City of Ineford
Soldiers Street- Broken Vow
Darren watched as the various denizens of the pub drank, fought, and caroused as he waited for his contact to come through. Chalxae and a few other Rogues and Rangers were strewn throughout the room and his only backup if the meeting went sideways. Darren believed the meeting should go well, but considering the place they wanted intel on was so far off from all the main power centers, the Shadow Daggers had to use outside help. The only problem with that was contractors could always turn on those that hired them.
The most dangerous portion of the mission was the hand-off, if the contractor decided to double-cross them, it would be then. Suddenly a level 75 human Thief named Garen sat down opposite of him who studied everything about Darren from his armor and weapons to the cloak and darkness around him. Being a Shadowmaster increased his stealth abilities and his ability to camouflage himself using the shadows around him. Between his abilities and his equipment, even the LVL 75 human would have a difficult time figuring out what he was.
"Are you Darren?" Garen asked as he leaned back into his seat.
"Depends if you fulfilled the contract you were hired to do. Did you gather the intel on like you were hired to do?" Darren responded while he continued to study the Human and any other new patrons of the pub.
Garen snorted, "You are really playing up the spy thing aren't you. Relax, I got in and out clean."
"That is not an answer, do you or don't you have the information you are getting paid for?" Darren asked while eyeballing a level 50 Goblin Rogue who was acting drunk even though Darren would swear he had only had 2 beers at most.
Garen sighed before activating a trade feature and sending over the information that included a detailed map of Middlebrough, troop count, break down of Immortals located there currently, etc. Darren quickly scanned over the documents and information before retrieving 50 gold and tossing it to Garen. "If the information proves false or if you are withholding anything...you know what will happen." The Human nodded and started to stand when suddenly several smoke bombs went off and obscured everything.
----------------------------------------
Underdark
Jacob looked at the large cavern and studied the information in front of him and remembered the Dungeon information. Anything younger than 500 years old was considered New Dungeon, 500 to 1,000 was considered an Elder Dungeon, and 1,000 to 2,000 was an Ancient Dungeon. Dungeons older than that were Primordial Dungeons and they were the rarest and usually the most powerful unless they were quest specific. The Plagued Ruins followed those rules...
Dungeon Name: Plagued Ruins
Age: New
Level: 33-35
Recommended Party Size: 10
Jacob snorted as he looked at the ruins of the Plague Lords fortress, it had been a level 6 Stronghold at least. The encompassing outer wall had been breached in two places at least and based on the bones, hundreds if not thousands had died in breaching the defenses. June and Cathrine were scouting ahead checking for traps and any dormant defenses, traps, or anything that was asleep and felt like killing them. While waiting for them to come back Jacob reviewed the information on Cathrine including her abilities and equipment.
Spoiler: Spoiler
Cathrine On'tel-Longstrider
Banshee (LVL 38)
Rogue- Mind Mage
Abilities
Name: Backstab (lvl 4)
Properties: Rogue plunges MH Dagger into a target for 145% of Damage, cannot be Blocked and breaks Stealth
Requires Rogue to be stealthed and behind the target (Cooldown 1 Minute)
Name: Stealth (lvl 3)
Properties: Rogue disappears from view, any attack from Stealth counts as a Suprise attack and increases the chances of a Critical Hit (+15% chance, Decreases movement speed by 50%)
Name: Serrated Edge (lvl 3)
Properties: All normal rogue attacks have a chance to give the target a 15% Chance to receive a Bleeding Effect (65 DPS over 5 Seconds, will stack 3 times)
Name: Teleport (lvl 2)
Description: Rogue teleports to anywhere within 15 ft if enemies are nearby the rogue will be in Stealth.
Name: Psychic Blast (LVL 2)
Description: The Mind Mage unleashes a concentrated blast of Psychic energy at a target dealing 150-200 Damage (Cooldown 1 Minute)
Name: Psychic Leach (LVL 1)
Description: Drain target of mental/physical/mana energy over the course of 15 seconds then unleash it in a burst of energy dealing 200 - 300 damage. (Cooldown 5 Minutes)
Name: Mental Shield (LVL 1)
Description: Increases mental fortitude (+25%) of the subject against Fear/Paralysis/Mental Magic/Etc...(Lasts 30 Minutes, Cooldown 10 Seconds)
Name: Banshee Scream (LVL 2)
Description: Innate scream that all Banshee have that is a mix of Magic and Psychic power that manifests in a physical scream that damages all subjects within a conal radius in front of the Banshee dealing 300-600 Damage and leaving targets disoriented. (Cooldown 1 Hour)
Equipment:
Name: Moonlight Howl
Level: Epic
Properties: Armor Rating 150
Properties: Increases Dexterity 25, Agility 25
Properties: Increases Dodge chance by 10%
Properties: Increases the damage of Banshee Scream by 25%
Durability: 500/500
Requirement: Banshee, Dexterity 35, Agility 35
Description: This armor was forged during the Hollowed Tombs War against the Plague Lords for the Banshee Katarina Da'Regana, who sacrificed much to infiltrate enemy lines to sabotage and assassinate enemy leadership.
