http%3a%2f%2fi58.tinypic.com%2f1zl6iwx.jpg [http://i58.tinypic.com/1zl6iwx.jpg]

ch8 The Crazy Miracle

Don sat at a table inside a room at a local Inn. On the table was an egg larger than a basketball and as smooth and white as ivory. The egg of the holy dragon Thessalanos. For the past several months, Don had been going all over Sairei and its neighboring kingdoms looking for minor gods on the hit list of a major god, Lu, to destroy them so Don could absorb their essence and obtain a higher divine affinity. The point of such hard work was that if by the time this egg hatched, his divine affinity was ‘outstandingly high,’ the dragon would give him its loyalty and he could raise it as his own.

The egg itself had grown considerably over the past few months. Before long it would likely be too large to be stored in his inventory, after that he would have to carry it in a sack on his back until it hatched.

Don looked closely at the egg and focused his eyes. When he did, he saw a light blue mist in the air that the egg looked like it was absorbing. He realized some time after first seeing this that what he was seeing was mana, and somehow if he concentrated he could clearly see it. ‘Likely another side effect of divine affinity,’ he thought. He also hoped that meant his divine affinity was close to outstandingly high.

He placed his hand on the egg and felt its warmth. He also saw that the mana that naturally emitted from his hands and fingers was flowing into the egg, like it was breathing it in. Somehow this made him feel hopeful that it would be loyal to him.

Lately he had been experimenting with this mana sight while artificing. He could see how different sygs affected mana. He found that outer mana in the air changed its behavior when it came into contact with a syg. Don still couldn’t use magic but thanks to mana sight that would no longer bring down the quality of his artificing.

His current project was an original of his. Using the syg he learned himself, for Blood Empower, he was making a large ring that would increase his stats, at a cost of some of his maximum health. He tried the new syg in several combinations with others to see how it would react, using the mana flow he saw around it to determine its effectiveness.

Finally, using a layered syg combination that included, Blood empower, Draw energy, Store Energy, and Energy channeler, he made a large ring that had a sustained mana flow around it that would strengthen in the presence of blood.

“Identify.”

Flowing Blood ring.

Durability 45/45

Defense 5

The shedding of blood will not be in vain. Take power from your wounds and strike back!

This artifact ring will take power from drawn blood and give that to its wearer.

Restrictions:

Level 130

Strength 200

Equips:

-15% maximum life

+5 Strength

+5 Agility

When the wearer’s life is reduced by 20%, Additional +5 all stats

When the wearer’s life is reduced by 40%, Additional +10 all stats

When the wearer’s life is reduced by 80%, Additional +20 all stats

Don smiled joyfully. It had taken a lot of time of trial and error to make it but he crafted a ring that would strengthen its wearer when the wearer was injured. Plus the effects stacked; at 20% max life, the wearer would have +40 to STR and AGI, and +35 to the rest. And the best part was that since he created it, he knew it well enough to make more with a high success rate. Although he had never sold one of his higher quality artifacts, making and selling these alone would mean that he would never again have to worry about money. Of course the loss of life effect would mean many high level players wouldn’t be interested and the restriction meant low level players couldn’t even wear it, but there were more mid level players than high and low combined, so he had nothing to worry about.

Don spent the night making twenty rings, the next morning he went to a sorcery shop and showed his wares.

The NPC at the counter said, “Ohh, these are quite nice, and so many of them. I can buy for 210 gold a piece.”

Don smiled and as the gnome Bob had taught him, let the haggling begin. He first complimented the store's wares and said that he came to this store because it was the nicest one in the small city. Then he gently reminded the owner that it was not the only one, there was a large general store and several trinket stores that would buy these and would pay well for them too. After a few minutes he haggled the price to 275 gold a ring and shook the storekeeper’s hand.

The NPC took out the gold payment and set it on the counter. Then he said, “Pleasure doing business with you.” However before giving Don the money, almost as an afterthought he said, “Ah, I will need to see your license.”

“License?” Don asked.

The man said, “You know, the license that is proof you are able to make and sell artifacts. These are clearly artifacts and you clearly made them. Now, your license?”

Don fidgeted and said, “I don’t have a license...”

The man gave a bitter look, sighed, and took the gold off the table. “I’m sorry, but I cannot buy from an unlicensed artificer.”

Don said, “What? But these are good, you said so yourself! I’ll lower the price, 240 gold a ring.”

The man shook his head, “No, it is against the law. I’m sorry, but no merchant will buy those from you at any price.”

Don said, “90 gold pieces a ring, and that’s selling at cost, come on..” Though small, the materials were not cheap, and high success did not mean materials weren’t wasted, he had to at least make back what he put in.

