Last night, we finally arrived at the entrance to a narrow ravine with walls that reach higher than a telephone pole. The dungeon Sonny marked for us should be at the end of this tight trail of staggering sunrise colored rock. Instead of trying to maneuver the vardo through it, we found a clearing behind tall boulders where the broken remains of an abandoned caravan remain. We guessed that at some point it was attacked and the defenses broken. Not a single scrap of the cargo was left behind, though we did bury the looted remains out of respect.
I opted to remain up top in the roof cabin with Elsbeth, seeing as she only needs four hours of sleep. We figured we could have a constant watch in case anyone or anything else came back, however unlikely it may have been. The weather was chilly after the cool rain and wind, along with our elevated location in some unnamed mountainous area. I'm not sure what season we were in now, but it's been raining more often and the temperature seems to be dropping steadily daily. With my extra bedrolls and the sturdy nature of the cabin, staying warm wasn't a problem for either of us.
The evening was uneventful and in the morning several of the soldiers take over our watch and the reserves out for some training. After breakfast, Dawn sent Elsbeth and Richter to scout the end of the ravine, hopefully to catch a glimpse of the dungeon. Except for the children and anyone incapable of strenuous activity, everyone seems to be busy with one thing or another.
Why not?
With a whole world opened up to them with the 1000XP last night, who wouldn't be trying to prepare for a life of adventure? Meanwhile, I meet with Dawn near her forge.
"I'm a cosplayer. Did you forget that already?" Dawn asks, going over a blueprint with her Blacksmith Apprentices. "It's literally my job to design cool costumes or, at the very least, imitate cool costumes to a fanatical degree. It just so happens that the stuff I make here grants you actual bonuses."
She marks something on the screen for them, "Besides, it was a side project for our Tailors. They were only supposed to work on it if they finished everything else I asked them to work on."
She leaves the two to their work and takes a proper look at me. Everyone else choosing that exact moment to swing by as well. They bury me in cat calls, whistles, and hands all over my new clothes. Victoria encircles me like a hungry predator. Well, more so than usual.
Kona turns sharply at Dawn, her ears flat down, eyes narrowing to slits, and a deep growl in her chest, "What about the rest of us? Where's our armor? As crappy as it was, Ardy always made stuff for everyone!"
She waves her hands dramatically at me.
"Hey! I didn't--"
My words are cut short when someone grabs my wrist from the side and pulls it up to chest level. I look into the worried face of Elsbeth. Her hands move quickly, almost stuttering as she tries to convey her thoughts into hand gestures and facial expressions.
It takes me a moment to change gears without grinding, "What… Wait. El, wait. Slow down. Start from the beginning. It almost looked like…"
Kona and Victoria are the only other ones who I taught ASL and all four of us have been practicing semi regularly, expanding their library of words and phrases as I rack my brains trying to remember what I'm supposed to know. Often times I would repeat words and they would let me know in their own ways, like Kona rolling her eyes and sighing or Vic giving me a knowing smile.
"That can't be right," I look down at the ground for answers, hands on my hips. I look up at Kona and Vic, their faces shift from frustrated disbelief to anger until the emotions find a very unsweet spot. "You two caught that, then?"
"I hope it's not how she describes it," Vic says. "I mean, we'd have to kill a whole lot of people…" She trails off, cracking her knuckles.
"This is just fucking unacceptable!" Kona storms off, heading for the door and readying her broom. El and Serenity chase her down.
"Um…Guys?" Rachel asks. She exchanges glances with Richter who shrugs his shoulders, "Care to, like, fill the rest of us in?"
Dawn turns away from the sight of Kona being dragged kicking and screaming back to our group, "Yeah, I couldn't get the hang of sign language, remember? What was El saying?"
"I can help," Richter says as he finally joins Elsbeth in the center of our circle. "So, we found the dungeon, it's at the end of the trail, along with a bunch of people. Not wanting to get spotted by anyone, El and I went back about fifty yards and climbed the tall walls, making our way forward again across the top. It's kinda like a mesa up there, flat and overlooking this huge bowl like area. Next to the dungeon entrance is what looks to be a former outpost, but it's definitely not that any more."
He uses a blueprint screen to draw a diagram of what he's describing. "So, there's gotta be, like, what?" He looks over at Elsbeth who flashes a number with her fingers.
"Right, like, two dozen people going in and out of the dungeon."
Everyone follows along with his report, disappointed that it was claimed by another group, but expecting another shoe to drop as he speaks. "The people coming out are pulling aggro on large Shadow Trolls and other monsters while long range damage dealers stand on ledges a third of the way up the bowl to fire down on the monsters in relative safety."
On the screen is a large building sitting just outside the entrace to a cave at the end of the ravine. Richter and Elsbeth mark the positions of anyone that they noticed and where the monsters are being led to in that clearing. And, according to Richter, there's still the possibility of more hostiles inside the old outpost.
"I saw feint Mana signatures from within the building, not a lot but there could be more, I can't be sure."
