As they snuck through the jungle, it was starting to get dark, at least the large moon helped light up the path, at least the few areas it shone through the trees. Though it had taken considerable time, they had gone around the camps he knew of towards the last one, it took a bit more work to get to due to being on the far other side compared to the two they had visited. Taking the long way around not to trigger any of the camps, it took longer.
In the end, they managed to find the camp, though Dia was the one who narrowed in on it once they got closer. Her sense of hearing and smell made it surprisingly easy.
This time they also avoided any patrols, they didn’t see or notice any, and there was no one walking about with torches like the others did. However, the camp was very well lit up, with a perimeter of torches and a large open band between objects or structures before they were scattered about. This meant that sneaking in was practically impossible even during the night. Sam looked at the people moving about, though they looked similar to other Players he had seen earlier, they acted more structured. People were patrolling in groups, there were more of them, but they kept within the circle of light, spoke often to each other and... this place acted more like a military place than the other camps which were just bandit camps.
According to the info Sam had, these were the Iron Revers, the leader should be an Iron Hand. And it didn’t take long for Sam to spot him.
A man walking about, looking much taller than average, wore a heavy set of dark metal armour, giving the image of a dark knight. His right hand was a massive metal gauntlet, probably where his nickname came from, it had the same dark-metal colour as the armour. His steps were relatively slow but heavy, it took zero knowledge about this man to realize that his armour had a high defensive rating and that he was strong.
This was a huge problem for Sam. He needed to test to make sure but... he expected this man to have a Defense rating of at least the same as his armour, which was 40, which in turn stopped him from doing any consistent damage to the man. The only weapon capable of doing anything would be a crit from the Moonblade... which also might not be enough, as he didn’t know the actual numbers. And just walking around with that much metal on you, would need a certain level of strength... So this was probably a horrifyingly strong man. Given how orderly and organized this camp was, he was probably also just ‘more’ than the others...
Sam had severe second thoughts. He wanted to at least test-attack him with the Moonblade to see if he got through the Defense, but doing so would reveal his telekinesis, and talking to him could be the last thing he does...
There were many uncertainties, and the organized group of people here also felt more intimidating. It didn’t feel as loose or chaotic as the others, he had no idea how that would change things. Glancing over at Dia, she looked surprisingly uncertain as she saw him as well, leading Sam to believe that his speculation about this man being strong, possibly being correct.
Like with the first boss, he would have to be smart about it, but what could he do? And how could he do it safely enough that allow him to survive?
He regretted not working with Janik to try and find a way to work against armour, it wouldn’t be needed until the second Floor when clearing dungeons, but...
Eventually having to fight him, to beat him and be recognized as the single dominant force on the island, even if he postponed now it wouldn’t change the result. Thinking longer could give him a chance to figure out something, yes, but there won’t be much difference. But... it would be better than rushing in and gambling on things.
As he turned around to begin leaving, he vaguely saw something move in the darkness before he found himself hit and tangled in a net. Trying to get it off proved futile in the lack of light. Dia freaked out and made a lot of sounds and noises he hadn’t heard from her before, they sounded angry and chaotic.
“Dia!” Sam called out to her. Her eyes met his and she calmed down considerably. He was glad this was the reaction as she could easily hurt herself or be considered too dangerous if she started damaging the net, and just stabbed through it or something.
Looking around he couldn’t see anyone, they were alone until two men just appeared next to them. The best he could guess was that they were incredibly skilled in Stealth, or had some invisibility skills.
Though, he saw them now, and he didn’t need to move to them to do anything.
All his weapons unsheathed themselves and flew towards the two, the first target was hit by everything and he was horribly unlucky.
Though two simple daggers missed, the Moonblade and Shadow Fang landed a critical hit, on top of that the Bleeding edge triggered its effect and applied bleed. However, the man died in an explosion of blood before the bleeding effect got a chance to do something.
[ Experience gained: +1500. ]
The other man instantly vanished, at least partly. Sam couldn’t see his body at all, as he disappeared all of a sudden it strengthened the feeling that this might be some invisibility skill. However, due to the explosion of his ally, he was covered in blood, not to mention his chaotic movement gave Sam what he needed to send the weapons into a general area and slice them back and forth like a lawnmower from hell.
The first attack missed a lot, but enough made contact that his focus seemed to have broken, he became visible again and though his hands were up, trying to stop the second volley of blades, it was futile.
[ Experience gained: +1500. ]
“Sa! Sa!” Dia’s voice sounded urgent, Sam was too focused on the two men who captured them to notice what was going on, but turning to her now he found what she was referring to.
They weren’t alone anymore.
Dia had been picked up by the man he assumed was Ironhand, he held her by the neck with his left hand, she was thrashing and tried to claw at the arm and hand holding her but nothing she did seemed to do anything to him.
“What do we have here?” A deep bass voice asked. “An intruder and his pet?”