The man said, “Look, if I buy artifacts made by an unlicensed artificer, I could lose my shop. It is the law. You could not give those away. Now if you really want to make and sell artifacts, go get a license.”

Don sighed in defeat, “And where can I get a license?”

The shopkeeper said, “Not here, an artificing school. I heard there is one in the north of Aidern Kingdom.”

Aidern kingdom was west of Sairei, he had passed through it on his way to Sairei kingdom many months ago. Don sighed. It seemed after his dragon hatched he would have to go there. And thanks to this small venture, he was now flat broke.

Don met up with Tolan and Rose, and offered them a ring.

Tolan said after examining it, “I’m not in a position that can afford to lose life, it’s worthless to me.”

Rose likewise said, “I’mma priest, if you guys have lost enough life for this to be useful, I’m not doing my job.”

She had a point, she would usually keep them both above 50% health during even tough battles.

Don put on a ring for the hell of it and put the rest back into his inventory. At the very least fighting with reduced health was a good way to build up the Endurance and Fighting Spirit stats.

“So who is out target this time?”

Rose said, “Well, we got three gods to go, two of them aren’t too difficult, but the third is a shadow god. As a god of Light, Lu and this guy are not on good terms, so we’re gonna take him now and take out time with the last two.”

Don asked, “If you saved him for one of the last, how strong is he?”

Tolan said, “Not so much strong as dangerous. He moves around constantly and Lu can’t keep track of him very well. The size of his following is likewise unknown. Recently they picked an abandoned temple as their hideout and converted it into a Shadow Temple. That’s the reason Lu could tell Rose their location now.”

Don frowned, usually they had more info than this. He said, “Know anything else?”

Rose said, “Well, this guy went from major to minor only a little while ago. About 700 years ago I think. Before that he had an impressive following, but when Lu came along the light and shadow fought and the other guy ran away with his tail between his legs, losing most if not all of his followers.”

Don wondered what made them stop moving around...

----------------------------------------------------------------

Hob the thief, a member of the guild Silent Swords knelt before a young man sitting in a chair. The thief could feel the man’s black eyes go over him.

In a dark voice, he said, “Why is the dragon egg not yet in my possession?”

Hob said, “My lord, the group in possession’s movement pattern is unpredictable. We send teams all over the kingdoms to force my lord’s egg out of their possession, but by chance only the weaker groups have found them and failed to retrieve it. Not a single one of your powerful servants has come across them, otherwise you would already have it.”

Hob took in a deep, shaking breathe. This guy always scared the crap out of him, but Hob was still one of the only people able to stand in his presence without screaming in terror. The man in the chair was no man, it was a dark thing that possessed a man’s body. Now it sought out a new body, the unborn body of a dragon. Without life, it had no will, and without will, it could not resist possession. His guild was given an ‘A’ Rank quest to work for this man and get him the most powerful body, and in return, when he was reborn as a shadow dragon, he would lead the Silent Swords to rule over all of Versailles.

However even though his guild had many members over level 300 and the target’s party’s highest member was the level 285 paladin, they had somehow never encountered a group they couldn’t defeat. And even the few times a strong group happened to come across them, they were defeated and mixed reports were received about odd abilities that were never consistent with previous reports. Hob knew from experience that the elf could make artifacts so that would explain the degrees of variation between reports. Different toys, different tricks.

The black eyed man said, “Your guild’s excuses have gone on long enough. They head for Tridian. I will meet them there. Ensure that their luck has met its end.”

The man got up, but when Hob looked up at him, he was already gone.

The client had told the guild to set up a base in the temple ruins of Tridian and the black man himself assisted in its renovations. It was a dungeon but the mobs within didn’t harm the guild members and if what the dark man said was true, it would be the perfect place to capture the target and obtain the dragon egg. Hob himself could get there in a day, and once there he could make preparations to counter the elf’s toys.

Hob opened his guild chat and sent a message to every member of the Silent Swords.

-This is Vice Captain Hob, all members are to immediately report to the Tridian base. Occupy the nearby town and fill the base to capacity, we are expecting guests, and they won’t be walking away.

By occupying the nearby town, even if the group killed the target and he didn’t drop the egg, they could basically assign their strongest level 300+ members to camp the spawning ground and kill them over and over again until they dropped the egg or hit level 1. As long as the group went to the town first then went to Tridian, they were as good as doomed.

-----------------------------------------------------------

Don, Rose, and Tolan arrived in the town closest to the temple a week after setting out. After acquiring some information about the recent increase in activity there and resupplying their inventory with food and medicine they set off for the temple. The name of the temple they learned, was Tridian.

As had become a habit since getting his cloak of shadows, Don parted with the others and went to scout the temple while hiding in the shadows of the nearby trees. Although the sun was still high, beneath the tree the shadow darkened to encompass him. Beneath it he could not be seen unless you were looking for him.

