city, and fund our many other adventures.” Dune said.
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Flux nodded, “right, yeah, makes sense.” She turned and wondered back down the steps into the crowd, a few other people gathered round her as she did a few of them wearing tattered brown robes.
Dune called a few officers and told them to get people organised. He watched on the steps while people started calling names and squad numbers. Lose groups of friends broke up and joined their squads where they stood in formation waiting for further instructions. It wasn’t long before Dune was no longer looking at a mass of people but a military awaiting orders. He smiled in satisfaction. Goodman might be able to luck his way into getting a mage in his party before anyone else but he couldn’t do this. Dune stood and his own squad which was standing at the bottom of the steps started to walk up to him.
“Alright everyone,” he said to the crowd, “we are going to stagger the groups by 10 minutes to keep out of each others way.” He went on to explain the rest of the plan or doing the dungeon but left out the parts about the magic storm which was slowly getting worse, but it hadn’t started to rain yet so how bad could it be?
Once he was done explaining the plan, he turned to his own team, “you guys ready,” they nodded and gave affirmatives, Dune stuck his hand in the middle of them and they put there own hands on top, then threw there hands in the air and cheered. A few voices from the crowd joined them, a few chuckled. Dune turned to the doors of the dungeon and moved to push them open.
Dune and his squad walked into the dungeon immediately the light from the sky was replaced with dark flickering torchlight. Torches were placed along the walls at regular intervals but the hallways was so wide that if someone was standing in the middle they would cast long dancing shadows in every direction. The floor was pure white marble and the walls were a similar stone but grey and patterned with silver making them look like ore veins. The ceilings high and vaulted, the shadows of the braces dancing and flickering making the it look like things were jumping from brace to brace.
The squad advanced slowly up the hall the light from outside was shut of with a loud bang as the doors swung shut behind them making everyone in the group jump. They chuckled nervously, then gave each other reassuring nods or sideways looks. At the other end the hall forked left and right, between the two paths was a tall silver statue of a man, he wore fancy robes over ornate plate armour, in one hand was a long wide bastard sword that looked impractically heavy. He was holding the other hand above his head and gripped in his fist was a silver crown inlaid with Blood red rubies, he was gripping the crown tight enough that blood was dripping from his hand and running down his arm and the rest of his body in little red streams, which gathered in a shallow red pool at the bottom. The squad stopped and looked down into it, there reddened reflections looking back at them, “should we drink it?” Ullen said, Ullen was the teams main tank and was wearing similar armour to what Goodman had been wearing, it hadn’t taken that long for someone to figure out the custom forge. His armour was inlaid with the guild symbol and polished to a shine which cast a small pool of light around him as long as there was another light source nearby, he was pretty pleased when he had discovered that.
“Why would we drink it? Its blood.” This from Hans the teams rouge, he wore simple leather armour with an arm hook built in. A Long with a hooded grey cloak he was spinning a dagger in one hand.
“Might be a potion,” said Ullen
Hans looked down at the shallow pool of red liquid pooling at statues feet, “huh, why don’t you try first?” he said
Ullen made no move to do so,
“I bet it’s a health potion,” Rano said,
“Why a health potion?” Hans said,
Rano shrugged, “it’s red.”
The others all nodded, and made noises of agreement,
“What should we do then Dune? Your in charge.” Hans said
Dune scratched his chin, his plate gauntlets ran smoothly along his skin, “bottle it, we can figure it out later.”
Rano nodded, as the teams alchemical support he pulled out an empty bottle from his modified bandolier and laid it flat in against one of the streams of liquid running down the statue, he was careful not to let the liquid touch his hands. The bottle filled up and he popped a cork in it before put it back on his chest. There was a thump down one of the corridors, then another. The Squad took up combat positions, Dune and Ullen drew their swords, Ullen got behind his shield laying his long sword across the top ready. Dune drew his bastard sword and gripped it with two hands in a defensive stance. Hans flipped back and hooked on the wall behind the statue. Rano stood slightly back behind Ullen and started dig in around in his satchel for useful potions.