Dia was surprisingly calm, perhaps Sam’s silent order had her believe that he was in control...
“I mean... I suppose so?” Sam replied honestly. If he could get into a conversation he could postpone an attack. Perhaps give him an opening.
Other people were coming running with torches, which gave Sam a thought. How could this man have snuck up on someone as alert as Dia? Did she just not react because of the scene? Or was it that he indirectly told her to be silent? There were so many questions.
Trying to take advantage of the focus, Sam lifted most of his weapons into the sky, to the edge of his range, as silently as he could. On purpose leaving some of the cheap weapons to explain why they were cut up. Due to the darkness, he could hide them there for the time being, even a scimitar would disappear in the darkness when 10m/30ft away.
He nodded towards the camp as soon as the others arrived, they didn’t respond but several people surrounded both him and Dia, grabbing the nets and started dragging them back to the camp. Dia looked in Sam’s direction her eyes asked for guidance. Sam didn’t know what to do but the fact that he was relatively calm seemed to calm her down as well.
The trip into the camp was not pleasant, the nets were made of braided bark rope or something like that, and they were dragged across the ground. It wasn’t enough to open wounds but they got scuffed relatively badly on the way. They were dragged over to a large fire, the man in armour sat down on a log and made a motion for the others, they dragged Dia and Sam next to the fire in front of him.
“You mind explain who you are, and what you are doing here?” His face was hidden behind his sturdy helmet, but Sam didn’t feel threatened. The man’s voice was firm but calm like he was analysing everything more than just reacting.
Sam struggled a bit but sat up, still packed up in the net. “Well... I was brought to the island like everyone else here. My name’s Sam, and I was just scoping you out, I wanted to know who you were and stuff.” Feeling that it was better to be honest, though not give all the information, might be the way to go.
“Are you a part of the other groups?” He didn’t sound as much as he was asking as he was commanding Sam to share the information.
“Not really, no. I have no interest in being part of any of the groups. And... I..” Sam felt a bit odd.
[ Successfully resisted skill: Truthsayer. ]
“Ah... that explains it...” Sam commented as he felt like something was lifted out of his mind. He would never have shared his name in a normal situation, he would have made up a name or just made up a nickname, but he was surprisingly forthcoming.
“That’s just rude.” Sam continued as his mind shifted from answering to looking for ways out of this.
The man let out a strong laugh from the depths of his stomach. “I didn’t expect you to resist it, but since you killed two of us, it felt appropriate.”
“They attacked us first.” Sam retorted.
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“Oh, I understand that you felt that way, which is why we’re talking now. But, and I don’t mean this as a threat, it might not end as nicely.” His voice didn’t change in the slightest, but Sam suddenly felt much more intimidated than before.
“Now, my men looked severely cut up, they were pretty good at sneaking, so how did you do it?”
“They showed themselves, I sent my blades at them, seemed to work out.” This time Sam felt that he could lie if he wanted to, which was why he held back the details of the truth. None of this was a lie in the strictest sense.
“Yeah... They liked to do that...” He replied inside his metal shell. “I suppose it caught up with them... But the question then becomes; what to do with you now?”
He pondered for a moment without Sam replying, he looked back and forth between him and Dia for a few seconds. “What’s the deal with the Beastfolk? You tamed it?”
“Does it matter?” Sam replied honestly. He didn’t feel like sharing too much information, and he hated himself for not waiting until tomorrow for this meeting, at least he would have had his shoes recharged for a Flash Step.
“I suppose it doesn’t. But I do want to know if you’re part of the other groups, though even if you are you’d probably just lie anyway. So I suppose the only smart thing is to kill you.” His voice was strange to Sam. It was incredibly threatening but at the same time, it sounded like it was a logical next step.
And though Sam hated being on this side of it, it was a logical thought...
Looking for an alternative, any opening in the armour to attack, anything he could do. Any idea he had fell short, though he hadn’t tried to attack the man yet, just logically speaking this armour would make that impossible. Though he wanted to try, after all the armour might have a low Defense rating, he didn’t want to risk it yet and show everyone what his powers did, it was his main trump card at the moment. Considering Dia, she was good at fighting, but according to her information, her most powerful attack, her bite could do 63 damage which might not be enough. Realistically it wouldn’t even kill Sam, with his armour, so he didn’t feel that this man would go down before he would retaliate.
No, Sam needed something else, something better.
“Well, you’re probably here to kill me, or to gather information. If you are alone as you say, this still feels appropriate. However, I will give you a fighting chance, a duel.” The man got up from the log he was sitting on, nodding towards Sam who had some other people walk over and help him out of the net.
“Is she part of your class abilities?” He had changed his tone about Dia and referred to her as ‘she’ instead of ‘it’ as he did before, giving her a surprising amount of respect now that he had passively challenged Sam to a duel.
“She’s not, and what if I refuse?” Sam had to check his options.