Don saw that around the temple were many people equipped for battle. Some warriors, many thieves, and more than a few spell casters. There was obviously way too many to confront head on, so he checked out their numbers and took a guess at their levels and left to go back to Tolan and Rose.

On his way he heard the sound of lightning and explosions, spells were being cast. Don rushed forward to see that Rose and Tolan were fighting four warriors while three spell casters were targeting them with magic. Even with a healer and a tower shield, those were impossible odds, but Don noticed that like most of the people in front of the temple, these were high leveled people. Soon more would come and they would be surrounded.

Don ran towards the battle. He concentrated his eyes on instinct and saw the mana emitting from the bodies of the spellcasters, inner mana flowing out, forming and shaping itself into a spell. Of course he had no idea what spell, but he could tell from the amount of mana that it was not a simple one. The spell went through and six large fireballs shot forth from the mage’s staff. Don ran to a side but they changed trajectory, they were seekers.

‘So you wanna play it that way?’ He thought. He stopped running and started his fiery dance. As the balls hit him he slashed the balls with his flaming swords. However Don could see it had not worked how he wanted. The mana on his swords didn’t catch the fire and strengthen themselves, as he hoped, Instead it interfered with the spell and caused premature ignition of the spell’s explosive property. Six explosions were set off in a chain around Don, four of which were close enough to deal serious damage.

You have lost 1321 life.

You have lost 1253 life.

You have lost 1465 life.

You have lost 2132 life.

You are on fire, you will continually take damage.

You have been burned, your attack has been reduced.

Don felt the pain and saw the messages, but all he could think was, ‘How stupid, burns don’t bleed, so the ring isn’t giving me a buff!’

His health, over 10,000 was more than half gone in a single attack, but he wasn’t dead yet. He heard laughing through the smoke, likely from a guy who thought slicing a spell was a stupid idea. Don charged with all his might and said, “Divine Blade.”

Don charged into the center of the group and said, “Heads!!” Before started his Dance of Scattering light.

The signal, ‘Heads,’ was caught by Tolan and Rose to close their eyes before he started this dance. The sun reflected off his blades glowing with divine energy and was reflected through his dance into his opponent's eyes. Combining divine blade with Dance of scattering light left the affected completely blind for half a minute.

After the men and woman yelled from being blinded by the sunlight the trio ran for it. Sure they could have killed a few while they were incapacitated, but reinforcement were on their way.

Don was still on fire when they made it to the tree line so he had to take off his cloak and hold it tight to himself to smother the flames. Don looked up to see the badly beaten pair and asked, “So, how was your day?”

At first they looked like they would smack him, but after seeing how badly burnt he was, they relented and said, “Group of scouts came out of the trees. Two minutes later another group came. They were strong.”

Don nodded at the assessment and said, “The temple is no better, dozens, of people on patrol, all as strong as those guys. Retreat?”

Rose shook her head, “No, the second group came up from behind, there could be groups all over here. No safe place to retreat.”

Tolan told Rose, “We need to call for back up.”

Rose nodded, she knelt down and put her hands together. This was how she spoke with Lu. A minute later, she made a worried face, then a few moments after that, opened her eyes and said, “The church will send all the help it can, but this place is really out of the way. It will take two days for mounted paladins to arrive.”

Tolan said, “So we just log out and come back in two days, after they get here.”

Rose sighed and said, “You dummy, this is occupied enemy territory. Logging out while we are being searched for has restrictions. Our bodies will be left here, asleep, they can be killed and our items taken.”

Tolan sighed remembering that unfortunate rule. It would be different if they found an unoccupied cave or spot where others wouldn’t search for them, but the Royal Road had rules that prevented the hunted from simply ‘logging out,’ to avoid being captured.

Don said, "So, we look for a safe place to hide, then log out and return after this place has been wiped off the map."

Everyone seemed to agree with the plan.

Scouting parties were all over the area, if Don and the rest hadn't equipped shoes that muffled sound, (looted form a group of defeated thieves,) they likely would've been caught already.

From the other side of a line of trees, the group heard a pair of scouts talking.

"All this for one puny elf and some church-ees,. I could take the lot of them myself. Been dying to try this axe I got off a some bloke, he didn't need it any more." After that he started laughing like he had just told the funniest joke in the world.

The shorter man next to him said, "It's not the elf we want, it's the egg he has. Once given to the client, our guild we rule all of Versailles." Now the other one started laughing, and they both laughed together.

Don took the distracting noise as an opportunity and quietly said, "Scan."

Dilven

Title-Slayer of Woljack

Warrior Level 319

It seemed the man was not just a braggart. At that level he could kill Don and Rose in one or two clean hits and then take his time with Tolan.

