Jake. 1st of October.
“Everybody here?” Jake asked as he put his headphones on.
“Yep. Michael has been suggesting leaving you behind.”
“Hey, don’t tell him that!” Michael said with some grievance.
“If you don’t want me to tell him that, don’t say things like that,” Jade said severely.
“I could catch up as long as you left me a note, saying what time you left,” Jake said before adding, “Though thank you for waiting for me.”
“Alright, let’s try to be a bit more professional with the other group. I don’t think we want Travis to think we are just kids or something like that,” John ordered.
“Aye, aye captain,” Michael said exaggeratedly.
“Everybody got more battle consumables, right?” Helen asked as she spoke for the first time and reminded Jake that she was actually there.
“Yes, I got like 8 more flasks of oil, and a few silver headed darts, in case we run into something that takes extra damage from silver,” Michael said proudly.
“I got a pack of the ‘Morgan Family Secret Lozenges’ which are supposed to have a temporary 10% improvement to my singing and I got a stick.”
“A stick?” Jake asked somewhat confused as he looked at the stick Jade’s character held.
“I can’t always just stand around and sing and just using a stick to push monkeys or parrots back will help.”
“I collected 4 flasks of holy oil and 4 flasks of blessed water. I also got the priest to bless my second hatchet. Plus I spent most of my money from yesterday’s run on getting us 8 extra stamina potions. What did you get Helen?”
Jake was pleased that John had spoken to her or else he would have forgotten she was here at all, and after a pause she said, “I got a liquid that is supposed to give me more of the energy for [Cleanse] and I logged on earlier to get some training until I got the copper version of the [Next to Godliness] title, which gives me 2 hit points healing for every point of Corruption I [Cleanse].”
“Cool title. Does anyone else have any titles other than [Leg-Biter]?” Jake asked instead of going over his inventory.
“Yeah, after last night I looked up a guide and got [Protector] by blocking 100 arrows in a row in the training yard,” Michael said very smugly.
“Is that why you were up till 3 this morning?” Jade asked.
“Hey! Don’t say that!”
Jake decided to rescue Micheal from continued humiliation by explaining his inventory, “I got 3 units of stamina potion and 3 health potions. I also had a blacksmith put a new edge on my sword and got a spare.”
“Ok. Let’s move. We should still be early, but only by about two minutes,” John said and they moved to the fast travel road.
A few minutes of travel had them getting off and walking to the hill at which they had met the day before. Titus and his two companions arrived within thirty seconds. Titus wore a new looking green duster, but instead of spiky black hair, he wore a fairly cheap steel cap. His companion to the left was a guy with obviously high strength, while the other one was a skinny, shifty looking character basically hidden in his robes.
Once they had all joined a single chatroom, Travis/Titus made introductions, “So, in case you forgot, my name is Travis, my character is named Titus, and my friends are Bubba, his real name, and Louis, also his real name. hey do not believe in having fun or experience bonuses, so they also named their characters the same thing. Kinda weird in my humble opinion, but what can you do about it?”
“Yes, my name is Bubba, I have heard all of the jokes about it,” Bubba said as his character waved.
Louis made his own introductions and the rest of them made their own introductions and Jake thought they did a pretty good job of not embarrassing themselves in front of these guys, which was sort of surprising. He didn’t think Micheal had it in him. Though he had to admit he had almost introduced himself as the last person in the group, before Helen introduced herself, reminding him that she was there.
“Alright, what structure are you guys operating on?” Titus asked once they got to the end of the group introduction.
“Like loot structure? We are doing money in the equal spilt system and items being worth shares of money.”
“That could cause problems if we found sound something really valuable, especially if it is worth most of the shares.”
John sounded like he was frowning, “Yeah, are you guys going to be reasonable if that happens?”
There was a brief bit of typing before each of the other three player muted themselves and then Titus said, “No that shouldn’t be a problem. It is unlikely and we can buy out shares. We are mostly here to cleanse the place permanently. Wealth is temporary, but spiting Chaos is eternal!”
