We killed a few bandits on the way to the goblin caves. I even impressed Foambeard and Helmstriker by managing to cut a bandit down in a single blow, the scythe's blade slipping between ribs, and cutting apart his heart, which earned me a new System Message.
Congratulations!
You've successfully killed a creature in a single blow by destroying its heart!
Title: Heartbreaker
Damage dealt to an enemy heart is 3x as potent as normal damage. It will also inflict a crippling Debuff and DoT.
You are within the first hundred to obtain this title!
Current Count: 1
Upgraded Title: Heartrender
By focusing upon a target and expending TP, you can see where it's heart is!
Godling bonus: Focusing on a target to find its heart doesn't exhaust TP!
"Wow... killing it with a single blow to the heart earned me a pair of titles... First one hundred players to kill an enemy by destroying its heart in a single strike get both the Heartbreaker and Heartrender titles, which increase damage and let you see where the enemy's heart is."
"Excellent information. Thank you!" Oathbeard grins. We keep on going, and they too manage to do heart attacks on the bandits we pass on the way through the forest to the cave system. After an hour of traveling, we've all gotten the titles, and see the caves about five hundred yards ahead of us.
System Alert!
An ingame event has begun! The Goblin King's gathered all the tribes to him at this location! For the next week, this Dungeon is the home of all goblins. Tread lightly, lest you be crushed under the weight of their numbers.
Quest Alert!
Mythic Quest: Goblincide
Difficulty Level: Dracolich (Some monsters are over 50 levels higher than your party)
Kill 5,000 goblins, 1,000 Goblin Warriors, 500 Goblin Mages, 100 Goblin Priests, 50 Goblin Chiefs, and the Goblin King
Reward: Deity Rank Increase(s), Increased relationship status with Dwarves, Increased relationship status with Drow. Goblins as a PLAYER RACE.
A player in your party belongs to the Religion of Death. This quest cannot be declined.
Time Limit: 7 days
Penalty: Loss of 3 Levels, Decreased relationship status with Dwarves, Decreased relationship status with Drow, Increased relationship status with Goblins.
GLOBAL SYSTEM ALERT!
A Group of players from the Guild "Dwarven Theorum" led by the player "Hidden" have accepted the Mythic Quest: Goblincide! If they succeed, players will be able to create Goblin Characters!
REGIONAL SYSTEM ALERT!
To arms, Players of Kiblin'ko! Head to the Goblin Caves and assist the members of "Dwarven Theorum" wrack up their Goblin Kills! For every Goblin killed by a member of someone other than "Dwarven Theorum", the system will reward you with 1 Gold. Every Goblin you kill will count towards the count that the "Dwarven Theorum" needs to complete their quest!
"Well!" Foambeard grunts. "As if we need the help of the people of Kiblin'ko... It's do or die time!" He then starts chanting a rapid series of spells, having obviously hit a macro. Suddenly, I see a new buff I had not seen in this game and had assumed wouldn't be available for some time from now.
Haste - Increases a player's movement and attack speed by 25%!
Duration: 60 minutes
Expedited Haste - Increases the effect of Haste to 75%!
Duration: 45 minutes
Afterburner - Doubles the effect of Expedited Haste!
Duration: 30 minutes
With an evil grin, I charge forward, slicing the heads off three goblins in three seconds, increasing my execution count by another three, and leveling up. I max out Intelligence Up, raising the Intelligence boost to 25% and granting me a bonus of five skill points at level up, then I put the remaining fourteen points into Speed Up, increasing my movement and attack speed by 5%. I quickly cast Luck's Star II, refreshing the mega buff on us.
"Last one to a hundred kills buys the ale when we're done!" I call over my shoulder and charge into the cave, swinging my scythe viciously, becoming a blur of movement, my boar charging behind me. I smile to myself as I hear some of my favorite heavy metal music while I'm in rapid combat in the cave, wondering if it's just my immagination, or if Dungeons have access to our favorite musics and play them while we're inside as background music, being louder the closer we are to enemies.
After finishing Nightwish's "Angels Fall First" album, I find myself panting, in overload, the Haste spells having worn off, and being on the verge of overload until I dump all non-equipped or active gear into my Ultimate Bag of Holding. I open up my menu and click on the Auto-Loot setting and smile as I adjust it to automatically place loot in the magical bag instead of my standard inventory. I blink in shock as the Buff from the bag reads as ??? on my Stat Panel now, then I blink in shock at seeing I'm Level 45, and Porky's hit Level 50. My Goblin Kill count is at 152, and I've gotten a total of 147 Executions with 48 heart-shots.