When they passed, Tolan asked, "Now what was that? These guys are the same and the guys who've been attacking us. What is it that you have that could make Versailles fall into their hands?"

Rose answered for Don. "A dragon egg."

Don was not surprised she knew, Lu likely told her. Tolan however almost burst, "A Dragon Egg?! You've had a dragon egg all this time?! And when I asked you what they could've wanted, You Said You didn't Know!"

Don simply said, "I didn't know they knew I had it. The only being I've told in this continent is Lu."

Rose said, "Lu can sense that dragon, I guess this client can too."

Don came to the sudden horrible realization, "The shadow god stopped moving around to lure me here. He's the client, he wants my dragon!"

Rose gave Don a pitying look, before saying, "Come on, we have to keep looking for a safe spot."

The group made their way to the side of the temple, but when Don and Rose turned, they saw that Tolan was gone. A moment later he reappeared through the wall.

"Secret passage in the shadow of the shadow temple. Who knew?"

Although it was the base of the enemy, they all agreed they were more likely to find safety inside than out. The group entered the shadow and found themselves in a corridor filled with large statues. Upon entering, the statues all turned their heads to face them.

Don quietly said, "Scan."

Stone Guardians

level 300

Health 136000

Don said, "Run!"

The group sprinted down the hall as more statues seemed to come alive, the statues filled every single hallway. They ran into a room where three men were eating. The men drew their weapons and the guardians came through the door.

One of them men said, "Trespassing on sacred ground calls forth divine punishment, Hahahah."

It looked like the guardians didn't care about the guild occupants. Don concentrated and saw a thin line of mana that went from the guardians to a small pin on the uniforms of the two people. Don figured, ‘nothing to lose,’ and ran charging at the one of the two. The man easily dodged and kicked Don across the room.

A guardian statue walked up to the guy who looked at it with amusement and said, “What do you want?”

The statue punched down on the guy’s head, his form creaking into pixels from the force of the blow, dying. The other two looked too shocked for words. Don head up the pin he ripped off the other’s shirt to Rose and Tolan and said, “Get theirs.”

The statues turned back to Rose and Tolan who ran past them to the remaining two guys. They realized what had happened and backed away to protect their pins.

Don ran around them while their attention was on the other two and pulled a pin off one of them. He threw it to Rose who blocked Tolan from one of the guardians who now couldn’t go around her. Two other guardians were now going after the pinless man, he panicked and reached for the pin of the guys next to him. They started fighting and the guardian started attacking. One eventually got the pin, but Don sliced through him with his swords without trouble and gave the last pin to Tolan. The guardians, seeing there were no enemies in the room, left to return to their pedestals.

Rose said, “Oh my god, this is too much. It is just one thing after another here.”

She was physically and mentally exhausted, as were the rest of them.

Tolan took a few more breaths before saying, “Don, how did you know about the pins?”

Don didn’t think telling them he could see the flow of mana was a good thing, so he just said, “Instinct. I make stuff like this too you know.”

It was a lie, the pins weren’t artifacts, he could tell, but it was better than nothing.

Rose said, “Don, take out the dragon egg.”

“What? Why?” He asked.

She took in a deep breath and said, “So we can destroy it. Something so powerful cannot fall into the hands of this shadow god.”

Don froze. He had not expected this. He couldn’t think of anything, but out of his mouth came the word, “No.”

Tolan looked between the two wondering which side to take.

Rose answered this question by saying, “We’ve lost, there is no sanctuary here. We will be caught and there is nothing we can do to stop it. Lu ordered me, “If worse comes to worse and there is no chance of escape, destroy the egg before they can take it.”

Tolan turned from Rose to Don and turned to face him, standing next to Rose. He had taken a side.

Now Don was really at a loss for words, and saying ‘No,’ again wouldn’t cut it this time.

Rose continued, “I know this isn’t what you wanted, you’ve worked so hard for all of this. Look ,it isn’t all bad. Once the last three gods are killed, Lu will reward you for your sacrifice. Lu told me that with your current divine affinity you’ll be able to learn great skills and spells that grant you the powers of the gods. Tolan and I both know a few and can show you later. Just take out the egg and we can end this.”

Don could hear the feeling in her voice, it was like telling a kid that his pet was sick and had to be put down. A part of Don wanted to scream, or rage, but that was not a manly thing to do, especially in front of a lady. But that didn’t mean he had to give up so easily. If he couldn’t win, then he would go down fighting, that was how to fight like a man.

Don calmly said, “For a priest you’re pretty faithless.” Don’s ability to hide his emotions came as a surprise to Rose, she had likely expected a louder outburst.

Don continued, “Tolan isn’t though. Even though I’m not a man of god, I am a man of miracles who can make anything happen.”