“Ok, well, if we have a general idea of what we are doing, that is good.”
Jake nodded along with Jade’s statement, forgetting that she could not see his agreement. He looked over the group for a bit and said, “If you are curious about party formation, John is the leader, I am into skirmishing or part of the frontline, Michael is frontline, while Jade and Helen are backline.”
“We can work with that. We are all used to all positions, but I think Bubba and Louis are good backline/rearguard, while in this current form I am a skirmisher.”
John thought for a bit and said, “That’s probably good. Just remember to call out if you are going to make a special or area attack. I don’t want any bad blood after an accident.”
There was an uneven chorus of agreements and then the party was moving into the ragged wooden opening of the unnatural dungeon.
The parrots were no trouble at all. John and Titus raced forward and almost seemed to be racing for how many kills they could make, while Bubba calmly turned himself into lighthouse of cleansing energy which brought every parrot screeching and howling towards him in a blind fury. The rest of the players just had to strike and hit the confused and screeching parrots and farm the experience.
“Sorry, what is that class even?”
“[Lighthouse of Lawful Aid]. It means I can do either a [Cleanse] or [Heal] Aura across about 60 feet.”
“Wow,” Helen said, “Would you recommend it?”
“No, not really. I lost my right hand two years ago and basically I just try to play classes with one hand. I just push like, three buttons and make myself a target. I don’t recommend it.”
“Sorry to hear that,” Helen said nervously.
“No, don’t worry about it,” Bubba said with at least some joviality, before changing the subject, “Jake, you got some good hits in, do you have an anti-flight skill?”
Jake briefly wondered if his skill would be offensive to someone who had lost an appendage, but Michael stepped into the gap, with both feet as he explained, “Because of this dungeon and another one near the place where we started, all of us have a skill called [Leg Biter], that basically helps cut off, like any appendages. At first it was just legs, and then sometimes it does like tails or whatever. I am that betting his has evolved against wings, but not arms!”
Titus snorted, while Jake and John muted themselves to groan.
Bubba said, “That’s interesting.”
Louis filled the void by saying, “This is an interesting dungeon. How many rooms did you get through?”
“Only 12, though if we hurry, I think we can get through more.”
“Sounds good,” Bubba said, but he did not move.
No one moved for a few minutes, while Bubba continued to glow.
“Ummm, are you waiting for something,” Michael asked hesitantly.
“Oh. Yeah, I am cleaning the corruption from the air. If Louis and Helen dissolve the parrot bodies, that would help. I am trying to improve my [Cleanse] title from the copper [Air Freshener] to iron. Wish I had this power in real life.”
The parrots were thus removed and within a minute the party moved into the hallway, Titus and Jake setting off traps and finding treasures in the hallway to the next room.
There they met a skeleton with a crossbow. As yesterday, Jake set his shield and prepared to take the hit. Instead the skeleton turned and with a piratical war cry, it loosed the bolt at Titus. Titus spun his sword and deflected the bolt and then ran up and hit the skeleton three times before it stopped moving and shattered.
“That was cool! How did you do that?” Jake asked as he looked at Titus in new eyes.
“Lots of practice and a few crossbow bolts in the chest.”
Before they could discuss it more, the rest of the party came in and the Patters came over and started breaking the skeleton down, while Bubba, hands upraised released lots of energy. The rest of the group broke up and looked for treasures and money. Jake noticed that the cleaning was making the table look different and then he saw a few drawers that had previously been concealed by the layers of fat, salt and grease that had covered them. He opened them easily enough and sent the money (nice fat pieces of gold, mixed with long, harried and chipped pieces of silver) to the group account, before looking over what was left. A very old envelope sealed with blood and a worn looking seal.
Open Yes/No?
Obviously, he opened the envelope and braced himself for the inevitable treasure map. Instead he saw a letter, written in a flowing cursive. Off to the side and more helpfully, was the text in ordinary print as he was more accustomed to reading.