Porky's interface is blinking, asking to be evolved into the Grade 5 Dwarven Battle Boar mount. I confirm and smile as he vanishes back into the Tusk Whistle, and it becomes a Battlehorn of the Battle Boar - Grade 5. I pull up the group chat, and ask everyone to gather at the boss chamber. I sit next to the door, and pull up my skill menu. I max out the Speed Up, which then asks to upgrade to Enhanced Speed, which I confirm and max out, then I max out Evasion, and get a Skill Combine confirmation message.
The skills Evasion and Enhanced Speed can combine to form: Hyper Speed. Cost: 1 Skill point (Places Enhanced Speed and Evasion in Sub-skill Slots for Hyper Speed).
I pay the skill point and smile as I then max out Hyper Speed. I frown at Executioner's Aura and decide to max it out to see what would happen, as well as raising Fire Magic to twenty and Gold sense to two.
Hyper Speed (Passive) - Skill Level MAX
Increases movement and attack speed by 75%
Increases chance to Evade by 50%
Godling Bonus: Doubles Movement and attack speed bonus to 150%
Executioner Bonus: Ignores Enemy AC when at full speed.
Heartrender Bonus: Increases chance of Auto-kill by 30%
Executioner's Aura (Passive) - Skill Level MAX
Warning: Automatically aggros any monster within 120 yards
Enemies have a 95% chance of being paralyzed by Terror for [Execution Count] seconds upon looking at you. Bosses have a 25% chance to shrug off Paralysis after half of the time.
Fire Magic - Skill Level 20
Fireball has been maxed out
Access to Spell: Firewall Maximized
Fireball
Cost: 50 MP
Inflicts Fire Damage equal to 75%-150% Intelligence. 25% chance to ignore resistance.
Firewall
Cost: 100 MP
Creates wall of flames that does 60-125% Intelligence damage every 3 seconds to any who are in it.
Gold Sense (Passive) - Skill Level 2
Increases rare drop rate by .2%
Increases chance of getting rare minerals when Mining by 2%
I pull up the system alerts and chuckle.
Quest Completed!
You have successfully cleansed the mountains of a hundred fifty goblins. May they forever fear your name.
Reward: Deity Death Rank Up, Divine Weapon Upgrade
Quest Alert!
You have been assigned a Divine Quest!
Deity: Death
Quest: Feed the Reaper I
Crush 100 Captured Souls into powder and pour the Soul Dust on the scythe.
Reward: Deity Death Rank Upgrade, Divine Weapon Upgrade, Divine Skill: Vampiric Weapon, +1 Level
I look at my Captured souls and smile. Not counting the Bandit Chief and the Minotaur souls, I have over a hundred. I proceed to grind them into Soul Dust, the Pouch of Soul Dust reaching a whopping five pounds before I pour it slowly onto the scythe blade, which glows and absorbs the dust, runes forming upon the blade as the dust is sucked into it.
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Quest Completed!
You have successfully enhanced your Divine Artifact!
Reward: Deity Death Rank Upgrade, Divine Weapon Upgrade, Divine Skill: Vampiric Weapon, +1 Level
Quest Alert!
You have been assigned a Divine Quest!
Deity: Death
Quest: Feed the Reaper II
Complete a total of 150 Executions and 100 Heart-shots
Reward: Rank Upgrade, Divine Weapon Upgraded, Divine Skill: Deathbolt
I whistle softly as I gain another thirty stat and thirty-five skill points, and then examine my Scythe.
The Reaper's Scythe - Rank 3
Divine Weapon (One-handed / Two-handed)
Divine
Weight: 10 lbs
Length 72 inches (Staff) / 42 inches (blade)
Requires: Deity: Death
Requires: Strength 50
Requires: Dexterity 50
Indestructible
Damage 50-75 (Spear One-handed)
Damage 55-75 (Staff Two-handed)
Damage 75-100 (Scythe Two-handed)
Damage 75-100 (Spear Two-handed)
+20% Chance to Auto-kill on Crit
+20% Captured Soul drop rate
+5% Damage dealt absorbed as HP
+2% Damage dealt absorbed as MP
+2% Damage dealt absorbed as TP
Blade can be locked at 90 or 180 degrees for Scythe or Spear mode, or stored for use as Staff.
Binds on Equip
I smile and stroke the half of the scythe lovingly. This is becoming an extremely potent weapon. I pull up my stat menu and put a hundred points in dexterity and a hundred in strength, and another fifty into spirit. I decide to leave the leftover twenty-three points for later.
I look up as I hear hear the others enter the room. "Hey, Oathshield, why have I been hearing one of my favorite battle musics while I've been fighting in this dungeon?"
"From what I can tell, each player hears their favorite music style inside a dungeon, with the volume scaling with the fights. I guess it is one this game's personalized features. It did require us to connect our music collections to the Dive system before we could enter after all."
"Ah, okay, I was hoping I wasn't imagining it. So, I've gotten my kills, and I've upgraded my weapon... shall we enter the Floor Boss room? Foambeard, are you able to refresh the speed buffs?"