Truth be told he was spouting nonsense, but he thought that maybe if they believed it he could make it come true.

Tolan said, “What, you gonna make an artifact that magically defeats all the people in this base?”

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

Rose said, “You have some way of getting our army of paladins to get here faster?”

Don thought about it without losing his look of confidence, from the outside he looked like he was stalling for dramatic effect, but he was racking his brain over every single thing he knew.

Tolan said, “Well?”

Don was still clenching the pin when it came to him, a crazy impossible idea. But if it worked...

Don smiled like he knew the answer all along and held up the pin in his hand. He then said, “I’ll build an artifact that cancels out whatever makes the wearer of these pins safe from the guardians.” More ideas were coming to him as he spoke, but they sounded right, so he continued.

“We need to gather all the guild members inside the temple. Then, if I succeed in making an artifact to do it, I can set off a pulse that will cut the link between the pins and the guardians...” He decided to let the other two complete his train of thought to make them realize what this fantasy could do.

Tolan said, “So all the guardian statues will attack and all the guild members.”

Rose said, “Best case scenario they all kill each other off. But even if it doesn’t we may be able to take advantage of the chaos to escape unnoticed.”

Don didn’t want to tell them how impossible this was. He decided to go through with the charade and take out all the spare and scrap parts from his artificing.

What he needed to do was somehow disrupt the mana flow that was coming out of the pins and going into the statues. But there were no sygs, his mana sight only saw a small thread of mana that extended out from them. He tried a couple things to cut it but it was like trying to cut through a river. No matter what what you do, you can’t stop the flow. Even blocking it would only cause it to be redirected. By that logic he had to make the pins stop emitting mana. However without understanding them, he couldn’t think of a way to do that. He decided that maybe he could intercept the mana. Instead of cutting the connection and stopping the flow, dig a ditch and redirect it. If all the little mana strings went to something he made, they wouldn’t go to the guardians, and maybe that would prevent them from working.

Don started working on a mana draining field reactor. It would draw all mana in range to it, but the range was not very far. That and he didn’t really have the necessary parts for it. He would have to use sub par materials for many of the major components as well as somehow extend its range and make it last long enough for the guardians to defeat the guild.

Don started inscribing sygs into glass pieces, he should use crystal, but didn’t have enough. He could see the low efficiency of the sygs working on the glass. It was no good and he knew it, but he couldn’t let the other two know that. So he decided to go big or go home. He restarted but used larger pieces. He hoped to overcome the lack of efficiency with larger sygs. Size usually doesn’t matter for symbols but it was a way to boost efficiency in the case of inefficiency.

Rose and Tolan sat by the barred door and watched Don work. For three painstaking hours. Each had tried to log out at one point or another but each received a warning message stating that their body would remain were they last were and vulnerable until they log back in.

Don wasn’t exactly hopeful, but he was making something of a progress on the mana draining field. A true mana draining field is so powerful that magic costs 3x the normal cost to cast within, but Don just needed this to be strong enough to attract the thin stream of mana coming off the pins, and by switching area affected for mana density taken, Don thought he might be able to actually do this.

Suddenly a loud knocking came on the door. “Hey! Who’s in there? Open up!”

Tolan looked to Don and said, “How much more time do you need?”

Don decided to round down, by a lot and said, “Seven more minutes.”

Tolan looked around and said, “Are you absolutely certain that this will work?!”

Don had come this far, it was possible it actually could, but the chances of that were slim to none. His answer however wasm, “Yes.”

Tolan said, “Then hide the device, you’ll be able to finish later. Rose and I will cause a distraction, that’s when you run for it.”

Rose looked at Tolan questioningly and he just gave her a solemn look and a firm nod.

Rose nodded back and put her hands together. Don noticed a sudden change in her mana flow, small but there.

People begun banging on the door with their weapons, Don hid the device and drew his swords.

The door exploded and six large men came in. They looked around and saw the bodies of the three dead ones. One of them said, “Guess you were right, there were hidin in the temple.”

A short man came from behind on of the taller ones and said, “You three will either come with me quietly, or your arms and legs will be broken and your crippled bodies will come with me. If you agree, hand over your weapons. Now.”

Tolan nodded to the other two and turned over his sword. The man said, “That tower shield is a weapon in your hands, Give it up as well.”

Rose didn’t have her mace out as still had her hands together, Don didn’t want to draw attention to this so he handed over his swords. The man looked at Don’s face and back at his moonlight swords. He said, “You have caused me no end of trouble.”

He then passed the sword to the men who proceeded to bash them as hard as they could until they snapped with an explosive glow. Don cringed his teeth together.

The man noticed this and smiled. He told him, “That was for the loss of my lockpick set.”