He puts the screen in front of Dawn and Victoria to inspect, "The aggro pullers are regular Arceans and they're totally not happy to be there. Anyway, the damage dealers are a mix of Travellers and Arceans. I'd have to say there are at least seven of them using arrows and Spells to farm the monsters."
Victoria shakes her head while Dawn and Rachel are twin tornados of explitives. When they calm down enough, Dawn is the first to speak, "Before I make a call, does anyone have any suggestions?" We shake our heads and she pulls up another blueprint screen.
It's around 10PM. I sign the words, "Three eyes. Two feet. One foot is pet. Dog. Eleven heads not counting pet. Twenty two hearts. Eleven with feet. Six without. Five short. Break." I turn my full attention back over the ridge of the high rock walls and into the bowl.
I juggle a combination of Zoom III and Enchanced Smell II with Thermal Vision and Arcane Vision. It was like getting an eye exam for prescription glasses, switching between lenses, but imagine adding different colors as well. It takes me a while to get accurately accustomed to this, but working on a bar has taught me the real life Skill of jerry rigging things quickly on instinct.
Using a combination of the cardboard boxes bottles of beer come in, twine from the kitchen, and duct tape that I keep in a personal tool box on the bar, I once created a set of "robotic hands" just to win a bet. Well, a hundred bucks is a hundred bucks, right?
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From my prone position on the rocky ridge, I crawl back a bit and turn towards the inky darkness crowned by a grey clouded, night sky. Sitting cross legged, I sign, "No changes to information. Confirm?"
Zoom III and Night Vision bring up the grey images of Kona and Elsbeth. El gestures a confirmation and I can see Kona using her Whisper Ear Cuff.
At first, I thought Dawn was going to rally us together for a full on invasion, probably getting the citizens to learn ranged Spells for back up. A head to head clash, something we've done so many times before.
However, after bringing up what happened when the reserves initially came out to help fight off the Stalkers, we are reminded that Linqs is not a guild of killers or soldiers. Instead, we're going in with a stealthier approach, gathering more information before jumping into the action. I voice my hesitation, especially with how amateur my mission was in Aristeo's playhouse, but Dawn and Victoria reassure me with a few words.
We waited until night and for them to stop pulling monsters out of the dungeon. From what I saw, the players fed the NPC's the bare minimum and forced them to share water from a filthy barrel. The players used the outpost as their base of operations, pulling several women and an Elven male inside. The only thing that stopped me from abandoning post, claws out, was the fact that they left the kids, probably all around thirteen or fourteen, alone.
After memorizing a quick set of code words, they used me and my multiple Vision modes at the beginning of a chain of information gathering. Conner was with me acting as a sort of spotter and guard. I pull over my hood and mask to hide my flames, and not wanting to risk anyone regularly or magically eavesdropping, I use ASL to communicate with Elsbeth who uses her own Zoom III to watch me. She repeats the words to Kona, who uses the Whisper Cuffs to relay over to Dawn and Victoria. Then, they sketch or note on a blueprint screen to come up with the next parts of the plan.
Dawn appraises the information on the screen, speaking out loud mainly to herself, "So, they're smart enough to have three sentries keeping watch and two roving guards. One of them is a familiar, probably a wolf. Including the guards, but not the wolf, there's a total of eleven hostiles."
Her arms cross just under her chest, one hand reaching up to twirl her dark purple hair. What's become an unconcious habit in game, Dawn's hand slithers up her hair and finds a black, ram-like horn. Her thumb runs under from front to back, letting her nail hit against the ridges. She may not have any feeling in the horn itself, but she can feel the odd vibrations in her skull. The clacking sounds like some sort of musical intrument, Victoria and Richter giving her a quick glance before she resumes speaking.
"Wolf belongs to the Ranger who is one of the roaming guard," she says, writing notes. "The three sentinals are casters, so they're not really keeping watch. They're probably just keeping an eye on the people who are being forced to sleep outside in the dirt."
"There's two heavily armored Fighters inside. One looks like a Knight, maybe a Paladin, with a tower shield. The other is probably a Samurai, wielding a katana." She scribbles more notes, a hand resting on her hip, "Another undiscernable Fighter and four Rogue types."
Dawn takes a step back while Victoria takes a turn writing the notes on the screen, "A little under two dozen hostages. Five are children and six of them are incapable of moving quickly. That means we're gonna have to find a way to sneak them out. But, with so many people watching over them, sneaking that many might not be feasible."
"We would need one helluva destraction," Richter says, stroking his smooth chin. "Man, I miss having a beard."
"Elves can't have beards," Lavina asks more than states out loud, but no one responds. She resumes looking at a Stat Screen with Sonny who closes it and smiles at the little Lupine girl. Lavina smiles up at her older sister, "Have you decided yet?"
"Not quite yet," Sonny says, her voice the same honeyed tone as the one from her dungeon core form, but coming from a single source of sound, rather than an echoing voice from inside one's head.