To my dearest descendants,
Do not believe any rumors of me having joined the pirates, especially the dreaded and rightfully cursed Blue Beard. The storm grows worse and for now I am unattended, though I think he might very well kill another hundred of us. The ‘Band of Control’ that I was inflicted with controls most of my actions, but it cannot stop me from writing my true thoughts or revealing how I am bound.
You cannot know my love for you. Blue Beard is powerful and mad, but he that cannot stand up to this storm. My guard tells me I will be thrown into the sea soon. May he also be punished. I fancy I hear your voices among the storm, but if my life also be the cost of the death of this pirate, it is a price I gladly pay.
Stolen novel; please report.
Know that I remained true to my vows and your father remained a good man.
Handel Morgan.
Once Jake had closed the article he received a new notification.
[Quest Received; Restoring the Family Honor. 1/???]
Your ancestor has left a document clearing his name. Turning this document in will completely clear the Morgan name from a previous rumor of allying with and aiding pirates, at least to the mind of the family.
Rewards for success; Unknown.
Penalties for Failure; Unknown.
That was interesting. Jake returned the document to his inventory and wondered what this would be worth. Should he mention it now?
“Hey look what I found!” Michael said as he finished ripping a beam out of the wall, revealing a concealed closet full of decorated weapons and jewels.
“Nice!” Titus said before adding, “That is one way to find a hidden treasure.”
The objects were stored and the party continued. Rooms were ransacked, valuables gathered, skeletons defeated and then cleansed. All this was done, while Bubba’s auras destroyed cover and utterly addled the defenders, so that they ignored damage in their attempt to get close and attack him.
At the edge of the Monkey Wave room, they waited as Bubba switched auras and Jade started her combat song, after having her character take a lozenge.
“And let’s go! Stay away from the edges, as they break after one of the waves!” John said excitedly.
They moved into the room and were met by a mere three monkeys.
Titus immediately got one with a thrown dagger and then jumped on another one and started wrestling its many legs and tails, while Jake demolished his with multiple limb removals per each blow. Once it was done, Jake went to help Titus, but despite the injuries, he had won.
“A bit of an underwhelming first wave?” Louis said as he started dissolving the corruption out of the nearest monkey pieces.
“Yeah that is weird, ordinarily computer games do different scaling to different party sizes…” Michael commented before adding, “And yesterday there were ten in the first wave.”
“Strange,” John said as he watched the room and the timer.
“I did cleanse seven yesterday… maybe that’s why there were only three?” Helen said nervously, “But if that is true, we made a big mistake not melting the others while we were here last time.”
“Not that big of one,” Titus said as he rapidly took down another three monkeys by quick movements and precise stabs.
Jake severed a number of arms and tails with the monkey he was still struggling with and and wondered what level Titus was at to be able to move like that. Every blow was economical, no stamina wasted and no strikes missed. It was understated and not especially flashy, but the results were impressive. He checked the level, but saw it was lower than his own, so that could not be the solution. Was it a title? Or maybe a synergy between two titles? It was interesting.
The fight ended and Jake absently noted that the dead monkeys were melting more quickly. With more interest he saw that his title had improved by going half way to some unknown goal to level up. Did he need to focus on tails or legs? He did want to get another title though, as he did not think that he could just rely on the ability to sever legs and tails until the end of the year, in preparation for the last battle.
“Positions!” John called out too loudly before saying, “Sorry, mom.”
After another ten minutes they had cleared the last few waves. He doubted they could have done this, even with their consumables, but Titus, Bubba and Louis made it feel almost effortless. They had not ended up using their consumables.
They progressed through to the next room once Bubba was convinced the current room was sufficiently cleansed.
“Anyone get any improvements?”
“Yeah, I got the iron version of Kill-Streak for daggers.”
“What is that?” John asked with curiosity.
“To get to the copper version you need to defeat ten enemies in a row with only one hit.”
“Oh wow,” John said with a new appreciation for Titus.