“Defilers,” said a voice, it was loud and metallic, “prepare to die,” a knight dressed in heavy silver plate armour and wielding a shield and sword stepped from the right hallway.
“They need better duologue,” said Hans from the wall, “Prepare to die, ugh” he mocked.
The Knight charged at them with surprising speed its sword swinging in a wide arc. It caught them by surprise, and Ullen wasn’t in a position to parry it, instead he lent into the blow with his shield. Sparks flew as the sword connected tossing Ullen back and making him stumble. The knight was only slightly thrown off and prepared its second swing when a stone flew through the air and hit it in the face, the stone burst in a flash of light and the knight shouted and stopped its attack. Dune seized the opportunity swinging his sword two handed at the monsters stomach. The sword connected, and more sparks flew up and the metal of the sword met with the knights armour. The attack however didn’t cause the monster to stumble and instead enraged it. The Knight let out a battle cry, “for the crown!” and slammed its shield into Dune taking out a 5th of his health and throwing him to the floor. The Knight turned on him and rose his sword. Dune was unable to move until the ‘fallen’ status affect wore of in about 2 seconds, which would be more than enough time for him to die. As the sword began to fall, a dagger clattered against the knights arm throwing of his aim, causing the sword to crash into the ground near Dunes head.
Then Hans appeared seemingly out of no where and used one of his own skills, ‘back stab 4’ an upgraded version of the regular back stab skill which turned it into a three hit combo Hans slammed one dagger into the back of the monsters neck, another at the base of his spine and then grabbed both jumped and kicked off the monsters back throwing himself backwards and the monster forward, while also tearing the daggers out. Fountains of blood burst out of the monster as it fell forward but the squads attack didn’t stop there. Two vials flew through the air and smashed on top of the monster the liquid inside the to vials mixed and instantly started to burn through the knights armour. The Knight roars, and hauled itself to its feet, its armour liquefying on it revealing white washed bones underneath. The knight lunched forward at Rano but was shoved aside as Ullen used ‘Shield bash’ it turned and swung at him but Ullens shield was already up and the blade bounced of it harmlessly, this time Ullen was ready and parried the blow leaving the monster wide open for a counter attack which Hans delivered again appearing out of nowhere, he swung two daggers across the knights exposed shoulder were the armour had melted away. He then flipped back and shouted
“Hit the bones for crits.” Rano and ran over to him and was handing him a white potion which he pulled the cork of but didn't drink right away.
The monster recovered and took a step back, it didn't stand up straight instead standing slightly hunched it also looked like it was panting it’s whole body moving up and down as if it was taking breaths. “It looks like its on it’s last legs, one more attack and I think we’ve got it,” Dune said. The beast gave a strangled roar in response and charged forward, wildly swinging it’s sword at Dune. He managed to block the first blow but the second connected taking an easy quarter of his remaining health, the next swing landed almost instantly after the first, taking another quarter. The third he managed to block, he was sitting at just below a third of his HP. Hans downed the potion and started to run forward his body disappeared as the potion started to take affect, turning him invisible. Ullen was also charging his shield out in front of him, The monster landed another hit on Dune bringing his health down to about a 6th of his full HP, Dune fell to his knees as an status affect took hold of him ‘paralysed’ he watched the Knights silver blade coming down on him and the world seemed to slow down. The sword moving gracefully through the air towards the top of his head, then in slow motion, Ullen crashed into the monster shield tackling him to the ground. Hans appeared next to him already using the skill ‘execute’ slamming the two daggers down into the knights exposed bone. There was the sound of breaking bones and then the monster stopped moving and lay still. Rano had already run over to Dune and was forcing a health potion down his throat.
Dune watched his health bar slowly begin to refill and breathed a sigh of relief, “that was pretty close.” He said.
The others laughed, Ullen and Hans were already refilling through the monsters pockets.