With an evil grin, Foambeard does so, and I shove the boss room door open. We march into the huge circular room, which is full of fifty Goblin Warriors, ten Goblin Mages, five Goblin Shamans, two Goblin Priests, and a five-foot tall Goblin Chief!
"PREPARE TO DIE, HUMANS!" the Goblin Chief bellows in gutteral common before he and all the other enemies lay eyes on me due to the ultimate aggro effect of Executioner's Aura, causing them to freeze for the one hundred forty-seven seconds of Execution Count.
I smirk and leap past the warriors, heading right for the casters. I consciously make aimed strikes at the hearts of the mages, and in fifteen seconds, I've taken down all ten mages from heart-shots. Thanks to the massive speedboost from Foambeard, I'm leaving a blurred trail in my wake. I chop off the heads of the goblin shamans, and perform heart-shots on the two priests, killing them all in pure flurry of strokes and fountain of blood. After seventy seconds, the Goblin Chief starts to twitch, trying to break free of the hold of my aura.
With all the casters dead, I charge the chief, trailing the Scythe behind me as I leap onto his shoulders at my maximum speed, I call out Lucky Strike as I push off, dragging the scythe directly up under his armpit, to sever his arm off of him. Spinning in midair, I call out Lucky Strike again, bring the Scythe down with all my might to sever his other arm, then watching his health plummeting, I spin quickly and call Lucky Strike again with an aimed strike at the neck, lopping off his head, and sending a huge fountain of blood into the sky.
I drop to a knee, panting softly as I look at my TP, which has just refilled. Ten of the fifty warriors are dead by the time I make it back to my feet from using so much speed and quick kills. I jog towards where the Warriors are just starting to recover from the effects of my Aura and turning to face me, allowing my allies to crit them from behind while I go for heart-shots. I manage to kill another twenty with heart-shots while the last twenty are brought down by my party.
Congratulations!
You have defeated your first Dungeon Floor! The mobs on this floor respawn every thirty minutes. The bosses of this floor respawn every hour.
System Alert!
You have defeated a Dungeon Boss chamber without your party receiving any damage! Each member of the party receives the following title: Dungeon Master (Enemies show up as red dots on your mini-map while you are in a dungeon!)
Congratulations! Your party is within the top hundred players to receive this title! Current count: 25
Reward upgrade: Dungeon King (Enemies (and traps) will now show up on your minimap!
Godling Bonus! The effect of Dungeon King now reveals the entire map of the dungeon, including where hidden treasure troves are!
I drop to my ass in the middle of the blood-drenched chamber, panting softly as I recover from the usage of my speed. "Care to explain how we managed to slaughter our way through an entire Clan Elite group without taking any damage?" Oathbeard asks me.
"Executioner's Aura... My reward for getting a hundred executions," I answer. "I maxed it out, and it has the effect of paralyzing the enemies for up to the length of seconds as head's I've taken. Hey, I gained three levels and now I only need one exp for level fifty!"
I take forty-nine skill points and max out Vampiric Weapon, which makes me smile at the stats it gives.
Vampiric Weapon (Passive) - Level MAX
+50% Damage dealt restored as HP
+25% Damage dealt restored as MP
+25% Damage dealt restored as TP
+10% Damage dealt gained as Experience
'Sweet... I get experience for dealing damage now!' runs through my mind as I blink in surprise at the list of the upgraded Vampiric Weapon abilities. "Guys, I think I just became practically immortal..." I share the status of Vampiric Weapon with them. "And at Fifth Rank of Death I can teach it!"
"You can teach it...? But why is yours so high? Because it's a Divine Skill?" Rockenroll muttered.
"Probably. You might not end up with it that strong, but only time will tell. I need another twenty hearts to increase in Death."
I toss the Goblin Chief's head into my ultimate bag of holding and glance at my Skill List. Ninety-one Skill Points. I decide to hold off on increasing anything else until after I unlock Class Options at level fifty.
"Well, let's go down to the next floor. One experience point away from Level Fifty!" I cheer myself up as I head to the exit of the boss chamber, and start down the ramp heading down deeper into the caves.
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Author's Note:
Sorry this chapter seems a bit shorter than the others. I haven't had time to get the first 5 chapters formatted to be able to publish on KDP, but I hope I can get it ready for the 1st of January.
While typing up the end of this chapter, I realized that the plan I had for the effects of the Valedictorian bonus in the next chapter was too OP with Godling taken into account, which is why you can see that in this chapter, I had the Godling Bonus edit other titles.
Also, he did get the 'Goblin Killer' status for 100 dead goblins, it will upgrade to Goblin Slayer at 250, which is when he'll actually notice it.
What do you think about the Goblincide Quest? Think they'll make it?