Don realized this was likely the man who fell for his trap. Don never really considered it but it seemed he had made some enemies.

The short thief lead the trio down a few halls and to a great hall where a man with black eyes sat on a stone throne.

The group knelt before him, the entire hall of people, dozens and dozens of them knelt. He looked at Don and Don felt it. He felt something else too, another side effect of divine affinity, the presence of a god. Don noticed the mana around Rose was shifting, so he decided to distract from it.

He took a step towards the shadow god and said, “So you’re the big bad wannabe kidnapper. You ain’t taking my dragon.”

He raised an eyebrow and pointed a finger and Rose. At first Don thought he noticed something about her, but the next moment the spearman next to her pierced her shoulder through before retracting his spear. Rose shrieked in pain but kept her hands together.

The shadow man said, “Each time you speak without my permission, I will cause pain to her. Do you understand.”

Don gritted his teeth and nodded once.

“Good. Now you have something that belongs to me. Take out the dragon egg and hand it over. Now.”

Don said, “It isn’t yours!”

He heard another shriek from Rose, he almost didn’t want to look, but he couldn’t ignore it. He turned to see that her other shoulder had been pierced, her hands remained together.

The shadow man said, “There aren’t that many places a person can be stabbed and still live. If you would like to find out exactly how many there are, please continue.”

Don could only give his fiercest glare.

“I thought not. Now, because I’m generous, I won’t let her spilt blood go to waste. You said it is yours, but that is not true. The egg belongs to the one who can use it the best. Now, who does that describe? You, mere mortal? Or me, a god? I shall possess the egg just as I possess this body. When it hatches, I will fuse with it completely. I shall be both a dragon, and a god of shadow. I shall be the most powerful living god on this world, and all will bow down before me.”

From behind him, Don heard Rose say, “I don’t think so! Great God of Light, I offer my life in exchange for your strength to be bestowed upon one who walks the path of light, Holy Blessing!”

Rose’s body exuded a powerful light that made the shadow god cry out in pain. A moment later she was on the ground, dead, and beside her, in glowing battle armor unlike what he was wearing before, was Tolan.

Before anyone could start attacking him, Tolan said, “Great god of light, I offer my spirit in exchange for a chance to shine your power on the darkness, Battle Blessing!”

Tolan started shining, just like Rose had beneath his armor. A moment later his skin was glowing gold, and in his hand was a golden spear of light. Tolan used it to slash at the man next to him. The man disappeared like he was erased from existence. Tolan turned to Don and said, “Now!”

Tolan killed the remaining five guards who were next to them and Don ran for the door. Tolan went to attack the mob of over a hundred people with a power greater than anything he Don had ever seen before.

Don ran and ran, he remembered the way back and was quickly through the door. He stacked tables against the broken door frame and without even picking up the pieces of his moonlight swords he got out the device. He carved a few more sygs inside and adjusted the parts. Mana wasn’t moving around it, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t working. Or so he hoped. Maybe if Don finished fast enough, Tolan could be saved. He was powerful, but outnumbered a hundred fifty to one. A few minutes went by and no one appeared through the door, but it felt like years to Don who couldn’t even spare a second to look up.

Don finally finished the device and fliped the switch to activate it, but nothing happened. He tried again, but nothing.

“I don’t know what you have there elf, but you’re wasting your time.”

Don instinctively looked at the door, but the barricade was still there, the voice had come from above.

Don looked up to see the man from before, the thief. He was staring down from a porthole in the roof, likely watching the whole time.

He said to Don, “I was quite embarrassed by falling for that trick of yours with the chest, so I hired an artificer myself to build something that would well, prevent those gadgets from working in this temple.” He smiled, knowing that the other's sacrifices and all of Don's efforts had been completely in vain.

Don couldn’t believe it. But the sygs didn’t make the mana react. Don took the knife of a dead man that was next to him and cut himself to activate the blood empower effect of his ring. No buff occurred. So it wasn’t that burns didn’t activate the ring, none of his artifacts could be activated here.

Don realized as the thief had known that mean that everything was for nothing. And just to pour salt on the wound, the thief said, “That paladin has probably killed a lot of my mates, but he’s likely dead now. The skill he used was just like the girl’s but without the instant death. Three to five minutes is all you get to rampage. Although them stacking that together was a sight to see, but it was all pointless in the end.”

Don thought aloud, “If Tolan had three minutes in a room with your boss, then your boss is dead now.”

The thief said, “That so? Let’s go find out.” He placed the roof panel back closing the porthole, it seemed he wanted to come in through the entrance. Don took the time to gather the shards of the moonlight swords. Not that they could be used at all.

The thief showed up a minute later with more large men who pushed the pile Don stacked in the doorway aside like it was made of cotton.