The Silver knight gave a healthy amount of xp and a little gold but not much else. A lot of the equipment was ruined by the acid and wasn’t salvageable. Once they had recovered the squad moved on, taking the left fork, it was their job to stick to the left wall and continue all the way around until as much of the dungeon was mapped as possible then they would rendezvous with other squads and try to tackle the death corridor leading up to the next floor. The group moved slowly with Dune and Ullen walking in front of Rano and Hans scouting ahead with invisibility potions. The hallway was the made of the same marble as the main one but this hall was much narrower you could get maybe 3 people walking down it side by side. The entrance hall was big enough for roughly three wagons and people walking in between them. Dim touches lined the walls casting flickering light, and their foot steps echoed quietly. Whenever Hans found a monster he returned to the group. Ullen would get the monsters attention and draw it into a position where Rano could throw acid at it, then Dune and Ullen would charge it knocking it down and hitting it as much as they could to keep the ‘fallen’ status on it, while Hans did as much damage as he could to the exposed bones. They weren’t worried about gathering the monsters equipment so this method worked fine whenever they met one of the silver knights. Most of the rooms were empty of loot and monsters, and were drawing or music rooms. Several had long tall windows where silvery light came through, making the room look like it was in constant moonlight. Outside they could see the storm getting worse, the clouds had turned into a vortex that was lit up with flashes of blue light. It had also started to rain, fat heavy droplets ran down the windows. The group was taking a short break in one such room watching the storm gradually intensify. They were in fairly good shape and their strategy had been working fine. They had mapped a decent portion of the left wing and Dune thought that with the other squads maps they would have a pretty good idea of what the first floor looked like by now. They had only been running into lone Knights so far as well which had been lucky for them.
Rano was sat watching the storm outside, “how do you think the other squads are doing?” he asked.
“Donno, I think we’ve been pretty lucky, didn’t those first people we sent in say that the monsters hunted in groups?” said Hans he was sharping his daggers running a small whet stone over them, the ssshhrrrkk sound rang out through the room backed by the rain pounding against the windows.
“They said their were a lot of them, donno about the groups thing.” Said Rano,
“We might be able to handle a few knights but I wish they would drop something worth while, or maybe we could find something.” Ullen said, he was rooting through the cabinets along one wall pulling out silver plates and bowls and tossing them out into the room, with a clatter.
They lapsed into silence for a while listening to the sounds of the silver wear the whet stone and the storm outside. Dune was flicking through his map and sending messages to other Squad leaders trying to get progress reports, they had been in the dungeon for about an hour so if everything had gone to plan there should be 5 other squads in the dungeon at the minute. Each one fighting their way through silver knights and whatever other monsters they had found. He wasn’t getting any replies so he assumed they were still fighting or exploring and not taking a break.
“Look It’s starting.” Rano said, the others all looked up out the window and saw the vortex swirling fast and lit in its center by a solid blue light. The others got up and stood by the window to watch. A beam of blue light shot downward from the vortexes center with and a bright blue sphere slowly expanded out from where it landed.
“Where did it land?” asked Dune,
Hans was already looking at his map, “the archive I think.”
Ullen nodded, “makes sense.” He said.
The blue sphere outside grew until it was about the size of 4 city blocks. Then stopped, it sat their solid blue and unmoving. The beam of light from the storm stayed as well, a great big pillar of blue that disappeared inside the vortex. It bulged at the top and then that bulge moved downward into the sphere like something was being pumped into it. It kept pumping these bulges of blue light downward. Dune heard a message ping and pulled up his menus navigating to the new messages. It was from Flux “storms hit, I’ve got a bunch of people and we’re heading over to where it’s landed down. Wish us luck.” Dune wrote back a short message wishing them luck and telling them they better do a good job.
“Hey look theirs some of the guild.” Ullen said pointing down to one of the streets below them. About 200 people were sprinting through the streets towards the sphere.
“Wizards, here we come.” Said Rano.