Name: Love and Hope
Level: Legendary-Unique (Scales-LVL 2)
Damage: 50-65 MH, 40-55 OH
Properties: Increase Dexterity 35, Agility 30
Properties: Increase damage of Backstab by 25%
Properties: Increase Chance and Damage of Serrated Edge by 10%
Properties: Increases speed while in Stealth by 50%
Properties: Ability Unlocked: Heart Seeker (Cooldown 24 Hours)
Durability: 700/700
Requirement: Banshee, Dexterity 30, Agility 30
Description: When the Hollowed Tombs stood upon the brink of a Civil War, two noble houses gave up their names and heritage and joined together to form the new House On'tel. The Death Knight Ishmael On'tel gave these double bladed knives to his wife and Banshee Anastasia On'tel on their wedding night as a gift of appreciation and of how he truly felt for the woman.
Note* Heart Seeker: Allows the wielder to intercept an attack that would kill your bonded and counter attack dealing 200% damage to target (Cost: 300 Stamina, Cooldown 24 Hours)
Suddenly Cathrine dropped out of Stealth and June dropped her Camouflage ability, "We are clear up to the wall. Plenty of corpses and remnants from the war, but nothing dangerous on the outside." Jacob nodded in response before turning to address the whole War Party.
"Ok people, we all know what to do. Fen leads the second group, June you will bounce between the two groups depending who needs more assistance, Shigna will be in charge of pulls for our group, Cathrine will be on point. We have two objectives for this dungeon first, confirm the death or kill Xin Black-Hand. Second, we are here to recover the rings of the Blood Lords armor set. Everyone stay on your toes, we have no idea what to expect. When we get to the wall breach, depending on the situation we see inside Cathrine you will go inside and scoop out the situation and report back. If monsters are readily apparent we start pulling and clearing the way, any questions?" Jacob called out as he looked at the party. Everyone was checking gear and potions but no one raised questions or made comments.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
15 minutes later the reached the breach in the wall and Jacob noticed packs of mindless Undead between the Outer and Inner wall. Packs of skeletons with zombies roamed around in groups of 3 to 5, if they were not careful they would easily pull 2 or 3 packs. All the mindless Undead were level 30 to 32, nothing too bad, but together they could overwhelm Jacobs group. "Ok, lets clear out some of the packs and create a safe zone so we can start moving in. We will move clock-wise as we go in." Jacob called out as his quest updated.
Quest Updated: Plagued Ruins
Description: You have entered The Plagued Ruins and found mindless undead roaming around, find the cause of their resurgence and destroy both the undead and what is responsible.
Undead Killed: 0/200
Xin Black-Hand Dead: Unknown
Requirement: Bring along Cathrine On'tel-Longstrider, Level 33, Party Size 10
Rewards: 30,000 Experience, Variable
30 minutes later they had cleared all the Undead from between the outer and inner wall and discovered only one breach. When Jacob saw the roaming Undead inside he started cursing.
----------------------------------------
City of Ineford
Soldiers Street- Broken Vow
As soon as the Smoke Bombs went off, Darren dropped down and then triggered his Shadow Teleport ability and jumped behind the bar. The bartender was still dropping to the floor so Darren jumped over him watching as flashes as someone unleashed combat magic. "Everyone stay down and do not engage unless attacked. The Smoke Bombs will dissipate within 30 seconds." Darren called out over the War Party channel.
Screams and cries filled the air as the ambushers continued to attack, the question was who was behind this and did it have anything to do with the intel collection. Shady deals happened all the time at the Broken Vow, but this never happened because whoever did it would always be blacklisted. Underworld powers in Ineford would greenlight the killing of whoever was responsible for the attack as well.