“Yeah, it takes a while. Honestly, not even the best title as I am not sure what it evolves into, but I figured maybe I can direct it into a useful direction by lots of live practice.”
“I got, Unshakeable Soloist copper!” Jade said excitedly, before reading out the description.
Unshakeable Soloist. (Copper)
For five battles you have not ended your song, despite having been stepped on, bumped by your clumsy allies, attacked by your enemies and ignored by the cruel muses.
Whenever you finish a song without being interrupted earn 3 experience extra.
“How does it know you were ignored by the muses?” Michael asked, before adding, “What are muses?”
“For this world, I am not sure,” Bubba said as he shifted from cleansing the room to spreading a healing aura over his ally, “Congratulations though.”
Louis smirking said, “I have received the title, ‘Lesser of Two Cleansers’ at copper, for distracting 50 enemies from another cleanser in the space of five minutes.”
“I want a new one,” Michael said managing to make it sound wistful rather than merely whiny.
“My best advice is do what you are comfortable with, so you don’t get a title you can’t grow. Each title raises your experience cap slightly so that you will have a slightly harder time gaining new levels, so… keep that in mind,” Louis said and after sighing continued, “Though generally titles are personalized and just better than levels, so do what you want.”
After confirming there weren’t any further treasures in the room they went into the hallway. Basically everything was destroyed and ruined in front of them, as you would expect of a piece of real estate that had just held over a hundred mutated monkeys. This changed into stone, in a creepy way, as wood seemed to reshape into veins and sharp stone degraded into spurs and claws.
“Creepy,” Micheal said.
“Yes, I would wait to break it down, but corrupted stone is very hard to cleanse. We should just get to the heart of this thing and destroy it. Then it will just revert to ordinary,” Bubba said as his character ducked down to avoid the roof.
“Anything we could get for half-wood, half-stone amalgamations?” John asked.
“Not in a lawful kingdom, unless I miss my guess.”
Then they crossed into a new room and noticed a number of things. First on the far side of the room, dozens of giant iron cages had been torn open by beings with obviously incredible strength. Next there were 6 men with long blue hair, captain’s uniforms and massive cutlasses at their sides discussing something. A line of salt marked the outside of the room.
“I don’t like this,” Titus said as he looked the targets over for a few minutes.
“Are they ghosts?” Jade asked with some concern, before with a voice of false calm commenting, “I don’t really like ghosts.”
“No, I believe they are doppelgängers,” Titus said before looking the room over and said, “And unless I miss my guess, they all imprinted on the evil captain Blue Beard before his timely death.”
“Anyone know anything about doppel… whatever they are?” Helen asked.
“Not for this server-world,” Louis muttered.
Bubba explained and said, “No one has reported them, but in other Sword, Board and Song™ properties they are no joke. They are not exactly chaotic, in that lawful energy or life energy don’t directly hurt them, but it doesn’t help them either. Kind of like how water by itself doesn’t necessarily help or hurt people, but you can drown in it. So, I could drown them, theoretically.”
“How are they for damage?” Jake asked as he adjusted his sword and shield and prepared.
“At this level, really, really dangerous,” Titus said as he kept surveying the room.
“Don’t they just have swords though? It is not like they have armor on,” Michael said as he looked the room over.
“The swords aren’t real. Neither are the clothes. They are shapeshifters, using themselves to imitate until they get close to someone and then, boom, they attack. They don’t use weapons, they just try to bite people.”
“So avoid their faces; understood,” Michael said with a head shake that no one could see.
“No, they are shapeshifters. Anything on them can be a mouth. And they bite really hard. Like twice as much damage as both of my daggers can do.”
“Oh. So don’t get bitten,” Michael commented and then said, “Everybody get a flask of oil, set it on fire and when I give the word, we throw it.”
John and Titus’ characters looked at each other and then joined the firing squad, got their oil flasks and threw them in almost sync. Bubba and Helen messed up their aim and instead of being a neat burst of fire at the table where the doppelgängers were holding a heated discussion of fake words and non-verbals sounds, the whole front of the room went up in flames.