Dune took another look at the sphere and then said, “alright come on, breaks over it’s time we moved on.” He turned and hopped over one of the huge chairs that filled the room and moved towards the first door to the left of the one the entered through. The others began to follow, but before Rano turned he saw something, “wait, whats happening?” he said
Before anyone could react the blue sphere exploded. It sent a shock wave throughout the city shattering windows and knocking over several of the fire weakened buildings. The glass in the room exploded inward most of the squad were able to duck behind nearby furniture. Except Rano who was still standing by the window when the sphere exploded. The glass flew through the air and impaled him huge shards flying straight through his body. He was shredded into a bloody mess in less than a second. When it was over the remaining members stood slowly, and looked at the pool of meat and clothes that had once been Rano.
“Damn,” said Hans, “how annoying.”
“Gonna have to reevaluate are whole strategy now,” said Ullen, “unless either of you can tell what his potions are?”
The other two shook their heads, “maybe he labeled them?” said Hans.
Dune knelt down in and began picking through Ranos remains. He pulled the satchel out of the mess and pulled a vial filled with a brown liquid out of it. It wasn’t labeled.
“Damn,” Hans said, “lucky dip anyone?”
Dune snorted, “you first,” he passed him up the satchel but Hans just held it at his side. Dune rummaged through the bloody mess again and pulled out the bandolier. A shard of glass had gone right through it, cutting the thing into two pieces and several of the Red healing potions had been broken, most of them however were intact. “Does anyone remember where he put the fountain water?” Dune asked
The other two just looked at each other and shrugged.
Dune was about to say something else when the door they were planning on going through burst open and three silver knights walked through. They took up positions, readying their Shields and swords. “Defilers,” they said in unison.
“Ah shit.” Said Hans.
Ullen got his own sheild up and stepped in front of the other two, “does anyone have anything that might pass for a plan?” he said
“Prepare to die” the Knights said together and they started to walk forward and fan out surrounding the squad and blocking the exits.
Dune stood up and drew his own sword. “Are there any invisibility potions left?” he said.
Hans rifled through the bag, “nope” he said.
“Well their wouldn’t be would there?” said Ullen. Who was shifting on his feet trying to keep all three knights in his line of sight the same time, “whats the plan boss?” he said.
Dune looked around the room hoping something would come to him. He looked back out the shattered window, howling wind and rain were now throwing themselves into the room, which now reeked of ozone. The knights all took a step forward closing in. “Dune?” said Ullen, he took a step back almost bumping into Dune. Hans was looking out the window, trying to figure out a way to climb down or up. But the next window was several meters away and the smooth outside wall of the dungeon wasn’t climbable with his hook. He still had Ranos satchel clutched in his hand.
The knights took another step forward, they were almost in striking distance. Dune frantically looked around the room. “What the hell are we going to do?” Ullen shouted looking back at dune. One of the knights took this opportunity to strike closing in quickly and hitting Ullen with an upward swing, which the knight turned into a downward swing at the top of it’s arc. The blade smashed against Ullens shield causing him to lose balance the second swing knocked him over completely. He fell backwards knocking Dune over as well they landed on their backs at Hans feet who turned from the window, the satchel swung in his hands. The attacking knight stepped forward again and rose its sword to finish the job. Dune grabbed the Swinging satchel from Hans’s hands and half swung half threw it at the knight. The satchel crossed the short space between them and slammed into the knights chest, the was the sound of breaking glass. Then the room exploded. The knights were thrown back against the walls. And the squad was lifted up and thrown against the wall next to the window. The explosion Caused various colours to burn brightly for several seconds then burst. Bubbles filled with thick yellow gas floated around and popped. And wind and rain in the room were replaced by the howling of a dangerous chemical reaction.
When it finally ended. The squad was dropped in a heap on the floor. The knights were either embedded in the walls or lying against them unmoving. Dune got to his feet first his head spinning, “health check.” He said as the others started to untangle themselves and get to their feet.