They lead Don back non-resisting to the great hall. Tolan’s body was so covered in blood and weapons it was hard to recognize. And to Don’s disappointment, he wasn’t able to kill more than thirty or forty men.

A black eyed man sat on the stone chair, but he looked different. The thief said, “Our boss is immortal as long as their is a willing occupant, and every man in this guild agreed to that in exchange for what he has promised.” Hob was actually lying, less than a tenth of the guild were actual followers of the client, the rest elected to convert after the client possessed the Dragon. But that would be very soon nonetheless so it didn't matter.

The shadow god said, “Now give me the egg.”

Don shouted angrily, “Or What?!”

The god casually said, “How many loyal men are in the nearest town?”

At first Don though the question was to him, but the thief answered, “About thirty sir. Our guild has secretly acquired absolute authority there through bribes and intimidation. The guards won't bother any guild member there, no mater how many people they kill, or how often they kill them.”

Don felt a shiver of true fear, something that the black eyed man did not fail to notice.

The god said, “When those two return, they will be ambushed and killed. And when they return again, they will be ambushed and killed. Life and death, over and over again.”

Don gritted his teeth in hatred and said, “And you’ll do this if I don’t give you the egg?...”

The shadow god said, “No, you three have cost me my last bit of patience. No matter what you do, I will ensure they remain dead. For the rest of eternity, they will never see past the city gates, and each time they return, they shall die and die.” He started laughing and the others started laughing.

Don's anger grew and grew, he could see nothing but red. He wanted nothing more in this world than to kill the man in front of him, but another part of him knew it was pointless. Don imagined that Tolan had likely thought the same and had even successfully killed the god, but it was no good. He had to kill the god, but the god basically had too many lives and Don alone had one. The logical part of his mind that told him he could not kill the god and the pure hatred that told him he must kill him clashed together inside his head until Don swore he felt something snap.

The shadow god said, “If you hand over the dragon egg, and beg for mercy, I might spare them. But you shall never be allowed to return. I will ensure either they remain banished forever, or you. If you choose yourself, then hand over the dragon egg now.

Don wondered if he had just lost it. The roaring anger inside him was a quiet, his thoughts were fluid and he could think clearly, more clear than he had been since the first ambush. The answer was obvious.

Don opened up his inventory screen. Those who saw him smiled, he had made the fools choice and chose his friends over the world and himself. But what Don took out from his inventory, was a small glass sphere.

Don calmly said, “God of shadows. Goodbye.” Before throwing the sphere into the air to crash in the middle of the room.

A roar sounded that shattered the calm in the room. An enormous monster ten meters tall and twenty meters long that looked like a cross between an armadillo and a dragon with demon horns on its head appeared in the center of the main hall. The armored, behemoth, a boss class level 400 monster that Don once encountered an by some miracle obtained within a sealed glass sphere.

The behemoth stomped its feet so hard the stone floor cracked. People were shouting for either attack or retreat. Don looked around and realized no one was looking at him anymore. He walked over to a wall and sat down. He still wondered if he had just gone crazy. The last time he saw this guy, it was so bad that from then on he shuddered every time he thought about it. But because of that little trauma, he never really considered that letting it out would solve all his problems. Now he sat and enjoyed the show.

The tail of the behemoth had a mace like end that turned anyone unlucky enough to get in its way to a stain on the floor. The behemoth also used its tail to side smack to floor to break off gravel and such that was sent wherever like a shotgun blast.

One of the pancaked people had a nice sword. Don figured since his were broken, he should get some new ones.

He walked over to one sword he saw and used Identify on it, but overall it was not that great. Don looked around through the chaos again. It seemed that the behemoth had smashed himself against some walls and the passages out had collapsed, trapping everyone in there. “Not my problem,” said Don. He looked around for more swords.

He then saw an interesting one on the ground. It was far away from anyone so its owner was likely a splat somewhere and the sword bounced off. Don casually ducked the behemoth’s tail and moved on to pick up the blade. It was shorter than a normal sword, a full meter long, and even lacked a hilt, but it looked like it might be easy to use while dancing. The bottom of the sword had a small hook like part that looked like it could catch and break swords.

“Identify.”

Talon of Erri

Durability 71/110

Attack 101

Made by the blacksmith Erri who never makes the same blade twice, this design was inspired by a griffon's claw.

Restrictions:

level 230

Strength 500

Equips:

+20 Strength

+5 Critical chance

It was just below Don’s level, but it felt better in his off hand than his main. He looked around and saw another nice sword, but this one was being held by a guy who was leading a charge on the behemoth.

Don walked up to him and said, “Hey, would you trade for that sword?”

The man turned around and saw that the fool asking the stupid question was the guy who released this monster. He was about to do something when the behemoth started snapping left and right trying to gobble people up. He simply yelled at Don, “Are you frikken Crazy?!”