“Then both of you die where you stand.” Not even looking at Sam he had started walking towards something further into the centre of their camp.
Sam didn’t have much choice and followed him, Dia was not taken out of the net but she was allowed to push her legs through the holes so she could at least walk. They walked past tents, some simple wooden huts made of sticks and logs tied together. Crude containers lined with leather to catch rainwater, tables and workbenches. Though it was a lot like the same as the other camps it was much better structured and ordered. There was room to walk between everything, and it strangely looked cleaner.
They were led to what looked like a training area, they lit some torches around it so it became much better lit up. It was decently sized, at least for two people. Although it was a vaguely fenced-in area the size of a basketball court, just square, it looked well trampled down to solid ground.
The armoured man entered first, motioning for Sam to enter afterwards.
“Now, the rules are simple. The first one to die loses.” His tone of voice was thick with his smile behind the helmet.
Sam wanted to run, he had wanted to run since they got in there, but everyone was armed and there was a lot of them... There was no chance of him getting out.
“I don’t suppose I can persuade you to just give up? If I get recognised as the dominant force I’ll let you get a cut of the reward.” Sam tried buttering him up to get this over with, without the danger of dying.
“Bargaining? That’s a good sign. I suppose you might be the other one of the two in the quest. In that case, I’ll just kill you and get the whole reward.” Again his voice was thick with a wide smile.
Cursing himself internally, Sam realised he had given up a lot of information with that attempt.
“Are you ready?” He asked bluntly. “Do you need your weapons back?” Not waiting for Sam to respond he made a wave towards the people around the area, it took a few seconds but someone threw in the weapons they gathered from the scene of their capture.
Sam had to give him credit for at least pretending to be upstanding. Though it felt more like arrogance than trying to be fair, he was wearing a tank, after all.
Sam didn’t pick it up but nodded to the question about being ready.
“Good, then let’s start.”
Sam had used the time since they entered to properly aim his named weapons above him, doing his very best to prepare for the go-signal, taking advantage of the possibility of critically striking right away.
[ Silent Killer activated. ]
[ Critical hit, double damage. ]
[ Critical hit, double damage. ]
[ Critical hit, double damage. ]
[ Critical hit, double damage. ]
All his weapons landed properly, none of them activated their abilities but he was happy with the four Critical hits.
However, his heart fell as he saw that the damage done was far from evident. He felt that some damage made it through his armour but it wasn’t much. Four critical hits from his named weapons, in addition to the Silent Killer increasing the damage from the Moonblade up to 120. Which was a dramatic increase, but he didn’t know how much damage made it through, his daggers, even considering critical hitting, would only do 40 damage. The Shadowleatehr vest would handle that... And this man looked better armoured than that.
“Oh, that was a good blow.” The man tilted his whole body to look upwards, checking if there were more weapons up there. “I thought you were a weapon thrower or something, but that trick’s neat.” Sounding and looking unphased he started walking towards Sam.
Sam made some distance between them and did his best to aim his weapons, critical blow after critical blow landed, but nothing seemed to slow him down. The only result of his attacks was the man laughing. Hoping for the Bleed effect to trigger proved futile, 10% sounded like it would work every 10 hits but that wasn’t how the math of odds worked. Changing tactics to try and disarm him, or remove his helmet, something with Force Pulses. Triggering his eyes was problematic due to his helmet.
The man laughed more and more as he slowly cornered Sam. As Sam tried to run around him he stepped to the side, like playing with a dog all he had to do was take a few steps in the same direction as Sam was moving, causing Sam to try the other side, only for him to do the same. It did not take long for the space between them, with the fenced wall behind him, to shorten to the point that Sam had no choice by to make his way past him.
Faking a step to one side, he changed direction to the other and made a beeline towards it. Using all his free hands he tried to hold back his attack with pure force but also Force Pulses, however nothing stopped the man from swinging his clawed gauntlet towards Sam.
The claws dug deep through his side, tearing up both the armour as well as his flesh. Pain spread from the wound across his body as he lost his balance and tumbled across the ground.
[ Armour, Defence 40 has lowered the damage. ]
[ HP: 5 / 40 █░░░░░░░ ]
Even with a Defense rating of 40, he took that much damage. The blood-red text of his remaining health made him panicky, barely hearing Dia’s voice outside the ring. A glance in her direction confirmed that she wanted to join the fight or do something, but still being in the net she had no way to properly get there without being cut down. She kept shouting words he hadn’t heard before.
Forcing himself to his legs, his left hand clutching the wound on his side, he had successfully made a distance between them, but all the man had to do was repeat the same process and he was fucked. His weapons couldn’t do much, at least that’ was how it felt. The only solace in this moment was that he wasn’t bleeding out, the wound was pure damage and though it remained open it stopped bleeding. Sometimes the System had a cruel way of doing things.
But, though all of the shit going on, Sam had an idea, if direct damage didn’t work, he just needed to introduce indirect damage.