“Basically none.” Said, Hans, rubbing his head. Ullen said something similar.
“Do you have any health pots on you?” Dune asked,
They both shook their heads, Ullen said, “Rano carried them all.” They all looked down at the bloody heap that had been Rano, it had not faired well in the alchemical explosion and now was a mess of red and black smeared across the floor and some of the walls.
Hans walked over to the pile of clothes and pulled up the Bandoleir, “there is always this” he said, there were 8 vials of red liquid still intact and tucked into the pouches.
“Which ones the fountain water?” Dune asked
Hans only shrugged.
“Amazing,” said Ullen, “we get blown up twice and now get to play Russian roulette”
“It’s the best we’ve got.” Said Dune
Hans shrugged and picked one of the vials out tossing it to Dune, he stared to pick one out for Ullen,
“No, Stop,” Ullen said and walked over to him, “I’m picking my own.” He plucked out one of the vials.
Hans picked one out after him. And the trio looked at each other. “Cheers,” said Hans holding his vial up. The others did the same then they uncorked them and down the contents. A moment passed, and then another. The three watched each other and their health nervously.
“Well I’m healing,” said Hans,
“Same here,” Ullen said.
“Looks like we got lucky then.” Dune said nodding.
They relaxed, then looked at the bandleir and it’s 5 remaining vials, “lets try not to get hit so much,” Dune said
“Easy for you too say,” Ullen said hefting his shield up and checking it for damage.
Something clattered on the other side of the room. “Defilers.” A metallic voice said.
“Are you serious” said Ullen.
One of the knights pulled it’s self out of the wall and fell to the floor where it started to slowly get to its feet. It looked like it’s arm was broken, “prepare to die.” It said and stumbled towards them good arm outstretched, its sword lost.
Dune walked over and stood in front of it. He took up a stance, held his sword with both hands and focused. Then he swung using the two handed skill ‘power swing’ the blade crashed through the knights head throwing bone and metal fragments across the floor. The body fell limp to the ground.
“What the hell man, why don’t you do that all the time.” Hans said.
Dune shrugged, “it’s got like a 5 second wind up its basically useless unless they are perma stunned directly in front of me.”
“Fair,” said Ullen.
“Come on,” said Dune checking his map to figure out which was the right door, “this way,” he said. The others followed him.
The door led into a long narrow corridor. With 6 doors 3 either side. At the end was a small water fountain with cherub on top. It was holding a silver crown above its head and spurting water out its mouth through the middle of it. The squad followed Dune to the first door on the left and took up positions. Dune on one side of the door Hans on the other. Ullen was in front of the door with his shield ready.
Hans reached over twisting the handle and throwing the door open. Ullen charged through keeping his shield up. The other two waiting on the other side of the door for the sound of a booby trap going of or a shout about the enemies in the room. What they heard was Ullen saying, “ooh yes.” Hans looked at Dune who shrugged and then they both went through the door.
It led to an armoury. Along the walls were suits of silver armour polished to a shine and down the middle were racks and racks of weapons. Spears, swords of every variety, Shields and pikes and bows and crossbows. The room was T shaped the amour and weapons being down the bottom part of the T and in the Top part the room turned into a training area. With dummies and targets and small fighting rings.
“Oh yeah is what I’m talking about.” Said Ullen who was strutting down the room inspecting different weapons.
“This is insane.” Said Hans, “How much do you think we could sell these for? We’ll have enough to repair this city and build a new one.”
Dune walked over to and was inspecting a spear the description read, ‘short spear, a basic spear used by the silver city military long ago. The blade still shines after years of disuse. Cannot be sold on the market.’ After that it listed its basic stats such as damage, durability, reach, and types of skills that could be used with it. Combat, spear.
Dune shook his head, “these aren’t for selling. You can’t sell them at all.”
Hans walked over to a piece of equipment and inspected it, “well whats the point in all this then?” he said waving his arms at the rest of the room, “we can’t wear all of it.”