Suddenly a pair of feet landed near Darren and he heard the bartender start begging before he was silenced for good. "Find them all. The contract calls for the death of the Immortal Garen and his contact. FIND HIM!!!" Darren slowly crept forward and saw the Goblin riffling through the pockets of the bartender as he bled out. The Goblin had about 2/3 of his health left and is only level 33, Darren should stay in Stealth and leave him alone. On the other hand, he was letting the bartender die...
Darren activated Dark Flames ability which wreathed his daggers in pitch black flames before slamming one in the Goblins throat and the other at the base of his spine. The first strike silenced the Rogue and the other would cripple his movements. The Goblin tried to throw himself forward but Darren kept one dagger in the Goblins throat twisting the knife to open the wound more before withdrawing his other blade and slamming it into the Goblins' kidney. Less then 5 seconds later the Goblin dropped dead and Darren immediately moved over to the bartender before pouring a healing potion down his throat to stabilize the man.
Darren then used Shadow Teleport to jump to the rafters 12 feet above him and he immediately noticed Chalxae and the twin Gnome thieves that were part of his team. All three tensed as the shadows dissipated around him but once the identified him they relaxed. Getting a quick kill count, they had downed 5 enemies and when the smoke dissipated it revealed 3 more still standing. It also revealed only 3 corpses, at least 2 Immortals were involved in the attack. Garen and two of his teammates were bound below. The remaining patrons were cowering back against the walls, although more than one was fingering hidden weapons. A level 55 Warrior, a lvl 45 Rogue, and a lvl 40 Mage were below watching the captives and patrons alike, but the Warrior was talking to Garen. The attackers were all sitting about at half health and Garen was at 1/3 while Darren's two teammates were in worse condition and might die if he didn't do something quick.
Darren signaled Chalxae to target the Rogue, the Twins would target the Mage, and Darren would deal with the Warrior. Darren triggered his ability, Darkest Night, that consumed all light within a confined area for 10 seconds and blinded all enemies and bystanders. Cries of surprise filled the air and then Darren slammed into the Warrior driving both daggers into his neck before wrenching his arms in opposite directions. If he did the maneuver correctly, the Warriors spine and throat would be cut, causing massive bleeding damage. He quickly followed that by slashing at his hamstrings to cripple his movements.
The Mage was lit up suddenly as an Explosive Arrow slammed into his shield quickly followed a Silencing Arrow. Darren considered attacking the mage but the twins dropped down onto the Mage driving him into the ground. Both twins removed a short-sword and dagger and began stabbing, slashing, and hacking the Mage to death. The screams and pleas of mercy quickly filled the air before they were silenced by one of the twins slicing the Mage's throat.
Where the Twins were brutal, Chalxae's deadly dance with the other Rogue was a thing of beauty. It was a swift dance of death where both partners constantly moved, whirled, slashed and stabbed. Before Darren could join the dance the Warrior started to move, so Darren kicked his feet out from under him and started slamming his face into the ground which is when Darkest Night dissipated and revealed their antics to the surrounding crowd of observers who immediately jumped on the Rogue that was trying to disengage from Chalxae.
The Twins immediately moved toward their teammates, cutting them free and giving them healing potions. "I need that Rogue alive!!! Do not kill him yet." Darren called out to the crowd. A pair of bouncers armed iron bound cudgels swept forward and bound the warrior and slapped a Collar of Submission on him before allowing anyone to provide rudimentary healing for him. Daren also noticed the enemy Rogue now sported the same collar but his eyes were not bound and he was studying both Chalxae and Darren intently. "Bind the Rogue's eyes dammit!!!" Chalxae's eyes were glowing red and the few slashes on her forearms were sealing shut as he watched.
The bartender was up on his feet again with another pair of bouncers close by, "If you wish to question them, I can offer you a private room. Certain people and Ineford will want to know who they are and who perpetrated this attack here." Darren nodded before turning to deal with Garen who was still bound hand and foot, glowering at Darren and his teammates.
"So, you got away clean and this place is a backwater, yet a team of 8 captured and subdued you. If you were a Shadow Dagger, I would recommend you for expulsion from the guild for this fuckup. You are not though, the Shadow Daggers will make note of this and if you mess up again, they will not employ you ever again. Cut him free and send him on his way, I am sure I do not have to tell you to keep your mouth shut on both the job and what happened here?" Darren asked the thief who shook his head before standing and leaving as soon as he was free. "Chalxae, take those two home and make sure the healer sees them. The twins will stay with me and watch my back. I will send a message if I need any further assistance from you."