‘Apparently. And I still want that sword.’ he thought to himself.

Don cut the man’s legs from behind, crippling him. He then said, “I’ll trade you some useful rings and your life for that sword.”

The calm look in Don’s beautiful eyes scared the man more that the shadow god did. He said, “Ok, ok, it’s yours.”

Don took the sword, handed the man two of his blood rings, and dragged him to a wall. He was happy the man agreed. You can’t simply take a sword from a man’s hand in combat, and killing someone yields a low chance they’ll drop their weapon, so trade is best for getting an item from another player. Don was tempted to kill the man for experience, but decided not to. He equipped the second sword to his main hand. A normal length one but it had an ‘S’ shaped curve that made it interesting.

As Don was admiring his new swords, the behemoth’s charge happened to cross Don’s path. It stopped for a moment and looked it him, Don guessed from the look it had just recognized him.

Don still didn’t feel scared but he wondered what to do. While it was occupied with him, the surviving guild members were resting by the walls. Don decided that the best course of action was to make the behemoth more dangerous thus more likely to kill more people. And the best way to do so, was by pissing it off.

Don ran right up to it and it reared its head back. Just as it moved forward to bite off Don’s upper body, he slid beneath the stomach and slashed a few times before rolling away.

The behemoth smashed it’s body down as Don rolled but he cleared it and ran back to a side to hide. Smashing it stomach against the floor after it was slashed caused the foolish behemoth great pain and it started rampaging worse than ever.

Don looked around and said, “Ok, got two nice swords, what next?”

Don felt the presence of the shadow god. He had not made it out before the hallways collapsed. Don found him behind a chair. He looked angrily at Don and moved to strike him, but it seemed that either the god himself or the body was too weak. 'Maybe too many of its followers had died,' he thought. Don easily overpowered him and drove his sword into the god. On impulse Don said, “Divine blade,” just as a shadow shot out from the body. Don then swung his sword saying, “Moonlight slash.”

A white slash flew from the sword and cut the shadow. It slowed down a bit and Don ran up to stab the shadow and slice it a few more times with moonlight slash. Don figured that the shadow was the true body of the god that possessed others. Tolan may have been able to kill it with his spear of light, but when he tried there were probably too many people. Don had no problem because even as he attacked the guy, everyone else was paying him no mind.

Only light could attack a shadow, but without his moonlight blades or a full moon, moonlight slash deals no light based damage. However divine blade adds and enhances all attacking properties, so that combo created a slash of pure divine light that cut through the shadow like tissue. Eventually the shadow dissolved before it could possess another body.

Quest Update: Slay the Gods

Lu, the god of Light has requested that you kill the lower gods that have encroached upon his territory. Accept and he will offer assistance.

Progress 17/19

Don wasn’t even receiving levels for killing gods now-a-days

He picked up the essence that the shadow left behind.

You have obtained the spirit of Shadow!

Intelligence increased by 20 (+20 INT)

Wisdom Increased by 10 (+10 WIS)

Concentration increased by 10 (+10 CON)

Your divine affinity has increased

Don decided that behind the chair was a good hiding place. He waited there for a few minutes while the behemoth tore through everyone. Instead of being defeated, the behemoth killed or crippled everyone, and eventually started clawing at the wall till it broke through the rock and started digging its way to the surface. A few minutes after Don stopped hearing noise from the tunnel, he got up and looked around. There were still a few injured men left. Don walked up to one of them, the thief from before.

The thief looked up at Don who was in good condition while the thief’s own was in bad. He said, "I got a message saying the client is dead, guess he didn't escape like we thought he had. What now?”

Don looked at him like he didn’t quite understand the question, then after thinking on it simple cut the man’s head off. After that he finished off all the remaining members. Some still had some fight left in them, but they were not in the best condition, and even four on one, Don killed them all. Since he was also dead broke, Don looted every single body there.

Don logged out of Royal Road and felt a sudden rush of adrenaline, excitement, fear, and shock, each in equal measure. The next thing he felt was relief, he had not gone crazy, at least not outside royal road. Inside he traveled for a day until he made it to a to town that was out of reach of the remaining members of the guild and logged out without trouble. It had been an unusual and long day. Later he would have to return to speak with the paladins about what happened there. He hoped the armored behemoth would behave as he passed through three different kingdoms on his way back to his home of the desert.

Don laid on his bed thinking of everything and was asleep before he noticed it.

Next Chapter viewtopic.php?f=185&t=2698

Previous Chapter viewtopic.php?f=185&t=2347

http%3a%2f%2fi39.tinypic.com%2f28sqb0l.jpg [http://i39.tinypic.com/28sqb0l.jpg]