After a small amount of discussion, a plan starts coming together. The main goal will be to evacuate the people to safety. They will be the priority. The next step will be to eliminate all hostiles. Someone mentioned just trying to escape, possibly collapsing the ravine walls to aid in that.
Dawn pointed out that when the enemy finally manages to escape, they'll probably be able to track the vardo down and a battle will occur anyway, maybe even giving us the disadvantage. Better to kill them now, let the Death Pentalty sink in, and hopefully they'll respawn somewhere far away.
Also, as Dawn put it, "We didn't drag our asses all the way down here NOT to get a damn dungeon core."
The next morning, not needing any special vision Abilities besides Zoom III, Elsbeth and Victoria play recon and spotter to relay any changes in behavior. However, the only thing different from yesterday is the level of exhaustion in the hostages. Many of the older ones and some of the children are collapsing. As punishment, an old man and a young boy are chosen seemingly at random and drug to their feet. Held up by the padded armor wearing Samurai and the other Fighter who appears to be a kind of Half-Giant Berserker, two Rogues slip blue hoods over their heads.
Through gritted teeth, Vic desribes an inhumane amount of thrashing and sputtering that echoes in the rocky clearing. The Mages shoot warning bolts of magic when some of the people jerk forward to help. Explosions force them back down, helpless and ashamed.
When they finally remove the hoods, the heads of the two are dripping with water and they're desperately gasping for air. They let them fall to their knees, the older man retching while the Rogues and Fighters laugh. A Rogue with a bow on his back kicks the old man into the puddle of vomit and steps on his back.
"These vermin are testing my patience," Victoria growls. "Why can't we attack them now?"
"I know it's tough waiting like this," Dawn reassures her in a calm tone, "They'll get what they deserve tomorrow morning. It'll be better to catch them with their pants down."
"Blech, probably literally," Rachel says in disgust.
Dawn hands one of the Rook Chessts over to Sonny, who accepts it with a confused look on her face, "We think it's only fair, since you are the main reason we got the Quest in the first place. Maybe the item you pull will inspire you on your build?"
With a shy smile on her face, Sonny looks at each of us in turn. When she gets to me, I motion with my chin for her to get on with opening the box.
If I recall correctly, the Rook Chesst has 55% chance of getting a Journeyman class item, 20% chance for Expert, 10% chance for Master, 5% chance for Legendary, and 10% chance for a Unique or Elseworld class item. Our last Rook pull was the Masterwork Transporter, Nightshade, and it's been a crucial item for us ever since. I smile to myself, imagining her pulling another one inside the--
"Oh shit! Let's do this outside!" I exclaim, waving my hands to get their attention. "What if we pull something too big for the vardo?"
A few moments later, we find ourselves in the clearing of the wrecked caravan. With another nod from Dawn, Sonny gingerly lifts the lid of her Rook Chesst. From her side I read the screen while she catches her prize.
[Unbelievable! You received Radiant Meteora!]
I don't know what's keeping my jaw attached to the rest of my head, but I applaud it for doing an amazing job. My eyes, too, for not jumping right out of their sockets. I'm sure everyone else is feeling the same way, but Sonny is looking down at her prize with apprehension.
"Um… Did I do it right?" She asks, looking at all of us for guidance. "It doesn't…feel quite right…"
I would think not, considering how easily she's holding up a gigantic, double edged broadsword in her hands. She grabs onto the handle that looks like it's meant for at least six hands total and wields it as easily as one would a baseball bat.
The blade is about six feet long and almost two feet at it's widest with a snubby point at the tip. The metal glimmers like polished platinum, but at a certain angle it darkens to a metallic ebony. The cross guard is an ornate depiction of a meteorite hitting the ground and spraying dirt and rock.
"Um…" I place a hand on her shoulder and she looks over at me, "Nice. Very nice, Sonny. Now let's take a look at the description."
I wipe the drool from the corner of my mouth with a sleeve as she brings up the lengthy screen.
[Radiant Meteora. Legendary Zweihander.
[Durability: 700/700
[Strength, Dexterity/Melee, Throwable/1
[Base Damage: 35
[Long ago, according to a prophecy, a powerful king attempted to slay an Ancient Air Dragon to prevent the possible annihilation of his kingdom. His finishing Spell clashed with and overcame the Dragon's final breath attack, killing it. This blade was made using a fang from the defeated foe. It took the kingdom's greatest Blacksmiths a year to create what was meant to be an heirloom, but the final hammer blow caused an explosion of magic that wiped the king's great city off the face of the map. The prophecy, it seems, came true in the end and this weapon was lost to time and legend.
[Attuneable. Black Down Attribute: Decreases the weight of this item and allows the wielder to use Strength or Dexterity as the modifier. Pale Wind Attribute: The reach of this weapon may increase by 3feet.
[The one Attuned to this weapon will develop a unique bond, that will only become clear when the bond is initiated.
[While in physical contact with Radiant Meteora, the wielder gains access to the Control Wind Spell, Wind Blast Spell, and the Concussive Smite Skill.]