Infiltrating Bastion was no easy task, regardless of level or Rogue specialization. But Ysillith had done it a dozen times over the past year, and had worked out the optimal timing and paths by this point. It helped that his [Shadow Blade] specialization had the best tool set for the job, sure. But ultimately, it was countless trial and error, hundreds of graveyard runs, and his own doggedness that had made him such an expert at sneaking into the Consortium’s capital city.
Weaving through the Avenue district was the trickiest part - the player base was thickest there, and the guards patrolled in packs with a [Truesight] ranger among them. But once you made it past the Avenue, the Player Housing district was a piece of cake.
And that’s where he was now, stealthed on a distant rooftop, observing a commotion of players that he hadn’t seen except in Guild Wars or World PvP events. The only difference here was that no one was killing each other.
That would end soon.
He had stewed for hours after that god damn Isabella companion had killed Osgoth the other day. At first, it hadn’t bothered him - he had other things to do, and Osgoth hadn’t seemed to mind losing his gold and letting the Damsel run off with a trophy. For some reason, the annoyance had hit him later, like a delayed effect that had wormed its way into his brain. He couldn’t understand how a Damsel had managed to kill a max-level player like Osgoth. It didn’t make sense.
His real anger had begun to brew when he had dialed Customer Service later that day. Of course he knew that Customer Service was a joke in this game, but a Damsel running around player killing max-level characters was too egregious for them to ignore.
Except, when he had finally paid enough gold to get to the front of the call line, they had brushed him off.
“We are aware of the issue and are taking steps to mitigate this particular NPC’s impact on the game. Unfortunately, we are not able to reimburse your friend for their lost gold or trophy. Thank you for calling Swords & Sorcery Customer Service.
“Have a nice day-click.”
Ohhh, that had fired him up. He raged for hours after that phone call. That is, until Osgoth came back online and sent him that Crawler article. They weren’t alone! The Damsel had killed others. One was a fluke, two was the beginnings of a spree.
Someone had to stop the rogue Damsel. And if S&S wouldn’t do it, then Ysillith would.
He had already been on his way to Bastion to begin reconnaissance when the video dropped. He had never seen an S&S video make the rounds so fast. They were talking about it in his Guild chat, in World chat, in every Discord server - he even saw a clip from a fucking news channel speculating on the Damsel.
But none of that mattered. The only thing that mattered was what the Damsel - he refused to think of her as Ray - had said in the video.
“We don’t know what would happen if I died in game. But we’re pretty certain that I won’t go to the graveyard…It’s most likely one-and-done for me.”
The bitch had tried to leverage that into garnering sympathy from other players. And even worse, it had worked! The forums and servers and chats were filled with players simping for this NPC twat!
But not Ysillith. He saw through the bullshit. It was clear as day to him what this was…
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
It was a goddamn stunt by S&S!
They were normalizing NPCs going wild and stealing player’s gold for Christ’s sake! This rogue Damsel could go on a killing spree and wipe an entire raid group of Necks, scoop up all their gold, and S&S wouldn’t do a damned thing about it.
Because why would they? That was how the economy of S&S thrived - you took gold from enemy players you killed, creating a circular momentum where the gold was always passing around across factions and Guilds. But what if an NPC at S&S’s bequest went on a rampage…and just deposited that gold somewhere and never used it. A team of these level 100s could clean up millions of gold from the player economy, forcing the players to deposit more credits in exchange for gold.
It was genius when you thought about it. They already did it with their ridiculous gold costs for basic add ons, Guildhalls, materials you could only buy from NPC shops, and the list went on. It shouldn’t have surprised him that they had found another insidious method to rob their player base - they’d been doing it from day one.
And somehow, they’d managed to get the player base to endorse the scam!
He shook his head, the anger rising just thinking about it.
And they had done it with a Consortium NPC, because they knew the Necks were the PvP powerhouse of S&S. They wanted to bring Ysillith’s faction down a peg through an elite team of cheating, level 100, motherfucking, battle NPCs!
You couldn’t convince him otherwise - he had seen the Damsel NPC cast [Freezing Wave] of all things! It didn’t make sense for an NPC to have access to the skill tree if it was just a coding error.
This clearly came from the top…but Ysillith was going to be the one to shut this whole charade down.
He was going to put that Damsel’s single life to the test and expose her for the fraud he knew her to be.
Him… and the team of level 60 Rogues he had brought with him.
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Ysillith and his group watched as the NPC guard finished his patrol in front of the Damsel’s Guildhall.
The idiot had his Guildhall door open, with a stream of players waiting in line wrapping down the block. He wanted to rage at these simpletons begging to be allowed into an NPC-run Guild. But that wasn’t his job today.
He fired off a chat to his group, and the five of them split off in different directions, scaling down the building they had been perched upon. To his eyes, the four others were ghostly silhouettes, barely visible as they created some distance between each other.
That was only because they were grouped. To the Con players, the stealthed Rogues would be entirely invisible except to the max-level players, and even then, only in close proximity.
The five of them approached the Guildhall from different angles. Three skirted the line of players to scale the exterior of the Guildhall. The fourth posted up outside the front door in case the Damsel made a run for it.
And Ysillith - he went straight through the front door, making sure the players he passed were low enough of a level that they wouldn’t spot him even if he was dancing on their shoes.
In normal circumstances, Ysillith would have recommended the four attackers all strike from the roof. It was unlikely for anyone with true sight to activate their ability, but if they did, it was even more unlikely that they would glance up at the roof line. But this was not normal circumstances…this was personal. So Ysillith had decided that he would approach on foot. He wanted to see the Damsel’s face when he zeroed her out.
It was trivial, really, to work his way through the interior of the Guildhall and to the exterior courtyard. Most of these pathetic hanger ons were mid to low level. He spotted one level 60 on the street, shaking his head with disappointment as he kept a healthy distance.
Once he was in the courtyard, he immediately spotted the NPC. She was at the back, a drove of players around her like she was holding court.
It made his blood boil!
He forced himself to take a calming breath. It would all be over soon.
With great caution, he slinked his way around the edge of the courtyard, eventually making his way to the rear. Ever so slowly, he inched closer, until the Damsel’s exposed back was facing him. He noted that she now wore magical armor, but from its mismatched appearance, it wasn’t Raid-level gear. That was fortunate - his plan depended on the four of them striking fast and hard, then disappearing before a response could form. If the Damsel could tank their first few salvos, they’d have a fight on their hands.
He was in position now, and sent a message to the four Rogues posted on the roof across the courtyard. He counted down, making sure their attacks would be in sync.
5…
4…
3…
2…
1…
He activated all his offensive cooldowns and triggered his [Alleyway Ambush] ability just as the four other Rogues de-stealthed and launched their own attacks from above.