Ullen walked back to them holding a new long sword and and new tower shield. Both of them were bright and shiny silver. He was swinging the sword around as if to test its weight, “I think they are for us. Like we take them an equip ourselves, we haven’t got any other loot really so this must be the treasure on this side of the dungeon.”
“That does make sense,” Dune said, he went over and started to look at the stats of the suits of silver armour.
“Treasure you can’t sell? What good is that. We need money. To fix the city.” Hans said.
Ullen shrugged at him, “donno what to tell you man.”
Dune was reading the armours description, ‘silver knight armour, once belonging to the fabled silver knights who expanded the kingdom of the crown lands across countless shards. The knights legendary prowess and cunning strategies made them almost unbeatable in battle. However after the collapse of the kingdom the knights retreated to the citadel and were never seen again. Cannot be sold.” Dune read the stats of the armour and saw they were significantly better than his own armour. However the armour required a combination of high dexterity and strength to wear.
“Can you equip it?” asked Ullen who was checking a suit of armour himself. Hans had walked up the isle of weapons looking for something he could use.
Dune shook his head, “no not yet,”
“Yeah it’s real high level stuff. Wonder what they expected us to do with it if we cant sell it.”
“Maybe there is like a lower level armoury somewhere, for the squires and stuff.” Dune said
Ullen frowned at him.
“You know,” Dune said, “because knights need squires.”
“We’ve been fighting knights and we haven’t seen any squires.”
“Well maybe they all died, the knights are dead. Sort off.”
Ullen shrugged “I just wanna be able to put this on.” He said pointing at the armour with his thumb, “will have to start training my dex up.”
Dune agreed, it would be pretty cool to wear the armour of the silver knights. It would lend their guild some authority if they had a group of silver knights they might be able to squash the last few groups that hadn’t joined up after the fire.
“What are you thinking about?” Ullen asked watching him,
Dune smiled, “taking over the world.”
Ullen laughed, “well we’ve almost taken over this little bit of it.”
Outside the citadel the storm was still raging. Howling wind and heavy rain battered the streets and knocked over or washed away the more damaged buildings. Flux was fighting against the wind. She was trying to make it to the archive where the beam had landed. The explosion had thrown her group all across the plaza and any sense of organisation had broken down. Now people were either trying to find cover or walking across wet flag stones in strong winds and heavy rain in an attempt to get tot he archive. Inside the archive flashes of multicoloured light could be seen through the windows. And explosions could just about be heard over the storm. Flux took another slow step, someone in front of her slipped and was taken by the wind screaming past her. The player was thrown against a building and left a dead and red stain on the wall. Flux gritted her teeth and took another slow step, a prompt appeared in the bottom right of her vision, ‘resistance training. Your stamina and strength have been increased’ another strained step. A gust of wind rushed past her and she felt her self slipping. She hunched on the flagstone and dug her fingers into a crack holding on desperately while the wind howled around her and people flew or slid past screaming and cursing.
The doors to the archive crashed open and an explosion went of behind them. One of the heavy stone doors broke of its hinches and was taken by the wind, it cartwheeled through the air and crashed against the fountain where several players were taking shelter. Flux couldn’t see if the players were okay or not. The door stayed pressed against the fountain. She turned back to the archive. One door missing and the other crashing over and over against its frame. Another player flew past her. This one was wearing a cloak that flapped madly in the wind. Flux reached out and the player seeing her to so did the same. A climbing hook was attached to his arm and as he flew past Flux grabbed it. The force of holding the player nearly pulled her back but she dug her fingers deeper into the crack.
“This is crazy, what the hell.” The player screamed at her, “pull me down! Pull me down!”
Flux shook her arm and the climbing hook slipped slightly from the other players grip. His eyes went wide, “No, Don’t!” he yelled.
She groaned against the strain and shook her arm once more. The hook came lose and the player was taken by the wind, cursing her the whole way. Flux turned back forward and attached the hook to her own arm. Then dug it into the floor and hauled herself forward.