The doppelgängers began to melt like wax, but they all turned with inhuman shrieks as they rushed towards the impromptu firing line. One of the doppelgängers exploded into a waxy mixture and did not reform, but the others were coming forward, quick and terrible.
Helen stepped out of the middle of the line and stepped back, while Jade did the same thing as she sang a song for weapon damage, though it mostly canceled the effects of the screaming attack that the doppelgängers had been launching. Micheal had his spear and shield and formed the center of the line, thrusting and jabbing his heavy spear to hold the monsters back. Louis had drawn a long metal spike and had heated it’s point to red hot and held it out on the flank and held the monsters back.
The fire was behind them made the inhuman silhouettes of the doppelgängers, especially monstrous and grotesque. Jake raised his sword and gave chop towards one that was shifting as though to become a dog. With a sweeping blow his title activated and it fell into a pile. He raised his shield and blocked two sets of mouths that had grown out of different arms and then he thrust his blade through an eye. The monster’s scream changed in pitch and volume and Jake wanted to turn off his computer’s sound at the volume, but he couldn’t remove his hands from the controls without dire effects. This had to be controlled. A blade flicked from somewhere out of his vision and the doppelgänger’s main mouth could no longer scream. John dodged another half-arm, half mouth and then made a spinning cut that took off another limb. He hoped Bubba was not watching as he began aiming for limbs and guarding higher with his shield. John’s character flew across the room and hit the still burning table, before Helen called for help.
“On it,” Titus said and Jake was pleased he didn’t need to deal with these and try to retreat quickly at the same time.
John’s character had lost all of his stamina by the time he had gotten his character off the burning table. He cut a terrifying figure, burned and burning, staggering from the flames, axe dragging on the deck as he came forward. Jake helped or tried to by speeding up his attacks to keep the monsters startled and distracted. It worked. The creatures opened huge mouths in their stomachs, bones shifting to become ersatz teeth and they bit down. Jake doubted their power at his peril, the doubt dying with the edge of his shield being snapped off by a crash of false teeth.
The distraction paid off. John, while not having any extra stamina, did have the base movement speed to get into position and swing for an attack. The battle-attack fell and the grey on grey of the doppelgänger’s head folded beneath the force of the blow. The second monster remained distracted with Jake and after John entirely missed a strike, he landed a second in its shoulder. This allowed one of Jake’s blows to connect hard and the monster’s arm was severed. Then it grew fangs across the length of its other arm, so Jake cut that off too. Then he took its legs off and noticed a notification. Given the fighting he did not check it, but ran to assist, John hobbling afterwards.
Titus and Michael had both taken a lot of damage, but the backline was still largely safe and with Jake’s arrival the conflict was decided. John stopped and threw a chair into one of the doppelgänger’s, which no one had been expecting and then they took out the last one by pushing it back into the fire.
“Good work!” Bubba stated as he switched from purification to healing.
Before anyone else could comment, they all got an alert.
Congratulations,
You have found the heart of the dungeon. Would you like to break it to end Blue Beard’s Dungeon?
Yes/No. (5 of 8 required to break it.)
“Do it,” Titus ordered.
There was a moment of doubt as Jake wonders if his friends and Helen would go along with the command, but then the prompt disappeared The room changed as various bones ripped out of cracks and corners and formed into the shape of a giant skeleton. The Skelton then received a massive cutlass, oversized as though designed for a giant. The blade then plunged into the table and the skeleton’s bones crumbled. The sword was corroded in corrupting lines as it then crumbled, until only a gold and bronze handle remained.
“That never gets old,” Louis said and Jake could hear the smile in his voice.
“Yep. No monkeys in the last battle. At least none from here,” Bubba amended before adding, “And none in the first world.”
Titus looked around and said, “This is probably going to be recategorized as a failing dungeon. That means that any monsters still here will be permanently destroyed if they are defeated, barring outside actions. We have done good work. If you guys ever need to partner up, you have our details.”
As they made their way outside and gathered treasures, Jake thought over what had happened. Titus was obviously better at this than him and maybe he could learn his secrets. He tried to think of a way to start the conversation in a non-awkward way, but ultimately he just decided to ask.
“Could you teach me?”
Titus took a while to respond and finally said, “Teach you what? You are the higher level.”
“Yeah, but not for long. You clearly know what you are doing, while I am just guessing and learning by practice.”
“Yeah, and you are learning,” Titus said as he was thinking it over.
Bubba joined the conversation and said, “Travis, what was this I heard about striking out on a new path, something you have never done before… being the most roguish rogue that had ever rogued.”
Titus laughed and said, “History repeats itself. Imagine my shock. Look, Jake, ordinarily I play as a [Paladin] or [Sword Saint] and I could offer to teach you a title or a unique class, but I am just playing a [rogue] variant this time. I can only give you a bit of advice and a bit of sparring at most.”
“That would help. I think even more than the stats,” Jake said, wondering how much more powerful Travis was with his usual classes.
“And another follows the dragon,” Bubba said with a smirk.
“Do you have a guild that I have to join? I can do it!” Jake asked, hoping he was not coming off too strong.
“No, kinda the opposite. Even if I teach you, you cannot join my guild. I am one of the elders of the First Worlders.”
“I haven’t heard of them.”
“Good. We are trying to not generate too much attention. It could cause trouble for us. But basically, we are all players from the first server-worlds that got released back in the day, and we want to help with all the others. We can’t be too open about it though, or there will be another chaos breach into our world though. So officially we are not here. Are you open next Monday night, I should have some time for teaching then.”
Breakdown of the 10th Cinematic CHAOS Scene in “Universe of Heroes by Decree,” published on a obscure blog. (Published on the 10th of October)
Well, the naysayers are wrong, whatever new technique the Sword, Board and Song™ their board have developed for turning out high quality artistry in a short amount of time, it is working out for them. By this point over 130 chaotic sub-factions have been revealed and the wikis and my fellow bloggers are glutted with new information to keep track of. If I did not have information that this content blitz was not going to stop for two months, I would consider just giving up trying to analyze it. There is just so much crammed into these videos.
We have had the 66th orc tribe revealed, which was kind of a big deal. The Baalammon Reaver tribe was formerly a trial for the 3rd server-world (Land of Holy Light) and the wiki’s generally considered them the most chaotic of the orcs. Click (here) to see one of their elites in that war absolutely beating down four fully leveled player characters [Familial Guards; Royal]. This is probably one of the top ten sub-factions revealed in the service of the forces Chaos.
Frankly, I don’t really see the players saving the world. Players are notoriously independent (see dictionary definition; uncooperative) and then there is just a question of how much power the players can actually gather. A lot of the more powerful classes for the line of battle are kind of boring to play in advance and that could be an issue. Worse, the armies of Chaos have already revealed that they will be covered by all of their 99 000 gods and dark saints, so they will have not only numbers, but incredible powers.
And not only do they have demonic powers, but they also have money powers. Five more companies had their products show up in the advertisements. Weirdly, they just kind of match and if someone were to tell me tomorrow that my boss from the company I work for, told me that we would do a meet and greet with a [Lord of Chaos] I would just nod and think, “Yeah, I can see how that would align with our corporate values.”
Since these massive companies are not paying me, I will not be mentioning their names, but I will mention two funny things that I have noticed. A major typing company has put their logo around the horns of the secretaries of one of the [Unholy Courts], which looks kind of weird. Like did they just get a jigsaw and carve inlaid gold lettering into horns. Would a cow let you do that? I don’t think so. So why would a random inhuman secretary do that? The other one is a foreign country that makes ‘nutritious snacks’ and watching a centaur beat a few goblins to death just to rob them for the company bags, is an experience. I was almost tempted to buy a pack when I saw one in the store, but I resisted that temptation.